Pushin' Buttons (Boot Knockers) (22 page)

Hot breath crossed his lips. “It’s all I can think about.”

Hugh ground his erection against Riggs’s own distended cock. “All?”

Riggs’s eyes hooded, and he ground right back. “Not all.”

In a smooth movement Hugh rolled to the side and found the condoms. The last one he’d used from this box had been on Riggs. The one before that too. Hell, for the past six months, the only man he’d fucked had been Riggs. Guess that made them exclusive.

Riggs tried to snatch a condom from his hand, but Hugh held it out of reach. Once his was in place, he placed the other over Riggs’s taut head. Then with his mouth, he rolled it down to the base.

With a hiss, Riggs’s body stiffened. When Hugh waggled his head back and forth, loving the feel of his lover’s shaft buried in his throat, Riggs grabbed his hair and directed him up. “I’m gonna blow.”

“Don’t want that. Roll over.”

Riggs did, displaying rippling muscles that excited the hell out of Hugh. He stared at his tanned spine and carved backside until he saw stars. The throb in his cock grew unbearable.

“Need the lube?” he panted into Riggs’s ear.

“Fuck no. The condom is lubed enough.”

Hugh growled as he eased his head into Riggs’s tight body. He loved that Riggs liked it rougher. And the two of them had been the perfect complement to Sibyll.

As Riggs’s heat engulfed him, he hooked an arm around his middle and began to move. After seconds Riggs relaxed, sharing groans and grunts. The bed rocked.

Hugh’s eyes rolled back in his head as Riggs performed a mind-blowing hip move. The sensual pull on his cock threatened to send him over the edge. As did the knowledge that he loved him. Somehow the whole package heightened the experience.

“Hell, I can’t hold off longer.”

Riggs pivoted his head to the side, and Hugh bit into his neck. They bucked. With his balls drawn up tight, Hugh focused on the extreme pleasure he was taking—and Riggs gave.

A shudder ripped through Riggs. He was close. Knowing his lover so well spread more warmth through his chest.

With a roar, he came. Hot spurts filled Riggs’s body. He reached around to grip Riggs’s cock. Two strong pulls and Riggs burst. Together they rode out their mutual release. For long minutes Hugh continued to slide in and out of his lover, extending their pleasure.

When he gently eased out, Riggs collapsed to the bed.

“I’m gonna dispose of this.” Hugh climbed off the bed and grinned all the way into the bathroom. Five minutes later he returned to find Riggs standing beside the bed in all his muscled glory. “Archer, when do you think the next flight to Atlanta is?”

Riggs’s eyes lit as he smiled. Small creases around each eye only heralded his excitement more. Now that Hugh looked closer, Riggs almost hummed with suppressed emotion.

“What’s going on?” Hugh asked.

“The next flight leaves in three hours. I already checked.” He held up his phone.

Being confined to a small airplane seat beside a big, frustrated cowboy was hell on the nerves. After hours in the air and little conversation to dispel the tension, Riggs was ready to burst.

Now he had Hugh in the passenger seat of a rental car. What had he been thinking to take the wheel? The man was a ticking bomb. He sat in the plush leather seat, so tense it seemed one movement would fold back the steel of the car.

“We’re too many hours behind her,” Hugh growled, glaring at the morning commuter traffic.

Riggs didn’t voice his fears. To do so would only set Hugh off more, and one of them needed to remain rational. But he felt the pressure of a few hours between them and Sibyll.

What kind of mindset was she in?

“Cut that guy in the white Land Rover off and we’ll get there faster.”

Riggs glanced at Hugh and battled to keep the amusement off his face. “We’ll be one vehicle ahead. There’s no point in causing a ten-car pileup to gain twelve feet of ground.”

Hugh’s eyes were dark, wild and brimming with something Riggs had only seen flash once during the time he’d known him—at the moment before Riggs had turned to walk away in the grub house.

Fear.

Hugh twisted his gaze to the windshield again and shoved his hat down farther. “Dammit, she’s probably on this road.”

“It’s crossed my mind too.”

“What happens if she’s at work when we finally reach her apartment?” The traffic crawled, and Hugh reached for the wheel.

Riggs covered his white knuckles with his hand, and stared into his eyes. “If she’s not home, we camp out on her steps like a coupla lost puppies until she comes home and takes us in.”

Hugh’s panic was only evident by the creases around his mouth. “Think she will?”

Now it was Riggs’s turn to struggle with his fears. In a short week he felt as if he knew Sibyll, and she wasn’t the type of person who would have given like she did and then toss it all back at Riggs and Hugh.

Then again, they’d hurt her badly enough to make her leave the ranch a day early. And before Riggs had gone into his room to throw some clothes in a duffle, Quay had told him the rumor Paul spread was that Sibyll had been a devastated mess when he’d dropped her at the airport.

Riggs let go of the wheel so he could rub his hand over his chest. That portion of his heart felt brittle, ready to shatter. Deep down he knew if he and Hugh failed to get Sibyll back, there would be a hole between them forever.

Hugh’s fingers locked around the wheel tightened more. Riggs brushed them again.

“Hugh, give me the wheel.” He meant more than the car.

After removing his hand, Hugh sat back against the seat, suddenly deflated. He gave a nod, and Riggs tried to focus on the stream of traffic and not the worry pooling in his gut.

For all of five minutes Hugh sat still.

He ripped the GPS from the holder on the dash and started punching buttons.

“The fuck are you doing, Donovan?”

“Finding an alternate route around this bullshit traffic jam. We have to be able to take an exit or something.”

The feminine voice of the navigator filled the car, instructing them to exit right in two miles.

“Two—” Hugh ground his teeth. He collapsed back again. “This is going to take all day.”

Riggs reached for the GPS. “Give me that before you break it. We used my credit card on this car. I’m the one paying for a broken GPS.”

A wry smile ghosted Hugh’s lips. He handed Riggs the unit, and he fitted it into the holder once more. The navigator continued to tell them to exit right for the next twelve minutes.

“I’m gonna cuff you, woman! We know we need to exit. We…just…
can’t yet.
” Hugh’s body flexed as if he were about burst from his skin.

Riggs gathered a deep breath and turned the A/C up, blasting it in Hugh’s face. After a minute, Hugh glanced at him sidelong. “You trying to shut me up by keeping me in a wind tunnel, Archer?”

The name was a caress. “Maybe. It worked for my dog when he got anxious in the car.”

Hugh’s features shivered, and he burst out laughing. The booming sound, his dimple and the eased set of his shoulders warmed Riggs. He opened his mouth to speak, but the navigator cut him off.

“Damn this annoying bitch,” he muttered, and switched a button on the unit to silence her.

Hugh continued to laugh, and Riggs joined him.

They crawled down the highway for another few minutes until they reached the proper exit. Once they turned onto it, they both breathed easier.

Driving the less-clogged side roads of Atlanta felt surreal. Did Sibyll see these very things every day? Did she avoid the main thoroughfare and travel this route?

When they reached streets lined with small apartment complexes, Hugh shook his head. “No wonder she felt at home on the ranch. Can you imagine living like this?”

Riggs’s breath caught. “How do you know she was at home on the ranch?”

Hugh met his stare. “The way she asked about everything, eager to learn more.”

“She and I had a discussion about horses.”

“Yeah?”

Nodding, Riggs continued. “We talked about building the herd. Well, she talked genetics and things I didn’t understand, but it sounds good.”

They hadn’t discussed what would happen after they secured Sibyll as theirs. But they couldn’t keep fucking women on the ranch.

Hugh seemed to follow this thought too. “We step down in our capacity as Boot Knockers and run the ranch. Build that herd.”

“And take on a few more abused horses maybe.” Riggs’s mind touched on the animal that had caused the injuries which had brought the three of them together.

When Hugh fixed his total attention on Riggs, his heart hitched. “I never thought of it, and there’s no money in it, but it’s a good cause.”

Riggs nodded and turned in to a small parking lot outside an apartment building. “So we have a plan to lure our woman into our arms.”

Hugh glanced at the building, lips pressed tight. His chest expanded with a deep intake of air. “Let’s go.”

The building was kept clean, at least. No debris, manicured flower beds and a small patch of grass. But Riggs couldn’t quite picture their curvy enchantress here. She fit so perfectly into the Texas landscape, barefoot, the breeze teasing her thick hair.

Hugh pressed the call button for her apartment number. Both of them shifted from boot to boot, staring at the speaker on the wall as if she’d pop out of it.

Chapter Thirteen

The sounding of the door buzzer abraded Sibyll’s frazzled nerves. She backhanded the tears off her cheeks and went to press the answer button. “Yes?”

“Sibyll.” Hugh’s hoarse voice raised every hair on her body.

She couldn’t draw air. Panic seized her, and she forced herself to draw a hitching breath and answer. “What…?”

“It’s us. Let us in,” Riggs said.

Sibyll pressed her clammy palms to her cheeks and leaned against the wall. Dizziness slammed her. Was this real? They were
here
?

The past few hours—the journey home, the tears and finally collapsing into bed because she was a sobbing mess—was a small hardship if they had come for her.

A more cynical part of her denied they could be here to win her back.
They’re probably here on business—I was the only unsatisfied customer they’ve ever had, and they need to smooth things over.

She pulled her hands from her face and stabbed the speaker button. “I’ll be right down.”

Running her hands through her hair, she attempted to rid it of tangles. It probably looked like a bush since tossing on the plane, in the cab and finally in her bed. After arriving home she’d stripped to her T-shirt and panties, and she knew her eyes and nose were red.

She strode into her bedroom and grabbed the first discarded item of clothing she saw—a pair of black running shorts. She pulled them on and jammed her feet into the flip flops she’d flown home in.

Avoiding a glance at her reflection, she headed out of the apartment. The flights of stairs between her and the rugged cowboys outside her building did nothing to calm her nerves.

Heart thudding, she descended the final flight to the ground level. When she glimpsed broad shoulders and cowboy hats through the window cut in the security door, she gulped.

Resisting the urge to plaster herself to the wall, out of sight, she steeled herself. If she ignored them, they’d only continue to harass her. She needed to listen to their spiel on behalf of the Boot Knockers Ranch, then they’d go home and leave her to pick up the scattered pieces of her heart.

When she opened the door and they stood before her, though, tears flooded her eyes. Her nose watered, and she sniffed.

“Oh baby,” Hugh murmured, sweeping into the building.

Riggs followed, crowding into the small vestibule with her. God, he took up so much space, and all she could think about was how the three of them could fill every inch of her bed. But no, she couldn’t think that way. Being with them at the ranch was one thing. Having them on her stomping ground would only end in disaster.

She backed up until her back struck the stair railing. Riggs flattened a hand against her spine, protecting her from the metal.

Holding her eyes wide to keep her tears from falling, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

Hugh closed the foot and a half of space between them, bending her over Riggs’s hand. His minty breath, the touch of his eyes…

She shuddered and closed her eyes. “What is this?”

“A reconnaissance mission,” Riggs said, dangerously close to her ear.

“We were asses.” Hugh licked the corner of her mouth. The intimate flick a battering ram to the door over her defenses.

Riggs’s hand began to move, warm fingers working her sore muscles, heating her from the outside in. Liquid want pooled low in her belly and spread down to her pussy.

They made her lose utter control of her body. It had been impossible not to lose control of her heart as well.

Hugh pulled away a fraction and captured her gaze. “I never should have left you and dragged Riggs with me.”