Cody. Kimberly Raye
alarm.
A definite first because he’d never been the least bit interested in a woman’s mouth, no matter how attractive, or how experienced. Not when he’d been a man—young and wild and as horny as the day was long—and not now.
He didn’t waste his time with soft kisses or gentle touches. He took the lead in bed, stirring and provoking until his partner exploded and he drank in the vibrant energy of her climax.
Not that he didn’t try to get his O on every now and then, too. What red-blooded male—man or vampire—didn’t want to come? But Cody always found himself getting caught up in the woman’s big moment rather than his own, and once the beast was fed, he lost his enthusiasm. Which explained why he hadn’t had an actual orgasm with a woman since he’d opened his eyes as a vampire.
He enjoyed himself. He fed. But he never came.
He had no doubt now would be any different. Even if the lust burning up his veins felt hotter than it usually did. More potent.
His gut clenched and his dick ached. It was all he could do not to cross the room, bend her over the bar, pull up her dress and sink into her hot, lush body.
She looked more than appropriate for what he had in mind. But while her body said do me, her eyes told an altogether different story.
Her name was Miranda Rivers and she was way out of her element. She’d never worn her hot pink cowboy boots. Never been to a bar. Never picked up a stranger. She’d never even drank more than one margarita.
Until tonight.
She was working on her third and she wanted a man. And sex. She wanted to live out just one of her fantasies before she turned her back on all of them and continued down the straight and narrow path she’d been traveling her entire life.
This was her detour.
Her one chance to let her guard down and live out one of her many fantasies.
Perfect, right?
Wrong. While she had a body made for sex, she’d never had an actual orgasm with a man. That’s what tonight was all about. Since she hadn’t exploded with the few safe, boring men in her past, she’d decided to go for forbidden and exciting.
Problem solved.
Unless the problem wasn’t the men.
She was the common denominator. The one constant in each lukewarm encounter. What if she simply wasn’t capable of an orgasm?
Her gaze collided with his and he saw the instant spark of lust. A surprising reaction because he hadn’t sent any seductive thoughts her way. He hadn’t enticed or mesmerized, or anything. She was attracted to him of her own accord.
Heat rolled through his body like a swig of whiskey and sucker punched him right in the gut.
He stiffened. While she might be attracted to him, the last thing he needed was to waste his time on a what if. He needed to turn around and walk the other way no matter how lush her body or how full her mouth or how desperate he was to taste her.
He needed a sure thing.
He started to turn away. But then she smiled and his hunger stirred, and he couldn’t help himself.
Cody Braddock had been a slave to his impulses far too long to stop now.
Chapter Two
HE WAS THE SEXIEST COWBOY she’d ever seen.
Which said a lot because Miranda Rivers had become quite the expert over the years.
Thanks entirely to her mother—part-time B is for Beautiful independent makeup consultant and full-time buckle bunny—Miranda had witnessed hundreds of Stetsons bobbing through the front door of the single wide trailer where she’d grown up. A parade that had continued as her two older sisters had matured and carried on their mother’s weakness for men with tight Wranglers, starched shirts and a wild and reckless charm.
It was a weakness that had eventually killed Chastity Rivers.
She’d fallen too hard, too fast, for a man who’d rejected her. She’d been so devastated that she’d killed herself and left her daughters to finish raising themselves.
Miranda had been fourteen at the time.
Lucy and Robin had been older, sixteen and nineteen, but it had been Miranda who’d stepped up to take the lead in the family. She’d cleaned the house and cooked dinner while her sisters had strutted their stuff, stayed out all night and stirred up as much gossip as possible.
Time had changed little. Lucy worked at a nearby bar and partied away her earnings while Robin played groupie to a local country band.
They were still the baddest girls in town.
They always had been, and Miranda had been guilty by association.
The entire school had started calling her Restroom Randy back during her sophomore year. A nickname she’d been given when Ray McGuire—junior calf roper and the first cowboy to ever catch her eye—had started a running list on the boy’s bathroom wall of all the places Miranda Rivers had gotten down and dirty.
Restroom Randy’s Hottest Sex Spots.
All lies, of course. He’d been pissed because she’d turned him down in the backseat of his Daddy’s Chevy and he’d wanted to get back at her. He’d started the list, claiming they’d gone all the way not only in the Chevy, but in the front loader of his John Deere, the back alley behind the Piggly Wiggly, the gazebo in the middle of town square, the men’s restroom at the local drive-in, beneath the bleachers at the football stadium, smack dab in the middle of the local rodeo arena and the front porch of his family’s home.
Miranda had seen the list only once. She’d been sixteen and desperate to know why the entire school was snickering behind her back. A quick duck into the boy’s john and she’d found out. The various locations written in red marker had branded themselves into her brain. She’d been mortified and determined to lose the Restroom Randy image.
She’d hated being one of those girls. Trashy. No good. An outsider. She’d wanted to fit in. To feel accepted. To feel safe.
She’d never had any security growing up. Nothing that she could count on. Sometimes she’d had lunch at school. Sometimes she hadn’t. Sometimes her mother had been home at night. Sometimes she hadn’t. Sometimes she’d had her sisters to keep her company. Sometimes they’d been too busy to care. It had been a roller-coaster ride, and Miranda had wanted off.
She’d wanted a smooth, calm carousel tour and so she’d spent her time studying rather than socializing, determined to trade her unstable existence for something solid. She’d graduated at the top of her class and worked her way through college to earn a sociology degree.
She’d been the activities coordinator at the Skull Creek Senior Center for eight years now. A volunteer at the local library for six. She baked cookies for the ladies auxiliary once a month and chaired an annual fundraising committee for the local food bank. She did her best to steer clear of her sisters and surround herself with people she could count on—the old folks at the senior center and the few people around town who didn’t hold her past against her. Since Robin spent most of her time on the road and Lucy only showed up when she wanted money, keeping her distance was relatively easy. Even more, Miranda only dated the kind of men that a woman could count on—nice, conservative, professional types who didn’t know the first thing about roping a cow or riding a horse or getting down and dirty in a hayloft.
She’d finally found stability, but she was still missing one thing.
Acceptance.
It was close. Her boyfriend of three months had finally proposed to her via e-mail before he’d left yesterday for a seminar in Houston.
It hadn’t been the most exciting proposal, but then Greg