Texas Outlaws: Billy (7 page)

Yes, the man had one hell of a lasting touch. That’s what had her so worked up now. A kiss was just a kiss. Nothing special. Even if it had come from Billy Chisholm.

Especially because it had come from Billy Chisholm.

But the anticipation...

That she needed to get a grip on right now. Before he knocked on the door.

An orgasm. That’s what she needed right now. And so she did what any healthy, red-blooded female would do. She trailed her fingers south.

Oddly enough, it didn’t feel quite as good. Her hands weren’t callused, her skin raspy, or her touch quite as purposeful as...

She frowned and stepped up the action, moving lower to the tender flesh between her legs. She closed her eyes and tried to picture Brad Pitt à la
World War Z
. The guy was an oldie but a goody. Unfortunately, the image just wouldn’t come. Instead, she saw Billy looming over her, driving into her, and this time his moves were perfect. She came quickly, clamping down on her bottom lip to contain the scream and the screech and...
Aaah.

Delicious sensation gripped her for a few blessed moments and she slumped back, welcoming the satisfaction sure to follow. The rush of warmth she’d felt during their night together. The punch of
oomph
that had drained the tension from her body and left her limp and lifeless and completely sated.

If only.

Instead, she still felt edgy. Nervous. Needy.

Crazy.

She ignored the strange emptiness that lingered deep inside and focused on the positive; the clenching and unclenching between her legs, the trembling of her body, the numbness in her toes and the all-important fact that while she might still be waiting, she wasn’t waiting
and
wanting.

Okay, so maybe she still wanted him, but it wasn’t the all-consuming, rip-off-your-clothes-right-here-and-now want she’d felt five minutes ago.

This, she could handle.

10

S
ABRINA
HAD
BEEN
naked in front of her fair share of men, but none had ever made her stomach quiver or her hands tremble the way they were right now.

It was two hours later and Billy had just shown up at her motel room. He stood just inside the doorway while she faced him and tried to remember that this was no big deal.

He was no big deal.

Her fair share, remember? She’d been there and done that, but not once had she ever felt the way she did right now with Billy Chisholm’s powerful body filling up the doorway and his hot-as-a-Texas-summer gaze scorching her from her head to her toes and back up again.

He made her feel so excited and anxious and needy.

No.

She didn’t need Billy Chisholm, or any man like him. She simply wanted him physically. Right now. This moment.

Temporarily.

She forced her thoughts away from her fluttering stomach and shifted her attention to the six feet plus of warm male who hadn’t so much as budged an inch since he’d caught sight of her.

At least his feet hadn’t budged.

Her gaze lingered on the very prominent bulge beneath his jeans. Her throat went dry and she licked her lips before she could think better of it.

“Come over here and do that, sugar.”

Her gaze snapped to his, to the sexy slant of his lips and the knowing light in his eyes, and she was left to wonder if she’d just imagined the flash of raw desire she’d detected when he first entered the room. A look that told her she was much more than a convenient way to spend his unchecked lust.

Right. She was as far from Billy’s ideal as a woman could get, and he was far, far, far from hers. He wanted a one-night stand only.

“Well?” he drawled.

“Well, what?”

“Why don’t you stop giving your bottom lip all that attention and come over here and give me some?”

“Why don’t
you
come over here?”

He didn’t say a word. Just stared at her with those hot eyes and that ever-widening grin, as if she’d unknowingly delivered the punch line in some private joke of his.

“What are you thinking?” she demanded before she could stop herself.

“That you’re about the most stubborn woman I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet up with.”

“I am not stubborn, and for your information, it hasn’t been a picnic meeting up with you. You’re stubborn yourself, and infuriating and frustrating and irritating and—”

“You look good enough to pluck from a tree and eat nice and slow.” He stood barely a hand span from her. Filling up her line of vision. Drinking in all her oxygen. Zapping her common sense.

She licked her lips as her gaze riveted on his mouth. He really had a great mouth, with firm, sensual lips that made her skin itch and her insides tighten in anticipation. “It’s really hot in here.” She blew out a breath and fought for another. “Can we just get to it?”

He stared at her long and hard, his grin faltering for a quick second when his gaze dropped to drink in the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
“Hurry up and get to it?”
He reached out and caught a drop of perspiration as it slid down the valley between her breasts. His touch lingered and her heart thudded a frantic rhythm against his fingertip. “We’ll get to it, darlin’, but there won’t be anything hurried about it.”

And then his mouth touched hers.

Sabrina Collins had the sassiest mouth Billy Chisholm had ever heard on a woman, all right. And the sweetest he’d ever tasted. Her lips parted at the first moment of contact, and for several heartbeats Billy actually forgot that he liked his kisses slow and teasing.

There was nothing slow about the way he stroked his tongue along the length of hers and plunged deep into her mouth. Nothing teasing about the purposeful way he ate at her lips, as if she were his only sustenance and he’d gone far too long without.

He had.

That was the only thought that drew him back to reality and helped him resist the sudden urge to bend her over in that next instant and sink as deep as possible into her soft, warm body, until he forgot where he ended and she began. Until he forgot everything—the upcoming ride and the pressure to step up and take his brother’s place—everything, save the woman in his arms and the need heating his blood.

Slow and easy.

He gathered his control and fought for a leisurely pace because as much as he wanted Sabrina Collins, he wanted that PBR buckle, and that meant getting a good workout right now.

The kiss softened as he suckled her bottom lip and wrung a frustrated moan from her.

He slid his hands up her arms, over her shoulders, learning her shape, the dips and curves near her collarbone, the soft, satiny slopes of her breasts.

He lifted her onto the desk, parted her long legs and stepped between her thighs. Her heat cradled the rock-hard erection pulsing beneath his jeans. He thumbed her nipples and caught her cry of pleasure with his mouth, the sound exciting him almost as much as the knowledge that he was finally going to slake the lust that woke him every morning, his body taut and throbbing after a restless night spent dreaming and wanting.

He gave up her lips after a deep, delicious kiss to nibble down her chin, the underside of her jaw. He licked a fiery path to the beat of her pulse, and teased and nibbled at the hollow of her throat until she gasped. Then he moved on, inhaling her sweet, fragrant smell, savoring the flavor of her skin. An echoing flame leaped through him, burning hotter, brighter...

Easy
.

He leaned back long enough to drink in the sight of her, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, her breasts arched in silent invitation. Dipping his head, he took a slow, leisurely lap at her nipple. The tip quivered, expanded, reached out and begged for more. He licked her again, slow and easy and thorough, before drawing the flesh deep into his mouth and sucking long and hard. A moan vibrated up her throat and she gasped, grasping at his shoulders.

The grasping he could handle. It was the way she wrapped her legs around his waist and rubbed herself up against his aching length that scattered his common sense. He felt her heat through the tight denim. Anticipated it.

Her desperate fingers worked the button of his jeans, then the zipper. It stuck for a heart-pounding moment, the teeth stretched too tight over his straining length. A swift yank, a frenzied
zippp
and he could breathe again.

One silky fingertip touched the swollen head of his erection peeking up at the waistband of his underwear, and the air lodged in his throat. So much for breathing.

He caught her head in his hands, his fingers splaying in her hair, anchoring her for the long, deep probe of his tongue.

“Billy!” A knock on the door punctuated the shout, the noise piercing the passionate fog Billy found himself lost in. He stiffened, breaking the kiss to gasp for air as footsteps sounded on the walkway outside.

Sabrina’s forehead furrowed and her eyelids fluttered open. “What’s wrong?”

Before Billy could answer, he heard Cole’s voice again on the other side of the motel room door. “Hey, Billy! You in there? Listen, I was minding my own business at the rodeo arena when I ran into that reporter Curt Calhoun. You know, the one who did the follow-up episode on
Famous Texas Outlaws
. Seems he’s still poking around. I gave him a statement, but he said he wants to talk to you. Billy? I know you’re here, bud. Your truck’s in the parking lot.” The words trailed off as the knob twisted, the door creaked.

Billy fought with his zipper, but he didn’t have enough time. The best he could do in the name of decency was yank his T-shirt down over his open fly as he whirled, Sabrina’s nude body hidden behind him.

“There’s a shitload of reporters waiting to get a statement from the bull riders and—” The words stumbled to a halt as Cole’s gaze hooked on the bare knee peeking past Billy’s jean-clad thigh. He looked puzzled for an eighth of a second, before a knowing light gleamed in his violet eyes. “Sorry, man. I—I didn’t know you had company.”

Billy tried to ignore the soft hands resting against his shoulder blades, the warm breath rushing against the back of his neck. “They want an interview now?”

“Who?” Cole shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs. “The reporters? Yeah. There’re three in the motel lobby, not counting Calhoun who’s on his way right now. I told ’em you’d be along any second, but I’ll just let them know the timing is bad. Maybe they can catch you tomorrow.” Just before the door clicked shut, Cole said, “You just go back to what you were doing and I’ll get rid of them.”

The best advice Billy had heard in a helluva long time. That’s what his throbbing body said, but his conscience, his damn conscience, kept him from turning and taking Sabrina in his arms.

“Who is Curt Calhoun?” she asked quietly as he fought for a deep, calming breath.

“A reporter.
The
reporter who put together the
Famous Texas Outlaws
episode that features my dad.”

“Your dad?”

He expected a lot of things from Sabrina, namely the slide of her arms, the touch of her fingertips, a whispered “Let them wait.” She wasn’t a woman to take no for an answer when she wanted something and she obviously wanted him. But he didn’t expect her to pull away from him.

“Maybe you ought to go see what they want.” Her hands grasped the gaping edges of his jeans. Soft fingertips grazed his erection as she slid the button into place and tugged at his zipper.

His hands closed over hers, helping her until the teeth closed and he was rock-hard and throbbing beneath the denim once again. As if the action had tried her patience as much as his, he heard the deep draw of her breath. Relief.

“You go on,” she told him. “I’ll wait here.”

Billy wasn’t about to argue. He started walking, conscious of her eyes on him and even more aware of the need gripping his insides. It would be so easy to turn back to her, to forget about Curt Calhoun the other reporters who would guarantee him top-notch media coverage for the upcoming rodeo.

Too easy.

He kept walking.

Besides, as eager as he was right now, he wouldn’t last a decent minute. Sabrina would be flat on her back and he’d be inside her for less than a heartbeat, and Billy didn’t want that. He liked his loving long and slow and fierce. He’d never had much of a fondness for quickies. He abstained for months on end when he was in training, and so when he indulged, he liked to make the most of his time. To commit every breathless sigh, every soft moan to memory.

He liked things slow and he wasn’t about to change his mind on account of a bad case of lust.

Not now. Not ever.

* * *

H
IS
DAD
WAS
Silas Chisholm.
The
Silas Chisholm.

The truth crystallized as Billy’s words echoed in Sabrina’s ears.

He wasn’t just Billy Chisholm the up-and-coming bull rider. He was one of Silas Chisholm’s three sons. Her heart pounded in her chest at the realization because Silas had been one of the biggest stories to ever come out of a small town.

A career-making story.

If she could find a fresh angle, that is.

She wasn’t sure if there was one, but it warranted some serious thought and so she’d let Billy walk away when the only thing she’d really wanted to do was haul him close, to hell with any reporter.

She’d run across Curt Calhoun’s name in connection with Silas when she’d started her research last night. Calhoun had hosted the original
Famous Texas Outlaws
story, as well as the recent “Where Are They Now?” episode that had aired only a week or so ago. But he hadn’t packed up and shipped out after the episode.

No, he was still here. Still digging.

Because there was more information still to come to light?

Maybe, and it was that maybe that sent a burst of excitement through Sabrina and had her scrambling to right her clothes after Billy disappeared.

A few tugs and she headed straight for her computer. Opening a document file, she started brainstorming a list of questions that she meant to ask Billy. Tactfully, of course. She’d seen his reaction tonight and so she had no doubt that he wouldn’t be too keen on her fishing for information, let alone writing a story about his past.

If
there was a story.

The doubt echoed and she considered the possibility that maybe it was over and done with. Maybe Curt Calhoun was hanging around for a different reason altogether, a new story that had nothing to do with the late Silas Chisholm, or maybe he had new suspicions that were just plain false.

There was only one way to find out.

She was going to keep her eyes and ears open, and dig for information whenever she had the chance. That, and she couldn’t shake the niggle in her gut that told her something was up.

More than just Billy’s libido.

Particularly when he didn’t head back to her room when he finished up with the reporters.

Instead, she heard the grumble of his truck and the spew of gravel as he pulled out of the parking lot and disappeared for the rest of the evening.

Even more than suspicion, disappointment ricocheted through her and she resigned herself to the possibility that he’d changed his mind.

Hours passed before he finally proved her wrong and knocked on her door just this side of midnight.

“What took you so long?” she asked, her heart racing and her body trembling. From excitement and anticipation and relief. Both heightened because Billy wasn’t just a way to break her dry spell. He was her ticket to a real story.

No way was she so worked up because she’d thought for those few hours that he truly had changed his mind, and she’d been nervous. No.
Way
.

“I had some business to take care of with my brothers.” He arched his back as if his muscles ached and exhaustion tugged at him.

She lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of business?”

“A favor for Jesse. He’s got this cockamamy idea...” His words trailed off and he shook his head, as if he’d said more than he wanted to. As if he’d wanted to say more. “It doesn’t matter now.” He wiped a hand over his face before his attention shifted to her and a hungry light fueled his eyes. “What do you say we get out of here?”