The Girl with the Golden Spurs (11 page)

Choose.

She gulped in air and opened the green one. If he wasn’t inside, she’d simply go to the next room. And then the next…until she found him. Until she showed him that she wasn’t dull, that she was exciting. Until she made him realize he still loved her.

But when she stepped inside the dark room, she was so rattled by the sudden hush after the roar of the party, she forgot to close the door.

She heard footsteps. Then a shiver of air caressed her shoulder blades as the door slammed behind her.

“Bryce?”

A bolt clicked.

He’d locked them inside.

For an instant she felt like a bug trapped in a jar.

“Bryce, is that you?”

“Liz—”

“Thank God—Bryce! For a minute there…I wasn’t sure which door…which color…I mean.”

He said nothing. In the dark nothing felt real. Not even Bryce’s voice had sounded real. But who else knew her name?

“I—I know you don’t like surprises. You’re not angry, are you…angry that I came?” she whispered.

“Lizzy, I’ve got something important to tell you.” His low, gruff tone sounded as muffled and unsure as hers.

She had to talk fast before he got mad. She’d come here to show how much she loved him, to show him she was a new, exciting woman.

“No! Me first!” She held her breath for a second. “I—I love you,” she began in a low, cottony, raw voice. “I know you want me to be wild and sexy. So, I wore the lingerie you bought me. A girl told me that these rooms are designed for us to indulge our wildest fantasies. D-did you give me that lingerie…b-because you want me to play the hooker? I will, Bryce. I’d do anything to get you back.”

He didn’t answer, but she could hear his breathing grow raspier.

“I’ll play the hooker for you, darling. I’d do anything,” she repeated.

“Anything, darlin’?” drawled that slow, deep voice that was so sensual and male, it made every nerve in her body tingle.

“You don’t sound like yourself,” she murmured, feeling confused.

“Neither do you,” he said, but she felt him come nearer.

“Touch me,” she pleaded. “I’m aching to be in your arms. Just touch me. I—I’m so scared.”

“Don’t be.” He hesitated. “So, you’re a woman of the night here to please me?”

She gasped. “Yes, oh, yes. I’ll be your wildest fantasy.”

“Whatever I want—you’ll do it?”

“Yes. Y-your wildest fantasy.”

“That won’t be hard,” he whispered. “You always were. You always will be.”

“So, w-what exactly do you want?”

“You’re a hooker, right?”

“Y-yes.”

“Well, I want your mouth on me everywhere.”

“All right.”

“Then I want to strip you and kiss you and lick you everywhere.”

She gasped.

“How much will that cost?” he whispered.

“M-money?” she squeaked, horrified.

“My fantasy…remember? You’re the hooker. I’m your client. I pay. You deliver.”

“Oh, y-yes…darling.” She named a price.

Leather slid against fabric. He got out his wallet and counted out crisp bills. He took his time, pressing the dry wad of bills between her plump breasts with warm, probing fingers.

“Don’t you want to turn on the light and make sure you didn’t overpay me?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you earn every penny. I paid for the whole night.”

When she felt a callused fingertip slide down her cheek to her throat, she shivered and jumped back. “I feel so hot and strange, not myself.”

“Good, pretty lady of the night. That’s the way I want you.”

“I—I think I’m drunk, and I know I’m new at this. If I don’t quite have the role down, please forgive me.”

When he laughed again, she felt him move nearer in the darkness.

“Lizzy. Oh, Lizzy.”

Something in his lazy, drawling voice sounded of Texas
and touched her heart. Desire swept her even before his hard, possessive mouth closed over hers. Then his powerful arms wrapped her so tightly, she couldn’t think. She could only feel. And oh, how unexpectedly powerful those feelings were.

Something was very wrong, and yet very right. Strange. Bryce had never felt so good. Tonight her lover’s arms were hard and strong, his grip tight and firm. He felt so good, she began to shake. She felt young, a girl again. He felt as good as…as good as Cole used to before she’d realized he hadn’t really wanted her for herself.

Cole
. The mere thought of him sent a pang of sheer, visceral longing through her. Vivid images struck her. Cole making love to her in the oak mott on a threadbare quilt. Cole making love to her on the beach behind the beach house with the pelicans flying overhead. Cole looking so ill and pale and lost after Mia’s death, all his dark anger gone.

Cole. Cole. Cole
. Her heart beat his name like a tattoo even as she fought to push him out of her mind.

Cole was a million miles away in Texas where he belonged. Bryce was here, kissing her, holding her. Bryce was finally on fire for her, and just because she was on fire, too, the way she used to be with Cole, she had to quit thinking about Cole.

Then her lover’s tongue slid inside her lips and a hot, crazy thrill rushed through her. One taste left her reeling. One taste was all it took for her to know deep down in her bones who the man kissing her really was.

Nobody tasted like that except Cole
.

What was he doing here?

Later she would wonder why she hadn’t fought him. He had never wanted her. He’d only wanted the Golden Spurs Ranch. But in the heat of the moment, even knowing who he was and what he really wanted, she was too hungry for him to care.

Always, always he’d deceived her. Tonight he’d let her think he was Bryce, and she didn’t even care about that. Later, she would, of course, but for now, she clung to him, kissing him back, giving him her tongue as she wound her fingers in his thick black hair.

It had been so long—years of lonely separation. And she had been lonely, lonely even when she’d pretended to herself that Bryce was perfect. No matter what she’d told herself to the contrary, she’d missed Cole. Somehow she’d continued to deny this simple, undeniable reality because his marriage to Mia on top of everything else had hurt her so terribly.

She slid her arms around Cole and pressed her body against him. When she felt his lower body harden against her, the world seemed to spin crazily on its axis.

It couldn’t be.
It couldn’t be
. She hated him. She loved Bryce. She’d run away from Texas to forget him.

And she
had
forgotten him. She had.

Until he’d married Mia and her sister—for reasons known only to her—had put her Golden Spurs stock in his name. Then she’d truly learned to hate him. Or had she? What was that old cliché about hate being the flip side of love? Hadn’t that marriage shown her what she really wanted?

Even knowing who he was and how she really felt, she still wanted Cole right now, this very minute, more than she’d ever wanted anything else—more than she wanted New York or Bryce or any other man. She knew all of Cole’s faults; she knew all the unforgivable things he’d done. He’d forced Mia to marry him. He’d accepted her stock as his due and received even more stock when Vanilla had been born. Even so, right now Lizzy still wanted him.

“You’re not Bryce,” said a tiny voice that had to be hers.

“No,” he admitted roughly, stealing another swift kiss.

“You followed me here? You tricked me.”

“Or maybe you tempted me.”

I should slap you. Tomorrow I know I’ll never forgive myself
for this
.

“Cole?” she whispered against his lips. “It’s you. Really you.”

He didn’t deny it. “I wouldn’t have let it go too far without telling you who I was.”

“Like I really believe that.”

“It’s the truth.”

Cole. Here. It was almost too much to believe. “How did you get past the man at the door?”

“I waited until a couple arrived who knew the password.”

When he kissed her again, she wrapped her arms around his waist, glued her body to his and held on tight. She couldn’t stop squeezing him or kissing him. Desire built inside her like a burning tide, and she put her hands on each of his cheeks and touched her mouth against his again and again.

He groaned raggedly.

God, how she’d missed him, longed for him, and hadn’t wanted anybody to know, least of all herself.

Her hands dug his shirt out of his jeans and she slid her arms around him, needing, compelled to touch his hot brown skin.

“I vowed to hate you forever,” she said.

“You pretty much stuck to that vow,” he reassured her with a rueful laugh.

“Until now.”

“Until now,” he muttered. “Don’t start hating me again tonight, darlin’. I’m sorry for whatever I did.”

The real Cole wasn’t sorry. But right now Lizzy was too far gone to care.

She tore his shirt from his body and ran her mouth and tongue up and down his torso, lingering over his nipples and navel, kissing him until she felt like molten flame.

What was she doing? Was she drunk? Why this crazy, wild combustion of emotion and passion for a man she hated? And yet in his arms, she felt like she was shooting sparks, bursting, completely alive—for the first time in years.

She remembered the first time he’d been inside her. That night she’d told herself she’d love him forever. But so much had happened. He was a Knight, and she was a Kemble. She’d run away from him and Texas to make it in the big city.

He’d left south Texas too after their breakup. Only he’d returned with a pilot’s license and enough money to start his crop-dusting business. Then he’d married Mia.

He loved the land and cows and the big sky and the big silences as much as she hated them.

But she hadn’t been as successful in New York as he’d been at his pursuits.

Cole Knight, bad as he was, vengeful as he’d been, was
the only thing I was ever good at
.

Was it the icy drinks and the bizarre circumstances and the sexy game she’d played with him that had her so confused? Or had these games opened doors to her truer self?

She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She only knew that she needed more…more…more of him. Like Alice, who’d fallen into that rabbit hole, this dark little room and her desire for Cole had become her new reality.

His mouth found her nape and sent more hot ripples through her.

“I want you naked,” he said on a shudder. “But not here. Not like this. You said you were drunk. I won’t take advantage of that.”

“I don’t understand— You just paid me—”

“Not like this,” he growled, sounding as stubborn as she remembered him being.

“Cole— What’s happening to us? I hate you. Or at least I’m supposed to— And you hated me…or at least you
did…before the amnesia.” Her words tumbled out as she tried to gather her thoughts and emotions.

“Lizzy… Oh, God, Lizzy. I don’t remember, but I don’t hate you now. I couldn’t hate you, darlin’. I want you too damn much. I came here because—”

“But you married Mia.”

“Mia? I don’t even remember Mia. I never think about her or dream about her. Only you. You haunt me, darlin’. Not Mia. I want
you
. Not
her
.”

“I’m a mess, Cole. My whole life’s a mess. You couldn’t want me. Not if you knew.”

“Trust me on this.” His large, rough hands covered her softer, smaller ones. “I want you, darlin’. I want you very, very much.” Slowly he brought her fingertips to his lips. When he kissed each one, she tingled all the way to her toes.

She felt breathless. And crazy.

He wanted the ranch, and he’d married Mia to get his foot in the door. Was he after her now for the same reason?

Bryce was here at this party. Her whole world was going up in flames, and she was too mad with desire for Cole to care.

One thing she knew—before morning, before her conscience or sanity or the prude in her kicked in and told her not to, she was going to sleep with Cole Knight.

Why shouldn’t she have him? Just one more time. Even if her life was a mess. Have him here in New York. Why the hell not?

He might want her for the ranch, but so what? She was on to him. Tomorrow morning she could turn into the New York girl of her dreams and send him packing.

In the meantime, why shouldn’t the new, exciting her console herself with a night of unforgettable sex—after all she’d been through?

He opened the door to the room and rock music bombarded them. “Hold on to me, darlin’,” he said.

“My God,” she whispered, clenching his hand.

If possible, the party seemed a whole lot wilder than it had when she’d first arrived. A girl in a beige satin bikini, who looked nude in the half-light, was chained to posts and writhed to the beat of the music. A man in a toga rushed onto the stage, unchained her, and carried her off on his shoulder screaming.

Everywhere men and women were dancing to the wild music and drinking and laughing.

Lizzy had never been to a party like this, but Cole seemed suddenly enraged at her that she was here. Frowning, he folded her close against his great body as he heaved himself through the mass of humanity.

“How about a foursome?” a man in a red satin suit with horns yelled at them.

What if Cole said yes?

“Maybe later,” Cole retorted grimly, causing Lizzy to flush.

A woman painted silver with flowers clinging to each breast threw herself at Cole. Lizzy’s breath stopped, but Cole deftly evaded the wanton’s embrace and kissed Lizzy instead.

“Had enough?” he growled into her ear.

Before he could hustle Lizzy away from the woman, her date squeezed Lizzy’s bottom. Lizzy had had too much. Without thinking, she jabbed her high heel into the man’s ankle, and he doubled over, yelping in pain.

Cole laughed. “Don’t commit murder. We’re almost to the exit, darlin’,” he said.

She looked up and she felt giddy with relief when she saw the door ahead. What had she been thinking of to come to such a party?

They were nearly to the door when she saw Bryce nursing a drink at the bar. Before she lowered her head, he saw
her. His face lit up, and he grinned. When he waved and beckoned her to come over, she was stunned she felt nothing for him. Absolutely nothing.