by Donna Alward
Mack thought that over. “When did you join NotMy1stRodeo.com?”
“A few months ago. I had another bad blind date that one of my best clients claimed would be perfect for me.” She couldn’t help it—she shuddered at the memory of Ryan. “He offered to cook me dinner at his place, which turned out to be eating pizza in his filthy apartment while he watched a World War II documentary. I’ll spare you the rest of the details.” No one else needed to know about how he’d taken off his socks and picked at his toenails while she was still eating. No one.
“He didn’t even cook? That’s not right,” Mack said as he finished his beer.
“Trust me, the pizza was the best part of that evening. But after that, I decided I couldn’t do much worse on my own, you know? And there’s something about a cowboy…”
She let her gaze drift over him again. He was a solid six feet tall—hell, everything about him was solid. He filled out his sport jacket and she was dying to know what he looked like under that bolo tie.
“You didn’t go out with that one again, did you?”
“No. I haven’t had a second date yet.” She sighed. “Half of them barely qualified as a first date, you know? I mean, I’m not repulsive. I own my own business. I’m easy to get along with and reasonably intelligent. Who would have thought it’d be so hard to find a decent man?”
“Actually,” he cut in, his gaze taking in the full magnitude of her cleavage, “you’re gorgeous. But continue.”
The way he said it—like it was just a fact that they had to acknowledge, much like they’d acknowledged his wife and her ex—warmed her from the inside out, because honestly? She hadn’t felt gorgeous in a really long time. After all, people who knew her—or thought they knew her—were setting her up with the likes of Ryan the Toe-Picker, as if that were as good as a middle-aged divorced woman like herself could possibly hope things to get.
“I…” She took a deep breath, attempting to sound like the self-confident woman she was trying so very hard to be. “Thank you.”
He looked confused. “For what?”
“For the compliment. When you realize that your husband cheated on you with younger, prettier women for basically the entire time you were married…well, I felt like I wasn’t enough. Pretty enough, good enough. Not enough for him.”
Mack looked at her as if she’d started speaking in a foreign language. For a second, he looked mad, like he wanted to punch someone—Ryan, Roger, all of them. Then he set his knife and fork down and put both hands on the table. “That man was a fool—all of them were.” He leaned forward as he spoke, his voice strong. The air between them almost hummed with tension. “Anyone can see that you’re…” His words trailed off again and he seemed to remember where he was. Doubt pulled him away from her.
Oh, no, Karen thought. She wasn’t going to let him leave that thought hanging. “Yes?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. She waited. He took a deep breath and pushed back from the table a little. “You have to understand, I met my wife when I was fifteen, and that was it. We married young and I had three sons by the time I was twenty-six. I haven’t even looked at another woman much in the last six years, much less complimented them. I don’t always remember how to talk to a woman.”
“Just talk to me,” she said. Her voice came out low. “I’m not sitting over here grading you on style and poise or anything.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said, but he couldn’t look her in the eye when he said it. “What do you want with an old man like me, anyway?”
It was a fair question. “First off, you’re how old?”
“Forty-six.”
“You are far from an old man. Here’s what I want from you, Mack. I want you to be real. I want to spend some time with a real man, someone who makes me feel like I’m still a real woman. Like I’m good enough. I can’t offer perfection and I’m not asking for it.” His eyebrows jumped up as he took that in, but she didn’t stop. She was afraid if she did, she’d start to overthink it. So she pressed on. “And you? You already said you’re not looking for another wife. What do you want from me?”
His cheeks shot bright red at that question, as if she’d asked him for sex even before the dessert menu had come. But he said, “My youngest is in college now. All three of my boys are grown men, out on their own. I can go a whole week without talking to another person, especially in the winter. It can be a lonely life.” He sighed, as if the truth were something best not spoken of. “I guess…I guess I got tired of being lonely.” He smirked. “Or Tommy got tired of it for me.”
“You came out tonight.” A three-hour drive in the darkness of winter. That was quite a commitment for a woman he didn’t know. “You didn’t have to. You could have said no.”
“Could have,” he agreed. Then he looked her in the eye. “But I’m glad I didn’t.”
Karen’s heart began to pound. For a moment, she’d thought she’d lost him. The tension between them had receded and she hadn’t been sure it’d come back.
But he was sitting over there, one corner of his mouth curved into half of a smile and he was glad to be here. “Me too,” she said. Which left only one other question. “So now what?”
Chapter Three
Before Mack could answer Karen’s question—and it was a damn good question—the waiter came back and cleared their dishes. He put the bill on the table and, hand to God, Karen reached for it.
“No,” Mack said, pulling it away from her.
“I can put it on my room,” she protested, her hand still extended like she really expected him to let her pay for his steak.
“Not happening,” he replied, checking the total. Yeah, that was more than he usually paid at a restaurant, but then he only ate out once a week after Sunday services, and this place wasn’t a Cracker Barrel. He fished a hundred and a fifty out of his wallet and stuck them in with the bill. “Even if I’m not old, I’m still old-fashioned. A gentleman pays for dinner. End of discussion.”
Karen’s lips twisted to one side, a gesture that was part irritation and part amusement. He wasn’t sure if she’d argue the point with him or not, and if she did, he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to handle it.
Wait…she had a room already?
But instead of listing reasons why they should split the check, she said, “Thank you. Dinner was lovely.”
They sat there for a moment, the unanswered question still hanging between them. Now what? In spite of himself, he was having a nice time. Karen was gorgeous, yes—that didn’t hurt a damned thing. But this went deeper than that.
Even though he was a widower and she was a divorcee, he felt like he understood her and maybe she even understood him. All the women who attended services with him every Sunday—the school teachers and nurses and bankers who populated the area around Butte, Montana—they looked at him with pity in their eyes, which he hated. Or worse, like he was lost without a woman to care for him and they were just the woman for the job.
He didn’t want someone to take care of him. But he missed taking care of Sue—all the little things that he’d gone out of his way to do to let her know he was thinking of her. Notes on the fridge where she’d see them when she woke up in the morning, letting her pick what they’d watch that night—and, yes, flowers.
He smiled at the memory.
“Why don’t we walk around a little? I’ve never been in a hotel quite like this. Doesn’t it have a water park or something?”
Karen’s face lit up with excitement. “It does. Fountains and everything. Did you bring a suit?”
“No,” he said with a chuckle. He retrieved his hat and held her chair for her. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. He liked that, liked having a woman by his side. “Lead on.”
Her eyebrows jumped up. “This way.”
Once they made it out of the restaurant, he asked. “So you’re staying
here tonight?”
“I am.” She led him back toward a pair of doors and stopped to get her keycard out. Once she had the door unlocked, she held out her hand for him and he took it. “After that last terrible date, I wanted to meet on neutral territory,” she explained as they walked into the pool area.
The air was warm and humid and heavy with chlorine. Lights under the water made the pool shimmer. It might be below freezing outside, but this place was much closer to a tropical sauna. The cavernous room was completely empty and the water was almost still.
“Cool,” he said. “I almost wish I’d packed my trunks.”
Karen turned and looked up at him, her mouth curved up in challenge. “You want to go swimming anyway?”
“What?”
“I’ll go skinny dipping with you.”
Mack felt like his jaw was on the ground because that was both the absolute worst idea he’d ever heard in his life and quite possibly the best one at the same time. He’d love nothing more than to see Karen’s nude body covered only with the shimmering water of this pool. “We—we can’t do that. This is a public pool.”
“There’s no one here. The place is deserted,” she countered, stepping away from him. She walked over to a table set up near what was probably a snack bar during the tourist season and set her little handbag down. “I’m going in. Are you coming?”
He could not form the words, because if there was one thing he wasn’t, it was an exhibitionist. He kept his bedroom door shut and his pants on. Hell, even in the peak of summer heat, he wore a shirt because he didn’t want to walk around topless. That was something he saved for his wife, just like she’d saved her body for his.
But before he could protest to that effect, Karen had pulled down a zipper hidden at the back of her dress, revealing the top of what—oh, God—looked like a red lace thong.
Mack grabbed the doorknob of the pool room and made damn sure it was shut, then he leaned heavily against it and watched. What the hell else could he do?
Nothing. Not a damn thing as he watched Karen reach up and untie the bow at the nape of her neck. The dress fell away and then—God help him—she leaned forward and shimmied the red fabric off her hips.
The pool room was so quiet he could hear the fabric shush to the ground, and there she was, wearing only a rose in her hair, a pair of little panties that left absolutely nothing to the imagination and a pair of heels.
She looked back over her shoulder. “Are you sure you won’t join me?”
She was right there, damn it all, beautiful and lush and someone he wanted. He hadn’t wanted in so long that even having a hard-on—and boy, did he have one—was something new and exciting and maybe even a little scary. He was really doing this. This was really happening. “I’ll watch. If that’s all right with you?”
One of her smooth shoulders lifted and fell. Then she stepped out of her heels and walked toward the steps.
She had to face him to do this.
Mack liked to think he was a strong man. He’d raised a family and cared for a wife until he’d had to bury her. He ran a ranch and managed the cattle and folded his own damn laundry. He was strong, for crying out loud.
Or at least, he had been. Right until he got a good look at Karen Thompson wading into a pool in a thong. That red lace thong. It sat high on her generous hips and barely covered the space where her legs met. All of which wasn’t quite enough to take his attention away from her breasts. Full and rounded with darker nipples that sat high—even at this distance of almost fifty feet, he could tell that the dress hadn’t been lying. She was built.
For the first time in years, Mack weakened. Desire hit him so low and hard in the gut that he sagged against the door. Jesus, he wasn’t going to be able to take it as Karen walked forward, her luscious body disappearing beneath the water. He swore to God that he saw her nipples tighten as the water hit her body.
Yeah, that wasn’t the only thing that tightened. Mack forced himself to breathe—in through the nose, out through the mouth. Which worked enough that he was able to get his legs back under him and move toward the pool. For a better view. Just to make sure she was okay in there. By herself.
In four feet of water. Yeah, he wasn’t even fooling himself with that.
“Are you sure you won’t join me?” she asked, her voice soft and inviting. For one wild second, he considered kicking out of his boots and taking her up on her offer.
But crazy as this whole situation was—and it was, hands down, the craziest thing he’d done—he couldn’t give himself over to the insanity. Not completely.
Besides, he reasoned, the night was still young. “Positive,” he managed to get out without sounding like he was some sex-crazed teenager on the verge of coming in his pants. Then, before he knew what he was saying, he told her, “I want to watch you.”
She shot him a coy smile and stretched out her lithe body. The waves surrounded her as she did a modified breaststroke—one that let her keep her head above water. Her legs sliced through the water, and all he could think of was how they’d feel wrapped around his waist.
He dropped down onto one of the lounge chairs that were spread out around the pool and watched as she swam with long, slow strokes. There was no rush, no sense of urgency. She took her time.
Mack adjusted his pants, trying to ease the pressure off his dick. His blood pounded with want and need and lust, driving all doubt from his mind. This might be a sin and he may be buying a ticket directly to hell, but for the first time in…well, years, he felt alive. He was excited and aroused and ready. Ready for this woman.
Karen reached the far side of the pool and turned back toward him. She had a hell of a look on her face—a satisfied curve to her lips that promised something so, so good.
He leaned his elbows on his knees and watched as she gracefully made her way over to his side of the pool. She lifted herself just far enough out of the pool to rest her arms on the edge, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of her breasts again.
Six years of abstaining seemed to float away in the water. More than six years really. Sue had battled the breast cancer for a couple of years before she’d lost that fight. It’d been so long since he’d looked at a breast and thought of pleasure, of giving and taking and mouths everywhere.
“Last chance to join me,” she said in a sultry voice. But she didn’t sound like she was irritated he was still dry. She sounded like…like the way he was watching her was just as erotic for her as it was for him.
“I’ll wait for you,” he told her.
“Then I won’t keep you waiting.” She pushed back from the side, the water lapping at the rounded tops of her breasts.
He wanted to bury his face in those breasts, suck and lick her nipples and make her gasp with pleasure, and he wanted to do it all without thinking of pain and guilt and heartbreak.
He stood and picked up a towel. He walked over to the top of the stairs and waited for Karen. She stood and the water sheeted off her upper body as she cut through the waves.
Oh, yeah, he was going to make a lot of love tonight. He was going to enjoy himself.
He unfolded the towel and held it wide open for Karen. When she reached the top step, she turned her back to him and held her arms out. Pausing only to admire her backside and that sexy thong, Mack stepped up to her and wrapped the towel around her body. She took the ends from him and held them closed, then pivoted and stepped all the way out of the pool.
And right into his arms. He rubbed his hands over the towel where it covered her back and her bottom. Slow, he thought. He had all night long. Jim, his neighbor, was going to feed his horses in the morning, and everything else could wait. The only thing he needed to think about was Karen.
She reached up and placed her palm against his cheek. “I want you to know—it’s been almost four years since I’ve been with a man.”
He didn’t kn
ow why that made him feel good, but it did. Sure, divorce and death weren’t quite the same things, but he felt like…like they were both starting from the same place. Starting over. “Those must have been some really bad dates.”
She grinned. “They were. But this one’s not.” She took a deep breath, the front of her towel brushing up against him. “Would you like to come up to my room?”
His dick jumped. Yeah, he’d kind of thought from the moment she’d unzipped her dress that sex would be where they end up. But confirmation of that was never a bad thing.
“I would.” Then a thought occurred to him. “But I’ve only ever been with one woman, and it’s been almost seven years since even that. I might be a little rusty.”
She stroked his cheek with her thumb. “I’ll make a deal with you. You tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what works for me. Fair?”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. It felt good to have a woman in his arms again. “Fair.” He lowered his head to hers and brushed a kiss over her lips. Just a simple kiss. But there wasn’t much that was simple about it. Need—powerful need—flowed between them. His grip on his control—iron-clad control that had kept things like desire and lust and sex on a firm lockdown for year after dry year—started to slip.
The first kiss. His brain compared this to his other first kiss. Back then, he’d been fifteen and nervous and shy—and the braces hadn’t helped. He’d kept his eyes open because he could not believe that Sue Jenkins was kissing him when she was clearly out of his league.
He kept his eyes open this time too. Well, half-open. He didn’t need to stare at a woman who was going to share her body with him. He may be out of practice, but he wasn’t stupid. He may not be as young as he once was, but he still had a lot left to give a woman as beautiful and sensual as Karen.
Starting right now. He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue, tasting her and testing. What did she like? That?
Oh, yeah—that. She sighed against his mouth and opened her lips for him. Her arms went around his neck as she pulled him down. He felt the towel start to slip at the exact same moment the door to the pool room was opened. “Okay, kiddo,” a man’s voice said. “We’re…here.”
