Bad News Cowboy (14 page)

Something about her exploration tipped him over the edge, and she could feel the moment his tenuous control snapped. His movements were no longer measured, his thrusts no longer even. It became wild and desperate, the ride of a cowboy hanging on for dear life.

She moved in time with him, pushing them both closer to the brink. He pressed his forehead against hers, a long, low growl rumbling through his body, the clear sign of his desperation ramping up hers.

If there had ever been any doubt that he wanted this, if there had ever been any fear that he was only doing this to keep her out of trouble, because he felt sorry for her, that growl effectively frightened it off into the very far distance. It was raw; it was real. And it was all for her.

Then he froze above her. She could feel him pulsing deep inside of her. And it was as if the heavens had broken open inside of her, pouring forth torrential downpours of pleasure. She had a thunderstorm raging beneath her skin. Heavy and electric, loud. Roaring through her with the force of a tornado. Powerful, devastating and no less destructive.

All she could do was cling to him. All they could do was cling to each other until it passed. All she could do was hope they both survived the aftermath.

* * *

J
ACK
WAS
PRETTY
sure he was dying. At the very least, he had set a foot on the road that would lead to death the moment he had touched Kate. Because if Connor and Eli ever found out, they would kill him. Spectacularly. Slowly.

A damn harsh truth to have to consider with the flavor of Kate still on his tongue. But it was a factor in this whole thing.

“Just a second,” he said, pushing up from the bed, trying to ignore the chill on his skin caused by separating from her beautiful body.

His questions had been answered. Her breasts were just the right size to fit in his palm, her nipples a pale pink. Perky. That was his official description. Her waist ran more straight up and down than hourglass, her skin paler, softer than he had imagined it would be. Her hips were perfect. Perfect for holding on to while he slid into her hot, tight body.

He was getting hard again. He was such a bastard.

He turned away from her, walking into the bathroom that was connected to his bedroom. He discarded the condom and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. Yeah, he was still himself. And he'd just taken a good long look at Kate, so he was certain she was still herself.

And he had just taken her virginity. He felt a little bit sick.

He walked back out into the bedroom, and Kate was still lying there at the center of the bed, completely naked. She sat up when he returned, dark hair sliding over her shoulders, only part of it remaining in a now nearly wrecked braid. She looked up at him, questions in her dark eyes. Questions he knew damn well he didn't have answers to.

Because he didn't know much of anything right now. He really knew only one thing for certain. He was one hell of a son of a bitch. She was so young. An entire decade younger than he was. So much more in terms of experience.

“Well,” he started.

At the same time she said, “So...”

He stopped talking and decided to wait for her. Because hell if he knew what to say.

“Should I go?” she asked.

She looked so vulnerable. So young.

“Don't go,” he said. But he knew even as he said the words that he couldn't allow himself to touch her again. Shame was crawling over his skin like ants, unfamiliar and unpleasant.

Bad blood. Dirty.

Oh yeah, he'd more than proven that.

He bent down and retrieved his T-shirt from the floor and tossed it over to Kate. “Why don't you put this on?”

She obeyed, even though she looked confused while complying. Though the sight of his white T-shirt settled over her bare curves didn't do much to quiet the arousal that was roaring through his veins like a beast. He could see the outline of her nipples through the thin fabric. And now he knew what they looked like. Now he knew what she looked like all over. And he would never be able to forget.

He wasn't about to compound his sins by sending her out into the cold or by touching her again. Those two things were kind of at odds, since he had proven he did a lousy job of keeping his hands off Kate when she was anywhere near him.

“I have some things to do. Before I come to bed.”

Her eyes got larger. “Oh.” She scrambled to the edge of the bed, swung her legs over the side of the mattress and stood. “I thought we might...talk, maybe?”

His chest got tighter, breathing almost impossible now. “Later,” he said. He had no intention of talking to her later. He had every intention of avoiding his bedroom until she was asleep.

She frowned. “If you have something to say, you should just say it.”

“Sometimes, Katie, things need to be left unsaid.”

She looked hurt. Confused. Shit, he was a bastard. “We never leave things unsaid.”

“Yeah, well, until tonight we never had sex before, either.”

“I would have thought we would talk more now that we've seen each other naked.”

He tried to force the corners of his mouth to lift into a smile. He imagined it was closer to a grimace. “That's not how it works.”

One side of her mouth pulled sideways, straight across. He imagined that was her attempt at a smile. Then she lifted her shoulder, as if shrugging off his words of more experienced wisdom. She reached up, sliding her hand around to the back of his head while she stretched up on tiptoe and kissed him.

And he was weak. Just a man. So he let her. More than let her—he wrapped his arm around her waist, held her to him for a moment, relishing the feel, the softness of her breasts pressed against his chest.

“I'll be here,” she said, getting back into bed, slipping beneath the covers.

And he would be anywhere but there, because his resistance was low. “Get some sleep.”

He walked out of the bedroom and down the hall, down the stairs. He didn't have anything to do. It was almost 10:00 p.m. and all he wanted to do was climb into bed with the soft, beautiful woman upstairs.

But the soft, beautiful woman upstairs was someone he never should have touched in the first place.

Dammit. Why had his conscience shown up now? He'd been more than willing to let it all burn earlier. It should have arrived before he'd taken Kate to bed or not at all.

Unfortunately, his ability to justify had run out.

Mainly, it was because of the way she'd looked when he'd come out of the bathroom. That gut punch of reality that had hit him square and hard.

No matter what she said, he was going to hurt her. He probably already had, probably would even leaving it at this once. But continuing on wouldn't make it any better.

He'd made it his mission to protect Kate from some of the uglier things in life when she had been younger and surrounded by ugly things. Surrounded by empty booze bottles, the smell of alcohol and her father's disconnected, slurring speech.

He'd been there when her father had died. And had comforted her when Connor's first wife, Jessie, had been killed. And after all that, knowing everything she'd been through, knowing how battered her heart was, he'd done this. But he was going to fix it.

He was going to protect her, as he always had.

He'd let himself lose sight of that, mired in his own shit. But he wouldn't forget again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
T
WAS
POKER
NIGHT
. Somehow Kate had forgotten last night when she'd decided it would be a good idea to go to Jack's to comfort him and see if he would make good on that dirty promise he'd issued over the phone. Somehow she'd forgotten that he and her entire family would be getting together to play cards only twenty-four hours later.

She'd been dreading it for most of the day. At least, once she'd stopped turning over and over the events of the night before. And once she'd stopped dealing with the very real desire to curl up into a ball and lick her wounds. Wounds left behind by what had followed the most incredible sex anyone had ever had.

Not that she knew about all the sex that had been had, but there was no way in hell it could top what had happened between Jack and her.

The sex had been perfect. It had been the unspoken weirdness that had occurred after. In many ways, she wished he had freaked out. Wished he had yelled and said he was never touching her again. Wished he had thrown things and shouted and said it was a terrible idea and they should never touch each other again. But he hadn't. He had left, saying nothing. Promising he would be back. He hadn't come back. She had lain in bed awake for hours after he had gone downstairs, waiting for him. She hadn't been able to move. Glued to the mattress as though he'd stuck her there. She didn't wait. Never. Not for anything.

But last night she had.

Had lain there with her eyes open, gritty, until the sky outside had started to lighten. Finally, she had drifted off, only to wake up two hours later. The bed was still empty of anyone but her, cold except for where she was nestled beneath the quilt.

When she had finally gotten up, she had dressed. Except she had kept his T-shirt on in protest of his abandonment. And then she had gone downstairs looking for him, but he hadn't been there.

She'd thought about calling him. Thought about looking around the property.

Then she'd realized that this was probably what he did with every woman he slept with. And they probably all felt needy and desperate after, searching high and low to see if they could find him, to see if they could talk him into touching them one more time.

She had a case of the Jacks. She'd promised herself she wouldn't get those.

She had promised she would be cool and sophisticated. Because she didn't want a relationship anyway, so there was no reason to let him hurt her feelings. Though she did want more of what they'd done. There was so much left for her to experience. And right now she couldn't fathom being with anyone else. Not when he was still her primary obsession.

It wasn't just that, though. He'd hurt her feelings. She didn't want him to have that kind of power, but he did.

Still, she was balanced. So she had spent only half the day fetal over all of that. She'd spent the rest of it panicking about the poker game. About whether or not he would be there. If he was there, it would be incredibly awkward. If he wasn't there...

Knowing he was avoiding the house because of her would hurt. Seeing him for the first time since they had been naked together, with Connor, Eli, Sadie and Liss looking on, would be terrible.

Of course, she could always skip the game. But it would be suspicious because she never had other plans. Which was why she was tromping over to Connor's house, her hands stuffed in her pockets, her boots crunching on the gravel.

Jack's F-150 wasn't in the driveway. Her heart slammed against her breastbone, then slid all the way down into her stomach. She gritted her teeth and stomped up the stairs, the noise created by her feet hitting the solid wood doing a little bit to satisfy the irritation that was rioting through her.

She opened the door to her brother's house without knocking and shut it firmly behind her. Not even the smell of pizza in the air offered her any comfort.

She walked into the dining area and saw that everything was all set and ready to go, the green-and-yellow Oregon Ducks bucket sitting in the center of the table filled with beer and soda. She was not messing around with soda tonight. “Beer,” she said.

“Did you get kicked by Roo?” Eli asked.

“No,” she said, sitting down at the table and scowling at her older brother. “Why?”

“Because that was a strange little one-word greeting. I thought maybe you were having trouble stringing thoughts and sentences together.”

“Just had a bad day,” she said without thinking. She shouldn't have said anything, because now they would ask for an explanation. Well, Connor and Eli probably wouldn't. But Sadie and Liss...

“Oh,” Sadie said, the sympathetic sound grating across Kate's nerves, “what happened?”

“Work stuff,” Kate lied. Because it had been her day off. But sometimes her schedule got shuffled around, so it was feasible that they might not realize.

“Drama with a flat of pansies?” Connor asked, his mouth curving upward into a crooked smile.

Kate nodded, her expression mock serious. “Yes, pansies are the most dramatic of all flowers.”

“Azaleas are the most apologetic,” Sadie said, laughing at her own joke. A wide grin spread over Eli's face, too. Kate remembered the apology azalea that Sadie had purchased from her more than a year ago in an effort to engender some of Eli's goodwill.

Obviously, it had worked. Or if not the azalea, maybe something else.

Maybe she should buy Jack an azalea.

“What about petunias?” Liss asked. “What are their dominant emotional characteristics?”

“I hear petunias are the hardened criminals of the plant world,” Eli said.

“I'm sure you would know,” Sadie said, kissing Eli on the cheek.

Kate heard the sound of the front door opening and her heart scampered up to her throat, resting there, fluttering madly like a nervous animal. Because there was only one person it could be. Only one person who would show up on poker night and not knock.

She looked down at the center of the table, determined not to watch the doorway.

Her pulse was pounding in her ears, and if there was conversation going on around her, she couldn't distinguish it from the roar of blood that had taken over all the space in her head.

She heard shoes on the hard floor and knew that she couldn't keep not looking, because not looking would eventually appear a lot more suspicious than looking. She lifted her head slowly, trying to prepare herself to face Jack for the first time.

Preparation had been futile.

It was Jack, Jack, whom she had known for almost her entire life. He was familiar, from his dark hair, nearly black, to his blue eyes, always glittering with humor. Broad shoulders, muscular frame. The very same Jack she had always known. But more. So much more.

There was an intimacy to having been with someone that she'd never realized existed. The source of the special looks that passed between her brothers and their respective lovers.

Like different kinds of nakedness, this was another new discovery. She had known Jack before, but now she
knew
Jack. Had learned things about him she could never unlearn. Knew what his skin tasted like, felt like, looked like all over.

Knew how he shook when she traced her tongue along the line of his jaw. Knew how his whole body shuddered as he found his release. Had heard that feral growl as he thrust deep inside of her.

She hadn't just been skin to skin with him; he had been inside of her, as close as two people could possibly be.

Wow, so much for trying to act casual about all of this. She was not feeling casual.

And now she had passed from normal looking at Jack in greeting to staring.

But...she realized that Jack was staring, too. He was frozen in the doorway, his lips parted slightly, his eyes trained on her.

“Hi,” she said, knowing she sounded subdued. But she felt subdued, so all things considered, it was fair enough.

“Hi, Katie,” he said.

She didn't correct him.

He walked into the dining area and sat down in the only available chair, which was—thank God—between Eli and Liss and not next to her.

“So are you all ready to lose your money?” he asked.

There, that was slightly normal. She was struggling with normal. She was struggling with anything beyond guppy dry-drowning on land.

“I don't know,” Eli said. “I'm feeling lucky tonight. I'm getting married in two weeks to the most beautiful woman in the world. Frankly, I'm untouchable.”

“Your wallet is very touchable. And I'll prove it,” Jack retorted.

“I think you're all forgetting that last time I cleaned up,” Kate said.

Jack turned his electric-blue gaze to her. “I suppose you did.”

“No suppose about it. If we had kept going, you would have left wearing a barrel, because I would've stolen the pants right off you.”

She regretted her words, but not until it was too late to do anything about it. Not until she had spoken them, not until they were hanging awkwardly in the air like dazed fruit bats.

“I bet you would have, Katie bear,” he said, his jaw tensing.

The group seemed oblivious to the tension between them. Which was insane, as far as Kate was concerned, because it felt so thick, so real. A physical presence in the room rather than a simple feeling. She felt as if the tension was sitting there drinking a beer, holding a sign that said They Totally Had Sex Last Night.

“Deal. Somebody deal,” she said, hoping that no one took note of the edge of desperation in her tone.

“Kate's in a hurry to lose,” Connor said, grabbing the deck and setting them up for a little bit of five-card draw.

“More like your face is in a hurry to lose,” she said. Admittedly, it was not her finest comeback. But she was not on top of her game. Since most of her brainpower was devoted to not looking at Jack to see if he was looking at her.

“His face lost at birth,” Eli said.

“Nice.” Liss smiled with approval.

“Can you believe that? My own wife.” Connor shook his head, but he didn't look irritated in the least. Instead he just looked pleased to be able to say the word
wife
.

“Wives are the worst,” Sadie said. “I can't wait until I'm one.”

“Soon.” Eli looked at Sadie and smiled. That secret smile that Kate suddenly understood. They looked as though they had secrets because they did. Because there was a wealth of knowledge they each held about the other that no one else would ever have.

And she'd gone and given herself all that knowledge about Jack. She hadn't realized. Hadn't realized how much it would change. It was as if she'd spent her entire life thinking that
Old Yeller
had ended before the final chapter and had been suddenly introduced to the actual ending years later.

Because then a heartwarming story about a boy and his dog became something else entirely. All of the previous story was there, but that last bit changed everything. Changed all of what it was.

That was what sex with Jack had done.

He wasn't a hideous dead-dog book. In fairness, the sex they'd had was hardly a tragic final chapter. It was just...different. He was different.

Everything that came before this new chapter had taken on an extra facet. Given her new understanding. It was so much more than she'd expected. So much more than she'd wanted.

Unsurprisingly, she lost miserably. Her poker face was off because she was putting all her energy toward applying it to keeping Jack feelings off her face.

Jack didn't win any rounds, either. It was Eli, in keeping with his bold prediction, who won the night.

“You suck, Eli,” Liss said, eyeballing her diminished pile of change. “Stealing money from a pregnant lady.”

“Unless pregnancy hormones interfered with your bluffing abilities, I don't see what it has to do with anything,” Eli responded.

“If you make her mad, it's on you,” Connor said.

The banter continued for a few more moments, but Kate and Jack sat it out. She stole a glance across the table at him, the first time all night that she'd chanced anything more than looking in his direction but looking through him.

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, and she felt the impact of that small gesture down deep. She couldn't think of anything to say, couldn't think of anything to do, so she just stared at him.

Thankfully, no one else noticed. She took a sharp breath, noticed his eyes lowering to look at her breasts. She felt a flush creep up her neck and over her face.

It reminded her of the expression on his face last night. Reminded her of that sharp need in his eyes as he'd thrust inside of her.

She felt like she'd stuck her head in a barrel of bees.

“You look tired, Kate.” This comment came from Connor. “Were you out late last night?”

“What? No.”

“I saw you pull out around eight. You got back after I was in bed.”

Horrified heat punctuated by pinpricks of ice flooded her face. “I just... I mean, it wasn't late to me. I guess to an old guy like you, maybe ten or eleven or whatever is kind of late.”

“An old guy,” Connor said drily. “Do you hear that?” He addressed the group. “We are old.”

“Maybe you all are,” Sadie said, “but I'm not.”

“Where were you?” And the interrogation started with Eli.

“Am I supposed to give you an accounting of my whereabouts now?” She knew that she was sounding guilty now, which was stupid. She should have just played it off. The defensiveness was making it worse. But she hadn't been able to hold it back. Because she wasn't good with subterfuge. She had never engaged in it.

If only she had realized that being a straight arrow for so many years would come back to bite her in the butt one day.

She might have worked harder at cultivating a little rebellion earlier.

“I just went over to Ace's for a drink.” She couldn't look at him, because she was lying, and she was a terrible liar. She'd been told by more than one customer at the Farm and Garden that she had an honest face. Honest faces tended to do strange things when dishonest words were being spoken.