Long Road Home (21 page)

“If I’m interrupting something, I can leave,” she said.

Okay. That was a joke. Being a big, bad, Marine Special Ops Ranger, Sawyer wasn’t used to women laughing at him in what hopefully was going to turn out to be a foreplay situation. But this was Austin. Who seemed to have suddenly developed a sexy, bad-girl twin.

“No.” He must’ve swallowed his tongue because he was having trouble getting any words out. “Just let me . . .” He waved his arm in the direction of the bedroom. “Go get some . . .”

Maybe he was having a stroke. His grandfather had suffered a TIA a few years ago when Sawyer had been home for Christmas, and the old man’s thoughts and speech had been messed up for a couple days.

“Underwear?” she asked with a wickedly arched brow. Hot damn, it looked as if he actually was finally going to get lucky with the woman of his dreams. Which was both amazing and terrifying at the same time.
Do. Not. Screw. This. Up.

“Yeah. I’ll, uh, be right back.” Geez, wasn’t he about as smooth as Scott Eastwood? “Uh, you want to come in?”

“Thanks.” She gave him an
I know you want me
smile that had his soldier standing up to salute again.

Growing up, Sawyer had gone skinny-dipping with his brothers and pals in the river and lake. He’d played sports and could snap towels in the locker room with the best of them in high school. He’d been in the Marines and had hot bunked on aircraft carriers. He’d never given a thought about being naked around another man or, for that matter, any female he was involved with. Until now.

He probably set a world speed record for the amount of time it took him to yank on some jeans, pull a gray T-shirt over his head, and return to the living room, where she was standing there, looking good enough to lick in a pair of jeans and a snug, strawberry-pink T-shirt that read
Boots, class, and a little sass. That’s what cowgirls are made of
.

“I’m sorry if I got you up,” she said.

“I already was.” Okay, maybe that was an inappropriate response. He definitely needed to work on his social skills. Open mouth, insert boot. “I was about to get a beer. You want something?”

“You probably don’t have any wine.”

“Sorry.” And why hadn’t he or his brothers thought of that while shopping? He’d bet his best trophy buckle that Cooper had kept it on hand when he was going out with Rachel.

“That’s okay. I wouldn’t turn down a beer.”

She followed him into the kitchen.

“Jenna and Layla did an amazing job with this place,” she said. “And just in time, because if everything goes well, the kids could be moving in by next week.”

“Into the ranch house,” he clarified. He was really digging her shirt. Especially since the walk over from the house must’ve been really chilly.

“True. But I’ll bet they’ll be wanting sleepovers with you. Especially Jack. Sophie may be a bit of a problem, being how she’s crushing badly on you.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She sighed as she took the bottle he handed her. “For a really smart man, Sawyer Murphy, you can sometimes be a bit dense when it comes to the female of the species.”

He tilted his bottle toward her. “You’ll be getting no argument from me on that one. As hard as it’ll probably be for them to be uprooted yet again, getting settled into a permanent home will be a good thing.”

“It will,” she agreed. She took another drink of the beer, and just looking at her pink lips on the long neck of the brown bottle had Sawyer thinking things that weren’t going to be conducive to having a conversation considering whatever blood was left in his head was rapidly racing south. “I belong to a book club.”

“Okay.” He didn’t get where she was going with that comment, but wasn’t going to overthink anything that had her sitting here perched on a stool in his cabin. Even better would be if she were in his bed. On the floor. Against the wall. And that was just for starters.

“We had our last meeting at the Bar M. When we were talking about Heather’s anniversary trip, she and Rachel were laughing about kids being the ultimate birth control.”

“I imagine that’s probably true.”

“So.” She put her bottle on the counter, slid off the stool, went over to him, lifted her arms, and linked her fingers together around his neck. “I was thinking, with Lexi flying in tomorrow from Vegas, then the funeral, then Jack and Sophie moving into the ranch house, that this may be one of the few nights we’re going to have a chance to be alone for a while.”

“It could be.”

“And I know we agreed that the wisest plan would be to take things slow—”

“That was pretty much
your
idea.” He’d been all for that hot, sweaty sex suggestion.

“True. Because I was trying not to be impulsive. Which hasn’t worked out real well for me in the past.”

This time, instead of retreating as he had on her back porch, Sawyer stayed right where he was. His hands moved to her waist and drew her even closer.

“Did you come over here to seduce me, Austin Merrill?”

“If you have to ask, I must not be doing it right.” Color flooded into her cheeks as she tried to pull away. “I’m sorry, this was a mistake.”

Sawyer was not about to let her get away. Not this time. “It’s not a mistake. And, for the record, it’s also not impulsive. We’ve known each other all our lives,” he reminded her. “There’s even a photo in Gram’s family album of the two of us, naked as newborn jaybirds, being bathed together in the Bar M’s farm kitchen sink.”

“That photo would get you put in Facebook jail if you tried to post it these days,” she said with a soft laugh.

“Probably. But you know, I wouldn’t mind recreating it. Especially since I can’t remember it.”

“What were we? Six months old?”

“Probably thereabouts.” He could feel her heart beating. Felt his own quicken to match its pace.

“So, of course you wouldn’t. Remember, that is.”

“All the more reason to create a new memory.”

“We wouldn’t fit in the sink.”

“No. But I
do
have a racy red claw-footed tub.”

“Brody found that when he updated the cabin a few years ago to add an extra bedroom for Jim and Janet’s youngest. It’s a true original he unearthed in a Jacksonville Victorian that was being demolished to make way for some movie star’s stupid idea of a log cabin mansion.”

“Hooray for Hollywood.”

“Dad accused us of having eaten locoweed. But Janet loved it.”

His hands slid down and cupped her very fine butt. Another cool thing about cowgirls—riding those thousand-pound horses gave them terrific muscle tone. “I’ll bet Jim did, too.”

He nipped at her earlobe. “The same way I like a cowgirl with sass.” Damn if she didn’t smell like a piña colada, which brought up tumbling her not in a hayloft but in the surf on some moon-spangled beach. And since it was his fantasy, there were no worries about getting sand in uncomfortable places.

His hand slid beneath the pink T-shirt, over her silky-smooth skin to cup her bare breast. She was soft. Sweet, and far from safe. But Sawyer was fed up with being safe where this woman was concerned.

“I want you,” he said, lifting her up so her legs wrapped around his waist. “So much it aches. But not here. And not fast. I’ve been waiting more than half my life to have you, Austin Merrill, and I’m damn well going to take my time.”

She wiggled against his groin in a way that had him worried he might have exaggerated his staying power. “What if I want you fast and hard?”

“Next time,” he said, tormenting them both by rubbing her even harder against him. After making it down the hall without a premature blastoff, he tossed her down on the bed, where she bounced. Twice.

“Ooh,” she said, long legs splayed as she looked up at him. “That’s definitely hot, sexy Alpha male behavior.” She went up on her knees and slipped her hands beneath his rumpled gray T-shirt. “You know that book club I told you about?”

“Yeah.” He sucked in a breath as her fingers slid beneath the waist of his Wranglers. Seriously? She was going to talk about a frigging book club
now
?

“Jenna put together a collection of novels for me to read.”

“Okay.”

“Here’s the thing.” With a dexterity that allowed her to tie a rope and mend a bridle, she unfastened the metal button at his waist and got busy on his zipper. “They were erotic romance novels.”

One more centimeter and he’d lose it. He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from both their bodies to keep them out of trouble. “So, you’re into gazillionaires with handcuffs?”

Maybe this wasn’t going to be as straightforward as he’d thought. And maybe he should’ve read one of those damn books when nearly every guy in his unit was passing them around. When you were deployed in strictly religious countries that banned
Penthouse
, a guy had to get his porn where he could find it.

“No.” She bit her bottom lip as she appeared to be thinking that over. “I think a billionaire’s hands would be too soft. And anyone can get buff in some fancy city gym.”

Her speculative gaze moved over him, from the top of his head down to his thighs, where the rest of her view was blocked by the mattress. “My fantasies run more toward muscles earned the old-fashioned way. By hard, manly work. A cowboy with big guns who knows how to use his rough, calloused hands.”

Austin had always been as sweet as pie. And surprisingly innocent for a girl who grew up in breeding barns. In all his years of imagining this moment, he’d been gentle, tender, needing to be careful and make their first time together memorable.

But now, thanks to River’s Bend’s bookseller, he decided to change directions.

“New plan.”

“Oh? And what would that be?” Her voice was breathless and vibrating with anticipation.

He let go of her long enough to yank his shirt over his head and shuck the jeans. “You, Austin Merrill, cowgirl with sass, are going to save a horse.” When she lifted her arms, he knew she expected him to pull her shirt over her head.

Which was why he grabbed hold of the V-neck and ripped it down the front, exposing pert, rosy-tipped breasts. “And ride yourself a cowboy.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. Then, hot damn, licked her lips.

With every atom in his body screaming for release, her jeans went next, which took more time because, as tight as they were, it involved a lot of yanking on his part and wiggling on hers to get them down her legs to where they—damn—got stopped by her red Tony Lamas.

Betting that Mr. Grey guy had never run into this roadblock, Sawyer put her foot between his legs, risking a future generation of Murphys, and pulled first one boot off, then the other, leaving her clad only in a pair of pink-and-red caterpillar stripped socks. Which, since he found them strangely hot, he decided to leave on. For a while.

“Okay.” The mattress sighed as he knelt over her, his knees on either side of her long, smooth thighs. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to touch you.”

“Mmm.” She closed her eyes and arched her back like a sleek cat waiting to be stroked.

“But you’re going to tell me where.”

“What?” Her eyes flew open. He might be willing to play along with her big, bad controlling alpha male fantasy, but his fantasy involved full participation on both their parts.

“This is our first time.” He skimmed a hand down her side. “I need to know what you want.” The other side, his knuckles just brushing against her breast. “What you enjoy.”

“I can’t.” She tossed her head. “I’ve never . . . Do you always talk while you’re having sex?”

“Not as a rule. But this is different. Because you’re different.” He circled the rosy areola with the tip of a fingernail. “Special.” She was making that low humming sound again. “Do you like that?”

“You know I do.”

“There you go.” He moved to the other breast. “Now, open your eyes and look at me. I want to watch you while I touch you.”

Her eyes, heavy-lidded now, were becoming unfocused, but she did as instructed. “Now, tell me what needs attention next.”

She clasped his wrist and tried to move his hand. But while years of training and riding thousand-pound horses had made her strong, he was stronger. “Tell me.”

He had to tighten his thighs and struggle for control as she licked her lips. “I want you to touch my nipple, dammit.”

“Anything to oblige a lady.” His smile was as slow as his hands as he did exactly that. Brushing them with a fingertip at first, then pinching them just enough to draw a slight gasp from between those moist lips.

“And now, I’m going to taste you. And because I want to for my own selfish pleasure as much as yours, I’m not even going to make you beg.”

“As if you could,” she managed as he lowered his head and closed his lips around a taut pink bud.

“You’ve always had spunk,” he said, his words reverberating against that silky piña colada flesh. “It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you.”

His teeth closed down, just enough to draw another of those soft and sexy gasps. She arched her back again as he moved back to the other. Then, when she was going limp beneath him, he lay down beside her and began moving his hand down her body, tracing figure eights over her torso. Which, he noted, had abs a Marine boot camp drill sergeant would be proud of.

“Lower,” she moaned. Her long, lean, gorgeously buff body was practically doing a horizontal tango on the sheets.

When she reached again for his hands, again he caught hers, lifted them over her head, and closed her fingers around the bars of the headboard.

“Like I said, I’m going to touch you. Everywhere you ask. Like right now I’m going lower.” His fingers danced down to her stomach, which she sucked in at his touch. He paused again. “We agreed to take things slow, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to spend a long time with you telling me everywhere you want to be touched. Stroked. Licked.” His tongue made a wet swath over her mound while she actually purred. “Every bit . . . Not too hard. Not too soft.” He demonstrated. “Tell me if that’s just right?”

“Yes.” Her hands stayed where he’d instructed, but her legs fell open, offering more. Offering whatever he wanted. But more importantly, Sawyer reminded himself, what
she
wanted.