Cowboys Like Us (25 page)

“This feels good.” He leaned back against the edge of the tub and closed his eyes. “Damn good.”

She almost groaned out loud. She could imagine something else that would feel damn good, but she didn’t want to scare him off right when he was beginning to relax and enjoy what came his way. “I guess the ranch is quite a responsibility,” she said.

“Don’t you know it.” He opened his eyes and glanced over at the view of the Strip. “I truly love that place, and I don’t begrudge all that I put into running it, but I haven’t had a vacation since I took over two years ago.”

“Then it’s about time.” She handed him the champagne flute. “Here. This goes with the view.”

He took the delicate crystal, his hand brushing hers, his gaze holding hers for a precious moment. “Thanks. I guess it does.” Then he cleared his throat and took a drink of the champagne. “It tastes expensive.”

“It is.” She leaned over and lifted the bar towel to show him the bottle.

He shook his head. “I’ll have to take your word for it.
Looking at the brand won’t tell me anything. I’m not into champagne.” He took another swallow. “But this isn’t bad for being a girlie drink.”

“I’m glad you like it, because once you open a bottle this pricey, it’s criminal not to finish it off.” She didn’t want him to get drunk, but she wouldn’t mind having him loosen up a little more.

He rolled the stem of the flute between his fingers. “Why do I have the feeling that you want to sit here and drink champagne instead of talk about your career plans?”

“There you go again, setting us up for either-or. We can do both. I think talking about career plans while drinking expensive champagne is a great idea.”

“Okay, then let’s start by you telling me what jobs you’ve had since you left the ranch.”

She’d thought about this and was ready for the question. “I’ve waited tables, taken on some light secretarial work. Then there was the telephone soliciting.”

He nearly dropped his flute. “Telephone
what?
”

Excellent. His mind was firmly in the gutter.
“I made cold calls for a carpet-cleaning company,” she said.

“Oh. That kind of soliciting.”

“What did you think I meant? Phone sex?”

“No! Of course not. I mean—” He paused to gulp some more champagne. “Hell, never mind. Carpet cleaning. Okay. What else?”

“Let me put a head on that for you.” She lifted the bottle from the ice bucket and waited until he held out his glass.

He hesitated.

“You said it yourself. It’s a girlie drink. Not much punch to it.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He extended his glass so she could fill it again. “So, what else have you done?”

“A little bartending.”

He nodded. “What else?”

She adjusted the straps on her bathing-suit top for no reason other than to jiggle her breasts and make him notice. “You probably don’t want to know
all
the jobs I’ve had,” she murmured.

As she’d planned, his gaze drifted to the twin triangles of black material that barely covered her nipples. “Maybe not,” he said, a thread of huskiness winding through his voice. “How did the…uh…carpet-cleaning job work out?” Bringing his attention back to her face appeared to take great effort.

“Not too bad. People seemed to respond to my voice on the telephone. Want to hear my sales pitch?”

“Sure.” He took another big swallow of champagne.

“I think I can remember it. Let me concentrate for a second.” Keely really had spent about a week calling for a carpet cleaner, and she’d had such bad luck in the first day that she’d modified the phone message they’d given her without telling them. Then her calls had been wildly successful as long as she’d talked to the man of the house. But when the president of the company had discovered what she’d been saying, he’d fired her. The man had completely lacked a sense of humor.

“Here goes,” she said, holding his gaze across the foaming water and lowering her voice to a sultry purr. “’Hey, there, big guy. Can we talk dirty? Dirty carpets, that is. Your carpet needs your attention, it craves your attention. It deserves to be stroked firmly, massaged and caressed until it ripples beneath your hand, and then, my friend, it needs to be washed clean and…sucked…thoroughly and completely, until it springs up, aroused to its full…potential. How soon would you like this done…to your carpet?’”

During her recitation Noah’s breathing had become labored and his gaze turbulent.

She wasn’t completely calm, herself. If he didn’t make a
move soon, she was going to be in bad shape. “So,” she said, smiling brightly, “what do you think? Do I have any talent for sales?”

“I think…” He paused and cleared the huskiness from his throat. “I think you need to go to bed.”

Her pulse raced with anticipation. “And you will…?”

“Not.”

Damn.
“But you want to,” she murmured, willing to bet a year’s salary that beneath the foaming water he was completely erect.

The muscles in his jaw worked. “Yes. I want to.”

And so did she. So very, very much. She was going crazy with the wanting. “Noah, what could it possibly hurt? We’re two free, consenting adults. Both of us are dying to consent. I don’t understand why we can’t go into that bedroom and have a wonderful time. For that matter—” she slipped the straps of her bathing-suit top off her shoulders “—we could begin the fun right here.”

“Keely, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Enjoy the movement of the water against my skin?” Putting down her champagne flute, she unhooked her top and allowed it to float away. A girl could only hold herself back for so long before she cracked. She wiggled out of her bottoms and they floated to the surface, too.

“You know what I mean,” he said in a tight voice.

“Yes, and you know what I need.” Cupping her breasts, she rose to her knees on the bench seat so that the foaming surface tickled and played with her nipples until they were taut with desire. “This feels good, Noah. Do you think it’s wrong for me to like it?”

Never taking his gaze from her breasts, he shook his head.

“And right above this bench there’s a water jet. If I position myself just right, I can enjoy that, too.” She found the pulsing stream and tilted her pelvis back. There. Mmm. It
wasn’t Noah’s touch, but he still seemed to have scruples. “Is that wrong?”

His tortured gaze held hers. “No,” he said, his voice rasping low in his throat.

“I want you, Noah.” The pulsing water worked quickly on her already aroused body. Her breathing grew shallow and her heart pounded with excitement. She’d never dared so much in front of any man, but now that she’d begun this little exhibition she found that it packed its own kind of thrill.

She could tell he was going insane watching her. Good. He deserved to go insane.

“Yes, I really want you,” she whispered. “But if I can’t have what I want…” She closed her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips. “I’ll take what I can…get.” As the tremors of her orgasm overtook her, she squeezed her nipples hard and gasped with pleasure. Knowing he had watched every second intensified the sensation more than she would have believed. Breathing hard, she leaned back against the edge of the tub.

Slowly she opened her eyes and looked at him.

He was destroyed. She’d never seen anybody in such agony in her life.

Taking a long, shaky breath, she braced a hand on the side of the tub and coaxed her rubbery legs to support her as she stood. “Well, that sure was fun,” she said. “You really should have come along.” Retrieving the two pieces of her suit, she climbed out of the tub and walked dripping and naked into the living room and over the footbridge.

N
OAH HAD NEVER EXPERIENCED
anything like the rush of watching Keely making love to the hot-tub jets. And the fact that she’d deliberately done it while he was sitting there totally fried his circuits. If he’d come upon her when she hadn’t known he was there—well, that would have been wild enough. But she’d
chosen
to have him see this, knowing full well how much he wanted her. She’d hoped he’d break.

He would not break.
In this charged moment he couldn’t remember the reason, exactly, but he knew control was very important.

Until Keely had snuggled up to that water nozzle, he’d thought he understood sexual frustration. He’d kidded himself that he was strong enough to deal with it, no matter what the temptation. But the frustrations he’d lived with in the past were small change compared to the gut-wrenching, groin-pounding urges that shook him now. Keely had pushed him into unknown territory.

The water churned around him, teasing him, taunting him with liquid fingers that had brought Keely relief while he remained in straining agony. A jet of water gurgled against his back, suggesting possibilities, beckoning him to follow Keely’s lead. Beneath that scrap of material some idiot de
signer called a bathing suit he swelled until it seemed the tiny garment couldn’t hold him any longer.

In a wild frenzy he reached beneath the water and ripped it away, tearing the seams in his eagerness to be rid of the restraint. His penis surged free. With a moan of surrender he stood and turned toward the rippling stream of water.

Hands braced against the edge of the hot tub, he eased his rigid flesh into the outer swirl of the pulsing jet. Oh, God. This wouldn’t take long. The lights of the Strip blurred into a river of color as his climax crept ever nearer.

Finally, holding back a groan with clenched teeth, he gripped the edge of the tub and shuddered as the milky evidence of his passion rose and merged with the bubbling water. Struggling for each breath, he let his head sag between his still tense shoulders.

“Nice going,” she said softly from the doorway behind him.

He refused to turn around. “Go away,” he whispered hoarsely.

“I will. I only came back out to bring you a robe, so you wouldn’t get chilled.”

His laugh sounded like a rusty saw against a fence post. Chilled. Never in a million years.

“I’m leaving it here on a chair.”

Still he didn’t turn around. No telling what she was wearing, or not wearing. And if he looked at her, he would want her again as much as before. The picture of her making love to the jet of water was too fresh for him to even think of blotting it out of his mind.

“That little teaser of relief won’t be enough, you know,” she murmured. “At least, it wasn’t for me. You’re such an endearingly stubborn man, Noah. But if you decide to bend that iron will of yours, I’ll be in the bedroom. We could have a very good time.”

He wondered if she’d have a very good time without him. Once again he tried to remember why he shouldn’t make love to her. He was positive he’d had a good reason, back when he could think. And because he knew that eventually he’d be able to think again, he was determined to wait out this period of insanity.

When he heard nothing more from the vicinity of the doorway, he cautiously looked over his shoulder. She wasn’t there. Climbing out of the tub he felt shaky as a new foal. Sure enough, a white terry robe lay across one of the rattan patio chairs.

He picked it up but couldn’t seem to make himself put it on. All his nerve endings felt tender, as if the slightest contact would send shock waves through his system. On some level he realized that he was standing naked on a terrace within view of several high-rise hotels. Naked and still partially erect.

His nakedness didn’t seem like the most critical issue. As long as he stayed out on the terrace and Keely stayed in the bedroom, he might be able to quiet the roaring in his ears long enough to reason this through. He spread the white terry robe open on the cushioned rattan chair and eased down on it. God, his skin felt sensitive, as if he could feel each individual loop of the plush terry caressing his butt and his balls.

Gingerly he leaned back in the chair and gazed out at the sparkling, churning kaleidoscope that was Las Vegas. The combination of this city and Keely Branscom would corrupt any guy with a pulse.

But he had to resist, anyway. He didn’t like to think of himself as the kind of man who would meet a childhood friend and promptly jump into bed with her even if she invited him. His brother, Jonas, was a different story. But Noah had taken his older-brother role seriously. His mother had told him to set a good example for Jonas and he’d tried to do that. He’d tried especially hard after his mother died, for her sake.

But it hadn’t worked that way in the motherless Branscom household. In that case, the younger one, B.J., had turned out to be the responsible kid and Keely, the oldest, had been hell-bent-for-leather from the beginning.

Maybe it had nothing to do with circumstances and everything to do with personality. Keely and Jonas were cut from the same cloth. Noah was extremely grateful that he was here instead of Jonas, because if she’d made Jonas the same offer she’d made him, Jonas would have grabbed it. Well, maybe not now that he seemed to be in love for the first time in his life.

And maybe not ever, come to think of it. Jonas hadn’t talked about wanting to get Keely alone and have some fun. She was about the only woman he hadn’t gone after, though. Noah and his father had lived in constant fear that Jonas would get all the county’s eligible girls pregnant. It was a miracle that no one had come to the ranch insisting that she carried Jonas’s baby.

The issue of birth control aside, Noah couldn’t claim much success with Jonas’s personal development. Maybe little brothers were programmed to be contrary. At any rate, B.J. seemed to be accomplishing what he’d failed to do—Jonas was finally becoming a grown-up.

Noah wondered if that had anything to do with his own restlessness lately. He wasn’t required to model good behavior anymore. Or maybe it was simply Keely getting under his skin the way she’d always done and bringing out the devil in him. Maybe it was time to admit he’d always been a little afraid of her, because when she was around his control began to slip.

And maybe it was time for him to let go, at least for a weekend, but he had the wrong woman for that. Keely didn’t need a man who was ready to let go, no matter what she said. She
needed a man who would be steady and responsible, a man who would guide her to make some better decisions.

That was what he’d been trying to remember—keeping his hands off Keely was for her sake, not his.

A cool desert breeze drifted across the terrace. It blew gently over his body, drying the drops of water that still clung to the hairs of his chest and groin. He considered putting on the robe, but the night air felt too good. And there was a certain forbidden thrill sitting here under the stars without a stitch on.

There was nothing really wrong with it. He was on his own private terrace where he should have the right to do this if he wanted. Anyone who wanted to spy on him would need a pair of binoculars to see anything.

And yet a sense of freedom and sexual excitement washed over him as he sat there naked gazing out at the city bustling around him. He wondered if Keely had felt that excitement and freedom when she’d posed nude for
Macho
magazine. The more he thought about it, the more he believed that might have been the attraction, maybe even more than the money.

Today when she’d unfastened her clothes so that he could touch her breasts as they kissed behind the boulder, she’d seemed to relish taking that risk. He’d never met a woman more willing to celebrate the wonders of her body without shame than Keely. And encouraged by her, he longed to take a few sexual risks, himself.

But he liked to think he knew where to draw the line. From all indications, Keely didn’t. If he hadn’t come along, she’d be bumping and grinding in some bar like the one he’d visited tonight with his buddies.

He hated the thought of that. Keely had more to her than a gorgeous body and an uninhibited attitude. She was creative, funny, brave and endlessly optimistic. There had to be a career that would make the most of those qualities—a safe
career that wouldn’t put her in the path of drunken, sexually aroused men every night of her life.

He had approximately forty-eight hours to come up with suggestions for her. And part of that time he’d be tied up with the wedding, so he didn’t have the entire forty-eight hours. He’d forgotten to ask her whether she wanted to go to the wedding. Oh, hell, she probably wouldn’t be interested. So he’d take care of his wedding duties by himself, and use the remaining time to discuss job options with Keely.

Daylight would help him stay on the subject. Coming upon this scene tonight had nearly eliminated his defenses, but in the morning he’d be in better shape to handle her constantly seductive behavior.

Curving his spine, Noah scooted lower in the chair and laid his head against the back cushion. He needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow promised to be one very busy day.

A
S
K
EELY LAY AGAINST
the soft cotton sheets and listened for Noah’s approach, she finally decided he planned to spend the night on the terrace. If she were scoring this battle of wills, she’d say they were about even. Maybe she hadn’t gotten him into a condom yet, but he’d worn the sexy bathing suit she’d picked out and he’d given in to the seduction of the water jets.

Oh, how he’d given in. She’d watched him lean toward that pleasure and a rush of moisture had dampened her silk bikini underwear. When he’d come, she’d nearly climaxed, herself. She’d never watched a man masturbate before, except in X-rated movies. For that matter, she’d never allowed a man to watch her do the same thing. Noah might think that tonight’s demonstration was commonplace for her, but it was a real first.

Of course, she’d never met a man who could sit in a hot tub with her and keep his hands to himself. When she’d begun her game with the jets she’d assumed that eventually Noah
would get into the act. His continued resistance had left her no choice except to follow through. It seemed the more Noah held back, the more she dared. She’d discovered she liked this dynamic.

But she wouldn’t want it to go on for the entire weekend. No, at some point she wanted him to become the aggressor. And he would. He’d already made some strides in that direction.

Although still aroused, she was beginning to get sleepy, too. She’d had a long and fascinating day. Tomorrow promised to be even more fascinating. Cuddling into a premium goose-down pillow, she drifted to sleep.

A
RINGING TELEPHONE
woke her the next morning. Fuzzy from sleep and sexy dreams, she blinked and tried to find a phone. The room had nothing so ordinary as a bedside table with a phone on it. Finally she remembered seeing one hanging over the tub. It looked like a seashell, but she’d noticed that it was plastic, and a place like this wouldn’t have a plastic seashell on the wall. She’d lifted it and discovered that, sure enough, it was a phone.

Heading for the bathroom, she took the pink shell from the wall and pulled out the retractable antenna before punching the connect button. She cleared the sleep from her throat and put the shell to her ear, half expecting to hear the sound of surf. “Hello?”

“Keely, this is Brandon! Listen, sorry to disturb you two, but Jenny needs to know for certain if you’re coming to the wedding. She wants to make sure she has enough leis.”

“The wedding?” She combed her hair back from her face and glanced in the mirror to find Noah standing in the bathroom doorway wearing the white robe and looking dangerously sexy and unshaven.

Turning, she faced him. “I didn’t know I was invited,” she told Brandon.

“Noah didn’t ask you? Oh, well, he probably has a lot of things on his mind.” There was a thread of laughter running through Brandon’s voice. “You are definitely invited. Noah says you grew up together.”

“We did.” She noticed Noah’s attention on the thrust of her breasts under the white silk of her tank top. Looking him straight in the eye, she slipped her hand under the top. “He’s like a brother to me.” Slowly she caressed herself.

Noah sucked in a breath.

“That’s what he was trying to tell us. Anyway, can you make it tonight?”

“I’d love to.” She watched the desire build in Noah’s dark eyes as she continued to stroke her skin. She was getting pretty excited, herself. “What time?”

“Seven. Oh, and there’s a short rehearsal at eleven and a rehearsal lunch. You’re welcome to come to that, too. We had to compress things because we’re cramming it all into one weekend. I’m glad you’ll be there!”

“So am I. Do you want to talk to Noah?”

“Is he available?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll check.” She took the phone from her ear. “Are you available?” she murmured.

He made a sound low in his throat.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” With a smile, she handed him the seashell phone. “Think I’ll hit the shower.” She peeled off her tank top as she walked toward the glass enclosure. When she glanced back to see if Noah was still there, he’d left the room.

He didn’t reappear while she showered, washed and dried her hair, and put on her next killer outfit, stretch capris and a halter top that left her midriff bare.

When she was dressed she followed the scent of coffee to
the living room and discovered him there with a cup in his hand and a room-service tray on one of the driftwood-and-stone end tables.

He glanced at her outfit and sighed. “Not gonna let up on me, are you?”

She laughed at the pitiful resignation in his voice. “Noah, I am going to have you before this weekend is over. You know it and I know it, so you might as well give in and get it over with.”

He put down his cup and stood. “And I’m telling you that you’re wrong. I intend to prove to you that there’s at least one guy out there—namely me—who is interested in you without needing to have your body as part of the arrangement.”