Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3) (8 page)

NINE

O
N
M
ONDAY,
E
VERLY
steered her luxury hybrid SUV into the main yard of the Dalton Ranch precisely at noon. When she’d called Boone Saturday evening, she’d been glad he’d suggested the time. She had no idea what kind of schedule he kept—other than its demanding a whole lot of very long hours—and hadn’t wanted their interview to get in the way of his work.

Work, she’d learned, for most men was sacred. Or if not sacred, then more important than anything a woman might need, especially if that need required any of their precious time. Though, granted, she’d come to that way of thinking based on what she’d been through with Toby. Dinners had been planned around his comings and goings, vacations arranged when he knew he’d have a lighter-than-usual workload, though because the idea appealed to the attention seeker in him, he’d embraced the alphabetical trips she’d started the summer after high school, though he’d insisted they start over at A.

Even sex had been slotted in when he was ready, never mind that she had a headache or the cramps, that she had to be up early and needed to get to sleep. That she was too wrapped up with a story to clear her mind and reach orgasm—and God help her if she dared try to fake her way through. For some reason, Toby measured his prowess, and the state of their relationship, based on how hard she came.

She supposed it wasn’t fair to use him as a benchmark. Unlike her ex, her father had been completely unselfish, devoted to his family, a true head of household, seeing to the needs of those with whose care he’d been charged. But he’d also been fond of putting his foot down, having the last word, the final say. And many times simply because doing so worked with his vision of what was acceptable. Or because doing so was convenient for him. And she’d hated that. Hated it.

Surely there was a middle ground. And logically, she knew there was. She’d seen it in Dax and Casper, the way they were with their women. Both men were completely full of themselves, but not for one minute did they consider their desires ahead of their partners’. Boone had been equally thoughtful of her, but most of their time together had been spent having sex, and it would take more than orgasms at his hands to really know him. Still, a man was never as vulnerable as when naked . . .

Pushing that thought and others that were equally unproductive from her mind, she grabbed her purse and stepped from her SUV, dropping her keys down inside. Shading her eyes as she looked for Boone, she realized she could probably have left them in the ignition. There was no one around, as far as she could see, leaving her unsure where she’d find him. The house sat to her left, a corral or pen in front of her, the barn and a second corral or pen to her right. For her article, she’d have to get the terminology correct.

She’d also have to get it correct because it mattered. If she and Boone were going to explore this . . . whatever it was between them, she wanted to pay attention to his life. And that had nothing to do with her past. It was just who she was. Curious as well as exacting, and granted, maybe a little bit of a compulsive perfectionist. But those traits had served her well as she dug for the meat of her stories. Though—
oh my
—what she’d like to dig for now . . .

Boone was walking toward her from the barn, wearing boots and jeans and a blue plaid shirt left untucked. One gloved hand gripped the stock of a very long rifle. His purposeful stride ate up the ground and stirred trails of dust in his wake. His hat brim was pulled low, and a bandanna fluttered from his back pocket. She imagined the body beneath his clothing, his cut abs, his huge biceps, the silky wedge of his chest hair, his thick cock resting beneath the denim against his thigh.

A shudder ran through her, and she had to remind herself she wasn’t here for more of what they’d shared Friday morning. Not that she wouldn’t love a repeat, but this was his house, not hers; with his bedroom, not hers; and his bed, not hers. She had too many . . . rules, she wanted to say, when she had to admit they were hang-ups. The fact that she’d broken her promise to herself, to take things slow with the next man she decided to sleep with, was already causing her grief.

She could not afford to be tempted by the external trappings: the beautiful body, the face she wanted to frame in her camera’s viewfinder, the light finding his cheekbones, the slope of his nose, his lips that were amazingly soft despite the abuse they took from the elements, the sun and the wind and the dry, dry heat.

Neither could she be tempted by the sex. No matter how delicious. She could enjoy it, and she would, but she could not allow it to mean more than the good time it was. That was the bottom line. Bodies only. No emotions. No attachments. No connections. No expectations of more. Though watching him approach, she knew in the deepest part of herself, sticking to her bottom line was going to be a battle.

Slowing only long enough to lay the gun in the bed of his truck, he continued toward her, tugging off his gloves and tossing them into an empty wheelbarrow as he passed. Her stomach clenched. Her thighs trembled. If she hadn’t known him, she would’ve run. He was that intimidating. That . . . She didn’t want to say
frightening
because she wasn’t scared. Except a part of her was. The part fighting that bottom-line battle. That had sworn to never give up her heart.

He reached her then, took her by the hand, pulled her across the yard, up the back porch steps, and into the kitchen. Once there, his hat sailing from his hand to the table, he continued to hold on, tugging her behind him toward the house’s staircase, climbing a lot faster than she could without scrambling. She was breathless when they reached the second floor, but Boone wasn’t winded at all, and she knew what she was feeling was anticipation. Wondering what he had in store. Wondering what he would do if she asked him to let her go.

When he led her to an open door, a carelessly made bed in the room behind, she tested her theory, slipping her hand from his before crossing the threshold. He stopped and looked back. His eyes were hooded and dark, his pupils wide, his jaw taut and straining. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and the faded denim beneath his belt buckle strained to contain him. His wanting her was obvious.

What she was waiting for was his insistence that she wanted this as much as he did, the pressure to acquiesce, the demands that she owed him; that this was his right, that she could give or he would take. That she had no say in this matter, or in any other.

Instead, he said the only words she needed to hear. “It’s up to you.”

She stepped into the room and closed the door, leaning against it. “Is this where you want to do the interview?”

“This is where I want to fuck you. The interview can wait.”

“There
will
be an interview,” she said, reaching for the buttons down the ruffled front of her sleeveless crêpe de chine blouse.

“Stop,” he said, coming toward her and taking hold of her hands, pinning them against the door near her shoulders. His gaze held hers, and she wondered if he could see how hard her heart was beating, if he saw any of her past fears flash in her eyes. “I wanted to unbutton your dress when we danced. I wanted to unbutton your top when you had me tied to your bed. If I don’t get to unbutton you this time . . .”

His gaze dropped from hers to her breasts that rose and fell as she struggled to draw a normal breath. It was impossible, breathing normally, with the way he was looking at her, with the want in his eyes, with lust beating a sharp tempo in the hollow of his throat. The skin of his neck, prickly with a day’s worth of beard, was sweaty, and no doubt salty, and baked by the sun. She rose up on her tiptoes, opened her mouth there, and drew her tongue in a line to his chin.

He groaned, his head falling back on his shoulders. “I don’t even want to know what that tasted like.”

“It tasted like you,” she told him when he looked back to her. “Like hard work and hard muscles and hard sex.”

“You do like your sex hard, don’t you?” he asked, a brow lifting, one corner of his mouth lifting, too.

“I like you hard.”

He still held her hands, and he pulled them both to the fly of his jeans. “Then I’ve got what you like.”

She wrapped her fingers around his bulk and squeezed, his whole body shuddering, hers shuddering, too. “But it’s not where I want it.”

“Oh, it will be,” he said, the words deep and rough and visceral. “Just as soon as I get you out of those pants.”

Her gaze snagged by his, she slid her palm down his length to cup the bulb of his head. “What about my buttons?”

His breath hissed out, a sharp push between his teeth. “I’ll get to those later. This needs taking care of first. And this time, I give the orders.”

“Orders?” she asked, feeling a jolt of something rich and raw, but not frightening. Not frightening at all.

“Hands and knees. Yours. On the bed.”

She took a step back, her hands going to the zipper of her skinny black pants. She lowered it, the raspy sound like a groan in the air, and kicked out of her Louboutin red-soled stilettos. Still wearing her blouse, she peeled her pants down her legs, rolled her panties off, too, her top swaying around her hips when she straightened and covering her to mid-thigh.

Boone shook his head, popping open all the snaps of his shirt in one hard tug. “Woman, don’t even move.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest, a butterfly, a hummingbird. A wasp ready to sting. “What happened to my hands and my knees on your bed?”

“I’m taking an extended lunch hour. We’ve got time,” he said, tugging off his boots, shucking down his jeans and shorts, his cock rod hard as he freed it.

It took all the willpower she had not to reach for him, to stroke him and fondle him and bend to take him into her mouth. She remembered his taste, the feel of him, the skin covering his taut shaft, that of a different texture stretched over the crown.

He was so beautifully male, his muscles defined, his skin sleek, his body hair having never known a razor or wax. She liked that most of all. That he looked like a man, not what haute couture had decided made for a pleasing male form, one smooth body nearly indistinguishable from the next.

When he came to her then, she held on to his biceps and looked up. He looked down, searching, asking something she didn’t understand, arguing with himself as if he wasn’t sure this was really what she wanted. After all, she’d come here for work, to ask him questions, not to strip out of her clothes because he had fucking on his mind.

And that made her smile. Because her mind was filled with the same. The smells of heated skin, the sounds of flesh slapping flesh, the taste of salt and bitter cum. Shivering. Eyes gone dark.

Her smile assuaged him, and he knelt in front of her, lifting her blouse to expose her pussy, leaning in to kiss her belly just above her bare lips. She curled her toes against the gritty hardwood floor, a tremor crawling the length of her spine and vibrating in the small of her back. Then vibrating deeper when he parted her lips with the tip of his tongue, sliding down to lap, then up to push on her clit, staying there, playing, flicking back and forth with the pressure he’d learned she loved.

He’d told her not to move, but she was all in, and she wanted as much say as he’d claimed. So while he held her hips, his fingers gouging her, his thumbs rubbing the skin of her inner thighs, she made quick work of her buttons, letting her blouse fall to the floor behind her and reaching back for the clasp of her bra. Before she could shake free of the clinging cups, Boone’s hands were there, his fingertips grazing her areolas hidden behind lace the color of eggshells.

The circles of skin pebbled. Her nipples pebbled, too, tightening beneath his touch, then beneath his mouth as he pulled away her bra, tossed it . . . somewhere, tongued her and sucked her and caught her between his teeth. She threaded her fingers into his hair and tugged. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t, cupping her breasts in his palms and pushing them together, moving from one side to the other. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She used her hold to guide his face back between her legs. He laughed as he settled his mouth over her pussy, pushing apart her thighs to slide a finger deep. She gasped, groaned, and he crooked it to rub against the sensitive pillow just inside her opening, a grating sort of scratch that sent her soaring.

His tongue slid low, dipping into her entrance when he pulled his one finger free, sliding back up through her inner lips when he pushed back in with two. She raked her fingernails over his scalp, and he laughed again, a growling, guttural sound, his teeth catching lightly at her clit and scraping over it before he sucked her into his mouth. The pressure was too much. She lifted up onto her toes and let go, shuddering, tugging at his hair as she came.

Sensation rushed her like a wave, knocking into her and nearly taking her off her feet. Boone wrapped an arm around her waist and held her, finishing her off before moving up her body, drawing the flat of his tongue up her midsection until he’d reached her throat, then her mouth. And then he kissed her, his lips demanding, his teeth sharp, his tongue finding and mating with hers.

When he dipped to lift her, she grabbed his shoulders for purchase, holding on while he carried her to the bed. There, he rolled the both of them to the center, sheathing himself with a condom before covering her. His big body made her feel fragile and small. She pulled her knees along his hips, and he settled between her thighs, reaching down to guide his cock into place, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth when he did.