The Trouble With Cowboys

by Melissa Cutler

  “You quit a great job to return to Catcher Creek?”

  “Quit my job, sold my condo, cashed in all my chips. My mom and sisters needed me, so this is where I had to be. It was a no-brainer.”

  He peeled a white-knuckled hand from the steering wheel and ran a finger under his collar, like he wasn’t getting enough air through his windpipe. A bead of sweat materialized on his temple. “So your family’s farm is everything you have now?” His voice cracked and something like sadness blossomed in his eyes. Was it regret? Pity?

  She shrugged a shoulder, playing her problems off as though they were nothing to be concerned about—which tonight, at this moment, they weren’t. “It’s all any of my family members have anymore, and I could tell you more about it, which wouldn’t be very interesting. Or . . .” She flipped up the console and stretched her arm into his lap. Lucky for him, she knew the best way to ease a cowboy’s troubled mind was through his—

  “Hey, now.” He removed her hand from his zipper and glanced her way, blinking fast. “Amy, what are you doing? We’re not even off your farm.”

  She hitched a knee up on the seat and angled her body toward his. One by one, she popped the buttons open on his shirt. “All the better. Why don’t you turn right at that post? The road leads to our northwest pasture. Our family hasn’t used it in years.” She eased her hand beneath his shirt and found an undershirt. Undeterred, she grabbed a handful of the cotton fabric and tugged. “The valley’s totally secluded.”

  With her hand on his bare chest, she felt the shallow rise and fall of his lungs, the swift, hard beating of his heart. She glanced at his lap. Oh, he wanted her all right.

  “Amy, no,” he rasped. The truck coasted to a stop.

  Placing a finger over his lips, she straddled him. He squeezed his eyes closed, not as though in preparation for a kiss, but like he was rallying the strength to refuse her advances.

  She ran her palm across his freshly shaven cheek, awareness dawning first, followed by mortification. He didn’t want her, despite his body’s assertion to the contrary. Once again, as if it were her curse in life, she’d humiliated herself in front of a cowboy. “I thought, after Sunday at church, after Saturday . . . but you aren’t interested in me like that anymore.”

  He opened his eyes, his brooding expression telling her she was correct. Her heart sank and her throat grew tight. She attempted to clear his lap without rubbing against his crotch.

  “That’s not true.” His hands shot up to grasp her hips, holding her atop him. “I want you so bad, it hurts. No man in his right mind could look at you and not want to haul you off to bed.” He fingered a lock of her hair. “The problem is me. Something’s come up—a responsibility I don’t have the luxury to ignore—and it wouldn’t be fair for me to lead you on any more than I already have.”

  She tried to leave his lap again, but he held her firm and she abandoned her efforts. “Why didn’t you cancel tonight?”

  “I should have, but I couldn’t walk away without giving you an explanation. I figured we could talk about it over dinner. More than anything, I need you to understand you haven’t done anything wrong. My reasons for backing off our relationship—”

  “Hang on. I’m not in the market for a relationship, Kellan. I already told you that.” Maybe there was hope for the night after all, if a possible relationship was his only concern.

  He afforded her a halfhearted smile. “Let me guess, rule number one?”

  “The rule’s there for a reason.” He looked like maybe he wanted to discuss the details of that reason, so she moved on before he had a chance. “But we’re both adults and I want you as badly as you clearly want me.” She rotated her hips, stroking him to drive her point home. His lips parted, his eyes darkened.

  “What if, just for tonight, I forget about my rules and you forget about your reasons and we give each other what we want? At the end of the evening, we’ll part ways, both of us satisfied and with no hard feelings. Like we did last Saturday.” He didn’t need to know she’d thought about him practically every waking moment since they met. That was beside the point. “After tonight, we’ll be neighbors and business associates only.”

  “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

  “What if I want you to . . . at least tonight, anyway?”

  Amy could tell she’d broken through his defenses. Something still troubled him, but as she watched, he pushed it back, replacing it with a look of pure carnal desire. She’d already made a fool out of herself launching at him the way she had, so making one last brazen move wouldn’t matter. Holding his face between her hands, she pressed her lips to his, coaxing his mouth open.

  “I can’t seem to resist you,” he whispered against her lips.

  Their eyes met. “You don’t have to.”

  With a growl, he took command of her body with a fierce kiss. She clung to his neck as he bent her back against the wheel and plundered her mouth. Then his hands ducked beneath her skirt and slipped up her bare legs to cup her ass, locking her thighs to his hips. She arched against the steering wheel, grinding into him.

  The truck horn blared and they both jumped.

  Kellan’s hands fell away from her ass. He collapsed onto his seat, his head against the headrest, eyes turned heavenward. “This is wrong.”

  She fingered his open shirt collar. “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  His gaze refocused on her. His lips turned up in a charming, lopsided grin. “You knew what you wanted from me tonight before I picked you up.”

  True, but . . . “What makes you say that?”

  He rubbed her backside over her skirt. “You’re not wearing panties.”

  “Yes, I am. They’re just teensy. You’ll have to look harder for them.”

  Shaking his head, he laughed, a low, vibrating chuckle. “I agree to your terms, Amy. We’ll take this date for what it is, and when it’s over, we’ll be business associates and neighbors only. No hard feelings. But I’ve got one condition. I decide what we’re doing and when tonight, which means we’re keeping the dinner reservation.”

  Her throat constricted in panic. The only way she could pull off a dinner date with Kellan would be if he took her to some cheap, Route 66 diner or rodeo bar. It would be impossible to engage in a prolonged conversation at a classy restaurant without getting her heart involved. After snuggly, postcoital pillow talk, a romantic dinner with a cowboy was the worst kind of emotional trap. “Are you sure you don’t want to skip right to the sex?”

  Damn, she sounded like a floozy.

  He quirked a brow at her. “Oh, I do. Trust me. But you deserve a nice dinner first, not a quickie in my truck.”

  “What if a quickie in your truck was my plan all along?”

  He chuckled again and tapped his finger to her lips. “Amy Sorentino, get back in your seat and buckle up. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

  The Mesa Verde Inn sat two miles from the highway along a pitch-black, one-lane road that cut through a series of low-lying foothills. The inn itself glowed with warm, golden light like a beacon for weary travelers. Until she saw it, she’d held out hope for burgers and beers, one of those Quay County joints with pool tables and a mechanical bull, but it wasn’t looking good.

  The sprawling parking lot was mostly bare, with only a few cars scattered about. The restaurant, decorated in rich browns and leather to give the feel of a hunting lodge, was equally empty, with only three other couples seated around the edges. The flicker of candle centerpieces, white lights on a tastefully decorated Christmas tree, and a fire in the nearby hearth provided the only light. Amy blinked into the romantic room, aghast.

  “Quiet night,” she whispered as Kellan supported her elbow and led her along behind the hostess.

  He dipped close to her ear, brushing his nose along her hairline. “Word is, another storm’s rolling in. Not primo date weather, but the quiet’s fine with me.”

  Amy gulped.

  The hostess seated them at a corner ta
ble. Kellan held Amy’s chair out for her. Once she was settled, he lifted his chair and repositioned it so he was sitting next to her. An intimate gesture, as threatening to Amy as the restaurant’s atmosphere.

  The hostess adapted without a word, moving Kellan’s place setting and filling their water glasses. Kellan ordered a bottle of their nightly wine special and the hostess took her leave.

  “Why did you move to this side of the table?”

  He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his eyes obscured in shadows. “I’d rather we weren’t overheard.”

  “Oh? What secret topic do you wish to discuss?”

  His hand found her leg beneath the tablecloth. “I’d like to hear more about your plan.”

  “The plan for my restaurant?”

  He leaned nearer, crawled his hand higher. “No, honey. More about the quickie in my truck you had your heart set on.”

  That topic, she could handle. In fact, talking dirty was one of her favorite forms of foreplay. Looked like it was Kellan’s too.

  Uncrossing her legs, she spread them a bit to give him access and took a sip of water. Capturing an ice cube between her teeth, she drew it into her mouth and rolled it over her tongue, but it did nothing to temper the heat ripping through her body. What the heck were they doing in a restaurant, acting like they were hungry for food? “What do you want to know?”

  “How were you going to get our quickie started?” He nuzzled her ear. “Were you going to take your clothes off or flip your skirt up so I could search for those panties you claim to be wearing?”

  The sting of cold on her tongue was too much. She pushed the ice from her lips into her fingers. “The original plan was to go down on you while you drove us to the northwest pasture. I almost got my way.”

  “You think so, hmm? You think I’d let a lady go down on me before I’d barely cleared her driveway after picking her up for dinner?”

  She popped the ice in her mouth again. “No, maybe not a lady . . . but you should’ve let me.”

  His hand crept until his little finger touched the juncture of her thighs. “Nice try. Back to your plan. After you went down on me, once I couldn’t take it anymore, what would you’ve done next?”

  “I would’ve wrapped you in a condom and flipped my skirt up.”

  “And the panties?”

  Her eyes darted around the room. The other diners weren’t paying the two of them any notice. “Pulled them to the side.”

  “Interesting. There’s a flaw in your careful plan, though.”

  “Oh?”

  He sipped his water before answering. “In an effort to control myself around you tonight, I didn’t bring any protection.”

  “I did.”

  He licked his lower lip. “You really did think this through.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Moving on. Your skirt’s up, your panties are out of the way, the condom’s on. How did you want it? Did you plan to ride me like last time? Or did you want me to lay you across the seats and drive into your tight, hot body?”

  Oh, Doctor. This man knew his dirty talk. She’d be wet and ready even if he wasn’t rotating his pinky finger against her panties. “The plan was to ride you, but option number two’s sounding pretty great instead.”

  He grinned, wolfishly. “And would you have been wet enough without any foreplay to take all of me inside you with one thrust?”

  “I was wet enough the minute I climbed into your truck.”

  “What about now? Are you wet for me now?”

  A waiter appeared at their table. Amy and Kellan startled, pulled apart. Kellan cleared his throat. Amy took a long, slow drink of water while the waiter poured the wine.

  “Do you need another minute to look at the menus?”

  Amy’s eyes went to the table. Sure enough, two menus lay untouched on their place settings.

  Kellan handed the menus to the waiter. “What do you recommend tonight?”

  The waiter shifted his weight from one foot to the other, drumming his fingers on his notepad and looking uncomfortable, like maybe he had the right idea about the direction Kellan and Amy’s evening was headed. “The roast pork with apples and brandy is our featured entrée of the month. It’s served with garlic parmesan potatoes and roasted winter vegetables.”

  Kellan quirked a brow at Amy, a silent question. She nodded. Then again, she would’ve agreed to sloppy joes had the waiter suggested it. Food held no interest for her tonight. Everything she wanted to eat was already at the table.

  “We’ll take two,” Kellan said before turning his back to the waiter in a gesture of dismissal.

  The waiter left and the world beyond their table fell away once more. Amy fiddled with the silverware, suppressing her urge to drag Kellan into the restroom and rip his clothes off. Then his breath played across her cheek.

  “Answer my question, Amy,” he whispered close to her ear. “Are you wet for me now?”

  “If you don’t know the answer, then you’re not as smart as you look.”

  He smushed his lips together, mischief twinkling in his eyes.

  “I think a better question is,” Amy continued, “how aroused are you?”

  She fluffed the tablecloth over their laps and molded her hand onto his erection. It was hard as steel and smoking hot. She stroked him through his clothes and grinned at his sharp intake of breath. What a waste, to squander such a fine specimen of maleness in favor of roast pork. Following this dinner through to its end might damn well kill her if she didn’t make a drastic move.

  In her periphery, she saw the waiter and inspiration struck. Releasing her grip on Kellan, she fumbled in her purse and pulled out her cell phone. Two condoms tumbled onto the table. Slick as sin, Kellan pocketed them before anyone seemed to notice.

  Smiling her gratitude, Amy waved her phone in the air toward the waiter.

  “What are you doing?” Kellan whispered.

  The waiter approached. “Yes?”

  Amy sighed dramatically and pointed to her phone. “We got an emergency call from home. We’ll need those entrées to go. Sorry.” She tried to fake sincerity, but was 99 percent sure the waiter wasn’t buying it.

  Kellan laughed under his breath. “Smooth move. But our agreement was that I’d make the decisions tonight.”

  Amy repacked the purse. “Yeah, well, I need to get out of here and into your pants before I combust.”

  The next ten minutes passed in a blur of heated touches and whispered promises. Amy was too flustered to protest when, as the bill came, Kellan stilled her hand over her coin pouch with the threat, “Don’t even think about it.”

  He tossed a stack of bills on the table, grabbed the packaged food from the approaching waiter, and strong-armed Amy toward the door.

  They sped to the truck through the now-empty parking lot, holding hands and chuckling conspiratorially. On reaching the passenger side, he spun her around and backed her against the door with a greedy kiss.

  He tasted of wine and she could already feel the beginnings of fresh stubble above his upper lip. Wrapped in his hard planes and muscled arms, she felt the stirrings of something other than lust, something wilder and more dangerous. Plunging her hands into his hair, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the physical merging of their bodies, taming the unwanted feeling before it became something she was forced to name.

  He tore away from her mouth, panting, and opened the truck’s passenger door.

  Her whole body thrummed with desire. “It’s a dark night. We could drive down the road. Pull onto the shoulder.” Dazed and floating, she turned and had one boot inside the cab when Kellan’s hand on her back gently but firmly pressed her stomach into the seat.

  “Not down the road. Right here, right now.”

  The sound of a zipper opening, then cellophane ripping, echoed in the still, rural night.

  “Someone might see us,” she breathed, even though she knew she wouldn’t care if they did.

  “No one’s around. And we�
�re in a shadow, angled away from the windows and road.”

  Cold air pooled around her legs as her skirt lifted several inches. Aroused beyond measure, she nuzzled her nose into the seat fabric.

  Kellan’s movements paused. “I’ll stop if you want me to. Say the word.”

  “No, don’t stop. Take me like this.”

  Her skirt lifted. His hands caressed her flesh, kneading and holding. “I found your panties.”

  She heard a click of something metal, like a pocket knife, then felt a tug on her thong before it fell away. He tossed it onto the truck seat near her head. Guess he didn’t care for her plan to pull it aside.

  Latex nudged at her opening. Grasping her hips, he surged into her, hard enough that she felt the thrust in her throat. She moaned, lost in sensation. He paused, uttering a blissful curse under his breath. Then, rocking back until only the tip of his cock remained inside her, he lifted a hand from her hip and spanked the flesh of her ass with his open palm, hard enough to provide a delicious little sting.

  “Again,” she panted.

  He let out a deep, throaty chuckle and cracked his hand against her cheek once more. Grabbing a fistful of her skirt at the waist, he slammed his cock into her all the way up to the hilt. This time, they both moaned. He pumped with such force that Amy braced her hands against the seat to keep from sliding forward. With every thrust, zingers of sheer pleasure shot through her flesh, until her mouth locked open in an unending, silent cry of ecstasy.

  Reaching around her waist, his fingers swirled against her clit. “Come for me, honey. Let it go.”

  He drove into her, his movements spiraling to an impossible speed.

  Amy’s orgasm burst into being with a flare of white-hot rapture. She smothered her cries in the seat cushion as contractions rippled through her. Kellan’s thrusts became erratic. With a final plunge and a breathy grunt, he collapsed over her.

  His hand snuck beneath her sweater to stroke her perspiration-dampened back. Gradually, he withdrew. Her skirt dropped and she sat up. She should have felt sated, dreamy even, having gotten what she wanted. But watching Kellan go through the motions of wrapping the condom in a tissue and setting his clothes in order left her feeling hollow.