Cowgirl Education: a Camden Ranch Novel

by Jillian Neal

  “Shall we take care of your new ink before I begin proving myself, or would you like me to throw myself on the ground at your feet and beg your forgiveness for my tardiness?”

  Another round of heat pinked her cheeks and the wariness vacated her eyes. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her, but if that kept her from prying into his reasoning too much he wouldn’t regret it. “Sorry. I guess. . . . I just kind of thought maybe I was being stood up. It’s not like you even said what time you’d be here. Forget I said anything about it.”

  “It’s nearing eleven. I’m late for breakfast. You had every right to call me on it.” He stared directly into her eyes, needing her to believe what he was about to tell her. “I meant what I said last night. I had to get my head straight, and I’m telling you up front I didn’t used to make the best decisions in my life. I’ve been in jail and in rehab for drug abuse. That was years ago, and I’ve been clean every moment of every day since. Now, I never do anything without a great deal of thought about the consequences. That’s how I’ve stayed clean. Thoughts about you kept me up most of the night.”

  “Declan, we barely know each other. You don’t have to tell me this.”

  “I know, but I wanted to. I owe you an explanation for being late, and I find myself wanting to see where this might go, even if we do barely know each other.”

  The abject delight that lit through those eyes sparked life anew within him. “I feel that way, too.”

  “Then let’s see what kind of disaster we can create together, shall we?”

  Holly led him back to her bathroom. Disappointment that she’d straightened and unpacked quelled his elation over being able to tell her a little about himself.

  He’d managed honesty, left out the more gruesome details, and she still wanted to see where this led. So far, this day, this date that had only ever held haunting memories, was rapidly improving.

  He’d enjoyed the mess her room had been the evening before. There were so many more details in a messy room, more to study, so much more to be learned. He had no interest in the facade she showed other people. He wanted her raw, open, exposed, and vulnerable only to him. Long way to go before he could earn that kind of trust.

  She spun in her bathroom, gave him another one of those impish grins, and unbuttoned her blouse. Desire surged from the head of his cock outward to his limbs. Once again his little vixen was clearly trying to kill him, and this time he was more than ready to take her on.

  The cotton candy pink bra blended readily in with her pale skin. He swallowed harshly, unable to order his eyes from her lush tits. She spun, offering him her back. Every cell in his body ached for her touch, for her heat. His tongue thirsted for her taste. His lungs begged to know the scent of her arousal. His brain had been right — he was never going to survive her. In her presence, he no longer cared. He’d figure this out. She was worth him discovering how to be a human being again.

  Using the dexterity that could only come from decades of guitar playing, he had the bra unhooked in a half second. “So bloody tempting. I feel the need to insist upon the one-week rule.”

  “Would that be the ‘we can fuck each other senseless but not until we’ve been dating one-week’ rule?”

  “Precisely. Breakfast this morning can be date one. Dinner tonight can be date two, I’ll come over every night you’ll allow me this week. Take you out, stay in, whatever you want, and then my band is playing back at our bar Friday night. That night, darling, you’re mine.”

  Intrigue, desire, and a playfulness that was going to be his undoing paraded through her eyes. “I’ve never been asked out on an entire week of dates all at once before.” The melody of her laughter tightened like a vise around his cock.

  “Clearly American men are imbeciles and completely incapable of knowing what to do when they are in the presence of a beautiful seductress such as yourself.”

  “Okay, you are totally forgiven for being a smooth-talker, as long as you keep saying stuff like that.”

  As Declan began administering the ointment to her tattoo, he let his breathy chuckle slip over her shoulder. He wanted to watch her body respond to his breath. She didn’t disappoint.

  “You haven’t officially agreed to the aforementioned dates.”

  “Maybe I planned to string you along,” she sassed.

  “Cruel and unusual punishment. Have to up my game.” Wrapping one arm around her waist, he strategically positioned her sexy little ass, caught up in a pair of Wrangler blue jeans, against the bulge in his trousers. “You’ll find I can be as persuasive as you need.”

  With one quick wiggle of her backside, blood surged through his stiffening cock. “So can I.”

  “Clearly,” he half-moaned against the torturous friction she was creating with every sexy sway.

  “I take it Duffy’s is our bar?”

  “Naturally.”

  “It’s really cool you’re playing there. You must be pretty good.”

  Indulging himself in a quick grind of his pelvis against her, he chuckled. “Trust me, my love, I am very, very good.”

  Chapter Five

  “Are we going to Trace?” Holly was astonished as Declan’s Honda Pilot made the turn off of 16th. Given the approximate value of both of his modes of transportation he was clearly a very successful musician, though she’d never heard of him.

  “You know about Trace?” Declan seemed equally as shocked.

  “Yes, I love Trace. It’s my place, but you can’t know about it because if people start knowing about it they’ll see its complete awesomeness and go there, and I won’t be able to get a table whenever I need it.”

  Declan’s addictively sexy chuckle stirred her heart and sent spirals of lust on a southbound course directly between her legs. “See, I was just thinking how amazing it was that we both know and love Trace and that perhaps we could share a table there often, as long as I vow never to tell another soul about the best tea shop in Nebraska.”

  “It’s technically a coffee shop, but I might still be willing to share my table with you.”

  “Americans and your coffee shops. Have you ever noticed that most of them are ridiculously banal, so crowded and loud all creativity is choked out at the door, and that they serve far more whipped sugar in an infinite number of varieties than coffee?”

  “I have noticed that, and that is what makes Trace so perfect.”

  “Wrong. Their outstanding ability to make non-tampon tea with the correct splash of milk, not cream, and the Tombow pencils are what makes Trace an example of tea shop excellence.”

  “Agreed on the pencils completely, but did you just out and out say I was wrong? Because I am not wrong. And dare I ask what tampon tea might be?”

  “Ha. So, my sexy little cowgirl does not like to be told she’s wrong. Noted. Tampon tea is tea made with stringed teabag. Why do you Americans like your tea and everything else with strings?”

  Holly couldn’t seem to stop giggling. There were a million questions brewing in her mind, but she was currently enjoying the fact that Declan seemed to know a great deal about most any topic and had his own personal twist on everything they’d shared so far. She was dying to ask what exactly he’d been arrested for. He’d been drinking in Duffy’s the night before, but was vehement that he’d been clean for years. Alcohol clearly wasn’t his vice.

  Grinning up at him as he navigated the roads to the historic district of Lincoln, she went on with a confession, hoping he’d share a little more about his past. “Last year for Christmas I might’ve bought myself a massive pack of the HB Writer Tombows.”

  Declan turned to stare at her like she’d suddenly sprouted an additional head. “The HB writers are by far the best pencil in existence, but I’m desperately curious, what does a cowgirl do with that many pencils?”

  “I’m not only a cowgirl. Remember, I have a whole other side.”

  “And when do I get to learn more about this other side?”

  “Feel like I should be asking you the very sam
e thing.”

  “Ah, I see. You are aware that you already know more about me than I’ve told most anyone ever?”

  “I don’t feel like I know anything.”

  “Well, then pardon me, a song title I’ve always felt aptly applied to my life, upon my arrival there, was Anarchy in the UK.”

  “Sex Pistols. I love them.”

  “You are good, darling. Perhaps far too good.” He put the Pilot in park and made it to her side of the car to open the door for her. Declan St. James, song master and a complete enigma.

  Declan stopped her just inside the door of her favorite coffee shop. “Breathe, my love. Take a deep breath. Life doesn’t offer nearly enough breaths like the first inhale of a tea shop.”

  Holly’s grin expanded the width of her face. “Agreed.” She let her eyes close and filled her lungs with the intoxicating aromas of coffee, tea, the books that lined the four exterior walls of Trace, and best of all, the subtle scent of graphite. “I always try to memorize the scent before I leave here so I can take it with me out into the world.”

  “Me too.” He winked at her and then guided her to the humble drink counter. Trace didn’t serve mocha-cinos-macciato-latte-with a twist of anything. Nope. Trace served coffee, light, medium, or dark roast, or tea, English Breakfast, Earl and Lady Grey, hot chocolate, and colas in bottles along with old fashioned donuts, and that was it.

  Housed inside a one hundred-year-old, two-story colonial revival, Holly adored all of Trace’s nooks and crannies, where you could find a tiny table and get lost for as long as you like, or until closing time at ten every evening.

  “And what would my love like this morning?” Declan’s whiskey-smooth voice brought Holly back to their date.

  “Holly?” Trace, the owner, gave her a broad grin. “Hol always gets a dark roast with room for extra cream and two donuts.” He winked at her.

  “Guilty as charged. Clearly I come in here too often.”

  “Nah, my regulars keep me in business. And Dec always gets Earl Grey with a splash of milk and a donut, then he complains that I don’t serve crumpets, even though I’ve told him I can’t get the damn things in and I don’t have time to learn to make them.”

  “Are you seriously giving Trace problems, dear?” Holly mocked.

  “It is a bloody shame to have tea this good without a proper British treat. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “So far I’ve heard him call you love and you just called him dear. Not sure when you two got together, but now that I’m seeing it, I should’ve introduced you two ages ago, if I’d thought of it. You both come in here and take up a table for hours, but you always remember to return my pencils to me.”

  “Stealing another man’s Tombow should be a felony offense,” Declan vowed. Holly felt another little piece of her doubt slip away. There was still so much to figure out about Declan, but that suited her just fine. She loved figuring things out. Her determination never faltered, even with his confession that he was an addict. They were on their way to something worth having, even if she couldn’t quite decide what that might be exactly.

  Trace set their orders down in front of them. “Round booth upstairs is open if you hurry.” He gestured to a crowd of people heading through the front doors.

  “Brilliant.” Declan carried their tray upstairs and settled in the back of the semi-private booth that overlooked the garden. A massive mug of Tombow pencils sat in the center of every table, stacked on top of a half-dozen yellow notepads with a few of their pages torn out. Holly grabbed for a pencil and ran it under her nose until she caught a whiff of wood and lead.

  A sexy half-grin played on Declan’s lips. “While I agree that pencils are the single most important invention of humanity, I’m beginning to wish you’d inhale me like you do those pencils.”

  Laughing, Holly leaned closer to him and breathed in his scent from the collar of his shirt. “Mmm, you smell even better than the pencils.”

  “That so?”

  Holly nodded before downing a large sip of the best coffee in town. “If I ask what you do for hours at one of Trace’s tables are you going to give me another song title?”

  “Actually I’m going to give you dozens of them since I generally come here to write music.”

  There. Now they were getting somewhere. “And will I get to hear any Declan originals when I come hear you play at Duffy’s?”

  “Maybe. We play mostly covers, though. Kind of greases the wheel, to use an American expression. You warm the crowd up with songs they know, then you can slip in a few of yours in and see how they respond. Since there are at least four dozen questions aggravating your spectacularly beautiful eyes, my love, shall we go quid pro quo?”

  “How many song titles will become answers?”

  “Depends on the questions.”

  He was being honest. She didn’t guess she could ask for more than that. “Fine. I just asked one so it’s your turn.”

  “The question is the same. What does my cowgirl come in here to do other than drink coffee and huff pencils?”

  He kept her laughing, and his question for question game was certainly one way to learn more about him. “Trust me, I’ve never huffed anything stronger than coffee and pencils.”

  Declan’s grunt was yet another mystery. Could a grunt be laced with regret? Definitely sounded like it was. “Truthfully, I always come in here intending to read or study, but I end up staring out the windows and drawing pictures of my horse with the pencils. Sadly, all of my doodles still look exactly the way they did when I was seven.” Holly cringed, certain she shouldn’t have admitted that to a musician who probably had more creativity in his little finger than she had in her entire body.

  Another one of his seductive chuckles quaked through her soul. “I think you may be the most dangerous creature in existence.”

  “Unless I’m in full-on cowgirl mode, I’m not terribly dangerous. Why did you say that?”

  “You’re dangerous because you’re honest. No one is brave enough to be honest.”

  “I like to be honest, and I know what I want. I wonder if you might be dangerous because you don’t know what you want.”

  “I know exactly what I want, love.” Lust darkened and then sheened those deep gray eyes a salt and pepper mix of seduction.

  “And what might that be?”

  “One, to figure out exactly what song I could sing or play that might speak to your soul. Two, to learn your most hidden desires and see that I cater to each and every one of them. Three, to know you, spend time with you, and maybe let you get to know me.” He gently traced from her thumb to her index finger. How the hell did one tender caress from him keep her so thoroughly on edge? She shifted against the wet heat that had pooled in her panties from just sitting so close to him.

  Holly’s heartbeat raced into overdrive. Her nipples throbbed against the lace of her bra. The way he looked at her. The way he touched her so innocently yet so provocatively. There was still so much she wanted to ask, but she didn’t want answers as badly as she wanted this.

  Licking her lips, she leaned in. His intent focus zeroed in on her mouth. “Need something, sweetheart?”

  She managed a quick nod.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  Holly eased back. She’d never actually been asked that by a man. The daunting question hung in the coffee-infused air between them.

  “I was hoping for a kiss,” she admitted, irked he’d made her verbalize that.

  “That all you’re needing?”

  “For now.”

  With that, he slanted his mouth over hers, taking what he wanted and giving her what she required before he softened his exploration and dipped his tongue between her lips, tasting her. A hungry moan escaped her. He consumed it to keep it from belonging to anyone but him.

  Unable to help himself, Declan rubbed his hand up Holly’s thigh, extending the kiss that would have him hard up from now until he finally got her to his home Friday night. Dear God, the sweet addictio
n of her mouth, the way she suckled at his tongue with her gorgeous lips that he couldn’t wait to see wrapped around his cock.

  His thumb grazed the crotch of her jeans and her entire body rolled against him, so needy for his touch. A rumbled groan of approval vaulted from his mouth. “Mmm maybe you’re not so honest. I think you’re lying to me, love,” he managed before he turned back to consume more of her. “I think you need so much more than a kiss.”

  “Yes,” gasped from her as her hand landed on his zipper line. “Oh God,” she groaned softly as she kneaded his fierce rigidity.

  “Indeed.” Declan finally ordered himself to pull away, lest he stick his hands down her jeans to discover just how wet he’d made her. He wrapped his arms around her, thankful for the expansive and relatively secluded booth. She burrowed in his chest once again. That was almost as satisfying as kissing her. That feeling that she needed him to be her harbor, to dam back the world, needed him to hold her close was far more fulfilling that he should ever have allowed it to be, but there was no going back.

  The sum of your vices will always remain the same. Every addiction counselor worth their salt knew that. The trick of it was to trade the vices that sought your death for those that didn’t mind you remaining alive. Perhaps she could be one of his. His addictive nature would always remain, but maybe being addicted to her might not be so bad.

  She gently ran her thumb down his trouser-trapped cock once more, but kept her face hidden in him.

  Grinning at that, he caressed her cheek warmed from their passion. “I love the way you feel in my arms,” he admitted.

  A full minute later she lifted her head. “Really?” Her eyes were volatile storms of need once again, but there in the emerald depths resided a hearty dose of embarrassment.

  “God’s honest truth.”

  “It’s my turn to ask you a question,” she insisted. That impish grin was just one thing on a very lengthy list of items he adored about Miss Holly Camden.

  “It is. Technically I asked you three, so the next three belong to you.”