“Of course,” she lied, straight to his face, locking her jaw for good measure.
“That’s a shame. Because I happen to think you’re PDF, too.” There was a light in his eyes—a heat that made them downright dangerous.
She looked away. “That’s the whiskey talking, cowboy,” she said through a forced laugh.
His huge hand reached up and cupped her cheek, steering her gaze back to his. “No. It’s not.”
Air lodged in her lungs, giving her chest that wonderful, tight sensation, like any moment it would burst open and the flood of desire would carry her away.
No. No more getting carried away.
“It’s not the whiskey,” he murmured, his face lowering to hers. “You’re stunning. And funny. And good.”
See him as he is… Naomi’s words echoed back to her. She did. She saw everything in his eyes. They were so close. So clear. Holding her gaze with a shameless tenderness.
“Kiss me again, Jessa,” he tempted. “And I’ll prove how much I don’t mind.”
This time she did laugh. She couldn’t hold it back. Pressure had built inside of her, and it had to come out somehow. “You’re not attracted to me.” Lance Cortez didn’t want her…
He took her hand and pressed her palm to the crotch of his jeans.
Beneath her fingers a hard bulge made her gasp. Wow. Okay, so that was quite impressive…
“That’s how much I want you,” he uttered. “I haven’t kissed you. Haven’t even touched you. I’m hard just looking at you. Just being near you.” He let go of her hand.
She quickly pulled it to her side. She was not supposed to be doing this. Not now. And yet she couldn’t run away. Couldn’t even move. Lance still had his shirt off. Oh, why did he have to have his shirt off? He had a body made for touching. So tight and hard, sturdy and strong.
He watched her, saying nothing. Doing nothing. Just watching her.
Naomi had a point. He wasn’t marriage material. But should that matter? It wasn’t like she was ready to get married tomorrow or anything.
And Lance was still standing there. Shirtless. Watching her with those sexy heavy-lidded eyes.
This was her problem. She overanalyzed things. Thought too much. Tried to plan. A very good-looking man was standing right in front of her. Muscles gleaming in the soft light. Wanting her so badly his groin had to be aching. Asking her to kiss him.
Screw it. No more planning. She might have sworn off relationships, but technically she hadn’t sworn off kissing. A surge of adrenaline empowered her. “You’re sure?” she asked, desire flooding her throat. Her feet shuffled closer to him, until she stood against his solid body. “You want me to kiss you? Because your life might never be the same after this.”
“That’s quite the promise.” His gaze lowered to her lips.
Jessa swallowed hard. Had she ever kissed a man? Well, besides that awkward moment with Lance on the mountain. She’d never instigated it. Men usually kissed her. Should she just go for it and press her lips into his? Maul him? Ease into it?
“You sure know how to build anticipation,” Lance teased.
Her face flamed. “Sorry. I’m…I guess I’ve never been the one to start it…” And awkward Jessa was back.
“I can start it,” he offered. “If it makes you feel better.”
“Um, yes please.”
His smile grew and his gaze captured hers. They were magnetic, those eyes. The power of his gaze held her still, everything except for her shoulders, which rose and fell with expectant breaths. Nerves seemed to flow through her blood and lodge in her chest, filling it until it pulled tight at the seams again.
Taking his sweet time, Lance slid his fingers underneath her chin and drew her face to his, eyes watching hers—no, conquering hers—overriding the subtle knowledge that this was not the best idea she’d ever had.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be doing this,” he murmured, his lips nearly fused to hers.
Talk about building anticipation. That deep, rich coffee scent. The way the stubble on his face grazed her skin. Jessa’s head got light. “I talked myself into it,” she whispered, bracing her hand securely against the countertop next to him so she didn’t collapse.
“I’m glad.” His fingers stroked the skin at her jaw as his lips lowered over hers.
Her eyes fell shut and blocked out everything except for the feel of his mouth, the curve of it, the wet warmth, the way his lips melted into hers. They were firm, but tender, too, so skilled and wonderful it broke open her chest.
Heat flowed in until she was dizzy with it, drowning in it, but just as she lost the power to stand on her own, Lance’s hands moved to her hips and hitched her closer to his body. She let herself lean into him, sliding her hands up his ripped chest, lightly sweeping her fingers over the bandage. God, he was perfection.
His lips moved to her ear, while his fingers carefully brushed her hair out of the way. “I think you’re right,” he breathed. “My life might never be the same.” His tongue traced the ridge of her ear while his heavy breaths grazed her neck and made her legs falter.
He must’ve felt her wobble, because he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her body against his. “Damn, Jessa…” He kissed his way down her neck. “You smell good.”
“Vanilla sugar shower gel,” she gasped, letting her head tilt to the side.
“Mmmm. I like it.” He slid his tongue back up her neck and his lips found hers again. This time he kissed her harder, like he wanted more.
Yes. More. There could be so much more…
Lance shifted, guiding her until her back was against the refrigerator. Things were falling, magnets and papers, but none of that mattered because Lance was pressed against her, his tongue stroking hers, his hips grinding against her body. The feel of him hard and desperate against her sent her heart spiraling. A frantic moan escaped, and Lance smiled against her lips. She let her head fall back so she could draw in a breath, but she hit the refrigerator.
A loud crash froze her. Lance pulled away. Those bottles of Jack Daniel’s that had been on top of the fridge now lay next to their feet.
“At least they didn’t break.” Lance started to laugh but she pressed her hand against his mouth. “It’s not funny! What if your dad—”
“What in God’s name is that racket?” came from down the hall.
“Oh no,” she hissed. “Oh God…”
Lance still had a big silly grin on his face. “It’s nothing, Dad,” he called, but the man came charging around the corner anyway.
Jessa pushed back and pretended to inspect the bandage. “Well, there we go. Everything looks good.” She glanced up and forced a smile, but she’d like to bet he could see the vein in her forehead pulsing. “Hey, Luis. Sorry about the noise. I was bandaging Lance up and we accidentally knocked over the bottles.” Her bright red face had to be a dead giveaway that the whole sentence was a lie. Not to mention her dilated eyes.
“Uh. Thanks, Jessa,” Lance said, reaching past her for his shirt.
“No problem,” she intoned, as if answering a complete stranger. “Next time, don’t wait so long to get it cleaned up.”
A spark smiled in his eyes. “I definitely won’t.”
Whew. She fought the compulsion to fan her face with a towel.
“Guess I should get going then.” Lance clapped his dad’s shoulder on his way out the door. “Night, Pops.”
Luis didn’t respond. He simply watched his son leave, then he turned to Jessa. “So nothing’s going on between you two.”
She invoked her laser focus to put away the first aid supplies. “Uh-huh. Nope. Nothing.”
“From what I could tell that was a whole lot of nothing,” Luis muttered as he plodded back down the hall.
That was one way to put it. A whole lot of nothing.
Chapter Nine
The world came back into focus slowly, the way it did when he woke from a dead sleep. Cold air blasted his face. The door slammed shut behin
d him. Lance stuttered to a stop on the front porch. He should go back in there. Shouldn’t end the night with Jessa like that. Should he? Hell. He didn’t know. It was still hard to think, but it had nothing to do with the shots of whiskey he’d downed.
He faced the door. What had just happened in there? He’d never planned on kissing her. He’d only wanted to check in, make sure his dad hadn’t given her a hard time today. But then she’d ordered his shirt off. And the way she got so close, her delicate fingers pressing against his skin. It should’ve hurt like hell while she worked on him, but instead it only charged him up, making his body ache with the need for more until it was all he could think about.
She’d taken her time cleaning the cut, applying the bandages so carefully. She’d taken care of him. No one had ever taken care of him…
On the other side of the door, lights glowed. Which meant she hadn’t gone to bed yet. Knowing his father, he’d gone back to bed right away. Probably pretended he didn’t suspect anything, just like he always had when Lance was growing up. If he pretended he didn’t see, they didn’t have to talk about it. For once, he was glad Luis didn’t like to meddle.
He took a step toward the door, the porch’s bright light casting his shadow across the wooden planks.
The ache for a woman’s soft touch gripped him. He could still feel her body under his hands, petite but toned. Could still feel her lips burning against his. But he really shouldn’t go back in there, because this time he might not be able to stop himself, no matter who walked into the room.
A dog’s low bark drifted somewhere behind him. He didn’t even have to turn around to figure out who it belonged to. Bogart, Naomi’s German shepherd, came trotting regally up the porch steps. Which meant Naomi wouldn’t be far behind. He should’ve anticipated that, seeing as how her house was right across the driveway. She’d probably been spying.
“Well, well, well.” Naomi walked into view beneath the porch light, staring up at him like a pissed-off librarian, mouth in a thin line, arms crossed in a stance of unyielding disappointment.
Yeah, there was no way out of this. Lance sauntered down the steps to meet her.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked before he could say hello.
He reached down to pat Bogart’s perked ears. “Came by to check in with Jessa.” The wind picked up, carrying the strong pine scent. He should’ve been cold without his coat on, but the fire Jessa had lit inside him was still going strong.
“Mmm-hmm. Mmmm-hmmm,” Naomi mocked. “You came to check in.” Her narrowed eyes invited him to a silent interrogation, which he avoided by glancing down at the dog.
He sucked at lying. “Hey there, Bogart. Out for your nightly stroll?”
“Don’t try to change the subject.” Naomi’s growl was almost as low as the dog’s. “Seriously. Your hair is sticking up like someone just ran her fingers through it. What happened in there?”
Actually, he still wasn’t exactly sure, but Naomi wouldn’t let him off that easy. He leaned a shoulder against the front porch column. “I really did come to check in.”
She raised her brows, admonishing him to continue.
“But then she saw the damage Ball Buster inflicted earlier, so she wanted to fix me up.” He lifted his shirt to show her the bandage.
The woman rolled her eyes with a hearty shake of her head. “Fix you up?” she snorted. “So let me guess. You took your shirt off to show her the goods and she threw herself at you.”
“It was definitely my fault,” he admitted. Things had started out innocently enough. She’d seemed genuinely horrified when she saw the wound. Then he had to go and dare her to kiss him again. He shook his head. “She didn’t throw herself at me.” He’d gone after her. He didn’t know what it was about Jessa, but he seemed to lose what little self-control he had when she was around.
“Damn it, Lance.” Naomi took a shot at his shoulder.
At least she didn’t nail him in the ribs. He backed away before she got any ideas. “We just kissed.” Even as the words tumbled out, the argument fell apart. It’d turned into more than a kiss in about two seconds. Two more minutes and he would’ve had her clothes off. He would’ve been buried so deep inside her he might never have found his way out.
“Jessa doesn’t know how to just kiss,” Naomi informed him, one hand placed on her hip in a sassy way that reminded him of Gracie.
He might be losing his touch, too. Used to be a kiss was simply a necessary stepping stone to get a woman where he wanted her, but he couldn’t get Jessa out of his head. Hell, he could go for another round of kissing right now. Maybe at his place, so his father wouldn’t interrupt this time…
“Oh no you don’t.” Naomi shook a finger in his face. “You and Jessa is not happening. So stop thinking about it.”
He shoved away her finger. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“Oh please. Your eyes are all glazed over and you’re practically drooling.” Her glare could’ve incinerated him. “Don’t do this to her, Lance. She’s not like those women who follow you around everywhere.”
Actually, that had stopped a long time ago. “They’re not there to see me. Not anymore.” There were younger guys. Guys who were happy to take them home for a night.
Naomi glared up at him, jutting out her right hip slightly, a signal that she was about to change her approach. “Do you want to get married? Have kids? Has that changed for you?”
“No.” Didn’t have to think about the answer. He’d never wanted that. Any idealistic views he’d had about love had been obliterated the day his mother looked him in the face, then turned her back on him. He didn’t intend to build a life with someone only to watch it fall apart the way it had for his father. The way it had for their family.
“Jessa does,” Naomi said. “She wants all of that. A commitment. A family. A man to spend the rest of her life with. She believes in that. We might not, but she does.”
“I know.” People talked about how many times she’d been engaged. He doubted she’d ever gone on “just a date.” She seemed to want something that’d last a lifetime. Everyone in town knew Jessa had that dreamy-eyed view of love. Sometimes he envied that. It wasn’t like her parents had some fairy-tale romance, but she still held on to the hope it could happen. What would that be like? He had no clue what it felt like to believe in something.
Naomi stepped closer. She was short, but she sure could look intimidating when she wanted to. “She’s been jerked around enough. I can’t be responsible for it happening again.”
“You? Why would you be responsible?”
“I’m the one who helped her change her look so she could start winning over donors for the shelter. And I told her to use you as a guinea pig. I told her to try to win you over.”
That was worth a laugh. “You told her to use me?” Not that he minded…
But Naomi wasn’t seeing any humor in the situation. “Come on, Lance.” She sighed. “You never even noticed her until she started to dress sexier. Until she wore her contacts. Put on makeup.”
Maybe not, but he hadn’t had a reason to notice Jessa, either. He didn’t exactly get out much. Besides, it wasn’t the makeup. He couldn’t give a damn about the makeup. That’s not what tempted him to kiss her tonight. That’s not what drove him to keep kissing her until his mind and body were lost in fantasyland. “She wasn’t wearing makeup tonight. And why would you tell her to change her look?” Why did women do that to each other?
“She wanted to,” Naomi shot back. “And I never thought you’d take advantage of it. I never thought she’d fall for you, of all people.”
Fall for him. He thought about the way she’d touched him. The way she’d smiled up at him. It all seemed genuine, but… “Maybe she’s not falling for me. Maybe it’s all part of your little plan.”
“No.” Naomi’s head shook the possibility away. “When she ran over to you today…I knew. She cares about you. And you can’t take advantage of that. It’s not right.”
He blew out a breath. Wow, women sure knew how to use guilt to trip people up. “I didn’t mean to take advantage of her.” He hadn’t meant for anything to happen between them. Maybe if he hadn’t seen her naked…
“You and Jessa want two different things. She has a big heart, Lance. And I don’t want her to get hurt again.” That was the final blow. It didn’t matter how much he wanted to kiss her again. Didn’t matter how much she turned him on.
“I don’t want her to get hurt, either.” She deserved to find what she wanted. He couldn’t stand in the way of that. “I’ll talk to her. Tomorrow. I’ll get things straightened out.”
But first he had to straighten himself out.
* * *
Morning looked different after sharing a hot kiss with Lance Cortez. Jessa opened her eyes. After last night, everything was different. Sunlight flooded the room, streaming lazily in through the large picture window that framed Topaz Mountain. The cliffs appeared to be so close it seemed she could reach out and brush her fingers along their rugged peaks. She stretched out in the creaky bed and let the rays of light warm her face. She’d never dreamed she’d be so comfortable staying in Luis’s house. The room was so simple—a brass queen bed, an old scratched antique dresser, and a wooden rocking chair in the corner. There were no frills, no pops of color, but somehow the simplicity of it put her at ease. You didn’t need much when you had that view staring you in the face first thing every morning.
She closed her eyes, letting herself fall back through the hours to last night. A deep vibrato still fluttered her heart. Had Lance really kissed her? Had he really said he wanted her? The images were so soft and hazy, overcast by a thick cloud of desire.
And yet the memories sizzled through her, an assurance that it was real. It had all happened. The kiss, his strong hands on her body, his tongue against her skin. Her body woke with a start, feeling the sensations again.
Noise sounded from downstairs—the creaking of the kitchen’s wood floors, running water. Luis must be up.
A shot of embarrassment jolted her out of bed. She rarely slept past seven and it was almost eight. Quickly, she shed her flannel pajamas and pulled on yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Stopping in the bathroom, she smoothed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. Her eyes looked tired, but happy, too, as though she was still luxuriating in the exhilarating pleasure of being touched and held.
Luckiest Cowboy of All--Two full books for the price of one Page 37