idea,” Justin frowned. He started to sit up, then fell back against the arm of the sofa, cradling the bottle. “In a minute. I have to rest first.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.” She yawned. “When he gets back.” Her eyes closed.
By the time Calhoun got back, they were both snoring. The whiskey bottle was lying on the floor, with the neck in Justin’s lean hand. Calhoun righted it and put it on the table along with Abby’s empty glass. The sight of them was as puzzling as it was amusing. Both Justin and Abby were usually the teetotalers at any gathering, and here they were soused. He wondered if his leaving with Shelby had set them off and realized that it probably had. In Justin’s case it was understandable. But Abby’s state was less easily understood, after the way she’d treated him since he’d kissed her. Unless…
He frowned, his dark eyes quiet and curious as he watched her flushed, sleeping face. Unless she’d finally realized why he’d been rough with her and was regretting her hot words. Was that possible? She’d seemed jealous of the time he’d spent with Shelby at the dance, and here she was three sheets to the wind. Well, well. Miracles did happen, it seemed.
He still wasn’t sure about Tyler Jacobs’s feelings toward Abby, but at least now he didn’t have to worry about Justin’s. If just seeing his brother with Shelby had this effect on Justin, he was still crazy about Shelby.
Calhoun lifted Abby and sat her crookedly in a chair while he laid Justin down on the sofa, pulled the older man’s big boots off and covered him with one of the colorful serapes that were draped on chairs all over the room. Then he swung Abby up in his arms, balanced her on his knee while he turned off the overhead light, and closed the study door. Justin was going to hate himself in the morning.
Abby stirred as he carried her up the staircase. Her eyes flickered open, and she stared up drunkenly at the hard, quiet face above hers.
“You’re with Shelby,” she muttered drowsily. “We know you are. We know what you’re doing, too.” She laughed bitterly, then sighed and broke into the Mexican song Justin had taught her.
“Stop that.” Calhoun scowled at her. “My God, you shouldn’t use language like that.”
“What language?”
“That song Justin taught you,” he muttered, topping the staircase and heading down the hall toward her room. “It’s vulgar as all hell.”
“He didn’t say it was.”
“Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t have taught it to you if he’d been sober. He’ll have a heart attack if he hears you singing it when he’s back on his feet.”
“Want me to teach it to you?” she asked.
“I already know it.”
“That isn’t surprising,” she sighed. She closed her eyes as he walked through the open door into her room and kicked it shut behind him. There were memories in this room, he thought angrily as he headed toward the bed. Abby, half-naked on that pink coverlet. Abby’s soft body under his against that far wall—where she’d put a bookcase. He frowned at it. The new furniture arrangement was fairly revealing. Why would she shift the bookcase there unless it bothered her to remember?
He laid her down on the bed and watched her curl up. “No, you don’t,” he murmured. “You can’t go to sleep like that.”
She yawned. “Yes, I can.”
He pulled off her shoes, and after a moment’s hesitation his hard fingers went to her skirt. He removed it and about a hundred layers of full underskirts, and then her panty hose and blouse. Under it all, she was wearing dainty pink lace briefs and a matching bra that was no cover at all over her full, firm breasts.
This, he thought as he looked at her, was a hell of a mistake. But she was the most delicious little morsel. Her body was perfect, the most beautiful he’d seen in his life. And when he realized just how innocent she was, how untouched, his body rippled with pleasure mingled with need.
She sighed then, and her eyes opened. She searched his face, watching where his gaze had fallen. “You undressed me,” she said.
“You couldn’t sleep in that rig,” he replied tautly.
“I guess not.” She knew it should bother her that he was seeing her like this, in those wispy pink things she’d been crazy enough to buy at Misty’s insistence. But if the way he was staring at her was any indication, he seemed to like what he saw.
“Do you have pajamas or a gown?” he asked after a minute.
“A gown. Under my pillow.”
He managed to make his legs move and took out a bit of material that would cover no more of her than her underwear. “You’ll freeze to death in this thing,” he muttered.
“Misty said it was a sexy outfit,” she said drowsily. She moved, her long hair framing her oval face with its delicate flush, her pale blue-gray eyes enormous as they searched the faintly blurred outline of his body. “I thought I’d seduce Ty,” she added. “He likes me.”
His face hardened. “Like hell you will,” he said shortly.
“You did that to Shelby,” she accused. “Shame on you, when Justin loves her.”
“I didn’t touch Shelby,” he returned. “I left her at her front door and went back to the dance hall looking for you.”
“I wasn’t there,” she murmured.
“Obviously.” He didn’t mention that he’d had to fight the urge to go looking for Tyler’s car in case he and Abby were parked somewhere. The thought of her with Ty made him want to do something violent.
“Justin is going to beat you up when he can stand up again,” she told him gaily.
“I guess he’s entitled.” Calhoun sighed. “I sure as hell made a mess of things.” He sat down beside her, his eyes reluctantly leaving the long, sweet line of her legs and hips and the open seductiveness of her almost-bare breasts. “Do you know how perfect you are?” he said absently.
She was suddenly cold sober. Her eyes opened wide, searching his. “Me?”
“You,” he said harshly. “From your legs to your hips to those sweet, pretty brea—” He stopped, hating his own vulnerability. “Come here.” He put the gown in her lap and drew her into a sitting position, watching the tips of her firm breasts suddenly harden. He caught his breath.
She looked up at him curiously. “What’s wrong?”
“This.” He touched her delicately, only the back of his knuckles rubbing softly against her nipples. She pulled away, her breath audible, and he lifted his head to search her shocked eyes.
She looked back at him, relaxed from the alcohol, all her deeply buried longings surfacing without the restraint of a usually protective mind. She touched the back of his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. And then she pulled gently, watching as she drew his hand across her breasts.
“Abby…” he ground out.
“I’m
