Back in the Game: A Stardust, Texas Novel (27 page)

“For now,” she said.

“For now,” he echoed.

He slid his hand on the ribbons and lace, his fingertips grazing the scars beneath. She cringed a little, drawing her shoulders inward.

“Don’t be ashamed of those scars,” he said. “You’re a survivor.”

“They’re ugly.”

“They’re beautiful badges of honor. Be proud. You fought hard to earn them.”

“You believe that?”

“You don’t?”

“When I look in the mirror all I see is . . .”

“What?” he murmured.

“Damage.”

“You need to get a new mirror, sweetheart, because all I see is strength and courage.”

“Really?” She inhaled.

His fingers trailed lower, past the road bumps of scars to where her skin turned smooth and creamy at her belly button. He scooted his knees toward the foot of the mattress, and at the same time he slid his other hand underneath her buttocks, holding her in place.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Shh.” He dipped his head and planted kisses at the warm spot between her navel and the apex of her thighs.

He savored the taste of her, mildly guilty that he was letting things get this far. She was vulnerable and tipsy to boot. He should know better, but damn, she tasted so good and he hadn’t been with a woman since before New Year’s Eve.

“Rowdy?” Her voice came out thin and high.

“Are you ready to stop?”

“Can you kiss me a little?”

Hell man, what are you thinking? She’s a rookie and you go straight for the sweet spot?

“Please?” she whimpered.

This was his chance to pull a hamstring and take himself out of the game. He wasn’t the guy to awaken her sexuality. He knew it as well as he knew his own name, but her arms were around his neck and she was tugging him up to her and, well . . . hell . . . he was only a man.

He scooted up again, bracing his weight on his elbows. She was such a tiny thing that he feared crushing her. He peered down into her makeup-smeared face. She looked so comical that he almost laughed, but managed to bite back the sound, scared that she would think he was laughing at her, and not because he found her cuter than a speckled fawn.

She smiled at him, a generous smile, wide and welcoming. What a beautiful mouth she had, plump and pink and juicy. Gorgeous.

Lowering his head, he claimed her mouth.

She let out a happy sigh and wriggled against him.

He debated whether to keep this kiss safe and innocent despite the fact she was in his bed and scantily clad, or scare her off with a real kiss—hot, hard, and demanding.

But the bold little thing took the decision out of his hands. She softened her jaw, parted her lips, and darted her tongue past his teeth.

Okay, Breezy, you asked for it, you got it.

He inhaled her, sucking her into his mouth like the greedy bastard he was. Her honeyed taste nourished him. He enjoyed her lips, so willing and yielding, he forgot about why this was a bad idea. Forgot about her stubbornness and prim ways, because she wasn’t prim or stubborn now.

Her eager, inexperienced excitement made him remember what it was like to feel fresh and new. Kissing her made him feel clean, as if his soul had been washed to a sparkling shine.

His hands weren’t idle. Gently, he kneaded her butt, while his other palm slipped beneath the string-thin waistband of that teensy scrap of cheetah print masquerading as panties.

She gasped, giggled, and damn if her tongue didn’t do a crazy tango right there inside his mouth.

He pulled back so he could see her, cradled her head between his palms. “Where did you learn
that
move?”

“I read about it in a book.”

“Seriously? There are books about kissing?”

“Rowdy,” she said as if his head was as dense as marble. “There are books about
everything
.”

“What would I do without you to set me straight?”

She giggled again and pulled his head back down to finish where they’d left off. In no time she was letting loose with a series of soft moans that dismantled him. She arched her back and he helped, cupping her butt with both hands and pulling her upward until she was pressed flush against his crotch.

If he wasn’t still wearing jeans . . .

She wrapped her slender legs around his waist, forcing him down on top of her. He broke into a full body sweat. Things were getting way out of hand.

“Breeanne, we gotta slow down.” He rocked back, but she hung on and he took her with him. Somehow he ended up on his butt between her spread legs and his legs were around her waist. Her arms were locked around his neck and they were eye to eye and breathing hard.

“That’s just it, Rowdy, I want to speed things up.”

“Trust me on this. If we speed things up, you aren’t going to have a lick of fun.”

“But I’m already having fun.”

“Sweetheart, this is nothing.”

Her eyes widened. “It gets better than this?”

“We haven’t scuffed the ball. It’s fresh out of the box.” He disentangled her arm from around his neck, slid off the bed. “Where are your clothes?”

“Over there.” She waved in a general direction.

He craned his neck looking for her things. “We need to get you dressed and I’ll drive you home.” He opened the nightstand and found her clothes folded and stacked on the second shelf. He held out her pullover top. “Arm through here.”

“I don’t want to go home.” She drew back from him, her big green eyes pleading. “Don’t make me go home.”

“No matter what you might think, the truth is, you’re not ready for me, Breeanne. I don’t know if you’ll ever be.”

“I know.” She sank down to the floor again. “I’m pathetic. A virgin drunk on one and a half small glasses of sparkling wine.”

“Not pathetic. Special.”

“Yeah. I’ve been told that before.” She curled her upper lip.

“That’s not how I meant it,” he softened his voice, cushioning her with his tone, and crouched in front of her.

“Doesn’t matter. Ends up the same. I don’t get to have fun or sex because I’m
special
.” She met his eyes, and bounced to her feet so fast that he stumbled backward getting up.

Rowdy put a hand to the wall to regain his balance. “Whoa. Slow down. If you’re making me dizzy, you’ve gotta be making yourself dizzy.”

“You know what?” She tossed her head like a spirited filly. “I’ll go somewhere nobody knows me. Somewhere I’m not special. I’ll go to a nightclub and pick up a random guy and—”

Alarm blistered his brain. “What? No!”

“I got it in my head that you would be the perfect person to deflower me because you don’t do relationships.” She bobbed her chin back and forth with exaggerated movements. “And all I wanted was to have sex and stop being a virgin . . .”

“Stop doing that, you look like a bobble head.”

She bobbed her head that much harder. “But it doesn’t have to be you. Any man will do. Well, not
any
man. Not someone old enough to be my grandpa, or anyone with poor hygiene, or—”

“Stop!” he commanded. “Stop talking.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll have to throw you over my lap and spank you for such wrongheaded thinking.”

“A spanking? Oh goody.” She clapped her hands. “At last, we’re getting somewhere.”

“You want
a spanking?” His voice lowered along with his eyelids, and he moved toward her like he was intending on obliging.

Breeanne was starting to regret starting this conversation, but she’d asked for his attention and she’d gotten it. She was backing down now. She raised her chin. “How would I know? I’ve never had one.”

He held up his big palm. “Looks like it would just fit that bottom of yours.”

“Um . . .” She covered her fanny with both hands and backed up against the wall to protect her assets. Mistake. Now there was nowhere to run.

“You
have
been naughty. Ambushing me with chocolate-covered strawberries and a bustier.” He took another step closer, within touching distance.

“I didn’t know that was a corporal offense.”

“Oh yes.” He nodded. “Breaking and entering.”

“You gave me access. No lawyer would take your case.”

He swiveled his head from side to side. “You see any lawyers around here?”

“Um, no.”

“That’s right. What we’ve got here is a case of pioneer justice.”

“The punishment should fit the crime,” she said. “I throw myself on the mercy of the kangaroo court. Remember, I’m special.”

“You sure are. And we give special punishment to special people.”

There was no space between them now. The tips of his cowboy boots were butted up against the toes of her stilettos. She had no idea how to walk in the damn things, by the way, much less run. She’d bought them on Suki’s advice, strictly for bedroom foreplay.

“You do?”

They were both staring down at their feet and simultaneously they moved again, their eyes meeting once more.

“Uh-huh.” Rowdy slapped one big palm on the wall to her right, and then the other palm on the wall to her left, hemming her in.

“More than a spanking?”

“Worse than a spanking.” He growled and lowered his head.

“Wh . . .” Her lips stuck because she’d been pressing them together so hard. She cleared her throat. “What’s worse than a spanking?”

“Do you honestly want to know?”

“Yes. No. What’s happening?”

“Sweetheart, you are in over your head.”

“What’s worse than a spanking?” she whispered, both thrilled and terrified to know the answer.

“You’re about to find out. Just remember you brought this on yourself.” His hands dropped from the wall to her waist. The next thing she knew, he’d picked her up, tucked her into the crook of his arm, and strode toward the bed.

“I think I prefer the spanking,” she said, tilting her head to look up at him. “At least I know what that punishment entails.”

“Since when do perpetrators get to pick their punishment?” His voice was softly menacing. Instantly, Breeanne’s insides liquefied, and she was wet all over—with perspiration, desire, and feminine hormones. Her body was ready, and she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted
anything
in her life.

He sat down on the bed, pulled her across his lap, her butt in the air. He placed one big hand on the middle of her back, holding her down. She couldn’t see his hands from her upside-down position, but she felt his left hand move upward. Was he really going to paddle her?

“Because I’m a lenient judge, I’m going to give you a choice. For the last time, do you want a spanking or the other punishment?”

“How can I make an informed choice?” she quipped, when all she wanted to do was strip off his clothes and straddle him like a wild mustang.

But he was in full control. She might have planned this seduction, but he’d taken over. This was the Rowdy Blanton Show, and she was simply along for the ride. He intrigued her, and she trusted him implicitly. And while she ached to find out what he had in store for her, she was nervous about the unknown.

Blood pounded through her body. Her head was dizzy—from wine, from innuendo, from having her pelvis pressed against Rowdy’s crotch.

“Time’s up.” He made a noise like the
Jeopardy!
buzzer when someone got an answer wrong. “She’ll take option number two, Alex for three hundred strokes.”

“Strokes of what?” Breeanne gasped, but before the words were out of her mouth, Rowdy flipped her on her back in the middle of the bed, whipped the cheetah scarf around her wrists, and tied her to the wagon wheel headboard as if he were a rodeo steer roper instead of a baseball player.

She looked up at her hands, the cheetah scarf soft, but snug. She was hot and turned on and scared he was suddenly going to remember who he was and that he could have any woman he wanted.

He reached for her panties.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t . . .”

He pulled her teeny thong panties down over her legs and tossed the scrap of material over his shoulder. “Too late. You had your chance.”

“No.” She kicked her legs, but weakly. “I’ve been drinking. I’m tipsy. Drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing . . . I . . . I . . .”

He grinned wickedly and spread her legs apart, climbed up onto the mattress on his knees, slid his hands underneath her butt, scooped her up until she was resting on his forearms. “Your antics earned yourself a tongue-lashing, sweetheart.”

She gave a hiss of delighted alarm as he lowered his head. The heady excitement of their love play crested into a bombardment of sensation that spread through the pathways of her body like hot oil.

His tongue went to places she had not dreamed were possible, his mouth overwhelming her. Everywhere he touched, heat burned. Her nipples beaded hard and she arched her hips up, writhing against his relentless tongue, tugging on the scarf that held her anchored to his bed.

He was over her, around her, licking and stroking. A stagger of riveting enjoyment imprisoned her, locking her to the mattress. She stretched down both hands to twine her fingers through his thick hair, fully absorbed in the crazy upheaval of sensation his mouth wrought.

Hot rolls of pleasure crashed over her and her breath left her body. Her mind followed her breath, and she floated to the ceiling as if watching what he was doing to her at the same time she felt it through every cell, every pore, every nerve, every physical pathway possible.

The pressure and heat in her pelvis grew to an unbearable level. She didn’t think she could stand one second more. She whimpered and begged. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop . . .”

But he wasn’t the one who stopped.

Her body stiffened, quivered, and a hot bolt of exquisite loosening flooded her in wave after wave of sweet ebbing release. She gasped, went completely still. Closed her eyes, sucked in her lost breath. “Wh-what was
that
?”

“Unless I miss my guess, Breezy,” he said, a satisfied smirk in his voice. “I’d say you just had yourself an orgasm.”

CHAPTER
20

Life will always throw you curves,