13
GUNNER HAD ENDED up buying a Western-style chambray shirt that Mallory had chosen for him at a store near the hotel she’d booked for them online. Man, he hated to shop, and when he saw the size of the store, offering everything from cowboy boots to horse feed, he’d been tempted to turn right back around. But with Mallory’s help the different departments hadn’t been difficult to navigate, and he’d even picked up a new pair of jeans.
The hotel, though, that was a disappointment.
It was nice, relatively new, had a large pool and offered room service. Mallory seemed to like the green-and-mauve lobby decor. It just wasn’t what he’d had in mind. To be fair, the hotel boasted two suites on the top floor. Maybe if she hadn’t been so stubborn and had booked one of them like he’d asked, he’d have been happier with their accommodations.
If he’d been alone, a firm bed and a bathroom with hot water would do it for him. But he was with Mallory and he’d wanted her to have something fancier. He doubted she’d ever been in a suite in her life.
After his shower, Gunner found her lying stomach-down on the bed, studying the room service menu. The black skinny jeans, as she called them, did a first-rate job of hugging her slim thighs and paying homage to that sweet, curvy backside of hers. He was a little sorry he hadn’t asked her to join him in the shower. But if she had, it would’ve ruined his plan. “Did you order anything yet?”
“I don’t think we should eat in.” She glanced up, widened her eyes and let out a whistle. “Well, look at you. I told you that blue went with your eyes. Come on, turn around, let’s see the back,” she said, sitting up and motioning with a twirl of her finger, and then giving him the stink eye when he shook his head. “Come on, Gunner. I’d do it for you.”
“Like hell.”
“I would,” she said, but her laugh told a different story. “Please.”
Finally, feeling like a damn jackass, he made a quick turn.
“Ooh. Nice ass.”
He lunged for her, but she scrambled to the other side of the bed, just out of reach.
“This is exactly why we can’t order room service,” she said, hugging the large leather-bound menu to her chest as if it would protect her from him.
“You lost me.”
“I really want to hear Boot Stompin’. And I don’t know when I’ll have another opportunity like this.”
“Did I say we wouldn’t? They don’t even start playing for another hour and a half,” he said, checking his watch. Either they had to order something, anything, or he’d have to convince her to take a bath. A shower wouldn’t give him enough time to duck out.
She was staring at him as if he were a simpleton. “If we order room service, you know as well as I do we’ll never leave this room.”
Gunner smiled. “We don’t have to get naked,” he said, though she had a point. One that might’ve occurred to him, if he wasn’t so determined to go buy her that red dress he knew she wanted. “I promise to keep my clothes on if you do.”
“So you really think that would work, huh?”
“Only because I know we have all night.”
In seconds her eyes darkened to that deep mossy green that turned him on all by itself. Then the tip of her tongue slid across her lips, and damned if she wasn’t out to test the give of his new jeans.
Time slowed as they just stared at each other.
Mallory broke eye contact first. And then she sighed, with that sad, lost expression he’d seen before but didn’t understand. Was she having second thoughts about their—arrangement? About him?
“Listen,” he said, holding up his hands as he moved around the bed to take the menu from her. “I haven’t eaten all day. I need to order something just to hold me over until dinner.”
“We’ll eat now.” She glanced around the rust-colored carpet, found her black flats and slipped them on her feet. “Let’s go.”
Gunner blocked her attempt to pass him. He settled his hands on her shoulders and waited for her to meet his eyes. “Look, we don’t have to do anything. And I do mean anything. You know that, right?”
She gave him an off look. “That’s the second time you’ve said something like that to me. Do you feel—” Her shoulder lifted in a small shrug. “Obligated?”
“Obligated?” He could see she wasn’t joking. But what the hell? Bewildered, he grabbed her hand and brought it to the front of his jeans, pressing her palm against his lingering erection. “Does that feel like obligation to you?”
A big grin lit her face. Just like that. As if she hadn’t almost given him heart failure. “Well, good.” She kept her palm molded to his cock even after he’d removed his hand. “We’re on the same page.”
He grunted at the subtle increase in pressure on his groin. “Mallory Brandt, if I wasn’t so crazy about you I’d strangle you. Jesus.” Forced to either step back or start tearing off her clothes, he caught her troublemaking hand and brought it to his lips for a quick kiss. “You mind ordering me a cheeseburger?” he asked, backing toward the door and making sure he had his wallet in his back pocket.
“What about dinner?”
“Right.” He was pretty damn hungry but said, “Yeah, better tell them to hold the fries.”
Mallory laughed. “No. I meant aren’t we going soon?” Her smile disappeared when he put his hand on the doorknob.
“We are. I forgot something while we were shopping. I won’t be long.”
“What? Now?”
“Yep. It can’t wait.”
“Let’s just stop on our way back.”
“I can’t take the chance the stores will be closed. So if you wait and sign for room service, it’ll save time.”
She frowned, clearly not liking the plan. “Why don’t I go to the store so you can eat when your food gets here?”
“We need condoms,” he said, and watched her mouth form a silent oh.
“I’m particular about the brand.”
He left her frowning and ran to catch the elevator a kid had just vacated.
Earlier, after he’d paid for the toothbrushes and clothes they’d picked up, he’d found Mallory holding a red sundress up to herself and smiling at her reflection. When he’d tried to buy it for her, she’d shut him down.
She hadn’t left an inch of room for argument, forcing him to be sneaky about it. And yeah, she might be pissed at first, but he was going to buy her that red dress.
Dammit.
* * *
FROM THE OUTSIDE Wild Bill’s Honky Tonk looked like any other roadside bar. But beyond the heavy wooden door the place was enormous. Booths with red vinyl seats lined two of the walls. Tables and chairs made from solid oak crowded the plank floor and should’ve made it difficult for the waitresses but, wearing short denim cutoffs and cropped green tops with tennis shoes, the women zipped in and out like real pros, serving both drinks and food from the limited menu.
A basket of roasted peanuts was set on each table once the customers were seated. Mallory had toyed with the idea of doing something like that at the Full Moon. Up until she saw shells clinging to the waitresses’ hair and clothes and scattered across the floor.
What she really coveted was the old dark-wood bar itself. It stretched along the entire mirrored back wall, lined with shelves stocked with bottles of over sixty kinds of booze, much of it premium stuff. There were three tap stations, one located at each end and another in the middle. Yet none of the four busy bartenders seemed to be getting in each other’s way.
One thing about the place puzzled her. Why the massive dance floor? She liked the band a lot, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying Boot Stompin’, as well, but she hadn’t seen more than a few couples out there so far.
“Maybe I’m wrong to have dancing,” she said turning to Gunner, his arm loosely resting on the s
eat behind her shoulders in the roomy booth. “Giving up all that revenue-producing space doesn’t make sense.”
He just smiled at her, not even pretending that he hadn’t been watching her. Just as he had all through dinner, their very amazing dinner, complete with wine and candles—the real kind, tall and tapered, not like the votive sitting next to their basket of peanuts.
She was starting to get a complex. “What?”
“Nothing.” His fingers brushed her bare arm, just as they must’ve done a hundred times since dinner.
Predictably, she broke out in goose bumps.
It seemed he was always touching her in some way. Whether he was pressing his leg against hers, or playing with her hair, or planting a brief kiss on the side of her neck.
This new intimacy was sweet and sexy and crazy and scary all at the same time. If she wasn’t careful and lost perspective, she’d end up in a world of pain once he left.
“You wait,” he said, nodding toward the stage where the band was preparing for their next set. “People are still eating. Another thirty minutes and that dance floor will be packed.”
“Maybe, but I still think—” She felt his finger slip underneath the strap of her new sundress, the one that she had expressly told him she didn’t want. That had been a lie, but not the issue that had set them on a course of barely speaking to each other for a good half hour. “So, are you purposely trying to remind me that I’m mad at you?”
Gunner’s lazy smile made her feel a lot of things, and none of them came close to anger. “Hey, you can gripe at me all you want,” he said, trailing his finger along the side of her breast. “Tonight I’m bulletproof.” Leaning closer, he kissed the spot behind her ear and whispered, “I’m sitting here with the most beautiful woman in the room.”
“Quit it. I told you that you don’t have to say stuff like that.” She squirmed when his fingers slipped too far under the fabric. “Watch it.”
“I’m being careful. No one can see.”
She supposed that was true. The room was dimly lit to begin with and their little corner darker than most. No wonder he’d been so pleased to nab this booth.
His finger grazed her nipple and she gasped. “Dammit, Gunner.”
“We’re fine,” he murmured.
“You folks about ready for another round?” Cindy, their waitress, was all teeth and very blonde. And acted as if she hadn’t seen a thing.
Even if she had, it couldn’t have been much. Bar people saw a lot worse as the nights stretched into the wee hours. Mallory could attest to that.
“I’m ready,” Gunner said, looking at her.
“No kidding,” she muttered, and nodded at Cindy, who smiled and scribbled their order on her way to the next table.
“Hey, I straight-up told you my motives for buying the dress weren’t pure.”
He moved his hand to her thigh, startling her.
“I should’ve listened.”
His low, sexy laugh almost distracted her from his palm sliding higher up her leg.
“Are you really that horny you can’t wait until we get back to the hotel?”
Irritation flared in his eyes. “It has nothing to do with being horny. But if that explanation is easier for you to accept, fine.”
“Gunner...” She hated how he’d pulled his hand away and laid his head back, his eyes closing briefly. “I was teasing.”
“Were you?”
She paused to think. “Half and half.”
“Well, you get credit for honesty.” With a small shrug, he picked up his Sam Adams and drained the bottle. “Look, I just wanted you to have something from me, okay?”
She wanted to ask what he’d meant by an “easier explanation” but it felt like something she should already know. Later she’d be able to figure it out on her own, when her brain was less hazy from the beer, from Gunner’s nearness, from the thrill of being on her very first real date.
God that sounded so weird, even if it was just in her head.
He was still holding the empty bottle, both hands wrapped around it. Probably an excuse to not touch her. She swept a sideways glance at him. He was facing the stage, eyes forward, his jaw clenched.
“And another thing,” he said, turning abruptly to her. “Why is it okay for Dale and Wayne and every other Tom, Dick and Harry to give you gifts but I get my ass chewed for buying you a lousy dress?”
Mallory blinked at him. Where the hell had that come from?
“Bringing me back a keepsake from someplace exotic that I’ll never see is completely different.”
“How?”
“Are you serious? Those guys are just— I’m not—” She stopped just in time, silently cursing herself. Jesus, she was not in love with Gunner. And even if she was, and she wasn’t, she wouldn’t admit it to him.
Her hands started shaking but she took care of that by sitting on them. So Gunner wouldn’t see, mostly, but there was also a possibility she might try to strangle him. Why make it too easy?
“Go on,” he said. Even with his brows pulled together in a frown he still managed to look mildly amused. “Finish what you were saying.”
“No. I changed my mind.”
“Chicken.”
They stared at each other as several long seconds ticked by. Of course there was no way he’d guessed what she had been about to say. But he should know better than to press her when she was embarrassed.
She unclenched her teeth. “Now who’s being a dick?”
His smug grin couldn’t be more annoying. “Um, was that an admission of guilt?”
She thought a moment. It might’ve sounded like it. But did he really have to point it out? She picked up a peanut and threw it at him.
He jerked back so it missed, and laughed.
“I’ve been having the best night of my whole life and I’m not letting you ruin it, Gunner,” she said. “I’m not.”
The smirk disappeared. With a look of tenderness that made her chest ache, he put his arm around her. “I’m having a good time, too.”
Much as she hated her impulsive outburst, she hadn’t exaggerated. Although... She laid a hand on his thigh. “I had two other pretty cool nights,” she said softly. “This might make it a three-way tie.”
He touched her chin, gently tipping her head back. “I agree,” he said and kissed her.
The warmth in her cheeks spread to her body as Gunner’s tongue demanded entry. He seemed more rushed than usual, probing deep with raw, hungry strokes that seemed almost desperate to sample every bit of her mouth.
She didn’t know she’d moved her hand higher up his leg until she felt the beginning of his erection nudging the back of her fingers. A quiet groan rose from his throat and filled her mouth. In another second she was going to crawl on top of him and forget they were sitting in a crowded bar.
Her eyes fluttered open just in time to see their waitress approaching. Mallory pulled back. “Incoming.”
It took him a moment to get it. He just shook his head as Cindy set their beers in front of them. She smiled but didn’t linger.
“How about we make this our last one?” Gunner said, picking up his beer. “Then leave after the next set.”
“Fine,” she said, her attention drawn to a tiny white-haired woman wearing creased jeans and a pink gingham blouse.
Wild Bill’s seemed to cater to the thirtysomething crowd so anyone who looked to be pushing eighty stood out.
Mallory watched the woman pick her way through the layers of sawdust and peanut shells in her pointed cowboy boots and walk onto the empty dance floor. She paused, glanced around as if she might be lost, then continued onto the stage and patiently waited for the band to finish tuning up.
Gunner followed her gaze. “This ought to be good,” he said. “She’s probably go
ing to ask them to play a waltz.”
“Be quiet. I think she might be confused.”
“Great,” he muttered. “She can join the club.”
“I heard that,” Mallory shot back and tried not to fret as she watched anxiously to see if a band member or anyone else acknowledged the poor woman.
Josiah, the lead singer, who Mallory needed to contact about hiring them, smiled and gave the woman a slight nod.
She glanced around as she had before and walked briskly to the middle of the floor just as the band started playing Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart.”
It seemed as if people exploded from their tables onto the dance floor. After a few moments of what looked like mass confusion, they all formed into lines and jumped into the rhythm of the song.
It was crazy. And wonderful. And watching them filled Mallory with a giddy joy she’d never before experienced.
She whipped her gaze to Gunner. “Do you know how to line dance?”
“Hell no, and I’m not about to learn, either.”
“Gunner?”
“Mallory...”
She smiled at him.
“Forget it.” He shook his head and chugged down some beer. “No,” he said, finally meeting her eyes again. “I’m not getting up there and making a fool of myself.”
Mallory ignored his stubborn frown and waited patiently, tapping her foot along with the beat of the song. When she thought the time was right, she got up and held out her hand.
He stared at it, then looked up into her pleading eyes.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered, getting to his feet and taking her hand.
14
GUNNER KEPT HIS cool and waited until the bickering older couple stepped out of the elevator. They couldn’t seem to agree on their floor and had stopped the car once already. The door had barely slid closed when he backed Mallory up against the wall and swept his tongue inside her mouth.
“Hey,” she said, laughing and still out of breath from the last kiss before they’d been interrupted. “We have only five more floors. You can wait.”
Come Closer, Cowboy Page 12
