Outback Cowboy

by Lexxie Couper

  “Cowboy,” the woman said, an almost breathless quality to her voice. “You’re an Australian cowboy, the Australian cowboy. Although I have to say, Annie was right. There’s nothing boyish about you at all.”

  “Annie? You know Annie Prince?”

  “You’re her Aussie cowboy,” the woman continued, as if Dylan hadn’t said a thing, her gaze taking him in again, her eyebrows knitting in a slight frown. “And you’re here. You’re here and she’s…” Her stare returned to Dylan’s face, her teeth—white and even and perfect—catching her bottom lip.

  Dylan’s heart beat faster. “She’s what?”

  The woman let out a shaky laugh. “Oh shit. You’re here and Annie’s in Australia.”

  “She’s where?”

  The question burst from Dylan a bit louder than he’d intended. He adjusted his grip on the lovers in his arms, fixing the woman before him with a dumbstruck stare. He knew it was dumbstruck by the way his mouth hung open. If he were back home, he’d be catching flies by now. Of course, he wasn’t back home. He was bloody seventeen thousand kilometers away from home. He was on the other side of the bloody world to see a woman he’d met online and now he was being told that woman was back where he’d come from?

  Fuck a duck, his brother was going to laugh his arse off when he found out.

  “She’s in Australia,” the woman not seventeen thousand kilometers away told him, an expression—part worry, part mirth—playing with her features. “She flew out yesterday.”

  “Why the bloody hell did she do that?”

  Once again, Dylan’s voice was louder than he’d intended. Of course, nothing had gone as planned in the last twenty-four hours so why should his voice toe the line?

  The woman before him laughed, that deep, throaty laugh that played merry hell with his senses. If he hadn’t been so gob-smacked by what she was telling him, he was pretty certain it’d play merry hell with them some more.

  “She went to meet you.”

  Monet Carmichael knew she shouldn’t be laughing. Nor smiling. The poor cowboy in front of her truly looked like the definition of confusion. But oh boy, what a beautiful definition it was. Okay, not so much that he was confused, but just the way he looked in general. His strong lips and chiseled bone structure, the perfect growth of honey-brown stubble on his jaw and chin, the hat.

  Every inch of him screamed MAN. Virile, potent man.

  Having grown up a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, Monet was experiencing her first in-the-flesh cowboy—and what a cowboy.

  Stockman, Monnie. He’s a stockman.

  She caught her bottom lip with her teeth again, the junction of her thighs doing a funky little twisty thing she enjoyed very much.

  Man was correct. A beautiful man. A goddamn gorgeous, sexy man. Complete with a goddamn gorgeous body his faded jeans and well-worn flannel shirt couldn’t hide at all.

  If it wasn’t for the fact he’d flown from Australia to meet her best friend, Monet could quite happily stand there and undress him with her eyes. Render him naked and imagine all the things a woman could do to a male body like—

  She caught the wildly inappropriate thought before it could form a wildly inappropriate image in her wildly visual mind.

  Just.

  “Let me get this straight,” the Australian cowboy said, his light green stare doing all sorts of wicked things to Monet’s resolve. Even his eyelashes were perfect. She could imagine drawing each one in charcoal. Imagine even better the way they would feel against her lips as she—

  “Annie flew to meet me in Australia yesterday, despite the fact I flew to the U.S. to meet her?”

  Monet nodded. “You sent her an IM with flight details. Well, some flight details. The day, the airline, the arrival time. Although you were wrong by an hour on that last one. Her flight didn’t touch down in Sydney until—”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” The cowboy’s confused frown grew deeper, his Australian accent turning the word into a drawling song Monet found quite enjoyable to listen to. “I IM’ed her about a Qantas flight to New York. The one I was thinking of getting. And then the next day I emailed her the actual details of the flight I’d booked a seat on.”

  Monet blinked. Annie hadn’t said anything about the email. In fact, Monet had been sitting right beside her best friend when she’d bought her airline ticket to Australia, a Qantas flight touching down in Sydney on the day her online Aussie cowboy…friend…had told her. Surely Annie would have known he was flying over here? How could they get their wires crossed so badly?

  She opened her mouth—to say what to the man, she didn’t know. Damn, what was his name? Annie had said it enough times over the last few months, but Monet shut her mouth again when the doorman of their building suddenly appeared at the cowboy’s side.

  “Everything okay, Ms. Carmichael?” Tommy’s gaze flicked back and forth between the Australian and Monet. “Mr. Sullivan’s not giving you—”

  Dylan Sullivan!

  The cowboy’s name popped into Monet’s head, along with an image of a clean-shaven man without a hat smiling somewhat nervously into a camera.

  Monet shook her head, unable to take her gaze from Dylan’s still troubled face. “Everything’s fine, Tommy,” she assured him, even as she compared the beautiful hat-wearing male before her, his stubble as sexy as his accent, his accent as mesmerizing as his eyes, to the clean-cut man in the photo on Annie’s laptop.

  “Are you sure?”

  She flicked Dylan a quick look, her pulse beating far too fast for her peace of mind. “I’m sure.”

  “’Cause he was asking about Ms. Prince—”

  “It’s okay.” She cut him off with a smile. “I know Dylan. We were just going to catch a cab to the gallery.”

  Dylan blinked.

  “Oh.” Tommy nodded. “In that case…” He stepped one foot off the curb and let out a sharp whistle.

  Before anyone could say a thing, a taxi pulled to a quick halt on the road beside them.

  Monet gave the doorman another smile. “Thanks, Tommy.” She opened the back passenger door of the cab and extended an arm toward the grimy interior. “After you, Mr. Sullivan.”

  The brim of his hat cast his eyes in shadow, and for a brief moment Monet thought he was going to refuse. And then he gave her a loose, lopsided grin that made her want to grin back. “I take it the lovers sit between us?”

  She nodded. “The lovers do.”

  “It’s probably better you climb in first then, love.”

  Her pulse fluttered, and for the first time ever, Monet found herself totally flustered by a man. Love. Who would have thought she’d get excited over an almost antiquated term. She despised pet names—no babes or hons or sweethearts allowed, thank you very much. But the term “love” coming from Dylan’s lips…

  Her reaction to it was unnerving. The whole situation was unnerving. Annie on the other side of the world. Dylan here in New York. Her unexpected response to the man.

  She dove into the cab before Dylan Sullivan, her best friend’s would-be Aussie cowboy, could see the flush painting her cheeks pink.

  Oh boy, this was…inconvenient.

  Chapter 2

  Annie wasn’t answering her cell, damn it. Monet gnawed on her bottom lip, shooting the man sitting on the other side of the sculpture a quick look. He watched the New York sights stream past, a relaxed casualness radiating from him, that crooked smile she was already halfway addicted to playing on his lips. His hat still sat on his head, almost the traditional cowboy hat she was used to seeing in movies but somehow not. It emphasized how different Dylan was, as if he’d stepped from another world and somehow found himself here in New York. Which was pretty much the case.

  For the fourth time, Annie’s cell cut to her message service, her cheery voice telling Monet to leave a name and message unless she was a member of the paparazzi, and if that was the case, go to hell. Monet bit back a sigh. “I assume you know what’s going on by now, Annie,” she said into her phone, flic
king another quick glance at Dylan. “So I really need you to call me back ASAP and tell me what you want me to do with the cowboy currently sitting on my right.”

  What to do with? How ’bout strip him naked and—

  “He’s staying with me until we hear from you, okay?” She was about to disconnect and then changed her mind. “Oh, and your father called this morning, sounding very pissed. As promised, I did not tell him where you were.”

  She killed the call, swinging her gaze to a chuckling Dylan. “What’s funny?”

  The Australian shook his head, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Trust Annie not to tell her old man.”

  Monet shoved her cell back into her bag and snorted. “Mr. Prince isn’t going to think it’s funny.”

  “No, I can’t imagine he would.” A quizzical frown pulled at his eyebrows. “So tell me, what do I call you? I’ve just realized I have no idea what your name is. Or how you know Annie.”

  She reached around the sculpture and extended her hand to Dylan. “Monet. Monet Carmichael. I live in the apartment next to Annie’s.”

  “Ah, her best friend, right?”

  “That’s right.” She squirmed on her seat, the skin-to-skin contact with the Australian unsettling. His grip was so firm and warm and…well, nice.

  Nice? Wow. That’s an understatement.

  Tugging her hand from his, she sat back in her seat. It was better that way. Not looking at him.

  Oh, don’t go being attracted to him, Monet. That would be just plain stupid.

  It would. As good looking as he was—don’t you mean sexy?—she wasn’t stupid. Creatively flakey at times, yes. Incredibly imaginative, yes. But stupid? No. He was here for Annie. Which meant he could be as sexy as all get out and he was still off-limits.

  “The artist called Monet.”

  If she wasn’t so unsettled by the man’s unexpected effect on her she would have laughed at his obviously humored clarification. Ever since the day she’d enrolled at Columbia to study fine art, she’d been subjected to mocking derision about her name.

  She gave Dylan a pointed look, deciding to shut down any attraction she felt toward him now. “I take it you think my name and profession are funny?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all, love. Fitting.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What’s an Australian cowboy know about art?”

  It was a low blow. One Monet regretted immediately.

  “Stockman,” Dylan corrected, that lopsided grin playing with his lips again. “And quite a bit in fact, given that my mum was an art history major at uni before she met my dad and moved out whoop whoop to be with him on Farpoint Creek.”

  Monet blinked. Her head was spinning. Firstly, because she didn’t understand half of what Dylan had just said, and secondly, because what she did understand sounded as if he knew about art.

  Okay, shutting down any attraction was going to be harder now. How many unpretentious Australian cowboys who knew about art and looked like a sexy-assed, hotter-than-sin Adonis were there in the world?

  Very few, she guessed. And this one belonged to Annie.

  “So I take it the couple making out between us is your handiwork?”

  It was all Monet could do not to groan. Making out. Couple. All words that made her think of sex. She didn’t want to think about sex at this moment. She was bound to blush. Or find herself looking at the Aussie cowboy’s crotch.

  Nodding, she pressed her thighs together and searched his face for any kind of flaw. There had to be one.

  There wasn’t. Damn it.

  “It’s very good,” he said. “Makes me think of Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss. Just…” Dylan’s gaze moved over the sculpture. “Dirtier.”

  Monet ground her teeth. The universe was conspiring against her. Was it his accent? His grin? The unexpected art knowledge? The way he said “dirtier”, as if he knew exactly what had been going through Monet’s mind when she’d created it?

  His gaze returned to her face, his green eyes shadowed by the brim of his well-worn black hat. “What’s it called?”

  “FWB.”

  “Friends with Benefits?”

  She shook her head, her mouth dry, her cheeks hot. “Fucking with Beauty.”

  Dylan’s nostrils flared. “Is it an autobiographical piece?”

  Monet swallowed. Was he flirting with her? Her nipples pinched tight at the ridiculous thought, straining at the lace of her bra and material of her shirt. If Dylan were just some guy she’d met in a bar, she’d be flirting her ass off right back. He was too damn hot not to. But he wasn’t just some guy.

  So time to stop thinking about it, Monet Carmichael. Got it?

  Tearing her gaze from his face, she pressed back farther into her seat, her heart beating hard. It didn’t help her resolve, however, that every time she pulled in a breath, his subtle scent teased her senses. When Annie got home, Monet was going to kill her. “All art is autobiographical,” she answered, trying to sound enigmatic and aloof. “Especially—”

  The cab suddenly stopped, propelling both Monet and Dylan against their seatbelts. Her sculpture slid forward and it was only Dylan’s fast reflexes that stopped it from sliding to the floor.

  “That’ll be eighteen dollars,” the driver muttered, looking at Monet in the rearview mirror.

  She fumbled for her wallet in her bag, all too aware of Dylan watching her.

  “Here you go, mate. Keep the change.” His voice rumbled through the cab as he passed a handful of notes to the driver, friendly and relaxed and—for one brief, completely disorientating moment—Monet couldn’t stop herself imagining him naked. Naked and standing before her, waiting for her to discover all his proportions as he told her about stockmen and whoop whoop and Rodin’s The Kiss in his friendly, relaxed sexy voice.

  God! What’s wrong with me? It’s the accent. Gotta be the accent.

  She flicked him a look, wishing she could find her snarky I’m-a-successful-artist poise, or even her hey-I’m-a-New-Yorker arrogance. All she could find was the new and highly traitorous I-want-to-fuck-my-best-friend’s-cowboy lust, and that wasn’t any help to her at all.

  She released her seatbelt and all but fell from the cab in her hurry to get away from Dylan and the unnerving temptation he presented.

  Cool autumn air wrapped around her, icy against the burning heat in her cheeks. She slammed the door, flipped off the driver of a Camaro blasting his horn at her for tumbling into his road, and leaned against the taxi.

  She had to get herself under control. The cowboy was off-limits. Off. Limits.

  Straightening her spine, she pulled another breath—this one not so shaky—and walked around the trunk of the cab.

  To find Dylan standing on the sidewalk, FWB in his arms, hat on his head, his green gaze trained on her. “Ready?”

  Bam! Just like that, the traitorous I-want-to-fuck-my-best-friend’s-cowboy lust slammed into her again. Hard, fast and undeniable.

  God help her.

  * * * *

  Dylan watched the bevy of men and women arranging paintings and sculptures under various spotlights in the small art gallery, fussing about as if the artworks were a herd of prize stud cattle about to go to auction.

  He stood to one side of the gallery’s main room, between a large painting depicting what he thought was a woman being made love to by a gust of wind, and a sculpture of the same couple from FWB. At least, he assumed it was the same couple. This time they weren’t so much making out as coming out—the male unzipping his torso to expose female breasts and the woman peeling off her legs as if they were jeans to reveal a fat, flaccid cock and a very impressive scrotum.

  It was, suffice to say, the most surreal moment of Dylan’s life.

  Had he thought he was out of place gazing up at the Empire State Building only an hour ago? Ha. Here he was out of place.

  “You okay?”

  He turned at the sound of Monet’s voice, finding her standing to his left. She smiled when his gaze fell upon
her, the action doing disturbing things to the pit of his stomach. And his groin. “Yeah, I’m good.” He pushed his hat back a bit on his head and showed her his I’m-good grin. “Feeling a little like a shag on a rock, but apart from that, no worries.”

  Monet blinked, her cheeks filling with the delightful blush Dylan truly enjoyed. “Feeling like what?”

  “A shag on a rock.” Then realization smacked into him. “I mean, out of place. Sorry. Bloody hell, I didn’t mean I wanted a…on a…fuck, I mean… Oh Jesus.”

  He ground his teeth, drew a breath, counted to five and started again, far too aware of the sudden stares he was getting from around the gallery. “A shag is a type of water bird that always perches alone on rocks with its wings spread. It usually stands out like dog’s balls—” Heat flooded Dylan’s face. He pressed a hand to his eyes, cursing his stupidity.

  You really don’t belong here, mate.

  Monet burst out laughing, the relaxed sound echoing around the gallery. “Dylan, talking to you is by far the most educational, visual experience of my life.”

  Dylan peered at her through his fingers before dropping his hand. “Ta muchly, love. But I think it’s probably better I just keep my gob shut for a while. At least until I’ve found my dignity. I get the feeling I left it back at Farpoint Creek.”

  Monet’s blue eyes twinkled. “Given your situation, I think you’re doing marvelously.”

  “My situation? Stood up on the other side of the world, luggage-less and completely incapable of contacting anyone who wants to talk to me? That situation?”

  Once again, Monet laughed. “Well, when you put it that way…”

  Dylan laughed with her. That he’d unsuccessfully tried to call Hunter three times during the cab ride to the gallery should have bugged the shit out of him. It didn’t. For two reasons—one, had been roughly nine a.m. back home and the Farpoint Creek homestead pretty much emptied out once the sun broke the horizon, every man and his dog getting on with the job of running Australia’s second largest cattle station.

  And two, he was enjoying himself. Too much.

  Every second with Monet was enjoyable. Not for the fact she made him hornier than sin—although that was pretty bloody enjoyable—but that she made him laugh. It was wrong, of course. He’d flown all this way to meet Annie, a woman he’d described to his brother as “his soul mate”. Hunter had laughed his arse off at that. Had called Dylan a fucking idiot. What would his twin make of the situation Dylan currently found himself in?