Million Dollar Baby

“You know I don’t,” she grumbled, “or I wouldn’t be so bad at it.”

He flicked the end of her ponytail. “I never said you were bad at it.”

Some deep note in his voice caught her stomach and sent it into a free fall of excitement and anticipation. “So are we good now?” she asked.

The cowboy stared at her. He stared at her for so long that her nipples pebbled and her thighs clenched. “What makes you believe that you and I will be wild and exciting? What if you chose wrong?”

She gaped. Words escaped her.

He closed her mouth with a finger below her chin. “It would seem prudent to take me out for a test drive ahead of time...don’t you think?”

Before she could do more than inhale a sharp, startled breath, he slid one big hand beneath her ponytail, cupped the base of her neck and pulled her toward him just far enough for their mouths to meet comfortably.

Actually, comfortable was a misnomer for what happened next. Fireworks shot toward the ceiling in all directions. Angel choirs sang. A million dizzying pinwheels shot through her veins and rocketed into her pelvis.

The man was kissing her. Nothing more. So why was the earth shaking beneath her feet?

He tasted of whiskey and temptation. If she’d had any remaining reservations about her plan, they vanished in the heat of his lips on hers. It was possible she whimpered. She definitely leaned in and wordlessly begged for more.

Somewhere in the distance catcalls and whoops and hollers signaled an appreciative audience. But Brooke barely noticed. Her hands settled on the cowboy’s shoulders. “Take off your hat,” she begged.

“I only take off the hat in bed,” he said, the words rough with lust and determination.

“Oh.”

His smile was more of a grimace. “It’s not too late for you to walk away. In fact, it’s never too late. You started this little fantasy, but you can say no whenever you want.”

She looked up at him, feeling the oddest combination of confidence and stomach-curling uncertainty. “I don’t want to say no.”

“Do you have a hotel room?”

“Not yet.”

“Any preference?”

“Not somewhere fancy.” Translation—nowhere that the staff might know her parents.

His terse nod seemed to indicate agreement. “Let’s go, then.” He tossed money on the bar for the tab and took her elbow as they walked out.

Outside, they paused on the sidewalk. It was August, and the air was pleasant at this hour. He pointed at a late-model pickup truck. “Would you like me to drive?”

Brooke shook her head. Who knew that the mechanics of a one-night stand were so tricky? “My things are in my car. I’ll meet you there. How about the Sherwood Hotel? Two streets over?”

“I know it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling brutally young and stupid.

“For what?”

“I’m sorry you lost your wife.”

He cursed beneath his breath, rolled his shoulders and stared up at the moon, his profile starkly masculine. “You told me we weren’t going to use our real names,” he said. “That was your rule. Well, mine is no rehashing the past. This is sex, Mandy. Wild and exciting and temporary—if that’s not what you want, walk away.”

His entire body vibrated with tension. She honestly couldn’t tell if he was angry or sexually frustrated or both.

In that moment, she realized that her reasons for coming to Joplin no longer existed. She wasn’t here to flirt or to pick up a stranger or to have an anonymous tryst to prove to herself that she wasn’t boring.

Right here, right now...with her limbs shaking and her mouth dry and her nerves shot...the only thing she wanted was to undress this cowboy and to have him return the favor. Because this man, this beautiful, hauntingly complicated man, tugged at her heartstrings. She wanted to know him in every way there was to know a lover.

She only had one night. It would have to be enough.

Daringly, she reached out and put a hand on his arm. She could feel his taut, warm muscles through the soft cotton fabric of his shirt. “I don’t want to walk away, Cowboy. I’ll meet you at the hotel. Don’t make me wait.”

Two (#u55d1a74b-7e1f-5330-87d9-fec97bea603e)

Austin Bradshaw couldn’t be entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming. This night was like nothing he had ever experienced. He glanced in his rearview mirror to make sure Mandy’s little navy Honda was still behind him. He chuckled to himself, because he had a hunch the car was a rental. His mystery woman struck him as the kind of person who would attend to the details of a plan with great care.

The desk clerk at the midrange hotel was neither curious nor particularly friendly. He swiped Austin’s credit card, handed over two keys and immediately returned his focus to whatever show he was watching on his laptop.

When Austin went back outside, he found Mandy leaning against the side of his pickup, an overnight case in her hand. She shifted from one foot to the other. “All set?”

He stared at her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Quit asking me that,” she huffed. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Releasing a slow, steady breath, he took the bag out of her death grip and set it on the ground. Then he cupped her head in his hands, tilted her face up to his and crushed his mouth over hers. He’d been in a state of arousal now for the better part of two hours. The faint scent of her perfume and the taste of her lips were imprinted on his brain.

He wanted her. Naked. Hungry. Begging. The more he thought about the night to come, the more he unraveled. At the rate they were going, there wasn’t going to be much of the night left.

Reluctantly, he let her go. “Hurry,” he said.

The hotel was three stories tall with indoor corridors and modern decor. At this point, Austin could have taken her up against the wall in the stairwell, but he resisted.

They rode the elevator to the top floor. Their room was at the end on the corner. His hand shook so badly it took him three tries to get the key in the door. He expected Mandy to give him grief about it, but she never said a word.

When they were finally inside, he closed the door carefully in deference to their fellow guests and leaned against it.

Mandy frowned. “Where’s your bag?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Why not?”

“That’s not really how a one-night stand works, honey.”

She looked mortified. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you’d be more comfortable if you had your bag. Women like to have their little bits and pieces with them.”