The One I Want, page 25
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miles. Still, he went to her bedroom window that overlooked the cul-de-sac. And he blinked.
Then a grin split his face.
Chloe was coming down the sidewalk on horseback, and it was the craziest damn sight he’d ever seen. She wore a blue spangled riding costume that would look more at home in Vegas than in Austin, a blue and white cowboy hat that somebody had pinned a rose onto, and a kick-in pair of boots.
She was riding a black gelding that didn’t seem too happy with its rider. Easy to see why. She was holding the reins all wrong and bouncing up and down in the saddle.
“You’re riding English style again, Chloe,” Brittany called out. He had no idea why, or what was going on, but Chloe had a whole posse of gals with her. And he suspected they were coming for him.
It was High Noon—with a lot more lipstick.
He sprinted for the stairs, nearly pitching down them in his hurry, let himself out her kitchen door, and raced across the yard until he was in his own backyard. He shoved the phone back in his pocket and strode to the far end of the yard where he’d started fixing the fence earlier in the day.
He banged a nail into the fence a lot straighter than he had earlier, the grin stuck on his face.
A cowgirl. An English princess–cowgirl.
Now he’d seen everything.
Except it turned out he hadn’t.
He heard the clopping of reluctant hooves and then a clipped accent saying, “Now, Raven, you don’t want to make a mess of my outfit. Do not push me into this tree.”
“Neck rein, Chloe. Neck rein,” he heard in urgent undertones and turned.
There she came around the house. The posse must be hiding. The horse gave him a look that said, I don’t have any better idea than you what’s going on, but I’d rather be back at the barn eating hay. Chloe looked like Mattel’s version of a rodeo rider—small and dainty and far too pretty to be real.
274 Nancy Warren He started walking toward her to help her down, but before he’d taken two steps she’d dismounted with a flourish.
She dropped the reins, but her valiant steed didn’t seem like it was in a hurry to be anywhere. Probably, like Matthew, he wondered what was coming next. He watched, bemused, as she popped a coil of rope off the horn, then strode toward him spinning a lasso like a pro.
Before he’d half figured out what was coming next, the coil of white was drifting through the air like a very determined smoke ring; then he felt the thing slip over him. While she sent the rope sailing, she let out a holler, sounding like a rancher at roundup time. “Yee-haw!”
With a cry of satisfaction, she hauled the rope tight so his arms were caught to his sides. She’d roped him as neatly as a steer.
For a long moment they stood there looking at each other.
He loved this woman to his very soul, he realized, and always would. She was crazy, sweet, sexy, the last woman he would have looked for and the one he needed more than anything.
“You gonna flip me on my back and hog-tie me?”
Heat arced between them down that rope as though it were a lightning rod. “If you’re very good,” she said in that snooty, sexy voice that did him in every time.
Then she began pulling on the rope. Her hands were small and delicate, and the color of her nails, some kind of pale purple, flashed in the sun like drops of grape milkshake.
He didn’t even think about putting up a fight; he wouldn’t want her palms to get scratched. He tried very hard not to think about what her hand wrapped around the rope and pulling reminded him of as he let himself be tugged, closer and closer until their bodies were touching. His lack of mobility irked him.
“I want to put my arms around you so much I can’t stand it,” he said.
Her smile was both understanding and devilish. “You can’t always be in control, darling.”
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“I love you. Which has sent me totally out of control.”
“And does that bother you?” she asked, rising on her toes in those boots so their lips were inches away.
“Not one damn bit,” he said, kissing her as passionately as a man can without the use of his arms.
They might have kept kissing until the sun went down, but the sound of scrambling bodies, followed by howls of glee and triumph, intruded.
“You did it!”
“Chloe, I can’t believe you roped him.”
“I know,” she said, turning to her posse. “But it’s easier when they don’t try to run away.” She beamed at him. “We’ve all been to a ranch learning to be cowgirls. It’s the most wonderful place.”
“What other tricks did you learn?” he asked, hoping she’d show him so he could get this rope off him.
“Are you joking? This took me four solid days of practice to get right. I had to give up leather tooling and dressage. But I’m going to go back, perhaps next year.”
He didn’t care whether she took up bareback bronco riding. The words next year sang in his veins.
However, his good mood dimmed slightly when Rafe came slouching up the path behind Brittany, Stephanie, and the shrink from TV.
“You drop by for that beer?”
Rafe had the grace not to laugh, though he could see it was a struggle. “Had to see you hog-tied with my own eyes.”
“Don’t be cross with Rafe, darling. He was such a help.”
“I bet.”
“And he and the girls are going to take the horse back for me.”
“Great. How ’bout the rope? Bet that has to go back too.”
Her smile was warm and intimate and so full of promise that he hoped nobody was looking at him too closely below the belt. “I bought the rope. You never know when it will come in handy.”
276 Nancy Warren
“How ’bout the cowgirl getup? You own that?”
“Of course. I’ve discovered I quite like being a cowgirl.”
He had a feeling he was going to like it too.
The horse sent him one last sympathetic glance, as one tethered beast to another, and then turned and headed out with the gang of giggling cowgirls and one lone Mexican wolf.
Then she tugged his rope and he followed his sparkling cowgirl. As they headed into his house—luckily, he’d left the back door unlocked—and up the stairs to his bedroom, he said, “I thought you’d left me.”
She must have heard some of the agony he’d been through, because she stopped, right in the middle of the stairs, and said, “I wouldn’t have left. Not without saying good-bye.
Besides, we had unfinished business.”
“You’ve been engaged three times. Not that I want to sound like I’m doubting your sticking power, but I had to wonder if you’re the kind who takes off the minute things get rough.”
She paused in front of him and turned. “Oh, Matthew.”
Her voice was soft. “Even at my worst I always said good-bye.” She smiled a little. “Well, shouted it probably. How could you think I would leave? It’s different this time.”
“It’s different for me. I wasn’t sure how it was for you.”
“Then let me show you,” she said, leading him the rest of the way to his bedroom.
“Honey,” he said, “there’ll be lots of times when I’m happy for you to tie me up, and times I’m going to do the same for you, but right now, if you don’t mind, I really need to put my hands on you.”
For her answer, she loosened the ring of rope and slipped it over his head. “I need your hands on me too.”
He pulled her to him, holding her tighter with his arms than that rope had held him. “I missed you so much.”
“So did I. I love you.” She patted her hand against her chest. “There, I said it.”
“Sounded good,” he said, smiling down at her. “Say it again.”
THE ONE I WANT 277
She did. Then they were kissing, hungrily.
She tasted so sweet, so right, and when he felt her pushing her body against his, wriggling against him so the studs and buttons on her outfit gouged into him, he knew she’d missed him as much as he’d missed her.
“I need to get you naked more than I’ve ever needed anything,” he said, his voice low and husky.
“But this was a very expensive outfit,” she said, her pout not disguising her raging need for a second.
“Well,” he said, standing back and pretending to think about it.
He stood there just a second too long, so she said “Matthew”
in that dreamy, needy way that went straight to his cock like a stroking hand.
“Okay. You can leave the hat on,” he said, stepping closer.
“And the boots.”
His hands were on hers as they both struggled to free her from that spangling outfit.
When she stood before him in nothing but her hat, with that rose bobbing, and her tooled leather boots, shiny with newness, he thought he’d never been a happier man.
He tore out of his clothes and then, advancing on her, scooped her up into his arms.
She giggled. “Be careful of your knee.”
“Don’t you worry about my knee,” he said, dropping her to the bed so she bounced, laughing. Then reached for him.
She climbed on top of him. “I didn’t do nearly enough riding.”
He put a hand behind his head and looked up at her.
“You learn to ride Texan style?”
Her nose turned up at that. “Certainly not. I ride English style. Get used to it.”
And when she mounted him and he slid home so perfectly, he knew he already had.
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“I’m an empath, Colin. My gift is that I sense things. I sense the Other. I can sense their feelings, their thoughts.”
Yeah, he’d definitely tensed up on her. “You’re telling me that you can read my thoughts?”
The temperature seemed to drop about ten degrees. “I’m telling you that sometimes I can tell the thoughts of super-naturals . ” She’d known he wouldn’t be thrilled by this news; that was why she hadn’t told him the full truth the other night. But now that they were working together, now that her talent was coming into play, well, she figured he had the right to know.
Colin grabbed her arms, jerked her forward against his chest. “So this whole time, you’ve been playing with me.”
The sharp edge of his canines gleamed behind his lips.
“No, Colin, it’s not like that—”
“You’ve been looking into my head and seeing how much I want you?”
“Colin, no, I—” Seeing how much I want you. Had he really just said that?
His cheeks flushed. “While I tried to play the dumb-ass gentleman.”
Since when?
“Well, screw that.” His lips were right over hers, his fin-
282 Cynthia Eden gers tight on her arms. “If you’ve been in my head, then you know what I want to do to you.”
Uh, no, she didn’t. Her shields had been firmly in place with him all day. Her heart was pounding so fast now, the dull drumming filled her ears. She licked her lips, tried once more to tell him the truth. “It’s not like that—”
Too late. His mouth claimed hers, swallowing her words and igniting the hungry desire she’d been trying so hard to fight.
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He forced his leaden body into action. Shoved open the truck door, grabbed his grip and the bag of groceries.
He made his way with heavy feet up the switchback path to the hillside cabin—and froze.
Footsteps around the corner of the cabin. Someone was passing through the foliage. The shush-shush of jeans legs rubbing each other. The swish-slap of bushes. He heard every sound like it was miked.
He let the duffel, the groceries drop. His gun materialized in his hand, though he had no memory of drawing it, or flattening his back to the weatherbeaten shingles, creeping towards the corner . . . waiting—
Grab, twist, and he had the fucker bent over in a hammer-lock, wrist torqued at an agonizing angle, gun to the nape. It squawked.
Female. Long hair, swishing and tickling over his bare arm.
A delicate wrist that felt like it might break in his grip. What the hell . . . ?
“Jon! Stop this! Let go! It’s me!”
Huh? The chick knew him? His body had ascertained that she was no physical threat, so he shoved her away to take a better look.
His jaw dropped when she straightened up, rubbing her twisted wrist. He tried to drag in oxygen, but his lungs were
286 Shannon McKenna locked. Holy shit. No way had he met this girl before. He would have remembered. Wow.
Long hair swung to her waist. Big dark eyes, exotically tilted, flashing with anger. High cheekbones, perfect skin, pointy chin. That full pink mouth, glossed up with lip goo, calculated to make a guy think of one thing only, and suffer the immediate physiological consequences.
And her body, Jesus. Feline grace; long legs, slim waist, round hips. High, suckable, braless tits, the nipples of which poked through a thin cotton blouse. Low-rise jeans that clung desperately to the undercurve of that perfect ass. Who the hell . . . ? This was private property, in the middle of nowhere. His dick twitched, swelled.
She did not look armed. He slipped the Glock back into the shoulder holster. “You scared me,” he said. “Who the hell are you?”
Her eyes widened in outrage. “What do you mean, who the hell am I? It’s me! Robin!”
Robin? His brain spun its wheels to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Danny’s baby sister? He’d practically pissed himself laughing the night she’d juggled flaming torches in Danny’s kitchen, although Danny hadn’t been amused when the rib-eye he’d grilled got unexpectedly flambed. The steak had tasted faintly of petroleum fuel, but what the hell. She hadn’t burned down the building.
Robin . . . ? Robin of the dorky glasses, the mouthful of metal? Robin who was was as cute and funny as a bouncing Labrador puppy?
The irreconcilable images slammed together, like a truck hitting his mind. Those big brown eyes, magnified behind Coke bottle lenses.
It was Robin. Holy shit. In his mind he’d already been nailing this girl, right and left and center. Danny would kill him if he knew Jon had entertained pornographic thoughts about his baby sister. “Ah, sorry,” he muttered lamely. “I didn’t
ANYTIME, ANYWHERE 287
recognize you. You look . . . different than I remembered. Do your brothers know you’re out dressed like that?”
Her back straightened, and her eyes narrowed to gleaming brown slits. “Mac and Danny have nothing to say about my wardrobe.”
“Maybe they should.” He jerked his chin in the general direction of her taut brown nipples, all too evident in the chill, and averted his eyes.
“Why should they?” Her slender arms folded over her chest, propping the tits up higher for his tormented perusal.
“I’m twenty-five, Jon. That’s a two, and then a five.”
He blinked at her. “No shit.”
“Absolutely, shit. Want to see my driver’s license? I wear what I please. I answer to no one.”
This was surreal. He dragged his eyes away from her gleaming pink lips, and pulled himself together. “Uh, I don’t mean to be rude, but what the fuck does your age have to do with anything? And what are you doing up here, anyhow?”
The gleaming lips pursed. “I could ask you the same question.”
“You could,” he conceded. “But it would be none of your goddamn business. Your brother gave me the keys. I’m crash-ing up here for a couple of weeks to do some fishing and stare at the wall with my mouth hanging open. And now, your turn. What did you come up here for?”
Her gaze fell. She started to speak. Pressed her hand to her belly.
“Um . . . you,” she said.
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Afew minutes later the doorbell rang and Irene didn’t move. She wasn’t expecting anyone so she wouldn’t answer the door. She dealt with enough people during the day, she’d be damned if her nights were filled with the idiots as well.
The doorbell went off again, followed by knocking. Irene didn’t even flinch. In a few more minutes she would shut everything out but the work in front of her. A skill she’d developed over the years. Sometimes Jackie would literally have to shake her or punch her in the head to get her attention.
But Irene hadn’t slipped into that “zone” yet and she could easily hear someone sniffing at her door. She looked up from her paperwork as Van Holtz snarled from the other side, “I know you’re in there, Conridge. I can smell you.”
Eeew.
“Go away,” she called back. “I’m busy.”
The knocking turned to outright banging. “Open this goddamn door!”
Annoyed but resigned the man wouldn’t leave, Irene put her paperwork on the couch and walked across the room.
She pulled open the door and ignored the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach at seeing the man standing there in a dark gray sweater, jeans, and sneakers. She knew few men who made casualwear look anything but.
292 Shelly Laurenston
“What?”
She watched as his eyes moved over her, from the droopy sweat socks on her feet, past the worn cotton shorts and the paint-splattered T-shirt that spoke of a horrid experience trying to paint the hallway the previous year, straight up to her hastily created ponytail. He swallowed and muttered, “Goddamnit,” before pushing his way into her house.
“We need to talk,” he said by way of greeting.
“Why?”
He frowned. “What?”
“I said why do we need to talk? As far as I’m concerned there’s nothing that needs to be said.”
“I need to kiss you.”
Now Irene frowned. “Why?”
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