Valentine's Cowboy (3 page)

He joined a group of men standing around the fence admiring the gyrating hips of the nearby beauties. Dale couldn’t take his eyes off Shelby, but he managed to say, “We didn’t think you were coming down for this.”

Sam’s attention was fully focused on the curvaceous blond in the pink top and grass skirt that swayed to give hints of long, slender legs. “Found I couldn’t resist the temptation.”

The men stopped speaking; their entire concentration on the females innocently torturing them. He certainly felt tortured and big time aroused. His vivid imagination stripped away the pink bikini top and freed those soft, plump breasts. He stripped away the fake skirt as well. His erection swelled to amazing proportions and he ached.

All too soon the music stopped and the women hugged each other in happiness. Then his luscious blond beauty suddenly stiffened in the embrace of the hula instructor. She paled and looked in panic around the area. An instant later she’d raced across the cement and launched herself into his arms.

Instinct had him wrapping his arms around her and trying to keep them from falling over since he’d nearly lost his balance. She looked up at him with blue eyes revealing how tipsy she was. She gave him a goofy smile, which he found oddly cute.

He held her even tighter to keep her upright. Holding the shapely bundle of sweet-smelling woman was definitely not a hardship.

“I see you’ve met Valentine,” Shelby said in amusement as she walked over with Dale.

Valentine? Valentine
? He vaguely remembered the name, an odd name at that. Fitting, though, he decided.

He shook his head as the woman in question clung to his shirt to remain on her feet. “Not exactly
met,
Shelby. She sort of flew into my arms.” He glanced down at his pretty blond and smiled gently as she struggled to focus on him.

“I’ve pretty…pretty much decided,” Valentine started. She blinked but still couldn’t seem to focus. “I’ve decided I’m not…not a les…lesbi…lesbian.” She grinned at him. “You’re mighty handsome, Handsome.” She batted her eyelashes and giggled.

Shelby studied her friend curiously. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. But I think she’s had one too many mai tais.” She continued to watch him holding Valentine, her expression turning speculative. “I’ve never seen her like this; it’s a whole other side of her.”

“Mai tai?” Valentine swiveled in Sam’s arms, brushing her bottom against the part of him that had grown rock hard as he’d held her. “Sure! I’ll…I’ll take another one.”

“No, I don’t think so, darlin’,” Sam countered as she began crumpling in his hold.

He scooped her into his arms rather than let her land on the cement. He didn’t understand her mumblings about lesbians, but he sensed she was most certainly
not
one. Mainly because she’d looked at him as if she wanted to strip his clothes off right here and have her way with him. Damn if the idea hadn’t appealed to him. But his sister was here. Well, and everyone else. And he didn’t do that sort of thing. At least he never had before.

“Dr. Hart, are you okay?” Dale asked, while she looked dazedly his direction.

“Can’t feel my legs.” She giggled. “I’m floating.”

Sam had stiffened when Dale called her
Dr.
Hart. Now he knew who she was.
Dr. Valentine Hart,
the counselor his sister had gone to with Dale. A romance therapist. An occupation he didn’t understand at all. Why anyone, especially his sister, would want or need to go to someone for advice on romance was beyond him. And ever since those sessions, Shelby had been different. More independent. Yeah, she’d seemed happier, but he figured that had more to do with the upcoming wedding than some therapy sessions.

“Val,” Shelby said, gently touching Valentine’s cheek and pushing the fine strands of blond hair from her face. “I think you need to go to bed. You’re exhausted, and you’re… well, you’re definitely wasted.”

Valentine reached up to touch his jaw and the beard stubble there. “Can I take stud muffin with me?”

Shelby met his gaze and laughed. “The ‘stud muffin’ is my brother. He’ll take you to your condo, which, as it happens, is right next to his.”

Valentine had a second of awareness, enough to recognize the words ‘brother’ and tie it to Shelby. She tried to roll herself out of his hold and nearly made them fall, but he was strong enough to prevent it. Still, she managed to huff, “I’m annoyed with you!”

He juggled her into a better position and scowled down at her. “I’m pretty pissed at you, too.” That said he strode through the gate that Dale held open and down the sidewalk toward their building. Halfway there he asked, “I assume you have your key.”

She was almost totally gone, but gazed at him long enough to shake her head. “Lost it. I don’t know…don’t know where.” With that her head thumped against his chest and he knew she’d passed out.

Shelby raced up behind them, obviously having heard Valentine’s comment. “I can go to the front desk and get another key for her.”

Sam was strong, but carrying the dead-weight of a passed out woman down the sidewalk for the length of two buildings and up three flights of stairs, and then holding her while he waited for his sister to return was more than he could do. “Just get my key out of my back pocket. She can sleep it off tonight in my bed. We’ll deal with the lost key issue tomorrow.”

“You can’t sleep with her!” Shelby gasped.

He scowled at his sister and walked faster. His arms were starting to cramp. “Did I
say
I would be in bed with her? I’ll take the sofabed.”

“Oh. Well, okay.”

A few minutes later Sam carefully spread his drunken sleeping beauty across his bed. Shelby quickly tugged off the grass skirt, saw him staring in pure admiration at Valentine’s long naked legs beneath the skimpy bikini she wore, and pulled a blanket from the closet to cover her friend.

She spun to face him, narrowing her eyes. “Touch her tonight and you’re a dead man.”

He returned her scowl, for the second time tonight thinking she needed her butt warmed. Instead he said, “You’ve sure gotten sassy ever since you started seeing this here therapist.” He wasn’t about to admit that he knew he’d be fighting the urge to crawl into bed with the beauty who called to everything male in him. “Scoot on back to the party. Dale will be missing you.”

She walked to the outer door and glanced back at Valentine. “You be nice to her. She’s more than my former therapist, she’s my friend.”

“I’m always nice,” he grouched.

With a roll of her eyes, Shelby left. Standing there alone, he slowly looked back into the bedroom. The blanket might as well be invisible. He’d seen every delicious inch of Dr. Hart and it was etched on his brain. Annoying as that was, his cock was so rigid that he knew this would be a long night. No doubt about it, he wanted the little romance therapist…for a little romancing.

He chuckled, amused at his bit of wit. Yeah, he wouldn’t mind at all kissing those perfect pink lips and proving to her once and for all that she wasn’t even close to being lesbian. He chuckled again, wondering how in the world she’d gotten that crazy notion. He’d seen her eyeing the bartender, the waiter, and a couple other men as she’d danced. Her looks had been pretty damn heated, definitely admiring. Yep, that lesbian business was a dang crazy notion.

She rolled onto her side and a bare leg slipped out from under the edge of the blanket. His breath caught. Hell of a nice leg.

As he tried to force his feet to turn away, he stood there for several long minutes. He needed to stop staring at the sleeping blond in his bed. In order to finally walk the other direction he had to come up with reasons why she irritated him. She’d caused some kind of change in his sweet, innocent sister. Now she wasn’t easily intimidated by him, which he actually was glad about. Now she hugged and kissed both Dale and him in public more often, something he was a tad uncomfortable with.

He started undoing the sofabed and pictured Valentine Hart as he’d first seen her: tipsy and tripping down the cabana steps. He didn’t approve of anyone, especially a woman, getting so drunk they didn’t know what they were doing. There were a lot of crazies in the world who could and would take advantage of them in the wrong situations. She deserved to have her pert little backside heated up just for that. And then there was the whole throwing herself into a stranger’s arms, not that he—the stranger—minded. Still, that was something else she should be spanked for.

Unfolding the bed, he blew out a deep breath. If he kept on thinking about reasons to spank the hot female in his bedroom, he’d never get a lick of sleep tonight. Worst part of it all was that he wanted to touch her so bad that he was willing to come up with unreasonable reasons to take her over his knee. If he couldn’t slide between her legs and into her warmth, at least he could lay a hand to the soft flesh of her bottom.

He jerked off his clothes and flung himself bare-assed naked down on the sofabed. Then he flipped onto his side. He was too damn hard to sleep on his stomach. Hell.

Chapter Two

Valentine crawled from the bed and stumbled her way into the living room, holding one hand to her throbbing head. Her eyes were barely open and not focusing well. “Oh gawd, oh gawd. Turn down the ocean,” she moaned as she headed for the sliding glass door she’d left open.

Even the tiny slit of sunlight she was able to see was excruciating. She squeezed her eyes closed while she continued toward her destination. A few steps later her knee hit a metal bar and she stubbed her toe, making her yelp in pain. Her eyes flew open even as she fell face forward across the open sofabed. Face forward over a large, warm, obviously male body.

Immediately the male body, that had been nearly dead to the world, burst to life. “What the hell!”

Almost at the same time Shelby knocked on the front door. “Sam? Sam, what’s going on in there?” She pounded again. “Sam!”

Valentine scrambled upright, her hands flying to her head, which seemed to be threatening to explode. She glanced down in horror—okay, and definite appreciation—at the deliciously naked form of Sam Thompson. The cowboy she’d met the night before. The man that, even through the fuzziness surrounding her brain, she wanted to throttle on Shelby’s behalf.

“What are you doing here?” she managed to ask, rubbing her forehead with her fingers in a useless attempt to calm the headache. “Oh gawd. Just shoot me now,” she added on an agonized moan.

“Not a bad idea,” Sam grumbled and reached around her to snatch at the top sheet he must have thrown aside in the middle of the night. While the wicked woman inside her wanted to protest his action, he stood and drew the sheet around his body from the waist down. He glowered and snapped, “This is
my
condo,
Not
yours.”

“Sam! I hear you in there, let me in!” Shelby called out, pounding again on the door.

Valentine gaped in mortification. She felt the color draining from her face as she realized his sister was about to catch them in pretty bad circumstances. She looked at Sam for some kind of help and found him heatedly staring at her. No help from his quarter.

Then she followed his gaze and glanced down. Heat rapidly spread over her entire body. Somehow she’d lost her bikini top. Her breasts were bare. His attention was completely focused on them and, to her displeasure, her nipples hardened in response. Could she possibly be anymore humiliated?

Evidently
yes
because she burst into tears. She detested crying in front of someone else, which made her quietly sob harder. What a horrible start to a day! In the midst of her pity party moment, she heard Shelby pound on the door yet again.

Sam’s brown eyes darkened even more. Her breasts! Cheeks flaming at the realization that she’d done nothing about her exposure, she covered her traitorous breasts with her arms.

His focal points now partially covered, he came out of his stupor. “Oh shit! Shelby!”

He looked in a panic from her to the door, and then back at her. He started to pull the sheet from around his body and she was sure he intended to cover her up with it.

She held out a hand to stop him. “No! No, you idiot!” she yelped, sobs immediately quieting. She couldn’t let him remove that sheet and stand there in all his male glory. A voice in her suffering head told her she was nuts to refuse such an opportunity. Another voice taunted her that she’d just recently convinced herself that she was lesbian.

She latched onto that twisted reasoning in desperation and blurted out, “A man’s naked body does
not
affect me! Not at all!”

“Oh, honey, it sure as hell does.” His gaze zeroed in on her one uncovered breast. “Those rosy nipples have…”

Her face flamed even more as his comment faded away. “Stop it! Focus! Your sister.”

He scowled and tightened the sheet back around him. He spotted his shirt tossed on the floor, went to pick it up, and threw it at her. “Put this on. I’ve got to go let Shelby in before she beats the damn door down.”

His hand on the chain lock, he faced her again. “Lady, you’re completely crazy thinking you’re a woman lover. But I don’t have the time to prove that to you right now.”

Valentine stiffened at his comment. “Nothing you could do…“ She slammed her mouth shut, sensing she was lying. She had felt warmth pooling low in her body at her first glimpse of his nakedness. She had felt moisture beading between her legs.

A spark of something sexy, something challenging flitted in his eyes. “Darlin’, you’re so wrong.” Just to annoy her, she was sure, he glanced down at his erection pushing the sheet out.

Now her heart raced and her knees weakened. Darn him!

“Sam! Let. Me. In. Right. Now!” Shelby demanded.

He undid the lock and Valentine concentrated on buttoning Sam’s shirt with trembling fingers. She inhaled and drew in his scent, which only made her situation worse. There wasn’t an inch of her body that hadn’t started screaming for his body to touch hers. Any way, anywhere. Darn that cowboy!
No!
No, she was just confused
.
He
confused her. She nearly twisted a button off the shirt in her distress.