Hot and Bothered (22 page)

She might as well have just called him Tommy.

Gideon's gaze connected to Cherry's portrait above the bar. That wasn't really true, though, was it? Because
Rochelle
was his Tommy . . .

Oh, hell. He couldn't decide who the crap Tommy was anymore.

Kat sighed as she claimed the last of his glasses and set them in a tub beneath the bar. “Who knew that the quick-draw cowboy would turn out to be a closet romantic? I guess that's what happens when the girl of your dreams isn't so cooperative. Damn, I'm
really
gonna kill her if I see her again.”

“I'd stop you from killing her, you know.”

Another sympathetic tilt—this one for real. “I know, Gideon.”

So what came next? What did you do if the girl of your dreams rejected you? Who would ever accept you after that?

Kat grinned consolingly and walked off to wait on Dustin and Hooper, who were checking out the tourists, waiting for their chance to suggest a game with them in the back room. But it seemed as if the blonde with them had a good idea of how she'd keep busy while her companions kept playing the machine.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and bit her lip in Gideon's direction. It reminded him of Rochelle's games before things had turned serious, and suddenly all he saw was Rochelle and her challenging green eyes, Rochelle and her smile, which could either turn him on or turn him to mush.

In every woman he only saw Rochelle . . .

The scrape of a stool across the floor brought Gideon back to rights, and as his vision cleared, he realized that the man playing video poker had caught sight of the way Gideon was watching Rochelle. Or, rather,
his
girl. Because it was stinkin' obvious that the blonde wasn't just a friend from the way the guy was glaring.

Hell, Gideon hadn't realized how big the slab of beef was, either. Steroids must be the cocktail of choice for this knuckle-dragger.

He tipped back his hat a little further, sat up in his seat, drank his shot, and then saluted the science experiment across from him.

As the blonde tugged at her man's arm, the guy nodded at Gideon.

“You mind keeping your eyes to yourself?” he asked in a booming voice that had Dustin and Hooper chuckling at the other end of the bar.

The memory of the punch Gideon had taken from Rochelle's cousin Jonsey warmed his jaw. He was just drunk enough not to give a crap about getting another pop to the kisser. It might even knock some sense into him about Rochelle, blasting her out of his mind or at least putting her in the same semi-hidden box where he'd re-packed the pain he carried around from life in general.

Kat already had a hand near the shelf where she stored Casey's Special, but Gideon subtly shook his head at her and then turned back to the lug.

“That's the thing about America,” he said lazily. “My eyes can go where the hell they want to. I think that's in the First Amendment.” He smiled at the blonde, tipping his hat to her now.

Yeah, he'd just invited trouble, and it sped around the bar to him like a steamed up locomotive. Gideon halfheartedly stood from his stool and waited for the punch to come.

Wouldn't you know it—the sucker landed his fist just where Jonsey Burton had managed to connect with his jaw.

Gideon stumbled back a step, laughing at the irony. That was two punches he'd taken for Rochelle now, and he'd take a thousand more of them.

Masochism
, Kat had said. She'd nailed it.

And she was already up and over the bar with the bat, yelling and escorting the ogre and his friends out. The big guy was complaining about the money he had left on the video-poker machine but Kat wasn't having it.

Gideon worked his jaw as the front door slammed and Kat's boot steps clopped over the floor. On the other side of the bar, Dustin and Hooper were giving him the sarcastic slow clap, and Gideon tipped his hat to them, too.

Then he sat down again, ordering another shot.

“Oh, hell no,” Kat said. “For the first time in history, you
are
cut off, cowboy. I mean it.”

“She's right,” said Hooper from the other side of the bar as he and Dustin came around it, looking like they were feeling sorry for him now. “Quick-draw, don't mind us if we see you safely to bed. You're in a bad way.”

Hooper's walrus mustache loomed in Gideon's sight as they dragged him from the bar. Even Dustin's greaser look seemed like it was being reflected back from a funhouse mirror.

Gideon jerked away from them, holding up his hands, ambling carefully toward the door. Shit, he hadn't been this drunk in years, not since he was ten and him and Buzz had snuck a bottle from Dad's cabinet out behind Uncle Dennis's barn. They'd puked 'til Dennis had found them, promising them they'd never want to drink that much again and not giving them any more punishment than what they'd already endured.

Right now, Gideon was cool with being punished and punched. He
was
in a bad way.

Kat followed him out the door, not so much to see that he left but just in case the Beef and his entourage hadn't driven away. But they were gone, and as she watched Gideon go home, he lifted his hand in a wobbly version of a farewell.

He pulled on every dignified inch he had left in his body and made his way toward his house, busting through his door, tossing his hat carelessly away, and taking refuge on the first comfortable surface he could find—his sofa. As he drifted off to a place where he wouldn't have to see Rochelle's face anymore, he caught the scent of her shampoo on his furniture. He let at least that much of her remain in him, clinging to it, hating himself for not wanting to let go.

Then again, he'd never been able to let go . . .

He awakened with a spike in his skull, noticing the smell of honeysuckle. He was fuzzy, and when he saw Rochelle's beautiful face above him, he thought he was dreaming. He felt her hand on his cheek and the warmth of her aura until he was consumed by it.

“Gideon?” she asked, and her voice was everything.

He smiled at the dream.

She stroked his skin, and he touched her hand. So real . . .

It was only when he felt the dull pain in his jaw from the punch he'd taken that he realized this was no dream, and his heart hardened, unwilling to endure another beating.

Rochelle gingerly touched his swelling, reddened jaw, her heart feeling the same way as his new injury looked—wounded and expanding, bruised because of all the punches she'd already landed on him. He was even watching her now as if he were about to ask her why she was here and if she was about to hit him again.

Should she just come right out and say that she couldn't be another Cherry Chastain, and that's why she'd returned?

She saw his gaze go steely, as if he was armoring himself against her, and she couldn't blame him.

“Kat said you were having a bad day when you were at the saloon hours ago,” she whispered, easing into what she'd come to say. “And that you've been having a bad couple of weeks.”

“Kat said she was going to kill you if she saw you again.”

He'd obviously slept off the booze, his attitude hard, and she fought the urge to stop touching him, to move away and protect herself from the harsh things he was probably going to say. But she was done with the avoidance, done with lying to herself.

She rested her fingertips against his temple and then pushed back his thick brown hair, just as he'd done for her so many times when she was troubled. He hadn't told her to get out of his house yet, hadn't questioned her chutzpah in just walking through the unlocked door, and she took strength from that.

“Kat didn't quite kill me when I walked into the bar today, hoping I'd see you there,” she said. “Not after I explained why I was looking for you.”

It was as if the fortifications in his gaze started to melt, but there were still so many barriers. “You came looking for me once, Rochelle, and it was to ask me to defend you. What're you going to ask me to do this time?”

She swallowed. “I want to ask you to trust me.” Her hand shook as she stroked back his hair again.

He looked so doubtful about trusting her that her veins twisted, cutting off her blood flow until she felt weak. Then again, that's how she always felt around him—weak and strong at the same time, wrong and right, afraid and emboldened.

She counted on that last quality now as she went for broke. “I wish you could trust me enough to know that I came back here because I want to learn to love you like you should be loved.”

Utter silence, enough time for her to realize that, yes, she'd said those words. Finally. Wholeheartedly.

But he only sat up slowly, his back hunched as he rested his forearms on his thighs, sending her a wary gaze. He looked like a gunfighter who'd been disarmed but still had a lot of maneuvers to make the enemy back off.

Her, the enemy.

Everything that'd been building in Rochelle lately rushed out in a torrent of words, unpolished and raw, a rough draft she'd never be able to erase, even if she wanted to.

“It's just that I've always been alone, Gideon,” she said. “And I got so used to it that I had no idea how to respond to someone giving themselves over to me and asking that I do the same. I've always depended on myself, because I knew that
I
would never let
me
down. I had no room for anyone who might pull the rug out from under me. I couldn't imagine giving one more person the opportunity to do that.”

The skirt she'd worn on the plane rode above her knee, baring it, and her skin was less than a whisper away from the denim covering his leg. Still, she could feel the heat from him, and it swept up and through her like pulsing blood as she went on.

“You were the first person to ever read a book of mine and see me in it, calling me out for writing Cherry as if she were another reflection of myself. You saw how I shaped my life into hers and vice versa, and maybe it's because a long time ago I shared something with you that I'd never shared with anyone else. And I'm not just talking about having sex for the first time. I'm saying that I've never been so vulnerable with another person, Gideon, and that threw me for the worst curve I've ever seen coming at me.”

He hadn't reacted at all yet, just kept staring at the carpet, seemingly bulletproof.

But she wasn't going to run again. Never.

“Like Cherry,” she said, “I learned to be clueless about love, to put it aside like it wasn't there so I'd never feel the hurt of it.”

Finally, a grim smile took him over. “Maybe you were right about me all along, though. Maybe you should've been worried that someday I'd go back to being that quick-draw cowboy. Haven't you told yourself that? Because, if you haven't, it's better you do it now rather than later.”

She hadn't expected miracles, and she'd known she would have to work on him. And work she would.

She grabbed the sleeve of his T-shirt and pulled until he looked at her straight on. “If you're about to tell me about how you went back to being ol' quick-draw after I left and warn me away just to see if I'll backtrack, don't bother. I heard about what you've been doing at the saloon every night, and I don't care.” She took a breath and then let it out. “I mean, I
do
care—jeez, believe me when I say that I want to tear the hair out of the head of every woman you were with—but then again I didn't exactly give you a reason to be a monk, all pure and waiting for me until I changed my mind and came back to you.”

“Don't you think that's who I am, Rochelle? An undependable piece of meat?” Still hard-hearted, still testing her. “Doesn't that scare you along with everything else about me?”

It did. Holy
shit,
it did. But she knew he'd only been getting back at her in a silent, punishing way. She wanted to throttle him for it, wanted to throttle herself.

She pulled at his sleeve again, but he remained rooted. “I
know
who you are, Gideon. I always have.”

It looked like he might crack, but then he seemed to take possession of himself. “How do I know you're not going to pull the same crap again?”

She'd asked herself this on the entire plane ride here and then again on the drive from the airport. And no matter how many times her neurotic demons came out to put the hammer to her hopes, she still knew the answer.

“I wouldn't have come back to Rough and Tumble if I knew I could live without you,” she said, emotion swelling in her throat. “Believe me, I was trying to do just that—live without you. And it wasn't pretty.” She swallowed again. “My heart might be even thicker than my head, but both of them are scrambled and no good without you.”

Now that the words were coming so freely, she wondered where they'd been all along. Hiding? Dormant? Waiting to be let out?

As he remained silent, it was
she
who was the one waiting this time, and an eternity of weighted heartbeats seemed to pass as Gideon clenched his wounded jaw, still holding her wrist, his fingers caging her until she bit her lip.

Silence as his gaze bored into her.

More silence as she started to lose hope.

But she wasn't going to give into the fear. Not anymore.

Leaning toward him, she laid everything on the line, holding her breath, pressing her lips against his knuckles, kissing softly, exhaling.

“If you want me to go,” she said against him, “tell me now. Tell me to go to hell or back to my book tour, but just say
something
.”

Every one of her breaths against his skin marked the seconds thudding by, and she started to believe that maybe he'd come to his senses while she'd been away; he'd realized that they'd had their fun, and she wasn't worth his time now.

She began to shrink into herself, just as she'd done when she was eighteen years old, knowing she'd been such a failure with him, wanting to crawl into the nearest hole . . .

But then something did break in Gideon, and all at once, he let go of her wrist, burying his fingers in her hair, bringing her mouth to his in a kiss so desperate and passionate that she unwittingly sobbed against him.

Gideon, kissing her, holding her . . . The seams on his shirt popping as she pulled at him to get closer, closer . . . God, she couldn't get close enough.

He tugged at the front of her suit jacket so forcefully that she found herself crushed against his chest, his lips devouring her with wet, wonderful, out-of-control kisses on her mouth, her chin, her jaw, behind her ear, everywhere. And with each kiss, her heart detonated, blasting up and up and lifting her right along with it.

It was like the first time for her again—or at least how a first time should be in fantasies. She felt as if her skin were awakening from a sleep, tingling with delicious shivers and blooming with desire. She felt marked with explosions of beautiful red that flowered everywhere, over her flesh, under it, straight toward her heart.

Then he was panting against her lips, cupping her face, gazing intensely into her eyes. “You're really here,” he said hoarsely.

With all the love she'd been denying, she kissed him with heartfelt heat. Then she smiled so he could feel it on his lips.

“No place I'd rather be,” she whispered.

***

Gideon still felt her kiss on his mouth, even after she pulled away. He tasted her on him—honey from the tip of a beautiful flower—and it was almost like a dream again.

Except he knew he was more awake than he'd ever been.

Emotion snaked through him, entangling him in the reality that she was really here, that she'd actually returned, and he caressed her face with his fingertips, memorizing every detail. He wanted to etch her on the backs of his eyelids, wanted to keep her with him even if she was only inches away.

She'd always been a part of him, no more so than now.

“I've loved you ever since the first day you came to your uncle's ranch,” he said.

She leaned into his palm. So content, so at peace now that the games were done and it was just the two of them, face to face, nothing between them.

“Maybe I did, too,” she said. “But I know I love you now. I need you, Gideon. I haven't ever needed anyone or anything more.”

His pulse was careening, throwing him off balance, but even so, he used a slow hand to caress her face. He continued down, over her collarbone, between her breasts, where her suit revealed some cleavage. He took his time undoing the first button, then the next, until she was open to him.

Her bra was lace, barely containing all of her, her nipples already stimulated for him, pressing with beaded pink tips against the cups. He ran a finger into one, using his knuckle to feel the peak of her.

Hell, how many nights had he laid there imagining this, never thinking it'd happen again?

She began to take off his shirt, and he let go of her to help. Then, with rising hunger in her eyes, she eased the jacket off her shoulders, reaching in back of her to undo the bra. It fell forward, exposing all of her—round, perfect, heavy—and he cupped both breasts, pushing them up as they filled his hands. At the same time, she fell back onto the sofa, no longer the aggressor, just inviting him to come to her with welcoming arms.

His chest met hers with a wash of vibration that she must have felt as strongly as he did, because she hauled in a breath as he leaned his elbows on the pillow below her, then bent to kiss her forehead. He slid down to capture her mouth with his again with easy, forever kisses.

Her hands roamed his back, exploring him, and he realized that this was how it'd all began years ago in a pile of hay in her uncle's barn. Kisses, discarded clothes, body on body.

But, this time, it was going to be perfect.

He worshipped her with his mouth, first on her neck, making her squirm, and then at her breasts, loving one and then the other. Then at her stomach, lower, his tongue dipping into her bellybutton as he slipped her skirt down, bringing her panties with it until they lay on the floor in a linen puddle. The thud of her shoes on the carpet told him that there wasn't a stitch left on her.

Good, because next he used his hands to sculpt every curve, from the swerve of her waist to her hips and down over her legs. When he drew his fingertips to the center of her, already wet for him, he pressed a knuckle against her, circled her clit, and then lightly teased it.

Just as he had her straining for more, she gasped once, twice, longer and longer until her hips arched and she relaxed.

Then she fixed that voracious gaze on him.

But she didn't push him back as she would've a couple weeks ago, bowling him over and taking what she wanted. She waited until he pulled her up by both hands and laid back against a pillow himself, bringing her with him until her hair brushed his face.

He drew in her honeysuckle scent, which shimmered through him like crushed glass that cut lightly, enticingly. She kissed him, long and deep, then worked off his jeans and boots. She paid his body homage, too, covering every inch of him until his cock was nearly bursting.

This was how it always should've been, he thought, bringing her up and over him until his erection brushed her parted, glistening folds. This was how it should always be, with them so consumed with each other that nothing else mattered.

He dug his fingers into her hips, pulling her forward, watching as he entered her, then rolled her onto her back so he could look down into her eyes.

Eyes that sparkled with the same shimmer he'd seen earlier, but there were no barriers between them now, only . . .

He slid all the way into her, and she inhaled deeply, gouging her fingernails into his arms. And she kept making those sexy, breathy sounds as he filled her again and again, their gazes never disconnecting.

With every thrust, he saw her irises pulse, echoing the ever-pounding heartbeat in him—open, closed, open, closed, just like a black box trying to force its lid off. Pressure built, swelling that box's lid, pushing at it while whatever was inside grew and grew.

He didn't know how long he could stand it, the pulsing, the pushing, but just when he thought he couldn't take anymore—

The box blew open, spilling everything into the air, coating his brain with melting darkness until it slid away from his vision, showing him Rochelle smiling up at him, pulling him down to her as she sighed, as she opened for him, too, on a delighted cry of completion.