Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3) (3 page)

That didn’t explain why she would trade places with Luck Summerlin in a heartbeat. Why she wanted to turn around and do just that. She wouldn’t, of course. She couldn’t. And her libido, waking up after a very long and purposeful abstinence, would have to understand.

But just as she was opening her door, a big body moved in to loom over her, and a big hand came down on the SUV’s roof in a smack. She jumped, feinted to her left and away, then caught a whiff of sweat and horse to go with the beer, and realized the only danger she was in was being crushed beneath him if he passed out and fell.

“You leaving already?” Boone asked, his words less slurred than she would’ve expected from someone who’d downed as many drinks as he had after delivering her back to the bar. But then he was a pretty big guy. And, slurred words or not, he was more than pretty drunk.

“I am. I need to type up my notes while they’re fresh in my mind.” Then, hating herself for doing so, she asked, “What happened to Luck?”

“Who?”

Everly rolled her eyes. “The woman you had pinned against your truck. The woman whose spread legs you were grinding between.”

“Don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember what you were doing five minutes ago?”

“I’m not even sure I remember my name.”

Was he teasing? Or serious? “Do you want me to remind you? Or would you rather work it out for yourself?”

“My name is Boone Mitchell, and I’m thinking I don’t need to be driving back to the ranch.”

And thank goodness he
was
thinking that. It would be easier than taking away his keys and getting slugged in the process.

“You got an extra bed?”

She had one bed. Her bed. And no man had hung his hat on her headboard since she’d moved into her house in Crow Hill. This one might be the first, though in his condition he’d be sleeping there alone. “I’ve got a sofa.”

“I don’t fit on most sofas.”

“I do. You can have the bed.”

“But I can’t have you?”

“With the number of beers you’ve had? I doubt you can have anyone.”

He laughed, a low rumbling sound that had her curling her toes. And clenching muscles south of her belly. “One beer. A dozen beers. That’s never been a problem. But since you said no . . .”

She liked that he hadn’t overlooked that part. “The offer of the bed is still open.”

“Okay then. Let’s go home.”

Ignoring the tug in her tummy at his choice of words, she opened the door to the backseat. Boone crawled in, grumbling about tiny square holes and big round pegs, and collapsed. She shut the door, locking him in, and slid behind the wheel, hoping, as she did, that he didn’t mind sleeping right where he was.

Getting him out of the SUV would never be as easy as it had been getting him in.

THREE

B
OONE WOKE TO
the smell of coffee. And bacon. And real butter on toast. No. The smell of pancakes. And maple syrup. And maybe even scrambled eggs. Stomach grumbling, he opened his eyes to the realization that he had no idea where he was. And that meant he had no idea who was cooking the breakfast his gut was aching to down.

A ceiling fan spun overhead, but it was a shiny black enamel and definitely not the dusty unbalanced number in his bedroom at the ranch. And he was pretty sure it didn’t belong to Luck Summerlin because, as his brain found a gear and engaged, he remembered her skedaddling with a shriek last night ’bout the same time he’d unzipped his pants.

He also remembered a schoolteacher in a bonnet, and when he tucked an arm beneath his head to raise it off the pillow, he saw the same bonnet hanging from the room’s doorknob. He also got a whiff of himself. Criminy, but he needed a shower. He’d gone straight . . . somewhere without having one last night.

A costume party. A fund-raiser. With Faith and Casper. And Luck Summerlin, who’d promised to treat him right, then left him hanging. But that still didn’t explain where he was now. Or who had taken him to bed with him smelling like a horse, because the woman was a saint. Or a crazy. If it was a woman doing the cooking, and not some dude. Though the bonnet told him that was so.

He pushed up to his elbows, let the rush of blood to his head settle, then tossed back the sheet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His bare legs. His bare feet. His bare balls still heavy and telling him all he’d done in the bed was sleep. Huh. That was unexpected. Or not, he mused, standing and hit again with his stink, which was followed by his stomach turning beer-flavored flips.

A shower first. Breakfast would have to wait. A quick look around the room done up in black and white and yellow and red showed him two doors, one closed, most likely a closet, the other open and dark, but not so that he couldn’t tell it was a bathroom. He rounded the bed, switched on the light inside, stepped into the tub, and closed the clear curtain dotted with red and black spots. Hot water was beating him in the face before he even took time to pee.

Finally he turned his back to the spray, shook his hair like a dog, and opened his eyes. Nope, not a clue. He’d never seen this tub before. The enclosure was tiled in the same red, white, yellow, and black he’d woke up to. The bottles of body and hair soaps had labels with fancy names not found on the shelves at Nathan’s. He squirted a pool of shampoo into his palm, scrubbed the grit of yesterday’s hours spent on horseback from his hair, then used some sweet-smelling gel to wash his pits and his crotch.

The worst of the ripeness gone, he took a bit more time to lather up the rest of his body, lingering between his legs and hefting his uncomfortably heavy balls in one hand. Whoever he’d come home with had tucked him in, but certainly hadn’t offered a hand—or a mouth—where he most needed it. Not her fault. He’d been so out of it he didn’t even recall having fallen into bed.

He pulled at his cock, his palm slick as he cupped it over the head, tugging with each pass, and he was nearly cattle-prod hard when he thought again of the bonnet he’d seen hanging on the bedroom door. He stroked harder, thought harder, his cock going harder when he pictured the dress that matched the bonnet, and the buttons straining to hold the top of it closed over a gorgeous set of tits.

The tits he remembered. The tits got him going. Reaching again for the gel, he squeezed a puddle into his palm, frothing it up beneath the stream of hot water slamming against his back. And then he closed his eyes, pictured the buttons popping open, one then another, baring mounds of creamy flesh.

He stroked again, tugging down on his root, and gave the head a good rubbing, sliding his hand behind his balls and rubbing there, too, reaching back to toy with his ass, slipping his finger inside to the first knuckle, and grinding against it before withdrawing and getting back to the image of those tits.

The nipples, tight like ripe cherries, popped free; and he groaned, feeling them against his tongue as his cock jumped, as his balls drew tight to his body. He imagined sucking on them, rolling them between his fingers, biting down until she moaned. Those moans had him pulling harder, rubbing harder, his cock lifting up to meet the downward pressure of his hand.

The thought of straddling those tits, lubing the valley between and fucking them, holding them together like a tight, hot cunt, aiming his big third eye at the O of her mouth, did him in. He reared back, grimacing. The shower beat against the top of his head. His cum spurted against the tiled wall until he was spent. His legs ached, his balls ached, his cock softened in his hand to hang against his thigh.

The picture of those tits still in his mind’s eye, he cleaned up the mess and rinsed, then shut off the water, jerking open the shower curtain only to find he wasn’t alone. Everly Grant stood in the bathroom door—a door he’d left open. A door from which she could have easily watched his very personal show. Thinking about her doing so had his balls rumbling again.

“That answers that question,” he said, reaching for one of the towels folded on the shelf above the toilet.

“What question is that?” she asked, her face blank of any reaction at all.

Interesting.
“You’re not Luck Summerlin.”

“I think you scared her off trying to stick your tongue down her throat,” she said, her gaze going from his face to his cock, then slowly back.

“Silly girl,” he said, feeling another twitch firing off down below and wrapping himself as best he could in the towel. He didn’t want to scare her, too. What he wanted to do was fuck her and her magnificent tits. “Thanks for the use of the bed. I’ll strip the sheets for you. Doubt you’ll want to be sleeping on those tonight.”

She reached for the door to pull it closed, giving him, he guessed, the privacy he didn’t need to dry off. “I’ll strip the sheets. You go eat breakfast. It’s on the table.”

“And my clothes?”

“On the back of one of the chairs. All clean.”

A saint. He’d been right. “Thanks. I’m pretty much about to pass out from starvation.”

A heartbeat of tension passed between them. He felt it in his throat when he swallowed. Saw it in hers when her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. She caught one edge of the lower with her teeth before saying, “I’ve got a feeling starvation’s not what’s got you weak in the knees.” And then she closed the door.

He wasn’t sure whether to laugh; or whip off his towel, whip off her clothes, and whip them both into a lather as he rode her. In the end, he didn’t laugh, or do any whipping. But he did promise himself he’d be taking that ride.

And soon.

*   *   *

F
INISHED WITH SWITCHING
out the fitted sheet, Everly smoothed the top one into place, trying to erase from her mind the picture of Boone in her bed. It was a queen, and she usually slept on the right. That left room for whatever book she fell asleep reading, or her extra pillows, or her laptop and story notes spread out on the other side. She slept with work many nights, and never disturbed so much as a pencil.

It would be hard to share a bed with Boone Mitchell and not . . . be disturbed.

They’d danced together, so his size wasn’t a surprise. Except it was when he was naked and sprawled across her mattress, two pillows bunched up in his arms, a foot hanging off the side of the bed, his tight bare ass begging, at the very least, to be slapped. If not slapped, then bitten, and licked, which she’d found herself wanting to do.

Straightening the bound edge of the sheet, she breathed deeply, smelling fabric softener and little more. He’d left nothing of himself in her room, and she thought she might miss the part of him that didn’t smell like livestock. It had been so long since she’d slept with a man. That quiet intimacy, even more than making love, was something she hadn’t thought she’d miss, but she did, and terribly so.

She liked that he’d come to the fund-raiser as himself, straight from the back of a horse. No one who hadn’t danced with him would’ve noticed his earthy scent, and she didn’t remember him dancing with anyone else but Lizzie Nathan. Luck Summerlin had certainly had no issue with the aroma rising from his skin and his clothes. But then Luck Summerlin would put up with most anything to have men other women wanted. At least until it came time to deliver on the promises she’d made.

Everly punched up her pillows, then punched them again. She felt consumed with . . . envy, which made no sense. She had no claim on Boone. All she’d done was get him to a safe place to sleep. And undress him. And tuck him in. And grow wet with the strongest rush of longing she’d known in years. It was proximity; that was all. She would’ve felt the same for any man she’d stripped out of his clothes.
All of his clothes.

He’d helped with his boots, and his hat was still in her SUV’s backseat, but she’d done the rest, and getting him out of his briefs . . . wow. His penis, even soft, was thick and long, the veins beautifully distended, the head a perfect mushroom crown she’d been unable to resist touching. She’d wanted to take him into her mouth, to tongue him and tease him and feel him harden. She wanted that now, and couldn’t wait for him to finish breakfast and get out of her house.

Especially having seen him naked and sober and fresh from the shower, the skin of his body lighter than that of his arms and his neck. A cowboy’s tan. His legs covered with hair the same dark brown as that cushioning his penis, as that thick in his armpits, as that matted wet in the center of his chest.

And especially having stood in the open doorway of the bathroom and watched him give himself the pleasure she could’ve given him last night if she’d been willing to go to bed with a drunk. She hadn’t been. A case of “been there done that” way too often and never
ever
going to do it again. Boone wasn’t her ex. She knew that. But that knowledge didn’t change any of what had happened in her past to bring her to Crow Hill.

“What do I owe you?”

She hadn’t heard him behind her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, buried her face in the throw pillow she held, then placed it on the bed. She plumped it, too, made sure it was just right, made sure
she
was just right, before turning around. “I’m sorry, what?”

He was clean and beautiful, his hair damp, his face sporting a day’s beard since she hadn’t offered him a razor. The clothes he’d worn last night now smelled of her laundry soap, like he smelled of her bath gel. Except he didn’t. On his skin, the grassy, green scent brought to mind the wide-open spaces, not the cool mountain meadows the label evoked.

“This is the best bed and breakfast I’ve ever stayed in.” He took a step into the room. Took another. “I want to pay you for the night.”

Her room seemed much smaller than it had just moments ago. “You paid me by not driving drunk. I didn’t have to worry about who you might run off the road.”

“Would you have worried?” A dark brow went up.

“Of course. Faith’s my friend,” she said with a dismissive wave of one hand. “You’re her brother.”

“But you wouldn’t have worried just because it was me.” This time it was the corner of his mouth that lifted.

“Yes, I’d have worried.” She crossed her arms, rubbed her hands up and down them, swallowed hard. “I like you.”

“Good. Because I like you. And I’d like to give you something in exchange for your hospitality.”

Oh, what she wanted him to give her. She reached for another of the throw pillows she’d tossed in a pile to the floor, plumping it, smoothing it, waiting until she’d positioned it exactly before saying, “That’s not necessary.”

“Then at least let me thank you,” he said, and the air tightened around them.

She could hardly find enough of it to breathe. The things she was thinking, the places her mind was going . . . “You just did.”

He chuckled softly. “I’d like to thank you with something more than just words. Let me buy you supper.”

“That would be nice.” But it wasn’t what she wanted. She knew exactly what she wanted. It was time. She was ready. And what better man than Boone Mitchell to help her forget the past? “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You stay sober.” Because that was the only way this would happen. “And we come back here after.”

His pulse jumped in the vein at his temple. “For a nightcap? Coffee?”

Her pulse jumped between her legs. “I was thinking dessert.”

“Dessert.” He walked deeper into the room, and he smelled of maple syrup, and her stomach tumbled.

She nodded. If they were going to do this, she would have to make sure she didn’t get hurt. Not physically. Not emotionally. It would be an affair of bodies only, no strings, no attachments. “Dessert.”

“Are you talking pie?” Another step. “Cake?” Another step. “Ice cream sundaes? I like ice cream sundaes.”

“I’m talking me,” she said, her voice steady, confident, her nerves not.

“You.”

She reached for the last pillow, squeezing it with shaking fingers. The thing was, to get what she wanted, she couldn’t worry every time he reached toward her, lifted his hand, made an innocent move. She had to be able to relax. To know she wasn’t in danger of any kind. “If you’re into dessert, that is. You may just like supper—”