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Shep sighed, watching Doc leave the room, hoping this moment wasn’t added to River Rock’s gossip. When he turned back to Emma, she still smiled at him, awaiting his answer. “You’re right, darlin’. There’s nothing I’d like more than to kiss you, but I don’t make it a habit to kiss women hopped up on morphine.”
“No, you just like to tie them up. That’s your thing, isn’t it?” She dragged her teeth across her bottom lip. “All rough. Super sexy. You take control.”
Sure, she had him pegged right.
Regardless, he chuckled, placing his ankles onto the side of the bed again and leaning back in his seat. “How would you know that’s my thing?”
She rolled her glassy eyes and snorted. “Because we had sex.”
News to him. Fuck, he wanted to have sex with her last night, and she rejected him twice, leaving him standing on the stage with a raging hard-on. “Pray tell, when exactly did this sex between us happen?”
“Before I hit my head.” She paused, nose scrunching, clearly fighting to find her memories. “Or maybe after. I don’t know. But damn, we had some good sex together.”
No matter how much he wanted to indulge this conversation, maybe learning a secret or two about her, and hearing more of this sexy dream she had either last night or after she hit her head, he said, “Darlin’, you’re going to regret this conversation tomorrow.”
“Nope. Never going to happen.” She leaned her head against the pillow, her eyes fluttering once again, her voice getting a little bit softer. “What I’ll regret is that we only had sex once. It should have been more . . . and lasted far longer.”
“Great.” He snorted, crossing his arms. “Not only was I not there
to experience this rough, great sex, but apparently, I didn’t possess the skills to satisfy you.”
She mumbled something incoherent again. Then, “I liked the way you touched me. I want you to touch me again . . . and again.” Another long pause. Then, “Cheeseburgers.”
Shep smiled. “Now that is something I can give you later.”
Not that he’d be all that opposed to giving her the sex she referred to, but he’d start with a cheeseburger.
* * *
Darkness faded to light as Emma opened her eyes, groaning in rhythm with the deep throbs in the back of her skull. Her entire body hurt from her head right down to her toes. Once her eyesight cleared, she found herself in her Grams’s bedroom, lying in the middle of the queen-size poster bed, unsure how she got there.
More awake now, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon. Where had the day gone? What happened? Bits and pieces of the day slowly began returning to her.
The ambulance. The hospital. The cowboy.
She gently eased herself up to sitting and cursed, grasping her skull as her head pounded. Slowly the throbbing began to dull, and when the world stopped somersaulting around her, she spotted the rope burn on her wrist. She stroked the rawness of her skin, and with that touch, she remembered a whole lot about this morning. A dirty-talking cowboy. The kinky sex. And when she’d woken up in the ambulance and realized she’d dreamed having sex with Shep.
“Good one, Emma,” she grumbled, glancing next to her.
On the nightstand, she found her cell phone attached to the charger. The house around her was quiet, but the glass of water next to her phone told her she wasn’t alone. After a quick look down, she exhaled deeply, finding the hospital gown. She lifted the gown a little and noted the black and purple bruises along her thigh and buttocks. And she could feel more sore spots on her back too.
With her confusion growing, she grabbed her cell phone and discovered a text from Harper.
Call me the second you get up.
Emma hit the call button and leaned back against the plethora of pillows as the phone began to ring.
“Oh, God, are you okay?” Harper asked as soon as she picked up.
Emma twisted her wrist from side to side, studying the rope burn. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She paused, a sudden thought occurring to her. “Wait. How did you know that I wasn’t okay?”
Harper’s voice calmed a little, at least sounding slower now. “Shep called into the Spurs this afternoon to explain about the accident and told Megan you wouldn’t be in for a couple days.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, total sweetheart, right?” Harper paused, laughing softly. “I guess the fact that you practically humped him at work last night must have left a lasting impression.”
“I didn’t hump him.” Emma sighed and pushed off the blanket, then swung her legs along the mattress until her feet pressed against the cool hardwood floors. “I just wanted to.”
