by JoAnn Ross
“They certainly look good together,” she said pensively. No one could say that she hadn’t made an attractive match.
Dora snorted at that. “Lookin’ good has always been important to Charmayne. But like most people who are all wrapped up in themselves, she makes a pretty puny package.”
“Girl doesn’t have a whole lot of depth,” Rooster agreed. “But she does fill out a pair of jeans right nice.”
Unfortunately, she filled out everything right nice, Sunny thought. She was comparing her own slender body with Charmayne’s voluptuous one as the woman tossed her head, then spun away from Clint, grabbed Rope, who was passing by, and began dancing with the young cowboy.
Sunny’s rebellious heart skipped a beat as Clint sat down beside her, his leg brushing against hers. “I was going to ask you to dance,” he said. “But I thought you might like to wait for a slow one.”
“It looked to me as if you already had a partner.” Sunny cringed as she realized exactly how uncharacteristically petty she sounded.
Dora gave a muffled laugh; Rooster whistled softly; Clint arched a dark brow as he leaned back and looked at her.
“What did Rope want?” Rooster asked.
“He and some other cowboys want me to give them bull riding lessons.” Clint didn’t take his eyes from Sunny’s face.
“You gonna do it?”
“Might as well. Considering what they’re willing to pay.”
“Good idea, trainin’ the competition,” Rooster muttered.
“I figured out today, during that eight seconds, that I was getting too old to keep getting every bone in my body jounced around,” Clint said absently, still looking at Sunny.
“Come on.” He took her hand and stood up, pulling her to her feet. “‘Night, Dora. Rooster. We’ve had a real good time, but it’s gettin’ late and Sunny’s had a long day. We’ll see you in the morning.”
“Bright and early for the Jaycee’s pancake breakfast,” Rooster agreed with a grin.
As the couple watched Clint and Sunny leave the bar, Dora turned to her husband. “What do you figure the chances are of those two makin’ that breakfast?”
“Slim to none,” he answered, and seemed vastly pleased by thenotion.
12
“WOULD YOU MIND telling me where we’re going?” Sunny asked as Clint practically dragged her across the bar parking lot.
“I told you, I feel like dancing.”
“The band’s back in there.”
“The dance floor’s too crowded.”
“I suppose that’s why Charmayne had to dance so close.”
He laughed. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re real cute when you’re jealous, sunshine?”
“I’m not jealous. Just observant.”
“Whatever you say, darlin’,” Clint agreed as they walked around to the back of the motel. “I’m not about to argue with you, not tonight.”
She’d expected him to suggest they go to her room, but instead, he stopped in front of his truck and dug the keys out of his pocket.
“Now what?”
“Just be a little patient.” He turned on the radio and punched the buttons until he came to a romantic Vince Gill ballad. “There we go.” He turned and took her into his arms. “Now, isn’t this nice?”
Even though she knew she was flirting with danger, she couldn’t deny that it was wonderful. The night was getting chilly, but she felt radiantly warm. The sky was as clear as it had been the evening before, and overhead a full moon hung in the sky like a shiny silver dollar.
“It’s very nice.” Better than nice. Sunny thought it was the closest thing to heaven anyone could ever find on earth.
As Clint pulled her closer, Sunny turned her cheek against the front of his shirt. Their thighs brushed. He pulled her still closer. His hand moved up her back and tangled in her hair.
“Sunshine, you smell good.” He pressed his lips against the top of her hair as they continued to sway to the music. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what’s the name of that perfume?” He had every intention of stopping by a department store in Phoenix on their way back to Whiskey River and buying a lifetime supply.
“I’m not wearing any perfume,” she murmured as she felt her body melting against his.
He missed a step, recovered, then tilted his head back so he could look down at her. “You’re not?”
Even in the dark, she could see the flame in his eyes, a flame that was scorching her skin. Her mouth was suddenly unbearably dry. When she unconsciously licked her lips, Sunny watched the fire flare higher.
“No.” It was a whisper, barely heard despite the stillness of the night.
He shook his head, his expression one of male resignation. “You realize what this means, of course.”
“What?”
“That we’re in deep trouble here, Sunny.”
She swallowed. “I know.”
Without taking his eyes from hers, he ran his hand back down her hair, down to her waist. “I want to make love to you tonight. But I want you to want it, too.”
What was wrong with her? She lifted a hand to her spinning head. “I do, but—”
“No.” He pressed his fingers against her lips. “No buts. I don’t want to hear any bullshit about how you’re the wrong woman for me. I’ve had my share of women, Sunny, and believe me, I know what I’m saying when I say I’ve never wanted any of those women as badly as I want you tonight.”
He hesitated as if expecting her to continue to argue, not knowing that she couldn’t have uttered a single word if her life had depended on it, then he cupped her cheek in his palm. “And I want you to understand that it’s going to mean a whole lot more to me than just a roll in the hay.”
She shouldn’t do this, Sunny told herself. Not only would it complicate things terribly, it would also make it so hard to leave him. On the other hand, she thought, it was impossible to think of leaving without experiencing this one night in his arms.
“Show me.” Her eyes, wide with innocence and shimmering with desire, gleamed in the moonlight. “I want you to show me those wonderful things you promised me. Take me to those magical places I couldn’t imagine.”
Her voice was throaty, her slender body trembled. Looking down at her, Clint realized what a gift she was bestowing on him and said a small, silent prayer that he’d be worthy.
“Oh, darlin’,” he said, drawing her back into his arms and holding her close, “I’m going to try my damndest.”
Later, thinking back on it, Sunny had no memory of Clint turning off the car radio, of walking with him to her room, or of one of them unlocking the door.
But somehow all that must have happened because the next thing she knew she was standing beside the double bed, more nervous than she’d ever been before in her life.
“You are so beautiful.”
At her request, he’d left off the cowboy boot lamp, but had opened the drapes, to allow the silver dollar moon to light the room. Although Sunny knew that no one could see in, the uncovered window created a subconscious fear of discovery that made what they were doing seem even more exciting. Forbidden.
Clint ran his palms over her shoulders with a tenderness that caused a lump in her throat and made her want to weep.
“The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he murmured.
Sunny knew he was exaggerating. But his words made her heart sprout wings, nevertheless.
“Did I mention that I love this outfit?”
The beaded ivory lace blouse with its sweetheart neckline, flowing sleeves and matching pleated skirt had magically appeared in her suitcase. Although she’d worried it would be overkill for the Boot Hill Saloon, she’d been unable to resist. From the looks she’d garnered, and not just from Clint, she’d realized that Andromeda had chosen well.
“I believe you said something about it,” she murmured. “When you picked me up after the rodeo.”
“It’s lovely. But I think you’re a bit overdressed.”
&n
bsp; With a deftness she found amazing, he slipped the tiny pearl buttons through the loops, one at a time, then kissed each bit of revealed flesh. When he got to her waist, he tugged the blouse free of the waistband, and sent it fluttering to the floor.
“Do you like that?” he murmured against her throat.
“Oh, yes,” she breathed.
“I’m glad.” His lips skimmed across her collarbone, creating sparks. “How about this?” He touched his mouth to the crest of her breast, and was rewarded when she gasped, then sighed.
When she didn’t immediately answer, he caught her chin between his fingers, causing her to open her eyes. “You’re going to have to tell me what you want, Sunny.”
“I want you.”
His lips quirked. “Well, sweetheart, that’s definitely mutual. But you see, there are a lot of in-between things. So, I thought I’d just go step by step and you could let me know whether or not you liked what I was doing.”
She couldn’t imagine not liking anything he might think to do to her. “I liked that,” she murmured, relieved he couldn’t see her blushing. “A lot.”
He laughed at that, not because she’d said anything funny, but because he felt so damn good. “Well, I’m real pleased about that. Because I liked it a lot, too.” To underscore his words, he lowered his mouth to that gardenia soft flesh again and dampened it with his tongue.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. He’d promised that there was more than kissing, but she’d never expected this. Entranced by the heat of his wonderful mouth, she was suddenly shaken when he backed away. “Clint?”
“Your turn.”
When she stared uncomprehendingly at him, he held out his arms, twisting his wrists so the buttons on his cuffs were turned up. “To take my shirt off.”
“Oh.” Much more nervous than she’d been when he’d begun to work on her buttons, Sunny started with the sleeves. “Why do you have three buttons on each sleeve?”
“For looks. The saleslady told me women love these cuffs.”
“Not women trying to undress their man,” she muttered as she managed to unfasten the left sleeve.
Their man. Clint couldn’t remember when any woman had referred to him as her man. Even Laura’s loyalties had been mixed. And although he’d understood how hard it had been for her to break her vows, there had been more than a few times when he’d been frustrated by her unwillingness, or inability, to put him first.
Not wanting to think of Laura tonight, he pushed the thoughts of her into a far distant corner of his mind. That same safe place where he’d kept her during all those years they’d been apart.
“What me to help?” he asked.
“No.” Her teeth were worrying her bottom lip as she struggled to unfasten the resistant buttons.
Success! His cuffs open, Sunny moved on to the front of his shirt, her fingers moving with more confidence. She tugged the cloth free of his jeans to reach the bottom buttons, then folded the material back.
He was the most stunning man she’d ever seen. As hard and spectacular as the land where he’d chosen to live. She reached out and touched the coppery flesh with her suddenly sensitive fingertips, and discovered that the same heat that had flamed in her was burning in him.
Drawn to that hot skin, she kissed it, murmuring a soft sound of pleasure as she drank in the intimate dark taste and breathed in the earthy male scent. She felt his muscles bunch up tight as her lips skimmed over them, and marveled at the texture of the soft ebony hair against her cheek.
Clint Garvey was all she’d dreamed of as a mortal woman, the only thing on this planet she desired.
And he wasn’t hers.
When that thought struck home, she felt colder than she’d felt while lying in that snowdrift.
Clint felt her suddenly stiffen, heard her soft murmurs turn into a faint moan.
“Sunny?”
He caught hold of her bare shoulders and put her a little away from him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Blinking away the treacherous tears caused by that depressing thought, she gave him a watery little smile that didn’t fool him for a moment.
“I want you so much right now, I can hardly breathe,” he told her. “But if you don’t want to do this…”
“No.” Panicky, she pressed her fingers against his lips to block his words. “I want you to make love to me because of the way you make me feel when you kiss me. When you touch me. When you look at me the way you looked at me while we were dancing. The way you’re looking at me now.”
Understanding that there’d be a price to pay for breaking so many rules, but willing to risk everything for this one glorious, spellbinding night, Sunny went up on her toes and touched her mouth to his.
“I want you to make love to me more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. In fact, I think I’ll go crazy if you don’t.”
It was all he needed to hear. “Can’t have that,” he said, conveniently forgetting he’d accused her of being crazy for making up that fairy godmother story. His lips curved beneath hers as he slowly backed her up toward the bed.
“I’m going to do things to you, Sunny.” His smile was warm and wicked as he sat her down and knelt to pull off her boots. “Wonderful, exciting, impossible, exquisite things.”
The first boot hit the floor with a barely heard thud. When he surprised her by touching his lips to her instep, Sunny imagined she heard her skin sizzle.
“Then, you’re going to do amazing, dangerous, exhilarating, glorious things to me.” The second boot followed. This time he kissed the small round bone on her ankle, creating a surge of heat that shot up her leg to that warm wet place between her thighs.
“And then—” he lifted her skirt and followed the sizzling heat with his mouth, barely touching her flesh, hinting at erotic things to come “—we’re going to do all those magical things to each other.”
His words were satin cords, twining around her heart, then his, binding them together.
Passion rose, sweet and thick as honey. Desire lapped over Sunny like the warm wavelets of a tropical ocean. As he pressed her back against the pillows, pleasure floated dreamlike over her mind.
And as his hands finished undressing Sunny, and his clever, wicked, wonderful lips treated each bit of freed flesh to a sweet sensual torment, all thought, all reason, drifted away.
He then proceeded to dispense with his own clothes with a lazy ease that suggested he was not at all shy about being naked in front of a woman.
And why should he be? Sunny wondered as she looked up at him. He was, in a word, magnificent. Whipcord lean, with muscles that rippled and gleamed in the silvery moondust streaming into the room. His thighs were strong from a lifetime spent on horseback, his arms were sinewy from controlling the twelve-hundred-pound animals.
His chest, tanned to a coppery hue by the Arizona sun, had a light sprinkling of dark hair. As her gaze followed that arrowing of hair to the fully aroused darkness between his rigid thighs, Sunny felt a hammering in her throat that she barely recognized as her own heart.
When she slowly lifted her eyes back to his face, she was embarrassed to realize he was aware of her prolonged scrutiny. She expected some masculinely smug remark, but instead, he captured her rapt attention as he trailed his splayed hand slowly down his chest, then curled his long dark fingers around his tumescent flesh.
“You do that,” he told her, his voice gruff with hunger. “It’s because of you.” She watched in awe as he trailed a finger from the nest of jet curls to the tip. “It’s all for you.”
“Oh, yes.” She was struck with a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to lick away the single drop of pearly moisture shimmering at the plum-hued tip. But her limbs were too heavy to move.
Clint’s penis throbbed in the hand that was a lousy substitute for her touch. Needing to feel her pale, satin skin against his, he lay down beside her on the bed, combed his hands through her hair and kissed her. A long, deep, hot kiss that left them both trembling.
> Forcing down the need to bury himself deep in her soft, feminine warmth, Clint reined in his raging desire, reminding himself that they had all night. And then, if he had anything to say about it, a lifetime.
His hands moved over her, with a lazy, intimate touch that made her feel as if she were adrift on a soft sea of desire, willing to go wherever destiny, and Clint, took her.
She’d known he was a good man. But she never could have imagined how much control Clint had. Even as her flesh heated and her breathing quickened, even as she began to writhe restlessly on the cotton sheets, he insisted on tenderly taking his time.
He rained kisses up the bones of her spine, creating a sizzling heat against her moist flesh. He laved her aching breasts, then took the ultrasensitive nipples into his mouth, each in turn, tugging on them in a way that cre ated a rush of wet heat between her legs, which he lapped up in a way that shocked and thrilled her. And had her quaking with elemental need.
“Like rose petals,” he murmured against her, his voice sending thrumming waves of sound and heat spiraling outward. “All pink and soft and damp with morning dew.”
When that devastating tongue touched the tingling hard bud that was practically screaming for his touch, Sunny sighed in pleased wonder as she crested in a gentle wave that lifted up, then settled.
Steadfastly ignoring the needs of his own aching body, Clint held her close as the faint tremors slowly abated.
“That was wonderful,” she murmured, snuggling up against him. “I never imagined anything could feel so lovely.”
“Oh, we’re not finished, sunshine,” he promised. “Not hardly.”
When he left the bed, Sunny felt instantly bereft. She reached out for him. “Clint…”
“Just one little minute, darlin’,” he promised as he took the foil package from the pocket of the discarded jeans. She watched, intrigued as he tore the package open with his teeth, then rolled the condom over his erection.
Watching her practically eating him up with those wide, avid eyes, made Clint feel more powerful than he’d ever felt. In fact, right now, he felt downright invincible.
