“What’s your vote, Jesse?” Sierra asked.
Everyone was looking at him, waiting for his response.
His sister sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, correctly interpreting his blank look to mean he hadn’t been paying attention.
“Let me recap for you. Should we move this party to Rosita’s for some real food and margaritas?” Sierra said. “Casey and Jed are arguing for steak at the Graff. CJ and I want margaritas. Roy and Susie are split. So you’ve got the deciding vote.”
“It’s CJ’s night,” he said.
Sierra did a little air punch. “Yesss. Totally called it. What CJ wants, CJ gets.”
“Tonight, anyway,” CJ said, her brown eyes bright with laughter.
She was so stinkin’ pretty, it made his chest ache. Along with other parts of his anatomy that hadn’t forgotten the way she’d climbed on top last night and taken charge.
He made a point of falling back to walk with Roy and Susie Cooper as they made the short journey to Rosita’s, and when they got to the restaurant he made sure he was sitting at the other end of the table from CJ. It was that or make a fool of himself.
They ordered enough food for two armies and jugs of margaritas, and when they were stuffed and happy, Sierra suggested looking in at the Graff to see if there was any dancing to be had. The Coopers tapped out at that point, explaining they had a long drive tomorrow, and CJ said goodbye to them outside Rosita’s.
They discovered a local band playing covers at the Graff, and Sierra immediately threw her coat at Casey and dragged CJ onto the dance floor. Jesse stood with his brothers watching the action from the sidelines. He tried not to stare at CJ’s swaying hips and perfect ass and failed miserably.
After ten minutes, Casey leaned across and spoke in his ear.
“I’ll leave you to your self-flagellation,” he said, clapping a hand on Jesse’s shoulder before heading off to join a bunch of local cowboys.
Jesse shoved his hands into his back pockets, unimpressed with his brother’s words and the knowing smirk Casey had been wearing when he walked away. This was the curse of having smart-asses in the family.
Jed stuck it out another five minutes before making some excuse about having an early night.
“You all right to get home?” he asked, car keys already in hand.
“I’m good,” Jesse assured him. He’d cut himself off and stuck to soda after a couple of margaritas. He figured by the time Sierra and CJ were done dancing, he’d be more than fine to drive them home.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jed turned away, then almost immediately turned back. “Ask her to dance. Worst thing she can say is no.”
Jesse shook his head as his brother headed for the exit. Apparently he was doing a truly dismal job of hiding his feelings for CJ. He was going to have to get a grip on that before next weekend.
Casey had left Sierra’s jacket over the back of a nearby chair, and he collected it and went to the bar to see if he could get a coffee. He could, and he nursed it at the bar while Sierra and CJ continued to whoop it up on the dance floor, laughing and bumping hips and generally having a good time.
Once or twice he caught himself smiling in response to a move or a face CJ pulled and had to have a stern word with himself. Was it any wonder his whole family knew he was into CJ, when he was watching her like a lovesick teenager?
He was on his second cup of coffee, his back firmly to the dance floor, when Sierra appeared out of nowhere and grabbed his arm.
She was slightly out of breath, her cheeks flushed, and clearly in the middle of having a damned good time.
“I need the bathroom. Go dance with CJ, keep her company.”
“I don’t do dancing.”
“Yeah, you do. Come on. For CJ. She’s celebrating, remember?” Sierra’s tone was cajoling as she tugged on his arm.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” he said as he set his coffee cup down.
“It’s part of the job description.”
CJ was sitting in a seat by the dance floor when Sierra towed Jesse back to her.
“Here. Jesse’s subbing for me.”
Neither of them had a chance to say anything before she disappeared.
Jesse offered CJ a wry smile. “You want to keep dancing? I don’t have Sierra’s moves but I can keep you company.”
A small frown appeared between her eyebrows before she shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Together they moved onto the dance floor, quickly finding a few square feet to call their own. Jesse started shuffling his feet from side to side, hoping his hands weren’t doing anything too dumb. CJ lifted her hands in the air, her hips moving sinuously.
“I actually really love this song,” she shouted over the music.
She certainly knew how to move to it. Meanwhile, he felt like someone had swapped his own feet for two tree stumps as he clomped back and forth.
And he had only himself to blame for letting Sierra drag him into this.
Like an answer to a prayer, the song ended, and he scanned the room, looking for his sister. How long did it take for a woman to go to the bathroom, anyway? There was no sign of her, however, and the next song started up almost immediately. From the opening bars it was clear it was going to be a ballad, and everyone around them either stepped closer to slow dance or abandoned the floor altogether.
CJ paused, a question in her eyes, and he figured he’d be a fool if he gave up the opportunity to hold her, even if it was in public. He’d probably never get the chance again.
He gestured for her to step closer, and after a heartbeat she did so, her left hand sliding into his right, the other coming to rest on his bicep just below his shoulder. He positioned his hand high on her back, then led her into the simple two-step his mother had drummed into him before his high school prom so many years ago.
CJ went with him easily, effortlessly, and he bit back a smile.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was half expecting you to want to lead.”
“Careful, or you won’t escape this dance floor with your toes intact,” she warned him.
“I should probably warn you, Carmodys don’t scare easily.”
“And I should probably warn you, Coopers are complete animals when we’re bent on revenge.”
“Yeah? What kind of animal?” he asked, not bothering to hide his smile now.
“The kind that eats Carmodys for breakfast.”
“I seem to remember enjoying that, to be honest,” he said.
CJ’s head tilted back as she let out a loud, earthy laugh at his shameless flirting.
Which was when he registered they’d drawn close enough to be almost hip to hip, with barely an inch between her chest and his.
Close enough that if he lowered his head, their mouths would meet.
He could feel himself getting hard just thinking about it.
CJ seemed to realize what they’d unconsciously done at the same time he did and the smile slipped from her lips. For a long moment they simply danced, the electric promise of mutual awareness crackling between them, their gazes and bodies locked together.
The need to kiss her, taste her, get closer to her was like a drumbeat in his chest and groin, but he wasn’t so far gone he’d forgotten where they were—on the dance floor in one of Marietta’s most popular venues.
So even though it killed him, he eased a couple of inches away. Enough to make them look like friends enjoying a dance instead of lovers indulging in publicly acceptable foreplay.
CJ’s hand tightened around his, almost as though she was protesting the move, and he saw a flicker of something that looked a lot like disappointment in her eyes before she dropped her gaze to the collar of his shirt.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice subdued.
“Wish I could say it was my pleasure,” he muttered.
She huffed out a little laugh, her gaze meeting his again, and there was so much warmth and light there, s
o much of her spirit and wildness and courage, he couldn’t stop himself from asking what he shouldn’t.
“Stay,” he said. “Don’t go sightseeing this week. Stay with me out at the ranch.”
Her mouth opened on a sudden intake of breath.
But she didn’t look away.
“People would talk,” she finally said, and he felt a surge of hope, because she hadn’t said no.
“Jed needs help repairing some fencing. We’ll say you just stayed on to help. You know how to wire a fence, right?”
“Could do it in my sleep.”
He gave her his best slow smile. “Darlin’, I’ve got other plans for bedtime.”
She laughed, but she looked troubled and her gaze fell away from his. “Can I sleep on it?”
He tried not to let his disappointment show. “Of course.”
The song ended, and they released each other and moved apart by mutual unspoken accord. Jesse saw Sierra lurking on the edge of the dance floor, a cheeky smile on her lips.
So much for keeping what was happening between him and CJ on the down low. Although his family would work it out pretty quickly if she took him up on his offer.
A pretty big “if” when all was said and done.
“You two ready to call it quits?” he asked, fully expecting Sierra to give him grief for being a wuss before dragging CJ back onto the dance floor.
To his surprise, she checked her watch and pulled a face. “Hate to say it, but we’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
“And I’m doing breakfast with my folks before they leave,” CJ said.
“Then let’s hit the road, ladies.”
He drove CJ back to the rodeo grounds to collect her gear from her truck, then to the B&B on Bramble Lane where she’d managed to score a room for the night. It was within easy walking distance of downtown, which meant she’d be able to use the pedestrian bridge to cross to the rodeo grounds in the morning to collect her truck.
He stayed behind the wheel when she climbed out of his pickup, but Sierra got out and gave her a big hug.
“You stay in touch, okay? I don’t want to be a liar when I brag about my big rodeo star friend, CJ Cooper,” Sierra said.
“You’ll hear from me, I promise,” CJ said.
She hefted her duffel bag and met his gaze through the side window.
“Thanks for the ride, Jesse. I’ll see you in Great Falls.”
There was a finality to her words that made him think she’d already made a decision about his offer and he did his best not to let his disappointment show.
“You will. Drive safe.”
She smiled and waved, then turned away. Sierra got back into the pickup, but he remained idling at the curb until CJ was safely inside.
“Such a gentleman,” Sierra said.
“Shut it, Squirrel,” he growled, then he pulled into the road and headed for home.
*
CJ gave herself a stern lecture as she showered and got ready for bed.
It would be madness to take Jesse up on his offer. As good as it had been between them, it would only make future rodeos that much more difficult if she indulged herself by letting their one night of passion slide into a week. First thing tomorrow, she needed to text him and tell him thanks but no thanks and draw a firm, black, indelible line under the craziness of this weekend.
It was the smart, sensible thing to do.
Decision made, she finished brushing her teeth, rinsed out her mouth and climbed into the antique oak four-poster bed that was the centerpiece of her room. As she’d learned when she checked in, each of Bramble House’s guest rooms was themed after a color—she’d been assigned the White Room. The decor could have been stark and cold, but instead it was both calm and comforting, with delicate broderie anglaise curtains at the window and an intricately quilted, snowy-white duvet cover on the bed.
The comfort was more than just an illusion, too—the mattress was firm but soft in all the right ways, the duvet light and fluffy, the linen fine as silk on her skin. Turning off the light, she settled onto her pillow with a small, weary sigh and closed her eyes.
It had been a fun night, and an amazing, challenging, emotional, exciting day, and she fully expected to drop off in seconds.
Memories floated up as she drifted toward sleep. The joyful moment when she’d spotted her parents in the crowd. The rush of euphoria when the whistle sounded and she knew she’d covered her bronc. The moment when Jesse had looked her in the eye and congratulated her on her win.
Which somehow seemed to lead inevitably to the loaded, heated moment on the dance floor when she’d almost forgotten everything that was at stake thanks to the proximity of Jesse’s big body to her own.
She’d been so close to kissing him. To saying to hell with it all. But Jesse had stepped back. Then he’d asked her to spend the week with him at his family’s ranch instead of sightseeing before the rodeo in Great Falls next weekend.
Lying in the luxurious softness of her bed in Bramble House, CJ could still feel an echo of the shock that had raced through her at his words—shock that had been followed by a rush of heat that had licked through her like wildfire. Being in his arms, having him moving inside her, his mouth on her breasts, his hands coaxing pleasure after pleasure from her tightly wound body…
There was no denying that those few hours they’d spent together had been some of the most decadent, erotic and sensual of her life.
Her eyes popped open. Why had rejecting Jesse seemed so much more clear-cut when she’d been brushing her teeth in the bright light of the bathroom ten minutes ago?
In the darkness, it was so much easier to remember the brush of his fingers across her skin and so much harder to hang on to all the reasons why she needed to be sensible. And she needed to be sensible.
Didn’t she?
No one need ever know, a little devil whispered in her mind. As Jesse had said, they could put it around that she’d picked up some casual work out at his family’s ranch. If she was one of his male competitors, no one would blink an eye at the arrangement; rodeo cowboys signed on for casual work all the time to subsidize their incomes.
But she wasn’t a man, and the likelihood was that she’d get some side-eye from people if word got out.
But how likely was that, really? Most of her fellow competitors had left town already, hitting the road so they could be back at their nine-to-five jobs or their own ranches come tomorrow morning. And it wasn’t as though she and Jesse were going to be roaming around town putting on a show for the locals. Most likely they’d simply be busy working out at the ranch, keeping their heads down. Keeping to themselves.
It’d be a way to pay back the Carmodys’ kindness and generosity, too, helping them out with their fencing.
Aren’t you the Good Samaritan, her little devil mocked.
Because if she opted to stay with Jesse, it wouldn’t be because she wanted to repay the Carmodys’ kindness.
Once she started to genuinely entertain the possibility of giving in to her own desires, every trace of weariness left her body. All she could think about was Jesse. The smell of him. The feel of his skin against her own. The silky-rough hair on his legs and chest. His big, talented hands. The way he’d trembled with the force of his climax as he lost himself. The violent pleasure of her own climax when he’d tortured her with his mouth.
Muttering a four-letter curse, she rolled onto her belly and pushed her pillow into a different shape. And still the fantasies and memories kept coming. Liquid and hot, they turned her body molten and moist with desire, to the point where she was seriously considering jumping out of bed and stepping into a cold shower.
It would only be a temporary reprieve, she knew. The moment she’d met Jesse, she’d been aware of him, and that awareness had only intensified since. It wasn’t going to go away just because she willed it to, because if that was the case, she wouldn’t be lying here, horny and wet and frustrated as hell.
The only way she was going to kill
this awareness was to satisfy it.
She sat up, blinking in the darkness, a little shocked at her own audaciousness. Was she really going to get out of her luxurious, welcoming bed to travel out to the Carmody ranch in the dead of night so she could crawl into Jesse Carmody’s bed for a booty call?
Was she seriously that far gone?
Her answer was the tight, needy clench within her as she pictured herself sliding into bed beside a rumpled, sleep-warm Jesse.
“You’re crazy,” she whispered to herself, but she was already throwing back the covers and reaching out to flick on the bedside lamp.
Moving quietly, she dressed in jeans and a sweater. Grabbing her boots, wallet, phone and car keys, she made her way quietly, carefully out of her room, downstairs and out of the house.
No need to tell the whole of Bramble House she was about to go climb in a man’s window at one in the morning.
She sat on the edge of the porch to pull on her boots, then she pulled up a map of Marietta on her phone and got her bearings. It only took her fifteen minutes to walk through the quiet streets to the park and across the footbridge to the rodeo grounds. Her car was cold and covered with mist, and she let it idle for a few minutes before pulling out onto the highway.
Doubts started to tickle at about the halfway point—then she remembered the way Jesse had looked at her on the dance floor, his body rigid with barely suppressed desire. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind he would be happy to see her.
The trick was going to be sneaking into the house without alerting the rest of his family.
She took it slowly up the driveway, turning off the engine to coast the final few feet. It made her feel both foolish and giggly as she pulled up behind Jesse’s truck, like a teenager sneaking her father’s car back into the garage after an illicit joyride.
The Carmody house was in darkness, the only light coming from the quarter moon hanging overhead in the pitch-black sky. Sliding out of her truck, she eased the door shut and made her way as quietly as possible to the front porch. One hand on the balustrade for balance, she pulled off her boots and padded barefoot around the porch to the rear of the house.
The Cowboy Meets His Match Page 17