She reached for his buckle and undid it, then un-snapped his jeans. He tucked his finger under her chin and brought her flushed face to his. He kissed her again, slowly, thoroughly, as her palm cupped his erection. “I’m dying here, hurry.”
“Trust me, you are so not dead.” Her hands slid inside his briefs, her cool touch on his scorched skin nearly sending him over the edge.
“Dixie,” he hissed as he planted kisses along her jaw to her ear, then behind, making her shiver. His insides clenched and his remaining control waned. She stroked his hardness, held him tight, drove him insane.
“Enough.” He tossed his shirt onto the couch, scooped her into his arms and laid her down. “I’d like to make this last, but—”
“Hurry.” She sat up and tugged off her boots, then her jeans, leaving her in lacy panties.
“Do you always wear underwear like…this?”
She paused for a second and this time gave him a siren’s smile. “Always.”
“Oh, damn.” He studied his boots. “Took me a half hour to put these on. What was I thinking?”
“I bet you weren’t thinking this.”
He sucked in air through clenched teeth, hoping for some control as she said in a desperate voice, “Nick, I don’t have a half hour in me. I think I’ve got about a minute. Two tops. I need action! The kind you’ve been yakking about since you walked in the door. You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
Yeah, he knew all right. “Except I can’t even get my damn jeans off.”
Chapter Six
Dixie considered Nick’s boots. He swallowed, his expression hungry, and not for food. She needed a quick solution. “Sit down and give me your foot.”
His eyes turned midnight black. “Is this some Montana fetish you want to tell me about?”
“If the boots don’t come off, your jeans don’t, and neither do you and I. Get my drift? I’ll pull. You’ll pull. Teamwork. Think of it as…foreplay.”
“I have a lot better ideas for foreplay.” He sat and held out his leg.
She grabbed ahold of the boot. “Some cowboys like to wear these in bed…gives them traction.” She yanked hard, fell back against the sofa arm, then tossed the boot over her head. It landed on the wood floor with a solid thud. She grabbed hold of the right foot and did the same.
He stood. “Believe me, I’m not going to have trouble with traction. I’m not going to have trouble with anything.”
He slid out of his jeans and briefs and looked down at her…at least, she thought so. She wasn’t all that sure, since she was staring at him…a very rigid part of him.
He said, “The panties have got to go, Dix, and since you freed me of my boots, it’s only fair that I remove something of yours, don’t you agree?” He hooked his fingers into the thin elastic and peeled the lace over her hips, thighs, knees, then off. He let out a long sigh as she slid off her bra. “So lovely, so perfect—”
“So impatient!” She held out her arms to him and he fixed himself on top of her, his chest hairs teasing her sensitive nipples. His body felt warm and heavy and hard, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and drew him to her heat. “I want you,” she breathed. “I want you so bad, Nick.”
“Oh, damn!”
Her vision cleared. “If you’re considering backing out now…!”
“Protection.”
She put her hands over her face. “We’re never going to have sex. Never. We’re just going to mess around and I’m going to die from frustration.”
“Then there’ll be two corpses.”
She unwound her legs from his back and he sat up, straddling her hips. “You know, this is a great view. I could just sit up here and admire it.”
She gave him an in-your-dreams look.
“Right. My jeans? What did I do with them?”
“Floor.” She pointed down and he grabbed the denim, then took his wallet from the back pocket and pulled out the blue foil package. She said, “Going to be interesting to see that—” she pointed to his erection “—fit in that.” She pointed to the flat blue square.
“Things stretch.”
She bit her bottom lip. “I sure hope so. And not just the condom. You and me getting together might be a little, uh, tight.” She swallowed. “The truth is, I haven’t been with…I haven’t done this in a long time, Nick. Like three years long. Like since Danny left me.”
He arched his left eyebrow and she rushed on. “It’s not that I haven’t had the opportunity.”
He chuckled. “Oh, I believe that. I’m just glad. Real glad.” Then his lips met hers in a long kiss that curled her hair even more than that perm she’d used and sent her stomach into flips. He kissed her chin, her neck, then planted kisses to her cleavage. “I want to taste you, Dixie,” he said against her heated skin. “Every delectable inch of you.”
Before she could answer, his tongue stroked her left nipple, making it wet and bead, and driving the air out her lungs. He did the same to her right nipple, as her brain did a slow sizzle.
“Nick,” she panted. “I thought you were…we were desperate.”
“‘Desperate’ is vastly overrated.” His voice sounded ragged. Why wasn’t he just getting on with it?
He kissed her navel. “You smell so good. Your skin’s like silk.”
Her solar plexus quivered as he dropped kisses at the indent of her waist. Then his fingers teased open the soft folds between her legs and her eyes shot wide-open. “Nick?”
His tongue stroked her navel as his fingers imitated the movement. Her insides blazed, and her legs widened, letting him in deeper, making her ready for him. Too ready!
“Nick, I can’t…”
“Let it happen, Dixie,” he said, his breath hot against her belly. As his fingers stroked faster, her hips instinctively arched against him. And her body tensed in an unexpected orgasm. The room tilted…at least it felt as if it did, and her mind shattered in a million directions. How incredible! How perfect!
But she wanted him inside her, and then suddenly he was as her legs embraced him. He was so intimately a part of her now, not just physically but emotionally. She needed to make it good for him, not just take. Had a man ever treated her this way before? Never!
He thrust into her, longer, harder. Another orgasm claimed her as Nick climaxed, the moment more amazing than she had ever imagined.
His head fell beside hers, and his heavy breathing slowly returned to normal. “You are…beyond words, Dixie,” he whispered in her ear.
“I feel as though this was the first time I ever made love, Nick.” And in some ways it was. No man had ever put her first the way Nick had.
He finally braced himself on his elbows and gazed down at her, his lips in a half-smile. “You are an incredible lover, you know that?”
“It’s you, all you.”
He grinned and kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m going to clean up. You stay put.” He kissed her forehead and eased himself off her. She listened to his soft footsteps on the hardwood as he made his way to the bathroom.
“Well, that turned out good,” she said to herself. A smile tripped across her lips and she stifled a giggle. Never had she suspected she’d wind up having sex—mind-blowing sex—with Nick Romero. How could this have happened? All she’d planned on was for him to get in touch with his masculine side. Instead, he’d gotten in touch with her feminine side.
He came back and, without saying a word, pulled on his jeans. No cuddling, no afterglow. Okay, this was not a good sign. He sat where she’d helped him with his boots. That was a worse sign. He seemed lost in thought and made a face as if he’d eaten a lemon. Her lovemaking skills were a bit rusty, but she hadn’t expected that reaction. “What’s wrong? Everything was good—or great if you happen to be me.”
He rubbed his hand over his face. “I shouldn’t have done this. It wasn’t right.”
Uh-oh! She sat up and snatched her sweatshirt from the floor, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “What happened here was a whol
e lot more than right. What happened to, ‘you are beyond words, Dixie’?”
“The sex was good.” He gave her a forced smile, the kind that said all hell was about to break loose. “The sex was fantastic. But, like I said when we had dinner, I really am getting over a relationship. A long one. I don’t want you to be my rebound girl and that’s what I’m afraid this is. I’m attracted to you. We just proved that beyond a doubt. But….”
“Rebound girl?”
“And that’s not fair to you. I need time to get over—” He looked at the lamp. “Rose. We went together for years. Years and years, and I need time to adjust to life without her. To jump in the sack with you was wrong on my part. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Jump in the sack?”
“What I mean is you deserve better than a quick roll in the hay.”
“A rebound? A jump? A roll? This was nothing but a sporting event!”
He stood up, raking a hand through his hair. “The problem is I find you incredibly attractive, inside and out. You overwhelmed me, and right now I cannot be overwhelmed.”
She stood up in front of him because no one ever looked down at Dixie Carmichael. She narrowed her eyes. “I bet if some young chickie pranced her size-two wares across this room and gave you that come-to-mama wink you’d change your ideas real fast and just love being overwhelmed. Danny sure did.”
His eyes widened. “Hey, I’m not Danny.”
“One Saturday morning after Danny and I made love, I strolled downstairs to start the coffee, answered the doorbell and got served with divorce papers. He lied to me, manipulated me, used me and threw me away. ‘Nothing personal,’ he said. ‘I just want to get on with my life without you.’ Sound familiar? Well, it’s not happening again.” She pointed a stiff finger at the door. “It damn well is personal. Out.”
“It’s not like that, Dixie. We should talk.”
Talking would make a simple solution complicated. All she wanted was the jerk gone. She picked a saucepan from the box by the sofa and took aim.
He held up his hands, his eyes huge. “Not the pans!”
She flung it at the door. It hit with a hollow thump, bounced off, did a flip and fell to the floor. Okay, she felt a little better.
He looked from her to the dented pot as she grabbed the saucier. “This one I bounce off your head. Bet I’ll feel a lot better after that.”
“Okay, okay, I get the message. I’m going.” He grabbed the saucier from her hand, then retrieved his boots and shirt and dropped them all into the box. He hoisted it into his arms and paused at the door. “I swear I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve got to believe that, Dixie. You blow me away, and I can’t have that happen right now. It’s the circumstances, and these circumstances really suck. I like you, Dixie. I like you a hell of a lot more than you can imagine. But we can’t get involved. Dammit. It would be a big mistake.” Then he opened the door and left.
NICK PICKED HIS WAY across the dark sidewalk, muttering “Ouch, ouch, ouch” as his bare feet connected with pinecones, sticks, pebbles and everything else in the great outdoors. He deserved all the ouches and a whole lot more. If lightning struck him dead, he’d deserve that, too. Except, it was a clear night, so that was not likely to happen. How could he have made love to Dixie when he’d known it would end in a mess?
Because Dixie Carmichael turned him on…a lot! Mentally and physically. Making love to her was the easiest, most natural, most exciting thing he’d done in a long time.
He put the box of pans in the passenger seat of the pickup, leaned against the side of the vehicle and slid on his socks, yanked on his boots then his shirt. He climbed into the driver’s side and banged his head on the steering wheel.
“Damn, damn, damn.” She’d compared him to Danny, and Danny was an ass. That made Nick Romero an even bigger ass, because he’d hurt Dixie again. She suspected the reason he just wanted to be friends was that she wasn’t some young, hot babe. But she was all those things. She just didn’t believe it. No one deserved to be hurt once, much less twice, because she thought she was lacking in some way. Especially when the real reason was he couldn’t resist her and had to keep his distance as best he could, which didn’t work for crap.
He fired the engine, hit the lights and motored down the road. He needed to stay focused, and the only thing he focused on when he was with Dixie was Dixie. That didn’t help in finding smugglers.
Darkness surrounded him; stars dotted the sky; moonlight faded in and out of the pines; an autumn chill swept down from the mountains. It was a perfect night to be with Dixie, wide-open windows and making love to keep warm. “Ah, hell!”
He skidded around a turn that seemed to head up. He didn’t remember the turn being that sharp, and wasn’t he supposed to be going down? He took another hairpin turn and zeroed in on a big— “Buffalo! Holy crap!”
Nick hit the brakes and swerved onto the widened shoulder of the road. The truck skidded through a cluster of pines, then nosedived over the edge and bounced across rocks into a ditch before stopping dead against a tree trunk. The airbag exploded, flattening him to the back of the seat, then deflated. “Piss-poor ending to a really piss-poor day.” Then he remembered making love to Dixie. Not everything had been piss-poor.
He swiped the airbag from his lap, took his cell phone from the glove compartment, pressed it on, but got no reception. Big surprise there. He couldn’t even call Wes to come help. ’Course he’d laugh his butt off over Nick meeting up with a buffalo, but at least he’d help pull Nick back on the road.
He rummaged through the glove compartment, located a flashlight and shoved open the truck door. He might be able to get out by himself. The old carpet in the truck bed added weight, providing more traction. That was the second time tonight that the word had been used. Hadn’t Dixie said something about traction and boots and sex? He couldn’t get his mind off her, even in a ditch in the middle of flipping nowhere.
He had pulled off a piece of old carpet and was wedging it under the back wheels, when he heard the deep hum of one motor, then two. Trucks. And they were slowing down, pulling behind the trees he’d just cut through.
Nick doused the flashlight, then his vehicle’s headlights. Could be kids out for a joyride or a necking party. Except this road didn’t offer squat in the way of joy or a good ride and kids didn’t need to venture into the mountains to find a necking spot around here. And the motors weren’t like those of the pickups the kids around here drove. They were bigger, had more horsepower.
The trucks stopped, their motors idling, and Nick could see headlights at the edge. A man came into view. Tall, barrel chest, broad-shouldered. He said in a Texas twang, “You sure this is right? Maybe we’re lost. There’s nothing here.”
“That’s the whole point,” a younger voice replied as he walked into the beams. He was shorter, leaner, with a baseball cap on backward. He continued, “I checked the mileage when we exited the expressway. This is where we meet Theo. He’ll be a few minutes behind us so we don’t attract attention like a convoy coming up here.”
Another motor sounded in the distance, a bigger truck going slow. “See?” the younger man said. “We’re right where we should be. We’ll make a killing this time.”
Another young voice chimed in. “We’ll reach Chicago in two days if we drive straight through, then on to Cleveland. Got vendors ready and waiting for us. We get back here in five days and keep it up till the snow hits and we have to move south. I’m getting a bigger truck. Man, this is easy money. Where are you headed?”
“St. Louis and Nashville,” said another older voice. “Anyone ever tell you guys you talk too damn much?”
The bigger motor stopped and the men left the side of the road. Nick swore. He was outmanned and outgunned. All he had was a Glock taped under his seat in the truck. He wasn’t taking anyone down tonight and he had to keep quiet. If these guys suspected the FBI was onto them, they’d change routes and all the leads would be lost.
He couldn’t hear over
the rumble of the motors. An owl hooted nearby, something furry scurried in the bushes and the breeze dropped the temperature a few more degrees. Damn, he wanted to look over that rise, but if he snapped a twig or lost his footing, he was dead meat…literally.
Finally, truck doors slammed and one engine faded. A few minutes later the other trucks followed. Nick scurried to the top and peered over the side, hoping to get a license number, but it was too dark. The only thing he could make out was the back end of a white delivery truck heading out of the pines. He pulled himself onto the road, and as he did, he tripped over a small paper bag. He picked it up. It was blue, with Tiffany & Co. printed on the front in white. He stuffed the bag in his back pocket and checked his watch. The whole transfer had taken twenty-five minutes. Those guys had offloading the merchandise down to a science, and they’d be back in five days. Now he had to figure out where they’d meet up next time.
He stood on the road, and looked around. Nothing but tire tracks caught his attention till another motor sounded, coming his way up the hillside. A car this time. The place was Grand Central Station!
Nick jumped behind a stand of pines. Headlights illuminated the road as the car swung around the curve. Dixie’s Camaro. Sports cars were not the vehicle of choice for this terrain. He walked out from his hiding place, waving his arms. He really didn’t want her to see him because that would bring on a barrage of questions, but Dixie shouldn’t be out here alone with smugglers on the loose. Why hadn’t she stayed in the damn cabin, where she was safe? Never did he suspect that she’d go out driving in the middle of the night. And that was damn stupid of him.
She stopped and lowered the window. He poked his head inside, her unique womanly scent wrapping around him like a familiar warm blanket. Her eyes were bright and brazen as he said, “What are you doing here?”
A Fabulous Wedding Page 8