“Why?”
“To make sure you don’t cheat.”
She poured the last of the bottle up into the glasses and tossed hers back. There wasn’t a bit of fire in her stomach, but she wished she’d brought extra underpants in her purse. Damn, that man got sexier with every single shot.
“I vote we take a ten-minute intermission. You can have first at the bathroom.” He slurred, but her ears were buzzing and she understood him perfectly.
She stood up slowly.
His eyes followed her all the way to the bathroom. She didn’t stagger one bit. He’d never met a woman who could match him shot for shot, but that redhead could sure hold her liquor. The numbers on the digital clock beside the bed said it was eleven fifty-something, but they were dancing around like line dancers doing the Cotton-Eyed Joe in a honky tonk.
He stood up slowly and held onto the chair until the walls stopped spinning. He would be standing outside the bathroom door when she came out. He wasn’t admitting defeat, not yet.
She put her head between her knees as she sat on the potty and took long, deep breaths. Damn Wil Marshall anyway! Most men folded after round nine. Only twice had she had to go to round ten and that was with her best friend in college. A girl who’d come from a long line of AA members.
Had the ten-minute intermission already passed? Actually only five of it was hers. He would have to use the bathroom too. She sat up, got a fix on the cold water faucet to still the walls, and pulled up her underpants. When she opened the door he was leaning on the jamb.
“Thought you’d passed out in there and I’d won.” He grinned.
“Ready for the second bottle?” she asked.
He moved to one side. “I’m ready. How about you, Red?”
She took a step, got off balance on the second one, and the brown carpet was coming up in slow motion to meet her when Wil’s strong arms grabbed her around the waist. That motion set him off balance and he fell toward the bed, taking her with him.
“You did that on purpose.” She was cuddled up in the crook of his arm with her head on his chest. How in the hell did two people fall on a bed in such a perfect position? Was it fate or just plain dumb luck? And why did it feel so damned natural and good?
“I didn’t trip you, darlin’,” he whispered.
He buried his face in a mop of red hair. He deserved a kiss for saving her from breaking an arm or worse yet, her cute little nose, with that fall. Besides, the countdown on the television had begun and the announcer yelled nine. He wanted a New Year’s kiss and he wanted it to be with Miz Red Richland.
Eight. She pushed her hair out of her face and looked up into the depths of his brown eyes and saw only her own reflection there. Austin would say that she’d found her soul mate. The thought scared her but not enough to wiggle out of his embrace.
Seven. Her eyes looked like warmed-over sin on Sunday morning, but they were searching his face in a way that made him sweat bullets. Why didn’t that man count faster?
Six. She pressed her body against his.
Five. He brushed back a cascade of red curls so he could see her face better. Every single freckle should be kissed.
Four. She combed his black hair back with her fingertips. If he passed out without kissing her, it would be grounds for justifiable homicide.
Three. His lips started coming closer to hers.
Two. She licked her lips and shut her eyes.
One. Boom! They met in a clash of heat and desire hotter than any pepper grown in Texas as the old year faded and the New Year began with the familiar tune playing on the television.
One passionate, hot kiss would not satisfy all those shots. Two stirred the red-hot embers and got a big fire going in her gut. Three fanned the fire so high and hot she tugged his undershirt up out of his jeans and over his head.
With his lips still on hers he pulled her camisole up. He broke the kiss long enough to get it over her head and then his lips settled back on hers.
She undid his belt buckle and unzipped his jeans, then pressed her body so close to his that she could feel his hardness on her belly. His hands were all over her, undoing her bra, tossing it in a blur toward the other bed. She moaned when his fingertips grazed her breast and when he strung kisses from her neck to her belly button.
His fingers were white-hot fire on her skin. She started to tell him that she liked to date, loved to party, adored the chase, but she didn’t go to bed with men she only knew a week, but words fled her brain when his tongue found her belly button. She arched her back and gasped at the sensation.
Her hands grazed the tight muscles on his chest, through the soft dark hair that extended from taut nipples to belly button, to that dense soft bed of curls, for his erect penis. She wrapped her cool fingers around it and he gasped.
His hand grazed her inner thigh and she opened up for him. She was ready but he wasn’t through playing… not yet… and he liked those little kitten moans when he touched her in the right spots.
She grabbed his hair and pulled him back up for another kiss before she peeled his jeans completely off and threw them across the room. She crawled up his body like a sleek mountain lion and stretched out on top of him.
His rough hands were hot as hell when they skimmed her back and flipped her over under his body. “Is this because we’re both drunk or do you really want this?” he asked.
“I. Want. This.” She panted.
With a firm thrust he started a nice easy rhythm. She wrapped her arms around his back and raked her nails across his flesh. She’d never felt so uninhibited, so totally into sex as she did right then.
His mouth covered hers in a string of passionate kisses that fanned the flames already sending her up in blazes. She arched her back against him and gave herself to the red-hot fire that only Wil could put out.
Wil felt as if he’d waited his whole life for that night and he didn’t want to rush. Besides, as drunk as he was, he might pass out cold when it was done and he wanted to hold her in his arms as long as he could.
Pearl gasped when she climaxed and he brushed a sweet kiss across her lips.
She expertly flipped him over onto his back without missing a stroke and said, “My turn, darlin’.”
“Mercy!” he whispered as she started to do the work, bringing him right up the edge of passion and then slowing down, all the while kissing his ears, his eyes, and his lips with so much fire that he wondered if all there would be left in the morning was a pile of ashes in the middle of the motel bed. She put one hand behind her on his tense thigh and the other on his chest and settled down to serious business. When she heard him call out her name in a throaty southern growl, she gave into the desire and buried her face in his neck in a moan. He rolled to one side without letting her out of his arms and held her tightly.
“My God!” she said.
“Nope, just mighty fine Jack Daniel’s sex,” he said as he ran his hands down the length of her body. “Your skin is as soft as whipped cream. Which reminds me, maybe sometime I’ll cover you up in whipped cream and then lick it all off.”
She shuddered just thinking of the sensation that would cause.
“Ready for round two?” He kissed that soft spot right below her ear and worked his way down her body, tasting, nibbling, sucking, and licking, causing brand new liquid heat spasms. He kissed her toes one by one, then her ankles and then suddenly he was lying on top of her planting hot, steamy kisses on her lips again.
She’d truly met her match in shots and in sex. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from screaming out and arched against him again.
When he stretched out on top of her, she flipped him over and sat on his chest. “My turn,” she said. All was fair in love, war, whiskey shots, and sex, and Wil was about to find out just how hot she could make him.
“But—” he started to argue.
“Shhh.” She put a finger over his lips and kissed his eyelids.
His skin quivered when she gently scraped a nipple with her
teeth and his breath came out in ragged gasps when she finally got back to his waiting lips.
The kisses that followed weren’t soft and sweet; they were demanding and passionate and set loose a desire that she’d never felt before. It went beyond want, further than need, and into a place where she felt if he didn’t make love to her that her heart would stop beating and she’d wither up and die.
He did an expert roll, which impressed the hell out of her since they were both still drunk and tired from the first round.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and asked, “We goin’ to ride the bull again or just sit in the stands and cheer?”
“At this point we’d better ride the bull, darlin’.”
She nibbled his ear and whispered, “You think you can stay on eight seconds?”
“How about eight minutes for every one of those ten shots?”
She tried to do the math in her head but couldn’t get past the fact that it added up to more than an hour. She’d concede the battle to him if he could make love to her the second time around for more than an hour with ten shots in him. Hell, she’d get down on her knees and propose to him right there in the Longhorn Inn if he could stay the course for eighty minutes when they were both drunk as rabid skunks.
She ran her hands down his muscular back and tangled her hands in his hair, pulling his lips to hers.
“This feels so right.”
“Does, doesn’t it?” He wasn’t a bit surprised to find her ready again.
Twenty minutes later he collapsed on top of her with a loud moan.
“That wasn’t an hour,” she said breathlessly. He wasn’t getting the crown for only twenty minutes.
“That was the appetizer and the entrée. We’ll have dessert in a few minutes. I’m afraid I’m not up to seven courses. Not unless I’m sober.”
He rolled to one side and pulled her close to his side burying his face in her neck and starting to fan the fires of the still smoldering embers with his kisses.
She sighed heavily.
“Want me to stop?”
“Hell, no!”
“Three courses it is, then. When we’re sober we’ll try for the fancy stuff.”
Drunk or sober or somewhere in between, Pearl had no doubt that the heat from seven courses would kill them both graveyard dead.
But what a hell of a way to go!
Chapter 9
Thunder awoke her the next morning. She opened her eyes long enough to see that it was eight o’clock, then snapped them shut against the ribbon of gray light sneaking through the slates in the window blinds. It thundered again and she crammed a pillow over her aching head.
Wil snored and she threw the pillow at the wall and sat straight up. Realizing what she’d done the night before put a crimson blush on her cheeks. Knowing that she’d do it again if she had a chance turned it even darker. She pulled the sheet up under her arms and fell back on the pillows with enough force to bounce the bed.
“Mmmm,” Wil mumbled in his half-sleep. “God, my head hurts.”
“So does mine.”
“Did I win?”
“Of course not. You passed out cold.”
He propped up on an elbow. “You don’t lie worth a damn, Red. I remember everything, including that cute little freckle on your fanny.”
Thunder rolled again and hard rain pelted against the window. A truck crunched the gravel as it pulled away from the motel. She snuggled closer to his side and pulled the covers over her head. “Go back to sleep. My head hurts and Lucy said she’d take care of the rooms today.”
“Happy New Year,” he mumbled and drew her closer into his embrace.
Which was a helluva bad idea. The moment that her soft little naked body touched his, he was aroused and ready. He kissed her on the forehead and she opened one eye. Her clothing was strung all over the room. Bra in one corner. Underpants peeking out from under the bed. Coats on the other bed. Camisole beside the empty bottle of Jack.
Dear God, what have I done?
“You are still beautiful in the morning and I’m sober,” he whispered as he pulled the covers over his head and made lazy circles with his tongue on his way down her body.
“Thank you, I think,” she mumbled.
Her cell phone ringtone echoed like a screeching night owl and her body was responding to Wil entirely too well. There was a knot of pure desire in her gut that only long, slow morning sex would cure, but the cell phone wouldn’t shut up. She reached out from under the sheet with one hand and grabbed it from beside the empty bottle of whiskey.
“’Lo,” she muttered.
“Who won?” Austin said.
“You are entirely too cheery for the morning after.” Pearl gasped when Wil found one of those erogenous zones.
“Morning after what?” Austin asked.
“I think I’d better call you back when my head stops hurting,” Pearl said.
“Sex is good for a headache. Is Wil still there?”
“Good-bye!” Pearl moaned the minute she snapped the phone shut and hoped Austin hadn’t heard it.
He flipped the sheet back and smiled. “That was your wake-up call and I’m not talking about the cell phone. Are you ready for breakfast?”
“As in?” She blinked.
“As in I’m sober and I’m ready to do justice to that seven-course meal. It might take all day but…” He let the sentence hang.
The phone rang again before she could wrap her mind around seven courses of cowboy sex. She ignored it the first three rings but when he reached for it, she grabbed it out of his hand.
“Hello, Momma,” she said.
“Happy New Year. Did you have another boring night at that horrid motel?” her mother asked.
Pearl swallowed hard to keep from giggling. Wil nibbled on her ear, whispered that he was going for a shower, and threw the covers off. She was struck speechless at him strutting across the floor in all his naked glory. There wasn’t a spare bit of fat on his hard body, which was all muscles and sinewy flesh. Even his sexy butt cheeks were firm and had no wiggle when he swaggered toward the bathroom.
“Are you awake?” Pearl’s mother asked gruffly.
“Sorry, Momma, but I’m barely here. I went to a party at Austin’s last night and had a late night.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you doing something other than sitting in that godforsaken motel and taking those silly online courses. Did you get all dressed up and have a good time?”
“Oh, yeah,” Pearl said.
The shower started. Wil began singing an old Willie Nelson song. Pearl fished the remote from under the edge of the bed and quickly turned on the television.
“Who is that I hear?” her mother asked.
“Television. I turned it on to see what the weather is going to be today. Looks like rain all morning. I guess I’d best get up and help Lucy check out the guests. Tell Daddy happy New Year’s for me. I’ve got to run now,” Pearl said.
“I’ll call later today when you are awake and you can tell me all about the party. We went over to the Kings’ place. Jasmine sends her love.”
“Tell her hi for me,” Pearl said.
When her mother said good-bye and hung up the phone, Pearl kicked the rest of the covers off and padded across the floor to the bathroom. One look at her bloodshot eyes in the mirror said yes, she’d really drank enough to stagger a rodeo bull and yes, she had stayed awake through three courses of fantastic sex. She looked like hell, smelled like sex and Stetson, and her mouth tasted like the remnants of half a big bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
Wil pulled back the shower curtain and crooked his finger at her. “Come on in. The water is fine.”
“Let me brush my teeth first. I taste horrible,” she said.
“Don’t take too long.” He winked.
I shouldn’t be doing this, she thought as she looked at the woman with smeared mascara and tangled red curls in the mirror. She ran the minty-flavored toothbrush over her teeth and argued that she shou
ld wrap up in the blanket and make a hasty retreat to her apartment. When he finished his shower he’d find her gone, get mad, and never call again.
I’m crazy, but there’s something different about Wil. There’s an excitement I’ve never known, something deep inside me that feels so right. Am I headed for a heartache?
She threw back the curtain and stepped over the edge of the bathtub. Heartache or not, she needed a shower and Wil had already invited her in.
“So you have a headache?” he asked.
She nodded.
His gaze started at her toes and heat traveled with it all the way to her eyes. He leaned in and kissed her. She tasted toothpaste and wondered briefly if he’d used the same motel complimentary brush that she’d just used. The thought slipped away when he teased her lips open with his tongue and made love to her mouth before running a warm soapy washcloth up her backside and across her shoulders.
He broke the kiss and gently walked her backwards until her hair was under the spray. When it was thoroughly wet, he poured shampoo into his hand and massaged it down to the scalp.
“That’ll make it all better,” he whispered as he planted wet kisses on her eyelids.
She moaned something but it wasn’t words.
He leaned her head back, cradling it in his big hands, and rinsed every smidgen of soap from her tight red curls. Then he began to soap her body using his hands instead of the cloth. It took forever and she’d forgotten all about the headache by the time he finished.
He stepped out of the tub, grabbed a big white towel, and hurriedly wiped the water from his body. Then he wrapped one around her hair and a second one around her body before scooping her up in his arms and carrying her back to bed. He laid her down gently, kissing her passionately before he flipped her over on her stomach.
“A good neck and back massage is good for a headache too,” he said softly.
She didn’t even know he’d picked up the small bottle of lotion from the vanity until she heard the burp of it leaving the plastic bottle. “If this is the awkward morning after then I vote we have another contest tonight,” she said.
“No thank you, Red.” He applied the lotion and massaged the knots from her neck and shoulders, working his way down her back, her fanny, and that tight place right under the butt where it meets up with the back of the leg.
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