Only Skin Deep

by Cathleen Galitz

  Studying her flushed face in the glow of the moon and the reflection of flashing police car lights arriving on the scene, Travis realized with a start that he was no longer feeling the least bit fraternal toward this woman. And that was far more intimidating to him than any Neanderthal who might be waiting for him inside the bar.

  Four

  Not quite sure what to make of the feelings she stirred in him, Travis grumbled, “Lady, why is it I always end up with drinks spilled all over me whenever you’re even close to a dance floor?”

  Lauren leveled a scowl at him. “Maybe because you keep getting in my way.”

  Travis took a step back. After risking life and limb for her, he couldn’t believe Lauren actually had the audacity to be angry with him. Thinking he could coax an apology out of her, he tried making his point with sarcasm.

  “Given the way you’re feeling, I take it that a thank-you is out of the question then?” he asked.

  Lauren’s eyes glittered. “For what? Cutting my evening short?”

  Too much of a gentleman to simply walk away and leave her to catch a ride home in the back of a cop car, Travis was nonetheless tempted to let Pinedale’s finest see if they could talk any sense into this confounding woman. One minute Ms. Lauren Hewett was as bland as vanilla pudding, the next so damned hot half the men in town were crawling and brawling all over her. And she was treating him as if he were some kind of wet blanket. It was too damned bad that Lauren didn’t realize she should be grateful that he was around to keep a watchful eye out for her. That he cared enough to stick his neck out on her behalf. That he’d rushed to her rescue.

  “For saving your virtue for starters,” he ventured to explain.

  Given his usual nonjudgmental attitude toward sex, those words sounded stilted even to his own ears. He knew what century this was. Maybe he thought such old-fashioned values would appeal to the type of woman he’d always assumed Lauren was. Maybe he just needed to believe that there was at least one single woman left on the planet worthy of being placed on a pedestal.

  But Lauren didn’t think twice about jumping off that shining platform and hitting him full in the face with her own version of reality.

  “It isn’t my virtue that’s in jeopardy, you fool! It’s my future.”

  Travis shook his head at the benign insult she hurled at him. She looked mad enough to march straight back into that full-blown barroom fray just to prove her point. He had to fight back a grin at the thought of her taking on Toss Weaver single-handedly—and winning. When Travis put a restraining hand on her elbow, she threatened him with the kind of seething look that had the power to quiet an entire room of rowdy students.

  “Listen,” she explained in a rush of exasperation that actually ruffled her bangs. “I suppose you think I should feel indebted to you for ‘saving’ me in there. But the truth of the matter is I had more fun tonight than I can remember having in a long, long time. Maybe it’s wrong of me to feel a tiny thrill that a couple of brawny guys actually got into a fight over me, but I can guarantee you it was a whole lot more exciting than anything that was going to happen at the church social tonight.”

  Captivated by the sparkle in those green eyes, Travis nonetheless felt obliged to point out the most obvious flaw in her logic.

  “Your plan to march one of those drunken cavemen to the altar would work better in Vegas,” he snapped. “Here, it’ll just lead to a cheap hotel room or the back seat of a car parked far enough out of town so that nobody can hear your screams.”

  Shaken by the warning and hurt by Travis’s assumption that she was desperate enough to marry just anybody, Lauren fumbled for the keys in her purse.

  “Why don’t you just let go of my arm and any preconceived notions about my virtue before you tuck yourself in for the night?” she snapped.

  Her words were slightly slurred, and Travis questioned her articulation of the word “tuck.” Whatever insults she hurled at him didn’t warrant letting her behind the wheel of a car in her condition.

  “Friends don’t let their renters drive drunk,” he mumbled to himself.

  Lauren jerked her arm out of his grasp.

  “Let go of me!”

  The confrontational act drew a nearby policeman’s attention. The next thing Travis knew the officer was heading in their direction, presumably to check out the typical domestic disputes that occur outside of bars late at night. Keeping a cool head about him, Travis did what he had to do to quell any suspicions that Lauren needed to be saved from him.

  He kissed her.

  An act intended only to shut her up blossomed into something far less practical as Lauren proceeded to dissolve in his arms. Travis had been preoccupied with kissing her again ever since she’d shocked him with that sweet little peck at the wedding reception. Seizing the opportunity to simultaneously satisfy his curiosity and allay the officer’s concern, he cradled the back of her head in one hand, covered her mouth with his own and effectively stifled any protest she might have been about to make.

  She tasted even sweeter than he remembered. But behind that sweetness burned a red-hot appetite. Far away from the constraints of proper society, Lauren yielded to his demands without a fight. The teacher proved an apt pupil, letting out a tiny gasp of surprise when Travis’s tongue parted her lips and exacted a full response from her. As her gasp quickly turned to a satisfied moan, a stab of desire pierced his groin.

  The kiss was purely sexual, wet and full of reckless desire. And it happened so fast that Lauren simply responded.

  With every ounce of her being.

  Melting against him, she inadvertently forced him to pull her so snugly against the length of his body that there was no doubt left just what power she exercised over him. Mating her tongue against his, she stoked the fire that threatened to destroy all rational thought and made it impossible for him to turn back. Travis tightened his grip around her waist at the thought of some bully from the bar taking advantage of her. A surge of possessiveness engulfed him as he proceeded to devour her.

  It wasn’t the night air alone putting goose bumps on Lauren’s bare arms. Nor the alcohol making the ground move beneath her feet. She had dreamed of this moment since she was a dewy-eyed freshman in high school. But none of her adolescent fantasies measured up to the reality of kissing Travis Banks. Achingly, painfully wonderful, his kisses defied description.

  Lauren didn’t notice the streetlamp dimming in seeming deference to the electricity arcing between them. Nor did she pay any attention to the fact that her expensive little purse slipped from her grasp and found a home at her feet. She was too preoccupied with the way Travis’s big, masculine hands were so thoroughly exploring her curves and turning her bones to liquid. How his tongue explored the inner texture and curve of her lips. How hers slid in and out of his mouth, sharing the taste of fine whiskey and making her feel light-headed and giddy.

  Pressed against the hard plane of his chest, her breasts tingled, and her nipples hardened into tight buds. Blood pounded in her ears, and a demanding primal sensation tugged at the muscles of her belly. Her knees turned to jelly. She tried steadying herself by wrapping her arms around Travis’s chest but discovered that she could not lace her fingers together to span its impressive width. Raising her arms to let them rest on his broad shoulders, she feathered fingers through hair as silky as his kisses. By the time he had his fill of her, Lauren felt perfectly ravaged.

  Perfectly.

  When finally Travis pulled away, he took a deep breath before resting his chin on the top of her head. A purr of pleasure rumbled against Lauren’s throat as she braced her hands against his chest. Heat radiated from beneath a shirt damp with sweat, and she felt the play of muscles under her fingers before finally letting her arms fall to her sides.

  Travis waved at the policeman who had been stopped in his tracks by the amorous display. “Everything’s under control over here, Officer.”

  Having felt his heart beating so wildly against her own, Lauren was not foole
d by the remark. Travis was no more under control than she was. A bubble of feminine pride caught in her chest at the telltale bulge behind the button fly of his jeans.

  By the time she retrieved her purse, their conscientious policeman had returned to his squad car and turned his attention to less lusty matters—like assisting an enraged Toss Weaver into the back seat of his free “tipsy taxi.” The effects of too many sips from too many drinks combined with the lingering intoxication of Travis’s kisses left Lauren ready to call it a night. It would be pointless to go back into the bar now thinking she could possibly find anyone who could kiss better than the man who still had his arms around her. Putting a hand to her head, she tried to steady the world swimming about her.

  Suddenly meek she asked, “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind taking me home?”

  Travis stated the obvious with a relieved smile. “You’re right on my way, darling.”

  He guided Lauren over to his pickup, opened the door for her, swept her off her feet and proceeded to set her into the front seat as easily as he might a rag doll. He then grabbed the seat belt and dragged it across the front of her body to buckle her in. His touch burned through her clothes. Completely innocuous in nature, the act of his forearm brushing against the swell of her breast felt so very intimate that it sucked the breath right out of Lauren’s lungs. She attempted to resuscitate herself while Travis walked around the vehicle and settled himself behind the wheel.

  Despite the cool night temperature and the fact that the heater was shut off, the air in the vehicle was warm, charged by some unknown completely unpredictable force.

  “Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” he asked.

  “By all means.”

  Travis might need the noise to keep him from falling asleep, but Lauren had never felt more alive and awake in her life. She was too pumped up by the events of the evening to so much as close her eyes.

  Sexual tension crackled like the static accompanying the country song playing on the radio. She studied the masculine hands draped over the steering wheel. Hands that propelled a football so powerfully down a field all those many years ago were scarred by hard physical labor. Everyone knew Travis to be a wealthy man. Lauren always thought of him as a gentleman rancher who parceled out the most demanding jobs to his hired hands. Scrutinizing those hands that she had once fantasized all over her body made Lauren realize that she had grossly oversimplified his life since she knew him in high school.

  Resting her head against the leather seat back, she ventured where angels dared to tread.

  “Do you mind telling me exactly what happened between Jaclyn and you? Everyone thought the two of you were the perfect couple.”

  Jaclyn had been model-thin and gorgeous. Polished and sophisticated. Lauren couldn’t imagine a scenario in which two such beautiful people faced any problem so insurmountable that it ended in divorce. The silence that followed her question was long but not particularly sharp.

  “I guess we just wanted different things,” Travis finally answered under cover of darkness. “Different lives.”

  Though his words were spoken softly, they failed to hide the bitterness he felt over his failed marriage. He surprised himself by continuing.

  “In the end, we couldn’t seem to agree about anything.”

  “Like what?”

  Travis sighed.

  “Like whether children are a blessing or a curse. Whether Wyoming is heaven or hell on earth. Whether or not she could make me jealous. Whether marriage is a true partnership or a license to change one another. And whether any amount of money could ever settle our differences.”

  “I guess that’s what they call irreconcilable differences,” Lauren said in a small voice. It hurt her to hear the angst and self-recrimination in his voice, and she wished there was something she could say to lessen his pain. She wondered which of them had been opposed to having children.

  “That’s what the divorce papers said, and I’d just as soon leave it at that as pick away at the scars looking for blame.”

  Though Travis had barely scratched the surface of his complicated relationship, Lauren recognized his anguish in the way he gripped the steering wheel so tightly that it made his knuckles turn white by the dim glow of the dashboard lights. Impressed that he hadn’t used the opportunity to vilify his ex-wife like so many divorced men who enjoy wallowing in that game, she was moved to reach across the seat and pat Travis’s leg reassuringly. The harmless gesture sent a frisson of electricity through her entire body, reminding her that the man she used to dream of was no figment of her imagination but truly made of flesh and blood.

  Just like her.

  Travis took a hand from the steering wheel to cover the one resting on his thigh.

  “Darlin’, do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”

  Torn from a throat raw from secondhand cigarette smoke, the question held a tacit threat.

  And an unspoken promise…

  For the second time that evening he addressed her by the endearment. Both times it reduced her to a puddle of goo. Supposing that he flung that word carelessly at many women, Lauren reminded herself for the hundredth time that this outspoken bachelor wasn’t the settling down kind of man that she was looking for. Just because her long-ago crush called her “darling” didn’t mean she should go throwing away a well laid out plan for her future on a night of cheap thrills.

  Except that Travis didn’t make her feel cheap. He made her feel like a precious object worthy of being protected at all costs. That he had rushed in to rescue her from a couple of liquored-up strongmen, albeit unnecessarily, indicated he wasn’t trying to take advantage of her.

  Since she refused to respond to the question he’d posed to her, Travis answered it himself by dragging her hand up his thigh and guiding it to the juncture between his legs. Lauren struggled for composure when he covered the swollen bulge there with her hand.

  “Just in case you don’t know, here’s all the proof you need.”

  As tempted as Lauren was to pull her hand away, she was equally tempted to leave it right where it was and see how long it would take to force him to either pull over or wreck. Torn between wanting to discard the good-girl image that had long held her hostage and her desire for a committed relationship with a loving man, she didn’t know what to do. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined herself fondling Travis Banks as he drove her home—a mere stone’s throw away from his sprawling ranch house. Leaving her hand right where he had put it, Lauren moved closer and decided to satisfy her curiosity once and for all.

  Women could downplay size all they wanted, but Lauren grew positively wet at the thought of having something so big and hard inside her. Lordy, it was a wonder he didn’t pop the rivets off those form-fitting jeans. That she could make such a man groan aloud was heady stuff.

  Lauren hadn’t returned home from college all those years ago a virgin, but her experience with men was limited, to say the least. And while she’d had a good time at the bar tonight, she hadn’t wanted to so much as kiss any of the men with whom she’d danced. Certainly none made her want to rip off her clothes, discard her inhibitions and hop into bed with him.

  Except for Travis.

  The pickup swerved dangerously, and he yanked the steering wheel sharply to guide it back on the road. Headlights illuminated the open archway of the vast Half Moon Ranch. Frustration and relief laced his words as he announced in a tight voice, “We’re home.”

  Could there be any sweeter words to a woman longing for a relationship with a good man? More than mere walls and flooring and a roof, home evoked images of a cozy fire in the hearth, the smell of freshly baked bread, wild roses on the table, primitive artwork displayed on the refrigerator and the sound of children’s laughter floating through an open door. Lauren wished there was some way to let Travis know she wanted so much more than the simple physical satisfaction that both their bodies were demanding.

  “One can only hope,” she whispered, never dreaming tha
t he might actually hear, let alone respond to, her heart’s desire.

  Five

  Travis accompanied Lauren to her front door in stunned silence. The heartfelt words she’d whispered left him feeling like scum for allowing his thoughts to turn down such a purely carnal road. All Lauren wanted was a home, a husband and children to call her own. She’d never made any bones about that.

  And cad that he was, all Travis could think about was how just getting this woman in and out of his pickup was proving to be almost as erotic as those persistent fantasies about getting her into his bed. In her present condition, Lauren had practically poured herself into his arms when he opened the passenger door and offered to see her safely inside. The warmth of her lovely, limp body pressed against his was enough to make a strong man weak. In such a compromising position, Lauren would have to be completely passed out not to notice he was as hard as a rock. He hadn’t wanted a woman this badly since he’d been a horny teenager with more imagination than experience beneath his belt.

  The trouble with acting on that powerful tug of arousal was that Travis was nowhere near ready to make the kind of commitment Lauren wanted. The very honesty that compelled her to blurt out her intentions of finding a husband before the first snow of the season would send most self-respecting bachelors scurrying for cover. He was as committed to retaining his single status as Lauren was to terminating hers. Having previously been burned by the institution of marriage and one very selfish and manipulative woman in particular, Travis wasn’t inclined to make the same mistake again. Not that he was ready to forswear the female species all together.

  Just those with big green eyes who believed in fairy-tale endings complete with fancy wedding gowns.

  Travis considered that all too symbolic white dress. The likelihood of a woman of Lauren’s age being a virgin was highly improbable.