How to Handle a Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  He joined her, sliding onto the bench across from her. His long legs tangled with hers for one awkward moment, and she suppressed a wild urge to play footsie.

  “I’ll take you down in the truck,” he said. “We’ll get you turned around.”

  She shrugged. “I can do it.” She glanced over at the dogs, who were cooling off on the cold kitchen floor. “Your dogs were very helpful.”

  “Were they?”

  “They got in the backseat and wouldn’t get out.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. Apparently, she’d caught him in a good mood.

  She nodded toward the picture she’d noticed earlier. “So are those your parents?”

  He nodded.

  “And your brothers?”

  “For all intents and purposes.”

  She scanned the picture again—the blond boy, the dark-haired one, and Ridge himself, with his unruly mass of wavy, brown hair. “You’re all so different.”

  “We’re alike where it matters.”

  She wanted to ask if they’d been adopted. That would explain how different they looked. But the question seemed too personal. Despite his easy good humor, Ridge seemed guarded about his personal life.

  “Are they rodeo cowboys too?”

  He nodded. “Functioning rodeo cowboys. Unlike me.” He downed another sip of beer and set the bottle down a little too hard.

  “What happened?”

  “Got thrown.”

  “I’d imagine that happens a lot.”

  “It does.”

  His sharp tone was a clear indication that he didn’t want to talk about his injury, but she couldn’t hold back her curiosity.

  “Is it bad?”

  “Yes.” He stood up from the table and busied himself with the dishes, squirting soap in one side of the double sink and cranking on the hot water. Either he was embarrassed by the mess, or he didn’t want to talk about his injury. Or both.

  She stood and crossed the room, nudging him aside with her shoulder. “Here, let me. I should have done this earlier.”

  “No.” He nudged her back, a little too hard. The man didn’t know his own strength.

  “Yes.” Impulsively, she scooped up a handful of bubbles from the sink and swatted at him. Most of the white foam wound up on his chin, but a generous dot stuck to the end of his nose. It should have looked ridiculous, but the hard glint in his eyes shut down the giggle that welled up in Sierra’s throat. He scooped up some bubbles of his own and swatted at her, leaving a trail from ear to chin.

  A playful smile tilted his lips, but it was clear he wasn’t accustomed to losing games. She suspected a lot of bucking horses had seen that same narrow-eyed grin, and wondered if their big hearts had pounded as fast as her little one.

  Dodging back to the sink, she scooped up another handful of bubbles. He needed some on top of his head to complete the look.

  She should have gone for something less ambitious, because when she hiked herself up on her toes he grabbed her hand and held fast to her wrist. Her giggle exploded as the two of them wrestled. He was strong, even stronger than she’d expected. His grip on her wrist wasn’t painful, but it was powerful. There was no way she could escape, no matter how she twisted and turned.

  Inexorably, he forced her bubble-laden hand toward her own face.

  “Want some bubbles?” he teased. “Mmm… bubbles.”

  They were standing still now, locked in battle. She was resisting as best she could, but her arm muscles were starting to tire.

  “Yum,” he said.

  Her hand shook with the effort of holding him back, but it stopped just inches from her nose—and only because he stopped pushing.

  “Say ‘uncle.’” He grinned, his eyes on hers, and she almost forgot to resist.

  “Never! Ooh!”

  She said the last word through a face full of foam. Sputtering and blowing, she dove toward the sink and scooped out another handful. She couldn’t win on strength, so she went for speed, splashing his chest with water as well as bubbles.

  The fight was on. Dodging around him, she managed to soak the front of his shirt and the back of his jeans before he splashed what felt like half the sink down her front. She dove for the sink again and he grabbed both her wrists, pinning her with her back to the counter and her front to—

  Him.

  Oh.

  Their bodies were pressed together and she had nowhere to go. She wasn’t sure she’d have moved if she could, because his muscular body, damp and slick with soap, was pressed against her equally wet and slippery torso. Pressed hard.

  She looked down in shock and surprise. She hadn’t realized just how wet she was or how thin her flimsy bra was. No wonder he was turned on.

  She might as well be naked.

  Chapter 21

  “Oops.” Sierra tried to lift her hands to cover herself, but Ridge had her wrists, and he wasn’t letting go. Panting with exertion, she looked up at him and this time she really did forget to resist. Her hips were pressed to his, and a strange weakness seemed to be flowing from the pressure of his arousal, taking over her body and mind.

  This had gone way beyond playing. His eyes were locked on hers with an intensity that made something leap inside her, something graceful and fluid as a fine horse taking a fence. She felt all the fetters of everyday life fall away, and when he bent his head to kiss her, she responded without a thought for the future. There was only now.

  This minute, this man, this kiss.

  She hadn’t felt this good in years. Maybe she hadn’t felt this good ever. His lips were firm but pliant, his kiss gentle but masterful. She felt like he’d pushed a button that released all the day’s stress and strain, and as it drained from her body, she gave herself to the moment. She wanted to remember this: her first kiss with Ridge Cooper. It would probably be her only kiss with him, but that only made it matter more.

  It didn’t feel like a first kiss. It felt like they’d been together forever. He seemed to know when she needed him to take and when she wanted him to give. Somehow they’d skipped all the awkwardness of courtship and the tentative dance of seduction, and gone straight to something more—something way beyond a quick stolen kiss in the kitchen.

  He released her wrists—obviously he didn’t need to pin her down anymore—and set his hands on her hips. She reached up and nested her fingers in the curls at the nape of his neck, and the kiss deepened.

  His hands moved gently up her torso and down again, pressing the wet soapy shirt to her skin. She shivered, partly at the touch of the cold fabric but mostly at the feeling of his hands on her. Without breaking the kiss, they spun slowly away from the counter and moved across the kitchen in a sweet, swaying waltz. When they reached the doorway at the far end of the room, he pressed her to the doorjamb. After pressing his lips to hers as if sealing her to him, he stood back to look at her.

  She should have been shy about the wet shirt and the way her nipples had risen to the occasion. They were begging for his touch, but it wasn’t like his body wasn’t tattling on him too. She was surprised the zipper held.

  “What’s happening here?” His voice was hoarse with need.

  “Something good,” she said.

  He kissed her again, cupping her denim-clad butt and hoisting her against him. Shamelessly, she hooked one leg around his waist and buried her face in his neck, right at the curve where it met his shoulder. Breathing in the scent of him, hay and sun and leather, she had an urge to bite into the cord of muscle there. But then he rocked against her, and all she could do was moan, pressing her heel into him to push him closer.

  “You want to take this to the bedroom?” Caught up in the thrill of his breath fluttering in her ear, she barely heard what he said. Something about did she want?

  She didn’t know what she wanted. She wasn’t normally the type to fall into bed with men she barely knew. She knew that kind of thing usually didn’t end well—unless it ended quickly.

  Which this would. She was lea
ving, after all. Why not enjoy herself while she was here?

  Hmm. Ridge had asked a question. What was it?

  Did she want…

  Oh, yeah. She wanted.

  Whether it was wise to take what she wanted was another question, but right now, walking away would be impossible.

  He took her hand and led her into a bedroom decorated in Early American Fuddy-Duddy. It must have been his parents’ room, because no man would choose the flowered wallpaper, the delicate china lamps, or the fussy crocheted bedspread. Lace curtains fluttered at the windows, and a worn rug hooked with cabbage roses warmed the bare floorboards. It seemed wildly out of character for Ridge, but the contrast only highlighted the rough, masculine nature of the man. As he pulled her toward the bed, she forgot about the decor.

  Ridge was nothing like the guys she’d dated in college or the men she’d worked with in Denver. Those men had been in shape, buffed up from hours spent in the gym. But Ridge’s muscles were long and sinewy, formed by hard work and long hours in the saddle.

  She’d never thought of herself as repressed, but the feelings rushing through her were so far beyond anything she’d ever felt that she almost didn’t recognize herself. It was like she was made of lust. Heat and longing rushed through her veins, taking over every cell of her body, and images of the two of them together—together and naked, twisting in the bed—flickered in her mind like a silent movie reel.

  There was still a little bit of the old Sierra left—that little voice that looked to the future and planned things out. The voice told her to tense and turn away. It told her to apologize, maybe laugh at her own foolishness, drop him a compliment or two to make up for leading him on, and walk out. It told her to go back to her car, back to her apartment, and back to her ordinary life.

  But she didn’t want to.

  She wanted to stay here, with him, and take a break from being a good girl. Heck, she wanted to be bad as she could be. She wanted to strip off her clothes and give herself to him, and damn the consequences.

  She wanted to be impulsive, just this once. And he looked like he’d be happy to help.

  ***

  Ridge eased his foot back and nudged the door shut, but the cool air streaming in the window gave it a little extra oomph. It slammed, and both he and Sierra started like guilty teenagers.

  She dropped his hand. He thought he’d lost her as her gaze moved from lace curtains billowing like ghosts in the evening air to the framed Charlie Russell print of a cattle drive over the bed; from the pile of jeans and shirts he’d tossed on the old pressed-back rocking chair in the corner to the handmade quilt on the bed. Last, she fixed on the old wood-framed mirror above the dresser, where the two of them stood framed by ornate carved oak leaves. In the fading sunlight, they looked washed of color, like an old-fashioned sepia photograph.

  Except they were both soaked. Their little game with the dishwater had been fun while the foam lasted, but now they were both chilled and damp. Her hair was spiky and wild, and her green eyes warmed as she looked him up and down.

  “You’re wet.” Her gaze was fixed on his chest. He was wet, all right. The shirt was freezing cold and stuck to every inch of his skin.

  His eyes on hers, he shucked it off in one swift gesture then dropped his eyes to her breasts. She had world-class breasts, small but perfectly formed, and the soaked fabric of her shirt made their outline unmistakable. Seeing how aroused she was gave him the confidence to keep looking, to press his hips a little closer to hers, to stoke the flame rising between them.

  She followed his gaze and looked down at her body as if she’d never seen it before, and then, slowly and deliberately, she tugged at the hem of her shirt. It stuck to her skin as she peeled it off, revealing the slight swell of her stomach over low-slung jeans, the graceful curve of her waist, and finally, the answering curve of her breasts, swelling from the barely there confines of a thin, stretchy bra, white with tiny pink flowers. When the fabric lifted to reveal her face, he didn’t see the professional of his first visit or the cowgirl she’d been this afternoon in the corral. She was all woman. Eve, Salome, Delilah—a temptress, moist-lipped and breathless and sexy as hell.

  He stepped closer and cupped her chin, fixing his eyes on hers. She answered his unspoken question with a come-hither look as her tongue flicked out, pink and kittenish, to moisten her lips. That was all the signal he needed. Sweeping his hands down her neck, he eased the straps of her bra down her shoulders then crossed the stretch of elastic to the delicate hooks that held it together. With a quick flick of his fingers, the clasp released. The damp fabric stuck to her skin but finally gave way to gravity, falling away in slow motion to reveal her one perfect inch at a time.

  As the scrap of fabric fell to the floor, he caught the weight of her breasts in his palms. His thumbs stroked the pink buds of her nipples and he leaned in to kiss her, deeply this time, with unmistakable intent.

  For a woman who’d seemed so uptight hours before, she returned his passion with a fervor that surprised him. Their slow-motion waltz changed to a sexy samba as he unbuttoned her jeans, and she fell back onto the bed and kicked her legs up in a gesture so joyful and abandoned that he almost lost his focus. Timing was everything, and as she rocked back, he slipped the tight denim over her taut backside, tugging it down her legs to reveal a pair of matching flowered panties as thin as the bra.

  There wasn’t much left to his imagination at this point, but still his animal mind was riffing on the possibilities, picturing a dozen positions that would show off that graceful body to best advantage. But when she rolled up onto her hands and knees, the view was like nothing he’d ever imagined. Smiling, saucy, wanton, she glanced over her shoulder and offered herself, scanty panties and all.

  ***

  Sierra didn’t know what had happened to her. She seemed to have lost all inhibition, urged by the testosterone aura that surrounded Ridge, to shed her pretensions and offer herself with glorious abandon. She’d never felt so beautiful, so wanton, or so willing. It wasn’t just her skin that warmed to his touch; the heat shot straight to her heart.

  Which was a little troubling. This wasn’t the man for her. There was no future she could see that showed them working together toward any kind of happy ending. She was no cowgirl, and she couldn’t see Ridge helping her save kids in the inner city.

  But not every relationship had to have a future. This could be a special feature, for one night only. Ridge was so different from any man she’d ever known. He was a throwback of sorts, and being with him was like traveling back in time, to the Old West of the movies.

  She wanted him, and she wanted him now. She wanted him whatever way he’d have her, hard and fast or long and slow. She pushed away sensible Sierra and let animal Sierra take over. Animal Sierra didn’t have any warning bells to keep her safe. She was ready for anything, open to the elemental lightning streaks of passion that were arcing between her and this man.

  Pure sex. Now.

  Fortunately, he caught on quickly. Grasping her hips, he pulled her against the hard bulge of his crotch and rocked against her. She dropped to her elbows and widened the spread of her legs as he leaned forward and cupped her breasts. They hung in his hands, aching and heavy with longing, and she thought she’d explode when he worked them with his fingers, squeezing, pinching, tormenting her nipples until they burned with the rough touch of his fingers as she panted and clung to the sheets with her fists.

  He let go long enough to unfasten his jeans and jerk them down over his thighs, and she gasped. There was nothing underneath those jeans, and his thick cock sprang out and lay in the cleft of her buttocks.

  The world that had been spinning in a riotous arc stopped and slowed as he held her steady, breathing hard. Hooking his fingers in the elastic of her panties, he slid them slowly down. Now she could feel him there, right there, and she thought she might die of wanting him.

  “Sierra,” he said. “My God, Sierra.”

  His voice was hoarse
and low. She’d done that. She’d brought him to the edge.

  He framed her hips in his hands and flipped her over so she lay sprawled on the bed, spread out and shameless and wanting him so badly she felt open and empty and aching. Never, ever had she wanted a man like this, with a need so primal she wanted to scream like a cat in heat and claw him to her.

  But he stopped, panting, squeezing his eyes closed like a man enduring the ultimate torture. He drew in a long, shuddering breath, and she almost swore aloud. Was he going to get all conscientious now? Didn’t he know she was past caring, past any kind of scruples?

  He knelt, and for one horrifying moment, she thought he was going to apologize, which would have been unbearably embarrassing—especially since he’d be apologizing not to her face, but to her unmentionables, which were not listening.

  So when he reached up and set his palms on her thighs, gently parting her legs, she almost fainted with relief and gratitude. And when she felt the warm wet touch of his tongue, she let out a cry of joy and closed her eyes, giving herself up to pleasure.

  ***

  Ridge had been wanted by women before. Lots of women. Women who were pretty frank about their sexuality, women who prowled the rodeo grounds and the beer tents trolling for cowboys as intently as fishermen tossing their nets.

  But he’d never been wanted like this. And he’d never felt this answering need before, a tug at his vitals that drew him to make love to Sierra in spite of every barrier he’d thrown up in the past week.

  Because he’d wanted her from the first time he saw her. He could admit that now, since there was obviously no hiding it, from her or from himself.

  And the wanting had only grown as he’d gotten to know her. Watching her with the boys, the dogs, and even witnessing her ridiculous pursuit of his ancient old horse had only confirmed what he’d known instinctively from the start: she was different from the others. If ever he wanted to take what a woman had to offer and not stop taking, this was it.

  He felt like he was kneeling at some altar of perfect womanhood. She was offering a honeyed peach glossed with nectar so sweet he knew one taste wouldn’t be enough.