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She couldn’t make eye contact with our hands touching. I had to fight to keep from reaching over the small table and tipping up her chin to see her expression. Once I touched her face, felt the silky smoothness under my fingers, I’d have to kiss her.
“Were boys really like that? Beat you up over your name?”
I took a sip of my beer to buy time. Rae had stumbled onto one hell of a loaded question. Me getting beat up had some to do with my first name, but more to do with my last. An image of my father, with his immaculate white hair sitting on one of his prized quarter horses surveying the land of his ever-expanding development, came to me clear as a photograph. Because it was the picture used by Texas Monthly in their piece about Rivers Ranch last year.
“Do snot-nosed little boys even need a reason to misbehave?” I put the beer back on the table and squeezed her delicate fingers, still caught under my oversized paw. I didn’t want to think about my old man, not tonight. This wasn’t a night for reality to intrude.
“Girls aren’t much better, I guess.” She was breathless, and unless it was a trick of the lighting, her eyes had dilated. The black centers nearly swallowed up the hazel irises.
I lifted my hand so I could sweep my fingertips back and forth over her knuckles. Her chest expanded, the breath caught in her lungs... lingering. She exhaled with the smallest of shudders. This one had a hair trigger, and I’d like nothing better than to help ease that tension. Take her hard, skittish parts and smooth them out. I loved touching a woman, the delicate responses and breathless whimpers.
“I don’t know. Aren’t girls all sweet and soft?” I picked up her hand and brought it to my lips, pressing a kiss to her skin, then plucking a small bit of her flesh with my teeth.
“Ah huh.” Her eyes drifted closed.
I kissed her knuckles. My lips molded to the ridge of each joint, my tongue dipping out to taste. I moved across the back of her hand, mimicking how I wanted to explore the rest of her body. I turned her hand in mine and sucked open-mouthed at the pulse pounding at the inside of her wrist. She gave a small squeak. I hid my smile against her palm.
“We have options. The night is young. Another drink?” I looked up, still holding her hand in both of mine. My lips were barely an inch from her skin.
She shook her head.
“Dinner in one of the restaurants?”
“No, thank you.” Her voice was barely loud enough for me to hear over the buzzing conversations of the bar patrons around us.
“Upstairs then?”
I’d only half believed I’d need the condoms from the gift shop when I bought them. It had been years since I had a one-night stand, maybe all the way back in my twenties. Living in a small town like Elmer, the aftermath could be downright uncomfortable. And I didn’t travel often. So, I’d had few opportunities for a one-and-done.
I enjoyed sex more than for the physical release. Getting naked with a woman peeled away the trappings of silly conversation and exposed the root of the matter faster with more truth. Not that Rae and I were being all that honest tonight. All I knew was her first name and destination.
I didn’t know why this woman was the one that I wanted. But I was smart enough not to lie to myself about it. Had to be pheromones or something similar because, from the first touch of her hand on mine, she’d seduced me.
“They already have my room number to pay for the drinks.” She licked her lips, catching the bottom one between her teeth and nibbling at the slick pink flesh.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Standing, I offered my hand and drew her up with me. Being so close, I realized she was even smaller than I’d thought. I pushed my hat on my head and picked up the freezer case of semen.
She fit under my arm perfectly, and I found it easy to adjust my long stride to her pace. We strolled across the lobby like we had all the time in the world, but we only had tonight. The signs were all there—neither of us had volunteered any personal information beyond first names and destination airports. Our conversation had been stilted on my side and frivolous on hers. This wasn’t the start of a grand love affair.
She’d mentioned Chicago in passing, and her accent was definitely more Midwest than Texas. So more between us would have been impossible, anyway. There was no way in hell I’d leave Texas. Not for anything.
At the elevator bank, she ducked out of my hold and pressed the call button. We may only get tonight, but I’d make it a damn good night for us both. The ding of the elevator’s arrival put my pulse into high gear. I tightened my hold on the freezer case to keep from attacking her as soon as the doors closed. She pressed the button for the top floor.
“Tell me your fantasy.” Standing behind her, I dipped my head to whisper in her ear. The stubble of my five o’clock shadow scraped her earlobe.
“Mine?” She choked out the startled question like she thought I’d been talking to someone else.
“Who better to tell than a stranger? No judgments. No remorse.” I kissed the delicate place below her ear. My free hand settled on the curve of her waist.
“I don’t know that I have one.” Her breathless reply was hardly louder than the elevator music.
“I’m not sure I believe that. You have all those trivia answers stored away for the occasion when you need them. You must have a fantasy in your memory banks. This is your chance to make it real.”
“For one night.” She gasped as my tongue traced the shell of her ear, and I bit down around the simple pearl earring she wore.
“All night.” I shifted my hips forward and pressed against her. My cock was already as stiff as a fencepost behind my fly.
The elevator door slid open and a woman in a hotel maid’s uniform with a stack of towels under her arm got on. She stood in front of Rae and pressed the button for two floors up. Thankfully, our unwelcome visitor wouldn’t be in the car long.
