“You’re worried about luck at a time like this?”
His voice was gravel and need so strong it made her go weak at the knees. Willow smiled. “We might squash it.”
Booth pulled her to him, his mouth curving into a half smile. “Now that would be bad luck,” he said before bending down to kiss her again.
Willow couldn’t help it, she moaned. Booth caught the sound with his lips, teasing hers, enticing her to open up to him even more. She couldn’t get enough of him. Her hands were busy, yanking his shirt from the waistband of his jeans and shoving it up so she could plant her hands on his skin.
He was so hot he almost burned her. She skimmed her hands across those perfect abs she’d felt before, wanting to take her time to feel each indent, each sculpted swell of muscle—no city gym for this man, he was raw hard-honed cowboy all the way—but a demanding sense of urgency drove her to hurry. Her legs buckled, making her fall onto the bed. She pulled him along with her.
Booth pushed her knitted cotton top up over her rib cage. She felt ridiculously tiny beneath his big strong work-worn hands, and deliciously turned on at the same time. She arched upwards as his hands found her breasts again, as he gently kneaded them before pulling at her nipples with determined fingers. Another jolt of pure need shafted through her, making her tremble, making her wet, making her want him with a craving that eclipsed anything she’d ever experienced before.
“You feel so good,” he ground out against her mouth. “So very good.”
His hands left her and she cried out in protest, only to swallow her words as he shifted lower and his mouth, hot and wet, closed around one aching aureole. She nearly came on the spot. The intense pull from deep inside of her built and built until she knew that all it would take was a single touch from him, that tiniest pressure on her clit, and she’d be over the edge.
The roughness of his unshaven jaw rasped over her tender skin, leaving it hypersensitive to the softness of his breath, the rasp of his tongue. She clenched her thighs together, tightening all her lower muscles, desperate to reach the peak that her body promised her was so very close.
“You racing ahead of me?” he asked, lifting his head and looking up at her.
His eyes were glazed like rain-washed slate—desire making his pupils full and dilated, and leaving a flush staining the line of his cheekbones.
“I can’t help it,” she answered. “You’re driving me there.”
“Then let’s slow things down a little.”
His voice was rough and she felt the strain in his body as he reached to stroke his hands over her breasts once more, playing again with her nipples, rubbing the tightly beaded peaks with the palms of his broad hands. The tide of desire that flooded her ebbed and flowed with his touch. Never receding enough to be comfortable yet not quite reaching that frantic point of no return, either.
“Let’s get this off you,” he said, helping her up slightly so he could remove her top completely.
He kissed a trail from her jawbone to her neck, and down across her collarbone. His tongue dipping and darting in the hollows at the base of her throat, before he trailed lower once more. Then his hands were at the snap of her shorts and pulling down the zipper. She lifted her hips to assist him in dragging them from her as he kissed a trail down between her ribs to her belly button. He flicked at the indentation with his tongue, swirling around and around it. His fingers were at the waistband of her panties, tugging them down, finally exposing her to his gaze, to his touch.
He paused a moment, nuzzling the trimmed thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs, his breath hot against her moist swollen flesh. His tongue darted out. A tease, and again. Willow knotted her fingers in his short-cropped hair.
“Please,” she begged. “Please!”
“Not yet,” he informed her, shifting slightly so he could grab at the back of his shirt and yank it over his head.
Willow’s eyes danced over his broad shoulders, saw the bunch of his biceps as he reached for her thighs and parted them. At this moment, he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. His tan gave definition to his powerfully sculpted muscles and her eyes roamed where her hands couldn’t reach, taking in the breadth of his chest and how his torso tapered to his waist. Her mouth dried as he knelt between her legs, his hands going to the button fly of his jeans.
“This will probably kill me, but I’m going to do my best to make it last.”
“Then you’ll be killing both of us,” Willow replied breathlessly.
Her eyes widened as he pulled a condom from his pocket and threw it on the bed beside her. Then he undid his fly and stood to shove his jeans and boxers down, exposing his thick jutting arousal. She heard the thud of his boots and the swoosh of denim as his clothes hit the floor.
“Well, let’s see about that,” he said, reaching for the condom and tearing it open before easing the latex over his length.
And then her brains scrambled as he positioned himself at her entrance, the blunt tip of his penis nudging her gently. She tilted her pelvis to meet him, taking the swollen head just inside her body, the contact sending her nerve endings into overdrive with sensation. Booth groaned and surged inside her, burying himself fully, his balls nestling against her. A sense of wonder spiraled through her as she felt her inner muscles contract around him, pulling him higher, deeper.
“You know what I said about making this last?” he grunted, his hands reaching for her hips and attempting to hold her slight movements still.
“Uh huh?”
“I lied.”
Seven
It was hard, it was fast, and it sent Willow flying over the edge of reason and into a blissful sated oblivion that even now, a couple of hours later, still made her see stars. It had grown full dark outside and she turned her head to look at the man sprawled beside her on the small double bed. Streetlights outside cast an unearthly glow across his body, gilding him with their light, making her reach out to touch him and trace the lines of his body with a feather light touch.
She couldn’t believe it. From the moment she’d set eyes on him he’d been angry at her for one thing or another and yet they’d ended up in bed together in a fiery conflagration of need and hunger that had blown her perceptions of him right out of the ballpark.
Willow sighed. Wouldn’t it be so easy if she could just enjoy him? Take what he had to offer her and relish it and keep it close to her heart. She knew that life could turn on a dime. That the choices you made and the future that awaited you made everything fluid, subject to change. Subject to end. Life was for living, for adventure, for discovery.
And then there were the complications that life wrought. Complications like her mother’s death, taking with her the secrets that Willow desperately wanted to know. Secrets like the father she’d never met. The man she deserved to know. And complications like the one she was determined to avoid as long as possible. The one she didn’t want to face on her own. The one that made her all the more determined to find her father and find her place in the world with someone she belonged to.
She’d thought it would be easy, coming to Marietta, to the place where her mother had enjoyed a summer fling with a cowboy—where Willow had been conceived. But so far it had been anything but—and most of that difficulty had its roots in the man who lay sleeping at her side. The man whose very presence made her heart race in her chest every single time she saw him—and had from that first moment she’d laid eyes on him.
And then there was that kiss they’d shared last Sunday. A kiss that had surprised her, coming as it did out of nowhere, and yet which had left her unnerved and unsettled for the rest of the week. She’d thought he might have dropped by at some stage, or made some attempt to talk to her or see her after he’d so abruptly driven away. That he hadn’t had left her confused. So confused that the moment he’d walked into Grey’s this evening, she’d forgotten all about that carefully budgeted and rarely enjoyed quiet beer she’d looked forward to all day.
Leaving
then and there had been a no-brainer. He’d made his feelings about her quite clear right up until that kiss and she hadn’t been able to work out what that had been about. Either way, she hadn’t wanted to revisit it. So she’d run—and then he’d come and hunted her down.
So what had changed between her and Booth Lange? At what point had he gone from ornery cowboy to lover beyond her wildest dreams? She thought back to that moment she’d seen him in the Wolf Den and recognized the fury in his eyes. She’d already begun to feel uncomfortable with the attention she’d garnered when she’d walked into the bar—getting press ganged into a game of pool certainly hadn’t been on her agenda and she’d been forced by circumstance to stick it out—but seeing Booth had made her reach for an inner bravado she was unaccustomed to showing.
And look where that had led her.
She ought to wake him. Send him on his way. And yet, she kept touching him—still not quite able to believe they’d gone from opponents to lovers with such ease but not quite ready to break the spell that had bound them just yet. Booth’s breathing hitched a little as her hand drifted closer to his groin, to his already semi-erect penis. He hardened beneath her touch, and she stroked the silky length of him, shimmying slightly down the bed as she continued to touch.
His thighs were strong and thick and she splayed one hand across him, the other gripping his arousal as she bent her head and took him in her mouth.
*
Booth was awake the instant her lips closed around the throbbing head of his cock and he fought back the urge to press further into the hot wet cavern of her mouth. His hands fisted in the sheets beside him as he fought to hold back as her hand worked him in tandem with her tongue, her lips—but he was no match for her determination. He found himself giving in, letting her take control. Letting her take him on a journey where he couldn’t wait for the destination. His climax was intense and rocked him from the base of his spine to the top of his head. And when she slid up the length of his body to lie on top of him, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her to his chest, close to his rapidly beating heart.
It was well after midnight when they woke again and Booth heard Willow’s stomach growl. He rolled them onto their sides and in the semi-darkness noticed her eyes were open.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“A bit,” she admitted with a half smile.
“Shall I make us something?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be okay. I don’t have—”
But he was out of the bed and pulling up his jeans before she could stop him. He pounded down the narrow stairs in his bare feet and headed for the kitchenette, then pulled open the fridge door.
“—all that much to eat here,” Willow finished lamely from behind him, wrapped in a well-washed faded-pink cotton robe, her hair a wild tangle around her face.
He looked inside the refrigerator. She wasn’t wrong. All he could see was the milk and bottled water that Ness had no doubt put in there for the week and a carton of juice.
“You don’t eat here?”
“Not often,” she admitted, but she averted her gaze.
A thought occurred to him. “You do eat, though, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I have breakfast at the Main Street Diner every day.”
“And lunch? Dinner?”
She remained silent.
“Willow, is that all you’re having? One meal a day?”
“It’s a good meal, and it’s all I need.”
No wonder she looked as if a good puff of wind would take her away, he thought as he looked at her.
“Well, I need a meal. Wait here, I’ll be back.”
Before she could utter another word he’d gone upstairs, grabbed his shirt and hat and was putting them both on as he came back down to the kitchenette.
“Booth, you don’t have to do this. I’m okay. Besides, it’s late. Maybe you’d better go.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, staring at her intently.
He could see the indecision on her face, see it in her body language as she wrapped her arms around her slender form and held on tight.
“D-do you really want to come back?” she eventually asked, looking up at him.
“I wouldn’t have said I’d be back if I didn’t. Go on up. I’ll get some things for us and we can eat in bed.”
“Is anywhere even open this time of night?”
“Sure.” He reached for her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her hard and fast on the lips before releasing her just as quickly. “Hopefully that’ll hold you until I get back.”
He let himself out the door and jogged to his truck, which was still parked on the sidewalk near Grey’s Saloon. Once he was behind the wheel, he quickly headed to the Get’N’Go just north of the railroad tracks, where he grabbed a few essentials and headed back to Willow. He couldn’t fully understand why she didn’t have any food in her fridge. Ness was a fair employer. So why didn’t Willow have any money?
An unwelcome thought sprang into his mind. Was that why she was poking around and asking questions about his Uncle Kyle? Did she think the man was loaded? Did she think he was easy pickings? He pushed the thought aside before it soured his gut.
Booth stopped his truck out back at Superstitch’n’s and grabbed the sack of groceries off the seat beside him. Maybe it was all just coincidence that she was asking around about his uncle. But even as he tried to accept the idea the rest of him vehemently denied it. All he had to do was ask her, he told himself. But, given the evening they’d just shared, did he really want to know?
Still undecided, Booth let himself in through the back door and put together a couple of sandwiches with the fixings he’d bought, then put away the rest of the supplies in the fridge. He pounded up the stairs, a plated sandwich in each hand, and then went through to the bedroom. Willow was still in her robe and sitting up in bed, reading a book.
“Good book?” he asked, kicking off his boots and settling down on the bed beside her.
Willow accepted the plate he handed her. “It’s a new knitting book Ness is thinking of stocking. She asked me to give her my opinion on it.”
She held up the book but he was none the wiser. If it didn’t relate to spy mysteries or ranching, it wasn’t his kind of thing. Besides, all those little crosshatch patterns that scrawled along the pages in Ness’s books, well, they just made a man’s eyes water.
“Put that down and eat,” he directed, swinging his legs up on the bed beside her.
He chowed down, the soft bread and fillings he’d thrown together disappearing in seconds. He didn’t mind saying it; he could make a fine midnight feast.
“This reminds me of when I was a kid,” he said after a few minutes. “I was always getting into trouble and being sent to bed with no dinner. My aunt would wait until everyone else was asleep and then she’d sneak into my room with a sandwich like this and we’d sit on my bed together while I ate it.”
“Your aunt?” Willow asked. “Not your mother?”
“No, my mom died of breast cancer when I was ten and Ness was thirteen. Aunt Emmie raised us after that.”
He’d heard Willow’s sharp intake of breath when he mentioned his mom but didn’t think anything of it until she put her sandwich down on her plate and didn’t pick it up again.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. What about your dad? Couldn’t he look after you?”
“He killed himself on the road one night with a belly full of beer. Mom only had about a year of peace before the cancer took her.”
Booth fought to keep the bitterness out of his voice. His father had made all their lives a living hell. He should have suffered more. His mother should have had more time. It still angered him that she’d been cheated of the life she’d deserved.
“Oh, Booth, I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s hard to mourn a man you never loved.”
Willow took in a long breath and let it out slowly. “I never knew my dad. It’
s like there’s always been this hole there, where he should have been. It always makes me wonder how different my life would have been with him in it.”
“What about your mom? Ness told me you lost her recently.”
Willow’s eyes glazed with unshed tears. “I lost my mom to breast cancer, too. Just over six months ago. It was hell. It’s why I’m here, following in her footsteps.”
She pulled open the door on the bedside cabinet and took out a parcel wrapped in colorful cloth. A journal, he realized, when she pulled away the fabric.
“I found this when I was sorting through her things after she’d passed away. She never mentioned this part of her life, of being here in Marietta. I decided that when I’d settled her affairs, I’d come here—follow her journey, so to speak.”
Booth began to feel that twisting sensation deep in his stomach again. Even so, he felt compelled to ask her a question.
“When was she here?”
“About twenty-seven years ago. She met my father here, at the county fair.”
The sandwich Booth had just eaten threatened to come straight back up again. Was she leading to what he thought she was leading to?
“Your father?” he asked, but the words came out rough and raw.
Willow didn’t notice. “Yeah. Apparently they took one look at one another and that was it. Head over heels in love. Mom had a VW bus, very much like Daisy, in which she’d traveled all over the U.S. From what she says in here,” Willow patted the tattered journal, “she and my dad spent all their nights together in there at the fair campground. Then, when the fair was over, he was gone and she was left alone again.”
“He didn’t have a trailer?” Many of the guys on the circuit towed their own home along with them, or shared with another cowboy who did.
“No, he was local.”
And he never took her back to his home. That action spoke louder than any words could have to Booth. It meant that it was more than likely that Willow’s father had another woman, his wife in all likelihood, waiting at home for him. He closed his eyes briefly, dread filling him as he reached for the courage to ask his next question.
For Love of a Cowboy Page 7
