They signed off, and Rochelle found her tongue.
“So I’m holing up now?” she asked.
“It’d be wise.”
Maybe her mind still wasn’t working as it should, but she chafed at the instruction. “So you want me to send a message to the original creeper that all he has to do to win this little game of his is terrorize me and I’ll slink into the shadows?”
“Let me put it to you this way—is your life worth proving that point? Because next time it might not be juice coming at you. It could be a revolver at a signing or a knife at an interview. With your book tour, you’re announcing where you’re gonna be to every crazy who jumps on this train, and that gives any and all creepers time to plan.”
He made perfect sense—she merely didn’t want to admit that she could lose her freedom just like that. But she also didn’t ever want to be in another situation where she might get hurt—or get others hurt.
“If we’re smart,” Gideon said, taking a step toward her, “we’ll call Suzanne and have her rearrange those interviews you were going to today. Skype them, FaceTime them, do whatever you need to do. Hell, if you absolutely have to go out, meet your interviewers at another private location tonight that’s unannounced, somewhere you choose.”
She nodded. Now that things had quieted down, she was starting to tremble again, but it wasn’t with adrenaline. She was pissed as hell.
Dammit, she hated being ruled like this. But then she remembered the stream of red flying at her.
She gathered all her guts and got on her phone to Suzanne.
Gideon watched her as she spoke to her manager, who had already contacted the media with the help of Rochelle’s PR people. They had indeed postponed the interviews, but Suzanne was dealing with something more pressing right now—she was wrangling some bloggers who’d been at the R&T and seen everything go down with Creeper Two. Needless to say, Suzanne wasn’t sure when she’d be home.
“You just sit tight for now,” she said to Rochelle. “I’ll take care of everything on this end.”
“But the signings we have planned for the day after tomorrow and then after that . . .”
“Things will die down and we can always get more security who’ll do some very stringent crowd control, if you’d like. Everything will work out, Rochelle.”
“I just don’t want to disappoint readers by not showing up at the events.”
“We’re going to do our best.”
As Rochelle hung up, she was determined to go back to the status quo. The body-guarding fee would go up—BGs based their price on the danger level among other things—but that didn’t matter to her. She wasn’t going to let crazy dictate her life.
When she glanced back at Gideon, he was brooding, the gunpowder mark on his cheek giving him an air of lethal darkness. Spots of cherry juice were like badges, all testifying that he’d been willing to take a deadly hit for her.
Her pulse jammed through her again, pounding in her belly, traveling lower, coiling in her until she ached. Had she gone from being a postattack wreck to a warped turn-on?
“Needless to say,” she said, nearly breathless, “you’re going to get an excellent bonus on this job.”
He didn’t smile at her attempt to joke. He only walked over to her, his boots thudding on the floor, stamping down her heartbeat. And when he stood in front of her, surveying her again, she got lost in his gaze.
“You should get out of those stained clothes, Shel,” he said.
Shel. Just like the old days.
“Right.” But she wasn’t moving.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“I know.” But she didn’t sound as confident as usual, and she was sure it wasn’t because of the creeper situation.
It was that Gideon was standing so close that she could smell a certain scent coming from him—the combination of pine, soap, and skin that no one else had ever had. With the addition of the cherry juice, it was a sweet, heady, earthy combination that was sending her into a spinning tizzy.
When he put a hand on her arm, she nearly shot up to the ceiling, she was so on edge.
He said, “You seem angry more than anything now.”
“You might’ve guessed that I straightened myself out in the bathroom. All that’s left is anger.” And a lot of other stuff she wasn’t able to identify yet, because it was all so raw.
He gently led her toward the stairs. “Come on. You’ll feel better after you get into a clean outfit.”
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. If she said it enough times, it’d be true.
“I know that. You’ve always been strong and capable.”
Yeah, she’d certainly been that when she’d been crying in the bathroom.
He brought her up the stairs and into her room, then her connecting bathroom. The marbled counters, floors, and walls all seemed so unfamiliar, inconsequential, and she pulled away from him, coming to lean against the sink. She wasn’t using it to hold herself up this time. No, she was gripping it, still angry.
So damned angry at not being able to control what’d happened today. Angry that everything seemed to be whirling away from her, whether it was this creeper shit or even that night seventeen years ago when she’d lost control in the most personal way possible with a boy named Gideon.
God, she wished she had some of that control back.
In the mirror, she saw herself: her dark, disordered hair, her skin still dotted by juice stains even though she’d splashed herself with water earlier, and her pale pink vest spotted red.
Gideon stood next to her, their gazes locking in the reflecting glass. Aside from his thick, mussed hair, he looked as composed as ever, stalwart and solid, like that Old West sheriff she’d pictured him as the other night.
“Here,” he said, reaching over to a stand-alone wrought-iron shelf that held the linens. He came away with a washcloth, which he ran under some water from the faucet.
Without asking, he brushed it over her face. She closed her eyes at the jerk in her chest. It speared downward, through her gut, toward her sex.
The adrenaline started up again. A very good kind of adrenaline this time.
“Did I even thank you for what you did?” she whispered, opening her eyes.
“You don’t have to worry about that.” His voice was as soft as it’d been when they were kids, in the dimness of that barn. Intimate, as if it were just the two of them and no one else in the world. But this was a different intimacy now—the closeness of having endured something that could have ended in tragedy.
He stroked the cloth over the rest of her cheek, washing her with such care that she nearly forgot that he was supposed to be keeping his distance.
“Thank you,” she said anyway. “It seems like such a lame thing to say when you could’ve gotten so hurt, Gideon.”
“It’s my—”
“I know it’s your job.” But had he also been just doing his job in the limo when they’d been zooming away from the saloon? Had she only been imagining the utter fear in his eyes as he’d held her face in his hands?
Was he just doing his job now?
The thought heated her blood that much more, heated her all the way through. Maybe he wasn’t the type of quick-draw guy who’d ever stick around, but she was more convinced than ever that she wasn’t just a client to him.
And it didn’t help when he dragged the cloth down to her neck.
Her tummy flipped, and she leaned into his touch, instinctively rubbing her jaw against the back of his hand.
He would’ve taken a bullet for me . . .
She grasped his black T-shirt, her mind fuzzy with desire and the need to make things right with him and a thousand other emotions that cut and scraped against each other in their rush to come to the forefront. She wasn’t sure of what she was doing, only that she was lifting his s
hirt and sliding her hand over his waist.
Oh, he was chiseled, muscled even beyond what she’d guessed.
He dropped the cloth and wrapped his fingers around her wrist.
“Shel . . .”
“What?”
She angled her head so that their gazes were linked again, and what she saw shocked her: naked passion. A reflection of the night they’d had each other only to part with disappointment hanging in the air.
But there was one more thing, and it was all Rochelle needed to see: the yearning to have her again, whether it was because of a postadrenaline rush or because he’d also fantasized about a reset.
She’d never felt closer to anyone than she did at that moment as she threw all her reservations away and surged toward him, pressing her mouth to his.
***
Stop, Gideon told himself as she kissed him, the air clutching in his lungs while his hands opened helplessly.
She’s a client.
She’s untouchable.
But here he was, letting her kiss him, his hands beginning to fist as he fought himself.
It was just that she had been battling so hard to retain her dignity, and he knew Rochelle Burton never misplaced her cool—not when she’d been a lost little rich girl on the ranch and definitely not when she’d come to hire him as a bodyguard. That’s why he’d let himself get a little closer to her.
Big mistake, because now, what could he do when she was crushing her lips to his, making a moan build up in his chest until it threatened to come out on a rough curse and . . .?
Goddammit.
Instead of telling her this couldn’t happen, he lost his own battle, digging his hands into her hair, and the thickness of it . . . Shit, it drove him wild, because he’d dreamed of feeling that hair so many times, of tightening his fingers in it, of bringing her closer to him until she gasped beneath his mouth, feeling how his cock was already responding to her.
“Gideon,” she whispered against him, and when she wiggled her hips to grind even nearer, he cursed out loud, holding her harder.
She made a soft sound of protest . . . or maybe sharp longing . . . or maybe a hundred other things his brain wasn’t able to decipher. Whatever she was feeling, his libido had already taken over, even as his brain offered a few trailing, reason-filled gasps.
Client . . . Her cousins will kill you . . . It’s too soon after an emotional event . . .
Nope, his cock didn’t hear any of that.
Her lips parted under his, and he slid his tongue into her, slowing down the kiss as he went deep. He tasted her, devoured her, pressed his thumb to her neck where an artery thudded like something rolling and bumping down a hill, runaway and rogue. It echoed his heartbeat pound for pound.
Grasping for oxygen, she pulled in a breath, leaning back, her chin against his. “It’s about time,” she whispered, the words warming his mouth. She nipped at his bottom lip and did it again, pulling him into her and then sucking off of him. He felt her hand creep down from his shirt to his cock, and he groaned.
Stop now, he thought. Now or never . . .
“Shel, . . .” he said.
“Don’t talk yourself out of this, damn you.” She cupped him, and he flinched with hunger. “Don’t you dare.”
Like he had the strength, even if there were still echoes of his much smarter and wiser brain ricocheting through him.
Client . . . Her cousins . . . Off-limits . . .
But blood was thundering in his dick, and he was already straining against his zipper. She traced his length through his trousers, coming to his head, using her thumb to circle it.
Damn, she’d learned a thing or two over the years. The Rochelle he’d been with hadn’t known what to do with a cock—not that he didn’t find that challenging. All he’d wanted that night was to be her first, to hear her sounds of surprise and discovery.
So much for good intentions.
And the last of his blasted out of him when she gave him a gentle squeeze.
“Fuck,” he gritted, tightening his grip on her hair. Suddenly he wasn’t the bodyguard who’d always resisted his clients, no matter how sexy or beautiful. He was reduced to the sum of his male parts, all throbbing and kicking at him to have her. And to do it right this time
As she kept her hand against him, she swept him into another kiss, but this one was more desperate than the last. It was sloppy, messy, just like when they’d been kids.
He didn’t care, because a red haze had blanketed his thoughts, and only one final warning had made its way through.
Last chance . . .
But he was a slave to his lust, and he ripped at her vest, buttons popping off. She opened her mouth against him in another gasp. Flailing, she helped him strip off that vest, then her bra.
Fast, he thought. Going so fast, like he was at the wheel of a car that’d hit an oil slick and he was careening all over the road . . .
Yet that didn’t stop him from working at the button of her pants, ripping at it, fumbling with her zipper in his haste to have her bared to him.
And when she was, he almost exploded altogether, because this Rochelle . . .? Not like the old Rochelle.
She leaned back against the counter, watching him as he ravenously took in her breasts with his gaze: round, heavy, with delectable coral tips that beaded into stimulated nubs right before his gaze. In fact, she was all curves, from the indentation of her waist to the luscious flare of her hips to her long, voluptuous thighs that slimmed into shapely calves and ankles.
“So has anything changed over the years?” she asked.
No, he thought, because he was damned well about to come all over her like he was eighteen again. Not that he’d been so fast on that night . . . but he’d always regretted that what they’d done hadn’t lasted longer.
But how could he last with a body like this in front of him?
She latched onto the bottom of his shirt, brushing his belly with her knuckles. His muscles jumped, the lining of his gut violently contracting.
“Take it off,” she said.
Was this the woman he’d been comforting not so long ago? Because she’d sure taken charge. That didn’t exactly surprise him, seeing as he suspected Rochelle would fight back at any of her weaknesses with this kind of fervor. Was this just about regaining her composure, showing him and herself that she didn’t get weak?
He started to also wonder where the reserved, curious girl he’d known so long ago was, but then she pulled at his shirt, yanking it upward. His mind blanked again.
The material stuck to his back and side because of the dried juice, but he let her take that shirt off, throw it across the bathroom, then sweep her gaze over him. After she’d finished checking him out, she smiled. Then, much to his damnable amazement, she took him by the belt and tugged him back to her.
When she leaned toward him and licked his chest, tasting the juice that had trickled down from his face and neck, it was as if she was proving a couple things at once: she was giving it right back to the saloon creeper, flying in that woman’s face and showing her she could drink up anything that was tossed at her, plus she was showing him that she was no shrinking violet anymore.
She bathed him with her tongue, laving around his nipples, his fingers clenching her shoulders as that red haze returned to cloud his vision, deepening, blocking out every thought again—all except for one.
Deep down, Gideon had something to prove to Rochelle, too, and he was sure as hell going to get it right this time.
7
Rochelle could feel the moment Gideon fully gave in, and sparklers went off in her, spitting needles of fire all through her.
A fantasy in motion.
A true reset.
And she delighted in every bit of it—the tang of the forbidden cherry juice on his skin, the way he entwined his fingers with her hair
as she kissed and sucked his nipples, bringing them to hard peaks.
Then she made her way down, trailing her lips over his ribs, to the center of his stomach, and he groaned. She smiled against him, undoing his belt. This was how it should’ve gone in the first place with them, and the thrill of being able to revise their first encounter sent tingles all over her.
But as she fumbled with his belt, she told herself to stop thinking. Just enjoy because, hell, look at him—a cut, sleek, godlike cowboy at her fingertips. How could she go wrong now?
Unfortunately, those fingers were fumbling because she was so damned excited.
“Well, shit,” she whispered, still wrestling with his belt. Slow down, Shel. Even so, her hands shook, and the clang of the buckle filled the room, along with her heavy breathing, his heavy breathing.
Was his belt actually some kind of medieval contraption? It felt like it.
“Shit,” he echoed, and he sounded exponentially more frustrated than she was. But at least his hands were steady as he helped her, succeeding with the belt as they both went for his zipper, their fingers grappling with each other.
Finally, with a huff of lustful impatience, she let him take care of it. Okay, a drawback—definitely not as spectacular as what she’d imagined their makeup sex would be like—but why dwell on that when they had a ways to go?
A long ways, too, she thought, reaching in and bringing out his cock.
She paused, giving it a shameless go over, feeling the weight of him in her palm. She hadn’t gotten a good look at him when they were teens—the barn hadn’t been illuminated except for some slants of moonlight through the cracks in the walls. And when he was inside her, she’d been so anxious about actually doing it that she hadn’t thought about anything except how uncomfortable it was to have him filling her.
She gazed up at him from under her lashes. He towered above her, and she gave in to the wanton urge to run her other hand over the ridge of muscle over his hip. She let her fingers wander over to his happy trail, the line of fine hair traveling up from his cock to just below his belly button. When she dipped her thumb into that indentation, he closed his eyes.
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