His life was as far from normal as it could get, and it certainly wasn’t here in Lone Star Ridge, where Cait was grounded. However, since he didn’t want hard balls of candy thrown at his crotch, he gave some thought to his answer.
“You want me to love you,” he muttered.
There. He’d said it. He’d spelled out what he feared most because it was what he couldn’t give her.
“Why the heck would you think that?” She came right back at him, and again she didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve already got enough love, thank you very much. Love for my family, my job, for what I have here.”
She motioned to her house and the grounds, specifically pointing to one of the horses in the corral. Then Cait glanced around as if looking for something else and finally plucked up one of the candies.
“This is what I already have,” she explained. “A delicious crunchy center coated with yummy chocolate. Now, it would be even yummier with a thicker chocolate coating, and that’s what you are, Hayes.”
He frowned. “I’m a thicker chocolate coating?”
She nodded so fast that her neck popped. “Yes. A yummy nummy high-caloric treat that shouldn’t be sampled too often.”
Well, hell. He frowned and mentally repeated that well, hell a couple more times. He wasn’t sure he liked that comparison. But at least she wasn’t crying or looking especially sad. In fact, zero sadness.
With a sly smile, she sauntered toward him. There was no other word for it. She sauntered and gave him a heavily-lidded look that made him think of sex. Then again, just looking at Cait made him think of sex.
“Let me get this straight,” she purred. She touched the malted milk ball to his lips and then slid it down over his chin and to his throat. Then lower to his chest. “Whether we fool around or not, you’ll still have to leave town after the wedding?”
“Yes,” he managed. That was an accurate summary.
Cait skimmed the hard ball of candy over his stomach. It was like a slow, torturous tease. “So we can either take cold showers for the next three days or we can have multiple rounds of really good sex?”
“Yes,” he repeated.
Again, an accurate summary. However, Hayes forced himself to admit that he probably would have said yes to anything when the candy, and her hand, slid over his erection.
He wanted to remind her that there might be cold showers after those three days. Or a broken heart. But she began to make very interesting circles with that candy. And she leaned in and nipped his bottom lip with her teeth.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, biting off a groan.
Her gaze stayed locked with his while she kept up the odd hand job, pushing and pressing against that part of him that was already too hard. She kept her hand in place, slowly brought the candy to her mouth.
And licked it.
That was it, his breaking point, and Hayes figured he was going to hell for what he was about to do, but he took hold of Cait and dragged her against him. He heard the candy ball drop to the floor, but he didn’t care where it bounced and landed. The only thing he cared about right now was making her mouth pay for the dirty little tease it’d just done.
He gave her a punishing kiss. Teeth and tongue. But she put up no resistance whatsoever. Just the opposite. She gave a naughty chuckle, cupped his balls and kissed him right back while managing to rub her body all over his.
Hayes snapped, and any remaining willpower vanished in a blink. Pushing her against the counter, he managed to do his own body rubbing. His chest to her breasts. Groin to groin. And with his hand squeezing her ass.
Apparently, she was all for that, too, but the chuckling stopped, and she got down to business, as well. Her kiss got hungrier. Her touching became an urgent demand for more. Since Hayes’s body was doing some urging as well, he didn’t hold back. He yanked off her top and went after her breasts.
What followed next wasn’t pretty. They were off-balanced, and Cait’s mouth and hands were battling with his to touch and kiss whatever parts they could reach. Hayes’s arm swiped across the counter, knocking the Cheez Doodles and the malted milk balls to the floor. They pinged and bounced, the sound barely audible because of the throbbing in Hayes’s ears.
His ears weren’t the only part of him throbbing, though. No, that award went to his dick, which was now calling the shots. Obviously, Cait was okay with that, because she just kept kissing and groping while Hayes pulled her to the floor.
It was a bad idea because the tile was cold, hard and covered with the hard candy balls, but location wasn’t a consideration now. Speed, however, was.
Cait nearly bloodied his nose when she went after his shirt, but he just let her have at it while he rid her of her jeans and shoes. Every movement they made crushed the Cheez Doodles, leaving them coated in orangey dust. He also suspected they’d have bruises all over their bodies because the candy didn’t crush. The balls must have had extra coatings of chocolate, because they stayed like marbles beneath them.
“You’d better have a condom with you,” Cait said, her breath gusting against his face.
“I do.” He snagged the condom from his pocket as she tugged off his jeans.
Her eyes were wild now, and her hair tumbled around her face like a sultry siren. Hayes thought he’d never seen someone so beautiful. Or desperate. He totally got the desperate thing because he was feeling it, too.
Proving that his ribs were indeed healed, he flipped her on her back and levered himself up enough on his forearm to slide on the condom. He’d barely managed to get that done when Cait took hold of his butt and shoved him down inside her.
The sounds they made were pure relief.
Just being inside her sated the gnawing hunger. For a few seconds, anyway. For that short snap of time, there was the pleasure. The quiet sensation that this was exactly what they both needed. Her body clamping on to his erection. Him, buried deep inside all that wet, tight heat.
He started moving because he had no choice. Again, his dick was calling the shots. Hayes thrust into her, watching her react. And what a reaction it was. A silky moan left her mouth that was slightly swollen from their rough kisses. Her eyes narrowed with heat, and her body moved with one singular purpose. To pinpoint the pleasure until they finished.
Hayes wanted this to last a long, long time. Maybe the entire two hours before she had to go to the party. But her muscles began to squeeze his erection again. This was the ripple that turned into a full orgasm.
He watched her come, kissed her so that he’d have the taste of her in his mouth. And Hayes let her rippling finish him off.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CAIT SCREECHED HER SUV to a halt in front of Em’s place, grabbed her overnight bag and ran toward the house. Crap, she was late. It’d been for a good reason—a second round of sex in the shower with Hayes—but she didn’t like having to explain why she was arriving a half hour late to a party she was cohosting. Maybe everyone was already having so much fun that they hadn’t noticed her absence.
They noticed, all right.
The moment Cait hurried into the kitchen she became well aware of that noticing. The triplets and Em were there, chatting and munching, but both of those activities stopped, and Cait got their full attention.
“Sorry I’m late,” Cait blurted out, setting her overnight bag on the floor. Her voice was way too breathy, but hopefully they wouldn’t think that she’d been with—
“You were with Hayes,” Sunny concluded.
What, was she wearing a sign? Did she have bits of Cheez Doodles in her hair? The second was actually a strong possibility since she had been distracted in the shower, mainly because of Hayes’s clever mouth, and Cait wasn’t sure she’d managed to wash out all the crushed bits.
“Hayes texted when he landed at the airport,” McCall provided. “He said he was going to see you before he went to the
ranch for the stag party.”
So, no sign, sisterly ESP or Cheez Doodles residue. Hayes had told them. But he wouldn’t have told them that he’d gone to see her for sex—
“You tapped him, didn’t you,” Hadley piped in, and it wasn’t a question. She sighed in disapproval. “He’s going to trounce all over your heart when he leaves in a couple of days.”
There was no doubt about that, but it wasn’t a subject Cait wanted to discuss.
“If he leaves,” Em interjected.
“He’s leaving,” Cait verified, and again this subject wasn’t up for discussion. It would just put her in a sour mood, so she changed the topic of conversation. “The diner did a good job with the party food.” She made a mental note to thank the owner, Hildie Stoddermeyer.
Clearly, though, party food wasn’t what they wanted to discuss, but Cait just continued to peruse the offerings. Cocktail meatballs, stuffed mushrooms, finger sandwiches. She froze, though, when she got to the cupcakes. They were supposed to be topped with replicas of Chippendale strippers, which would have been PG-13-rated risqué, but instead there were some with candy boobs, huge ones, and others with skimpy sugar panties.
“Hildie called and said the stripper toppers didn’t get there in time, so she had to substitute,” Em explained. “It makes me wonder, though, if these were supposed to go to the stag party.”
Cait was wondering the same thing. Wondering, too, what Hayes and her brothers got. She made another mental note to nix the thanks she had planned for Hildie.
“Where’s Kinsley?” Cait asked, glancing around.
No one jumped to answer, and they probably thought they could wear her down with their probing, intense stares so she’d blab all about Hayes. Cait didn’t give in to it. She poured herself a glass of the sparkling wine and popped a tiny sausage meatball in her mouth. Everyone was clearly waiting until she chewed and swallowed so that she could continue, but Cait just ate more food, a finger sandwich this time.
Hadley sighed again. “Kinsley’s in the family room. She wanted to get a head start on the entertainment portion of this evening. She’s watching porn.”
Cait stopped in midbite of another sandwich. She’d taken care of the food and drinks for this shindig, but she had left the movie selection to Em. Sweet baby Moses in a basket. She hoped the woman hadn’t chosen something totally inappropriate. Hoped, too, that if Em had indeed gone the inappropriate route, then one of the triplets would have stopped it. Maybe not Hadley but McCall or Sunny for sure.
“I’d better check on her,” Cait insisted.
“We’ll hold all conversation about Hayes and you until you get back,” Hadley called out. “And FYI, you’ve got a chunk of what appears to be a malted milk ball in your hair.”
Cait stopped long enough to feel around her head, and she did indeed come up with a chunk of candy clinging to the back of her hair. She three-pointed it into the sink, shot Hadley a scowl and practically ran to the family room.
Her sister was there, all right, sitting on the sofa, and the coffee table in front of her was littered with food, including a bowl of the Cheez Doodles. Good call on her part for choosing that particular party cuisine.
“You call this porn?” Kinsley grumbled the moment Cait got into the room.
Cait felt a big wash of relief when she saw the movie Love, Actually was playing on Em’s big-screen TV.
“There’s nudity and adult language,” Cait reminded her, “and if you imagine all the cast naked, then it’ll be porn suitable for a teenager.”
Kinsley rolled her eyes. “Which means it isn’t porn at all.”
True, but it was all the girl was going to get. Cait hoped. She made a mental note to check the other movies that Em had chosen.
“You should have at least hired a stripper,” Kinsley added in a grumble. “A real one, not the ones on the cupcakes.”
“Yes, because I want to corrupt my kid sister and set her on a path to gratuitous nudity and debauchery.” Cait sank down beside her. She wouldn’t be able to avoid Em and the triplets all night, but this was a start.
“You could have hired Hayes,” Kinsley remarked. “I’ll bet he’d be up for some gratuitous nudity.”
So even here he would be the topic of conversation. “He only takes off his pants for Outlaw Rebels.”
And for her, of course. Cait smiled thinking about just how he’d looked when his jeans had come off. The man did indeed have a fine ass even covered in food particles.
Kinsley snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, right. I’m betting many people have seen his butt in the flesh and not just on-screen.”
Cait knew that was a bet her sister could easily win. Hayes did indeed have a rep for sleeping around, and that wouldn’t have bothered her if she weren’t now part of that sleeping-around flavor of the week. She consoled herself with the belief that he had feelings for her. Feelings that she could see on his face and feel in his touch. But those feelings wouldn’t do squat to keep him here.
“How’d your date go with Hayes?” Kinsley asked.
That jolted Cait out of her thoughts and back to reality. The look she gave Kinsley was more jaundiced than actual jaundice. “Who says we had a date?”
“I’m not deaf. I hear things.” This was said after a “duh” and through the loud crunching sounds as they both ate some Cheez Doodles. “His sisters and Granny Em were talking about it when they were waiting for you.”
Clearly, the volume on the movie wasn’t up loud enough if Kinsley had heard that. Then again, maybe that particular conversation had happened when Kinsley had been in the kitchen loading up her snack stash.
“The date went fine,” Cait settled for saying, and since Hayes was obviously on everyone’s minds, she filled Kinsley in on some things that would soon become public knowledge anyway. “He finished the scenes he had to shoot in LA, did some publicity stuff and got the thumbs-up for another season of Outlaw Rebels.”
“Publicity stuff,” Kinsley repeated. “You mean like getting his picture taken with Athena.”
Apparently, Kinsley was a sponge for info on all things Hayes. “Yes, that,” she verified.
Kinsley munched more Cheez Doodles and watched Hugh Grant dance through Number 10 Downing Street. “Are you in love with him?” she asked.
Cait didn’t think the girl was talking about the movie. “Who? Hayes?”
“No, the Gingerbread Man.” She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Hayes. He’s really hot, and I was thinking if you hooked up with him because you’re in love with him that I’d get to see him more often.”
The thought had occurred to Cait, too, and that was in both a good and bad way. If Hayes stayed, she would almost certainly be able to have more shower sex with him. She’d be able to kiss him more often. They could have more than a fling that lasted only a few weeks.
Or not.
He could be miserable here. There was certainly the possibility of that since misery had been plentiful when he’d lived here as a boy. Maybe that’s why he had immersed himself so deeply in his life in California. It was a long, long way from Lone Star Ridge. It could be that was his fix for keeping the memory storms at bay.
“I’m sorry,” Kinsley murmured.
Cait felt the girl’s hand slide over hers. Felt, too, Kinsley wipe off some of the Cheez Doodles dust onto the back of Cait’s hand. Kinsley grinned. It was such a kid-sister thing to do, so Cait grinned back and squished a Cheez Doodle on Kinsley’s nose. That escalated into a few more jabs with the snack food before they settled down to watch the movie.
This was good. Not exactly clean fun. But good. It almost made Cait forget that in three days, she’d be a miserable puddle of a mess. As opposed to just the sad puddle that she was now.
“I really am sorry about Hayes and you,” Kinsley whispered just as the others came into the family room.
Cait managed a smile
and gave Kinsley’s hand a squeeze. One not to wipe off orange dust but to let her sister know that she appreciated the support. Then Cait put that all aside and got to work enjoying herself.
* * *
THE CUPCAKES HAD candy pink dicks and balls on them. At least Hayes thought that’s what they were. The heat had obviously gotten to them when the diner had delivered them, so the dicks were limp and the balls were melting down the sides of the wrappers. Not very appetizing, but that probably wasn’t the only reason they hadn’t been eaten. Simply put, any kind of cupcakes, dick or otherwise, didn’t go well with a keg of beer.
The evening had been better suited for pizza. And questions. And questioning looks. Hayes had gotten plenty of them, and most had been about Cait. Not a surprise since she was the sister of the grooms, and her brothers were concerned that she was in over her head with Hayes.
She was.
But Hayes hadn’t done a damn thing to remedy that. In fact, he’d made things worse by having sex with her not once but twice today.
He didn’t like lying to himself and had to admit that it probably would have been a threefer kind of day and night if it hadn’t been for the parties. That had given Cait and him a needed break from each other, though it hadn’t been much of a distraction. She’d been on his mind nine out of every ten minutes, and the only reason he hadn’t thought of her the other sixty seconds was because it was when one of the grooms or a ranch hand had asked him something about the show.
Yes, Outlaw Rebels would be continuing.
Yes, he was going back to California.
Yes, he was a dick.
He hadn’t actually given that last response out loud, but it had been implied many times throughout the night. A night that thankfully ended early because all the grooms had work the next day. So, at barely 10:00 p.m., Hayes said his goodbyes, well-wishes for the big day and headed out. He’d barely made it to his rental, though, when his phone rang, and he saw Athena’s name on the screen.
Hell. What now?
The contract negotiations were all done, but maybe there’d been some kind of glitch. He really didn’t want to make a trip back before the wedding. That way, he’d have to say goodbye to Cait twice. Once was going to be bad enough.
Tempting in Texas Page 24
