Texas Wild (10 page)

Nine

T
he next morning, Rico and Megan left the
Golden Glade Ranch after breakfast to head out to Forbes. He had been driving
now for a little more than a half hour and his GPS indicated they had less than
a hundred miles to go. He glanced up at the skies, saw the gray clouds and was
certain it would rain before they reached their destination.

Rico then glanced over at Megan and saw she was still sleeping
soundly and had been since he’d hit the interstate. Good. He had a feeling she
hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.

She had pretty much remained quiet on the drive back to the
ranch from the south ridge, and once there, she quickly said good-night and
rushed off to her room, closing the door behind her. And then this morning at
breakfast, she hadn’t been very talkative. Several times he had caught her
barely able to keep her eyes open. If Clint and Alyssa had found her drowsiness
strange, neither had commented on it.

Rico remembered every single thing about last night, and, if
truth be told, he hadn’t thought of much of anything else since. Megan
Westmoreland had more passion in her little finger than most women had in their
entire bodies. And just the thought that no other man had tempted her to release
all that passion was simply mind-boggling to him.

Ramsey had warned him that she was strong-willed. However, even
the most strong-willed person couldn’t fight a well-orchestrated seduction. But
then, being overcome with passion wasn’t a surrender. He saw it as her
acceptance that nothing was wrong with enjoying her healthy sexuality.

I like being my own person and not
following the crowd
. Those were the words she had spoken last night.
He remembered them and had both admired and respected her for taking that
stance. His sisters had basically been the same and had handled their own
business. Even when Savannah had gotten pregnant by Durango, she had been
prepared to go at it alone had he not wanted to claim the child as his. And
knowing his sister, marriage had not been on her mind when she’d gone out to
Montana to tell Durango he was going to be a father. Thanks to Jeff Claiborne, a
bad taste had been left in Savannah’s mouth where marriage was concerned. That
same bad taste had been left in Rico’s, as well.

But Savannah had married Durango and was happy and so were Jess
and Chase. Rico was happy for them, and with them married off, he had turned his
time and attention to other things. His investigation business mainly. And now,
he thought, glancing over at Megan again, to her. She was the first woman in
years who had garnered any real attention from him.

What he’d told her last night was true. What they’d started was
just the beginning. She hadn’t responded to what he’d said one way or the other,
but he hadn’t really expected her to. He had been tempted to ask if she’d wanted
to talk about last night but she had dozed off before he could do so.

But before he had a conversation with her about anything, it
would be wise to have one with himself. When it came to her, he was still in a
quandary as to why he was as attracted to her as he was. What was there about
her that he wanted to claim?

He would let her sleep, and when she woke up, they would
talk.

* * *

The sound of rain and thunder woke Megan. She first
glanced out the windshield and saw how hard it was raining, before looking over
at Rico as he maneuvered the truck through the downpour. His concentration was
on his driving, and she decided to allow her concentration to be on him.

Her gaze moved to the hands that gripped the steering wheel.
They were big and strong. Masculine hands. Even down to his fingertips. They
were hands that had touched her in places no other man would have dared. But he
had. And what had happened as a result still had certain parts of her body
tingling.

She started to shift in her seat but then decided to stay put.
She wasn’t ready for him to know she was awake. She needed time to think. To
ponder. To pull herself together. She was still a little rattled from last night
when she had literally come unglued. Ramsey had said that everyone needed to let
loose and let her hair down every once in a while, and she had definitely taken
her brother’s suggestion.

She didn’t have any regrets, as much as she wished she did. The
experience had been simply amazing. With Rico’s hands, mouth and tongue, she had
felt things she had never felt before. He had deliberately pushed her over the
edge, given her pleasure in a way she’d never received it before and wouldn’t
again.

This is only the beginning
.

He had said that. She remembered his words clearly. She hadn’t
quite recovered from the barrage of pleasurable sensations that had overtaken
her, not once but twice, when he had whispered that very statement to her. Even
now she couldn’t believe she had let him do all those things to her, touch her
all over, touch her in all those places.

He’d said he would let her stay in control, but she had
forgotten all about control from the first moment he had kissed her. Instead,
her thoughts had been on something else altogether. Like taking every single
thing he was giving, with a greed and a hunger that astounded her.

“You’re awake.”

She blinked and moved her gaze from his hands to his face. He’d
shaven, but she could clearly remember the feel of his unshaven jaw between her
legs. She felt a tingling sensation in that very spot. Maybe, on second thought,
she should forget it.

She pulled up in her seat and stared straight ahead. “Yes, I’m
awake.”

Before she realized what he was doing, he had pulled the car
over to the shoulder of the road, unleashed his seat belt and leaned over. His
mouth took hers in a deep, languid and provocative kiss that whooshed the very
air from her lungs. It was way too passionate and too roastingly raw to be a
morning kiss, one taken on the side of the road amidst rush-hour traffic. But he
was doing so, boldly, and with a deliberate ease that stirred everything within
her. She was reminded of last night and how easily she had succumbed to the
passion he’d stirred, the lust he had provoked.

He released her mouth, but not before one final swipe of his
tongue from corner to corner. Her nipples hardened in response and pressed
tightly against her blouse. Her mouth suddenly felt hot. Taken. Devoured.

“Hello, Megan,” he said, against her lips.

“Hello.” If this was how he would wake her up after a nap, then
she would be tempted to doze off on him anytime.

“Did you get a good nap?”

“Yes, if you want to call it that.”

He chuckled and straightened in his seat and resnapped his seat
belt. “I would. You’ve been sleeping for over an hour.”

She glanced back at him. “An hour?”

“Yes, I stopped for gas, and you slept through it.”

She stretched her shoulders. “I was tired.”

“I understand.”

Yes, he would,
she thought,
refusing to look over at him as he moved back into traffic. She licked her lips
and could still taste him there. Her senses felt short-circuited. Overwhelmed.
She had been forewarned, but she hadn’t taken heed.

“You feel like talking?”

Suddenly her senses were on full alert. She did look at him
then. “What about?”

“Last night.”

She didn’t say anything. Was that the protocol with a man and a
woman? To use the morning after to discuss the night before? She didn’t know.
“Is that how things are done?”

He lifted a brow. “What things?”

“The morning-after party where you rehash things. Say what you
regret, what you wished never happened, and make promises it won’t happen
again.”

She saw the crinkling of a smile touch the corners of his lips.
“Not on my watch. Besides, I told you it will happen again. Last night was just
the beginning.”

“And do I have a say in the matter?”

“Yes.” He glanced over at her. “All you have to say is that you
don’t want my hands on you, and I’ll keep them to myself. I’ve never forced
myself on any woman, Megan.”

She could believe that. In fact, she could very well imagine
women forcing themselves on him. She began nibbling at her bottom lip. She
wished it could be that simple, just tell him to keep his hands to himself, but
the truth of the matter was…she liked his hands on her. And she had thoroughly
enjoyed his mouth and tongue on her, as well. Maybe a little too much.

Looking over at him, she said. “And if I
don’t
tell you to keep your hands to yourself?”

“Then the outcome is inevitable,” he said quietly, with a
calmness that stirred her insides. She knew he meant it. From the beginning, he
had given her fair warning. “Okay, let’s talk,” she said softly.

He pulled to the side of the road again, which had her
wondering if they would ever reach their destination. He unfastened his seat
belt and turned to her. “It’s like this, Megan. I want you. I’ve made no secret
of that. The degree of my attraction to you is one that I can’t figure out. Not
that I find the thought annoying, just confusing, because I’ve never been
attracted to a woman to this magnitude before.”

Welcome to the club,
she thought.
She hadn’t ever been this attracted to a man before, either.

“This should be a business trip, one to find the answers about
your family’s history. Now that you’re here, it has turned into more.”

She lifted a brow. “What has it turned into now?”

“A fact-finding mission regarding us. Maybe constantly being
around you will help me understand why you’ve gotten so deeply under my
skin.”

Megan’s heart beat wildly in her chest. He wanted to explore
the reason why they were so intensely attracted to each other? Did there need to
be any other reason than that he was man and she was woman? With his looks, any
woman in her right mind would be attracted to him, no matter the age. He had
certainly done a number on Grace, without even trying. But Megan had been around
good-looking men before and hadn’t reacted the way she had with him.

“I won’t crowd you, and when we get to Forbes you will have
your own hotel room if you want.”

He paused a moment and then added, “I’m not going to assume
anything in this relationship, Megan. But you best believe I plan to seduce the
hell out of you. I’m not like those other guys who never made it to first base.
I plan on getting in the game and hitting a home run.”

You are definitely in the game already,
Rico Claiborne
. She broke eye contact with him to gaze out the
window. If nothing else, last night should have solidified the knowledge that
her resistance was at an all-time low around him. Her self-control had taken a
direct hit, and since he was on a fact-finding mission, maybe she needed to be
on one, as well. Why was she willing to let him go further than any man had
before?

“If you think I’m going to sit here and say I regret anything
about last night, then you don’t have anything to worry about, Rico.”

He lifted a brow. “I don’t?”

“No.”

She wouldn’t tell him that he had opened her eyes about a few
things. That didn’t mean she regretted not engaging in any sort of sexual
activity before, because she didn’t. What it meant was that there was a reason
Rico was the man who’d given her her first orgasm. She just didn’t know what
that reason was yet, which was why she wanted to find out. She needed to know
why he and he alone had been able to make her act in a way no other man before
him had been capable of making her act.

“So we have an understanding?” he asked.

“Sort of.”

He raised a brow. “Sort of?” He started the ignition and
rejoined traffic again. It had stopped raining, and the sun was peeking out from
beneath the clouds.

“Yes, there’s still a lot about you that I don’t know.”

He nodded. “Okay, then ask away. Anything you want.”

“Anything?”

A corner of his mouth eased into a smile. “Yes, anything, as
long I don’t think it’s private and privileged information.”

“That’s fair.” She considered the best way to ask her first
question, then decided to just come out with it. “Have you ever been in
love?”

He chuckled softly. “Not since Mrs. Tolbert.”

“Mrs. Tolbert?”

“Yes, my third-grade teacher.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He glanced over at her and laughed at her surprised expression.
“Kidding you about what? Being in love with Mrs. Tolbert or that she was my
third-grade teacher?”

“Neither. You want me to believe that other than Mrs. Tolbert,
no other woman has interested you?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m a man, so women interest me. You asked
if I’ve ever been in love, and I told you yes, with Mrs. Tolbert. Why are you
questioning my answer?”

“No reason. So you’re like Zane and Riley,” she said.

“Maybe you need to explain that.”

“Zane and Riley like women. Both claim they have never been in
love and neither wants their names associated with the word.”

“Then I’m not like Zane and Riley in that respect. Like I said,
women interest me. I am a man with certain needs on occasion. However, falling
in love doesn’t scare me and it’s not out of the realm of possibility. But I
haven’t been in a serious relationship since college.”

She was tempted to ask him about that phone call he’d refused
to take at her place the other day. Apparently, some woman was serious even if
he wasn’t. “But you have been in a serious relationship before?”

“Yes.”

Her brow arched. “But you weren’t in love?”

“No.”

“Then why were you in the relationship?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. “My maternal grandparents
are from old money and thought that as their grandson the woman I marry should
be connected to old money, as well. They introduced me to Roselyn. We dated
during my first year of college. She was nice, at least I thought she was, until
she tried making me choose between her and Jessica.”