Cowgirl Crazy (#2, Cowboy Way) (17 page)

Her body melted into his arms, Ryan held her
tightly to his chest, kissing her hair and whispering things she
couldn’t hear over the pounding of her heart in her ears. His
fingers dug into the underside of her thighs and he lifted her.
Twyla wrapped her legs around his back, then rested her tired head
in the crook of Ryan’s neck, as he carried her to the
bedroom.

.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Muffled banging and cursing woke Twyla from a
dead sleep. She tried to roll over, but couldn’t. She was trapped
by a very muscular, lightly furred leg, which was draped over both
of hers. It felt like she was cozied up next to a blast furnace.
She tried to move Ryan’s leg, without waking him, so she could get
up. Twyla felt sure she knew why her roommate was
cussing.

Heather was a neat freak, and they had left
the evidence of their hours-long lovemaking session all over the
breakfast nook and the kitchen. Their two a.m. midnight snack had
turned into a snack of a different kind. They had been so exhausted
afterward Twyla just didn’t have the energy to clean up the
chocolate syrup and ice cream from the counter. That had made a
shower mandatory, and the round in the shower had been so hot, she
ended up on her knees, unable to even stand to walk to bed. Ryan
had carried her.

Twyla’s heart melted and flowed right down to
her lady parts. She sighed and glanced over at the man snoring
softly beside her. He looked so young and carefree, relaxed. The
bruise under his eye was fading now, thank goodness. His nose
wasn’t swollen any more either. She brought her finger up to the
bridge of his nose and skimmed it to the tip. Ryan wiggled his nose
and swatted at her hand. Twyla laughed, then traced the fading
bruise under his eye. When she reached the corner, that eye popped
open and she was skewered by a heated blue-eyed stare.

Twyla smiled shyly, then traced the seam of
his lips with her finger. “Morning.” Ryan, nipped the end of her
finger, and she yelped.

“
Don’t you know better than to
poke the bear, darlin’?” He shoved his hips forward to press his
rock solid erection to the side of her thigh. “He might poke back,”
he drawled in a sexy, sleepy voice that did things to her insides.
A little thrill zipped down her spine when the fact that she was
actually laying here with Ryan sank into her brain.

“
I might like being poked by the
bear,” she said and felt her cheeks heat.

His hand came up and he fingered a strand of
her hair. “And the bear might like being woken up, as long as it’s
Goldilocks doing the waking.” A loud bang followed by a crash and a
salty curse made Ryan flinch. He dropped her hair to massage his
temples. “Someone shoeing a mule with ten penny nails out
there?”

Twyla laughed. “Nah, just in your head, baby.
I told you not to drink that rotgut.”

Ryan cut his eyes at her, and groaned. “Told
you so, ain’t helping me, baby. I’d do it again in a heartbeat the
way you served it.” He tried to smile, but grimaced instead. “But I
need some fricking aspirin.”

With a heavy sigh, Twyla threw her leg over
him and rolled to get out of bed, but Ryan’s hands landed on her
ass to stop her. He ground his hips against her, and smiled. “On
second thought, the aspirin can wait. My head is splitting but if I
die, I’ll die happy.”

Twyla liked this playful side of Ryan. A lot.
It’s not one she’d seen often in the fourteen or so years she’d
known him. If they weren’t arguing, he was usually cut and dry with
her, brotherly, when he wasn’t running somewhere. Probably hiding
from her. But there wasn’t a damned thing brotherly about what he
was grinding against her right now. Molten lava replaced the blood
in her veins. “That thing loaded, son?” she asked, circling her
hips with him.

His eyes dilated and his nostrils flared, as
the corners of his mouth eased up into a sexy smile. “Loaded for
bear, baby,” Ryan growled, as he rolled her under him, pinning her
to the mattress with his body, as his mouth covered hers in a
scorching kiss. His hand smoothed over her hip and crept between
her legs. Twyla’s hips shot up and she moaned into his mouth, dug
her nails into his back and rotated her hips in time with his hand.
Ryan’s hips ground into her, as he continued driving her mindless
with his kiss and his fingers.

Things heated up very fast, their bodies
ground together faster, then suddenly a loud splintering crack
broke the sensual spell. Twyla yelped as the bottom came out from
under her butt and she was momentarily suspended in thin air,
before her body slammed down on the mattress, a foot below where it
had been a moment ago. She grunted when Ryan’s body slammed on top
of hers, and they bounced together. Their eyes met, and he looked
as stunned as she felt.

“
Good Lord, buddy, we broke the
bed,” she said in awe, covering her mouth with her hand to suppress
a giggle. His look was so comical laughter bubbled in her chest.
Twyla couldn’t stop it, so she threw back her head and let it free.
After a minute she was beating her fist on the mattress trying to
catch her breath. Laughter rumbled in Ryan’s chest too then
exploded from him. He rolled onto his back, holding his stomach as
it overcame him.

Loud banging rattled the wooden bedroom door
on its hinges. They stopped laughing and their eyes met. “Ut oh, I
think we’re in trouble,” Twyla whispered dramatically, then slapped
her hand over her mouth to stop another round of
giggles.

“
Twyla get your narrow ass out
here and help me clean up this mess!” Heather screeched.

“
Be there in a minute,” Twyla
yelled back holding her finger over Ryan’s mouth. He nipped the end
of her finger, and then sucked it into his mouth and Twyla gasped
as heat flooded her body. She yanked it out and hid her hand under
her hip.

“
Now
, Twyla. This place is
a wreck! And was that my grandma’s bed I heard breaking in there?”
Twyla pictured her friend standing outside that door with her hand
on her curvy hip, tapping her toe like a grandmother would, like
her mother used to do. Her tone was very similar and agitation
bristled inside of her. Yeah, they’d left the front rooms a wreck,
but she had planned to get up and take care of it this morning. She
didn’t think Heather would be home so early.

“
I’ll fix it!” Twyla yelled back.
“It’s just the bed boards!”
And I’ll start looking for a place
of my own this afternoon
. Heather was awesome for letting her
stay here, a great friend and amazing woman, but two women who were
so different living together for very long wasn’t going to
work.

“
You need your own place,” Ryan
said with a sigh, as if reading her mind.

She looked over at him. “Can’t afford it.”
Unless she kept dancing at the Cowgirl.

“
I’ll help you. I have a couple of
days before I have to go back.”

Twyla rolled over and put her hand on his
chest. “Ryan, I can’t afford it if I quit the bar. I do need my own
place, but to get that I need that job at the bar. Leon and Teddy
don’t let the men touch us.” She ran her thumb over his fading
bruise. “You know that.”

His body tensed. “I don’t want you working
there. They might not touch, but they sure as hell look, and I
don’t like it. I don’t think your family would either.” His eyes
narrowed, as he reminded, “You promised you’d quit, so I don’t have
to tell them.”

“
Twy
la!” Heather yelled
again, and Twyla huffed a breath, scooted to the end of the bed and
got to her feet.

With a final glance at Ryan, she grabbed her
clothes off of the floor, and hopped into them as she walked to the
door. She opened it and the scent of Pine Sol immediately smacked
her in the face. Her stomach rolled. God, she hated that stuff, had
told Heather it made her nauseous, but Heather seemed to love it in
an obsessive kind of way. She absolutely did need her own place,
Twyla thought, as she walked into the living room to see Heather in
the breakfast nook on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor with
a sponge. How the hell she wasn’t passed out from the fumes, Twyla
didn’t know.

“
I bought some Mr. Clean,
Heather,” Twyla said, as she walked into the nook.

“
Mr. Clean can’t even get these
whiskey stains out of my floor. They’re gonna take that out of my
deposit, Twyla.” Heather sat back on her heels, breathing hard. She
swiped her forearm across her brow, then said, “You said a couple
of weeks. It’s been a couple of weeks. You need to find your own
place. Teddy told me about a garage apartment over by the
bar.”

“
I’m sorry, Heather. Thanks for
taking me in for as long as you did. I’ll talk to Teddy
tonight.”

“
Tonight?” Ryan said gruffly
behind her. Twyla spun around and her mouth flapped when she saw
the heat in his face, the anger in his eyes.

Twyla tried to keep her voice even, but her
voice didn’t cooperate. Her frustration was more than obvious when
she said, “I have to support myself, Ryan. Now, I have to pay for a
place to live. It’s unreasonable for you to ask me to quit my job
right now. I have a competition coming up too, so I need to save
money for that, buy equipment.”

“
You don’t owe him explanations
for how you live your life, Twyla, or any man for that matter,”
Heather said stepping to her side. “The man fucked you on my table,
and one of the legs is weak now. And on my breakfast bar from the
looks of it. Really? It was her first time and that’s the best you
could do?” she asked in dismay giving Ryan a once over.

“
Who the hell are you to judge
me?’ Ryan said, his fists tightening at his sides. “You’re a damned
stripper, and you’ve gotten that same innocent woman into it
too.”

Heather’s left eyebrow raised sky high, she
tilted her head to the side to put her hand with the sponge in it
on her hip. Twyla knew it was on when Heather didn’t even notice
the soapy water dripping down her leg into her boot.

Ryan was in deep shit, if she didn’t step
in.

Heather might be small, but her tongue could
rip a man to shreds at fifty paces, not to mention where she was
fond of planting the toe of her cowboy boot when cowboys got fresh
with her. She was sweet as pie, until you ruffled her feathers,
then there was no telling what would come out of her
mouth.

Twyla stepped in front of Heather to put her
hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to talk to Teddy about the
apartment right now. I have a thousand bucks,” she said glancing
over her shoulder at Ryan, giving him a look that told him to keep
his mouth shut. “I’ll buy you another table, and I’ll find someone
to come and fix the bed today.”

“
I’ll fix it,” Ryan ground out,
pinning Heather with a glare, before swinging his gaze to Twyla.
“And I’ll take you to go see about the apartment, and help you find
another job.”

Her overbearing brother was back. The patient
and exciting lover from last night who’d taught her the joys of
sex, and the playful lover from this morning had both left the
building.

“
I don’t need you to fix things
for me, Ryan,” Twyla said angrily. “I’ve found out I’m more than
capable of taking care of myself, and deciding the best way to do
that.”

“
If this is an example of you
taking care of yourself,” he said waving his hand expansively
around the apartment, finishing with a little dip toward Heather.
“I beg to differ with you, and I’m sure your brother would
too.”

Anger pushed Twyla’s heart up to her throat.
It lodged there, making it almost too hard to speak. After last
night, she thought things might be different between them, but she
was wrong. Dead wrong. Twyla walked over to Ryan and tilted her
chin up to meet his eyes. “Well, it’s a good thing Zack isn’t here,
isn’t it?” She poked him in his bare chest with her finger. “And
it’s a good thing you won’t be here either. Neither of you will
have to see anything.” She poked him again, and he stepped back.
“As far as you telling my family? Go ahead, I dare you. I have a
few things they’d probably be interested in hearing too.” Twyla
winked at him and shoved his shoulder. “Get back to your own
business, Ryan. I have things to do today.”

Ryan’s jaw dropped, and he went to grab her
shoulders, but Twyla dodged him. He rounded on her. “Twyla we have
things to discuss. What happened last night—”

“
Is over, Ryan. Thanks for a good
time,” she said with another wink and a tight smile. “I’m sure
those lessons will come in handy in the future for both of
us.”

“
God
dammit
, Twyla!” he
growled in frustration. “You are one hardheaded woman.”

“
Why yes, I am,” Twyla replied in
a sing-song tone. She stabbed a finger in his direction. “And you
are one hard-
hearted
cowboy. I guess that makes us even.”
With a shake of her head, she turned to walk back to the bedroom
and get ready. She had a lot of things to do today, and arguing
with Ryan Easter all day long wasn’t getting them done.

Ryan banged on the bathroom door, until his
knuckles were blue. It’s a wonder the damned thing wasn’t in
splinters by now he’d knocked so long. He heard the shower running,
and Twyla moving around inside, but she wouldn’t answer the damned
door. He slammed his palm against the door beside where his head
rested.