Lone Star Nights

by Delores Fossen

  Brody made her feel special.

  So maybe he could keep on making her feel that way by helping her. And soon. Because Mackenzie had to make sure she had Mia far away from Spring Hill before “Aunt Alice” showed up.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WAS WRONG on so many levels to stare at Lucky’s crotch, but that’s what Cassie found herself doing. Why, she didn’t know.

  Yes, she did.

  It was because of those leather chaps he was wearing. They just sort of framed his crotch and acted like a neon sign that said, Look here, look here!

  So Cassie looked.

  At least now her tongue was no longer on the ground, though that’s where it’d landed when Lucky had first called out for her to come watch him ride. She had stepped out of the house, expecting to see him in his usual jeans, boots and shirt. But instead, she’d gotten this.

  The chaps, leather vest, denim shirt, spurs, gloves and the bull rope he had looped over his shoulder.

  Her eyes had instantly gone to his crotch, but her mind had taken an even dirtier side trip. He looked just as ready for some BDSM as he did a bull ride. Not that she was into BDSM, or bull rides, either, for that matter, but it was an interesting image to add to her fantasies.

  She only got to enjoy the fantasy a whole couple of seconds, though, before her phone buzzed and Cassie saw Andrew’s name on the screen. He’d no doubt finally listened to the voice mail she’d left him.

  “Another week?” Andrew snapped, his disapproval coming through loud and clear from the other end of the line.

  Even though Cassie couldn’t see his face, she figured the disapproval was in his expression, too, and that was why she wouldn’t mention that she’d put off telling him for two days that that was how long it would be before the custody issue was resolved. Thankfully, Andrew had been so busy with his therapy sessions that he was conducting online from the Bluebonnet Inn that he hadn’t pressed Cassie on nailing down a specific time for them to leave.

  Well, they had a specific time now.

  A week, or rather only five more days, until Aunt Alice arrived. It was exactly what Lucky and she had been waiting for ever since they’d gotten the girls, but it somehow felt like a hollow victory. Mackenzie was still sullen. Still hurting. Still needed help that she might not get with her aunt. At least Mackenzie was talking to Brody, a lot, and that was better than her moping around the house and labeling everything and everyone as sucky and stupid.

  “The aunt might get here sooner,” Cassie continued. “The week was just a general estimate. She was out of the country on business, but when she gets back home, she’ll be coming from Phoenix.”

  “Well, she must be infirmed or hobbling because it doesn’t take that long to get from there to here.”

  “No, but I suspect she had some things to take care of first. Like maybe getting the girls’ rooms ready and such.”

  At least Cassie hoped the woman was making those kinds of plans, and making them in blissful anticipation of getting Mia and Mackenzie.

  Because the girls deserved that.

  “Certainly Lucky can handle those children until the aunt arrives,” Andrew insisted. He’d said children and Lucky’s name as if they’d caused a rash on his tongue.

  “Lucky’s very busy. He’s co-owner of a rodeo promotion business, remember? In fact, he’s testing out a new pair of bulls that were delivered to the ranch earlier.”

  Something Cassie fully intended to watch.

  Lucky probably didn’t know that she had seen him ride once before when she’d been visiting her grandmother. He hadn’t worn chaps and the vest that day, though. No bull rope, either. Cassie had watched him climb onto that bull and then had held her breath when it’d bucked.

  That day, Lucky had won, not the bull.

  And Cassie had been forced to admit that she saw in him what other women saw. A great butt. Great face, too. Now here she was watching him again from the barn as he was preparing to ride.

  The ranch didn’t have an actual setup for bull riding, but several of the hands had helped build a makeshift shoot and gate where the bull was being held back. Cassie didn’t have a good view of the bull from where she was standing, but she could see Lucky straddle the top of the fence, looking down at the animal. He was talking to the bull as if getting acquainted with it. Strange, it was like chatting up someone who wanted to sling your internal organs out of your body.

  “Are you listening?” Andrew said, snapping her back to reality.

  She hadn’t heard a word in the past fifteen seconds or so, but Cassie didn’t let him know that. “I’m just a little distracted, that’s all. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” And on her eyes. She could feel the adrenaline start to pump through her and figured it was a drop in the bucket compared to what Lucky had to be feeling.

  “I know,” Andrew agreed. “It’s those kids.” That tongue rash sounded as if it had gotten worse. “They’re too much for you to handle.”

  No, he didn’t know. At the moment, it certainly wasn’t the kids distracting her. Lucky looked back at her, snaring her gaze, and gave her a smile that could have melted chrome.

  This was so stupid. She shouldn’t be getting warm in all the wrong places. She was watching him prepare to ride a bull. He wasn’t stark naked and—

  “I’m canceling my afternoon appointments and coming over there right now,” Andrew insisted.

  “No.” Cassie couldn’t say that fast enough. It always turned ugly whenever Andrew was around Lucky, and she didn’t want to deal with ugly today. “I’m really busy. I wouldn’t be able to spend any time with you, and besides, you can’t let your clients down like that.”

  “Busy with the girls?” he asked, suspicion in his voice.

  “Of course. What else?”

  It was a lie. Mia was at Claire’s having a playdate with Ethan, and Livvy had taken Mackenzie on a shopping trip into San Antonio. For the first time in days Cassie actually had a free afternoon, and here she wanted to spend part of it watching Lucky climb onto the back of an ornery two-thousand-pound Angus bull.

  “You sound funny,” Andrew added.

  “Do I?” She quickly tried to sound unfunny. “Must be because I’m still distracted. I should go now, but I’ll call you later.”

  She hung up before he could protest or make any more obvious observations about her sounding funny. Of course she sounded funny. She was lying and breathing hard. Watching Lucky get ready for the ride was better than foreplay.

  Cassie groaned.

  She’d let that “foreplay” distract her. Instead of agreeing to call Andrew, she should have insisted he leave town. Of course, Cassie had been doing that for two days with no results. Andrew would leave Spring Hill when he got good and ready, and arguing with him about that would only make him dig in his heels more. She owed him, she really did, but Cassie was too drained to deal with Andrew right now.

  Not too drained to watch Lucky, though.

  He slipped down off the railing, easing onto the bull. Even from where she was standing, she could see the muscles ripple beneath Lucky’s shirtsleeve. Normally, Cassie wasn’t into muscle rippling, but she apparently was now.

  The ranch hand opened the gate, and the bull charged out. Snorting and bucking. Its massive head was down while the animal spun around, trying to hurl off the rider. But Lucky held on. He squeezed his legs around the bull’s sides, the chaps reacting to that pressure.

  Cassie reacted, too.

  And she thought about how it would feel to be that bull right now. Oh, yes, she was worked up all right.

  The bull bucked even harder, slinging Lucky around, but Lucky just adjusted, his long, lean body sliding into the bucking moves. His left arm stayed high, dipping and lifting only when his body did. It was like watching some kind of dance. With a guy wearing
chaps and spurs.

  Cassie completely lost track of time. Eight seconds or an hour could have passed for all she knew, but then Lucky threw his left leg over the bull’s head, and he jumped off. Lucky landed on his feet and hurried to get out of the corral before the bull came back at him.

  He laughed.

  And that’s when Cassie realized she was holding her breath. Possibly drooling, as well.

  Lucky looked at her again, their gazes connecting and holding for a couple of seconds. Cassie didn’t believe in ESP, but something passed between them. He said something to the hands who were still watching the bull, maneuvered off the railing and came toward her. She had another chance to assess that ESP thing, but this time she knew what it was.

  A really hot look.

  Lucky walked toward her, the spurs jangling and the chaps swaying to give her another Look here! Look here! moment. Cassie tried to look unaffected by all of this and failed so badly that she just gave up.

  “Yeah,” Lucky said, his voice doused with testosterone. He bit down on the fingertip of his right glove to remove it. Then did the same to the second one. “It has the same effect on me.”

  This probably would have been a good time for her to play innocent and say oh? or maybe a huh? But after watching what he’d done to those gloves, her innocence was shot to Hades.

  Lucky kept coming closer, and the moment he reached her, he slid his hand around the back of her neck, hauled her to him and kissed her.

  Cassie said huh all right, but for a different reason. Because she hadn’t been expecting to feel the slam of heat. It was as if that bull had just rammed into her.

  Lucky didn’t stop with just one bull-walloping kiss, though. He deepened it, pulling her closer and closer until she was plastered right against all that warm leather.

  And his erection.

  The chaps made it easier to feel that, too.

  “Are you always like this after a ride?” she asked.

  “Only when I see you afterward,” he answered.

  Mercy, that was probably a line he used all the time, but the problem was—it worked. All of it worked, and that’s why Cassie melted right into the kiss.

  Lucky didn’t break the kiss when he pulled her to the side, maybe to get them out of the line of sight of the ranch hands, but it also landed them against the barn wall. She’d never considered barn walls before, but the hard wood had a wonderful effect when Lucky pressed her back against it. All that hardness at her front and back was creating some amazing pressure. Friction, too, when Lucky’s body moved against hers.

  “What about the ranch hands?’ she asked.

  “I told them I had to talk to you about the girls. They’re so interested in the bulls they won’t come in here.”

  Cassie tried to make herself remember that Lucky had done this too many times with too many women. That should have put her off, but she was so hot now that she reasoned that all his experience would just make this better.

  And worse, of course.

  Because they shouldn’t be doing this.

  She was leaving town soon, and she didn’t need to pack a broken heart to take back with her to LA. So the rationalization started. This was just a kissing session. A very good one. But it wouldn’t lead to anything more.

  That’s when she realized she was moving.

  Or rather Lucky was moving her. He dropped some kisses on her neck, at the base of her earlobe. Then her ear.

  Good grief.

  How had she not known before now how sensitive of a spot that was for her? And how had Lucky known that it was?

  Soon, those questions and all logical thoughts flew right out of her head.

  Lucky led her to a ladder, and Cassie wasn’t sure how he managed it, but he continued to kiss her as they made their way up the steps. One rung at a time. With more of those body-melting ear kisses. By the time they reached the top, Cassie was so worked up that she didn’t even notice where they were at first.

  A hayloft.

  That gave her just a moment of hesitation. It was one thing to kiss in the barn. No threat there of having full-blown dirty sex—because in her mind, it would be dirty with Lucky—but here they had privacy. And with privacy came the threat of sex, that broken heart and some serious complications added to her already complicated life.

  “Do you take a lot of women up here?” she asked.

  He was breathing through his mouth when he eased back and looked her straight in the eyes. “You’re the first.”

  That was probably more bullshit than was in the bull pen.

  Still, Cassie wanted to believe him even if she knew she shouldn’t.

  “Let’s take it one step at a time,” he said. Was his voice always like this? All low and husky. If so, she was surprised he hadn’t seduced her whenever he’d said hello. “Just say yes or no. I’ll stop at the first no.”

  The rules were easy enough. Cassie thought she could manage the breath to give a one-syllable answer. Of course, the rules were tested with Lucky’s first move when he gave her another of those ear kisses.

  “Yes,” she eked out.

  The next kiss landed on her throat. Or at least that’s where it started. But with the dexterity of a magician, he opened the buttons on her shirt, and without breaking the next kiss, his mouth went lower, lower.

  Until he had her right nipple in his mouth.

  “Yes!” she said a little louder and more enthusiastically than she’d intended.

  Lucky lingered there a moment, all the while easing her lower until they landed on some hay on the floor.

  Heck, she said yes to that, too.

  And Cassie kept saying yes when Lucky undid the rest of her buttons, pulled down her bra and kissed the living daylights out of her.

  “If you want me to stop,” he reminded her, “just say no.”

  No was the last thing she wanted to say, but Cassie had to hang on to what little sense she had left.

  “You know we shouldn’t have sex,” she said.

  He didn’t even pause. Lucky just kept trailing kisses lower and lower until he circled her navel with his tongue. “What’s your definition of sex?” he asked.

  The question seemed like something that would require a lot more functioning brain cells than she had at the moment, but Cassie gave it a try. “The F-word.”

  He smiled as if charmed by her inability to say a word that she heard daily. After all, if she couldn’t say the word, then she probably shouldn’t be doing the act.

  “Okay, no F-word,” Lucky agreed. “But I can still kiss and touch you. Remember, just say no if you want me to stop.”

  There was that single brain cell that wanted her to stop, but the other cells were clamoring so hard for the kissing and touching that it got drowned out.

  Lucky’s mouth came back to hers for the kissing part, and he moved on top of her for the touching part.

  Or so she thought.

  But the touching part was a whole lot more than that. He unzipped her, all the way down, and he slid his hand into her panties. He didn’t stop there. Lucky kept kissing her, kept moving his hand until it reached the most sensitive part of her body.

  Oh, yes.

  This was that lightning bolt of pleasure. The one she hadn’t experienced in so long that Cassie had forgotten what it was like to have a man touch her like this. Lucky’s fingers slid right through all that slickness and just kept on sliding. Over and over again. Until Cassie thought she might literally, truly explode.

  But she didn’t.

  Just when she was nearing the climax of the one and only hand job she’d ever gotten, she heard something she didn’t want to hear.

  Her name.

  And it wasn’t Lucky saying it, either.

  “Cassie?” Andrew called ou
t. “Are you up there? The housekeeper said you were out here in the barn.”

  Judging from the sound of Andrew’s voice, her more-or-less ex was heading up the hayloft steps.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HELL IN A HANDBASKET.

  What was Dr. Dundernuts doing here?

  Lucky wasn’t opposed to Andrew learning that Cassie and he had the hots for each other, but he didn’t want Andrew or anybody walking up that ladder while he had his hands in Cassie’s pants.

  “Oh, God,” Cassie mumbled, and scrambled away from him. Scrambled to fix her clothes, too.

  Lucky didn’t have anything unbuttoned or unzipped so there was nothing to fix. Nothing but his hard-on, and scrambling around wasn’t going to help that.

  “Cassie?” Andrew called out again. The man sounded even closer than before.

  “Lucky?” someone else said. Livvy. Heck, she was close, too, and that meant Mackenzie probably was, as well.

  “They’re around here somewhere,” one of the ranch hands explained. It was Zeke Daniels, and he’d been the one who’d helped rig the riding arena for Lucky to test the Angus. “Maybe they went into the other corral to check out the second bull. Come on this way.”

  Lucky wanted to kiss Zeke for giving them a chance to get down the hayloft ladder without an audience. Lucky didn’t mind Andrew knowing what they’d been doing. Or even Livvy. But it was best that Mackenzie be kept out of this particular information loop.

  Cassie scurried to the ladder and looked down. She craned her neck and body so much that she nearly fell right out of the loft. Lucky caught onto her, moved in front of her and went down first. At least if anyone was still in the barn, they might think he’d been up there alone. Considering he still had a partial hard-on, though, they might be wondering what he’d been doing.

  Once he was down the ladder, he helped Cassie and then put his cowboy hat in front of his crotch. It wasn’t a second too soon.