Cowboy Resurrection: Cowboy Cocktail, Book 2 (7 page)

She shook her head. “They want me to marry a Sikh guy and start a family. According to them, I should’ve started a long, long time ago.”

“And you? What do you want?”

A bright blue jay landed at the water’s edge, took a drink and flew noisily into the trees. Monica watched it go. “Since I broke up with my ex, there’s been no one serious. Mostly one-night stands—my mother would throw me off a cliff if she knew.” She paused. “I guess if the right guy came along, I might consider getting married. But I try not to think about it.”

He understood what she was saying. He’d put marriage out of his mind a long time ago. Been there, done that. Had the ugly-ass scars to prove it. “What else do you want?”

“I want to bail my family out,” she said with a sigh. “The motel was a bad idea, but they’re not letting go. The rodeo might help them at least break even, and if it becomes an annual event, they might even turn a profit in two or three years.”

Dean nodded slowly. He’d gotten her all wrong. She wasn’t self-involved. Just the opposite. She was taking care of her family.

With the back of his knuckle, he reached forward and stroked her arm from her shoulder to her wrist. “And what else do you want?”

When she smiled at him, he realized he wanted to be the kind of man who was worthy of a smile like that. “I have a job waiting for me in Silicon Valley,” she said, leaning forward as though she were sharing a secret with him. “It’s a start-up. I’d be director of marketing. It’s a huge promotion. A big raise. The sooner I can get out there, the better.”

“Sounds like you have everything planned out.”

“They’re keeping the job open for me. I’m planning to make my getaway right after the rodeo. After all the numbers are in.” She looked at him. “What about you? Do you think you’ll find your way back to the circuit?”

“Hard to say.” He left it at that.

She frowned. “You know, the laconic-cowboy act is getting kind of tiresome. Does that work with most people?”

“Most
normal
people, sure,” he said. “And I’m not trying to hide anything from you. Here. Let me prove it. Ask me anything.”

The sly look in her eyes gave him pause. “Anything?”

He stuck to his guns. “Yup.”

“Okay.” She sat up and faced him. “How many women have you slept with?”

Shit.
He took a sip of beer to gather his thoughts. “That’s what you open with? Goddamn.”

“You said to ask you anything.” She raised her eyebrows. “Well?”

“Don’t rush me.” He dragged a hand through his still-damp hair. “Let’s see. I’m kind of an old geezer now, and I started early, so you need to take that into account. Then I was with my ex-wife, four years, just her. After her, free-for-all. I’ve been slowing down in the last few years.”

“You’re stalling.”

“That’s ’cuz it’s just a number,” he said. “Doesn’t mean good sex, for one.”

“But you’re a superstar. I thought you’d be able to skim off the cream of the crop.”

He shrugged. “Depends on what you mean by ‘good sex’. And where you are in your life when you need it.”

With a wicked grin, she reached forward and stroked his chest and abs. Her hands lingered on his scars. “So what’s good sex to you?” she asked.

“This.” He raked his eyes up and down her naked body. “This is some damn fine sex.”

“Be serious.”

“I
am
serious.” He lay back down and put his hands behind his head. It was easier to say some things when he wasn’t looking directly at her. “Some days…I wake up. I can’t stand the sight of myself. I think about the ways I’ve fallen short. The people I’ve let down. The people I’ve hurt. But when you find someone you can talk to…I don’t know. Things seem less lonely. Just a little less…imperfect.”

Monica was quiet for a moment, but she hadn’t stopped stroking his chest. The feeling of her cool, smooth hands on him made him go half-staff almost without his realizing it.

“That’s your problem right there, cowboy,” she said at last.

“What?”

“You’re chasing perfection,” she said. “There’s no such thing. Only imperfection. Beauty in imperfection, that’s the best we can hope to find.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That and someone to talk to.”

“And sex.”

He smiled. “Damn fine sex.”

She slapped his thigh gently. “You know, you didn’t answer my question.”

“The answer’ed scare you off, princess.”

“I don’t scare easily.”

“Bullshit.” He laughed. “You’re scared of mud under your feet.”

She looked up at him like he hung the moon right after he’d kicked her dog. He was fascinated by the way emotions played across her face like stage actors who weren’t quite sure of their cues.

“But I’m not scared of you,” she whispered.

“Don’t I know it,” he said, taking her in his arms again.

* * * * *

They stopped in Lake Isabella for tacos and Cokes. When they got back into the truck and started for Oleander, it was nearly six o’clock. Slapping Dean away as he kissed her neck and tried to distract her, Monica left a message for the sheriff asking him to hang on to the sign mock-ups until Monday.

“I’m not taking you home.” Dean was sunburned, happy and randy as a rutting bull. “I’m checking us into a motel for the night.”

“I’m staying with my parents,” she said. “I can’t just wander off for the night without there being retribution. Recriminations. Public shaming.”

“You’re thirty-two years old!”

“Yeah, thanks for reminding me,” she said, laughing. “But I’m living at home now. Mommy’s rules.
Papa ji
’s curfew.”

They drove down the road a few minutes while Dean brainstormed ideas. “I’ve got it. Take out your phone. Call them and tell them this clown drank too much bourbon at Bo Walker’s ranch and the old man’s putting us up for the night—separate rooms, of course. His wife is there. She’s making us a chicken potpie. It’s really tasty. Can’t say no. It’d be rude.”

“You want me to lie to my parents?” she said, raising her eyebrow at him.

“
Lie
is a mighty strong word,” he said. “I want you to protect their delicate sensibilities.”

The business hotel in Bakersfield was newly remodeled, as sterile and clean as a blank sheet of paper. After a quick stop at the drugstore across the street, Dean checked them in, grabbed Monica out of the truck and kissed her the entire elevator ride up to the fourth floor.

“Ain’t gonna be nothing left of you in the morning but that pretty face and a great, big satisfied smile,” he whispered into her ear.

She kissed his neck. “I can’t wait.” She reached behind him and squeezed his ass hard as the elevator bell dinged.

As soon as the door of the hotel room clicked shut, they fell on each other, grabbing at each other’s clothes. Dean sat on the bed and Monica pulled off his boots; he wrapped his arm around her waist and spun her onto the mattress, stripping off her jeans as she giggled. In a heartbeat, they were naked, panting and staring at each other like wolves.

“Come on,” he said, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder as she squealed. “Let’s get this polliwog water off.”

She contented herself with cussing him out and spanking his butt while he turned on the water in the shower. He put her in the bathtub and stepped in with her, pulling the curtain closed behind him. As steam filled the tiny room, he kept his eyes on hers as he poured shampoo into his hands. He lathered up her long black hair, working the white foam with his fingers and rinsing it all away. She rubbed the tiny bar of hotel soap between her palms and ran her hands all over his body, dragging her fingertips through his chest hair, over his abs and down over his hard-on. She gave him a few healthy pumps, and when he was as stiff as a baseball bat, she knelt down, reached between his legs and soaped up his balls.

“I hope you thank God every day for what you’ve got going on down here,” she said. “This is the biggest dick I’ve ever seen.” She reached behind him and slipped her soapy fingers up and down his ass crack.

He whooped softly. “You wicked little thing.”

She rinsed him off, took hold of his cock with a sweet two-handed overhand grip and began to work him hard. As he looked down at her, she locked eyes with him and slipped the head of his cock into her pretty mouth. Her lips stretched into a tight O around him. When she began to suck him in rhythm with her strokes, he nearly slipped backwards and slammed his head into the tile wall.

He was no stranger to blowjobs. But this one was in a league all its own. Drunk with pleasure, Dean grabbed on to the showerhead for balance and held on.

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before closing them. Droplets of water stuck to her long dark eyelashes. As she slid her head down and up his shaft, she tightened her grip on the base of his cock and used her tongue to lash at the thick ridge on the underside of his dick. The rhythm was hypnotic, broken only by the fact that she was taking him deeper and deeper with each pull. She went down on him so long and so hard, motes began to swim in his eyes. When his dick knocked against the back of her throat, he took her wrists gently and pulled himself from her mouth.

“You can’t expect me to hold back if you do things like that, princess.” There was a tightness in his voice that he hadn’t heard before.

Carefully, he helped her to her feet and kissed her. He wrapped his hands around her hair and pulled her head back slightly. The angle opened her up, and he probed her magical mouth with his tongue as she moaned and stroked his back.

The hot water had filled the bathroom with steam. Dean felt like he was wrapped up in a cloud of pure pleasure, like he had died and floated up to the version of heaven he’d always hoped for.

He reached down and stroked her slick breasts. Droplets clung to the tips of her nipples. When he saw this, Dean’s balls tightened. He imagined coming all over those magnificent tits, his white come painting her skin in thick, hot drops.

With a sharp intake of breath, he reached behind her and turned off the water.

“Bedtime, princess,” he said.

She wrapped her hair in a white towel and let him carry her back to the bed. Their clothes were scattered all over the hotel room. He had dropped the paper bag from the drugstore on the ground right by the door.

“What’s in there?” she asked, raising herself up on her elbows.

He picked up the bag and, keeping his eyes on her, took out the contents one by one. He placed each item in a line on the chest of drawers.

A bottle of lube. Extra large.

A box of condoms, thirty-six count. Extra large.

Two bottles of Gatorade. Orange and lemon-lime. Extra large.

She laughed and held out her arms. “Come here.”

They made out and goofed off until daylight faded to dark blue. Monica turned on the bedside lamp. Dean lay back, blinking at her as she stood up and removed the towel from her hair. She opened the box of condoms, pulled one out and picked up the bottle of lube. Grinning, she climbed back into bed with him. When he tried to go down on her, she wiggled away.

“Nope,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the mouth. “This is a two-way street, cowboy. It’s my turn.”

Her cheeks were rosy as she bent down and grabbed the base of his dick. His shaft grew and tightened in her pretty, dark hand; his cockhead swelled as she slid it into her mouth. He shut his eyes. Her damp hair fell heavy and cool over his stomach. She flicked her tongue against the tip of his cock and he jerked against the mattress.

When he started to throb, she removed him with a soft pop, straddled his legs and opened the condom. She rolled it on him, uncapped the bottle of lube and drizzled some on him like his dick was an ice-cream sundae.

“I like it this way,” she said softly.

All he could manage was a grunt.

Gently, she rubbed the lube all over the rubber with her fingertips. She lifted herself up, grabbed his cock and worked him into her tight pussy, hissing softly between her teeth as her body strained to accommodate him. When he was halfway in, she moved her hips a little, front and back, stretching herself out as she shut her eyes tight and planted her hands flat against his chest for balance.

Dean stared, transfixed. The women who wandered into his bed usually made love like porn stars—all posing and vamping and cartoonish moaning and baby talk. They rarely if ever picked up on his cues about what actually turned him on. Most of them were so concerned with their own pleasure that he often felt used afterwards, as though the only reason they’d wanted to sleep with him was to brag to their friends they’d bagged a rodeo cowboy.

Well, sort of a cowboy—a rodeo clown. Close enough.

But Monica was different. Sweet and unguarded, she wanted to please him. She was passionate and hungry and even a little awkward. She wasn’t concerned with her appearance in bed. Instead of worrying about how her hair or makeup looked, about how her body bent or twisted or curved, she gave herself completely to him and to their shared pleasure, totally unselfconscious and hornier than an alley cat in heat.

He reached up and combed her hair back with both his hands. She held on to his forearms and let her weight drag her down onto his cock as far as she could go. Together they shut their eyes and moaned at the onslaught of pleasure, at the deep penetration of his body into hers. Her pussy was gloriously tight. It took all of Dean’s powers of control not to blow his load right then and there.

Her eyes fluttered open and latched on to his. Dean swiped his thumb slowly across her mouth, pressing the pad against her plum-colored lower lip. He dragged her lip down gently, exposing her pretty lower teeth.

“Open,” he whispered.

The smooth, tight muscles of her pussy crushed his cock as he slid his thumb into her mouth. After she sucked it, staring him down with eyes as dark as coal, he plucked it from her lips, reached down and began to draw tiny circles on her hard little clit.

She whimpered, placed her hands on his thighs and leaned back, popping her hips forward slightly and showing him where his dick was buried deep between the rosy folds of her sex.