Turning out the bathroom light, he stepped into the darkened bar and paused to let his eyes adjust so he wouldn’t bang into things.
“Gabe?” Her voice sounded a little quivery, as if she might be nervous about something.
“What?” He hoped she wasn’t ready to have a talk about where all this might lead.
“I don’t know what you’re going to think about this…”
He decided to preempt whatever she was trying to say and save her the embarrassment. “Look, Morgan, I loved having sex with you, but I don’t want to get serious about anyone right now.”
“Me, either! Did you think that’s what I was going to say? That I’m husband-hunting?”
“Well…yeah.”
“That’s the furthest thing from my mind. But I did think I should mention something to you.”
He was relieved, but wondered what other bombshell she had to drop. “What’s that?”
“I just saw a ghost.”
6
FOR A GUY who supposedly didn’t believe in ghosts, Gabe rushed her out of the bar so fast they almost forgot to put the key through the mail slot. Morgan had a sneaky suspicion that underneath his manly man pose was a little kid who did believe in ghosts.
“You didn’t see a ghost,” Gabe insisted as they walked rapidly down Main Street, which was now deserted. He had a firm hold on her hand, as if he didn’t trust her to keep heading away from the haunted bar.
“Somebody made a U-turn in the street and their headlights shone through the window. That’s all it was.”
“No, that’s not all it was.” Morgan had been a little freaked out, but she’d wanted to stay and see what the ghost would do. The shimmery light that had drifted through the locked front door and over to a corner table had definitely not been a car’s headlights. “You walked right past it. Didn’t you notice anything?”
His answer was delivered in a no-nonsense tone. “No. Didn’t see a thing.” He walked faster.
“So where are we going now?”
“Your place.”
“Okay. But I’m just wondering. Do you know where that is?”
His pace slowed. “Uh, not exactly.”
“Didn’t think so.” She worked hard not to laugh. “We have to go back the other way.”
“Oh.” He glanced down the street toward Spirits and Spurs. A light fog had drifted in, and the bar looked even spookier than when they’d left.
Gabe shook his finger at it. “I know what happened. Josie set us up. Dollars to doughnuts she has a projection system on a timer, and all she had to do was activate it.”
“Then I wish we’d stayed. We could have figured out exactly where that shimmery light was coming from. Now we’ll never know for sure.”
“I know for sure. It was Josie. Eventually I’ll get her to admit it. I’m surprised she’d try something like that, considering.”
“Considering what?”
He didn’t answer right away, which aroused her curiosity even more. “Is there some unwritten rule that nobody plays tricks on a Chance?”
“Hardly. My dad was always messing with people, and they’d mess with him right back.” Gabe pointed toward the feed store. “You see that plastic horse on the porch roof next to the Shoshone Feed Store sign?”
Morgan glanced up at the life-sized statue. “I remember it from when I lived here before, except I thought it was white back then.”
“It was white for years. It’s also an anatomically correct stallion.”
“Huh. I never noticed.”
“You would have noticed after my dad snuck in here one dark night and painted the horse’s balls blue.”
Morgan laughed. “When he was a randy teenager, I’ll bet.”
“Uh, no. He was fifty-seven going on seventeen. He and Ronald, the feed store owner, were high-school buddies who never grew out of playing tricks on each other. The week before, my dad had walked outside to discover a full-grown male buffalo with a red bow on his head tied to the hitching post beside the barn.”
“A gift from Ronald.”
“Yep. So the ball-painting was payback. Dad took Jack with him to hold the ladder and keep watch.”
“Jack, huh?” Morgan had a tough time imagining the cowboy she’d met playing pranks.
“Oh, yeah. Jack was my dad’s right-hand man when it came to stuff like that. But they didn’t get along on every front, especially when it came to Josie. My dad didn’t like it when Jack hooked up with her.”
“Jack and Josie?” That blew Morgan away. Josie loved to laugh and have fun, but Jack didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word. “Are they still together?”
“Not since Dad died.” Gabe glanced back at the bar as if reluctant to head down the street toward it.
Morgan finally took pity on him. “We can also cut through this alley to get to my house.”
“Doesn’t really matter.”
“Let’s do it. It’s actually shorter.” That was a little white lie, but she found his reluctance endearing. The big, bad cowboy was afraid of ghosts.
“Yeah, well, okay, if it’s shorter.” He led her toward the alley.
Morgan picked her way along the dirt path between the buildings. “What happened with Jack and Josie?”
Gabe sighed. “It was probably doomed from the start. Josie loves owning a bar. There’s no way she’d give it up to become a ranch wife. But Jack started slacking off on ranch work to be with her. She was free in the mornings, but that’s a bad time to be gone if you’re a rancher.”
“Makes sense.”
“Anyway, the long and short of it is that Jack was in bed with Josie when Dad called and demanded that he come home and help him fetch a horse he’d bought. Jack refused, claiming the weather was bad, which it was. Dad, stubborn to the end, went alone and…was killed in a rollover.”
Morgan groaned. “And now Jack blames himself.”
“Yeah.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Explaining it is easy. Dealing with it on a daily basis is a pain in the ass. He had no cause to be rude to you, and I plan to let him know when I get home.”
Morgan hated that idea. “Don’t do it, Gabe. I don’t want to be the reason for more friction between you two.”
“Sorry, but I’m not made that way. I invited you to be part of the parade, and the least I can expect from my family is courtesy toward you.”
“But I’m a real estate agent.”
“I don’t care if you’re a sorceress from the depths of hell, Jack needs to respect any woman I show up with.”
The image made her giggle, which meant she stopped watching where she was going and stumbled.
Gabe reacted quickly, catching her around the waist to keep her from falling. “Easy there, little lady.”
As naturally as a sunflower seeks the sun, she turned in his arms and snuggled against him. “A sorceress from the depths of hell, huh?”
He cupped her bottom and brought her in tight enough to feel the solid ridge of his penis under the denim. “The sorceress part might not be so wrong. The slightest contact and I’m hard as an ax handle.”
She wound her arms around his neck. “You must be a sorcerer, then, because the slightest contact and I’m juicy as a ripe watermelon.”
“You would remind me about the watermelon.” He tipped back the brim of his Stetson and slid his fingers through her hair until he cradled the back of her head.
“Now I have to kiss you.”
“What a crying shame.”
“I know.” He lowered his mouth until it was a breath away from hers. “I thought we could make it all the way to your house before I did this again.”
“We’re in a dark alley at one in the morning,” she murmured. “I don’t see the problem.”
“Come to think of it, neither do I.” His lips found hers.
No matter how many times he’d kissed her today, she still felt dizzy the moment he made contact. He stole her breath and anything resembling ratio
nal thought. The world compressed until nothing mattered but the heat generated by his supple mouth and his talented tongue.
She’d been kissed by enough men to know that Gabe was way above average with this particular skill. Either that or they were perfectly matched. Maybe it was a combination of the two.
Whatever the explanation, she couldn’t confine the action to a simple kiss. As he plundered her mouth, she shoved her hands in the back pockets of his jeans. His most excellent buns flexed at the contact.
With her hands snug in his pockets, she rotated her pelvis against his and drank in his moan of lust. He responded by reaching under her T-shirt and unhooking her bra. By the time he began fondling her breasts, she was a mass of raging hormones.
He lifted his head. “This is crazy.”
“Then crazy me some more, cowboy.”
“I do believe I will.” He moved in for another kiss and began unbuckling her belt as he backed her toward the nearest wall.
She wasn’t in the mood to protest. By the time she felt the cool brick against her back, he had his hand inside her panties and was working magic with fingers as talented as the rest of him.
Abandoning her lips, he kissed his way to her ear and nibbled on the lobe, tugging gently at the small gold hoop she wore there as he plunged his fingers in deep and found her G-spot. “Is this crazy enough for you?”
She gulped in air. “Almost.” She relished the press of the rough brick, the forbidden nature of sex in a semi-public place. Maybe she should be worried about her reputation, but as his thumb teased her clit, she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything but this.
Then he curved his fingers and began to stroke her with a steady rhythm that melted every inhibition she possessed. She moaned with pleasure. “Shh.”
“It’s…your fault.”
He laughed softly. “Complaining?”
“Only if you…stop. Oh, Gabe, right there.” She began to pant. “I’m coming, I’m…”
He kissed her at the critical moment, muffling her cries as he sent her careening over the brink into another tumultuous orgasm. He slid his fingers slowly back and forth, milking every last glorious contraction from her. Then he took his time easing her back to sanity.
Gently he withdrew, and as he lifted his mouth from hers, he painted her lips with a moist finger. He followed the same path with his tongue. “Almost as good as being there,” he murmured. “But not quite. When we have a bed…”
Her body sang with eagerness as she imagined the pleasures that awaited her once he could fulfill his unspoken promise.
“I’m so hungry for you.” He moistened her lips again with his damp fingers. “So hungry.” And he kissed her, using his tongue to tell her how he’d satisfy that hunger.
She wondered if a person could possibly have too much sex in one night. She was more than willing to find out.
GABE WAS AFRAID he’d left his manners at the doorstep of Morgan’s cute little bungalow. He’d paid no attention to the living room, the dining room or the kitchen. He couldn’t have told anybody the color scheme or the type of furniture.
His attention was focused entirely on her bedroom, and he wasn’t even particularly interested in the colors and furniture there, either. Her queen-size bed could have been a mattress on the floor for all he cared. His goal was naked and horizontal.
Fortunately Morgan seemed to have the same goal. She didn’t offer him coffee or beer, didn’t try to show him around the place, didn’t even turn on any lights except for the one switch that activated two bedside table lamps. That worked for him.
They yanked off their boots and belts as if by mutual agreement before tumbling together onto her bed without bothering to pull down the comforter. He had her shirt and bra off before he thought of something critical.
“You’d better tell me where that box of condoms is located,” he said between kisses.
“Let me get it.”
He hated to end the contact sport they had going on, but obviously the condoms weren’t conveniently stashed in a bedside drawer or she would have said so.
Wiggling out of his arms, she climbed off the bed and combed her hair back from her face with her fingers.
Lord almighty, if she wasn’t his ultimate fantasy—a well-endowed woman wearing nothing but a pair of tight jeans. Maybe it was a good thing she’d gone to fetch those condoms. He’d had several opportunities to touch her magnificent tits, but so far he’d never seen her topless in full light. A man, especially a breast man, should take a moment to appreciate what he was being offered.
Acting on that notion, he drank in the sight of her bare and beautiful twins. Her creamy skin, dampened by his mouth and tongue, seemed to glow in the lamplight. The weight of her gifts from Mother Nature shifted invitingly as she moved, and her wine-colored nipples bobbed so sweetly.
His mouth grew moist and his penis throbbed. When she turned to leave, he moaned softly, swamped by nearly uncontrollable lust.
She turned back to him. “Is something wrong?”
“God, no. I’ve just never seen you topless in the light before, and you take my breath away.”
She smiled. “I’ve never seen you bottomless in the light before, so make good use of your time while I’m gone, okay?”
He didn’t have to be told twice. “You bet.” While she rummaged around in her bathroom cabinet, he stripped off the rest of his clothes and tossed back the comforter and top sheet before stretching out on the smooth white sheet. He had a feeling it wouldn’t stay smooth for long.
He expected her to sashay back into the room with a gleam in her eye and a smile on her rosy lips.
Instead, although she carried the promised box of condoms, she looked worried. “We need to set the alarm.”
“Huh?”
She paused and her gaze swept over him, lingering with obvious interest on his stiff-as-a-board penis. The gleam he’d been hoping for earlier appeared in her eyes. “Oh, yeah. We definitely need an alarm.”
“I hope you’re not going to time me.”
“Nope, but you need to be up before dawn.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m up now.”
“Believe me, I noticed.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “And I want me some of that.”
Breath left his lungs in a whoosh and his voice came out sounding like a rusty hinge. “You can have whatever you want.”
“Good.” She set the box on the bedside table and pulled the clock radio around to face her. “But first, I’m setting the alarm.”
“Morgan, we don’t need that unless… Or do you have an early-morning appointment?” He should realize that a long holiday weekend might not be vacation time for a real estate agent.
“No appointments. I took time off for the Fourth.”
“Then it doesn’t matter when we—”
“Oh, yes, it does!” She punched a couple of buttons.
“Okay, four-thirty. Done.”
“Four-thirty?” Rolling to his side, he propped himself on his elbow and reached for the clock. “We’re turning that off.”
“No, we’re not.” She pulled it out of reach.
“Look, I’m not planning to sneak in and pretend I’ve been in my own bed all night, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m a grownup and entitled to spend the night with a woman if I want to.”
“That’s not the point. I don’t want history repeating itself, with you not showing up at the ranch in time for your chores.”
“My chores? I’m twenty-eight, not six!”
“Chores, like feed the chickens, gather the eggs, milk the cows—whatever it was that Jack wasn’t there to do because he was in bed with Josie.”
Laughing, Gabe pulled her down to the mattress. “I’m a cowboy, not a farm boy. I do manly things like ride the range. I don’t gather eggs and milk cows.”
“So who feeds the chickens?”
“Nobody.” He straddled her hips and reached for the button on her jeans. “We don’t have chic
kens.”
“I thought for sure that you—”
“We don’t have milk cows, either.” He unzipped her jeans. “Lift up. This is all coming off.”
She raised her hips from the mattress. “What kind of a ranch doesn’t have cows and chickens?”
“I’ll be happy to explain later.” Dragging down her jeans and panties and tossing them to the floor beside the bed, he looked into her eyes. “When I’m not so busy.” Then he allowed his gaze to travel a leisurely downward path from her lush breasts to the happy zone between her satin thighs.
“Oh.” Her body quivered as the pace of her breathing increased.
He focused again on her eyes, which had darkened with anticipation. “I plan to make good on the promise I gave you back in the alley.”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
With a hand braced on either side of her shoulders and a knee on either side of her hips, he leaned down and kissed her, teasing her with his tongue so that she’d have no doubt what he meant. Lifting his head, he saw that her lips remained parted in complete surrender.
“We can talk about cows and chickens when I’m finished,” he murmured, smiling.
Her eyes opened slowly, gradually revealing the depths of passion reflected there. Her response was a soft purr. “Or not.”
“Or not.” Heart racing with excitement, he began his journey. His mouth had never taken such a luxury cruise. He lingered over the smooth, perfumed skin of her breasts and the pebbled texture of each nipple before moving lower, tracing each rib.
Her skin tasted of milk and honey laced with the salty tang of the boisterous sex they’d already enjoyed. She shuddered when he dipped his tongue into her navel, as if she knew he was giving her one more preview of what lay ahead.
By the time he settled between her thighs, he was ready to explode with needs of his own. Loving her this way would be like a thirsty man drinking seawater. The more he had of her, the greater his desire.
But he craved her nectar, and he would have it, even if the pressure increased to the point of pain. Parting her silky curls, he found her rosy treasure, already dew-soaked and trembling. The first stroke of his tongue brought an urgent whimper.
Ambushed! Page 6