Taming A Texas Charmer (Bad Boy Ranch Book 3) Page 8

  “Thank you for sharing your blankets.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They stood there for an awkward minute before Holden finally spoke. “So I guess we better get to bed . . . I mean, sleep.”

  She nodded, but didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Not knowing what else to do, he pulled off his t-shirt. But when her gaze settled on his bare chest, he realized that hadn’t been the best idea. She looked at him like he was a big slice of dessert she couldn’t wait to dive into.

  He quickly reached out and flipped off the light. “Goodnight.”

  There was a long pause before she answered. “Goodnight.”

  He waited in the darkness until he heard the rustle of bed sheets before he made his way over to the quilts on the floor. He decided to keep his jeans on. Once he was stretched out on the floor with a quilt over him, he finally relaxed. He could do this. He could get through one night.

  He closed his eyes. A husky chuckle had them flashing back open.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I just find it amusing that I waited until I was twenty-eight before I had my first sleepover.”

  “You’ve kidding? You never had a sleepover?”

  “Never. I feel like we should be painting each other’s toenails or talking about our crushes.”

  He laughed. “I’ll have to pass on the toenail painting. And the only crush I had was on my first grade teacher, Miss Vivian. She drove a pink Mustang and wore tight sweaters that accentuated her great body. I was so infatuated, I stole one of my mom’s diamond rings and asked her to marry me.”

  The husky chuckle came again. “So you weren’t always opposed to marriage?”

  His smile faded. “When my dad was still alive, I believed in a lot of things. After he died, my mom proved that getting married was just something you do when you’re bored.”

  “I’m sorry.” She hesitated. “It sounds like you’ve had a lot of sorrow in your life. But I think your mother is sorry, Holden. I think that’s why she’s here. She wants to make amends for her mistakes.”

  He couldn’t keep the anger from his voice. “And she thinks that forcing me into marriage will fix her mistakes.”

  “I don’t think she wants to force you into marriage. I think she just wants you to be happy. She loves you, Holden. She just struggles to show it. I have a hard time expressing my emotions too. I’m much more comfortable in a work or school setting than I am in a social or emotional setting.” She paused. “Which is probably why I put such importance on excelling at academics and my job. And your mother sounds like she has a similar problem.”

  “You have it all wrong. My mother doesn’t have a problem expressing her feelings. She just puts making money before everything else.”

  “She didn’t put it before you this time. She’s here.”

  She did have a point. Just not one he was willing to accept. “She’ll be gone tomorrow.”

  “I’m not so sure. I think her therapist wants her to work on expressing her emotions.”

  “I don’t think she has any.”

  There was a long pause before Evie spoke. “I thought the same thing about myself. I thought I wasn’t the type of person who felt the same things everyone else feels. But the last few days have proved me wrong. And maybe your mother’s therapist is right. Maybe it isn’t good to keep your thoughts and emotions hidden.”

  Devlin’s face peeked over the edge of the bed. He couldn’t clearly see her features in the dark, but he could clearly hear her words. They rang out like his death knell.

  “I would like to have intercourse with you, Holden.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Holden didn’t reply for a very long time—which spoke louder than words and made Devlin feel like a complete idiot.

  She flopped back on the pillows. “I’m so sorry. Obviously, I completely misunderstood the signals you were giving me. I just thought that after the kiss in the barn and the way you were looking at me tonight that . . . never mind.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut in humiliation. Why couldn’t she ever read social cues correctly? She should’ve known that someone who looked like Holden would never be interested in someone like her. She prayed Holden would just go to sleep and pretend like she had never propositioned him. After a minute of silence ticked by, she thought her prayer had been answered.

  Then he spoke.

  “You weren’t wrong.”

  Her eyes popped open. “Excuse me?”

  He inhaled and then slowly exhaled. “You weren’t wrong about the signals I’ve been sending you, Devlin. I want you. Badly.”

  She had always heard girls in high school and college talk about boys giving them butterflies, but she hadn’t realized exactly what it meant until now. Holden’s words made her feel like an entire kaleidoscope of butterflies had hatched in her stomach. “You do? Really? Or are you just saying that so you won’t hurt my feelings?”

  “I’m not just saying that. I don’t know where you got the idea that you weren’t a sexually attractive woman, Devlin. But whatever jackass made you feel like that, they were wrong.”

  “No one told me. I just assumed it because there haven’t been a lot of men wanting to go to bed with me. Although I guess I haven’t been very open to sex either. You’re the only one I’ve ever approached about it. Because you’re the only one who causes me to feel all . . . melty and moist.”

  Holden released an agonizing groan. “God help me.” Suddenly, he was sitting on the edge of the bed next to her. In the moonlight that filtered in the thin curtains, she could see the gleam of his glacier blue ice. “I would like nothing better than to have intercourse with you, Devlin. But we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I gave Chester my word that I wouldn’t take advantage of you.”

  “You wouldn’t be. I want you. Probably much more than you want me.”

  He closed his eyes as if in pain before he opened them again. “And what exactly do you want, Devlin? I know what I want. I want no-strings-attached sex. And somehow I don’t think we’re on the same page. I don’t take you as the type of girl who just has sex for the sake of having sex.”

  It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. “Oh, you think I need to be in love to have sex with someone. Well, that’s a false assumption. I’ve had sex with men I didn’t love—well, one man I didn’t love. I’m not even sure I can love. Most of the men I’ve dated have broken up with me because they saw me as cold and unfeeling. You’re the only man who makes me feel.”

  She reached out and touched his chest between his two hard pectoral muscles. The hair was springy and the skin beneath hot. The heat traveled through her fingertips to her entire body where it collected in a pool of desire between her legs.

  “I don’t understand what you do to me.” She allowed her fingers to wander where they would—up to the hollow between his collarbones, over the curve of one pectoral, across a rigid nipple. “It’s like all my nerve endings are somehow controlled by you. And my breath. And my heartbeat. I want to touch you everywhere. And I want to know how it feels to be touched by you everywhere . . . but especially the spot deep inside me that aches with need every time you come near me.”

  A hissed oath came from between Holden’s teeth. Before she could ask what was wrong, she was on her back with Holden’s hard body pressing her down into the mattress. His arms rested on either side of her and his fingers entangled in her hair, holding her captive.

  “One night,” he said in a low, deep growl that made Devlin’s bones feel like melted wax. “You understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Say it, Devlin.”

  “I understand,” she said in a husky voice that didn’t sound like her own. “One night.”

  “No strings.”

  “No strings.”

  He stared into her eyes for a moment as if trying to gauge her sincerity before his gaze lowered to her mouth. “You know what you do that drives me crazy?” She was so shoc
ked that anything she did would drive him crazy all she could do was blink. “You drive me crazy when you bite your bottom lip and then slowly release it. It’s like you’re tempting me to take a taste of the plump sweetness for myself. Are you tempting me, Devlin?”

  She hadn’t been tempting him, but he was certainly tempting her. His raspy voice and words were setting her ablaze. Her body burned even hotter when he lowered his head and his tongue brushed across her bottom lip in a trail of wet heat. Then he sucked it into his mouth and gently bit down. Every muscle below her waist seemed to coil into a fist of desire. He released her lip slowly, his teeth scraping over the sensitive inside skin of her mouth.

  “So sweet,” he whispered. “No wonder you like to do it.” He repeated the lick, suck, and nip twice more until Devlin felt like she was nothing but a mass of exposed nerves. Then he kissed her. His fists tightened in her hair and his mouth ravaged hers. She had never liked men being aggressively possessive, but Holden was different. She wanted to be his. For one night, she wanted to be his and his alone.

  When his fingers loosened and his lips drew away, she missed their seductive hold. He rolled to his feet, and she thought he was going to leave her. But before she could protest, he turned on the nightstand lamp and jerked the sheet off the bed with a loud snap. Realizing that her t-shirt had ridden up and her panties were showing, she started to tug it down, but he stopped her.

  “No.”

  She let her hands fall back to her sides, feeling more than a little awkward lying there with her gangly legs and big feet exposed. But she stopped feeling awkward when Holden started to unzip his jeans. He undressed slowly, revealing an inch of bare skin at a time. Once he was standing in front of her completely naked, she was completely speechless. She had never realized how beautiful the human form was until that moment. Or how badly she wanted to touch all those perfectly placed muscles.

  Especially the muscle that jutted from between his legs.

  It made her feel weak with need and at the same time extremely proud of her achievement. She had given him that impressive erection. Devlin McMillian. Suddenly, all other achievements paled beneath the one hard achievement in front of her.

  She smiled. It must’ve been an arrogant smile, because Holden laughed.

  “Feeling a little cocky, are we?”

  She continued to study him. “Actually, at the moment, I think you’re the one who would be considered cocky.”

  He tipped back his head and laughed. And even that seemed like a great achievement. She liked making him laugh. She liked it almost as much as she liked making him hard. He stopped laughing and his gaze settled on her, his eyes glittering like a northern lake in the moonlight.

  “Take off your shirt and panties.”

  She complied, undressing much faster than he had. When she was completely naked, she expected him to join her on the bed. Instead, he stood there looking at her. She suddenly felt self-conscious. Being intelligent had always been more important to her than her looks. But now, she wanted to be physically attractive. Especially for Holden. And he granted her wish.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said as his gaze leisurely ran over her body. After several long minutes, his gaze lifted to hers. “I mean it. You’re beautiful, Devlin.”

  For the first time, she felt beautiful.

  She held out her arms and he came to her. She had always felt so gangly and awkward, but in Holden’s arms, she felt just right. They were both tall and long limbed so their anatomical parts were perfectly matched. With just a shift, she could press her breasts against his hard pectoral muscles. With just a flex, her hips brushed his. And with just a lift, she could hook her leg around his hips.

  He seemed to like her leg being hooked around him because he slid his hand along the underside of her thigh to her buttocks, sending shock waves skittering along her skin. The waves grew even more intense when he brushed his hard erection against her.

  She whimpered as need became a tangible thing. She needed Holden. And she needed him now. She reached between them and took his hard penis in her hand with every intention of guiding him inside her, but he covered her hand with his.

  “Not yet.”

  “But I want to have sex with you.”

  “And we will, babe.” He brushed a kiss over her lips. “But first, there’s a few things I’ve been dreaming about doing to you.” He smiled rather wickedly. “And if we only have one night . . .”

  It turned out that the things he’d dreamed about doing were things Devlin had never dreamed about.

  But she would now.

  She would dream about Holden’s warm hands gliding over her body and touching erogenous zones she hadn’t even known existed. She would dream about his hot mouth on her breasts taking gentle sips and harder tugs until her nipples were rigid and aching. And she would dream about his lips finding her most sensitive spot and laving it with his tongue until her world completely imploded and she cried out his name over and over again.

  But mostly, she would dream about him sliding deep inside her and stroking something to life. Something that she didn’t even know was there until he touched it. She could explain her response if it were a physical one. But what Holden made her feel as he cradled her head in his arms and slowly thrust in and out was something more than just a physical reaction. It was something she had no technical words for. And it only grew as he linked their hands above her head and their gazes locked.

  She had said she wanted no-strings-attached sex, but as their orgasms hit simultaneously, she felt a billion strings stitching them together like one of Miss Gertie’s quilts. Once the intense physical sensations faded and he pulled from her body, Devlin expected the feeling to go away. But it didn’t. Instead, it remained inside her like a warm, flickering candle that grew even brighter when Holden cuddled her close to his chest and kissed the top of her head.

  Of course, she couldn’t tell him how she felt. He’d been adamant that he wanted no strings. So if she felt strings, she would just have to cut them.

  She drew away from his arms and immediately felt colder and lonelier than she’d ever been in her life. But a deal was a deal.

  She rolled to her other side and drew the sheet up to her chin. “Goodnight, Holden.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Holden knew he shouldn’t feel annoyed. He’d asked for no-strings-attached sex and that’s exactly what he’d gotten. Not only had Devlin rolled over and gone to sleep after only a few seconds of cuddling, she’d also gotten up early and gone to town to get her clothes from the boardinghouse without waking him. When she breezed back through the front door a few hours later, it looked like she had gone shopping too.

  She wore a cute pink flowered top, new snug jeans that accented her long legs, and a brand-new pair of sexy red cowboy boots. He wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her how amazing she looked—right before he kissed her senseless—but she completely avoided him. It was like having sex with him one time had been plenty and she was over him.

  His ego was crushed.

  He had always prided himself on his ability to satisfy women and leave them wanting more. Obviously, he hadn’t done a good enough job with Devlin. He felt like he had failed one of her experiments. He didn’t like to fail. Which was why he wasn’t pushing his mother to leave just yet. If his mother stayed another night, he’d have another night with Devlin. Tonight, he intended to rock her world. There was no way he was going to let her go to sleep until he knew she was completely satisfied. In fact, he might just have to start satisfying her today.

  If he could get her alone.

  Every time he tried, she slipped away to help Lucas make lunch, or play checkers with Chester, or keep his mother company on the front porch. Which left Holden to follow after her like a dog in heat.

  As it turned out, being with Devlin—even when they weren’t naked—wasn’t a hardship. He enjoyed being around her. She was blunt, but seemed to have a genuinely kind heart. She treated Chester and Lucas with r
espect and listened intently as Lucas taught her how to make beef stew and Chester taught her how to play checkers. She showed the same courtesies to his mother. And in return, his mother toned down her arrogant behavior and seemed to enjoy being around Devlin as much as he did.

  As they sat in rockers on the porch, his mother regaled Devlin with stories about Holden, from his first steps all the way up to when he graduated with honors from law school. Holden had to admit that he was surprised. He hadn’t realized his mother been paying such close attention to him. But as she told Devlin story after story, he realized he had been wrong. The stories reminded him that it was only after Mandy passed that his mother had spent all her time at work. Now, he had to wonder if that was how she had dealt with her grief. And wasn’t he doing the same thing? Throwing himself into his work so he wouldn’t dwell on the past. The realization made him feel a little less resentful toward his mom.

  But that didn’t mean he was willing to let her monopolize Devlin’s time. When his mother’s phone rang with an important business call, he grabbed his chance to get Devlin alone and got up from his chair.

  “Come on. I’ll show you the horses.” He held out a hand.

  She looked at it like it was a rattlesnake. “No, thank you. I’m fine right here.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re scared of horses.”

  “Of course not. I love horses.”

  “Then come on.” He offered her something he knew she couldn’t resist. “We can ride to my land and I’ll let you snoop around.”

  She hesitated for only a moment before she got up and headed down the porch steps, completely ignoring his outstretched hand. Before he could follow her, his mother covered the receiver of her phone. “It’s obvious you’ve done something to upset Devlin. Fix it, Holden. I’ve decided she’s a perfect match for you.”