Brody (8 page)

“Will you never do anything normal?”

She snorted. “I am normal to me. Who says what’s normal?”

He threw back the rest of his whiskey and let his tongue and throat burn for a moment before he gestured to the barkeep to pour two more shots.

“You want to get drunk, Miss Graham?”

She turned to him, her eyes full of shadows and a myriad of emotions he didn’t want to know about. “Yes, I do.” When she threw back the second shot of whiskey, even he was impressed.

“I didn’t know you had a taste for whiskey.”

“There is a lot you don’t know about me, Ranger.” Her grin was almost feral, and it sent a shiver up his spine.

“This one’s a keeper, fella.” The barkeep eyed her with more than selling whiskey in his expression. “If ’n you don’t want her, just say the word.”

Although it was the last thing he would admit to her, his protective instincts roared to life. No matter how much she annoyed him, she was his responsibility. As a man of the law, he would not be derelict in his duty. Even if he’d been intimate with her not twelve hours earlier.

“She’s not available.” Brody couldn’t disguise the growl in his voice.

“Hey now. I am the one who gets to decide that.” She pointed at the barkeep. “You keep filling my glass and we’ll see what happens.”

“The hell with that.” Brody grabbed the bottle off the bar. “I’ll pay for the whole bottle, but you don’t get the girl. Ever.”

The barkeep shrugged. “I like a woman who can hold her liquor.”

Olivia raised one brow and smiled. “You see, I’m not a bitch all the time, Brody.”

His name on her tongue was like a caress on his bare skin. His cock twitched against his buttons.

“No, but you choose to be.”

“Ouch, fella. I can’t let you talk to the lady like that.” The barkeep was a big son of a bitch, but he didn’t scare Brody even a smidge.

“Easy. I’m a Texas Ranger.” He flashed the badge he kept tucked in his belt. “She’s helping with an investigation and I’m her keeper.”

Olivia took a long tug right from the bottle of whiskey. “Let’s get drunk, Brody. I wanna get drunk and get messy with you.” She leaned forward and pressed her breasts into his arm, then kissed the ever-loving smarts out of him.

Brody forgot his name.

“I want you. Now.” Her breath gusted across his face, the scent of whiskey strong.

He shouldn’t be touching her again. Or ever for that matter. Yet he was in a hotel room with her, alone. What the hell was he thinking? Well, that was it. He wasn’t thinking at all.

“I said now.” She grabbed at his shirt, popping a few buttons before he could stop her.

His cock nearly tore open his britches wanting to get out. His self-control, already dulled by too much whiskey, jumped out the window when she licked his neck and grabbed his staff through the material.

“Please come out and play. I need you. Now. Now. Now.”

He couldn’t very well refuse a woman in need, now could he? What was left of his conscience spoke up. “You’re drunk.”

“So are you. It doesn’t matter. I wanted you from the second I saw you.” She stripped off her clothes with amazing speed, given the amount of liquor she’d inhaled. “I had dreams about you, did you know that?”

Why no, he didn’t know that. And he didn’t need to know it, but now that he did, there was no way he’d forget it.

“Olivia, we agreed not to do this again.”

“Ha! I didn’t agree to anything. You accused me of tricking you into having sex with you.” She waggled her finger and to his dismay, her breasts jiggled right along with it.

His mouth watered to taste them, lick them, bite them.

“I didn’t accuse you.”

“Yes, you did.” She pushed him back into the chair in the corner, the seat hitting the back of his knees. He dropped onto the cushion and suddenly had a lap full of naked woman on top of him.

He almost came in his britches.

She leaned in and pushed her breasts against his lips. “I want you, Brody,” she repeated. “I want to come again.”

His control shredded the moment his hands cupped her beautiful breasts. They were softer than anything he’d ever felt. He pulled one taut nipple into his mouth and sucked while he reached for the other.

“Oh, God, yesssss. More.” Olivia reached down and unbuttoned his trousers. He groaned when she took his cock in hand, running her slender fingers up and down its pulsing length. “You’re so big. Did any girl ever tell you that?”

Apparently liquor turned her into a wanton. He couldn’t have resisted her then. If ever. Brody didn’t like simpering, whimpering, whining girls who fluttered and flittered about. Olivia drank like a man, had sex when she wanted, and did what she knew was right. If she’d been a man, they would’ve been friends.

Instead, she had his cock in her hand and he had her breast in his mouth and his hand inside the moist folds of her pussy.

“I need you inside me.” She shifted until she was poised above his cock, her moist heat already coating him.

“Then put me in there.” His voice was nearly unrecognizable, rough and gravelly with the intense arousal coursing through him.

She slid down his shaft with aching slowness, until they were both shaking with the need to move. Brody sucked at her nipple while his other hand flicked her clit. Each time his finger moved, her body tightened around him. He wouldn’t last long that way. He tried to take his hand away, but she bit his shoulder.

“Don’t you dare stop. I want to come, Brody. Now.” She pushed her other breast at his mouth. “Make me come.”

He couldn’t resist the lure of her words or the way they seemed to fit together like a hand in a glove. With just three more flicks on her clit, she came, shuddering and squeezing him so hard his eyes rolled back in his head. His balls tightened as he lost his mind completely and came inside her, buried deep within her heat.

It was the most exciting, exhilarating, frightening moment of his life. Also quite possibly the stupidest. He might have just put a babe in Olivia’s belly.

What had he done?

Olivia’s mouth had turned into a ball of old cotton. She tried to find enough spit to swallow, but there was none. Not even a drop. She cracked one eye open and glanced around. Where was she? The moon shone through the window, illuminating a hotel room she didn’t remember entering. And she was stark naked.

A soft snore beside her scared her enough that she sat up, stifling a scream as her head nearly exploded from the sudden move.

Oh, what had she done?

She peered at the man beside her and recognized Brody. The last thing she remembered was stopping in town for supplies. He’d ridden ahead, hightailing it to the tavern without a backward glance at her. She’d been annoyed at his high-handedness and the way he’d dismissed her.

Olivia had made some mistakes in her life, but having sex with Brody wasn’t one of them. It felt good and she wasn’t ashamed of that. He took precautions and didn’t spend his seed in her so there would be no child. They were adults. No matter how people might judge her, she wouldn’t regret being with him.

And apparently she liked it enough to get drunk in the middle of the afternoon and do it again. There had been whiskey and a hairy barkeep, then the rest was a blur of sensations and pleasures. Her body was well sated, that she could feel even over the pounding in her head.

Her skin fairly throbbed with the aftereffects of whatever they had been doing in the hotel room. She only wished she could remember the details.

Wait, hadn’t there been a chair involved?

She peered through the shadows but could only see vague shapes. It was no use, she wasn’t going to recall all of it. The bald truth was she had consumed too much liquor and tumbled into bed with Brody Armstrong.

Olivia eased her legs out of bed and got to her feet as slowly as she could. Her head swam a little, but it was her stomach that heaved. She wasn’t able to swallow, since her mouth was a pit of dryness, so she had to make her way to the washstand and pray some competent person had left water in the pitcher.

Her body was sticky and sore. She almost sobbed to find lukewarm water in the pitcher and poured some into the basin. She cupped her hand and took a small drink of the water, enough to wet her mouth but not too much lest her stomach decide to heave.

With hands that trembled for more than one reason, she used the water to rinse herself. Feeling marginally better, she felt around the room until she found clothing, recognizing the plain cotton chemise her sister-in-law Hannah had made for her. She slipped it on like a suit of armor, no longer naked and vulnerable.

Olivia sat on the floor with her back to the wall. She wasn’t the same person who had left home two days earlier. There was no doubt in her mind that she would change because of her decision. However, waking up in a hotel room naked with the ranger who drove her mad in every which way, was not what she expected.

“Liv?” His husky voice made her heart hiccup. Now wasn’t the time to develop feelings for the cold man of the law.

“I’m here.” If he was as naked as she’d been, she didn’t want him to jump out of bed.

“What are you doing?” The bed creaked as she saw him rise in the gloom to a sitting position.

“Just sitting and thinking.” How could she explain to him that she was contemplating just how much she’d lost control of herself. She was not this person, not at all. Brody had turned her into a loose, foolish woman with no regard for consequences.

“Oh.” There was a short pause. “Do you want me to sit with you?”

Would she invite him to her spot on the floor? Did she have a choice?

“Yes.” She answered before she had time to think about why she wanted him there.

The bedclothes rustled and she heard him walk toward her, curse when he stubbed his toe and pull on what she thought were his britches. When he sat down beside her, he pulled a blanket up over both of them.

To her dismay, tears pricked her eyes at the gesture. She didn’t want to think Brody Armstrong was a gentleman. He was a temporary presence in her life, not the man she wanted to love.

“It’s chilly down here.”

She couldn’t answer yet so she just nodded, not caring if he could see her in the darkness.

He slid his arm around her and she snuggled against his bare chest. It surprised her that she felt safe and comfortable with him. Just hours earlier they had been fighting and snapping like two dogs sizing each other up. Their time together had been nothing but one impossible situation after another. She had done things she had never done before, including killing two men.

She shivered at the memory and pressed closer, needing to feel his life, his heat. Brody was many things, but he was an honorable man, that much she would admit to herself. She needed him to find Benjy and she needed him for herself. That was a hard truth to accept, particularly considering just how shameless she’d behaved that day.

“I didn’t mean to get drunk,” she whispered.

“Yes, you did, but so did I.” He chuckled, its rumble making his chest vibrate against her ear. “We drank nearly half a bottle.”

“Oh, Lord. If my family knew.” She stopped that thought before it went any further. Right now was about her and Brody, no one else.

“They never will unless you decide to tell them.” He sounded as exhausted as she felt.

“Brody?”

“Hmm?”

“I will find Benjy, no matter what.” She hadn’t come this far only to be pushed aside by her own stupidity or his sideways gallantry.

“I know you will.” He sighed heavily. “It will be dangerous. We have to disguise ourselves.”

She hadn’t thought that far ahead but he was right. There wasn’t a chance she would be mistaken for a Mexican with her light complexion and freckles.

“You won’t leave me behind, will you?” She ran her fingers through the crisp hairs on his chest, loving the warmth of his body and the way it felt comfortable to be there at his side. He was quiet for too long. “Brody?”

“No, but I should. Your brother is going to kill me.”

She smiled against his chest. “No, he won’t. I’ll protect you.”

He chuckled again. “Somehow I believe you will.”

The craziness of the day before slid away and she closed her eyes, this time giving herself over to sleep, knowing whose embrace she was in.

The next time Olivia opened her eyes, the sun was streaming through the same window the moon had graced the night before. It was past sunrise already and she slept on the floor cuddled up with Brody Armstrong.

She couldn’t have thought of a stranger situation.

“My arm’s asleep.” His sleep-tinged voice surprised her. “Can you move off it?”

Oh, yes, that was the ranger for sure.

Olivia shifted away from him and got to her knees. Her body felt as though she’d been beaten with sticks, sore and bruised. After riding for so long, then engaging in other activities twice in two days, well, she deserved to be sore. Then sleeping on the floor just made it all worse.

Why was she on the floor anyway? There was a perfectly good bed, yet she had chosen the floor, away from the man she couldn’t stop being with. And he’d followed her, held her while she slept.