“You shouldn’t say yes to a guy just so he’ll like you,” Cassie told her. “Because it might not stop at a kiss. He might want more to keep on liking you. Understand?”
Apparently, she did because Mackenzie’s gaze darted away. “Brody wouldn’t do that. He just wanted to kiss me.”
“Maybe. Guys can be...complicated.” But then Cassie shook her head. “Actually, that’s not true. Many of them just want sex. I’m not saying that’s true for Brody, but it’s their hormones.” Something she completely understood since her own hormones were in a tizzy over Lucky. “Plus, you have to consider that you might not be here at the ranch much longer. I know it doesn’t seem that way right now, but it might be only a short while before you forget all about Brody because you’ve met someone else.”
Mackenzie sucked in her breath as if horrified by that thought. Cassie was about to start drilling home that it was just the way these things worked, but that might not be true, either. After all, Cassie had had a thing for Lucky all these years, and that thing was stronger than ever. It might happen to Mackenzie—thirty years from now.
Mackenzie looked up at her. “I get what you’re saying, but I just want to be with Brody. Even if it’s only for a day or two. I know you don’t owe me any favors, but I really want to go to that dance with him tomorrow night.”
There it was. The megaproblem that Mackenzie had just dumped into her lap. If Cassie held firm and said no, it would break Mackenzie’s heart. Temporarily. But to a thirteen-year-old girl, it would feel as if it were a permanent scar. On the other hand, if she said yes, then it could make her look like a wimp.
Mackenzie put her own hand into play. She opened her palm, and Cassie saw the gold star that Livvy had given her the day she’d arrived at the ranch. It had a little less gold on it now, and there was no way Mackenzie really believed it was magic. Still, it had sort of a magical effect on Cassie when Mackenzie gave it to her.
Cassie decided to go with being the wimp. It would be far easier for Cassie to mend her own ego than it would for Mackenzie to mend her teenage heart.
“Yes, but with rules,” Cassie quickly added when Mackenzie started to squeal—yes, squeal—with enough excitement that you would have thought she’d just been granted every wish she’d ever wanted.
“Any rules are fine as long as I can go.”
“Hear the rules first,” Cassie warned her. “And I have to clear all of this with Lucky, understand?”
Even that didn’t seem to diminish a drop of her happiness. Mackenzie nodded. Too bad she didn’t have a second gold star for Lucky.
“We’ll drive you there and bring you home,” Cassie continued. “At no point will you slip off to be alone with Brody. We’ll make sure of that because we’ll be watching you.”
Still nodding, she seemed surprised when Cassie didn’t add any other conditions. “I don’t have to, like, dress like you or anything?”
“No. You can wear what you want as long as it covers all parts of your body from here to here.” Cassie pointed to her neck, then to her midthigh. “Now get some sleep.”
“I will. Thank you, Cassie. Thank you.” She hugged Cassie again and practically skipped out of the room.
After being given such a huge concession, she doubted Mackenzie would skip out of the house, but just in case she watched Mackenzie go into her room and shut the door. Cassie was about to do the same thing when she heard the footsteps on the stairs.
Lucky.
“You’re home early,” she said, and it was a good thing she said it fast, too, because it was all Cassie managed to get out before he reached her.
Lucky hooked his arm around her waist, snapped her to him and kissed her. All in all, it was a lot better than him saying hello or responding to her comment. And he didn’t stop there. It was like the loft ladder all over again. Kissing her, he pushed her deeper into the room and kicked the door shut.
Mercy, he smelled good. Tasted good, too. Cassie had expected him to smell like strippers and taste like tequila, but the only thing she was getting here was the heady scent of cowboy and testosterone. Lucky should bottle it.
But for now, no bottle required. He was giving her a full dose of not just the kiss but of body contact. His chest against her breasts. His left leg wedged between hers. He was working that leg, too, giving her just the right kind of pressure to go along with the kiss.
Lucky broke the contact only to reach back and lock the door. He came back to her, his mouth already finding hers. And then he said the exact thing Cassie wanted to hear.
“I thought about that kiss,” he said, “and now I’m thinking it’s time we did a hell of a lot more.”
* * *
LUCKY WAS TIRED of debating with himself over whether this was a good idea or not. It wasn’t. But some of the things that had turned out good in his life had started with not-so-good ideas.
Or at least that was the logic he’d used on the drive home from the bachelor party.
It wasn’t necessarily good logic, but then who cared. Cassie certainly seemed willing to jump into this, and even if this was their one and only time together, that just meant Lucky had to make the most of it.
She reached behind him, groping. Not for his back, he realized, but for the light switch. Lucky maneuvered her away from that right off. He wanted to see her, along with tasting lots and lots of her body.
“You’re used to being with hot women,” she mumbled. “I’m not hot.”
There weren’t many things that could have made him break the kiss, but that did it. “You’re hot.”
And since Cassie screwed up her mouth and didn’t look sure of that at all, Lucky went down on his knees, pushed up her skirt, yanked down her panties and put her knee on his shoulder so he could give her a kiss to make her body feel as hot as she looked.
It worked.
Not just for Cassie—she made a gasping sound of pleasure—but for him, too. Of course, he had been sporting a hard-on for days so he didn’t need anything additional, but the taste of her gave him a nice buzz.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said, gasping again.
Good. It was nice to keep her a little off balance so that maybe those orgasms she said she had trouble with would sort of sneak up on her. Lucky helped with that. He added a little nip—the kind that would hurt so good—and deepened the kiss. Lucky took her to the brink.
Before he pulled her back.
She cursed him and called him a bad name when he stopped.
“Foreplay,” he explained but since she’d brought up the subject of ass with her name-calling, he got to his feet, turned her and put her against the door.
Normally, this was the part where he would want her stark naked, but if that happened, the fore would leave the foreplay, and he’d fuck her brains out. He preferred a more controlled fucking right now, to test to see just how sweet the part of her he’d just kissed was.
He shoved up her skirt again, though it was already practically around her waist. The panties went. He pushed them to her knees, caught onto them with his boot and pushed them the rest of the way down. He raked them aside when she stepped out of them, and Cassie put herself against the door again.
Holding her in place, he managed to put on a condom, and he moved her legs apart so he could enter her from behind. Not deep. Just enough to let him know what he was up against. Kissing Cassie there was one thing, but his dick was a lot more sensitive than his tongue.
Oh, man.
He was in trouble. He shouldn’t have waited this long to be with her because Cassie was tight, wet and yeah, hot. All the things that would end this much too fast. Good thing they weren’t face-to-face because he would’ve been a goner if she’d kissed him. Or if he had been looking into her eyes.
She made that moan again and went still a second as if trying to ste
ady herself. Lucky knew exactly how she felt—literally. He wasn’t too steady, either, and he got even less steady when Cassie pushed herself against him, taking him deeper inside her.
Hell in a hurricane.
When he was a teenager he’d used a trick so he could last long enough to do things the right way, with both him and his partner getting off. He mentally quoted the recipe for his dad’s barbecue sauce. Ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar and mustard. Yeah, it was stupid, but it always worked. Though when Cassie kept moving, kept pushing herself so that all that slick heat was sliding right against his hard-on, Lucky was forced to repeat the recipe three times.
“Vinegar?” she asked.
Crap. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, and that meant it was clearly time to take this to the next level. He pulled out of her, causing her to call him a name again. The woman did like variations with the root word of ass in them. She turned so that they were face-to-face, and she would have taken him back inside her if Lucky hadn’t scooped her up and carried her to the bed. He put her on the mattress, her legs still spread, and he damn near lost his breath. Damn near came, too.
Maybe he should have turned out those lights after all.
Too late.
Things were moving very fast now, and despite the fact he still had on his jeans, Cassie pulled him down on top of her. It was as if his dick had a homing device on it instead of a condom because he went right inside her, pushing through all that tight heat until he was exactly where he wanted to be.
Cassie didn’t groan this time. She stopped breathing, and for a moment he thought she’d fainted or something. But no. Lucky looked in her eyes and saw exactly what he wanted to see—a beautiful woman on the verge of a beautiful orgasm. And she wouldn’t have to work for this one.
Lucky did it for her.
As a teenager he’d had a very good teacher, a girl two years older than him who’d made him take exams of sorts on locating what she’d called her love button. Hours and hours of practice had made him particularly aware of how important it was to find any and all love buttons of his sexual partners. Cassie’s was pretty easy to find, and he knew he’d hit pay dirt when her eyes practically rolled back in her head.
Lucky didn’t have a choice about moving then. She caught onto his hips and helped him with that. Not that he actually needed help, but it was obvious that Cassie was on a mission to make the best possible use of his hard-on.
She moved.
He moved.
Faster.
Deeper.
Until recipe-quoting time was over. It was time to finish, and he made sure that’s exactly what Cassie did. That was the nice thing about a woman’s climax—all those muscles squeezing him until he wasn’t sure of his own name, much less barbecue ingredients. Lucky let her love button do the rest of the work for him, and he let himself go.
Lucky collapsed on top of her, trying not to crush her, and as soon as he could get his body working, he flopped down on his back beside her like a landed trout. Cassie’s breath was gusting, and she was making little sounds. Mumbling something.
And then she laughed.
He lifted his head to see what the heck was going on. Usually he didn’t leave a woman laughing after an orgasm.
“You know it was great,” she said, clamping her teeth over her bottom lip for a second. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
Did he look pleased? Probably. He’d just had sex with a woman who’d been causing his body to burn for years.
Cassie laughed again, turned her head and kissed him. Not the long, lingering kiss, though, of a woman who might want seconds. Seconds done the right way, with them both naked as jaybirds.
“I don’t think I’ve been this relaxed in years,” Cassie said. “All the muscles in my body are slack. You’re a great stress reliever, you know that?”
He smiled.
Then he didn’t smile.
A stress reliever? Was that what this had been for her? Yeah, he’d been a player most of his life, but for the first time, that was starting to wear thin. Maybe he was looking for more than being just a bull rider/player/screwup after all.
Well, fuck.
When had that happened?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THAT WONDERFUL SLACK feeling hadn’t lasted for Cassie. It had vanished shortly after Lucky had kissed her good-night and headed off to his room. And the vanishing act had happened only minutes after he’d given her that equally wonderful orgasm.
Cassie knew she’d blown it.
For someone who had been trained to deal with people’s emotions, she’d sure missed the mark when it came to Lucky. Clearly, she’d hurt his feelings with her stress-reliever remark. Strange. She hadn’t thought he would be sensitive about something like that, especially since they had known the sex was just that—sex.
Wasn’t it?
Cassie had to shake her head. She wasn’t sure about anything anymore, but she knew she had to talk this out with Lucky now that it was morning, and she wanted to do that before any of the wedding crew showed up. They weren’t setting up for the actual wedding just yet since it was still two days away, but they needed to start clearing out the furniture so there’d be room for the chairs and flowers.
She checked on the girls first by putting her ear to their bedroom door. No stirring around in there so Cassie headed downstairs. Before she could make it to Lucky’s room, though, she heard the voices in the living room. One was Lucky’s, but the other Cassie didn’t recognize. However, she immediately knew who the woman was when Cassie spotted her.
Alice Murdock.
She was tall, blonde and, well, stunning. She was wearing sensible traveling clothes that managed to look fashionable on her model-thin body. Alice stood the moment Cassie stepped into the living room, and with a smile on her face, she approached and shook Cassie’s hand.
“I apologize for being here two days early,” Alice said, her voice a whisper. “I rescheduled some work and took an earlier flight because I was so anxious to finally get here. I hope you don’t mind. I was going to wait outside in my rental car for a while, but then Lucky saw me and invited me in.”
Of course, they’d been expecting Alice but not until later that week. Cassie had wanted those extra hours to ready herself for this. Then again, readying apparently wasn’t necessary. Alice certainly didn’t appear to be a drug-addicted lowlife like her half sister.
“Alice and I were just talking about her job,” Lucky said.
And they were drinking coffee. Judging from the fact that both their cups were nearly empty, they’d been chatting for a while.
“Oh?” Cassie settled for saying.
She hated to sound even remotely catty. Hated to feel it even more, but there was something about this that put her off. Maybe it was just jealousy. Not just because this woman would soon whisk the girls away but because of this cozy time she was having with the man who’d given Cassie an orgasm about ten hours earlier.
“You remember me mentioning that Alice heads up a nonprofit. It arranges for medical and dental care in third-world countries,” Lucky explained.
“And Lucky told me all about his bull riding,” Alice quickly added. “He even showed me the bulls he just bought. No way would I climb on one of those things.” She chuckled. Then she looked at Cassie. “Of course, I’ve seen you on television, so I know what you do. It must feel good to be able to touch so many people like that.”
It did, sometimes, and it was the perfect thing for this woman to say. Cassie settled for a nod.
“So, you live in Phoenix?” Cassie asked, sitting on the sofa. Not too close to Lucky, but it was close enough that another woman might notice she was marking her territory.
Sad, very sad, that Cassie felt the need to do that, especially since Lucky wasn’t doing any territory mar
king of his own.
“I moved there about five years ago, after my divorce.” Alice dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “The job was just too tempting to pass up. Our organization helps several thousand people each year.”
“It sounds as if you work a lot of hours.” Cassie tried to sound like she was making casual conversation rather than appearing as if she was fishing for anything negative.
“I do, but I know that’ll have to change now. I’ll need a new place, too. And a nanny, of course. Any idea how the girls do in school?”
“Mia hasn’t started yet,” Cassie answered. “She’ll be going into pre-K at the end of the month. Mackenzie will be in eighth grade. Her grades took a hit when her mother died.”
“But she’s good in English,” Lucky added.
Cassie hadn’t even known that Lucky had checked on her school records, but it didn’t surprise her. They’d both gotten more involved in the girls’ lives than Cassie had originally planned. That’s what made this meeting all the more difficult.
“So, you want children?” Cassie didn’t even attempt the casual, conversational tone that time.
Alice nodded without hesitation. “I can’t have children of my own.” Had her bottom lip trembled? Heck, it had. “That’s the reason my ex divorced me. I’d given up on the idea of being a mom, and when I got the call about Gracie’s death, I was naturally upset, but I was glad to finally be able to do something to help her.”
Before the woman had even finished, Cassie heard a familiar sound—Mia talking to the cats. It didn’t take the little girl long to make it to the living room, holding one of the cats in her arms.
Alice got to her feet again. “Hi. You must be Mia. I’m your aunt Alice.”
Mia looked at both Lucky and Cassie, maybe asking for some kind of signal that it was okay to go closer. Cassie nodded, and Mia took more steps toward Alice.
“This is Sassy,” she said, introducing the cat. “Are you a nice lady?”
Lone Star Nights Page 22