“Oh, God, that feels so good,” she groaned.
“Now for the heat pad to help the lotion soak in and do its job,” he said.
“Heat pad?”
He stretched his warm body out on top of her back and kissed her neck, nibbled on her ear, and unwrapped the towel from her head. Then he dug his fingers into her damp curly hair to massage her scalp.
“Dear God,” she said.
“Are we going to pray? I’d rather turn you over and have sex.” He chuckled.
“Forget prayers,” she mumbled as she felt the hardness against her lower back.
He flipped her over, kissed her lips until they were swollen and her panting matched his, then he began a rhythm that kept time with the fast beat of their hearts.
“Have I told you this morning that you are even cute with wet hair and freckles shining?” he whispered as his fingers laced into hers.
“Have I told you that you are sexy as hell when you are all wet?” she answered back.
“Open your eyes, Red.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to look at me.”
Her eyes popped open and stared right into his dreamy eyes as he lowered his lips to hers. He kissed her one more time, his tongue doing a mating dance with hers, then he left her bee-stung lips and worked his way down to her breasts, touching and feeling and tasting.
Before he went on further down her body, she pulled him back up for another kiss.
“I like your lips on mine,” she said.
“They fit right together real well, don’t they?” he whispered.
“Like all the rest of our bodies.” She giggled.
“We’re sober now, Red. You sure you want to do this?”
“Yes, I am,” she said.
His hands slid down past her breasts to her hips. Just his touch fired her up to the explosion stage. She arched her back against him and the world disappeared in a blink. The delicious ache had returned. She’d never wanted sex more than she did right then, not in her entire life. No one or nothing had ever erased everything from her mind except the primal need to be satisfied.
She ran her fingers through Wil’s hair. “Please, Wil, take me now. I’m so hot,” she said.
“Your wish,” he said as he covered her mouth with his in a searing kiss and entered her with a powerful thrust that made her groan.
She arched her back and tangled her fists in his hair. “I don’t need a marathon. I just need release,” she whispered.
“Me too this morning,” he said as he sped up the motion. He thought he heard her say his name but his ears were ringing so loud that when he collapsed on top of her he wasn’t sure what she said.
“Dear…” she gasped.
“God ain’t interested in mighty fine sex, only begetting,” Wil said.
“Well, I’m not ready for the begetting but that was wonderful,” she said between raspy breaths.
“I’m sober.”
“What the hell has that got to do with anything?”
“It’s better when I’m sober.”
“Then you can’t ever drink again,” she said.
The storm had passed and the sun was sneaking through the slits in the mini blinds. She looked over at the clock and let out a squeak. It was already ten o’clock. Lucy would be frantic, trying to check out customers and worry about getting rooms cleaned at the same time. And Pearl had a research project due in three days for her last hospitality course that had to do with creating a space for a breakfast nook in the lobby. She didn’t have time to be lying around in a bed of pure unadulterated 100 percent guaran-damn-teed best sex ever, even if it was where she wanted to be.
“Wil, I’ve got a million things to do and you’ve got a ranch to run. It’s the middle of the morning. We’ve got to get up and—”
“Get up! I think I can arrange that at least one more time.” He smiled.
She kissed him and bounded out of bed before he could wrap his big arms around her again.
“You are a tease. Talk about getting up and then leave me cold,” he said.
She knew better than to look back at him. If she did she’d be in the motel room until she starved to death or died from too much sex.
“Time to go, cowboy. I’m going around the end of the motel and going in through my back door. You leave however you want. And Wil…”
He winked at her. “I’ll call you later today. I’ll cook for you tonight. You can cook later in the week. I think the whiskey contest was a draw so we’ll each pay up.”
“Sounds like a deal to me,” she said.
***
Delilah met Pearl at the door, yowling and fussing because she’d had to spend the night alone. Pearl took time to rub her ears for a few seconds before she unbuttoned her coat and dropped it on the sofa and headed straight for the bedroom. She undressed, piling all her rumpled clothing on a chair to send to the cleaners. She pulled clean underpants and a bra from a dresser drawer, jeans and a sweatshirt from her closet, and was dressed in record time. She was on her way to the living room when she caught sight of herself in the mirror above her dresser.
She went to the bathroom, took a very quick shower to get the smell of hot sex off her body, and scrunched mousse into her hair. She was on the way to the lobby when the feeling hit her. Austin used to tell her that the Lanier gut was never wrong. Well, the Richland gut knew when something or someone was watching. She turned around slowly. Her gun was stuck between the mattress and box springs, handle toward the outside so she could get at it easily. But she was in the living room and there was no way she’d make it back to the bedroom if an intruder was hiding over at the end of the sofa or jumped out from the pantry.
The hair on her arms tried to stand up but the sweatshirt and the jacket pushed it back down. The itch was unbelievable. When she’d made the full circle she saw Wil standing just inside the back door into her apartment.
“You forgot this.” He pulled her lace bra from the pocket of his jacket and held it out. “Don’t know what you are going to tell Lucy, but I didn’t want her to find it in the room when she goes to clean it up.”
“I’m cleaning that room today. She’d take one look at those sheets and know…” Pearl blushed scarlet.
Wil laughed. “I took all the linens to the laundry room and put them in the washing machine. Threw the whiskey bottle in the big trash can out back and made sure no one would ever know exactly what went on in there. You can tell her whatever you like.”
Pearl crossed the room, rolled up on her toes, and kissed him soundly on the lips. “You are a good man, Wil Marshall. Now go home and feed the cows. I’ve got a helluva lot of work to do.”
“Dinner is at six thirty at my house. Bring a tote bag and spend the night?”
“I’m not leaving Lucy with the place two nights in a row.” She shook her head.
“Then dinner is at my house tomorrow night at six thirty,” he teased.
She kissed him on the cheek. “Tomorrow night then it is. We’ll see about bringing a bag.”
He waved over his shoulder and disappeared outside. Pearl opened the door into the lobby.
Lucy looked up from the counter. “Good mornin’. I been checkin’ out folks and lettin’ you sleep. Who won?”
“I think it was a tie,” Pearl said.
“How’s your head?”
“Not too bad considering I almost got defeated,” Pearl said.
“Well, everything went smooth as it could last night. Got two more guests who called to say they’ll be out by the check-out time. They sounded like they had big old hangovers. Then I’ll get busy on the rooms.”
Pearl’s cell phone rang before she could tell Lucy that she’d help clean that morning. She expected to hear her mother’s voice but it was Wil’s deep drawl that answered when she said, “Hello.”
“So is it tonight or tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow.”
“We really brought in the New Year in style, didn’t we?”
“Have a wonderful day. I’m going to be whistlin’ and singin’ all day.”
She giggled. “You are…” She looked up to see Lucy grinning from ear to ear.
“Can’t think of anything sexy enough to call me, can you?” Wil teased.
“Have a good day, Wil,” she said and flipped her phone shut.
Lucy kept grinning.
“What?” Pearl asked.
“First thing is that you got your shirt on wrong side out. Next is that you got that glow all around you. You might’ve got drunk but you slept with that cowboy, didn’t you?”
“Damn sure did,” Pearl said. “But that’s all I’m sayin’ about that.”
“Kind of like that Forrest Gump movie, huh?”
Pearl nodded. “You got it, Miss Lucy Fontaine.”
Chapter 10
Only once had Wil ever let a woman spend more than a night at his place, and that had turned out to prove the old adage absolutely correct about fish and visitors stinking in three days. New Year’s Eve had been so hot it was a complete wonder they hadn’t melted a hole in the motel bed. And now Red was coming to his place for supper. She declared that she wouldn’t be staying the night, but that could change.
And that’s what bothered Wil that afternoon as he put the steaks in his special marinade sauce. Would she think that because he’d invited her to stay the night that she could take over his kitchen? Would she tell him how to grill the steaks or get all domestic and think she could make better bread than he could?
Everything was right where it needed to be by six o’clock, and he and Digger were watching out the living room window when the lights of the old Caddy came down the lane at six fifteen. She was punctual. The woman who’d tried to take over his kitchen was perpetually late for everything, so maybe it was a good thing that Red was on time.
“I didn’t think any woman on the face of the earth could get me this excited,” he told Digger as he headed across the living room floor in his bare feet.
He slung open the door before she could knock and stepped aside. “Come on in. I hope you like steaks. That’s what we’re having for supper.”
“Love steak. What can I do to help?” She wanted to walk right into his arms and have a steamy making out session before supper, but he kept his distance so she did too. She hadn’t felt awkward when she woke up next to him naked as a jaybird but she did standing in the middle of the foyer in his house.
“Nice house,” she said.
“It’s part of the reason I bought the place. Fell in love with it first time the owner gave me a tour. That and the fact that I can see all the way to the Pacific Ocean out my front door and to the Atlantic out the back.”
She laughed. “That’s stretching the imagination.”
“Maybe, but I figure I can see to where the land stops and the sky begins, so that must be where the two oceans are. My father says I need to plant trees in the front and backyards, but it would block my beautiful sunrises and sunsets. There’s plenty of shade from those big pecan trees on the north and south ends, and I don’t care to look at Canada or the Gulf.” Wil helped her out of her coat and hung it on a rack beside the foyer table.
The touch of his big hands on her shoulders came close to giving her a dose of good old southern vapors. She took a deep breath and willed them away. It wouldn’t do for her to pass out cold right there on his shiny hardwood floor.
The house reminded her of her Aunt Kate’s in Savannah. She’d learned to drink mint juleps sitting in a rocking chair like the one drawn up to the fireplace. She was fifteen and Aunt Kate said that she’d had her first julep at fifteen and it hadn’t killed her so Pearl could have one. That had happened in the heat of the summer, not in a Texas winter with a cold north wind whistling through the limbs of ancient pecan trees.
She took a deep breath and got a heat-producing whiff of Wil’s aftershave that jacked her hormones up to the unbearable level. He wore soft worn jeans and a three-button red knit shirt with all the buttons undone. She had the urge to slip her hands up under that shirt and snuggle up to his broad chest. But he hadn’t made a move toward anything other than her being a guest. No “hello” kiss after a dozen phone calls that bordered on downright pornographic. Had he changed his mind in the course of the last two hours?
She sniffed the air. “Is that homemade yeast bread cooking?”
He nodded. Dammit! He’d wanted to kiss her so bad that he ached from want, but something kept him back. It was that damned kitchen idea from earlier. If he greeted her with a passionate kiss like he wanted, then she’d think she could waltz right in and take over.
What is the matter with me? he thought. This woman makes me hotter’n than… he thought for a minute and the lyrics to a country song came to mind… hotter’n hell in the middle of a Texas summer. Yep, just lookin’ at her shoots desire all the way through my body, and I’m acting like her brother instead of a lover.
“I love hot bread. Where’s the bathroom so I can wash up? I was pettin’ Delilah before I left.”
“I’ll show you. I’ve been meanin’ to put one in downstairs but haven’t gotten around to it. Especially since there are two upstairs. After you.” He motioned toward the staircase.
She started up with him right behind her.
He couldn’t keep his eyes from her rounded rear end, which did nothing to help his semi-arousal state. She wore snug-fitting designer jeans with glittery rhinestones on the hip pockets and a tight-fitting dark green sweater that stopped right above the shiny stones. Her high-heeled shoes were the same shade of green as the sweater, and her hair was pulled back with a band of green velvet. For a chance to undress her slowly and then make love to her all night he’d forget all about the steaks and the bread in the oven.
She stopped on the landing and looked at five doors. Two on each side of the hall and one at the end. She pointed at the one at the end.
He shook his head. “That is the linen closet. There are two bedrooms on each side with a bathroom between them. If you’ll go through this bedroom”—he slung open a door—“then the bathroom is straight ahead. I wanted this ranch because it’s good grazing land, but I also love this old house. The man who sold it to me was eighty years old and had lost his wife. His kids wanted him to retire to Arizona where they both lived so he did. I got the house intact with all the furniture.”
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
The dark maple four-poster bed was draped with sheer white fabric that matched the curtains on the window. They looked as if they’d billow in the springtime if the window was left open and the cool night breezes were allowed to flow through the room. A vanity against one wall and the tall chest of drawers matched the bed. A floral carpet covered most of the floor, but shiny hardwood peeked out around the edges.
She turned around to thank him and found his sultry eyes searching her face. He held out his arms; she walked into them and laid her head on his chest. He tipped her head up and bent to kiss her. It wasn’t hard and passionate or even hot and sexy but soft and sweet.
“You can do better than that. I’ve got proof,” she mumbled.
He chuckled and picked her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck and the kiss lit up the whole bedroom. When he set her down, her legs felt like they had no bones in them. If he hadn’t reached down and taken both her hands in his, she would have melted right there on the floor.
“Wow!” she said.
“Yep, wow! I’ll see you in a few minutes for supper.” He squeezed her hands and shut the door behind him.
She washed her hands and applied a cold cloth to her neck in an attempt to put out some of the ramped fire inside her gut. She headed back across the room but the bed looked so inviting that she flopped down on it. It was every bit as soft as it looked. She wondered what it would be like to have Wil’s strong arms around her in a bed like that after a bout of sex like they’d had in the motel.
“Hey, Red, dinner i
s on the table. If you don’t shake a leg you’ll be eating your T-bone cold,” Wil yelled up the steps.
She didn’t need a second invitation. She followed her nose to the dining room where Wil waited. Wil seated her to his right and then he sat down. She wished she’d taken time to dress up all fancy when she looked around at the table. Plates and flatware were arranged just right; cloth napkins matched the tablecloth; candles were flickering; and a bottle of red wine chilled in a thick glass bucket.
The smell outdid the table setting—grilled T-bones that covered half of each plate, potatoes in a covered casserole dish that looked like they’d been cooked in cheese sauce, a tossed salad in a crystal bowl, hot rolls, and steamed broccoli.
Pearl picked up her knife and cut a bite of steak, popped it in her mouth, and came close to swooning. “God, this is good. Have you got an indoor grill or something?”
“No, but I do have a grill on the back porch which is screened in to keep out the flies and mosquitoes in the summertime. It don’t do much to keep out the cold in the winter, but I like a good grilled steak so I brave it,” he answered as he passed the rest of the food to her.
“For a steak like this I’ll do the cleanup,” she said.
“Oh, no! Women are not allowed in my kitchen.”
Pearl cut another chunk off and started toward her mouth with it then stopped. “Why can’t I go in your kitchen?”
“The last time a woman was allowed in my kitchen she thought she could move in here, rearrange it, and move me out of it.”
Pearl narrowed her green eyes into slits. “Well, darlin’, you don’t have a thing to worry about if that’s the problem. I don’t give a damn how your kitchen is arranged. I’m not one of those clingy little wifey critters.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Wil asked.
“It means I do not have a problem with you cooking. I can cook but I’m not one of those ‘this is my kitchen and I won’t ever let a man in it’ type of woman,” she said.
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