Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3)

by Alison Kent

  She’d also have to get it correct because it mattered. If she and Boone were going to explore this . . . whatever it was between them, she wanted to pay attention to his life. And that had nothing to do with her past. It was just who she was. Curious as well as exacting, and granted, maybe a little bit of a compulsive perfectionist. But those traits had served her well as she dug for the meat of her stories. Though—oh my—what she’d like to dig for now . . .

  Boone was walking toward her from the barn, wearing boots and jeans and a blue plaid shirt left untucked. One gloved hand gripped the stock of a very long rifle. His purposeful stride ate up the ground and stirred trails of dust in his wake. His hat brim was pulled low, and a bandanna fluttered from his back pocket. She imagined the body beneath his clothing, his cut abs, his huge biceps, the silky wedge of his chest hair, his thick cock resting beneath the denim against his thigh.

  A shudder ran through her, and she had to remind herself she wasn’t here for more of what they’d shared Friday morning. Not that she wouldn’t love a repeat, but this was his house, not hers; with his bedroom, not hers; and his bed, not hers. She had too many . . . rules, she wanted to say, when she had to admit they were hang-ups. The fact that she’d broken her promise to herself, to take things slow with the next man she decided to sleep with, was already causing her grief.

  She could not afford to be tempted by the external trappings: the beautiful body, the face she wanted to frame in her camera’s viewfinder, the light finding his cheekbones, the slope of his nose, his lips that were amazingly soft despite the abuse they took from the elements, the sun and the wind and the dry, dry heat.

  Neither could she be tempted by the sex. No matter how delicious. She could enjoy it, and she would, but she could not allow it to mean more than the good time it was. That was the bottom line. Bodies only. No emotions. No attachments. No connections. No expectations of more. Though watching him approach, she knew in the deepest part of herself, sticking to her bottom line was going to be a battle.

  Slowing only long enough to lay the gun in the bed of his truck, he continued toward her, tugging off his gloves and tossing them into an empty wheelbarrow as he passed. Her stomach clenched. Her thighs trembled. If she hadn’t known him, she would’ve run. He was that intimidating. That . . . She didn’t want to say frightening because she wasn’t scared. Except a part of her was. The part fighting that bottom-line battle. That had sworn to never give up her heart.

  He reached her then, took her by the hand, pulled her across the yard, up the back porch steps, and into the kitchen. Once there, his hat sailing from his hand to the table, he continued to hold on, tugging her behind him toward the house’s staircase, climbing a lot faster than she could without scrambling. She was breathless when they reached the second floor, but Boone wasn’t winded at all, and she knew what she was feeling was anticipation. Wondering what he had in store. Wondering what he would do if she asked him to let her go.

  When he led her to an open door, a carelessly made bed in the room behind, she tested her theory, slipping her hand from his before crossing the threshold. He stopped and looked back. His eyes were hooded and dark, his pupils wide, his jaw taut and straining. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and the faded denim beneath his belt buckle strained to contain him. His wanting her was obvious.

  What she was waiting for was his insistence that she wanted this as much as he did, the pressure to acquiesce, the demands that she owed him; that this was his right, that she could give or he would take. That she had no say in this matter, or in any other.

  Instead, he said the only words she needed to hear. “It’s up to you.”

  She stepped into the room and closed the door, leaning against it. “Is this where you want to do the interview?”

  “This is where I want to fuck you. The interview can wait.”

  “There will be an interview,” she said, reaching for the buttons down the ruffled front of her sleeveless crêpe de chine blouse.

  “Stop,” he said, coming toward her and taking hold of her hands, pinning them against the door near her shoulders. His gaze held hers, and she wondered if he could see how hard her heart was beating, if he saw any of her past fears flash in her eyes. “I wanted to unbutton your dress when we danced. I wanted to unbutton your top when you had me tied to your bed. If I don’t get to unbutton you this time . . .”

  His gaze dropped from hers to her breasts that rose and fell as she struggled to draw a normal breath. It was impossible, breathing normally, with the way he was looking at her, with the want in his eyes, with lust beating a sharp tempo in the hollow of his throat. The skin of his neck, prickly with a day’s worth of beard, was sweaty, and no doubt salty, and baked by the sun. She rose up on her tiptoes, opened her mouth there, and drew her tongue in a line to his chin.

  He groaned, his head falling back on his shoulders. “I don’t even want to know what that tasted like.”

  “It tasted like you,” she told him when he looked back to her. “Like hard work and hard muscles and hard sex.”

  “You do like your sex hard, don’t you?” he asked, a brow lifting, one corner of his mouth lifting, too.

  “I like you hard.”

  He still held her hands, and he pulled them both to the fly of his jeans. “Then I’ve got what you like.”

  She wrapped her fingers around his bulk and squeezed, his whole body shuddering, hers shuddering, too. “But it’s not where I want it.”

  “Oh, it will be,” he said, the words deep and rough and visceral. “Just as soon as I get you out of those pants.”

  Her gaze snagged by his, she slid her palm down his length to cup the bulb of his head. “What about my buttons?”

  His breath hissed out, a sharp push between his teeth. “I’ll get to those later. This needs taking care of first. And this time, I give the orders.”

  “Orders?” she asked, feeling a jolt of something rich and raw, but not frightening. Not frightening at all.

  “Hands and knees. Yours. On the bed.”

  She took a step back, her hands going to the zipper of her skinny black pants. She lowered it, the raspy sound like a groan in the air, and kicked out of her Louboutin red-soled stilettos. Still wearing her blouse, she peeled her pants down her legs, rolled her panties off, too, her top swaying around her hips when she straightened and covering her to mid-thigh.

  Boone shook his head, popping open all the snaps of his shirt in one hard tug. “Woman, don’t even move.”

  Her heart fluttered in her chest, a butterfly, a hummingbird. A wasp ready to sting. “What happened to my hands and my knees on your bed?”

  “I’m taking an extended lunch hour. We’ve got time,” he said, tugging off his boots, shucking down his jeans and shorts, his cock rod hard as he freed it.

  It took all the willpower she had not to reach for him, to stroke him and fondle him and bend to take him into her mouth. She remembered his taste, the feel of him, the skin covering his taut shaft, that of a different texture stretched over the crown.

  He was so beautifully male, his muscles defined, his skin sleek, his body hair having never known a razor or wax. She liked that most of all. That he looked like a man, not what haute couture had decided made for a pleasing male form, one smooth body nearly indistinguishable from the next.

  When he came to her then, she held on to his biceps and looked up. He looked down, searching, asking something she didn’t understand, arguing with himself as if he wasn’t sure this was really what she wanted. After all, she’d come here for work, to ask him questions, not to strip out of her clothes because he had fucking on his mind.

  And that made her smile. Because her mind was filled with the same. The smells of heated skin, the sounds of flesh slapping flesh, the taste of salt and bitter cum. Shivering. Eyes gone dark.

  Her smile assuaged him, and he knelt in front of her, lifting her blouse to expose her pussy, leaning in to kiss her belly just above her bare lips. She curled her toes against the gritty
hardwood floor, a tremor crawling the length of her spine and vibrating in the small of her back. Then vibrating deeper when he parted her lips with the tip of his tongue, sliding down to lap, then up to push on her clit, staying there, playing, flicking back and forth with the pressure he’d learned she loved.

  He’d told her not to move, but she was all in, and she wanted as much say as he’d claimed. So while he held her hips, his fingers gouging her, his thumbs rubbing the skin of her inner thighs, she made quick work of her buttons, letting her blouse fall to the floor behind her and reaching back for the clasp of her bra. Before she could shake free of the clinging cups, Boone’s hands were there, his fingertips grazing her areolas hidden behind lace the color of eggshells.

  The circles of skin pebbled. Her nipples pebbled, too, tightening beneath his touch, then beneath his mouth as he pulled away her bra, tossed it . . . somewhere, tongued her and sucked her and caught her between his teeth. She threaded her fingers into his hair and tugged. “Don’t stop.”

  He didn’t, cupping her breasts in his palms and pushing them together, moving from one side to the other. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She used her hold to guide his face back between her legs. He laughed as he settled his mouth over her pussy, pushing apart her thighs to slide a finger deep. She gasped, groaned, and he crooked it to rub against the sensitive pillow just inside her opening, a grating sort of scratch that sent her soaring.

  His tongue slid low, dipping into her entrance when he pulled his one finger free, sliding back up through her inner lips when he pushed back in with two. She raked her fingernails over his scalp, and he laughed again, a growling, guttural sound, his teeth catching lightly at her clit and scraping over it before he sucked her into his mouth. The pressure was too much. She lifted up onto her toes and let go, shuddering, tugging at his hair as she came.

  Sensation rushed her like a wave, knocking into her and nearly taking her off her feet. Boone wrapped an arm around her waist and held her, finishing her off before moving up her body, drawing the flat of his tongue up her midsection until he’d reached her throat, then her mouth. And then he kissed her, his lips demanding, his teeth sharp, his tongue finding and mating with hers.

  When he dipped to lift her, she grabbed his shoulders for purchase, holding on while he carried her to the bed. There, he rolled the both of them to the center, sheathing himself with a condom before covering her. His big body made her feel fragile and small. She pulled her knees along his hips, and he settled between her thighs, reaching down to guide his cock into place, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth when he did.

  “Does this mean you’re happy?” she asked, running a finger over his lips and into his dimple hidden by beard stubble.

  He turned his head to bite at the heel of her palm. “I was just thinking this is a hell of a way to spend a lunch hour.”

  She couldn’t disagree. And as he pushed into her, filling her, joining their bodies fully, she hooked her heels in the small of his back for the ride. He rocked against her slowly, his elbows above her shoulders on either side of her head, his fingers toying with her hair where it fell across his pillow, no doubt in a messy splay of waves that would soon be tangles—and she couldn’t be bothered to care.

  How could she when her body was buried beneath his, the mattress soft beneath her, the sheets smelling of Boone and Boone smelling of the wide-open spaces? He pushed in and pulled out, buried his face in the crook of her neck, grunted against her skin and bit down. A tingling sensation, like an electric buzz beneath her skin, raised the hair on her arms, at her nape, and coursed through her limbs until even her fingertips prickled from the powerful surge.

  They’d been in bed for only minutes, yet she was ready to come for the second time. She wanted to wait, to draw out all of what she was feeling, to let it take her over, pull her under, consume her, but Boone chose that minute to increase his speed, and the strength of his thrusts sent her over. She cried out, pushing up against him as he shoved her down, quaking on top of her, grinding against her, the base of his cock like a steel rod shoved hard to her clit.

  He groaned, a long, gut-wrenching sound that vibrated through his whole body. She felt it in his chest, crushing hers, in his belly, where his hair sparked friction against her skin as he writhed, in the short ragged bursts of air blowing furnace hot on her neck. She finished as he did, both of them sighing out long, exhausted breaths, both of them laughing softly.

  She came down from an incredible high, rubbing circles along his spine, loving the resiliency of his skin, the muscles beneath, the way he shimmied under her hands. It was magical, making a big man like Boone Mitchell react to her touch, and one so simple after the near violence of the intimacy they’d just shared. Yet it was a violence she’d invited, and engaged in, and wanted more of, because this was Boone; and he was giving, not taking, not demanding, not hurting. It was a heady thing to feel no fear.

  But it would also be nice to be able to move, she thought, smiling privately, before pushing at his shoulder and rolling him away. “What happened to hands and knees?”

  “Eventually. But not today. Because after this, I’m going to be doing good to walk out of the house and finish all the work on tap for the afternoon.”

  She turned to her side, her hands together on her pillow, her chin on top. “I hope you’re not blaming me for your weak knees.”

  “Actually, I am. I heard you drive up, and came out of the barn ready to answer your questions—” He stopped, his eyes closing, his long lashes dark against his cheeks before he looked at her again.

  But he didn’t say anything more. Just stared at her, his gaze sleepy and searching, and so she pressed, asking, “What changed your mind?”

  “You,” he said, that gravel in his voice again. “You were standing there, your face to the sun, the wind blowing your hair and your top . . .” He went on, his voice dropping. “You were standing there, in the dirt, in those spiky heels without worrying that you might get ’em dusty, or step in a hole and go down, but like the ranch was where you belonged. That was unexpected. And that’s what changed my mind.”

  She swallowed his words like bad medicine, staring at him, not knowing what to say because she didn’t want to hear that. She really did not want to hear that. She did not belong, not here or to him. She’d spent four years putting herself back together, and Boone’s return to Crow Hill was not going to derail her.

  Yet when she looked at him, the longing in his expression fierce and raw, it nearly killed her not to acknowledge the admission he’d made, and to instead blithely say, “Believe it or not, I know how to look where I’m going.” She moved just enough to drop a quick kiss to his lips. “And I’ve been wearing heels almost every day for the last ten years of my life.”

  “Guess you don’t buy them in Crow Hill,” he said, his tone resigned, the light in his eyes gone.

  She’d done that, disappointed him, but it couldn’t be helped. “You guessed right.”

  “You got any boots?”

  She twisted her mouth to the side. “No, actually, but I’m thinking it’s time I buy a pair.”

  “I’m thinking so, too.” He propped up his head with an arm tucked beneath. “Can’t take you horseback riding in heels.”

  “You’re taking me horseback riding?”

  “Thought I’d take you out to see my oil well.”

  “Boone Mitchell.” She shifted up onto one elbow, pushed a fall of hair from her face. “Are you trying to impress me with your assets?”

  “Thought that’s what I just did,” he said, reaching out to tweak a nipple.

  She gave him a withering look. “You still owe me an interview, you know.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?” she asked, slapping his hand, feeling the pop reverberate where he held her pinched tight. “You thought you could distract me with sex?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Uh-uh. Not happening. Though I think we’re going to have to conduct this in
terview in a public place.”

  “Must be hell not being able to keep your hands to yourself.”

  That she wasn’t going to dignify with a response. Even if truer words had never been spoken. Not that she was the only one with the problem, she mused, reaching down to lift his hand from her breast. “Could you get away for supper tonight? At the Rainsong Cafe in Fever Tree?”

  “Should be able to.”

  “Do you want me to come by and pick you up?”

  “And risk never making it to supper?”

  Good thing one of them was thinking straight. “Then I’ll meet you there. What time?”

  “Make it eight,” he said, covering her for a gorgeously smothering kiss that tasted of heat and sweat and salt; that had her melting beneath him, breathless, desperate, then rolling off the mattress and leaving her there as he walked naked out of the room.

  She scampered out of the bed and into her bra and panties, zipping her pants, stepping into her shoes, and rushing down the hall for the staircase. By the time she reached her SUV, she’d only managed a half dozen of her blouse’s buttons, but they were the ones that would keep her from getting arrested, and that was fine.

  What wasn’t fine was the way watching his bare ass as he’d sauntered away had her never wanting to leave. Had her, in fact, wanting to spend the rest of the day with him, on horseback, or in the barn while he did . . . whatever it was that he did. Had her wanting to belong.

  If she’d been compelled to do any of that for her story, that would’ve been fine. But she’d wanted to do it because she enjoyed his company. He made her laugh. He made her curious—about his work, about his family, about the things he loved, the things he hated, his dreams for this broken-down ranch.

  And that was skating too close to the emotional involvement she’d sworn to avoid. Not even for Boone Mitchell would she step into that trap.

  TEN

  AS MUCH AS he hated leaving the ranch at the end of a day, Boone meant what he’d said to Everly. He’d never be able to answer her questions if they were alone in the house. Their being alone would have him dragging her up the stairs to his bed. She could ask him what she wanted to know while there, but he’d have a hard time answering with his blood in another part of his body than his brain. And he was pretty sure she’d have a hard time taking notes with her hands busy elsewhere.