Mariah stepped to the refrigerator and took out a milk carton, then to a cupboard where she collected a glass. “Here, drink your milk and shush up about this, will you?”
Zach didn’t know what to expect from the older man, but was surprised when he roared with laughter. He accepted the glass then pointed a finger at Mariah. “I knew you had it in you somewhere, girl. I guess it was just a matter of the proper timing, wasn’t it?”
Mariah turned brighter than her T-shirt.
Hughie drank down his milk then rinsed the glass. “Zach, you don’t know how I worried about this girl. Never caught her playing doctor in the closet with one of the neighbor boys, or spin the bottle at a pajama party. Hell, she didn’t even go to the prom.”
“Daddy,” Mariah said in warning.
“What? You don’t want me talking to our guest?”
“Not if it’s me you’re talking about.”
“Well, hell, what would you have us discuss then?”
She whacked a rolled-up newspaper into his stomach. The older man groaned and caught it. “How about the weather?”
“It’s summer, it’s hot. Now what?”
Mariah rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling, then pushed her father toward the door. “Go catch a shower, old man. Dinner will be ready in a half hour.”
* * *
MARIAH HAD NEVER been so embarrassed in her life. At twenty-six years old caught making out with a stranger in her underwear in her father’s kitchen. She hadn’t even kissed any of the other guys she’d dated inside the house and here she had nearly had sex with Zach right there in the middle of the floor.
She leaned her hands against the island to stop them from trembling. She jumped when she felt Zach’s fingers on her shoulders.
“Wow, you’re wound up tighter than a ball of string.”
“You would be, too, if you knew my father a little better.”
He kneaded her muscles, but she battled against relaxing into his touch, a battle she found herself quickly losing.
“Oh. I don’t think he’s such a bad guy.” He leaned against her, his arousal indicating that he’d been affected not at all by the interruption. “At least he didn’t go for the shotgun.”
She laughed. “You’ve been watching too many movies.”
“I don’t know. So far, much of what I’ve seen about Texas is a lot like the movies.” His hands smoothed down over her arms then back up again, leaving goose bumps in their wake. “Except for you, of course.”
She turned in his arms and gazed up at him. “Why? Because I’m not movie material?”
He hooked his finger under her chin. “No, because this reality is too much like fantasy to be real.”
Mariah’s heart hiccuped in her chest. She didn’t think anyone had ever said anything so nice to her. She dropped her lashes and stared at the crisp whiteness of Zach’s shirt, though he still held her chin up with his finger. “You know, I have to say that I don’t think you’re fulfilling your end of the bargain.”
“Oh,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “How so?”
She shrugged and he released her chin, although he didn’t move from where he had her pinned against the counter. “You haven’t said one thing about how you’d really like to see me dressed—what I should say, how I should do my hair.”
“Is that what you want me to do?”
She made a face. “I don’t know. I suppose I want you to tell me what you think makes a woman sexy.”
“Dinner ready yet?” Hughie boomed as he came back into the room. “I’m starving.”
Mariah rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling, not daring to look at Zach’s face for fear of what she’d see there. Afraid her words would make him take a closer look at her and find her lacking. Find her as plain and as unappealing as her exes apparently had.
Finally she was forced to look at him in order to convey the importance that he let her go now that her father was back in the room. What she saw in his eyes made her knees go weak. Desire was there, yes. But also a heat that had little to do with sex and a lot to do with her.
“Hey, Letterman, you going to let my daughter get me some grub or what?”
“Actually, I thought I’d do the honors tonight, if you don’t mind.”
Mariah stared at him as if he’d gone insane.
“You know, by way of thanking you for having me while I’m in town.”
“Hell, boy, the words are enough.” Hughie took a seat at the table. “Come over here and sit down with me and tell me about yourself. I figure you owe me that much considering I caught you making out with my daughter in my kitchen.”
“Dad…”
Zach laid a finger across her lips. “That’s okay. I’ll get this one.”
Mariah swallowed with difficulty. She’d never had anyone offer to help her with dinner before, much less with her father.
Zach swiveled her around and sat her down in the chair next to her father, who looked at them both with raised brows.
“Why don’t I let Mariah tell you about Claude Ray and we can all talk while I serve?”
* * *
HUGHIE CLAYBORN WAS LAUGHING so hard he was crying. “So the clip dropped to the dirt?”
Mariah smiled as she took a sip of her coffee while Zach watched them both with growing admiration.
It wasn’t often that he got a look at other families up close and personal. And the only thing he had to compare Mariah and Hughie’s relationship to was his own with his grandmother.
“A Northerner like me doesn’t have much use for guns,” Zach offered up a mock protest.
“A Yank like you wouldn’t last a week by himself here,” Hughie said, wiping the dampness from the corner of his eyes with the heel of his large, callused hand.
“You make it sound like gunfights are a daily event for us in Texas, Dad,” Mariah said. “Life in the big cities here—Dallas, Houston—is just like life in other cities.”
Hughie shrugged. “Maybe so. But I’m saying a man isn’t worth his salt if he can’t survive on the brushlands.”
“You mean catching cattle rustlers?” Zach asked.
Both Hughie and Mariah looked at him as if he’d gone soft in the head.
Hughie sighed, all amusement gone from his face. “I mean putting a cow out of her misery after she’s gotten herself tangled hopelessly in a length of wire fence. Or shooting rattlesnakes. Or chasing off coyotes. Or riding all day in the Texas heat and discovering you drank your last bit of water an hour ago and knowing it’s going to be another two before you see a drop of the precious resource. Or steering your cattle to a pasture where they can graze if the sun hasn’t scorched the land. Now that’s what being a rancher is really about.”
Zach pondered what the big man had said.
A good three hours had passed since Zach had served dinner and the threesome was still seated around the table. Conversation had flowed easily, blending with the sound of the first crickets outside the open kitchen window. Zach glanced out now, surprised to find the sky filled with red clouds set against a dark azure sky, the sun saying its final farewell until the morning.
Hughie broke into his thoughts. “Of course, there’s always a way for you to find out firsthand what being a Texan is really about.”
“Dad, I don’t think Zach has the time or the inclination,” Mariah said, collecting their empty dessert plates and coffee cups and carrying them to the sink.
Zach met the old man’s gaze, noting the challenge in them. “Oh, I don’t know. When did you say Miss Winona would be done, Mariah?”
“She said she’d be getting the thread tomorrow afternoon…” She turned to face them. “Oh, no.”
Zach leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “Why not? I don’t think I’m going to get
another offer like this in my lifetime.”
Mariah put her hands flat on the counter. “Trust me, you’ll regret having gotten this one if you take him up on it.”
Hughie crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “What’s wrong with inviting the guy to ride with me, Mar?”
She stalked over to the table. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. I know you, that’s what. You’ll go out of your way to make sure everything that can go wrong with his experience will go wrong.”
Zach’s gaze drifted to Mariah’s face. Her color was high. Her dark eyes were throwing sparks. And he suspected she’d just revealed an important part of her upbringing without meaning to.
Had Mariah wanted to be a cowboy so bad she could taste it? Had her father invited her out for a similar ride? And had he thrown up every roadblock to try to keep his daughter from achieving her dream, simply because it wasn’t his dream for her?
Hughie chuckled softly then cleared his throat. “Considering Letterman’s first experience with a gun yesterday, I don’t think I’ll have to do any of that.”
“Dad…”
“No, it’s okay,” Zach said, wondering what Hughie, himself, would reveal once they were alone. And if it took a day on the plains to do that, well, then so be it.
“You’re on,” he told her father.
Mariah rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling and let out a long breath. “I was wrong. Life is the same now as it was back in the old days. Only now you use your lousy heads instead of pistols to duel it out.”
She made a beeline for the door. “I’m calling it a night. Zach, you’re in the last bedroom to the left.” She trailed back to her father and kissed him on the cheek. “Night, Daddy.”
“Night, sweetheart.”
Zach lifted his chin as if he expected a kiss, too. Mariah turned on her heels and left him hanging. Hughie chuckled. “Letterman, why don’t you go over to that cupboard there and get out a real man’s drink....”
* * *
THE ONE THING FEMININE about Mariah had always been her bedroom. And then only because her mother had decorated it and she didn’t have the heart to change the decor, even though the twin-size white canopy bed was a little too narrow and the lacy coverlet and curtains were old and faded. She lay back in bed now, her arm artlessly draped across her forehead, her feet sticking out of the bottom of the pink top sheet, searching for answers from the canopy overhead. She’d left the kitchen in frustration some three hours ago, and listened as George had stopped by to drop off some clothes for Zach, then Zach and her father continue on together, laughter drifting from the kitchen window to her bedroom window, even though she couldn’t make out their words. Another hot southern Texas night, but it wasn’t the external heat that got to her. Rather, it was the internal, twisting, skin-itching awareness just knowing Zach was not only staying under the same roof, but the very roof she had grown up under. About a half hour ago she’d listened as the door down the hall from hers had closed, indicating her father had finally called it a night. But she hadn’t heard any movement in the guest room next to hers.
Mariah rolled over and gave a strangled little cry, hoping her pillow was enough to muffle the sound.
Never in her life could she remember mooning over a guy the way she was with Zach. Yes, he played her body like a fine instrument, but it was more than just the sex. Something else had come into play over the past couple of days, may have been in play since the moment she met him. Something that seemed to seep into her very bones the more time she spent around him.
Of course, she told herself that their time together had a clock ticking on it. As soon as the wedding dress was repaired, Zach would be on the first plane to Midland. She reminded herself of that ceaselessly. And her want of him increased exponentially.
And maybe that’s what made him different from the other guys she’d dated. She’d known that Justin, Jackson and Tom would live no more than a five-minute drive away for the rest of their lives, while Zach…well, she knew very little about him, didn’t she? She knew he was determined to be a P.I. And that he was from Indiana. But why Texas? And what had he done before?
Mariah rolled over onto her back and pressed her pillow to her face, her head spinning with questions and possible answers, and her body just wanting him, period.
It was natural to be emotionally interested in the first man to give you an earth-shattering climax, wasn’t it? Earth-shattering? That she’d had one at all during sex was a major milestone. But was he to credit for it? Or was she?
In his attempts to make her more “feminine,” her father had brought home one of those chic women’s magazines from the store one day. After letting it lie on the coffee table gathering dust for weeks, she’d finally picked it up. Shout lines like “You’re in Charge of Your Own Body,” and “Ten Ways to Drive Him Wild” had been splashed across the front cover along with a scantily clad woman who could have posed for Anorexics R Us. The articles suggested that she was to blame for her own sexual dissatisfaction. That she should tell the guy what she wanted and how she wanted it and how often. But the last part hadn’t been what caught her attention. Rather the first part had lodged in her brain and stayed there. She was guilty for not achieving orgasm. It was simple as that.
So she’d tried harder after that. But the more aggressive she became in her quest for orgasm, the faster her boyfriends finished, leaving her even more frustrated than before she started.
Although Zach had been the only one to ask her whether she was satisfied, she sensed that if she’d pretended otherwise, he would have known she was lying. And would have made sure she came anyway.
Was this a Southerner-Yankee thing, she idly wondered? No. She recognized this was strictly an individual issue.
“Get to Know Your Own Body.” The headline from another of the magazine articles rang out in her head. Even though it was dark, and she was alone, she could feel her cheeks burning. To listen to the pastor at church, you burned in hell for even thinking about masturbation. Touching oneself was the work of the devil and would only lead to decadence and ruin. Then heap on top of all that, God hovering over you, watching you as you…pleasured yourself and, well, Mariah had rarely dared scratch herself down there when she itched.
And, oh boy, did she ever itch now.
Her throat grew thick as she turned over again. Where was Zach now? Still in the kitchen? Or had he gone into the guest room without her being aware of it? She caught herself pressing her pelvis into the mattress, ultra aware of the hardness of her nipples, the molten heat filling her body. She closed her eyes and gave a soft sigh, then slid her hand under her body near her hip. Not too close to the area she longed to touch, but close enough to make her shudder. She splayed her fingers against her stomach through her nightshirt, surprised by the growing tension down there, under her skin. Right at that moment, burning in hell didn’t seem as important as easing the pressure that made her breathing shallower and her thighs damp. She edged her fingertips down, feeling where her nightshirt had ridden up during all her tossing and turning so that she touched the thin cotton of her underpants.
Whoa.
Her hips seemed to buck involuntarily, pressing further against the mattress, trapping her hand against her stomach. She was so hot, she was afraid she’d spontaneously combust. And the only person around to extinguish the fire was her.
She closed her eyes tightly and tucked her fingers inside the top elastic of her pants, then down, down even farther until they tunneled through the tangle of hair between her legs. The instant her fingertips made contact with the core of her chaos, she flew apart, a small cry ripping from her mouth.
For long moments she rode out the wave of the self-induced orgasm, her muscles clenching, her breathing coming in rapid gasps. She sagged against the mattress, waiting for guilt to assault her. But it didn’t. Instead, she smiled softly into her p
illow, feeling giddy at the guilty little pleasure she’d just experienced.
Mariah wasn’t sure what alerted her to the change in climate in the room. But when she turned her head, she wasn’t surprised to see Zach standing just inside the closed door, the light of the moon illuminating his glorious body clothed only in jeans, his eyes seeming to burn a path straight to her.
“Please, don’t stop on account of me,” he whispered.
9
ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS Zach had done was stand completely still and watch Mariah Clayborn hesitantly coax herself to climax without any help from him. He didn’t have to wonder whether or not she’d done it before. Her tentativeness was a clear indicator that she hadn’t. And knowing that lent even more encouragement to his already painful erection.
He watched as she rolled over, then sat up, pulling the sheet tighter around her compact body. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I’m glad. Or I wouldn’t have witnessed what I just did.”
She turned her face away from him, but even in the dim light he could see the small smile she wore. “You know my dad is just two doors away?”
Zach dared take a step closer to the bed, quelling the desire to launch himself across the narrow mattress and find out for himself how hot she really was. “I think Hughie is pretty convinced that I wouldn’t dare try anything with him under the same roof.”
She laughed quietly and moved over on the bed to make room for him. It wasn’t much, but Zach made do. The box springs gave a telltale squeak that made him cringe.
“You ever consider getting a new mattress?”
Mariah giggled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Not until just now.”
“I think you should see to it first thing in the morning.”
He could feel her probing gaze on him in the dark and looked back.
Yes, while he’d enjoyed the male bonding session in the kitchen with Hughie, all he could think about was sneaking into this very room and, with any luck, into Mariah’s bed.
Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!) Page 26