by Isla Bennet
Even though they both knew what they wanted to eat, neither had thought ahead to come up with suggestions of where to eat. So he parked midway down Old Towne and they walked the entire length of the seven-block main street, passing the bank and historic row houses, well-lit shops under colored awnings and darkened nine-to-five businesses, the general store, a coffeehouse and an ice cream parlor with a sandwich board out front offering free samples of its flavor of the month—Stargazin’ Sherbert.
On a whim she turned the corner. “Perfect!” Tex’s Bucking Bronco, infamous for the garish Ride Hard sign that probably threw the Old Faithfuls into a tizzy if they ever dared to venture past, was an out-of-the-way honky-tonk with lawn gnomes wearing cowboy hats flanking the door and blinking neon lights advertising half-price margaritas for ladies only.
“Been here before?” she inquired as they rushed across the road with a scatter of passersby who were itching for an earful of J.D. Tripp, a soulful country crooner who’d been chewed up and spit out in Music City at the turn of the millennium.
“Mom was a barfly here, sometimes drank more than what she could pay for. Gossip went around about what she’d do to settle her tab.”
Valerie stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest. “We can go someplace else.”
“I’ve got a shitty memory of this place,” he said, removing her hand from where she could feel his steady heartbeat. But instead of releasing her, he interlocked his fingers with hers and continued to the entrance.
She glanced at their joined hands, fed off the strength of that connection. “Easy fix. Let’s replace that with a good memory.”
Inside, the bar was decorated with a scratched wooden floor, faux wood walls, a stage set up with mics and drums where Tripp and his band were finishing a song. A red-and-black motorcycle was mounted in the middle of the high ceiling. The mirrored wall behind the bar featured shelves crammed with liquor bottles. There were cracked vinyl stools and pictures of motorcycles and vintage cars. Lined up along the left and right walls were red booths that looked decades past their heyday. There was a jukebox tucked into the corner, and the floor was crowded with couples dancing, while waitresses buzzed past taking orders, delivering food and collecting tips.
A waitress carrying a rag and cleaning supplies waved them over to a freshly bussed table in the corner opposite the jukebox. “This one’s free.”
Valerie took the bench across from him, breathing in the heady aroma of fried food, as well as undercurrents of booze, cigarette smoke, sweat and cologne. Laughter and conversation hummed around them, and though this was a place to let your hair down, the fact that they’d come in together was ample grease for the rumor mill. “To get down to business,” she said, plucking the two menus between the salt and pepper shakers, “what’s this place’s chicken situation?”
They decided on margaritas—hers was half-price, after all—a wing sampler and a variety of dipping sauces. When the food arrived, they tasted each wing-and-dip combo to find out which really was the tastiest.
“Okay,” Valerie said, wiping her mouth with a napkin, “count of three, say the chicken and dipping sauce that you think is the best. Ready?”
Peyton counted and they blurted their responses loudly, drawing a few puzzled glances.
“You said Buffalo wings,” she pointed out. “I win.”
“Well, you said bleu cheese, so I win.”
“Not exactly. What good’s a dipping sauce without the wings?” She patted her belly. “But that’s a debate for next time.”
“Next time?” Peyton moved his margarita glass aside and hooked his index finger in her sleeve. “So we went out and shared an entire meal together—and I’m assuming you’re liking this as much as I am if you’re proposing a next time.”
“This is a date.” Cordelia was right after all. “We’re dating. Going steady.”
“Then I owe you a ring.” Peyton pulled her sleeve and she leaned forward to let him kiss her cheek.
“We’re being watched,” she whispered.
“Care about that?”
“No.” And she went in for another kiss—this one on the mouth.
They were interrupted when her cell phone beeped and vibrated from within her purse. “It’s Lucy,” she said, panic surging as she fumbled with the phone to open the message. “Something’s wrong.”
Peyton pushed his plate to the side and abandoned his bench to sit beside her. “What is it? I can get us to the ranch in—”
Valerie read the message aloud. “‘Going to the hobby shop with D in the morning. Will be home before lunch. Cool?’” Relief left her feeling weak-kneed and she was glad to be already sitting. She typed a quick response: “Cool. Good night.” When she dropped the phone into her purse she found Peyton watching her.
“Did you ask Lucy to contact you tonight only if there was a problem?”
“No,” she said, not following where he was going with this.
“Then why’d you automatically assume something was wrong when you got that text?”
Valerie sighed, and the concern in his eyes had her admitting, “It’s just like when the girls got sick—the situation. Lucy’s away from home overnight and I’m out having fun.”
“Val, they didn’t get meningitis because you were out with friends. But why didn’t Dinah or Cordelia watch after the girls, if you didn’t feel comfortable with the field trip?”
“They weren’t living on the ranch then. It wasn’t rehabilitated yet.” Because she hadn’t had the money to invest in Battle Creek until her daughters had become ill. But she couldn’t open that Pandora’s Box. “They moved to Night Sky when Battle Creek was starting to turn around, but it took a while before there was any real profit.”
Peyton put his arm around her shoulders. “Nothing bad’s going to happen tonight.” He glanced around. “Dance with me?”
“Are you serious?” If there was one thing about him that hadn’t changed, it was the fact that he didn’t dance. The song now reverberating throughout the bar, “Down on the Farm,” demanded dancing. When Peyton didn’t immediately retract the offer, she took his hand and hurried to the dance floor before he could change his mind.
For a few solid minutes he tried to keep up and mimic the moves of the others crowding the center of the room. She laughed more than danced, and hurried off to join a group in an uncoordinated line dance. She chatted over the commotion with a few women she recognized around town as they tried to move in unison. She staggered once or twice and finally gave up the effort, navigating her way back to Peyton. She found him in the sea of Stetsons and baseball caps bobbing in time with the music.
A nudge from someone rushing past had her stumbling against him, and he caught her without missing a beat. Tim McGraw’s voice overhead faded and was replaced by The Goo-Goo Dolls.
And then they were swaying, fitted together with her hands loosely locked behind his neck, and one of his arms hooked around her waist … her soft curves and his hard planes creating a delicious friction.
The heat was building, but not because of the crush of bodies on the floor. Valerie’s arms slipped from his neck. “I don’t feel like dancing anymore.”
Peyton didn’t ask for an explanation, just led her to their booth where he paid the bill and she insisted on covering the waitress’s tip, and then they were on Old Towne again.
At the ranch, he followed her to the porch, but he didn’t seem to want to leave right away. Nor did she want him to.
She stepped inside the foyer and turned to face him. “Do you have a good memory of the Bronco now? Great food and … well, we won’t bring up the line dancing debacle.”
He grinned, and his blue-gray eyes glimmered under the porch lights. “I remember you in my arms, so it’s a damn good memory.”
Nothing bad’s going to happen tonight. It would if she once again put away what she needed to say to him—what she needed to show him.
Valerie let her purse fall to the floor and stood with her arms at her
sides. “Peyton.”
A heartbeat later, he scooped her off her feet and hauled her against him as he took two long, determined strides into the foyer. With a firm kick he shut the door.
“Lock it,” he whispered against her throat before he let her down.
“In a second.” Valerie kissed him, taking his bottom lip between her teeth in a teasing bite that had him groaning into her mouth. “Now I’ll lock the door.”
She felt his eyes on her, caressing the length of her spine, her ass, her calves, as she went to the door and engaged the lock. It was purely erotic and a tiny bit embarrassing to have him watching her so closely, but it didn’t slow her stride as she walked right past him to the foot of the curved staircase.
Peyton’s hands were on her before they reached her bedroom. In the upstairs hallway, he stopped her with a searing, deep, wet kiss. “What about your boundaries, Val?”
“No boundaries. Not with you. Not anymore.”
They hit her closed bedroom door with a hard Thump! A few feet away the cat came skulking out of a closet and, finding nothing of particular interest in the hallway, trotted down the stairs, probably in search of his water dish.
Peyton smoothed her tousled hair away from her face, his gaze pinioning hers as his free hand cruised down her torso and around to her back. Then it dove into her jeans and lace panties, the rough pads of his fingers scraping the supple flesh of her buttocks.
He took his time exploring, pressing her to him even as he drove his hips forward. They moved roughly against the door, the bump, bump, bump a rhythm in Valerie’s ears.
Fisting his hair, she brought her mouth to his, tasting the desire on his tongue. This, she thought as their moans blended. This is what I want for a lifetime.
Peyton’s hand slid from inside her jeans and she ached for that contact. But the moment he twisted the doorknob and they shuffled into the room, she was in his arms again.
As she released the buttons on his shirt, she pressed openmouthed kisses to the expanse of exposed skin from his collarbone to his navel. He discarded the shirt as she freed him of his belt and unzipped his jeans.
Down to his briefs, Peyton followed her to the wide set of windows along the far wall. Just before she pulled the sheer white panels shut, she glanced at the silhouette of mountains in the dark distance. It was a beautiful view, but not more so than the reflection of Peyton’s naked body in the glass.
He’d shed his briefs while crossing the room and now stood behind her at the windows, his hands on the strip of skin exposed below the hem of her sweater. “These clothes have gotta go.”
She guided his hands underneath the sweater to her breasts. “Just touch me. Anywhere. Everywhere.”
It was all the urging he needed. From behind, he snatched the sweater over her head. Then she gripped handfuls of the sheer window coverings at the shock of pleasure that rode her blood when he thrust against her bottom. It wasn’t enough though, with her jeans and underwear still barring him from where she wanted him most.
Peyton caught her around the waist, dumped her onto the bed and she promptly sprang up on all fours and crawled to the center. In close pursuit, he joined her in less time than it took for her to draw in a breath. Ridding her of the lacy scrap of bra, he groaned onto her breasts, swirling his tongue over the sensitive flesh, making her wetter with every explicit whisper.
He flipped her onto her back, impatient to remove the jeans that became snagged on her boot heels and had to be tugged off. The panties were no more than sexy netting that didn’t even quite cover her butt cheeks, and she was all but naked under him.
“Get up,” he said, already helping her to her feet. Standing unsteadily on the pillow top mattress, she trusted his hands on her hips to keep her balanced. But without a warning his tongue lashed between her legs and she cried out.
Still, he held her in place, tasting her moist heat through the lace. When he all of a sudden stopped, she gasped at the interruption. “Promise me something, Val.”
Oh, hell, yes. She’d tell him anything he wanted to hear to get his mouth back on her.
“Promise you’ll get yourself another pair of these—” his fingers curled into the panties “—real soon.” The fragile lace ripped in his grasp, and she almost came on the spot.
Valerie let his mouth, and his skilled fingers, bring her body to total surrender. Her skin was damp with sweat, hot to the touch, and she felt so, so heavy with lust as she flopped onto the bed with her arms up and legs parted.
Wicked thirst flashed in his eyes as he dragged his gaze from hers to the apex of her thighs. He drank from her again, then kissed his way to her mouth as his weight pressed her into the mattress. “Wait. A condom.”
“No.”
“Val, come on. You don’t mean—”
Valerie drew his head to hers, kissed his mouth and tasted herself on his lips. “I do mean it. I said no boundaries.”
Peyton took his time learning her body: scraping her nipples with his teeth as his hands kneaded her ass. Finally—finally—he sank between the nook of her thighs.
She reared up to kiss a bead of sweat from his jaw, then slid her arms around him, clutching his shoulder blades as the stiff length of him speared her. Gasping in shock at the tight fit, the delicious invasion, she inadvertently arched against him, bringing him deeper.
Peyton groaned, and in a minute they were rocking together, his every thrust intensifying the passion that had been dormant for entirely too long.
Valerie looked between them, watched his abdominal muscles contract as his hips hammered against hers, and then she found his eyes almost completely dark with desire.
And when their bodies were slick with sweat, their breathing ragged and their pleasure at a new peak, he grasped her bottom, hauled her upward and let his pleasure fill her. Despite the warm sensation she shivered, reaching up to smooth back his hair.
He’s beautiful. And he’s mine.
He coaxed her orgasm, and she came apart in violent shudders, repeating his name on broken sighs, hugging him in the most intimate way.
Too satisfied to consider letting him go, Valerie protested when he started to get up. Now she cradled him with her legs splayed and his head resting on her tummy. And judging by the tremble of his body he was laughing. She frowned up at the ceiling. “Peyton?”
“So it’s true.” He shifted to raise one of her red-booted feet into the air. “You do everything in boots.”
Valerie laughed, remembering the discussion that seemed so long ago. Then his mouth found her navel, and she stopped laughing as she sank into the wanton bliss of his kiss.
DAYLIGHT WASHED OVER the bed, and Peyton awoke with a start, momentarily jarred to be waking up in a room that wasn’t his.
Valerie’s room, he realized, rubbing his eyes and taking in the mahogany furniture, the neutral walls, the bold artwork and the richly floral-and-stripe patterned postage stamp quilt that had been flung across the footboard. Valerie’s bed, he recalled, breathing in the coconut scent of her hair that lingered on the French stripe sheets.
But she wasn’t lying curled against him, the way they’d fallen asleep last night.
He shot into a sitting position, alarmed, then relaxed when he found her stretched out across an old-fashioned traveler’s trunk reading a ratty hardcover book with her legs bent and her feet swinging in the air.
She wore glasses … and nothing else.
Aroused on the spot, Peyton dragged a hand through his hair and across the overnight stubble on his jaw. “Catching up on some reading, Val?”
“Wasting time. It feels wonderful to do that.” She dog-eared the page. “Good morning.”
The light of dawn touched her hair and the slope of her ass. When she stood and set the book aside, his stare settled on her front.
It was amazing that those full, rose-tipped breasts and toned, taut thighs lurked beneath all the flannel and denim she wore. “C’mere.”
“Be patient,” she whispered, sitti
ng beside him on the bed. “Three things. First, can you make it for dinner tonight … um, about seven? I’m thinking about making Caesar salad with lemon pepper shrimp. There’s also a hot buttered rum recipe I’d like to try.” She touched her lips to his. “I’m told it’s not meant to be drunk alone.”
“I can’t turn down an offer like that.” Peyton lightly grazed her nipple with his knuckles. “What’s the second thing?”
“It’s this.” Valerie’s whiskey-colored eyes seemed hesitant and vulnerable. “I loved you a long time ago. I loved that boy who left Night Sky. But I’m in love with the man who came back, who’s here now.”
He was rattled to his soul to hear the words. Last night he’d known for certain, but to hear her say what he’d once thought impossible shook the foundation of his world. “Valerie—” he bent his head to kiss her thoroughly “—I love you. In every single damn way.”
“I know. Don’t think I didn’t know.” She removed her reading glasses, set them on the nightstand and climbed onto the bed in front of him. “Now lie back,” she instructed so softly he hardly heard the words. She leaned over him, her silky curtain of dark hair sweeping across his chest. “On to the third thing.”
“Which is?” he said as her lips chased the arrow of hair down the center of his abdomen.
Valerie paused to grin at him, and she, hovering over him wearing nothing but a naughty but shy smile, was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. “The third thing is—” she slid lower “—I don’t do everything in boots.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“MOM, CAN I show you something?”
Valerie and Chase had just returned from exercising two horses, the well-mended Daffodil and Hector—Brute’s replacement—on the trail and were in the ranch office nursing beers from the mini fridge and reviewing estimates to renovate the bunkhouse.
Her cousin had pled his case over a bid from Alamo Lumber and Construction, saying that tearing down the mold-eaten outer rear wall would be an investment that’d go a long way toward keeping a full-timer on board long after he left Texas.
