The Hard-to-Get Cowboy

by Crystal Green

  When her blond waves tumbled down, he sucked in a breath.

  Beautiful. Damn she was so beautiful, and it wasn’t just because of her hair or her face or the graceful curves of her figure.

  What was it then?

  And why couldn’t he seem to get enough?

  He shed his coat while she watched from her spot on his lap, then pushed the material into the corner of the long front seat. As if in acquiescence, she took off his cowboy hat, banishing it to the back.

  Their breaths were coming in ragged rhythm now, and a flaring hunger was tearing him up from the inside out.

  “Do you still want to talk about what you were going to say at the Hitching Post?” he asked.

  But that wasn’t what he wanted to know at all, and she seemed to realize that he was asking if they should stop now because, this time, he wouldn’t be the one who would pull away, giving her some flip excuse about her thinking he was easy to get or something.

  She answered by leaning down to him, pressing her mouth to his with such tenderness that he groaned a little, low in his throat.

  Her lips were soft, warm, and his head got fuzzy again. At this instant, she owned him, and it should have sent him running.

  Yet he stayed right here, skimming his hands down her arms, feeling the smooth fabric of her suit as it whispered beneath his fingers. He reached her hands, then her thighs, resting his palms on the sides of her legs, where her long suit jacket covered her fashionable, fitted pants.

  His stylish lady.

  His darling for the night.

  Right now, he wanted a hell of a lot more than that, though. He wanted…

  How long with her? A week?

  A month?

  Or…?

  His mind blanked as they kissed once more, a lazy whirl of passing moments and heartbeats. He entered her mouth with his tongue, and she rocked against him, a move that could only be instinctive.

  But she was obviously waiting for his cue, probably because he had teased her too much in the past, leading her on, then backing off.

  Not now, though—he was at his limit.

  He undid one button on her jacket, then another.

  As her chest rose and fell, he gave her one more opportunity. “What were the stakes of the game going to be, Laila?”

  She obviously understood his coded words, yet before she could answer, he slid his fingers into her opened jacket, feeling warm flesh, the toned lines of her waist.

  “I was just going to ask for a kiss, too,” she finally said.

  And he gave it to her, whether she had won the pool match or not. She had already won him over, and that was all that counted.

  Afterward, he still kept his mouth on hers, even as he sketched his hands up her waist.

  “Are we square now?” he asked, coming to her breasts.

  He cupped them, feeling lace, rounded softness, hearing her gasp yet again, sharper this time as she leaned back her head. The sound bolted into him, lancing and tearing, and he wanted to hear what she would do if he touched her in all the right, hidden places.

  He ran his thumbs over her nipples, bringing them to pebbled nubs.

  She didn’t ever answer his question but, then again, he hadn’t meant for her to. She only bit her lip, shifted on his lap, drove him that much more to a brink he wasn’t going to come back from tonight—not if the throb of his nethers told him anything.

  With deft movement, he unhooked the front of her bra, peeling back the lace so he could see her in the moonlight.

  And…dammit all. She was beautiful here, too, her breasts full, just slightly tipped up, as if begging for him to sip at them.

  But he just wanted to look first. Wanted to memorize her so that, when he was gone, he could remember.

  He trailed his knuckles under her breasts, shaping, his groin getting harder by the second.

  “You’re killing me,” she said.

  And she was doing the same to him.

  He leaned forward, touching the tip of his tongue to a nipple. Then he did it to the other one, taking his time, making her hips wiggle as she grew even more restless.

  When he thought he had tortured her enough, he took her all the way into his mouth, sucking, pressing his hands against her back to bring her even closer.

  She ground her hips into him, giving as good as she was getting, finally making him draw away because all he wanted now was to have her fully against him, laid out on the seat, every inch his.

  Pulling one of her legs so that she wrapped it around him, he eased her down to the cushions. He brought her hips up so that they were flush against each other, and they strained, just like those teenage kids at the drive-in, steaming up the windows again.

  The steam gathered inside him as well, pulsing and pushing, tapping like a time bomb.

  He couldn’t take any more of this, and he reached for his coat, propping it under her head.

  Her light hair spread over the brushed twill, the seat, a fall of waves that struck him hard.

  His Laila.

  Slowly, he reached for one of her legs, stroked his hand down the length of it until he came to the slick leather boot she was wearing. He pushed up her pant leg, pulled down the boot’s zipper, the sound buzzing through the air, imitating the blood that was swarming him with heat.

  After taking off her silky sock, he gave the same attention to her other leg.

  Then he swept his palms to the back of her, traveling up her calves, her thighs, to her rear, bringing her up against him again as she arched and exhaled.

  He found her pants zipper on the side, and he undid that, too, tossing the material to the floorboard.

  Feverishly, she unbuttoned his shirt, stripping that off, fumbling with the fly of his jeans, then pushing down the denim. Pushing down her panties and getting rid of those.

  As she took him in her palm, he just about exploded.

  “Hold on…” He didn’t even know if she understood what he had said, because it had come out so garbled. He reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out a condom, managed to unwrap it and sheathe himself.

  “Oh, Jackson…”

  He lifted her hips, pushing into her on a moan and, suddenly, he couldn’t think any more.

  All he could see were a million lights in his head, blinding him, needling him with their piercing heat. They flowed with his body as he drove into her, out again, then in, and she moved with every one of his thrusts, little sounds of delight urging him onward until those lights in his head throbbed, painful, impaling him, lifting him—

  He did explode then, and he fell just as hard, his sight and mind coming back to him moment by moment, making him realize that he was holding tight to Laila, as if never wanting to let her go.

  And she was holding just as tightly to him.

  Jackson buried his face in her thick hair, breathing her in, thinking that he could stay this way for the rest of his life.

  Afterward, they had pieced themselves back together, not saying much to each other, because what was there to say?

  I usually don’t move this fast with a man, even if I date a lot of them….

  It just sounded like an excuse she didn’t want to make—not while her body was still vibrating at a low, sensual hum, craving another round of him.

  She never wanted this night to end.

  Something inside her wondered why she should let it.

  Kick butt, she thought to herself. Why not get exactly what you want?

  Holding to those thoughts, she buttoned up her suit jacket. Jackson, who had already gotten dressed, too, turned on the car motor and it growled. Outside, tree branches left jagged silhouettes against the moon-bathed sky.

  Ratcheting up her courage, she went for it. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to go home.”

  He glanced at her, coasted his fingertips over her cheek. It could have been a trick of the moonlight, but she thought she saw exposed emotion in his gaze, although she couldn’t say just what that emotion was.


  “Me, either,” he said.

  Her heart twisted, as if it was intent on going somewhere she had never been willing to venture.

  But that couldn’t be. Laila never fell for anyone.

  Yet what if…?

  No, she told herself. This was only the afterglow. She wanted more adrenaline, more excitement singing through her, that was all.

  He was tracing his thumb over her cheekbone. “How about you call in sick tomorrow?”

  She laughed. “I haven’t called in sick for years.”

  “Okay.” He stopped touching her. “You’re right. Don’t let me be a bad influence on you.”

  “You weren’t influencing me so badly ten minutes ago.”

  At first, she couldn’t believe she had been the one to say that, but why not? She had played it safe for so much of her life—why not invite a little game changer now? It wouldn’t be a long-term thing since Jackson wasn’t here to stay, anyway.

  It would be a no-loss situation with so much to gain.

  He was smiling at her comment. “Don’t mind my saying so, Laila, but I’d like to keep influencing you.”

  “Then what do you say we get out of here?”

  He gave her a long, serious glance. He paused like that for such a time that Laila even began to wonder if he was fighting something in himself—the same thing she was facing about getting involved with him.

  But they had already gotten involved in a manner of speaking.

  Way involved.

  As if making up his mind the best that he could for the time being, he backed the car onto the deserted road, switching on the headlights. They lit the way ahead of them in a soft, warm glow as the bushes and trees and fences passed by.

  It didn’t take long for her to come to the conclusion that he was taking her to his rented condo up at the Thunder Canyon Resort.

  Once they were inside his place, she surveyed the surroundings: leather furniture, glass tables, framed nature pictures on the walls. Modest for an oil man, but that was Jackson, in spite of how much flash his smile held.

  He seemed to guess that she was thinking this wasn’t a reflection of him—not a true one. “You can get anything at the resort. The concierge arranged for a decorator to rustle up a few items to make me feel at home.”

  “Ansel Adams?” she asked, stopping in front of a famous black-and-white photo of the mountains in Yosemite.

  “If I’ve got to decorate, why not?”

  She gave him a curiosity-filled glance.

  “Okay,” he said, hanging his coat and hat on a rack near the doorway. “So I like his stuff. He’s got a way of making me calm down when I need to. My ranch house has recently benefited from his pictures.” So she was seeing a side of him that she hadn’t anticipated.

  She liked imagining Jackson at home, relaxing in his house, then going outside each dawn to ride a horse, work in the stables while the sweat glistened on his skin. She liked thinking of how he would shower off all that work-earned perspiration.

  A zing flew through her. She had felt the sweat on his arms and chest and everything else not so long ago, and she was dying to feel it again.

  “It’s a gentleman’s ranch,” he said, breaking into her wicked musing. “That only means it’s basically a hobby. I go there on weekends, live in the city closer to the Traub Oil Texas offices the rest of the time.”

  “So it’s like a sanctuary?”

  He had been sauntering over to her, and now he eased her coat off with breath-suspending deliberation. Her skin came alive under the slip and slide of material, under the sensation of his fingers trailing down her arms.

  “I guess it’s just like that,” he said, his voice low and scratchy. “Maybe someday you can see it.”

  As soon as he uttered it, she thought that he might have regretted doing so, because he turned away from her, taking her coat and hanging it next to his on the rack.

  Had he been overcome by what had happened tonight? Had he spoken before he had thought twice about inviting her to what he thought of as his private retreat?

  Joy raced inside her, just at the notion that he might be feeling the same way she was—scarily head over heels, willing to test what might be between them.

  He laughed, and all of a sudden, she doubted that she was on the same page as he was.

  “Now that I think about it,” he said, “I’ve never brought a woman to the ranch.”

  “I get it, Jackson.” It might be time to lighten this up. “It’s your man cave.”

  “Doesn’t every guy have one?”

  “My dad does. He needs a break every so often, too. Sometimes he’ll go to a cabin near his favorite fishing hole. He keeps telling us kids that, when we retire, he’ll take us with him, but not a minute before.”

  “My own father had a retreat. My real dad.” Jackson’s brown gaze grew darker. “Mom said he liked to go hunting every so often. I think he might’ve had a cabin in the woods, just like your father, but I’m not sure if that’s something I made up about him or if it’s real.”

  Sensing that the vulnerable part of Jackson was just below the surface, she walked closer to him. It was probably a safe guess that he didn’t show this side to many people, and she wanted to be a part of this while she could, while she was still feeling close to him.

  She rested her hand on his arm. “You miss him, even though you didn’t really know him.”

  He nodded. “There are times when I imagine he’s still watching me and my brothers and sister from the Great Beyond, and he might be a little disappointed in what he’s seeing. In me, at least.”

  “Every son wants to make his dad proud.”

  Jackson didn’t say any more, as if he could cover up what he had already shared. But so much about him had already come together for her: how his commitment-shyness might just stem from his never wanting to have his heart broken again, just as it had been when his dad had died. How he might even be running for his life with her, even if he had shown her much differently earlier tonight.

  She brushed her fingers over his cheek, then turned his gaze back to hers. “You have so much going for you, Jackson. I hope, even when you’re back in Texas, you remember that.”

  Something expanded in his pupils, the black of them opening up.

  Another release of emotion?

  It could very well have been, because he cupped her jaw with his hands, leaned down to her, kissed her with such passion and force that she wondered if he was trying to forget that he was going to go back to that gentleman’s ranch in Texas all too soon.

  Hours later, predawn slipped through the curtains in Jackson’s bedroom, casting a slice of murky light over the woman in bed next to him.

  Laila was still sleeping, his covers pulled up to her chest, one of her arms flung over her head, her hair fanned over his pillow.

  A stray emotion cuddled up to Jackson, and it felt as if it had been lost for years, just coming home now.

  But it couldn’t be…that. The L-word. It made no sense, because love didn’t fit into his world, wouldn’t ever fit in. He just didn’t have room for it.

  Then again, he had sure acted as if love was in the cards last night, when he had told Laila entirely too much about himself. That seemed to happen a lot with her, though.

  As he watched her in the dim light, a memory tried to push the comforting feeling away from him: a vague recollection of his mom just after Dad had died—a flash of her sobbing at his funeral. Then another piece of the past: an image of Mom sitting in her car in the driveway while Jackson looked out the window with his twin, Jason, waiting for her to come in. It had taken her what seemed like hours, even though it had to have only been a fraction of that before Dillon and Ethan had gone out to bring her inside.

  Even now, Jackson’s heart hurt for her. It hurt for him, too, as well as for his siblings. They had all been roughed up by their dad’s death.

  So why was he thinking of that now?

  Needing something to make him feel better, he con
centrated on what he always seemed to concentrate on when he needed it the most—the beautiful, temporarily-his woman next to him.

  He traced a finger down Laila’s nose, her chin, to her jaw, where he lightly tickled her.

  Sleepily, she shrugged, batting his hand away.

  He laughed, and she opened her eyes.

  “Obviously,” she said, her voice kittenish, “I’m not used to being woken up by someone—especially if he’s a self-appointed alarm clock.”

  Nestling an arm over her, he lay back down. “Just how many someones have there been?”

  There—that would inject some much-needed reality into this morning after.

  She blushed.

  “Oh, come on,” he said, pulling her closer to him. “I, of all people, won’t judge.”

  “It’s different for men. You can sleep with as many women as you want and nobody will think twice about it. I’ve always held my cards close to my chest, especially in Thunder Canyon.” She pushed back a hank of disheveled hair. “It’ll be bad enough if anyone sees your truck still parked in town and wonders why you never made it home.”

  “They won’t know I’m with you.”

  “They’d have to be blind to avoid that conclusion.”

  “Then I’ll tell you what—you can get your car out of my garage and back home before dawn fully breaks and I’ll call a ride to take me to the office today.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “My—you’re good at arranging these things.”

  “What can I say?” He snuck a hand under the covers, over her belly, and she gasped. “I know what I’m doing.”

  He tickled her again, and she squealed softly.

  “I’m going to torture any information that I want out of you,” he said.

  “Okay, okay!” Then she smacked his hand. “Two. There have been just two men I’ve…”

  “Loved?”

  As she hesitated, his chest seemed to split open. He didn’t like knowing that she’d had feelings for other guys.

  “I wouldn’t say love, really,” she said. “I might have thought I was close to it at the time, but it turned out that it was just a couple of false alarms. Still, those instances were the nearest I’ve ever gotten.”

  She flushed again, glancing at him, then away.