He showed up yesterday. He won big down at the rodeo in Fort Worth and was looking for some help spending the purse.”
“And the guy in charge of three young boys was the logical choice.”
His smile was thin and drawn. “He didn’t know. Nobody really knows. I just faded away after my accident.”
“I saw that footage!”
“YouTube?”
“It was awful. You were like a rag doll.”
“I know.” He laughed. “I was there.” His lightheartedness amazed her; she could only gape at him.
“How can you laugh? Didn’t you think you were going to die?”
“I did. But somehow I didn’t.” He finished his beer and set it down beside him. “But that’s part of the job. A rare part of the job, but there isn’t a rider out there who doesn’t watch that gate get thrown open and know that he might be living his last seconds on earth.”
“That’s crazy.”
“That…” His eyes sparkled, his grin widened. Her breath caught at the danger that glittered around this man, the thrill. It was like breathing in sparks. “…is the beauty of rodeo.”
“You miss it.” It wasn’t a question because it was all too obvious the man lived and breathed that kind of excitement.
“You have no idea,” he whispered, staring up at the large moon that hung over the junipers at the edge of the lawn.
Oh, no. She set down her beer bottle and put her hands between her knees. If there was one thing she loved more than a handsome man in the moonlight, it was a sad, handsome man in the moonlight. It was a sickness, she knew that—one more weakness in her already weak character.
She liked to think she could save men. A doomed proposition every single time, but it didn’t stop her from trying.
She stood and turned to face him. He looked up at her, his eyes alight with interest, with a sexual speculation that made her entire body hum and purr. It had been so long since she’d been touched and stroked and she planned on being noble right now, and walking out of this house without having removed her clothes. But not without taking a little something for herself.
“Stand up, cowboy,” she murmured, feeling that same reckless thrill that spelled disaster.
The moonlight danced in his hair and the corner of his smile where it tipped up toward heartbreaking. Toward devilish and risky.
When he stood, his chest brushed her breasts and she gasped slightly at the pleasing pain of her nipples getting so hard so fast. They had barely touched and she was panting.
But so was he and that was about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.
“What are you going to do with me, Lucy?”
“I’m still deciding.”
“Take your time.”
Her hand found the hard curve of his biceps, the soft cotton of his T-shirt brushing the back of her hand as she reached under it. Her palm embraced the soft skin of his arm.
“I’ve decided.”
“Thank God.”
“I’m going to kiss you.”
CHAPTER TWO
ONCE, A LONG TIME AGO, Jeremiah had been a gentleman. It was a point of pride in his life. He could afford to go slow, or take his time. Or even refuse if the moment didn’t quite feel right.
And not just women and sex. He could turn down advertising contracts, another cup of coffee, a role in a movie. It didn’t matter. He could be a gentleman because he was never desperate.
But then his brother-in-law died and then his sister died and now he craved, every day, every minute, for just a taste of all the things he turned away in his old life.
There was no abundance in his days right now. Every bone was rubbing up against another bone, his stomach growled, his body hurt, and he went to bed every damn night hungering for what he used to take for granted. And now he had the current superstar, Reese, on his couch reminding him of everything he no longer had.
If this beautiful, sexy woman wanted to kiss him, he wasn’t going to say no. When maybe he should.
He should.
There was no maybe about it.
He was too old for one-night stands. And these days with his three nephews inside and the work involved in running this ranch, he had nothing left over. There was no time, no energy, no feeling, to give Lucy except whatever she was going to take.
But there was no way in hell he was going to open his mouth and tell her all of that. Not when she was about to kiss him and he hadn’t been kissed in months.
When he last saw her, Lucy Alatore had been a skinny girl on the edge of womanhood. But the sparkle, the dare, in her eyes was still there—that was what he could not resist.
Her long, elegant arms twined around his neck and the sensation of her soft wrists made him ravenous for more. Ravenous for something sweet and soft and tender, just for him. Something he didn’t have to share or reject or postpone because three boys needed him.
That beer on her breath went right to his head and he waited, patient but burning for the silken graze of her lips over his. When it came, it was like the chute had been thrown open and he was holding on for dear life.
The kiss rocketed up out of control and ran whole hog into the wild in two seconds. She gasped against his mouth as if she was just as surprised.
Trying for gentle, but falling miles short, he pulled her closer, the rough calluses of his fingers catching on the soft material of her fancy shirt.
She opened her mouth under his and pulled him as tight as she could into her body until he was curved over her, holding her against the curl of his body so that not even a breeze could pass between them.
It was wild. Hot. The lush curve of her hips under the tight black leggings she wore was too much a temptation to resist and he slid both palms over her, squeezing as he went, listening to her groan.
Her fingers tugged on his hair, the pain an electric bliss down his back, across his skin, through his blood, waking him up. Bringing him back to life.
The growl, like the lust, the fire, rolled up through his gut, obliterating his brain, and he spun slightly, ready to drag her into the house, ready to do whatever it took to take off her clothes, to find the secrets of her skin.
“Yes,” she groaned, lifting herself into him, the sweetest arch, the sweetest capitulation. He grasped his hands over her hips, taking all her weight and, like every teenage fantasy of what a woman should do, she slipped those long legs around his waist.
Ready to take her into the house, he turned toward the screen door, but immediately tripped over Casey’s scooter and then backed
