Tex Appeal (10 page)

“I’
M DONE
with both the bulls and the bunnies,” Wyatt said as he came back to sit beside her, closer this time, his hip brushing hers, his arm pressed to hers. “My body can’t take the abuse of the first, and I’m not interested in the second since most of them are only interested in the Lawman, not in the Triple RC or in me.”

Tess didn’t say anything, but she understood. She’d lost count of the men she’d met who were more interested in her society connections than in the work she did, or her love of gritty action flicks, or the fact that a long walk on the beach was honestly her idea of a perfect date. Oh, yes. She definitely understood.

She lifted her drink, realized it was nearly gone, decided this conversation—or was it a confessional?—called for more rum and held out the mug, ignoring the arch of his brow as he poured her a refill.

She thought his eyes were dark blue. She’d been sitting too far away at dinner to tell, and now the only light was that of the fire which burnished everything in shades of copper and bronze. Then again, she could very well be looking at him through eyes hazy with the heat of lust.

Since seeing him on horseback and watching his body move—already knowing his voice and what the words he said did to her, how he so easily coaxed her to open up—she’d been counting the minutes until they could get through the pleasantries her arrival required so that she could feel his hands on her skin.

The wait shouldn’t have been this hard. She shouldn’t have been this anxious, this antsy. This ready to sleep with a man she’d only just met and didn’t really know…and how did that make her any different than the women who had followed him from rodeo to rodeo?

She silenced a rising groan and hoped he’d given her enough to drink. “I thought you said I wasn’t doing a very good job of scaring you off.”

“If you’re talking about me having a little tea with my rum, that’s not about you at all,” she replied, and it was only a tiny white lie.

He added more to his drink as well, before setting the bottle off to the side and moving from the trunk to the floor. When he held out a hand, she took it, and slid down to sit at his side, not minding at all when he rested their joined hands on his thigh.

“So tell me, Doctor. What’s driving you to drink?”

His leg was solid muscle beneath her hand, his fingers strong laced through hers. She was relaxed, liquid, just this side of intoxicated as she weighed how much of the truth was smart to reveal.

“Believe it or not, my mother. Or at least her quest to see me married into the right family. Not to the right man, mind you, or even to a man I might like, but to the right pedigree.”

“I did some checking on who you are,” he confessed, though he didn’t sound the least bit apologetic. “After you called. I didn’t want to be taken for a ride.”

She didn’t blame him. “You contacted the references I gave you?”

He nodded and ran his thumb over her knuckles. “I can see why your mother might worry about strays roaming the yard. You’ve got quite a pedigree of your own.”

Damn lot of good it did her.

“Does your mother know where you are?”

She gave him a sideways glance. “Isn’t that something you’d ask a teenager?”

He laughed, the sound throaty and earthy, and just a little bit drunk. It slipped beneath her skin, into her veins and melted her. Just melted.

“I meant,” he continued while she pulled herself together, “what would she think about you drinking rum in front of a fire with a mutt of a cowboy?”

Funny. She’d just thought of herself as a mutt earlier today. Her thoughts, however, had been about her likes and dislikes while he seemed to be comparing their “breeding”—the very thing her mother obsessed over, and that Tess wanted so badly to escape.

“Considering I ditched one of her fundraisers to work on this article, she’s already unhappy with me.” Big fat understatement. “If she knew I’d been lured into a compromising situation, I’m sure she’d call out the dogcatchers.”

He chuckled and squeezed her hand. “So, now I’m the one doing the luring here? Is that it?”

She found herself smiling, warming, whether from the rum, the fire or his touch she wasn’t sure. “Aren’t you the one who supplied the booze?”

“I didn’t have any marshmallows,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, I wasn’t the one who made a roomful of curmudgeons fall in love with me over supper.”

Oh, no. She wasn’t going to take all the blame for where they found themselves. “You want to talk about luring—what about you on the back of a horse all muscled and fluid, and staring like you wanted to chase me down?”

“I did,” he said, leaving it at that, leaving her to wonder if she should press or let things simmer, leaving her to wonder, too, if waiting was what she wanted, or if she was ready to turn the temperature higher right here and right now.

They sat quietly for several minutes, enjoying the fire, the company, the warmth of the alcohol and the way it lowered inhibitions. At least she was enjoying that last part, thinking how much larger his hand was than hers, and how much she’d love to have him do more than stroke his thumb the length of her index finger again and again.

But she didn’t want to break the spell, sure she’d say the wrong thing, make the wrong move. Scare him off and ruin the whole weekend. If she went home too soon, she’d be going without her story, and her mother would find some event for her to attend to replace the one she’d managed to dodge.

No, she needed to get her research done before she even thought about leaving. Her real research, interviewing the men. Not this sitting-beside-a-cowboy-in-front-of-a-fire research that wasn’t about her story at all but was about how ready she was for…did she even know what for? Or why he was the one who had stirred this need?

She took a deep breath, released it on a long slow sigh, and dropped her head back against the trunk, closing her eyes, her lips parted. She’d needed this, this doing nothing, this getting away. She hadn’t known how much until now.

Work kept her more than busy, and her career was not one to take it easy on the stress. She carried her clients’ problems home on a regular basis. And much as she wished her mother would stay out of her personal life, she admired the energy Georgina poured into her causes, and so she devoted as many hours as she could to the same.

And then there was all the keeping up with her best girlfriends and their busy, busy lives. True downtime was as much a part of her fantasies as was finding the right man, one enamored of her, who would have loved her just as much if he’d found her living in a box on the street with a dozen stray cats her only connection to any sort of society, instead of in her trendy condo.

Okay, that was going too far. Even she could see that. But there were times she wondered if her place in the world would actually doom her to a life alone, or to a marriage that was solely about convenience and companionship when she so wanted to be loved….

“Hey, sleepyhead. Let’s get you to bed before your snoring wakes up every animal in the barn.”

What was he saying? Snoring? Her eyes popped open. She felt heat rise to color her face, heat that had nothing to do with the dying fire or the haze of lust. How long had she been drifting? And did she really snore?

“What time is it?” Besides time for embarrassment.

“Time to go to bed.”

“Together?” Nice…

He was still holding her hand, and he brought it to his mouth, pressing his lips to her fingers. “Is that what you want?”

Had any question ever been more loaded?

If she told the truth, it would make it hard to pull off this assignment with any sort of professionalism. And if she lied, well, he’d see the truth anyway. Changing the subject seemed the smartest thing to do.

“I’m sorry. I think I should have stuck with the tea. I’m usually not this unprofessional.” Or this…easy. This…hungry.

He hadn’t yet released her hand, and the fire she saw in his eyes wasn’t dying as quickly as the one that had warmed her feet. “You’re not on call. I figure even psychologists are human.”

“Some of us, anyway,” she said, getting up off the floor, appreciative of his teasing because she was in no condition to trust herself with this man. “The rest are around-the-clock therapy machines.”

He took her mug from her hand, put it with his on the hearth and then stood. “If I need counseling at 3:00 a.m., I’ll know not to give you a call.”

At 3:00 a.m., she’d be much more inclined to provide him another service, but she managed to keep that thought to herself and take the arm he offered, walking beside him as he escorted her to the stairs.

Once there, he let her go and followed for the second time as she made the climb. If he was watching the sway of her hips, it would only take his mind off the things she’d said that she would like to take back. She added a little extra wiggle just in case.

Tomorrow.

She’d wake up tomorrow, this night behind her, and get back to the business she was here to do. She wouldn’t be starting off the day watching a cowboy on horseback move as if he and the animal were one.

They reached the door to her bedroom. She stopped there, but delayed walking through. Though it had to come to an end, she wasn’t ready for the night to be over.

She backed a step into the room, her hand on the jamb, the open door behind her, and said, “Goodnight. I’ll guess I’ll see you at breakfast?”

“You will if you’re up at four-thirty.”

“Four-thirty?”

He nodded, his eyes dark, stormy, aroused, and his lashes so very long. “I usually come in for coffee around eight, but if I miss you, just make yourself at home in the kitchen. Eggs, bread, cereal, juice. Whatever you want. It’s all there.”

“Thanks,” she said, wondering what he’d do if she told him exactly what she wanted. “Eight I can do. And after cleaning my plate more than once tonight, coffee and juice will be about all I’ll want.”

“Okay then,” he said, but did so without making a move down the hallway toward his own room, or even back the way they had come. “Coffee at eight.”

She nodded, waited, nodded once more, and then smiled. He looked away, his pulse throbbing at his temple, then looked back and, muttering under his breath, stepped into her bedroom and backed her into the door.

H
E’D TOLD
himself hands off, so he planted them against the door above her head and held her in place with his body. He waited for her reaction because if she told him to skedaddle, he’d be on his way.

He was hoping she wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to take her to bed, not yet, not until this heat between them became exquisitely unbearable, but he wasn’t ready to crawl between his own sheets alone.

And so he waited, watching her breathe, her chest rising and falling more rapidly as the seconds passed.

When she caught at her lip with her teeth, wetting the spot with her tongue, when she moved her hands from where she’d curled them at her hips to his waist, he knew it was time to do what he’d been waiting to do all day. He lowered his head as she lifted hers, and he kissed her.

He meant to be gentle, to keep it soft and sweet, to promise her that what they’d shared today was only the beginning and that there was so much more to come. But gentle wasn’t going to happen. She dug her fingers into his sides and told him she wanted more right now.

He was enjoying flirting with her mouth, teasing one corner with tiny kisses, catching her bottom lip between both of his, breathing her in, that fresh green scent of springtime. But he didn’t mind giving her what she wanted, so when she parted her lips, Wyatt opened his over them and slipped his tongue between.

The noise that rattled in her throat was half whimper and half groan. He couldn’t help it, he pushed his hips into the cradle of hers. When she squirmed against him, he had no doubt that she’d felt the change in his body. He was hard, and growing harder. He wanted her and saw no reason not to let her know how much.

Her mouth was wet and giving, and she wasn’t the least bit shy. She kissed him fiercely, using her hands to bring him close, her tongue to sample his, telling him with lips that pulled and sucked that he wasn’t giving her enough, that she wanted to taste him in other ways…

Or so went his fantasy of her dropping to her knees, opening his fly and taking him into her mouth.

It had been so long, and he could have easily stripped the both of them bare and spent the rest of the night buried deep inside her body, his cock filling her, her sex hot and tight and sucking him deep. But he wasn’t on the circuit anymore, and she wasn’t there for one night to have a good time.

The kiss he could blame on the fire and the rum and still wake up tomorrow with his conscience intact. And as much pleasure as they were sharing here, both fully dressed, he wanted to be sober and sure when they got naked.

So he eased back slowly, first his body then his mouth, finally lifting his hands from the door where he’d kept them like the Boy Scout he was. He was breathing just as hard as she was, his frustration pounding in his ears and behind the fly of his jeans, but he was doing the right thing. He saw in her eyes that she knew it, that she appreciated him pulling this runaway beast to a stop.

“Get some sleep,” he told her.

“I will,” she whispered to him, her voice so soft, so torn, aroused and at the same time relieved. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He nodded, backed his way out of the room, wanting to tell her this wasn’t over, but her expression had already told him the very same thing.

F
OUR-THIRTY
came way too early. In fact, Wyatt didn’t make it out of bed until after five. He ran late with everything for the rest of the morning, and he missed having coffee with Tess. When he did finally catch up with her, lunch had come and gone.

She was sitting on the rocking bench in front of the bunkhouse talking to Buck. Or Buck was doing the talking and she the listening—so intently she didn’t look up from Buck’s story until he paused in the telling of it at Wyatt’s approach.

“Afternoon, boss. Good to see you could make time in your busy schedule for your company here,” Buck said, getting in the dig before Wyatt had a chance to explain to Tess what had held him up.

He pushed his hat off his forehead, crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against one of the porch beams. “It’s called ranching. You know, the work we do? Work being something I’m certain Dr. Autrey understands, though I’m thinking the rest of you aren’t going to get much of anything done today with her being around.”

Buck looked at Tess and spoke to her in an aside, pointing at Wyatt as he did. “The man brings a pretty thing like you out here and then blames us for not having a head for horses. Hurtful, I tell ya. Just plain ol’ hurtful.”

Wyatt finally glanced away from drama queen Buck Donald to Tess. She was smiling at the ranch manager, but the smile wasn’t the one he’d seen last night. This one was nervous, as if she wasn’t yet ready to face him, or wasn’t sure what all had happened when they’d last been together.

He started to order Buck back to work—something he didn’t think he’d ever done in their years together—but was saved from that folly by the sound of a diesel engine as a truck and trailer stopped at the gate.

Buck pushed up to his feet, still shaking his head in faux misery. “Dr. Autrey, it’s been a pleasure, but since the boss is watching, I’d best go take care of business before Wyatt here has to show his face in public.”

“If you have some time later, I’d love to talk more,” Tess said, standing as Buck stepped off the porch. “You need to finish telling me about that night in Las Vegas.”

“It’s a date,” he said, giving her a quick wave before turning away, buttoning up his denim jacket, then crossing the ranch’s main yard.

Wyatt stayed where he was, waiting for Tess to acknowledge him instead of looking down at the porch boards and tugging on the hem of her pale-yellow sweatshirt the way she was doing, before finally stuffing her fists into her jeans pockets and hunching her shoulders against the cold.

“I—” was all she got out before he took the cue.

He vaulted onto the porch and hustled her into the big kitchen where they’d eaten dinner last night. Once out of the cool air and into the interior warmth, she seemed to find her footing. “About last night—”

He cut her off with a shake of his head. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry.”

Her head came up, her chin high, her eyes bright with as much worry as pique. “I’m not sorry, but I didn’t want you to think—”

Again, he didn’t let her finish. “I didn’t think anything that you need to worry about.”

She screwed her mouth to one side and frowned. “Oh, thanks. Now I’m going to wonder for the rest of the day what you
were
thinking.”

“Then we’re in the same boat,” he admitted, because he’d wondered what she’d had on her mind when he’d left her at her door. “You getting what you need from the men?”

She nodded. “I’ve only talked to Max and Buck, but they’ve been very forthcoming.”

“They’re under orders to be,” he told her, exaggerating the truth. The men, when presented with the proposition, had been more than willing to talk.

Her arms around her middle, she swayed from side to side, looking up at him coyly. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you really not show your face in public? Like Buck said.”

Damn the man. “I’m showing it to you.”

“I’m one person. And we’re on your ranch.”

He shrugged off the topic, expecting her to press.

She didn’t disappoint. “You’re not the one who goes to town for milk and perishables, are you?”

“No need,” he told her truthfully. “Woodson does the shopping.”

“And Buck deals with the stock deliveries?”

He wasn’t particularly enjoying this line of questioning. “He and Max.”

“Tell me something, Wyatt.”

Nope. He wasn’t enjoying it at all. This time he was the one who crossed his arms.

She looked up at him with too much know-it-all in her expression. “When was the last time you left the ranch?”

“Do you know how big the Triple RC is?” he said instead of giving her an answer.

She wasn’t so easily mollified. “It’s still all the ranch. The same buildings. The same people. The same scenery. The same work to be done every day.”

Ah, but that’s where she was wrong. “The work may be the same, but it’s always different depending on the time of year, how many animals we’re raising, selling, taking delivery of. And the scenery can change from one day to the next with the weather. Things don’t look the same under gray clouds as they do under bright sun.

“And if you’re on horseback, you’ll see things differently than you would from behind the wheel of a truck or on foot. Some days we work twelve hours, some days twenty-four. Yeah, it’s still all the ranch, but the day-in and day-out is never the same.”

He barely got the whole speech delivered before she dismissed it. “That’s no reason not to show your face in public.”

Psychologists. Lord love a cowboy and his horse, but they were a nosy species, digging into a man’s head, looking for things he kept buried there for good reason.

He’d told her that he wanted to separate the success and the reputation of the ranch from that of the Lawman. Told her, too, that the Triple RC kept him busy enough that he never had reason to leave, though he hadn’t filled her in on the fact that he did hit the livestock sales and auctions with Buck.

He figured that was plenty, that she didn’t need to know how he’d brought a woman here once, one he’d thought he’d love till they died in each other’s arms, sap that he was. Telling Tess that his injuries—the broken leg, pelvis, hip, ribs and nearly broken spirit—had also been the end of that relationship didn’t sit so well.

Neither was he liking how easily she fitted in here with him, with his men, loving the house and the land without a complaint about the hours or the dirt or the smells that could turn a stomach as well as a nose. Yeah, she’d only been here a matter of hours, but he knew that when she left, he was going to feel it in a mighty big way.

He gave her the only answer he figured he owed her. “I can’t think of any reason I should.”

“I can think of several.”

Of course she could. He glared down. “Would that have to do with you being a psychologist?”

And then she blew him right out of his socks. “Not as much as it has to do with me being female and wondering why no woman has snatched you up.”