Back in the Game: A Stardust, Texas Novel (8 page)

She cupped his cheek in her palm, felt the scrape of beard stubble. Her heart oozed wet and slippery. Lord have mercy, the man could kiss, just the right amount of pressure, and moisture.

And the taste of him? Heavenly.

Not that she had tons of practice on that score. She had been kissed no more than a handful of times, but he was so skillful, so accomplished. No experience required on her part.

But this man . . . ah, this man . . . he knew exactly what he was doing. She was the baseball, and he was the bat, his lips rocking her so hard she shot clean out of the stadium.

Yearning burned inside her. More than anything in the entire world she ached to blend blood and bone with him, to tangle her body, her brain, and her fate with his forever.

It felt as if he were marking her. Stamping her with intention that could both irrevocably change and wreck her life.

The desperate need to merge was eerie, inescapable, and ultimately terrifying because it felt so limitless.

This single, earth-stopping, soulful, falling-off-the-edge-of-the-world kiss, absolute in its purity, kidnapped her equilibrium. If he hadn’t tightened his grip on her, she would have tumbled right over.

He held her steady, his tongue skimming over hers, kissing her as if they’d been made for each other, as if he would never let her go.

And that was scariest of all.

This was not a dream.

This was real. And for some unfathomable reason Rowdy Blanton had kissed
her
, Breeanne Bliss Carlyle, the mousiest wallflower in all of Stardust.

Oh dear God.

No matter how scintillating, how compelling, his kiss was unreliable. He was a well-known playboy who’d elevated womanizing to an art form. He probably kissed strangers on a daily basis.

The kiss meant nothing to him, but it meant the world to her.

Her heart was a wild jackrabbit, running fast and frantic. No more. She couldn’t take any more. Breeanne broke away, staggered back, hand to her mouth, shock rippling through her body.

She peered into his face, dug her fingernails into her palm to hide the trembling. His eyes clouded, but he gave nothing away. No hint of emotion or reaction to what had passed between them. Whatever prompted the kiss, it had nothing to do with her.

As the sweet dream morphed into a humiliating, cheek-scalding nightmare, the emotional ground beneath her shifted, and she felt as if she were plunging headlong off a cliff onto jagged rocks below.

CHAPTER
6

I have no trouble with the twelve inches

between my elbow and my palm.

It’s the seven inches between my ears that’s bent.

—
T
UG
M
C
G
RAW

Hell’s bells. What was this?

Rowdy’s pulse raced harder and faster than Giancarlo Stanton’s famous line drive scorcher, the impact of their kiss nearly knocking him to his knees. Sweat bathed his brow. It had nothing to do with the workout he just completed, and everything to do with the soft, pliant mouth that had parted so easily, so innocently for him.

A fresh, sweet mouth filled with wonder and excitement.

He shoved a shaky hand through his hair, his temperature steaming like an overheated engine.

Christ
.

She reached up, snatched her glasses from his hand, stuck them on her face, sank delicate hands on her hips, and glared at him.

The look landed in his belly, unspooled, spread fresh heat, switching his body into a five a.m. bakery, all ovens turned on high. The weirdest thoughts poured into his head.

Eureka! I’ve struck gold.

Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Nothing like this had ever happened to him. Instant chemistry? Yeah sure, plenty of times, but this was something else, something indefinable, and mysterious. Something freakin’ primal.

He wanted her.

A lot.

In his bed. On the floor. On the weight bench. In the shower. You name it, and he wanted to have sex with her there. His brain had been hijacked, and he was operating on nothing but physical instinct.

But why? That was the mystery of it. Why her of all women? Why now?

Ever since his attack, Rowdy had been unable to work up the slightest interest in the multitudinous beauties determined to occupy his bed. It was a fact he’d started worrying about, fearing that his libido had permanently flown the coop. But now here he was getting hard as diamonds over a scrawny, wide-eyed wallflower.

And not for the first time.

It had to be the scarf. She’d come wearing cheetah, after he’d confessed it was his favorite print, a clear signal that she was ready, willing, and able for a hookup. That had to be why she was here. To explore the mutual attraction that had struck them both on Irene Henderson’s lawn.

He certainly wasn’t opposed to the idea.

Strategically, he tucked a corner of his gym towel into the waistband of his shorts to camouflage his swiftly growing arousal. He gulped and slapped on his best pitcher’s mound blank stare.

Fully committed to his mission of blowing the whistle on Potts, he’d spent the morning interviewing the three male ghostwriters that Jackdaw had sent over. At noon, he had taken a workout break.

When the four gorgeous women had descended on his home gym, all recent grads from a master’s degree in journalism program, saying they’d heard he was looking for a ghostwriter, Rowdy had initially been happy for the eye-candy distraction. But in a matter of minutes, they had him feeling like the only pork chop at a feral pit bull convention.

After a group interview, he’d tried giving the women the old don’t-call-me-I’ll-call-you routine, but they hadn’t taken the hint. They’d stayed, talking, staring, flirting. All four of them had that I-wanna-be-Mrs.-Rowdy-Blanton look in their eyes. He’d seen that look, sidestepped it hundreds of times. He willed Warwick to show up to escort them out, but his buddy hadn’t picked up on the mental telepathy.

To keep the beauties at bay, he’d jokingly told them that Nolan Ryan had the last word on whatever ghostwriter he selected. When they asked how he would know if his bloodhound gave his stamp of approval, he’d told them, quite honestly, that if Nolan Ryan liked you, he sat on your feet.

That provided him with a few moments of entertainment as the women tried to coax the bloodhound to sit on their posh shoes. Good old Nolan hadn’t been persuaded.

And then
she
had walked into the room. Appearing like magic in the doorway just when he needed rescuing, and wearing that come-get-this-big-boy cheetah scarf.

He had not intended on kissing her. It had been the furthest thing from his mind, but with the beauties converging, he got claustrophobic, panicked, and grasped for a way out. He’d kissed her to prove to the beauties that she was his girlfriend so they would buzz off.

Liar.

All right, cards on the table. The girlfriend thing was an excuse. Truthfully, he’d wanted to kiss her at the estate sale, curious to discover why she hadn’t glanced back at him. She’d been wearing his number, after all. If you wore a guy’s number on your baseball jersey, you had to be interested in him on some level, right? The opportunity to kiss her had presented itself, so he’d taken advantage of it.

C’mon, that was only a half-truth.

Bone honesty here. The real reason he kissed her? Something inexplicable had come over him. Call it instinct. Call it urge. Call it horniness. Whatever. He’d been compelled to go for it.

He wanted to kiss her. He had kissed her. It was as basic as that.

Big mistake.

Because now he felt strange things, things he’d not felt before. And when it came to women, Rowdy thought that he had felt everything there was to feel.

God, he wished like hell he hadn’t kissed her, and stirred this . . . this . . . well, he had no idea what the name of it was, but it was as jolting as falling against a fence he didn’t know was electrified.

She glowered at him like she was a sleepy bear he’d poked awake in the middle of winter hibernation. Unable to hold up to her sharp-eyed scrutiny, he swung his gaze back to the other women who’d lined up in a row behind him.

“
That’s
your girlfriend?” asked the brunette in a tone that managed to sound both snotty and incredulous.

Miss Cheetah Panties’ face reddened, her shoulders slumped, head ducked.

A fierce protectiveness swept through him and he moved to drape an arm around her thin shoulders, and his next move was pure impulse. “She is.”

Her muscles went stony beneath his touch, but she didn’t contradict him.

The beauties, who, except for their hair color, had the uniform sameness of fashionable cookie-cutter neighborhoods, exchanged surprised glances. The redhead muttered to the brunette, “She must be really good at blow jobs.”

“Why yes,” Rowdy said. “Yes she is, and we haven’t seen each other in a while, so if you ladies will excuse us . . .”

He dropped his arm from Miss Cheetah Panties’ shoulders to her waist, and snugged her closer. The smell of her hair, all lemon drops and sweet flowers, boggled him.

Miss Cheetah Panties’ shoulders were so stiff she could have passed for a baseball bat. But he could feel her warm breath on his neck, and it felt good. Wholesome. Inhaling her, he thought of homemade bread, cream of wheat, peanut butter, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese.

She inhaled, the air expanding her lungs and causing his hand to rise with her indrawn breath, her solid life force moving beneath his touch. His own lungs picked up her quick tempo, then took over, and led the way to a more leisurely rhythm. She followed willingly, slowing, calming, relaxing into him.

Pretty damn proud of himself, he smiled.
Gotcha, babe.

“When will you let us know what you decide about the job?” the redhead asked.

“My agent will call you.” He kept the smile welded to his face, and his arm clamped around the woman beside him.

“None of us got the job, did we?” the blue-haired woman asked.

“Sorry,” he said, not the least bit contrite. “You should have minded your manners, and not insulted my girlfriend.”

The beauties, who in retrospect weren’t so beautiful after all, collected their things and scurried off. The instant the door clicked closed behind the women, Miss Cheetah Panties jabbed her elbow into his breadbasket.

Hard.

Air shot from his diaphragm in an explosive
ooph
, emptying his lungs and doubling him over.

“What . . .” He gasped, peering up at her. “. . . was that for?”

“Kissing me, you . . . you . . .
bounder
.”

Hand pressed to his belly, he halfway straightened and eyed her warily. “Bounder? Who are you? Jane Austen?”

Her hands landed on her hips, and she scowled at him over the top of her glasses the way his first grade teacher had done just before she hauled him off to the principal’s office for putting a frog down the back of some little girl’s dress. “Do you even have any idea who Jane Austen is?”

“Sure. I’ve read
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
.”

“Of course you have.” She scowled, squared earnest shoulders, and tossed her head as if she was indeed a prissy lass from a Regency-era drawing room. “My name is Breeanne Carlyle.”

Breeanne. Nice name. It made him think of spring training when the season was fresh, and exciting.

“And for your information, there is nothing wrong with being well-read, and with having a wide vocabulary. I opted for the word that fit the situation.”

“And bounder won out?”

“Indeed.”

“What exactly is a bounder?”

“A cad, a blackguard, a parvenu, a heel—”

“Modern-day English, please.”

“A jerk, a creep, a louse, or if you prefer cruder vernacular, which I presume you do, a wanker, a douche, an asshat, a butthead, a—”

“Point taken. I apologize for kissing you.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t criticize,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

“What isn’t my fault?”

“You can’t help yourself.” If sarcasm were a deep line drive, her tone would have just loaded the bases. “I’m sure you’re used to getting everything you want.”

She was right. He
was
accustomed to getting whatever he wanted. And right now he wanted her, even if he had no idea why.

He raised an index finger like an objection. “In my defense, I did ask you to go with it before I kissed you. You had time to say no. You could have said no. Why didn’t you say no?”

Her hands flew up to a face that was both alarmed and fascinated. “I was overwhelmed. You overwhelmed me. You’re an overwhelming person.”

“And you pack a mean elbow.” He rubbed his stinging solar plexus. “But you’re also a good sport. You did wait until the others left before you punched me. I appreciate that.”

“I didn’t punch you, I jabbed you. Be precise.”

“Okay. You
jabbed
me.”

“Why did you pretend I was your girlfriend?”

“You saw them. They were hovering like vultures.”

“I assumed you were familiar with that brand of female attention. Courted it, in fact.” Her voice was soft, but strong, the rich velvet of Southern drawl back-loaded with Texas grit.

God, he could listen to her talk all day. “Yeah, well, I was feeling pretty exposed all alone in here with those piranhas.”

“Poor baby. It must be so hard being you.”

“And then there you were.” He deepened his smile, stepped closer. This time she didn’t back up, but she had that I-wanna-bolt look in her eyes, “My salvation.”

She sniffed. “Kissing me was the only solution you could come up with?”

“Not the only one, but the most pleasant.”

“For the record, I did not enjoy it,” she said. Her nose twitched. Bunny rabbit.