Bedding The Best Friend (Bedding the Bachelors, Book 4) (17 page)

Ever since they’d walked into the damn bar.

Hell, it had taken everything he had to leave their hotel rooms and come down here with her.

He didn’t want her to be with another man. He wanted her all to himself. Being with her here in Vegas, whether it was eating a damn meal, acting goofy doing tourist stuff, or getting hot and heavy in a gondola, meant more to him than any time he’d ever spent with a woman. And it wasn’t just his heart involved. He physically ached with desire for her.

Even from across the bar he could see the lacy outline of her bra beneath her dress. It tempted him. Made him want to strip her right then and there so he could see her breasts cupped by lace, and then see her with the lace stripped off her. He’d want to touch her, but he wouldn’t. He’d look at her first. Memorize every curve and hue until her image was imprinted on his brain. And only when he was shaking with need, when his mouth was dry and starving for the taste of her, would he give in.

He felt a tug in his belly that was all her. Her body. Her scent. Her taste and look.

He wanted it all.

He wanted Annie.

And he knew without a shadow of a doubt, once she was his, he’d never want to give her up. Why settle for any other woman in the world when he could have his best friend, in his life and in his bed?

But she was across the bar. Flirting with another man. On the prowl for someone to put between her legs. Someone other than him. And what the hell was he going to do about it?

Nothing. If she could actually pick up a man with the intention of sleeping with him, she couldn’t feel the same way he felt about her.

With a sigh of defeat, he turned to the blonde beside him. He’d realized too late—if he’d had a chance with her to begin with—that he could commit himself to Annie for an eternity and beyond. And now he had to forget her.

Chapter Twelve

Clint was handsome and funny and sexy.

Almost as handsome and funny and sexy as Ryan.

The bartender sat a beer in front of Clint, and as he swigged that and she sipped her cosmopolitan, he swiveled his stool around so that they were both facing in the mechanical bull arena.

He looked at her and said, “Have you ever ridden one of those?”

Annie’s eyes widened as she watched the next rider get on the bull. The last one had been sent flying end over end after five seconds.

“No way,” she said.

“I used to ride the real ones for a living, before I got too old and broken down.”

Annie laughed. “Old? You can’t be thirty yet.”

“I just turned thirty last month, as a matter of fact,” he said. “In bull-rider years, that’s ancient.”

“Really? How old were you when you started?” she asked, genuinely interested. At the very least, Clint was taking her mind off Ryan for a few seconds.

“I was about eight when I started riding the sheep out at my uncle’s ranch—mutton busting. I did my first rodeo at ten, and that was getting a bit of a late start. I reckon I’ve had just about every bone broken in my body at one time or another in my twenty-year career. It ain’t a comfortable life for a young’un. If I was still doing it, it’d probably kill me. I was always too tall for it, too. My legs took a lot of the beatings.”

“So how old were you when you retired?”

“Twenty seven,” he told her with a grin. “Early retirement is sweet.”

“Wow. So what do you do now?”

“Sit in bars and talk to pretty girls,” he said with a laugh.

“Nice.” He was hitting on her, but it wasn’t creepy. She liked him. She glanced over at Ryan again. This time he was looking at her. He smiled, but the smile faded when he looked at Clint.

“It would be a lot nicer if they all looked like you, but they don’t, so I didn’t stay retired for long. Doing nothing can get old real fast. I own a cattle ranch in Montana now. My brother and I saved all the purses we won in rodeos and later on in the bull-riding circuit, and we put it all into cattle and land. I just needed a few days away, so here I am.”

“I’ve always heard that it’s beautiful in Montana.”

“It is. Everything is just so open. I could never live in a place like this, with all these people just stacked on top of one another. Where are you from?”

“California,” she told him. She glanced down the bar at Ryan again.

“Ahh, that’s too bad.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Annie asked. She’d heard what he said. She just didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I had high hopes for you and me getting acquainted tonight.”

“And something changed your mind?” she asked.

“The guy at the end of the bar. The one you keep gazing at.”

“Oh. Ryan? He’s just my friend. I was making sure his night is going okay, that’s all.”

“Hmm,” he said.

“Hmm what?” Annie said. The man seemed like he had more to say and, emboldened by the drink she’d had, and probably the champagne she’d had earlier, Annie wanted to know what it was.

“How long have you been in love with your friend there?”

“What?” Annie tried to laugh, but it came out as just a strange little strangled sound. “He and I have been best friends for years. I’m not in love with him.”

Clint said nothing.

Annie furrowed her brows. “What makes you think I’m in love with him?”

Clint smiled softly, then quietly said, “Your whole face changes when you look at him. I thought you were the prettiest girl in the room when I first saw you, but when you looked at him… There’s nothing prettier than a woman in love.”

Annie looked at Ryan again and back at Clint. There didn’t seem to be much reason to go on denying it. Instead, she shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t feel the same.”

“You’re wrong about that, doll.”

“Why would you say that? Can’t you see him surrounded by women down there?”

“Sure, he’s puttin’ on as good a show as you are. But when you’re not looking, he’s picturing himself rippin’ my head right off my shoulders.”

Annie glanced down the bar again. Ryan, who’d been looking in her direction, quickly turned away. And back toward Blondie.

“I honestly don’t think so,” she said. “I think he would have said something by now if he had feelings for me.”

“You obviously haven’t said anything, so why would he? Answer me this, what prompted the two of you to come to Vegas together and then sit on separate ends of the bar?”

Annie felt her face go hot. Clint had signaled the bartender to bring her another drink while they were talking. She picked up the fresh one and sipped it hard through the straw. Her mouth was dry as a bone.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Clint told her.

“I’m just a little embarrassed to tell you,” she said. If not for the third cosmo, maybe she never would have said anything. But her inhibitions were just low enough that she suddenly opened her mouth and began to talk about…everything. She told him about the list and about Ryan following her to Vegas to “protect her.”

“Has he kissed you yet?” Clint asked her. He took another long pull off of his beer.

Annie flushed bright red as she thought about the kiss…and the phone sex.

“So you’ve done a little more than kiss,” he teased. “Take it from a man who knows the inner workings of another man’s stupid brain, he’s into you, Annie. He just hasn’t admitted it to himself yet.”

Maybe he was right, Annie realized. There was plenty of evidence to support what he was saying.

Ryan had kissed her in San Francisco. And that kiss, even as brief and close-mouthed as it had been, had been so hot, so intense. Then he’d called her and had scorching, mind-boggling phone sex with her. Then he’d followed her here to Vegas. She’d initiated the kiss on the gondola, but he’d definitely kissed her back.

Annie stole a quick glance Ryan’s way. The women still looked interested, but Ryan just looked sad. At least it was a step up from how he’d looked when she’d told him she was sticking to her plan—like she’d shoved a knife in his chest.

What if Ryan really does have feelings beyond friendship for me?

“God, if only it were true,” she said.

“I’d bet my last purse on it,” Clint said.

Annie smiled ruefully. “Please don’t. Because even if you’re right, even if we’re soul mates, I’m obviously a big chicken. And so is he.”

“Maybe so,” Clint said. “Or maybe you can just go for it and see what happens.”

She imagined throwing herself at Ryan. Imagined him rejecting her. Gently. With pity in his eyes. But it would be rejection nonetheless.

“You ever hear of a guy named Lane Frost?” Clint asked her.

“Sounds familiar,” she said.

“Ever seen the movie
8 Seconds
?”

“Oh yeah! Luke Perry played a bull rider who got killed. That movie was so sad.”

“Yeah, it was. I was a kid when Lane was on the rise, but he was my hero. He used to have a saying that was pretty popular with the rodeo crowd. He’d say, ‘Don’t be afraid to go after what you want to do and what you want to be. But don’t be afraid to be willing to pay the price.’”

“In other words, if it means enough to me to be with Ryan, I’ll have to risk losing my friendship with him to make that first move?”

“Something like that, darlin’. You want another drink or are you going to take some risks?”

“Would you mind doing me a favor?” she said.

“Sure. What can I do for you?”

“Do a shot with me?” she said. “And make it sexy? I want to see how he reacts.”

Clint grinned and asked the bartender for two tequila shots. “I reckon you’re pretty enough to get punched in the face over.”

“Ryan wouldn’t do that,” she said.

“Never underestimate a man in love,” Clint told her as the bartender set up their shots. “Is he watching?” he asked her.

“Yeah, he’s watching,” she said.

She caught Ryan’s gaze, faked a smile, and gave him a quick thumbs-up.

Clint picked up the tequila and downed it. As he put the lime in his mouth, Annie drained her shot. Then she leaned in and slowly took the lime from his mouth. Clint resisted a bit, keeping her close for several prolonged seconds. When Annie sat back up and took the lime out of her mouth, Ryan looked pissed.

“What’d I tell you?”

“You should be charging for your psychic services,” she told Clint with a smile.

“Ain’t no need for a psychic where love is concerned. You just have to know what to look for.”

“So what now?” she said. She was really talking out loud to herself. Trying to gather some courage to make her move. “Do you mind if I tell him you shot me down?”

Clint laughed. “You are something. You don’t need my permission for that, but if it’ll help you, you go right ahead. It will make me look awfully bad. I’d have to be crazy to walk away from someone as pretty as you.”

Annie blushed. “You are a really nice man. You’re handsome, and you know so much about love. Why are you all alone?”

With a smile still on his face, he said, “You have enough on your mind tonight, darlin’. I’m gonna drain this beer and walk away, leaving my reputation in the toilet. I wish you nothin’ but good.”

Annie watched him do exactly what he’d said he was going to do—finish his drink and then turn and walk away without a backward glance. He was so nice that she had to remind herself to lose the smile and look like she’d just been rejected. She took a deep breath.

“One more shot of tequila, please.”

The bartender promptly poured her another, and she downed it. Then she plastered a sour look on her face, stood, and walked toward Ryan.

She had a good buzz going, so good she had to walk slowly, paying attention to every step she took. She could feel Ryan’s eyes on her the whole way. When she got close, he excused himself from the women he was talking to and walked the rest of the way to her. “What’s wrong?”

Annie leaned in so no one could hear and said, “I’m just not good at this. Can you help me get back to my room? You can come back down afterwards.”

Ryan took her hand and led her out of the bar so quickly that Annie almost got dizzy. When they stepped into the elevator, Ryan asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Annie forced another sad look and shrugged. “I’m not sure what else to say. I tried so hard with that guy, but he shot me down. I’m just so humiliated.”

“He had to be an incredible ass, crazy or gay,” Ryan said. “You were the prettiest woman there.”

Annie still wasn’t ready to come right out and tell him how she felt, but she needed to get him alone. She needed to know if he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.

When they got inside her room, she turned to him and said, “You can go back down now. I’m sorry for dragging you away from your admirers.”

“I don’t have any desire to go back down there, Annie. I want to be here with you. I want to make sure you’re okay. I don’t want you feeling bad about yourself because some brainless dick walked away from you in a bar.”

Annie kicked off her heels and sat on the bed. “Maybe it’s not a matter of my looks. Maybe I’m boring. I have no idea how to turn a guy on. I’d probably clear a room during a game of strip poker.”