by Vivian Arend
His attention shifted to the window and he nodded. “Sure. Of course.”
She set the sponge down and rinsed her hands, drying them on her jeans as she walked over to him. “I don’t mean I don’t want to…you know. Mess around.”
“No?” That look again—adorable, desperate hope.
She shook her head, stepping close enough to put her fingertips to his shoulders. “No, I’d like that, if you would.”
He nodded, setting a hand at her waist. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“But afterward, I just want to be alone, on the couch, so I can catch up on the sleep I’ve been missing. I told you I’m kind of restless.”
“Yeah.”
“Actually,” she added, as though she’d just thought of it. “You don’t have any sleeping pills, do you? Or even like nighttime flu medicine? I know that sounds pathetic—”
“No, it doesn’t. And I think I do. I’ll check this afternoon.”
Worries swirled around in her head and she fumbled for a way to get the information she most needed from him. “Cool, thanks. I didn’t know if you only had animal sleeping pills lying around…”
Russ laughed. “I’m sure I can find you something a bit gentler than what I’d use on a horse.”
What about a dog? She dropped the baiting for the time being, too close to sounding suspicious. “Anyway. You know when you want to sleep but it’s just not happening?” She thrust her lip out in a frustrated pout.
“I thought that’s what whiskey was invented for.”
She smiled and ran her fingers through his messy hair, down his stubbly cheek. “Anyhow, thanks. But for now, chores. Then dinner, then who knows.” She grazed a conspiring hand over his neck. “But after that I’m catching up on my beauty sleep.”
Russ looked as if he was resisting the urge to turn that comment into a corny flirtation. Instead he stood and put his hand in her hair the way he seemed to love doing, leaned in and kissed her. Mouth closed, eyes closed, warm lips holding in a faint noise, a grunt or sigh.
He let her go and she stared at his chin, a little drunk from him. She reached up to wipe the yolk from beside his smiling lips.
“Okay. Put me to work.”
An hour later Sarah could confirm that shampooing a horse was indeed very much like washing a car, right down to the hose she was using to rinse the suds from Mitch. She craned her neck, looking to where Russ was standing in the pen, fussing over Lizzie’s gums. He’d ditched his sweater as the sun had risen, and he looked good in his dusty jeans, those strong, tanned arms, shoulder blades flexing under his T-shirt. That hat like a cliché, so endearing.
She chewed her lip, only fretting for a moment about whether or not to be evil to him. She let the hose trigger go, pumped it a couple times.
“Russ?”
He turned. “Yeah?”
“Hose is acting weird.”
His eyebrows rose. He gave Lizzie a pat then left her be, walking over. “What’s it doing?”
“It’s just kind of—” She squeezed the handle, soaked Russ from head to toe and sent his hat flying off behind him. When she finally released it, he blinked at her, hair dripping, shirt plastered to his chest, the front side of his jeans dark and drenched.
“Seriously?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “Yeah.”
Russ smiled, a deadly Jack Nicholson sort of smile, eyes narrowing. He took a step closer. “Seriously?”
She nodded.
“How fast can you run?” he asked.
“Real fast.”
“You better hope so.”
He took another step, and she tossed the hose aside, bolting past him into the pen and ducking between the wooden fence rails. She felt him grab her sneaker for a second, heard his feet hit the ground behind as she took off into the yard. He caught her easily after only a few seconds’ sprint into the tall grass. She yelped as he hooked her around the waist and brought them both crashing to the ground, Russ taking the bulk of the impact. Rolling her onto her back, he pressed his dripping front against her and made her feel six years old, made all the horrors from the past few weeks dissolve until the entire world consisted of just their two bodies, this patch of earth under this exact sky. She began to laugh, convulsive, cathartic sobbing laughs as Russ flipped her over on top of him. She kissed him, square on the mouth with her eyes open, and decided he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen or touched or tasted.
He made the kisses deeper, dirty hands in her formerly clean hair. She locked her thighs around his hips, wanting to stay right here for a month, so filled with good feelings there was no room left for bad ones. She felt Russ grow hard and contemplated a near-literal roll in the hay, then decided the risk of ticks and every other thing lurking in the grass was a mood killer.
She let the kissing linger for another minute then freed her mouth. “You feel like a shower?”
“I feel like you just gave me one back in the paddock.”
“Do you feel like a proper one, with soap and hot water and naked strangers corrupting your cramped little ancient bathtub?”
He smiled, expression shifting in a way she adored. “Yeah, I could go for that.”
She got to her feet and let Russ take her dirty hand in his for the short walk back to the pen. He let Mitch out into the main yard and put away a few things and led them inside. They ditched their shoes at the door and headed for the bathroom.
Russ got the shower running and they watched one another undress. She loved his body…unlike any man’s body she’d been intimate with before. Not skinny, not bulky, strong and muscular but not from the gym. Just exactly what a man ought to look like, she decided. Russ had sexy shoulders, triceps so defined she wanted to bite them. He also had the very start of what would be an inevitable middle-aged belly, a charming flaw flying in the face of his otherwise too perfect working man’s body.
Russ shed his shorts, his sudden and complete nakedness pulling her out of her spacey admiration and into darker, curious realms. She undid her bra and let him step forward and push her panties down, his erection brushing her navel. She was about ready to trade a kidney for a box of condoms.
Strong hands took hold of her jaw, and she melted into him, into his forceful mouth and eager body, into the moans humming in his throat, begging to be unleashed. She slid her hand between them and stroked his soft chest hair, squeezed the hard swells of his shoulders. For a few greedy seconds, she explored his back and that textbook-perfect ass, then he pulled away, grinning. Sliding the shower curtain open, he gestured for her to get inside.
It wasn’t the ideal tub for a tryst—narrow and rounded—but with Russ here she couldn’t imagine a better place to be. He climbed in after her, dragging the clear curtain around them and angling the showerhead at her back.
“Jesus.” His gaze slid up and down her front. “You’re gorgeous.”
She bit her tongue, tempted to contradict him. Tempted to say she’d prefer to weigh ten pounds more and be filling her modest B-cups again, lose the ribs, lose the holes in her side and the bruises that peppered her like finger-paint smudges. Instead she let him ogle, let him feast on whatever he saw and whatever made his green eyes narrow the way they did now.
She reached around the curtain for the shampoo bottle on the windowsill, snapping it open and getting her hands full of lather. Russ leaned in and let her wash his hair before he returned the favor, his fingers dawdling well after the suds had disappeared down the drain. They passed the soap back and forth and explored one another’s bodies. Their curious, slippery hands lingered here and there, eyes darting as though they’d invented all this nonsense and couldn’t quite comprehend their own genius.
Good girls can play rough too…
Cowgirls Don’t Cry
© 2010 Lorelei James
Rough Riders, Book 10
Jessie McKay has accepted her marriage to Luke McKay wasn’t perfect. After two years of widowhood, she’s ready to kick up her bootheels—until Luke’s younge
r brother shows up to spoil her fun. But if Brandt thinks she’ll ever take orders from another McKay male, he’s got manure for brains.
Brandt McKay has avoided his sweet, sexy sister-in-law ever since the night he confessed his feelings for her weren’t the brotherly type. Unexpectedly faced with proof of Luke’s infidelity, Brandt is forced to ask for Jessie’s help in taking care of Luke’s young son. Jessie agrees on one condition—she wants Brandt’s boots exclusively under her bed for the duration.
The sexual heat that’s always simmered between them ignites. Brandt is determined to make the temporary situation permanent, proving to Jessie he’s a one-woman man. And Jessie is shaken by feelings she’s sworn never to have again for any man…especially not a McKay.
Warning: Contains branding-iron-hot sex, the one McKay on earth who wants to be tamed, and a woman who’s decided tame is for nice girls who finish last.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Cowgirls Don’t Cry:
“Landon is down for the count.”
“Thank God,” Brandt muttered. “You have the magic touch. I swear the kid looked like he’d punch me in the face if I so much as touched him.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s a little young to start brawling. But he is a McKay, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Brandt took another pull off his beer and gestured to the couch. “Sit down and take a load off.”
Jessie paced to the door, peering out the window, cursing her nervous energy. Hah. Who was she trying to kid? She was just plain nervous. This seemed like such an easy idea in the truck on the way home from work. Get naked. But it was two hours later and she still had her clothes on.
“Something on your mind?”
She couldn’t un-stick her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
“Jess? You know you can tell me anything,” Brandt said.
Yeah, just spit it out. You turned him down once. What’s to say he won’t do the same to you…just to even the score?
She closed her eyes, trying to slam the door on the self-sabotaging portion of her brain. “This…the way we’ve got this set up isn’t working for me any longer.”
He exhaled a frustrated burst of air. “Okay. What’s the problem?”
“I’m tired—”
“We both are. That said, I can probably pick Landon up earlier and take him back here until after you get off work so it’s not—”
“This isn’t about Landon. It’s about…us.”
“Us?” he repeated.
“Yes, us. Living in the same space. Sharing everything.”
Another one of his thoughtful pauses. “I’ve tried to keep to myself and not cause you extra stress.”
Jessie whirled to face him. “That’s what’s not working, Brandt. I am stressed and it’s because you’re everywhere. In every part of my life. In every part of my house. We eat together. We do chores together. We take care of Landon together. We watch TV together. You’re the first person I see when I get up in the morning and you’re the last person I see before I go to bed at night. We’re acting like a married couple.”
The muscles in his jaw rippled and he gritted out, “And that bothers you?”
“Yes, dammit, because we’re doing all the hard day-to-day couple stuff without the benefit of the good couple stuff.”
“Such as?”
“We’re not sleeping together. And if we’re gonna act like a married couple then I want you naked in my bed every night.”
Brandt’s mouth dropped open so fast Jessie swore she heard his jawbone crack. Then his eyes tapered to fine points and his entire posture changed. “Since when?”
“You want an exact moment? How about last night when you gave me a backrub? I wanted you to stay with me all night and rub more than just my back. I know you’re probably thinking I’m crazy since I freaked out last year when you told me you wanted more than friendship.”
“What’s changed?”
“Honestly? Me.” Jessie briefly closed her eyes. “I’m not as emotionally raw as I was even four months ago. I’ve also realized I don’t want to spend my life unwilling to take a chance because I’m scared.”
“I scare you?”
“Yes.”
Embarrassment flickered on his face.
“You don’t scare me physically. There’s an intensity to you that is intimidating as hell. There are no half measures in your world, Brandt. It’s all or nothing. Being with a man like you would be unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”
That muscle in his jaw continued to jump in an agitated manner. “How do you know that?”
Now that she was floundering, she realized getting naked in body was a helluva lot easier than stripping herself emotionally bare in front of him.
“Jessie. Answer me.”
“I figured it out last summer when you warned me about Mike, but you didn’t pull that highhanded McKay attitude and drag me out of there. Even though that situation ended in my humiliation, the way you forced me to accept the consequences of my rash decision proved you weren’t the gentleman I thought you were. But you didn’t leave. I know you wanted to finish what Mike couldn’t. But I was too—”
“Shitfaced?” he supplied with a soft snarl.
“No, I was too mortified you’d witnessed yet another man who found me as sexually lacking as my husband had,” she said without flinching.
But Brandt flinched. “Jessie that’s not—”
“True? Yes, it is. Yet, I know you would’ve tossed me a pity fuck if I’d asked.”
That shocked him. But he recovered quickly. “You sure?”
“No. I’m not sure of anything. Except I can’t get you out of my head since you’ve moved in. All that mundane household shit that oughta be boring and I hated doing by myself? I look forward to doing it with you. Even when you’re driving me crazy with lust.”
“Crazy with lust?” His dark eyebrows winged up. “That’s a stretch, ain’t it?”
His skepticism might’ve sent old Jessie scurrying to her room to hide. But new Jessie soldiered on. “Every night after you get out of the shower and the scent of your shaving cream drifts out of the bathroom I fantasize about you rubbing your face and that scent over every inch of my skin.”
Surprise and something else like…desire flashed in his eyes, which spurred her to keep going.
“Sometimes when you’re talking to me? I’m so busy staring at your mouth, imagining your kiss that I don’t hear a single word you say.”
With that, his surprise changed to recognition. So Brandt had noticed her attention to his lips whenever they were within kissing distance.
“But know what really twists me into knots? Seeing the way you look at me now.”
“And how’s that?”
“Like you no longer see me as sweet, innocent Jessie. That if you ever got those big hands of yours on me, the last thing you’d be with me…is sweet. You’d get a thrill pushing past my boundaries, the ones I had before Luke and the ones I’ve erected since Luke. You’d derive great pleasure in showing me facets of sexual intimacy that I’ve been denied—or denied myself.”
“Fancy talk.” Brandt cocked his head, as if he was trying to study her from a new angle. “I’ll admit, you’ve got me pegged better than I ever thought you would. With one exception.”
“Which is?”
“If we set this in motion, I’ll demand more than just physical intimacy from you. It ain’t only gonna be about scratching an itch, Jess, because I can get that any time I want.”
How had Brandt picked up on her plan to prove to herself that she could experience sex without the pesky emotional ties?
Because he knows you better than you’ve ever given him credit for.
“I’ll expect a different kind of intimacy than what we’ve had in the past. A connection between us that has nothin’ to do with Luke.”
She looked away.
“What?”
“It’s a nice thought, but this connection has everything to do with Luke and
there’s no way we can ever get around that. Besides, you brought Landon into my life, Brandt, and he’s connected to Luke. We wouldn’t be in this situation if not for him. And maybe Landon’s presence has forced us to deal with this—” she gestured to the space between them, “—so I’m done denying the pull is there.”
“Is this ‘pull’ something you recently realized? A proximity thing? I’m a man, I’m here, I’m good enough to fuck for a few months?”
Jessie twisted her fingers together. “It’s more than that and you know it. After you made that pass at me, I convinced myself you were exactly like Luke—biding your time until your charm earned an invitation into my bed. You’d get your fill of me, work me out of your system and move on. And no, you can’t fault me for that mindset, because of my limited experience with men, and my experience with Luke in particular. Plus, I wasn’t so sure you wouldn’t be using me to settle a score with Luke.”
“You really think that lowly of me?” he bit off.
“You really think I’m a clichéd horny widow desperate to screw the first man who smiles at me?” She didn’t bother to bank the anger in her eyes when she met his glare head on. “If that was true, I wouldn’t have waited two goddamn years, would I? I wouldn’t be asking you to touch me, would I? I could’ve found another man to scratch that itch in the four months since we last saw each other. But I didn’t. Something held me back.”
“Again, nice sentiment, but spell it out for me.”
“I want no-strings sex for these four months we’re together. At the end of those four months, we’ll walk away.”
“Just like that?”
Be strong, be confident. “Can’t we try it and see?”
“What do we tell people? Because you know my family, they’re gonna ask.”
“We are living together, even if it’s temporarily. People are already gonna assume we’re sleeping together, especially in the gossipy McKay family.”
“So if Skylar comes right out and asks you if you’re with me? Will you tell her that we’re just fuck buddies?”