Having the Cowboy's Baby. Trish Milburn
Well, he couldn’t have that, because if he had his way, the night was far from over for them.
He wrapped his hand around the curve of her hip and rolled her to face him. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Thinking.”
“I can’t.” Her voice held a hint of panic at the edge.
“Well, I have a cure for that.” He pulled her closer, draping her leg over his hip as he captured her sweet mouth with his. She still tasted like her blueberry ice cream.
He sensed a moment of resistance in her before she caved and ran her soft fingertips up his chest. Her hand stopped moving when she reached the puckered skin on his left pec. She leaned away and ran her finger along the slash.
“What happened to you?”
“A bull I was riding didn’t particularly like me.”
Her mouth fell open on a little gasp. “A horn did this?”
“Hazard of the job.”
She looked up at him, and his breath caught. Even in the dim light and with her hair tousled, she was stunning. He hadn’t lied—he did love redheads. He’d dare any man to see Skyler Harrington and not want to take her straight to his bed.
“You’ve got a death wish, don’t you?”
He smiled. “Not at all. I very much like living, especially right now.” Before she could speak or think any more, he ran his hand along her jaw and into her hair and brought her tasty mouth to his again. No matter how much he kissed her, he couldn’t seem to get enough. He never lacked for female companionship, but it had been a long time since he’d craved a woman as he did Skyler.
The mere touch of her hands skimming along the skin of his chest drove him wild, and he rolled her onto her back. As he slid home again, one word echoed in his head. Perfect.
* * *
SKYLER PULLED THE cover over her shoulder as she gradually came awake. Why did the air-conditioning feel so cold? And why was it running so loudly? She opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times. It took a few seconds for the confusion to fade enough for her to realize what she was looking at—a motel air-conditioning unit.
She froze as another cog slipped into place, the one telling her that the reason she had awakened chilled was the fact that she was still naked. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. Bad move. Closing her eyes only gave her a blank screen on which to replay what had happened with Logan. She’d had mind-blowing sex, twice, with a man she’d met that morning.
She glanced at the clock. Correction, yesterday morning. It wasn’t her birthday anymore, so that meant it was time to get her temporarily insane self out of this room and away from Logan Bradshaw and his delectable body.
Somehow she was able to calm her panic enough to listen to his breathing. Slow, steady, definitely asleep. She held her breath as she eased out from under the covers and carefully retrieved and put on her clothes. When Logan stirred in his sleep, she stopped dead. She made the mistake of looking at him. His bare chest tempted her to crawl back into bed and wake him in a way he would be sure to appreciate. The way the sheet rode low around his hips caused her to lick her lips at the memory of him making love to her.
No, it was sex. Making love was something you did with someone you actually cared about, not a stranger who’d probably done this same thing with countless other women. Thank goodness they’d at least been safe about it.
Even though she knew she should go, her feet weren’t getting the message. Instead, she stood and watched him sleep. The part of her that had led her here, the part that likely wouldn’t exist outside this room, whispered that she’d done nothing wrong. That she deserved to enjoy herself, to revel in the feel of a man’s body pressed close to hers. And Logan’s had felt like nothing she’d ever imagined. If she let herself, she could get used to that feeling.
But it wasn’t real. This wasn’t her, and he would be gone in a matter of days.
That’s what India thought about Liam.
She shook her head to clear away the thought. Logan was nothing like Liam. India’s fiancé was a hardworking father and business owner. Logan had that carefree adrenaline-junkie vibe. Chances were he wouldn’t live to be an old man. That scar across his chest was evidence of that. Nothing but pure sexual hunger had brought her to this room, because other than the physical desire, they were absolutely nothing alike.
Her common sense slammed back into her as if it had taken a short vacation, and suddenly she needed to get far away from Logan Bradshaw as quickly as possible. She pushed aside one final surge of yearning and slipped out the door into the night. Before anyone who might recognize her noticed her, she hurried across the lit parking lot to the dimmer sidewalk that led back toward Main Street.
With each hurried step away from the motel, she scolded herself more for her incredible lapse in judgment. She’d just had sex with a near stranger, twice! She wanted to get home, take a shower and go to bed. If she was supremely lucky, in the morning she’d wake up and this would all be nothing more than a hot, steamy dream.
As she neared downtown, she slowed as her thoughts spun. How in the world was she going to face Elissa and India? Why hadn’t she gone back to the music hall as she’d intended? Dealing with their matchmaking attempts would have been more bearable than telling them she’d gone off to the Country Vista to have sex with her skydiving partner. Wondering why she hadn’t heard from them, she stopped walking and pulled out her phone. When she saw she had twelve unanswered text messages, she remembered she’d put her phone on silent during the movie and had forgotten to change it back. If only she’d had the ringer on, maybe the texts would have kept her from making the biggest mistake of her life.
She scrolled through them.
Elissa: Hope you’re having a good time with Mr. McHottiePants.
Elissa: Smooch, smooch, smooch.
India: Ignore her. Call if you need us.
Several more followed in the same vein before India’s final message:
Where are you? Are you ok? Let me know.
She glanced across the street toward the mostly empty parking lot of the Blue Falls Music Hall and knew she couldn’t face seeing either of her friends tonight. With a deep breath, she texted India back.
Fine. Sorry, forgot to turn the ringer back on. Tired, heading to bed.
Just as soon as she walked the mile and a half around the lake to her apartment. If she made it without someone seeing her and setting the local gossip mill ablaze, she’d officially be the luckiest woman in all of the Hill Country.
She hurried toward the walking path that circled the lake. When she passed the Ice Cream Hut, she couldn’t help but remember how Logan had teased both her and Mari as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Damn her hormones—it probably was. She imagined him buying an ice-cream cone for a woman in every rodeo town he rolled into. Tears pooled in her eyes, and that made her even angrier. But she wasn’t angry at Logan. He hadn’t claimed to be anything he wasn’t. No, she was angry at herself. She’d let her body trump the orderly, precise thought process that had gotten her through years of upheaval and allowed her to become a successful businesswoman.
She increased her pace, wanting to be home more than she could express. Her anger grew, extending to her friends. They’d pushed her to the point where she’d fallen prey to Logan’s good looks and smooth talking. All the way back to the inn, she concocted countless ways to get back at them. But that would mean admitting what had happened. And by the time she unlocked the exterior door to her apartment that wouldn’t necessitate her walking through the inn’s lobby, she’d decided she was keeping her one-night stand to herself. That shouldn’t be a problem, since she couldn’t imagine Logan caring enough