Cowboy Double-Decker (2 page)

Bryan could read lips well enough to recognize the silent word she swore. Great idea—mouth the word to get rid of frustration but not say anything a kid could learn.

“No worries, you can share my room,” he said.

“This room is mine, mister. My name’s Michaela. The hotel must think we’re ‘Bry and Mike.’ But I got here first, so it’s mine.”

Michaela? Bryan inhaled deeply, wrinkling his nose at the reminder of Scotty’s problem. This lovely
single
woman shared his one-bedroom suite? His libido shot from standby mode to fully operational. He shuffled his feet, glad he always wore loose jeans under his chaps during long rides. He grinned down at her, still dangling the boy to cover the hard reason for his smile. He sauntered closer, doing bicep curls with the chuckling kid. She clutched the towel tight, lifting her chest. Not much there, but the fabric shifted to reveal a tempting slice of smooth white thigh. Adam was usually a breast and ass man. Right now, he was all about legs. Long legs wrapped around his hips, holding him tight inside her.

“Put Scotty down and get out of my room.”

“
Our
room.” He stopped ten feet away, careful not to crowd her.

He gave her his slow rodeo cowboy smile, the one suggesting he
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wanted to get to know her way better. “No worries, darlin', I don’t snore.”

With that white skin and those freckles, was she a natural redhead? He’d count each freckle, tracing between them with his tongue, from throat to breast to thigh to—

“I don’t care if you snore. This is
my
room. Find somewhere else.”

Her eyes flickered over him for a moment. She swallowed and bit her lip. Her full, luscious lips.

“Hotel’s overbooked. I’m staying right here.”

“Don’t bet on it, buster. I’m straightening this out as soon as I’m dressed.”

“Don’t bother on my account. You look mighty fine just like that.” He wanted a quiet, dainty wife with lots of curves, but he’d take whatever he could get for a weekend, no matter how cantankerous.

She gritted her teeth, lower lip thrust out like Evie when she didn’t get her way. The lady had good reason to be afraid, finding a strange man holding her baby while she wore only a towel. But she had gumption, snarling like a wide-horned cow determined to escape the lasso. She didn’t know he’d won a silver buckle for steer wrestling.

Nothing escaped him. Once he threw the rope, it was only a matter of time before he had the animal down and hog-tied. Hmm, a bit of light bondage might be just what she needed.

“You, sir, are no gentleman!”

“Nope. And I haven’t slept in a decent bed in days.” He lowered his voice to the sexy drawl he used as a teenager to get the buckle bunnies on the rodeo circuit stirred up. “Or stayed awake and shared one for months. But my luck just improved.”

“You can’t stay here—”

“Lady,” he said, giving up hot seduction for cold reality, “the hotel was overbooked before that last van of tourists unloaded. We’re stuck with the situation for tonight. You’ll just have to deal with it.”

She gaped at him, quivering with indignation. He didn’t think it was need for him. Not yet.

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“Darlin’, I need a shower, food, and sleep.”
And sex.
“Trade you the stinky kid for the shower.” He jiggled Scotty, trying to look sincere, harmless, and interested all at the same time.

“Scotty’s not stinky!”

“Lady, right now he’s higher than a manure pile in July.”

Bryan fanned him forward and back in a wide arc, Scotty chortling at the game. Michaela wrinkled her nose, automatically reaching for the boy when Bryan held him out. Her towel slid an inch before she realized her mistake, slapped her hands to her chest to hold it up, and glared. His zipper, already tight, pushed back against his swelling need like the Hoover dam.

Damn, and he’d been looking forward to a
hot
shower!

A pink flush rose above her towel. Did it go south as well? Were her nipples pink, coral, or rose, like Candy’s had turned after the twins were born?

“That was a cheap trick, mister. Put Scotty in his playpen so I can pick him up without you ogling me.”

She pressed her lips together like a prissy schoolmarm, but the way her nostrils flared and cheeks flushed, he bet she’d be wild in bed. He had two nights to find out. No matter her words, he could read her body’s silent demand. She fought it, but he’d bedded enough women in his wild rodeo and college days to know when one was aroused even if she didn’t want to be. He wouldn’t push her, but he’d do one hell of a lot of encouraging.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” He returned to the playpen, gave Scotty one last jiggle, and set him down inside the bars. “Your ma’s not even wearing knickers,” he muttered. When he stood, the boy immediately set up a howl, stomping on his toys in a vain effort to escape. “I know, buddy. I’d rather be snuggled up to her, too.”

He turned back to the frowning woman, exhaustion hitting hard.

“Lady, I’m tired, sore, dirty, and hungry. Thanks to you, I’m also horny as hell.” Her sudden intake of breath forced a groan out of him.

“Jeez, lady, that doesn’t help!”

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“What?” She flicked her eyes to Scotty, still trying to climb out, his demands at full volume.

“A half-naked woman inhaling deep enough to pop her skimpy towel off!”

She clutched it even tighter, her blush now closer to a deep rose.

With the glint in her eye, he wasn’t sure if the color was due to embarrassment, anger, or lust.

“Tough,” she snarled. “Deal with it.”

Anger. Damn. But at least it proved she had passion.

“Turn your back while I pick up Scotty,” she demanded.

She shuffled forward with baby steps so the towel wouldn’t gape.

When he looked closer, he saw dark lines under her eyes, her pale skin emphasizing the evidence of exhaustion. How far had she travelled to get here? Dragging a kid along would ramp up the misery ten-fold. He turned his back to look out the window so she could bend over in privacy.

A gentleman wouldn’t flick his eyes to the mirror. But he was a horny, red-blooded cowboy. It had been two months since he last slid into Candy’s hot, slick channel and roared his triumph as she bucked under him.

Two wasted months searching for a wife who’d make him the center of her world. He wanted a wife who needed him, depended on him to make her life whole. She’d wait for him every night when he came home tired and sore. She’d listen to him, sooth him, love him, and share him with Adam and Candy. They’d raise their children together on the Double R ranch.

While he'd never have the love his partner shared with Candy, he'd have what he needed without too much risk. He’d do everything his father had not, protecting and providing for his family.

He thought he found a sweet, shy gal who looked at him with adoration. Until he explained he wanted a polyamory marriage. She slapped his face, dumped her dinner in his lap, and stormed out of the restaurant.

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He wouldn’t waste his time dating again. He’d use the Internet to find a few wifely prospects, telling them right off what he wanted.

Worst they could say was
hell, no, cowboy!
And who knew, he just might get a yes. But that was for the future.

Dallying the weekend with this redhead would ease his need.

From what he’d seen so far, the career woman was everything he didn’t want, including the small, smelly baggage she carried with her.

If she wanted a bit of fun, he was all ready to go. If he got her hot and bothered enough, she might crash through those prissy barriers and go for what they both wanted. Though Ms. Prim on the surface, she smoldered underneath. He’d fan her embers and see if she’d share his fire.

If she refused, he’d make damn sure she was just as horny.

When she picked up the kid he turned, winking at Scotty. The boy clutched her red-gold curls and grinned over her back. Bryan watched her saucy butt sway all the way to the bedroom.

“God gave women breasts to admire,” he murmured in

appreciation, “and a heart-shaped ass as a consolation when they walk away. Mmm-mmm-mmm.”

First he needed a shower, then food. He’d clean up his bike and cover it for the night before making his appearance at the meet-and-greet. Gary Vale, his college roommate and conference organizer, called on him when the environmental engineer broke his leg tripping over his daughter’s skateboard. Since Utah was on the way from New Orleans to his Montana ranch, he agreed to fill in as instructor.

Thinking of his plan of attack, he unbuckled and unzipped his leather chaps, sitting down to take off his heavy boots. He carefully eased his jeans over his third leg, the beast eager for action. If he didn’t get into a cold shower soon he’d become another victim of spontaneous combustion syndrome.

“Sorry, my man,” he said to his stiff pole. “We’re S.O.L for now.

But tonight we’ll share a room with that hot woman and I feel lucky.”

He followed his nodding cock to the bathroom, whistling for the first time in months.

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Michaela Jones set Scotty on the carpet and leaned her back against the closed bedroom door. Now that she was relatively safe, she trembled and gasped for breath. She hugged her elbows, holding the towel snug. The man outside her door, the one who demanded to share her hotel room, was a big, loud, hard-fisted man. Just like Uncle Wesley. And he made it very clear he wanted her.

The problem was, her betraying body agreed with him.

She scrabbled around for something to jam under the door since there was no lock and the furniture was too heavy to move. She grabbed the jeans she’d worn since Tuesday and stuffed the fabric of one leg in the gap between the door and carpet. That, at least, would slow him down.

She sat back and exhaled.

Breathe slow and low to let your body calm. After everything
you’ve been through, you can deal with this
.

Once she had a door between his dark laser eyes and her skimpy towel, she could relax and think more clearly.

When she first saw him, standing with his back to her and holding Scotty up to the window, she thought he was Freddie, come to steal her baby. She gave a silent snort. Not only would that conceited idiot never touch a smelly baby, the tall, muscular biker knew how to hold a busy toddler. His hands were so big his long fingers almost wrapped around Scotty’s chest.

Biker boy was big and was probably loud when he yelled, but he wasn’t her brutal uncle or Freddie, Scottie’s sperm donor. The big man held her son gently, but with strength and confidence. He hadn’t
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responded to her bravado with violence or with sneers and put-downs.

Instead, he tossed her giggling boy in the air and looked at her as if she were a juicy steak and he’d been surviving on bread and water for far too long. Her skin tingled from the way his eyes caressed her.

Had any man
ever
looked at her like that?

She rolled her eyes and stood up. Nope. The only man to see her half-naked was Freddie. She’d been a shy virgin, taught by her aunt that providing sex was the price you paid for a man caring for you.

She was so naive, he suckered her in with promises of love and forever. Turned out

“forever” meant the end of the semester.

The roar of a shower reminded her of the man in the bathroom.

Did his wide chest have curls to run fingers through? At five-foot-ten, Freddie was only an inch taller than she. Built like the Dough Boy but expensively dressed to conceal it, he attracted her because she didn’t see him as a threat. He wasn't loud or physically imposing, and he never raised a hand to her.

She hadn’t realized emotional damage hurt far more than her uncle’s bruises. Freddie’s disgust at her naive belief he loved her just because he said so repeatedly, shattered her. Love was just a word a man used to get what he wanted. She was still angry at herself for breaking her heart over the pasty-faced slug.

Biker boy was nothing like any man she’d been near before. He looked like a cowboy, his face and hands tanned by working in the sun. His shirt hid the wide shoulders and chest, but she couldn’t miss the way his arm muscles flexed as he easily held her sturdy twelve–

month-old son. He tried to use Scotty to hide the part of his blue jeans not covered by black leather chaps, but she noticed the bulge of interest. He must be really desperate to want someone like her.

But then, she was pretty desperate, too. Her body had never reacted to a man like this. She glanced down at the stiff nipples pressing against the rough fabric of her towel. She was hotter from a few minutes of that man’s eyes than all those months of horrid sex
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with Freddy. And the way his chaps curved to frame his faded blue jeans front and center? She gulped, forcing deep breaths into her lungs. If his eyes did that to her, what would the rest of him do?

Could she? Would he?

No one out here knew her or cared who she slept with. As long as the instructor and rest of the class thought he slept on the couch due to a problem with the hotel, what harm could there be in her indulging in a bit of adult fun? She had no heart to break, would never see him again. Why not use him for two nights? Prove to herself that she could enjoy sex with someone less selfish than Freddie?

She pushed herself away from the door and stood straight.

Enough! If it happened, so be it. She had more important things on her mind. Not only was she a single mom without a family, she was now unemployed. She had to keep her priorities straight, and Scotty came first. Always. She smiled at her reason for living, busy throwing his toys out of the basket. He hated to be confined, and the drive had been hard on both of them. Jamming the near-hysterical child into his battered car seat after lunch today was one of the hardest things she’d done. His sobs for the next twenty miles had almost killed her. But they made it to Utah. Intact, on time, and not quite broke.