Lone Star Nights (20 page)

Good.

Slamming was preferable to running. Heck, he might slam a door or two himself before this day was over.

“What can I do to fix this?” Lucky asked Cassie.

But she didn't give him a good answer. She only shook her head.

“You can't fix this,” Andrew insisted. Not a good answer, either. “If you're the one who talked Cassie into giving up being a celebrity therapist, then the timing couldn't have been worse. There's no way she'll be able to build a new client base once this story gets out. Plus, how do you think the girls' aunt will react?”

Probably not well. Heck, Alice might get on the next plane to whisk the girls away. Of course, Alice's whisking was only days away anyway, but Lucky didn't want things to end like this. And speaking of whisking things away, that's what Andrew did to the photos. He stuffed them in his jacket pocket and looked at Cassie. “I'll be leaving for the airport in a few hours. If you have anything to say to me, then I suggest you say it now.”

Lucky wasn't sure exactly what Andrew wanted to hear Cassie say. Did he want her to beg him to forgive her and stay? Did he want a goodbye? Cassie didn't give him either of those, though. She just sat there staring at the now empty spot on the table where the photos had been.

“Fine,” Andrew snapped, and he hurried to the door.

And yep, he slammed it on his way out.

* * *

L
UCKY
STOOD
IN
the shower and let the scalding-hot water do its job. Not with the cleaning part. He could have accomplished that with a much cooler temperature. What he needed was some of the muscles unknotted in his back and shoulders.

The house was essentially on lockdown. Lucky wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do or not, especially since he'd have to leave in a couple of hours for Riley's bachelor party. He'd considered skipping it, but Della, Stella and Cassie had all assured him they'd keep an eye on Mackenzie.

That might not be enough, though.

But Lucky kept going back to bull logic. Some bulls were just harder to fence than others, and a few were downright impossible. They'd break fences no matter how strong. It was a bad analogy, but there might not be a fence tall or strong enough to keep Mackenzie from sneaking back out again.

Lucky gave up on getting relief from the shower. He toweled off, pulled on his boxers and jeans and headed back into his bedroom to get a clean shirt. And he stopped in his tracks.

Because Cassie was sitting on his bed.

Her eyes weren't red as they'd been in the kitchen, but she wasn't exactly sporting a sunshiny smile, either.

“Is Mackenzie all right?” he asked.

“She's still in her room. Mia's with Della, and the ranch hands are watching to make sure Mackenzie doesn't sneak out again.”

Since that was about as good as they could expect right now, it didn't explain Cassie's “somebody died” expression.

Hell, unless somebody
had
died.

After all, that lunatic client had flown in the day before for another session. Had Marla done something? Or had Andrew? Lucky figured the guy was far too egotistical to end his life, but maybe he'd said or done something to hurt Cassie. Or to get back together with her. She hadn't gone running out of the house after Andrew, but that didn't mean she hadn't called him afterward.

“Are
you
all right?” Lucky asked, sitting down on the bed next to her.

Cassie gave a little laugh, definitely not from humor. “I'm fine. I'm worried about you, though.”

“Me?” Lucky wasn't sure where she was going with this. “I'm not the one who'll lose clients or have my reputation ruined. Heck, I'll probably get some calls for dates after the story runs and they see me with both Angel and you.”

He'd meant that as a joke, but Cassie must have thought he was serious because it put that troubled look back on her face. Then he noticed what she had in her left hand.

The letter.

She unfolded it for him to see. Lucky glanced through it, the PS snagging his attention right off, and he groaned.

PS. Try to make Lucky understand that his parents' deaths weren't his fault
.

“Dixie Mae had no right,” he snarled.

Cassie nodded. “And I suspect she had no right to give you a PS about me. Let me guess—she told you to make sure I understood that Hannah's death wasn't my fault?”

Since that was almost verbatim, Lucky just nodded. He was about to say Dixie Mae had no right to say that about Cassie, either, that it wasn't Dixie Mae's place. But hell, it sure felt like it was his place to try to help Cassie.

Without her trying to help him, of course.

Lucky frowned. He didn't want to be fixed. Didn't deserve it.

“I'll show you mine if you show me yours,” Cassie said.

His mind, and body, immediately started to fill in the blanks, but he didn't think his dick was a blank in this. No, this wasn't something nearly as much fun.

“I'll start,” she said, though he'd given her no encouragement whatsoever to do that. “I can't forgive myself for what happened to Hannah because I don't feel as if I deserve forgiveness.”

Well, now. Since that, too, was almost verbatim what Lucky had been thinking, he had to wonder if Dixie Mae was somewhere in the spiritual realm making all of this happen. It didn't matter. Lucky still didn't want to play this game.

“I figure I deserve the panic attacks, too. Deserve my inability to commit because I haven't gotten past the baggage my parents left me.” She paused. “And I have trouble having orgasms.”

Lucky had tried to anticipate what she was going to say. That last one hadn't been anywhere on his list, and it didn't fit with the other things. Or maybe it did. Did she truly feel she didn't deserve orgasms?

“Really? Because you seemed to be doing okay with that up in the hayloft,” he reminded her.

“I know. But that was a fluke. At least, I think it was.”

And then Cassie did something else that would have knocked his socks off, had he been wearing any.

She kissed him.

Cassie took hold of him, dragged him to her and kissed him. Again, it didn't go with the first part of the conversation, but it certainly went with the second because it seemed as if Cassie was in search of that orgasm—right here, right now.

Lucky felt the kiss all right. Not just in the usual places, either. This was a head-to-toenails sort of sensation as if every bit of him had managed to toss back some shots of hundred-proof. It was an especially good feeling since he was already half-naked, and Cassie and he were on the bed.

So Lucky kissed her right back.

He kept on kissing her until she did something else surprising. Cassie moved away from him and stood.

“I just wanted to give you something to think about,” she said as if that explained everything.

And Cassie walked out, leaving him there with that warm head-to-toe feeling and a raging hard-on.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

C
ASSIE
WENT
TO
the window and checked again. No sign of Lucky. Of course, it was barely 10:00 p.m., and it was possible Riley's bachelor party would go into the wee hours of the morning. Still, she was hoping he would get home early just so she could explain herself.

Kissing him like that had been a bold move. Sort of throwing down the F-word gauntlet. And he would have known that, too. She wasn't a tease, and there was only one reason for her to kiss a man like that.

Because she wanted to F-word him.

Now that the fire in her body had cooled just a bit, she was feeling all the nerves beneath her skin. That was why she wanted to talk to him. Or preferably have sex with him. Sex wouldn't help with the PS from Dixie Mae's letter, but Cassie was reasonably sure it wouldn't hurt.

The knock at her door sent her racing to open it, and she tried not to look disappointed to see Mackenzie standing there. Because Cassie really wasn't disappointed. She'd tried to talk to Mackenzie several times since Andrew's photo bombshell, and the girl had clammed up. However, Mackenzie certainly looked ready to talk now.

“Mia's asleep,” she said right off. “Can I come in for a minute?”

“Of course.” Cassie ushered her in and shut the door.

“I'm sorry,” Mackenzie said before she even sat down on the bed. It not only sounded genuine, it looked as if she'd been crying. There were some visible streaks in her makeup. “I didn't mean to mess up anything for you and your job. I just wanted to see Brody.”

Considering Cassie was fighting her own hormonal impulses, she totally understood.

“I'm really sorry,” Mackenzie added, and yes, there were tears now. Unlike her apology to Wilhelmina, it sounded as if the girl meant it.

Sighing, Cassie sat down beside her and slipped an arm around her. This time, Mackenzie didn't go stiff as she usually did when Cassie touched her. She actually leaned against Cassie.

“I just thought Brody wouldn't like me if I said no,” she went on. “That's why I went to the barn. I didn't know he was going to kiss me, honest.”

Cassie got that, as well. Of course, from the moment she'd seen Lucky walking toward her in the barn that day, she'd pretty much figured a kiss or something more would happen between them. But she was an adult, and she'd known the consequences of her actions. Her limits, too. Maybe Mackenzie didn't.

“You shouldn't say yes to a guy just so he'll like you,” Cassie told her. “Because it might not stop at a kiss. He might want
more
to keep on liking you. Understand?”

Apparently, she did because Mackenzie's gaze darted away. “Brody wouldn't do that. He just wanted to kiss me.”

“Maybe. Guys can be...complicated.” But then Cassie shook her head. “Actually, that's not true. Many of them just want sex. I'm not saying that's true for Brody, but it's their hormones.” Something she completely understood since her own hormones were in a tizzy over Lucky. “Plus, you have to consider that you might not be here at the ranch much longer. I know it doesn't seem that way right now, but it might be only a short while before you forget all about Brody because you've met someone else.”

Mackenzie sucked in her breath as if horrified by that thought. Cassie was about to start drilling home that it was just the way these things worked, but that might not be true, either. After all, Cassie had had a thing for Lucky all these years, and that thing was stronger than ever. It might happen to Mackenzie—thirty years from now.

Mackenzie looked up at her. “I get what you're saying, but I just want to be with Brody. Even if it's only for a day or two. I know you don't owe me any favors, but I really want to go to that dance with him tomorrow night.”

There it was. The megaproblem that Mackenzie had just dumped into her lap. If Cassie held firm and said no, it would break Mackenzie's heart. Temporarily. But to a thirteen-year-old girl, it would feel as if it were a permanent scar. On the other hand, if she said yes, then it could make her look like a wimp.

Mackenzie put her own hand into play. She opened her palm, and Cassie saw the gold star that Livvy had given her the day she'd arrived at the ranch. It had a little less gold on it now, and there was no way Mackenzie really believed it was magic. Still, it had sort of a magical effect on Cassie when Mackenzie gave it to her.

Cassie decided to go with being the wimp. It would be far easier for Cassie to mend her own ego than it would for Mackenzie to mend her teenage heart.

“Yes, but with rules,” Cassie quickly added when Mackenzie started to squeal—yes, squeal—with enough excitement that you would have thought she'd just been granted every wish she'd ever wanted.

“Any rules are fine as long as I can go.”

“Hear the rules first,” Cassie warned her. “And I have to clear all of this with Lucky, understand?”

Even that didn't seem to diminish a drop of her happiness. Mackenzie nodded. Too bad she didn't have a second gold star for Lucky.

“We'll drive you there and bring you home,” Cassie continued. “At no point will you slip off to be alone with Brody. We'll make sure of that because we'll be watching you.”

Still nodding, she seemed surprised when Cassie didn't add any other conditions. “I don't have to, like, dress like you or anything?”

“No. You can wear what you want as long as it covers all parts of your body from here to here.” Cassie pointed to her neck, then to her midthigh. “Now get some sleep.”

“I will. Thank you, Cassie. Thank you.” She hugged Cassie again and practically skipped out of the room.

After being given such a huge concession, she doubted Mackenzie would skip out of the house, but just in case she watched Mackenzie go into her room and shut the door. Cassie was about to do the same thing when she heard the footsteps on the stairs.

Lucky.

“You're home early,” she said, and it was a good thing she said it fast, too, because it was all Cassie managed to get out before he reached her.

Lucky hooked his arm around her waist, snapped her to him and kissed her. All in all, it was a lot better than him saying hello or responding to her comment. And he didn't stop there. It was like the loft ladder all over again. Kissing her, he pushed her deeper into the room and kicked the door shut.

Mercy, he smelled good. Tasted good, too. Cassie had expected him to smell like strippers and taste like tequila, but the only thing she was getting here was the heady scent of cowboy and testosterone. Lucky should bottle it.

But for now, no bottle required. He was giving her a full dose of not just the kiss but of body contact. His chest against her breasts. His left leg wedged between hers. He was working that leg, too, giving her just the right kind of pressure to go along with the kiss.

Lucky broke the contact only to reach back and lock the door. He came back to her, his mouth already finding hers. And then he said the exact thing Cassie wanted to hear.

“I thought about that kiss,” he said, “and now I'm thinking it's time we did a hell of a lot more.”

* * *

L
UCKY
WAS
TIRED
of debating with himself over whether this was a good idea or not. It wasn't. But some of the things that had turned out good in his life had started with not-so-good ideas.

Or at least that was the logic he'd used on the drive home from the bachelor party.

It wasn't necessarily good logic, but then who cared. Cassie certainly seemed willing to jump into this, and even if this was their one and only time together, that just meant Lucky had to make the most of it.

She reached behind him, groping. Not for his back, he realized, but for the light switch. Lucky maneuvered her away from that right off. He wanted to see her, along with tasting lots and lots of her body.

“You're used to being with hot women,” she mumbled. “I'm not hot.”

There weren't many things that could have made him break the kiss, but that did it. “You're hot.”

And since Cassie screwed up her mouth and didn't look sure of that at all, Lucky went down on his knees, pushed up her skirt, yanked down her panties and put her knee on his shoulder so he could give her a kiss to make her body feel as hot as she looked.

It worked.

Not just for Cassie—she made a gasping sound of pleasure—but for him, too. Of course, he had been sporting a hard-on for days so he didn't need anything additional, but the taste of her gave him a nice buzz.

“I wasn't expecting that,” she said, gasping again.

Good. It was nice to keep her a little off balance so that maybe those orgasms she said she had trouble with would sort of sneak up on her. Lucky helped with that. He added a little nip—the kind that would hurt so good—and deepened the kiss. Lucky took her to the brink.

Before he pulled her back.

She cursed him and called him a bad name when he stopped.

“Foreplay,” he explained but since she'd brought up the subject of ass with her name-calling, he got to his feet, turned her and put her against the door.

Normally, this was the part where he would want her stark naked, but if that happened, the
fore
would leave the foreplay, and he'd fuck her brains out. He preferred a more controlled fucking right now, to test to see just how sweet the part of her he'd just kissed was.

He shoved up her skirt again, though it was already practically around her waist. The panties went. He pushed them to her knees, caught onto them with his boot and pushed them the rest of the way down. He raked them aside when she stepped out of them, and Cassie put herself against the door again.

Holding her in place, he managed to put on a condom, and he moved her legs apart so he could enter her from behind. Not deep. Just enough to let him know what he was up against. Kissing Cassie there was one thing, but his dick was a lot more sensitive than his tongue.

Oh, man.

He was in trouble. He shouldn't have waited this long to be with her because Cassie was tight, wet and yeah, hot. All the things that would end this much too fast. Good thing they weren't face-to-face because he would've been a goner if she'd kissed him. Or if he had been looking into her eyes.

She made that moan again and went still a second as if trying to steady herself. Lucky knew exactly how she felt—literally. He wasn't too steady, either, and he got even less steady when Cassie pushed herself against him, taking him deeper inside her.

Hell in a hurricane.

When he was a teenager he'd used a trick so he could last long enough to do things the right way, with both him and his partner getting off. He mentally quoted the recipe for his dad's barbecue sauce. Ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar and mustard. Yeah, it was stupid, but it always worked. Though when Cassie kept moving, kept pushing herself so that all that slick heat was sliding right against his hard-on, Lucky was forced to repeat the recipe three times.

“Vinegar?” she asked.

Crap. He hadn't meant to say it aloud, and that meant it was clearly time to take this to the next level. He pulled out of her, causing her to call him a name again. The woman did like variations with the root word of
ass
in them. She turned so that they were face-to-face, and she would have taken him back inside her if Lucky hadn't scooped her up and carried her to the bed. He put her on the mattress, her legs still spread, and he damn near lost his breath. Damn near came, too.

Maybe he should have turned out those lights after all.

Too late.

Things were moving very fast now, and despite the fact he still had on his jeans, Cassie pulled him down on top of her. It was as if his dick had a homing device on it instead of a condom because he went right inside her, pushing through all that tight heat until he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Cassie didn't groan this time. She stopped breathing, and for a moment he thought she'd fainted or something. But no. Lucky looked in her eyes and saw exactly what he wanted to see—a beautiful woman on the verge of a beautiful orgasm. And she wouldn't have to work for this one.

Lucky did it for her.

As a teenager he'd had a very good teacher, a girl two years older than him who'd made him take exams of sorts on locating what she'd called her love button. Hours and hours of practice had made him particularly aware of how important it was to find any and all love buttons of his sexual partners. Cassie's was pretty easy to find, and he knew he'd hit pay dirt when her eyes practically rolled back in her head.

Lucky didn't have a choice about moving then. She caught onto his hips and helped him with that. Not that he actually needed help, but it was obvious that Cassie was on a mission to make the best possible use of his hard-on.

She moved.

He moved.

Faster.

Deeper.

Until recipe-quoting time was over. It was time to finish, and he made sure that's exactly what Cassie did. That was the nice thing about a woman's climax—all those muscles squeezing him until he wasn't sure of his own name, much less barbecue ingredients. Lucky let her love button do the rest of the work for him, and he let himself go.

Lucky collapsed on top of her, trying not to crush her, and as soon as he could get his body working, he flopped down on his back beside her like a landed trout. Cassie's breath was gusting, and she was making little sounds. Mumbling something.

And then she laughed.

He lifted his head to see what the heck was going on. Usually he didn't leave a woman laughing after an orgasm.

“You know it was great,” she said, clamping her teeth over her bottom lip for a second. “Don't look so pleased with yourself.”

Did he look pleased? Probably. He'd just had sex with a woman who'd been causing his body to burn for years.