A Real Cowboy Rides a Motorcycle (3 page)

Trying not to rev the engine too much, he eased his bike down the driveway and turned right into the lean-to beside the bunkhouse. He settled his bike and whipped out a couple towels to clean it off, making sure it was mud-free before calling it a night.

Task accomplished, he grabbed his bag from the back of the bike, scowling when he realized it had gotten wet. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered now except crashing. He sloshed through the puddles toward the front door of the bunkhouse, retrieved the key from the doorframe, and pried the thing open.

It was pitch dark inside, but he knew his way around and didn't bother with a light. He dropped the bag, kicked off his boots and his drenched clothes, then headed for the only bed that was still set up in the place after Steen and Erin's brief occupation of it. Zane was damn glad they'd upgraded their lodgings to a temporary mobile home so the bunkhouse was now available again for use by the family vagrant.

Zane jerked back the covers and collapsed onto the bed. The minute he landed, he felt the soft, very real feel of a body beneath him, including the swell of a woman's breast beneath his forearm. Shit! "What the hell?" He leapt to his feet just as a woman shrieked and slammed a pillow into the side of his head.

"Hey, I'm not going to hurt you! I'm Chase's brother!" He grabbed the pillow as it clocked him in the side of the head again. "Stop!"

There was a moment of silence, and all he could hear was heavy breathing. Then she spoke. "You're Chase's brother?" Her voice was breathless, and throaty, as if he'd awakened her out of a deep sleep, which he probably had. It sounded sexy as hell, and he was shocked to feel a rush of desire catapult through him.

Shit. He hadn't responded physically to a woman in a
long
time, and now he'd run into a woman who could turn him on simply by
speaking
to him? Who the hell was she? "Yeah," he said, sounding crankier than he intended. "Who are you?"

"You're Steen?" He heard her fumbling for something, and he wondered if she was searching for a baseball bat, pepper spray, or something that indicated she hadn't been nearly as turned on by his voice as he'd been by hers.

"No, a different brother," he replied, his head spinning as he tried to figure what was going on, and why he was reacting to her so intensely. "I'm Zane. Harmless. Good guy. No need to decapitate me."

There was a pause in her movements. "I wasn't going to decapitate you. I was looking for my shirt."

"Your shirt?" he echoed blankly. "You're not wearing a shirt?" He hadn't noticed that much bare skin for that brief moment he'd been on top of her. How had he missed it?

"I'm wearing a camisole, but it's not exactly decent. Give me a sec." A small laugh drifted through the darkness. "You're such a guy. Of course you'd fixate on the possibility of me being naked. Do all men think only of sex?"

He grinned, relaxing. He'd startled her, but she'd regrouped quickly, and he liked that. She wasn't a wimp who was running to the door screaming. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Taylor Shaw. I'm Mira's best friend from home. I surprised her for a visit, but it turns out, there's no space in the house."

"Nope. Not anymore. I'm displaced too." He suddenly wanted to see her. "You decent yet?"

"Yes, but barely—"

He reached over and flicked on the small light by the bed. The soft yellow glow was less harsh than the overhead light, but it still took his eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness. When they did, he saw Taylor sitting on the bed, curly blond hair tumbling around her shoulders in a disheveled mess that made her look completely adorable. Her eyes were a deep blue, fixed on him as she squinted against the sudden light. He could see the curve of her shoulders beneath her light pink, long-sleeved shirt. The faint outline of a white camisole was evident beneath her shirt, not quite obscuring the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra. Her gray yoga pants were frayed at the knee and cuff, but they fit her hips with perfection. She looked like she'd just tumbled right out of a bed, and she was sexy as hell.

But it was her face that caught his attention. Her gaze was wary, but there was a vulnerability in it that made him want to protect her. He had zero protective instincts when it came to women…until now, until he'd met this woman who'd tried to defend herself with a pillow.

Then her gaze slid down his body, and his entire body went into heated overdrive. It wasn't until her eyes widened in surprise when her gaze was at hip level that he remembered something very important.

He was naked.

Taylor blinked in surprise as her gaze stopped just below Zane's navel. He was
naked
.

"Shit. Sorry." Zane grabbed the pillow she'd used on his head and slammed it in front of his crotch a split second before she managed to get a full eyeful. "I forgot."

She jerked her attention off his muscular body, and back to his face, horrified that he'd caught her staring at him. She hadn't
meant
to check him out. It was just that he was standing there, and he had amazing shoulders and her gaze had wandered, because what woman's wouldn't have, right? "It's okay," she said quickly. "Not a big deal." Not a big deal. It wasn't, of course, in the grand scheme of things. A naked man was a naked man, right? They all had the same body parts.

Except that Zane Stockton had taken the definition of man to an entirely new level. He was rippling with muscle, there were crisscrossed scars across the front of his right shoulder, and the dark hair on his chest angled down to a V where his hips narrowed. He was sculpted masculinity, and there was no way for her to lie to herself and pretend she hadn't noticed.

"No?" He cocked a dark eyebrow at her. "Not even a little bit of a big deal?"

"Of course not." She tried to keep her voice even, and her eyes on his face, but it was difficult. She'd never been around a man who exuded so much maleness. She could easily believe he was Chase's brother after seeing how utterly masculine Chase had been. Unlike Chase, however, Zane felt dangerous and wild, a man who had never sat behind a desk or in a boardroom. The wolf tattoo on his right biceps looked like it had come from within him, instead of being penned on by someone else.

"Then you can have your pillow back." He tossed it at her, and she caught it as he sauntered across the room toward a duffel bag on the floor.

She tried, she really
tried
, not to notice the way his back rippled with muscles as he walked away from her, and she
really
tried not to check out his butt. She almost succeeded, managing to sneak only a quick glance before finding a place on the wall to stare at blankly.

"I don't care if you stare." There was definite amusement in his voice as he grabbed a pair of boxer briefs from his duffel.

"I'd care if you were staring at me naked," she pointed out, trying to justify her laser-like focus on the knot in the wall.

"Interesting thought." His voice was low and husky, shivering across her skin like an invisible caress.

She shot an annoyed glare at him, and then relaxed when she saw that he was wearing his boxer briefs. The dark blue hid enough detail that she could face him. "Clearly, I have more manners than you do."

Zane walked over to her, and she scrambled to her feet as he neared. He was barely dressed, and she didn't want to be sprawled on the bed as he approached. "I have no manners at all," he said. "I was raised in a shit hole, and I don't clean up well."

His tone was hard, daring her to challenge him, but she saw a spark of defiance in his dark eyes that made her heart soften. She had no doubt that he was raised exactly as he'd just claimed. "I'm sorry."

He narrowed his eyes. "Sorry for what?"

"That you were raised in a shit hole. No one deserves that."

He stared at her for a long moment, so long that she wanted to squirm. She didn't, however. Instead, she simply raised her chin.

Silence hung between them, suspended in the dimly lit cabin. Finally, he shrugged. "You want the wall side?"

She blinked. "What?"

He gestured at the bed. "Which side you do want?"

Her gaze snapped to the double bed, which was far smaller than the queen-size bed she had at home, or the king-size beds she always requested in her hotel rooms. "You're going to sleep with me?"

"Yeah."

She let out her breath, ignoring the warring factions inside her of joy and delight versus outrage and fury. "Why would you think that is a good choice?" Wow. She was impressed with how diplomatic she'd managed to sound. One might think she had years of experience with hellish bosses and nightmarish clients. Oh, wait, she had.

He ran his hand through his hair impatiently, drawing her attention to how damp it was. The dark hair was curling around the base of his neck, too long to be a cowboy or a corporate exec, but just long enough to belong to a troublemaker or a rebel. "Because I've been riding for hours. I'm wet. I'm tired. This is the only bed left in the bunkhouse or anywhere on the ranch. I'm getting in it, and you can sleep on the hard floor by yourself, or with me in the bed."

And with that, he moved past her, flipped back the covers, and dropped onto the mattress.

For a moment, she stood there in shock, staring at him as he made himself comfortable in the bed she'd been occupying only moments before. "You're kidding, right?"

"I don't have a sense of humor." He rolled onto his side, facing her. The bed seemed to have shrunk to half the size now that he was in it. His shoulders were broader than she'd realized, and he seemed to literally possess the area he was in. His eyes were dark and unfathomable, so intense she felt as though he were prying away all her haughty facades and seeing her for the broken, exhausted woman she really was. "I'm not a good guy, but I have a sense of honor I'd never break. We could both be naked in this bed, and I'd never touch you unless you asked me to. You're safe with me."

He never broke eye contact when he spoke, and Taylor knew he meant every word. "You're a cowboy? Like Chase?" She knew it was silly, but she'd always associated cowboys with a sense of honor and morality. They were the men who knew how to be polite to a woman, who wouldn't hesitate to defend his girl, no matter who came after her.

Zane, however, didn't offer himself up as her fantasy man. "I was once. Not anymore." He offered no further explanation. Instead, he rolled onto his back and draped his arm over his face, shielding his eyes. "Turn out the light when you decide where you're sleeping. The floor sucks, though."

Taylor glanced around the bunkhouse. There was a small kitchen area, the door to the tiny bathroom, and the bed. Nothing else except another door tucked against the far wall. "What's in there?"

"Everything that Steen and Erin rejected." He didn't move his arm from his face. "Chase used to have this place set up with a bunch of bunks so that he could accommodate all the vagrants who showed up to stay, but we never came, and Erin and Steen redecorated. Now we have one bed."

Taylor quickly walked across the room and opened the door. It was pitch-black inside, but she found a light switch by the door. Piled from floor to ceiling were bunk bed frames and mattresses, packed in the tiny room. No bedding, and the room smelled musty and old. There was no way anyone was going to sleep in there tonight. It would take days to get it cleared out.

Grimly, she pulled the door shut and leaned against it, staring at the bed. Zane was stretched out across it, taking up almost the whole thing, except for a small area against the wall. She'd have to climb over him to get to the free space. With a sigh, she ran her hand through her hair. How could she kick him out? She could hear the rain hammering on the roof, and she knew there was no space up at the main house.

But how could she just climb in there with him? She didn't know him, he was mostly naked, and he was...well...a man. Not just a man, but a man she was viscerally aware of as a woman. She'd spent a long time convincing herself that she didn't need a man, but there was something about Zane that had awakened a part of her that had been long dormant. Yes, of course, seeing him in the flesh was riveting, but there was something more to him, something that called to a part of her that had been broken so badly that she'd never thought it would work again. She'd never wanted it to work again, because to feel things meant heartbreak she wouldn't survive. Somehow, Zane had touched those chords inside her, and she didn't want them to wake up.

He moved his arm off his face and lifted his head to study her.

She lifted her chin, folding her arms to ward off the chilly, damp air that was beginning to settle in her bones. "I can't share a bed with you. I don't even know you."

He said nothing. He simply held out his hand to her.

She stared at his hand, and part of her wanted to just take what he offered and crawl into bed with him, to fall asleep hearing someone else's breathing for the first time in a very long time. The other part of her wanted to grab her bags, run back to the airport, and get on the first plane back to the life she was used to...the one that was slowly killing her.

"You're tired," he said. "I'm tired. Come on."

She sighed, fighting the urge to capitulate, even as her teeth began to chatter. Her feet were ice cold, and she was shivering. "I don't think—"

"The heat's not working in this place anymore," he said. "Unless you have an electric blanket, you're going to need me anyway."

She barely stifled a giggle. "You're trying to convince me by presenting yourself as an electric blanket?"

"For hell's sake, woman, get your ass in this bed before I make you." He held up the blanket to make space for her to slide in with him. "Martyrs are fools, and I can't stand fools. Are you going to wimp out and spend the night freezing, or are you going to get your ass in here?"

"I'm not a wimp," she snapped, even as she gave in. She wanted to be in that bed with him, and there was no way to deny it. With a sigh of resignation, she darted across the room to the bed. He was still on the outer edge, and he didn't move over.