by Jan Moran
“Neither one of those sounds appealing to me.”
She laughed again. “You should hear the descriptions people come up with. But that’s the beauty of wine—it is what you want it to be. Who can tell you that you’re wrong about what you’re tasting? No one else is inside your head but you.”
Colin paused. He was never much for poetry, but the way she phrased everything was lyrically simple, like how he felt some nights looking at the stars in the sky or the sun rising at dawn. Nobody else could describe what he saw or how it made him feel.
Maybe that’s how wine was for her.
He took another smell of it and thought that, yeah, if he tried hard, he could detect wet rocks or stones or whatever in the liquid. And the strawberries. Come to think of it, the scent of Leticia reminded him of a rosé—as least as far as what he’d already learned about it.
“Now,” she said, “let’s see if the taste matches the smell. But there’s a trick to this part, too.”
“I figured we wouldn’t just toss the stuff down our gullets.”
She leaned against the table, and even that easy move made his cock come alive.
“Take a sip,” she said, “and do this.”
She drank, then drew in air. The sound was like a bubbling backward whistle. She swirled the wine in her mouth for a moment before swallowing.
“That,” he said, “seems overly complicated.”
“When you bring in oxygen, you aerate the wine, releasing aromas and flavors. There’s more to tasting than that, but those are the basics.”
As they both sipped, he tried to imagine the flavors blossoming in his mouth. But all he could think about was strawberries and, strangely, wet stones, and if the wine would taste any different if he kissed it off her lips…
Without thinking, he gave into his instincts, leaning over to capture her mouth with his.
At first, she didn’t do anything: It seemed like she was caught off guard as he sipped at her wine-dampened lips. And, sure enough, he tasted strawberry more than anything. Strawberry and innocence and desire, and he didn’t want to stop there.
When he parted her lips with his tongue, he heard a splash as she spilled some wine on the table. His head swam with need, with the fantasy of a high-class woman wanting a simple cowboy who’d probably never seen the world she’d seen: vineyards, green hills, and country roads in Europe, cosmopolitan nights in cities where people drank $100 bottles.
He ended the kiss slowly, sucking off of her lips, opening his eyes in time to see that hers were closed, as if in ecstasy, as if she’d gotten even more drunk off of this one shot of him.
“Wow,” she whispered.
There’d never been a word that gave him more pleasure, and all he wanted to do was drop his wine glass and sweep her into his arms, bringing her against him so she could feel just how ready he was for her.
A woman he barely knew.
A woman who would’ve never given him a second glance if she knew how uninteresting he was.
She pressed her fingertips against her mouth, then looked over at the tipped wineglass she still held. She righted it, even though most of the liquid had spilled.
“Sorry about that,” he said, knowing that the gigolo ruse was definitely over. He’d crossed a line in their flirtation, and if he went any further than this, he wouldn’t be the man he’d always thought he was.
A jokester, a good-time guy…Yeah, he was both of those, but he wasn’t that much of a jerk.
“You’re sorry?” She blinked, setting her wine glass on the table. “Why?”
He put down his glass, too. “It’s not because of the kiss. Damn, I’m hardly sorry about that.”
“Then why are you apologizing?”
Colin readied himself for rejection—the polished woman shining off the unpolished hick. But a man had to do what a man had to do.
“Just as some people have been misled in the past by that white zin you talked about,” he said, “I’ve been misleading you.”
She brought a hand to her chest, as if partially shielding herself.
He adjusted his hat so it sat lower over his brow, then came out with what he had to say. “Anita was only joshing with you when she told you that I’m a…”
“Gigolo?”
He gave a curt nod, then buried his hands in his pockets. The fun would end here.
She laughed once, shaking her head. Then she laughed again, harder this time. After that, she was laughing and laughing, bracing her hands against the table right by the spilled wine.
Was this good or bad? Colin wasn’t sure, but when she pointed at him, tears streaming from her eyes, he took it seriously.
“You devil,” she said. “I should run away as fast as I can.”
But she wasn’t running, and as her laughter eased down, he stood there, taking whatever was about to come.
“It’s my birthday,” she said. “My thirtieth. A milestone. I was in such a daring mood a half hour ago, and that’s why I talked to you in the first place, even though I thought you were…”
“A pro?”
“Yes.” She shook her finger at him. “I should be relieved that you aren’t.”
All right, here it came. Nice knowing you, pal, but your true life story couldn’t possibly keep me enthralled. You’re amusing, but not so entertaining that you’ll keep me compelled for long…
But she was still here, and she was watching him as if she didn’t want to go anywhere. Did he still have a shot?
He acted as if he had all the confidence in the world, his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans. “You taught me a thing or two tonight, Miss Leticia. If you’ll oblige me, I can return the favor on your birthday, make it something real special to remember. If you don’t mind that I was messing around with you.”
She raised her eyebrows, probably mostly because of his phrasing, but also because he thought she might be intrigued. It gave him the guts to go on.
“Liz said she’d take you to the Rough and Tumble, but if you go with me, I’ll give you a birthday there you’ll never forget.”
He could see temptation gleaming in her eyes, and even if he knew she was going to give him some resistance—ladies often did that in his experience—he knew he had her.
“Only if you tell me one thing,” she said.
“Name it.”
She smiled. “Who are you, Buzz?”
Chapter 6
Who was Buzz?
As Leticia sat on the bar of the Rough & Tumble Saloon with all the Old West Boomtown insanity going on around her, she had a better idea than before.
From the way everyone had called out Buzz’s name as they’d entered the neon-beer-signed, honky-tonk room, she suspected he was one of the most popular guys here. On the way over, he’d told her he owned a ranch, and unlike her curious questions about gigolos, she hadn’t known what to ask. Maybe that was because cowboys seemed so familiar, with all the movies she’d seen. Maybe it was because, suddenly, she felt a little more comfortable with him in the red truck he drove.
It’d occurred to her that he wasn’t as untouchable as he’d seemed to be at the beginning of the night, and that sent a flutter of commitment-phobic panic through her, but she was having too much fun to stop now.
Have a good time, she thought. Just take this for what it is.
A band of tough guys were hanging around the edges of the planked room, leaning against the walls where flyers for Tub o’Beer Weekends and rock bands she’d never heard of were displayed, along with a collection of rusty license plates. But Buzz was right by her side at the bar, where everything was more familiar: bottles lining the shelves where a bunch of postcards fluttered in the breeze from the ceiling fans, video poker machines glowing from the surface of the bar where they were embedded. Here, he was a safe presence in a new world, offering her a mug of beer. She took it.
“You’re on my turf now,” he said. “And I’m gonna show you how we drink straight brew. There’s a real process to it, you know.”
She kicked her legs, loving the freedom of sitting on a bar, of having other crazy people around her chanting, “Drink, drink, drink…”
“Yup,” Buzz said with a grin. “That’s all there is to Beer One-Oh-One. Throw it down the old gullet in a single step!”
She didn’t quite manage that, but she did swallow a great deal of the thin, yeasty brew in one try. Her palate and stomach would hate her in a few minutes, after her head sorted out what she’d just consumed and how it was mixing with the wine she’d had.
Buzz had his hand on her leg, and it felt warm, reassuring. Heck, she wanted him to slide below the material of her dress, skin to skin, his fingers inching toward her inner thigh until…
A roar went up from the crowd as the dim lights turned all the way down, leaving only the glow of the beer signs, video games, and jukebox.
Leticia gulped, still tasting the beer. “What’s going on?”
“You’ll see.” His blue eyes made her want to kiss him as he’d kissed her earlier, fully, completely, romantically.
Hungrily.
And, God, did she ever crave more. Her attraction to him was chemical, and she wasn’t sure how to fight it, or if she even wanted to. She wasn’t angry that he’d pulled a joke on her earlier, riding on the back of Anita’s own jest about him being a gigolo. She hadn’t even told Anita where she was going, had only texted her that she was calling it a night when the reality was that she was with a cowboy, a real yippie-ki-yay guy who dizzied her head and had her drinking swill.
When she saw the crowd parting and a woman carrying an unlit cake, Leticia gave a gasp of surprise. “A birthday cake?” she asked.
“The Rough and Tumble kind,” Buzz said cryptically.
The woman carrying it was the saloon’s owner, and her name was Kat and she had big sweet blue eyes that clashed with the rasp of her bartender voice. She came to stand in front of Leticia, revealing that the vanilla cake wasn’t fancy, only something from the freezer section of the market. But it touched Leticia with its one candle and all the included sentiments, anyway. Even with the miscreants around the room, she got a sense of family here—a family she’d never really had herself.
Kat held the cake’s platter with one hand while handing something to Buzz with the other. He switched on the object, a cigarette lighter, and vaguely, Leticia could see an image of the starlet Bettie Page on the casing. He lit the lone candle on the cake.
The entire population in the bar sang the happy birthday song to her, and even if it was accompanied by a few pornographic curse words every few lines, she didn’t mind. Buzz, however, did seem to care, because he stared daggers at the back of the room, where the insults were coming from a mass of truck drivers, construction workers, bikers, and hot rod men.
But Buzz’s brother Jonsey, who’d obviously come straight to the Rough & Tumble from the Ruby Room, walked back there first, giving them an earful about how to treat a lady. That allowed Buzz to remain at her side as the song ended. He gestured for her to blow out the candle.
She wished for this night to never end.
She blew, and the candle went out. A cheer rose from the crowd, and then came the real surprise.
“In honor of our girl, Cherry Chastain,” Kat said, gesturing above the bar to a painting of a woman who wore what looked like a leather cat suit and straddled a chair with shameless abandon, “we give our newest guest the birthday treatment!”
“The Cherry Treatment!” everyone yelled.
Leticia heard a few cackles from the sketchy crowd, and her instincts told her that maybe she should slip down from the bar and get out of here, but she didn’t react quickly enough to avoid Buzz’s next move.
As he took a handful of cake and smoothed it all over her neck, everyone cheered louder.
Leticia merely stared at him, even though her heart was skittering all over the place from the feel of Buzz’s hand in such a tender place. Then he leaned over, and while her pulse pounded, he ate some frosting from her skin. She clung to his shoulders. Her clit was…well…buzzing. Her belly muscles were trembling.
And she realized that one of her legs was wrapped around him as everyone raucously applauded.
Buzz drew back, tipping up his cowboy hat. “Told you that coming in here after sunset was a bad idea.”
Feeling feisty and wonderful and free, she took a handful of cake and smacked it onto his neck. The crowd loved that.
“Eat, eat, eat!” they chanted.
What the heck. She slid her mouth against Buzz’s neck, getting her fill of frosting and cake.
Her birthday. Her party.
Buzz swooped her off the bar, digging his fingers through her hair, his gaze so hot that she thought she might melt.
“You tempt a man,” he said over the music that’d just kicked on from the corner jukebox.
“Good.” Her ballsy comment gave her a rush, especially when Buzz’s grip tightened in her hair. She imagined what it’d be like to roll around in a bed with him, frosting on their skin, her birthday wishes coming true lick by lick, bite by bite…
A ruckus from near the entrance caught their attention, breaking the moment: A group of men had burst into the room from a hallway, one of them yelling something about being cheated at cards. When a biker with a long gray beard shoved the protesting man out the front door, everyone laughed.
Amid all the action, another man with dark hair that flopped over one eye calmly walked out of the hallway and leaned against the wall, surveying the crowd as if he hadn’t been part of the cheating crowd when he most probably had. Buzz’s hand traveled from her hair to her back. His hold was possessive now.
And when the other man looked her up and down, lingering on the frosting that still iced her neck, Buzz shook his finger at him.
The man sent him a tilted smile and went on with his surveillance, his light gaze landing on every tight-shirted woman in the room.
“Boomer,” Buzz muttered. “He’s one of the reasons you don’t come in here late at night without a regular customer by your side.”
“Why?”
Dumb question, but Buzz’s response was worth it. He slipped his hand to the small of her back, and she shivered.
“Why do you think?” he asked, his tone gritty.
Buzz wanted her. There wasn’t any way she could deny that. And, from the moment she’d seen him in the Ruby Room, she’d wanted him.
The music on the jukebox changed to a bluesy country song, and if it were a wine, it would have reminded Leticia of cherry spice and blackberries and a long slow evening of drinking. The room erupted with more cheers; men and women paired off, grinding together, holding their drinks high as they sang along.
She recognized the music, although she wasn’t much into country. Cruz Gonzalez and Sophie Quinn’s first single, which was burning up the charts.
Buzz looked down at her, his hands on her waist. He still had some cake on his neck and, slowly, she reached up, using her thumb to rub some of it off.
His hands tightened on her. “What the hell am I gonna do with you?”
“Whatever your plans are, I’m enjoying them so far.”
“So far?”
He stroked up her back, bringing her closer to him, and she moaned low in her throat. She could feel the muscles of his thighs against hers, could feel something else, too, and she ached.
“Just how far does ‘so far’ go with you, Leticia?” he asked.
He was obviously wondering how long this night would last, too, and she truly didn’t know. Right now, she wanted it all, and she didn’t care how she would feel in the morning after a one-night stand and probably a wine-beer hangover. But when the liquor wore off, would she feel the same way she did right now?
She didn’t want to think about it, and as she laid her head against Buzz’s broad chest, she smelled the clean of his shirt, the slight earthy tobacco scent she’d noticed earlier, and she let herself drown in it. Near the bar, she saw Buzz’s brother Jonsey cozying up to
a petite woman with curly dirty blond hair, a flannel shirt tied at the waist, cut-offs, and cowboy boots. She was wearing a trucker hat backward and had keys dangling from a belt loop.
Buzz had told Leticia on the drive over that Jonsey was actually his youngest brother, not a fellow gigolo. Same with Tucker, the third brother in the leather jacket who’d already gone home. Leticia had the feeling that Jonsey was both a blessing and a curse to Buzz—just as she could tell the quality of a wine by its scent, she could read the complexity of his relationships with a few clues, too, and the tone of Buzz’s voice had revealed so much.
She got it, though. Her own brother Miguel had an impulsive streak, as well, although his had been lethal, both to him and to the state of her family. She’d always feared that he would never grow up, and he hadn’t.
Another song came on the jukebox, and maybe she was too touched by the mixture of the wine she’d consumed and the beer she’d belted to really get the lyrics right, but she thought the singer was saying she was the happiest girl in the whole U.S.A.
And Leticia really was as she danced and danced until…
There was a crash, a yell, and then Buzz was covering her, ushering her out of the room, her breath coming fast, her mind scrambling.
Then she found herself in a room with flocked wallpaper and dark wood and a poker table in the middle, the cards still scattered over it.
“Stay here,” Buzz said, going for the door. “Jonsey’s at it again.”
She didn’t have time to ask what was going on as he shut the door behind him. Then Leticia realized that there were more yells outside, more crashes, and that she was a wine consultant at the top of her game in a wild bar with a cowboy, and she looked around the room to find another random woman sitting at a bar nearby.
She only shrugged, dressed in fashionable skirt and expensive boots, looking as if she didn’t belong here, either.
Looking as if she was also under the spell of her own rough-and-tumble man.
Chapter 7
Colin was going to throttle his own brother.
The law didn’t take long to get to the Rough & Tumble—they never did—but this time they were extra quick since someone had obviously gotten on their phone and called them right when Jonsey had decided it’d be a good idea to play the knight in shining armor and defend yet another damsel in distress from a pawing admirer. When Colin had rushed out of the back poker room where he’d sheltered Leticia, then seen Jon grappling with an unknown biker, he’d dived in to help his brother, right along with a number of other saloon regulars.