Claiming the Cowboy for Christmas (The Hills of Texas Book 4)

by Kadie Scott

  “Tease,” she murmured under her breath.

  He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “It was either stop or take you home. Now.” He kissed her cheek and went back to his salad.

  Slowly, because her body still resembled a bundle of live electric wires, she followed suit. Picking up her fork, she took a bite of salad she didn’t taste.

  “Unless you want me to,” he tacked on casually.

  Ashley had to stop chewing. Either that or spew half-chewed salad all over the table as she struggled to inhale.

  “Want you to what?” Taylor asked, glancing between them.

  Ashley froze, then a spark of mischief took over. Two could play this game. She rolled her eyes expressively. “Jennings keeps insisting on getting me this gorgeous set of diamond earrings I saw at that booth the other day. It was from Lucy’s, you know the shop downtown? But I keep telling him it’s too soon in our relationship to spend so much money on a Christmas gift.”

  A quick glance revealed amusement twinkling in his eyes, rather than irritation or concern. She gave him a sunny smile, batted her eyelashes, and reached over to pat his thigh, making sure to brush his crotch as she did. Only to yank back when she discovered he sported a hefty erection. Her heart rate kicked up a couple gears.

  Well, hell. That backfired. Because now all she could think about was their night together. In glorious, technicolor detail now, with fireworks and everything.

  Time to focus elsewhere or she’d climax right here on the spot, and that would be plumb embarrassing.

  “Where did you get Taylor’s ring, Eric?” Jennings asked casually.

  Had he lost his mind? They’d take that as a sign he was thinking of proposing. Even with that whole “friends isn’t good enough” thing, that was too much.

  “Why, Jennings? Are you looking for engagement rings?” The delighted sparkle in Taylor’s eyes had Ashley cringing on the inside. Shoot, she hated being right sometimes.

  “Of course not.” Ashley trilled a laugh as she rested a hand on the nape of her fake boyfriend’s neck. “We’ve been dating about five minutes.” For good measure, she pinched the back of his neck, hard.

  To give him credit, Jennings didn’t even jump. Instead, he took Ashley’s hand from his neck and brought it around to kiss her knuckles, then held on tightly when she tried to tug away.

  He addressed her rather than their companions, blue eyes suddenly serious. “Not any time soon. But we’ve known each other all our lives. We were good friends once, and I hope again. And I’ve been in love with you since we were fourteen, so there’s no need to wait too long.”

  Ashley blinked, her smile slipping. Did he really mean that? Or was he just playing his part? Her mind did a fast-forward flashback over everything that had happened between them since high school. Had she missed the signs? A vice squeezed her heart with something she suspected might be a heavy dose of regret. She’d been so tunnel-visioned about Eric. What if…

  Ashley swallowed and gave a mental head shake. All the what-ifs in the world wouldn’t change their past. All they could do was move forward.

  But what path was the right one?

  “I always wondered if you had a thing for Ashley,” Taylor murmured.

  Jennings turned his charm her sister’s way. “Alas, Eric beat me to it then. But he’s with the right woman now.” He tipped his wine glass in Taylor’s direction. “And I have a second chance to win the woman for me.”

  Eric reached over to cuddle Taylor, who gazed up at him with adoring eyes. When Eric wasn’t being a moron—like most of tonight—his adoration for her sister, and she for him, practically radiated heat.

  An ache settled in Ashley’s heart as a wish to be loved like that overtook her. Not by Eric, of course. But…suddenly, a crystal-clear mental image of Jennings looking at her in such a way popped into her head.

  Oh. My. God. I’m in love with Jennings Hill.

  Sledgehammers had less impact than that realization. Ashley wanted to weep. How had she missed the strength of her feelings for this man all these years? Granted, he’d made it easy in high school.

  Hard on the heels of the realization, her own doubts bombarded her. Could she trust her heart? The same heart that wasted almost a decade of her life with the wrong guy? This was too fast. She was too vulnerable.

  Panic set in behind the shock and ache.

  She glanced away from Eric and Taylor to discover Jennings watching her, his face a portrait in disappointment. In her. The same look he’d given her all through high school and any time she’d bumped into him when she’d come home from college.

  “What?” she mouthed.

  “Nothing,” he mouthed back.

  The waiter arrived just then with their main courses. Rattled, Ashley glanced away and concentrated on forcing herself to eat her meal, which tasted like sawdust in her mouth. World flipped upside down, she had no idea how she’d go back to normal after Christmas.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have come home at all.

  *

  “Do you mind if we skip the movie?” Jennings’s question dropped into the silence of his family room. After dinner, they had ditched Taylor and Eric and come back to Jennings’s house, ostensibly to watch a movie.

  “Oh.” Disappointment popped the balloon of anticipation she’d been riding on the long drive here, and she dropped back to earth with a thud.

  He’d been a bit chilly since their dinners were served—apparently that would continue. “Sure. Only, Taylor will wonder why I’ve come home so early.”

  “We can hang out for an hour before I take you home,” he suggested.

  Ashley nodded and the silence between them grew thick with unspoken words. He got them a couple of beers, and they settled on the couch before she spoke up. “Something wrong?”

  She caught his glance. “Wrong? Not really.”

  That was a nonanswer if she’d ever heard one. “Speak up, Hill, if you’ve got something to say. You’ve never had trouble with that in the past.”

  His jaw tightened. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say. You never have.”

  Another wave of guilt for the way she’d acted all these years only served to heighten her irritation. Ashley plunked her beer down on the coaster she’d grabbed when she sat, then jumped to her feet, arms akimbo. “Maybe it’s the way you phrase it, Hill.”

  Ashley winced, wanting to pull back the words, even as they tumbled past her lips. Why did his criticism always send her into bitchy, defensive mode?

  Jennings jumped to his feet as well, opened his mouth as if to argue, then paused and ran a hand over his face. “Sorry, Hughes. I just—” He cut himself off and shook his head, a gamut of emotions running across his chiseled face—frustration, weariness…pure need.

  The last caused her to suck in a sharp breath.

  “Maybe I should take you home now.”

  No. The denial was wrung from her heart. Ashley licked her lips. “Why?”

  “Because I can’t sit here and chat politely when what I want to do is sink into your hot little body and lose myself in you. Everything about you drives me crazy, Ash. And I’m trying to be the good guy here—”

  Again, he cut himself off, but Ashley’d heard enough. She might be a confused mess, but they both wanted each other. They both needed this. That was enough.

  For now.

  For once, she didn’t worry about the laters. Her body had hijacked her thought process, burning with his words and the look in his eyes, the slash of red across his cheekbones. Jennings had his hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders slumped forward as he stared at her.

  “Maybe I don’t want you to be the good guy.” She was aiming for sexy and flirty, but apparently missed the mark as Jennings scowled.

  “I just can’t win with you, can I?”

  Okay, flirting wasn’t working. Maybe a demonstration was in order. “You don’t want to politely chat with me? Fine.” She whipped her top off and enjoyed a glow of satisfaction
as Jennings’s features tightened, his blue eyes, nearly navy in the dim lighting, zeroing in on her black lace bra. “Then don’t.”

  He didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.

  Ashley plopped her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “You gonna put your money where your mouth is, Hill?”

  Still, he held back, unmoving as he stared, his throat working as he seemed to be debating himself. Her heart was doing a fantastic impersonation of a bird beating its wings against a cage. What if he said no?

  Disappointment ripped through her. Along with several other unpleasant emotions like humiliation and an ache that wouldn’t go away.

  When he continued to do nothing, she glanced away. “Never mind.” She picked her shirt up off the couch where it’d landed and wrestled with turning it back right side out. “I guess you should take me home.”

  She spun away, even as she was still struggling with her uncooperative shirt. But a large hand on her arm stopped her. Before she could get her bearings, Jennings spun her around and hauled her against his body.

  “I give up trying to figure you out,” he muttered. “But I can’t let you walk away. I want you too damn much.”

  Elation and relief burst through her as he claimed her lips in a possessive, masterful kiss. Ashley gave herself up to Jennings with utter abandon, reveling in the sensations he drew from her eager body with his kisses. Jennings bent her backward over the arm that banded her waist as he drew from her the response she’d been dying to give since she’d left his bed.

  Unlike the reverent coming together that had happened their first time, this moment was about one thing. Need.

  With frantic hands and lips, they undressed each other, leaving a trail of clothes behind them as they made their way through the house. They touched and kissed and licked and nibbled and explored every inch of each other’s body.

  Ashley relished the hard expanse of his muscled body, not an ounce of extra fat anywhere on the man. She loved how her softer parts fit into him and kept rubbing her sensitized nipples over the sparse hair of his chest, shivering at the electric zaps that traveled from her breasts to her core with each brush.

  With a groan, Jennings pulled back from their kiss, sucking oxygen into his lungs as she did the same. Ashley blinked in a daze as she realized they now stood by his bed. She had a vague recollection of getting here, but wow.

  Wow? Not how?

  “What’s your deepest, darkest fantasy?” Jennings demanded in a voice that compelled her to answer as much as the fevered look in his eyes continued to stimulate her, even as he wasn’t touching her.

  Ashley swallowed. “What?”

  “Your fantasy? Let me try to do something for you that you’ve always wanted.”

  Didn’t he know that he was her fantasy, all wrapped up in a package with a big red bow? Her very own early Christmas present. Still, the conversation from earlier about his being strong and certain positions had a mental image creeping into her mind, filling her body with a heat that climbed up to her cheeks.

  Jennings gave her a grin filled with knowing interest. “I can see you have something in mind. Share.”

  Could she? She and Eric started having sex in high school. Then, the whole ballgame was about learning the fundamentals. They hadn’t done much in the way of experimentation.

  “I’ve…” Ashley cleared a suddenly dry throat and glanced toward the bathroom. “Shower?”

  She squealed as he scooped her up, carrying her through to the en suite. “Your wish is my command.”

  He deposited her beside the large, frameless glass shower and turned on the spray, testing the temperature with his hand. As soon as he was satisfied, he swept her back into his arms. Ashley wrapped her arms around his neck, giving and taking kisses, sliding her tongue against his, nipping at his lips, as he guided them under the spray of the showerhead. Steam billowed up around them, fogging the glass.

  With a dark chuckle that flipped her heart over, Jennings suddenly spun her around. He took her by both wrists and pressed her hands to the cool glass subway tile. “Don’t move those hands.”

  Oh, heavens, was this happening?

  She throbbed, anticipation building inside her like a balloon about to explode, and he hadn’t even touched her intimately…yet.

  Ashley glanced over her shoulder to find that he was squeezing body wash onto his hands. He glanced over and grinned. “Keep your gaze forward, Hughes. If you look at me with those gorgeous eyes while I’m touching you, I’ll lose it before you are ready for me. And I intend to make you very…very ready.”

  Hell, she was ready now, in a way that had nothing to do with the water sluicing over her. Still, Ashley turned to face the wall, keyed up, revved up, and totally trusting Jennings to make this fantastic for both of them. Then she gasped, as his hands were suddenly all over her body. He massaged, kneaded, spread, and tugged every part of her. No part went unattended.

  The devotion he showed her breasts as he pressed his hot, hard length against her from behind had her trembling and moaning. How’d he know to barely touch her nipples, which tended to be oversensitive? How’d he know that doing that while sucking on her earlobe would reduce her to a shuddering mass of nerves?

  Finally, he smoothed his soap-slicked hands up her thighs and around to her throbbing, pulsing center. Just a few brushes of his thumb over that knot of nerves and he must’ve been able to tell she was about to tip over into oblivion, because he stopped.

  The sound of foil ripping hardly penetrated her mind, she was so far gone. Then Jennings pressed up against her, behind her. And the pressure…

  The glorious, beautiful pressure as he filled her. Jennings let out a long, low groan once he was seated deeply inside her tight channel, and paused, letting her adjust.

  “You ready?” he asked, his breath brushing against her ear.

  “Yes,” she hissed, her body already getting twitchy, needing the release only he could give her.

  “Hold on, Ashley.”

  To what? All she had to hold was a slick tiled wall.

  Then Jennings moved, consuming her body, taking charge of her in such a way that she had to brace her legs to keep from sliding to the floor in a puddle of needy, useless limbs. But, holy hell, did every move, every thrust feel incredible. Her body accepted his as though made for him, the pleasure building along with the pressure.

  Trembling took over her body again, and she only hoped she could keep herself upright long enough to see this through to the end. As if he knew she wouldn’t last much longer, Jennings reached around, using his fingers on the sensitive spot at her center, using swirling motions that had her light-headed with reaction.

  Tingling gathered in her spine, then, with a starburst of sensation, rushed through every nerve in her body. At the same time, Jennings grew thicker and harder inside her before his shout of completion joined her own ragged moans. He continued to move until every wave of sensation had crested, wringing the pleasure from her body and the strength from her muscles.

  Banding an arm around her waist, he lifted her so she was upright. Then, with gentle hands, he washed them clean, wrapped her up in a fuzzy towel, and carried her through to his bed.

  Ashley gave a contented sigh as he wrapped himself around her and kissed the back of her neck. She wallowed in the sublime languidness swamping her now, inhaling his musky scent, and reveling in a feeling of sheer contentment. Like all was right in her world.

  “Stay the night?” he whispered as he trailed a hand over the indentation of her waist and the curve of her hip.

  The real world intruded with the rudeness of a blaring alarm clock. Ashley sighed. “I can’t. I have somewhere I have to be early in the morning.”

  Behind her, Jennings stilled. “Where?” The question was casual, so was his voice. But his body was not.

  Ashley turned to glance over her shoulder at him. Dammit. Why had she promised Eric not to tell anyone about the house? Could she tell Jennings at least? After all, they already h
ad plenty of secrets. “I’m helping Eric.”

  Jennings didn’t move, but she still got the impression that he was fighting back anger.

  Her helping Eric was perfectly innocent, but maybe Jennings didn’t think so. “He bought a new house for him and Taylor. He’s going to surprise her with it on their wedding night. I promised to look over how he’s set it up and give him an opinion. It shouldn’t take long…” She trailed off as his expression sank in. He was pissed. Jennings was silent so long she wondered if he’d get around to speaking.

  “You’re still in love with Eric,” he finally said. No accusation rang in his voice, more resignation.

  A flare of hurt ignited inside her. Not Jennings too? After what they just shared. Granted, her past didn’t give him much reason to trust her, but she was in his arms, in his bed, and what they’d just shared had been more than sex. They’d connected on a soul deep level. Or she thought they had. Maybe her stupid heart just couldn’t be trusted. “How’d you reach that conclusion?”

  Jennings’s jaw hardened. “I saw how you were watching him with Taylor, tonight at dinner. Your emotions were plain as the horns on a longhorn steer. I’ve never seen such…longing.”

  Ashley bit her lip. In order to explain the longing, she’d have to fess up about her feelings for Jennings. Too raw and new, she still needed time to process those herself. But she couldn’t leave him believing what he did either.

  “I was wishing someone might look at me that way someday,” she tried.

  “Who?” he demanded.

  She wasn’t ready, but she wasn’t walking away either. Instead of running and hiding, what instinct told her to do, Ashley did the opposite. Cowboy up and confess. “You.”

  Doubt flattened his mouth, and she wanted to shake him.

  “You don’t believe me?” she asked.

  “I get it. You want your sister to be happy, and you need me to stick around for that.”

  “In other words, you don’t believe me.” The ache in her chest became a physical pain.

  He blew out a long breath. “Let me put it this way. When you started dating Eric, and I said you were spending so much time with him that your other friends were being left in the cold, did you believe me?”