A Cowboy Under the Mistletoe (13 page)

Before this he’d thought the term
making love
was a euphemism. He’d used it often himself because it sounded nicer, more considerate. But making love had nothing to do with being nice or considerate. He knew that now. Making love had the power to transform physical pleasure into a life-changing, transcendent experience.

Already he wanted her again because she’d take him to that place where nothing mattered but the joy of right now. But asking for more would be selfish. She had work in the morning and her parents to entertain. She needed gas to get to work and they were using it up the longer they stayed here with the motor running.

He dragged in a breath. “I don’t want to move, but we need to.”

“I know.” Her arms tightened around him. “I don’t want to move, either.”

Lifting his head, he gazed down at her. He wanted to look into her eyes, but her face was in deep shadow. “I...that was really great.” So lame. Really great
didn’t begin to cover the beauty of what they’d shared, but he doubted he could talk about that without sounding even more idiotic. He wasn’t sure he
wanted
to talk about it. The feelings were too tender and new.

“Yes.” There was a smile in her voice. “Really great. You’ve thoroughly convinced me that you should stop by tomorrow night.”

“Good. I’ll be in the parking lot. I’ll watch for your car.”

“I would try to get off early, but I just did that tonight, and I can’t make a habit of asking people to cover for me. Sets a bad example.”

“Agreed.” He sighed. “I really don’t want to let go of you.”

“Lean down here. Let me have one more kiss before we untangle ourselves.”

“You bet.” They bumped noses and were both laughing by the time he located her mouth. But once he did, once he slipped his tongue inside and deepened the kiss, the magic began all over again. Kissing her had been wonderful before, but now that he’d felt the welcome of her body, a kiss meant so much more. They’d crossed a threshold and he’d remember the joy of loving her for as long as he walked this earth.

With great reluctance he ended the kiss and unwillingly eased away from her warmth. He found his jeans and used the handkerchief in his back pocket to take care of the condom. Then they fumbled around locating their clothes.

He finally got his briefs and jeans back on, but not without a few muttered swearwords. “Much as I loved how tonight turned out, let’s not do this again, okay?”

“Yeah, let’s not. Ow!”

“What happened?”

“I couldn’t find my panties, so I decided to put my jeans on without them. Not a good idea.”

“Let me guess. Something silky and blond got caught in the zipper.”

“Spoken like someone who’s tried the same stunt.”

“Once. That was enough.”

“Once is enough for me.”

“Want me to kiss it and make it better?”

“Yes, but I don’t have enough gas in the tank for what would happen after that.” She grabbed her sweater from the front seat and pulled it over her head.

“I know. I just checked the gauge. We need to move it.” He patted the area around him and found her panties. “This is no help now, but here.”

“Thanks. I’ll just put them in the pocket of my coat.”

“And here’s your bra, too.”

“That can go in the other pocket.”

“Is it hot pink, too?”

“The bra matches. It’s one of my indulgences. I have a whole rainbow of matching bras and panties. Makes me happy.”

“Makes me hot.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s your favorite color?”

“Red.”

“Then red it is tomorrow night.”

He groaned. “Which now seems like an eternity away.” He fastened the snaps on his shirt. “Just know I’ll be thinking of your red underwear all day tomorrow.”

“Just know that I’ll be thinking of you taking them off.”

Instead of tucking his shirttails in, he crawled toward her. “I’m coming over there for one more kiss.”

She stopped putting on her shoes. Rising to her knees, she took his face in both hands and gave him a hot, openmouthed kiss that made him forget everything but kissing her back. In seconds he’d cupped her delicious bottom and hauled her against his growing erection.

She pressed closer and moaned deep in her throat. That was all the encouragement he needed to slide his hands under her sweater. Leaning back, she gave him access and he took full advantage of the opportunity to caress and knead her plump breasts. His cock strained against his fly.

The kiss grew hotter and their breathing roughened. But when he reached for the button of her jeans, she wrenched her mouth from his. “We have to stop.”

He struggled to catch his breath. “I know. I just—”

“Me, too. But we can’t.”

Slowly he relaxed his fingers and pulled his hands out from under her sweater. “I feel as if we could spend all day in bed and I’d never get tired of touching you, kissing you, thrusting my cock into your—”

She slapped a hand over his mouth. “Stop it. I’m on the verge of an orgasm as it is.”

“Want one more for the road?” He reached for the button on her jeans again.

“No.” She caught his hand. “I’m not taking any chances on unzipping these jeans.”

He sighed and moved away from her. “Okay. Putting on my boots now. Then I’ll go turn off the engine. That should motivate us to get the heck out of here.”

“It will. Good idea.”

Moments later they’d bundled up in their coats and snapped the seat back into place. After he folded the blanket, Whitney tucked it in a zippered bag that went under the seat.

“That came in handy.” He’d had the unwelcome thought that she’d set up everything quickly as if she’d done it before. But he wasn’t going to ask. If she had, he didn’t want to know.

“It’s smart to keep a blanket in the car during the winter.” She used the remote to lock the doors.

“Yep, sure is.” He put his arm around her shoulders as he walked her toward the apartment building.

“Fortunately I’ve never been stranded where I had to use it to keep warm. So I use it for my nieces and nephews. They love playing in the back of my car whenever the whole family goes on a picnic.”

“You know, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll bet it would be fun for kids.”

“You were afraid I’d had sex with someone else back there, weren’t you?”

“Not exactly.”

“You were!” She chuckled. “I could hear it in your voice.”

“Okay, maybe I did wonder. You put that whole deal together really fast. But even if you had, so what? It’s not like we’re a couple of untouched virgins.”

“No.” Their footsteps crunched on the hard-packed snow. “But tonight felt different, sort of like I wish my first time had been.”

He was startled by her openness. That was a good description of how he’d felt, too, but he wouldn’t have dared say something that vulnerable.

“Only speaking for myself, of course,” she added. “Well, here we are. I’m not going to kiss you good-night at the door because our lips might freeze together.”

He smiled. “I doubt it. Our kisses are too hot.”

“Probably. But let’s not chance it.”

“Okay, but mostly because it’ll just get us both worked up again with no hope of follow-through.”

“There’s that.”

Putting his hands on her shoulders, he looked into her eyes. “Just so you know, I felt the same way.”

Her gaze warmed. “Thank you. It’s nice to know I wasn’t the only one.”

“You weren’t.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Good night, Whitney.”

“Good night, Ty. Drive carefully.”

“I will.”

“I mean it. Don’t speed like you did on the way here.”

“I won’t. Now go in before you get frostbite.” He watched until the door closed after her before he walked back to his truck. He would drive carefully. He could use the time to think about what was happening between them.

He couldn’t deny it was the most intense relationship he’d ever had. And the best one. Physically they were a perfect fit. Mentally he wasn’t so sure. She’d come from a big, rambunctious, normal family and she obviously loved talking about them. His past was a lot more complicated and he never talked about the years before his folks had died.

Maybe they could skate right over that issue and start a new chapter in the here and now. He hoped so, because he’d buried most of his childhood memories along with his parents and he planned to keep it that way.

11

W
HITNEY
SAT
ACROSS
the booth from her parents while they all had lunch at the same diner where she and Ty had eaten mac and cheese the night before. In her mind, that meal could have taken place in another century. So much had changed since then.

“I’m glad the party was fun.” Her mother hadn’t asked any pointed questions about Ty, but those could still be coming. “It must have run late. I got up around one and you hadn’t come home yet.”

“I hope you weren’t worried.” Wow. Shades of her teen years when she’d had a curfew.

“No, no.” But the way her mother said it was a dead giveaway that she
had
been worried.

Whitney battled guilt she had no logical reason to feel. Her parents had chosen to come to her place, which meant she was in charge, not them. Still, she didn’t like the idea that her mother had suffered some anxiety because she hadn’t come home at what Ellen considered a normal hour.

Actually, she had been home at a normal hour. She just hadn’t been upstairs tucked under the covers on her futon. And she’d slept like a rock after all those orgasms.
Thank you
,
Ty
.

“It’s hard to turn off that kind of concern,” her dad said. “We both try, but it isn’t easy.”

“I know.” Whitney gazed at them. “Well, I don’t
know
because I’ve never had kids, but I can imagine. Ty drank coffee at the party so he drove us home.”

Her mother dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “He seems like a conscientious guy.”

“I liked him.” Pushing back his plate, her dad reached for the dessert menu propped in the middle of the table. “Seems intelligent and focused on his career. Considering what he had to deal with when he was young, that’s admirable.” He glanced over the menu. “The cheesecake sounds good. You two going to join me?”

Ellen waved her hands. “Not me. As it is, I’ll have to wait a few days before I dare get on the scale. You go ahead, Mr. High Metabolism. Knock yourself out.”

“I’ll have some with you, Dad.” Whitney had inherited his height and his ability to burn calories. She was grateful for both.

“Figured I could count on you, Peanut.” He still called her that even though she was five-nine, a college graduate and manager of a flourishing coffee shop. She didn’t mind.

“It’s a shame Ty doesn’t live in Sheridan,” Ellen said. “Then you could see more of each other.”

“That’s the way it goes.” She wasn’t about to announce that Ty planned to keep the road busy between here and Cheyenne.

Her dad leaned back against the booth. “Well, maybe you two can meet up when you come home for Christmas.”

“I think he’ll be up here for Christmas.”

“Oh.” Her dad seemed to consider that. “Makes sense.” He shrugged, obviously dismissing the idea that she’d get serious about Ty. “Oh, well.”

Her mother, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be making that assumption. “So you won’t be seeing each other at all? He seemed so taken with you.”

“We’ve talked about finding opportunities to see each other.” She thought.

Her mother obviously saw through that vague statement. “I thought so. A man doesn’t look at a woman the way he looked at you and then give up because she’s a five-hour drive away.”

“Mom, we’re just getting acquainted. Don’t go thinking it’s serious.”

“I won’t.” Her mother’s tone was breezy and offhand, but her gaze was not. “I did notice the way you looked at him, though.”

Whitney’s cheeks grew warm. Couldn’t put anything past her mother. “I admit he’s attractive.”

“He’s extremely handsome and you know it. When he’s wearing that sheepskin coat and a cowboy hat, he could be one of the models in a Western wear magazine. Don’t you think so, Art?”

“Leave me out of this. All I can say is that the guy’s sharp, dedicated to his career and knows his football. I’m not offering an opinion on how he looks. That’s not my area.”

Ellen smiled. “We’ve embarrassed your father.”

“Damn straight.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not supposed to be thinking about my daughter becoming involved with a man. That kind of image is what causes fathers to oil up their shotguns.”

Whitney started laughing. The idea of her quiet, civilized dad pointing a shotgun at someone cracked her up. “You don’t even own a shotgun. How can you oil it?”

“Much more of this discussion about Ty’s physical attributes and I might be motivated to buy one.”

“We’ll shut up.” She reached across the table and squeezed his arm.

“Thank God. I was about to head over to the counter, order a beer and watch football on the flat screen so you ladies could talk about things I’d rather not hear.”

“We can drop the subject of Ty altogether,” her mother said, “except I did want to ask one thing. Have you told him about Selena?”

“No. Did you?”

“No, honey. We’d just met the man. That’s not the time to be hauling out that kind of information. I just wondered if you’d gotten around to it. You know, in case it turns out we see him again sometime.”

“I haven’t said anything yet. It’s the sort of thing you don’t want to blurt out when you first get to know someone.”

“I have to know someone really well before I talk about Selena,” her dad said. “Fortunately most of my friends were around when she died and they know everything. But new people? Sometimes I don’t say a word, ever.”

“No reason to.” Whitney gazed at her parents, who had been through so much. “I feel the same way. I’m just getting to know Ty, so at what point do you say
Oh
,
by the way
,
my twin sister died in a car accident when we were sixteen
. There’s never a good time to say that.”

“But it’s part of who you are,” her mother said. “So if he stays in the picture, he needs to know.”