Roping the Wind (21 page)

His hips came off the rug and followed her mouth into a rough demanding dance. He almost forgot to breathe as he grabbed her hips, steadied himself and plunged his tongue into her sex. She shivered and worked him faster, the rasp of her teeth on his most sensitive flesh a turn-on he couldn’t deny. With a stifled groan, he came hard, pumping his seed down her throat. Hell, coming in her mouth was almost as good as in her pussy. Hopefully she’d still smell of him when she kissed those other bastards goodbye.

‘Keep your mouth on me.’ He returned to her pussy, working his tongue deep, his unshaven chin rubbing her sex until she came again, shuddering and bucking around his mouth.

He collapsed onto his back, savoring the taste of her on his tongue. Helen lay against his upraised thigh, her mouth still enclosing his now flaccid cock. Looking up at the fancy chandelier he allowed his body to relax for the first time since he’d arrived at the party.

Helen slowly licked his cock and his shaft jerked. He slid his hand down into her hair and gently pulled.

‘Come here.’

He drew her into his arms, enjoying the heat from the fur rug beneath them, imagining Helen naked and writhing on it. His cock stirred even more. She kissed his throat, nuzzled his neck. Jay opened his eyes

‘Who’s Cory?’

Helen sat up so fast his jaw snapped shut. She got to her feet and started fussing at the mirror. He lay there, looking up at her, a knot forming in his gut as she continued to straighten up, erasing all evidence of his lovemaking.

‘Helen.’

She stared at her reflection, noticed the fine lines around her eyes and mouth. Why had she brought Jay with her? She’d simply offered David an opportunity to hurt them both. Her grip tightened on the faucet. Of course, Jay might not be hurt. He’d managed to get some sex out of her before mentioning what he heard.

She turned back to him, trying to ignore how gorgeous he looked sprawled half-undressed and rumpled on the floor like a
Playgirl
centerfold. His gray eyes were unreadable.

‘Can we talk about it after we leave?’

He moved into a sitting position, one knee bent, his arm curved over the top. ‘Cory’s an “it”?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

He continued to regard her, his face expressionless. ‘All afternoon I’ve kept getting this feeling that I’ve been judged and condemned before I’ve even been allowed to say a word. Did you bring me here because you wanted my company or because you’re still playing some kind of sick game with your ex?’

Helen swallowed, tasting him in her mouth. ‘Jay, I wanted you to come but I didn’t think it through. I apologize if it’s been difficult for you.’

He got to his feet and started to button his shirt, the movements jerky. ‘No more difficult than attending one of Beau’s little business parties. Despite what your ex and your boss think, I grew up in a shark pool and I survived.’

‘Of course, Beau . . . Beau Turner, the Texan millionaire and ex-Dallas Cowboys quarterback is your father?’

His smile was cynical. ‘Correction, my sperm donor. He doesn’t know how to be a father and he doesn’t want to.’

She gestured at the overdecorated room. ‘Then you belong here more than I do.’

He tucked in his shirt. ‘Nope, I preferred to stay with my mother and I paid for that choice by growing up dirt poor. Beau didn’t want her anymore and if I wanted her, I couldn’t have him.’

Helen gripped the edge of the vanity as Jay’s bitterness washed over her. ‘What happened to your mom?’

‘She died when I was a teenager. She had cancer.’ He zipped up his fly, avoiding her gaze. ‘Of course, if we’d been able to afford medical insurance, she might have lived. But Beau wasn’t willing to pay out for anyone when he had no more use for them.’

‘Oh, Jay, I’m so sorry.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she stumbled toward him.

He stepped back, his face blank. ‘So who’s Cory?’

She met his stare. Realized he’d given her an opportunity to repay his honesty with some of her own.

‘He was my first husband. I married him when I was sixteen. Now can we leave this horrible party and go home?’

Chapter Seventeen

Helen shut off the engine and studied Jay’s profile. He hadn’t said a word to her the whole way back. She couldn’t decide whether to be grateful for his silence or terrified by it. Peter Hart hadn’t been pleased by her abrupt decision to leave, especially when Jay had chimed in and insisted he had to get back to milk his herd of cows. She took a deep steadying breath.

‘Do you want to come up?’

‘Yeah.’

Helen bit her lip. ‘You don’t have to. I mean, if you’ve had enough today . . .’

Before she finished speaking, he was already out of the car. She followed him, scooped up her purse from the back seat and located her keys. He waited at the top of the steps. The shadow thrown by the brim of his Stetson concealed his features.

She almost tripped over Tiger, who lay stretched out on his back on a beam of sunlight on the carpet. He acknowledged her with a faint meow and rolled onto his front to glare at Jay. Needing something to do, Helen checked his food and water and then busied herself making coffee. Jay took off his hat and strolled across to the window to stare at the view.

Helen collected two mugs from the cupboard then watched the coffee brew. It was so long since she’d talked to anyone about Cory that it almost seemed like a dream. Gathering her composure, she took the filled mugs over to the low pine table in the family room and set them down.

Jay turned and she watched the rise and fall of his chest as he slowly inhaled.

‘Thanks for the coffee,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome.’

He sat down opposite her, one big hand wrapped around his mug, his expression difficult to read. ‘Tell me about Cory.’

Helen sighed. ‘He came to work on a ranch near my parents’ home. I got to talking to him one day in the local store and fell in love, or thought I did.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Sixteen. What does anyone know about love at that age?’

‘That’s the same age my mom was when she married Beau.’

She held his gaze. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing.’

‘Neither did she.’ Jay studied his coffee mug before looking up again. ‘How old was Cory?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘Shit.’

‘I thought he was the most exciting man I’d ever met.’ Helen shifted in her seat. ‘Well, he probably was in a Central Valley dust town called Blossom Creek with a population of under two thousand.’

‘Sounds like the place I grew up – No Hope, Arizona.’

‘Perhaps we have more in common than we realized.’

Jay’s gaze flicked away from her. Did he resent the implication that they were alike? She was fed up with him thinking she was some poor little rich girl.

‘Anyway, I thought Cory had something special about him and I . . . well, I followed him around like some doting sheep. At that point, I wanted to be a veterinarian and he was amazing with horses. I’d never really been into boys. They all seemed immature. Cory was a real man with a job and an interesting past.’

Jay snorted. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘At first he thought I was funny and then, when he realized how serious I was, he tried to let me down gently. But I was never very good at being told no, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.’

‘Don’t tell me, you forced him to have sex with you.’

Helen swallowed hard. ‘I did.’

Jay slammed his coffee mug down on the table. ‘Bullshit, Helen. He was a man, you were just a kid. He could’ve said no.’

‘One Friday night, I stripped naked and waited in his bed for him to come back from the bar.’

Jay almost swallowed his tongue. ‘That’s a fricking stupid thing to do. Christ, he could have been some kind of pervert or . . .’

‘But he wasn’t. He was just a guy. And that night he was just drunk enough to do what I needed him to.’

‘Fuck you stupid, right?’

She flinched and he glanced up at her, saw the mixture of shame and bravado in her eyes before she blinked it away.

‘And did you like it?’

She managed to hold his gaze although her lips were trembling.

‘Being fucked, I mean.’

‘Yes.’

‘It was so fantastic that you ran off and married him? Jeez, he must’ve been good.’

She brought her knees up toward her chin and wrapped her arms around them. ‘When he said he was leaving to rejoin the rodeo circuit, I was terrified of being left behind. I asked him to take me with him.’

‘And he was OK with that?’

‘No, he was horrified.’

‘But you persuaded him.’

She raised her chin and he recognized himself in the way she set her jaw and the fierce determination of her gaze.

‘I told him that if he didn’t take me to Vegas and marry me, I’d tell the cops what he’d done to me.’

‘Shit, Helen. That’s one hell of a threat.’

‘I wouldn’t have followed through, I’m not that cruel. But I’d realized by then that he wasn’t as smart as I was.’ She shrugged. ‘I hated that town and all the people who told me not to bother even trying to get an education because “people like us” just didn’t become nurses or business people.’

‘But you walked away from high school. You walked away from all that possibility straight into a fantasy.’

A tear slid down her cheek. ‘I thought I’d found something better. I thought sex was the answer to everything.’ She attempted a smile. ‘I thought I’d finally found a way to make a man do whatever I wanted him to.’

Jay found himself nodding. ‘I thought running away to be a cowboy was the answer to everything, too.’

Helen stared at him. ‘But then I realized you can’t run away from the person you are inside.’

‘So did I.’

Silence stretched between them, underscored by Tiger’s purring and the sound of more coffee brewing.

Jay tore his gaze away from Helen, his emotions too close to the surface to allow him to speak. Who’d have thought he’d be capable of sitting in Helen’s family room as she shared such personal stuff with him?

Desperate to move, he shot to his feet and got them both more coffee. When he returned, Helen had delved into a box of tissues and was furiously wiping her nose. He pretended not to notice.

‘How long did it take you to realize you’d made a mistake?’

Her mouth twisted. ‘About three months – after I realized that Cory had no ability to hold down a job and no intention of doing so. I began to understand those things were important to me and that I needed something to aim at.’

‘So you went home.’

‘There was nowhere else to go.’ Helen grimaced. ‘My parents were reluctant to have me back. I’d shamed them by running off with a no-good cowboy and memories are very long in farming communities like theirs. I crammed as much of my junior and senior years courses into as small a time as possible and graduated a year early.’

Jay tried to imagine her working that hard and could see it all too easily. He could totally understand her desire to get out of that stifling small town, even if her methods were downright alarming. But had he been any less ruthless when he was a teenager? If his mother hadn’t died, he would have walked away from her eventually.

‘Where did you go after that?’

‘I moved to the “big city” of Modesto, got as many part-time jobs as I could handle and was lucky enough to room with Carol’s family.’ Her face softened. ‘They helped me through a few rough years and Carol became my best friend.’

‘Cory was on the rodeo circuit, right?’

Helen looked surprised. ‘Yes.’

‘Is he still doing that?’

‘I don’t know. He might be.’

‘Is that why you help out at the PBR events when Dr Tandy can’t be there?’

Helen sat up straight. ‘Are you suggesting I’m pining after Cory?’

Jay glared at her. ‘Answer the question, dammit.’

‘I help out because sometimes I like to be around folks who remind me of home.’

Jay sat back. What the hell was wrong with him? Why was he making such a big deal about some guy who’d fucked Helen all those years ago? The truth rushed at him like a rampaging bull. Because he wished it was him, that’s why. He wished he’d been the first cowboy she’d taken to her bed and the last. The pain in his gut intensified and settled like a clenched fist under his ribs.

‘Why are you asking me all these questions anyway, Jay?’

‘Because I’m wondering what the connection is here. Do you just like to fuck cowboys or what?’

What little color that remained in her face drained away. ‘What are you trying to say?’

He shrugged. ‘Just asking where I fit in the big scheme of things.’

She stood up, her arms wrapped around her waist and pointed at the door. ‘Get out, Jay. Now.’

He stood as well, put his mug on the table and hoped she didn’t notice the slight tremor in his fingers. ‘We haven’t finished our conversation yet. Just because you don’t like my question doesn’t mean you don’t have to answer it.’ He took a step toward her. ‘You can’t run away from everything.’

She closed her eyes as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him. ‘It’s been an exhausting day. I’ve shared things with you that I haven’t shared with anyone since I was married to David and all you can think about is whether I have some strange fetish for cowboys.’

Jay opened his mouth to contradict her and then stopped.

‘I like you, Jay. I like you a lot more than I should but I really don’t want to deal with your emotional crap right now.’

‘My emotional crap? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s not always about you. You asked me about Cory and I answered you. That’s all there is to it. It was a long time ago and I’m a different person now. I made some bad decisions but I’ve learnt from my mistakes and I don’t repeat them.’