Allister, J. Rose - Disowned Cowboys [Lone Wolves of Shay Falls] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (14 page)

“You haven’t been with your mother,” he spat while she stuffed a flat of chicken in the freezer box and shut the door. “I called Applewood Hills. You left there hours ago.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’re checking up on me now? You’ve never acted that way before.”

“You never got lost in the mountains before,” he said, then hesitated. “And you weren’t my fiancée before.”

“I’m still not, officially. I never gave you an answer.”

He folded his arms. “Which is one of the reasons I came by tonight. I realized that with everything that went on, we never got a chance to discuss it further.”

Aimee’s heart picked up its pace while she put away the rest of her groceries. “I thought we agreed to give me time to think about it.”

“You had all night.”

Her eyes flew to his. “Yeah, all night being lost and cold in the mountains with no idea how to find my way back. I sort of had other things on my mind. Like survival.” Not to mention the two cowboys who introduced her to a part of her womanhood she had long ignored, but she banished that thought.

A shadow flickered across his face, narrowing his sharp features even more. She hadn’t ever realized just how tapered his face appeared, how slender his nose was. “It was my fault,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“How is it your fault that I was too stupid to find my way back?”

“I never should have let you out of my sight in the first place.”

She snorted. “I doubt I’d have been able to relieve myself with you staring at me.” Her smile faded. “This isn’t like you, David, calling on the weekends and showing up at my place. You’ve only been here a couple of times.” She folded up her paper sack and tucked it along with others beside her fridge. “Is everything okay? Did something go wrong with the Jackson account? Is the breakfast meeting still on for tomorrow?”

“Everything’s on target with that. This had nothing to do with the office.”

“What, then?”

“I can’t explain, exactly.” He shrugged off his jacket while they walked back to the living room.

Aimee turned on the other table lamp and the ceiling fan light in the adjacent dining area, casting light on the solid earth tones in her living room. He gripped the back of her brown-and-yellow striped couch, and the way his eyes were following her stirred a sudden reluctance to shed her coat. She’d had enough bizarre male attention for one day.

When his eyes traveled downward, his brow furrowed. “There’s dirt all over your coat.”

She glanced down and fought the warmth rising in her face. “It’ll dry clean.” She slipped the coat off and hung it over the back of a maple dining chair.

His eyes widened a fraction. “You look very fancy for a trip to the store.”

She heard the skepticism, veiled though it was. “I always put on a dress to visit Mom on Sunday. I don’t bother changing for the errands and such that need doing afterward.”

“Let me take you to dinner.” He swept up to her and took her hands in his. She felt him toying with the ring. “I won’t bring up your answer or anything. I just want to be with you.”

She blinked. “I don’t know, David. I’m pretty wiped out.”

“Great. Dinner out will save you from having to cook.”

He pulled her forward, and she was in his arms before she could reply. “God, you smell incredible.” She froze as his hands slid along her back. He nuzzled her hair. “I confess what I really want to do is take you to bed. But I’ll settle for showing you off in a nice restaurant.”

“What?” She whipped her head up to look up at him. “That
really
isn’t like you.”

“I know. I should apologize, but I can’t. I guess almost losing you made me realize what my feelings really are.” He stroked back a lock of her hair. “I felt it in the car on the way back, and I knew. There was this protectiveness that came over me, but that wasn’t all.”

Although she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer, she posed the question anyway. “What wasn’t all?”

“When I proposed to you, I told you that I was a practical man who didn’t believe in love. Now I know that was a lie. I must love you, Aimee. The feelings I’ve had over the past twenty-four hours has proven that to me.”

He took her face in his hands and bent close. This time, his lips didn’t merely attempt to introduce her to the concept of kissing him. He mashed his mouth against hers, moaning when he slipped his tongue into her mouth. “You feel so damn good,” he said, pulling her closer. His hands slid all along her back. “And you taste even better than when I kissed you by the falls.”

With the length of him molded against her, she could feel his erection pressing almost painfully against her pelvis. No doubt thanks to her recent “awakening,” she had to admit David’s attentions caused a twinge of desire. Panic quickly overrode the pleasant warmth spreading in her stomach, however, and she put her hands on his chest to push him back. “Stop. I think this is all moving forward just a little too fast, don’t you?”

His eyes were dark with desire, and she could see the ridge of his hard cock straining behind the fly of his pants. “I feel like I’ve wasted years denying what we have together. And I don’t want to lose one more minute.”

The almost fierce look in his eye shot up her pulse, but a knock on the door stopped her from having to reply. Why had her apartment become Grand Central Station all of a sudden? No one ever dropped by.

Not sure whether to be annoyed or grateful for the interruption, she pushed around David and went to the front door. There, her mouth fell agape.

“Kyle?” she said. “What on earth are you doing here?”

A serious expression was visible beneath the brim of Kyle’s hat, as was the bare hint of stubble along an unshaven jaw. He wore no coat, just a denim button-down shirt paired with blue jeans and the same snakeskin boots from before. No real hint of gold was evident in his gaze, though the absence of seeing the animal within made his hard stare no less unsettling. “I need to talk to you.”

“How did you find me?” She lowered her voice. “Is that something your kind can do?”

“I looked you up in the phone book. You’re the only Aimee Jo Stevens listed in Philips.”

“Oh.” She gripped the edge of the door. “Sorry, but now’s not entirely a great time.”

“Dillon’s gone missin’, Aimee. And I think you know that.”

Her eyes widened. “He what? No. I had no idea.” She whispered the rest. “I just saw him a few hours ago.”

Kyle stiffened. “Where?”

“The Wild West Bar.”

He pushed up the brim of his hat. “You went back up the mountain? Why?”

She pressed a finger to her lips. “Keep your voice down.”

He peered over her shoulder, trying to see inside her apartment. “Who’s in there with you? It is him? Dillon?” he called out.

Without awaiting an answer, Kyle pushed the door open and brushed her aside as though she wasn’t even there. Long strides took him into her living room, where he stopped abruptly. “David.”

The men faced each other alongside the back of her couch, and it struck her just how well-suited they were to her modern brown, yellow and green decor. She never had been the lace doily and ruffled pillows type, and the angular lines and minimalist impression of the room might just as easily have belonged to a cowboy or a businessman.

“You?” David said, setting his hands on his hips. “Aimee didn’t tell me she gave you her address.”

“She didn’t.” Kyle pulled off his Stetson and ran a hand through his blond hair that had been pressed flat by the band. “I looked her up because I thought my partner might be here.”

“Why would he be here?” David asked. “What’s this about, Aimee? I thought these were just some guys you ran across in the woods.”

“They are,” she said, still eying Kyle. “Were. I never met them before I got lost up there.”

“Yeah?” David’s dark eyes flashed. “Just what all went on up there that would make him come down here assuming the other man would be with you?”

“Nothing went on,” she shot back, tamping down the flash of guilt that accompanied the lie. “And as you can both clearly see, Dillon isn’t here.”

“It wasn’t exactly nothin’,” Kyle said, his eyes boring through her with a pale intensity that set off showers of sparks deep inside of her. He laid his hat on the back of her couch and turned to David. “She ain’t fated to be with you. I’m sorry to say it like that, but it’s hard, cold truth. Best you know it right now.”

“Kyle!” She stomped between him and David, whose face now wore a thinly restrained mask of rage. “Who I will or will not be with is not for you to decide. I barely even
know
you. Now you march into my house uninvited, making proclamations like a posturing alpha male.”

The grin he cracked crinkled up his scar and held about as much humor. “I
am
an alpha.”

David stepped forward until Aimee felt his body heat just behind her. “And I’m her fiancé.”

She whirled on him. “Will you stop saying that?” She twisted the ring on her finger until it slid off and held it up to him. “You can take this now if you can’t wait on an answer. Meanwhile, both of you can just back off.”

David glanced down at the diamond but made no move to take it. “We’ve known each other for four years. Yet a few minutes ago, when we were
kissing,
” he said, glancing up at the other man as he hissed out the word, “you told me you thought we were moving too fast. Now you’re already involved with a man you supposedly met today?” His eyes narrowed. “Or was it last night? Just how long did you spend with him?”

She stomped past him and slapped the ring on the round dining table with a loud
clink
. “I don’t see how any of that matters.”

He frowned. “Are you saying no to my proposal, then?”

Aimee averted her eyes from both men’s rabid stares and sighed. “No, I’m not.”

“So you’re saying yes.”

She shook her head. “I’m not saying anything yet.”

“Then your relationship with this Dillon guy does, in fact, matter.”

“Not just with him,” Kyle said, ignoring her rabid warning look. “With me, too.”

David recoiled as though he’d been slapped. “What the hell? You’ve been with both of these men?” His stare darkened. “So let me get this straight. While I was busy searching the mountain in a panic while praying you weren’t dead, you were spreading your legs and letting
two
men stick their dicks inside you?”

Her lip curled as anger boiled inside her. “That is not what happened. I won’t have you stand here in my house shouting vulgar accusations. I’ll have you know that I am a virgin, not that it should be any of my
boss’s
business. I didn’t ask for you to propose, and I didn’t ask Kyle to come down here. I didn’t even tell him how to find me.” David’s expression wavered as she moved closer to him and raised her chin. “You need to leave now.” Kyle’s face lit with a self-satisfied expression until she fixed him with a hard stare. “Both of you.”

Silence fell while Aimee listened to the roar of blood rushing through her ears. David broke the stillness first by turning toward Kyle. “Fine. You just stay the hell away from her, cowboy, or you
will
be sorry.”

Kyle stepped right into the man’s face, and though David was a forehead taller, Kyle’s wild expression and scar gave him the more intimidating edge. “By all means, please make me do somethin’ I’ll be sorry for later.” His voice rumbled with a growl that wasn’t convincingly human.

“Stop acting like a couple of playground bullies,” Aimee spat. “Leave. And don’t you dare start up again in the parking lot.”