Blaine, Destiny - Roping in Forever [Forever 1] (Siren Publishing Allure) (7 page)

“Ah shit!” he exclaimed, grabbing her around the waist and kissing her like crazy, wedging his tongue inside her mouth and kissing her deliberately, aggressively, and far too forcibly. “You should’ve stayed in bed, Bella.”

She trembled in his arms, glancing down and then back up again. “What were you doing in here?”

“What’s it look like I’m doin’?” he bit out, stuffing his cock back in his pants.

“You can take away the temptation, but the longing is still gonna be there.” Without question, she’d felt the swell of his erection, and in those glorious seconds, Bella must’ve known she was set to become his woman. “Corbin, don’t hide from me.”

“Bella, I told you. I can’t,” he said, holding her at arm’s length.

“Why?” she dared him, reaching for him, acting as if she were dying to wrap her hand around his cock, perhaps itching to show him how much she wanted to belong to him.

“Because, damn it! I just can’t!” He stormed out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into her bedroom. “There’s a time for everything, but right now is not the right time for us!”

She trailed behind him. “You don’t want me, but you don’t want to reject me outright. Is that it?”

“No!” he said, rubbing the front of his pants.

“You don’t find me attractive?”

“For the love of God, Bella.”

“You think I won’t please you?”

“Are you serious?” He took a step toward her. “Bella, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Then what is it? Tell me!” She shoved him, and he was shocked. “Tell me why you can take other women to your bed, but when it comes to the thought of me, you’d rather take your own hand to your cock than to have my lips around you, suckin’ that thing dry!”

“Dear Lord, Bella.”

“What? You think I don’t know what you like? I saw, damn you! I watched with my own eyes!”

“Then you ought to know better than to try and provoke me right now, woman!”

“Why, because I’m barely twenty-one—not quite a child, but hardly a woman in your eyes?” By this time, she was crying—damn it all—and she was mad, good and furious.

“Yes,” he finally said. “There. Are you satisfied? You’re still young and in many ways too immature to handle what I like.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it, Corbin. That’s a copout. You’re saving me for yourself, but how long before I get tired of waiting, huh, Corbin? How long before I’ve had enough? You sure haven’t kept yourself for me, and yet you expect me to wait? I’m an adult, Corbin. A woman! I have needs, too, damn it, and I have desires for you!”

When the anguished expression washed over her face, stamping its permanent place on her cheeks, settling deep in her eyes, he whispered, “Bella, you’re still not ready for me, honey.”

“Then tell me something,
sir
,” she drawled sarcastically, “how old does a woman have to be before she can land in bed with the great Corbin Cansey, huh? Twenty-one wasn’t old enough, so what’s the magic number, huh? Twenty-five? How old, damn you?” she asked, pushing him again.

He pursed his lips and glared back at her. “I think I should go.”

“Good! Go! I’ve been humiliated enough for one lifetime, so you damn well should leave! Don’t you ever come back here! If a whore is good enough for you but I’m not—so help me God, I never wanna be in the same room with you again!”

Chapter Twelve

Travis was whistling
Dixie
, and Corbin was singing the blues. Travis had an extra spring in his step, and Corbin’s sore balls prevented him from taking a walk at all.

There was something wrong with this picture.

Corbin tapped his ink pen against the desk and studied Travis for a long time before he finally said, “So have you moved in yet?”

Travis grinned. “Nope, not yet, but I think it’s gonna happen.”

“You’re still fuckin’ Bella’s momma?” He shook his head. Who would’ve thought things would’ve played out like this?

“Yep,” Travis said, flipping through cattle orders. “And I like it. I like
her
a lot. We make a good couple.”

“What does she think about the circuit?”

Travis shrugged. “I haven’t asked her.”

“Hmm,” Corbin said, thinking that would be the deal breaker sooner or later. Travis might as well enjoy his short-lived love affair. “Have you seen Bella?”

“Yep.”

Corbin balled his fists under the desk. For the last week he’d been trying to pry information out of Travis, and he’d gotten nowhere. If he wanted his buddy’s help, he was gonna have to come straight out and ask for his assistance.

“Where did you see her?”

Travis dropped the bills on his desk and glared across the office. “She finally came out of her room two days ago and watched a movie with me and her mother. This morning, we even had breakfast with her. Happy?”

Corbin grunted.

“That’s about what I figured. What’d you ask for?”

“I was thinking about inviting her out to dinner. There’s a new steak house that just opened out on the river. I thought I’d take her out for dinner and dancing. What do you think?”

Travis shrugged. “She’ll probably tell you to go to hell, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. We leave in a few days so you might as well try to settle things before we hit the road. We’ll be gone a month, you know.”

“Uh-huh,” Corbin said, wishing he’d had time to set things right with Bella long before now. “I’ve considered that, too. I may ask Bella to come along. What’d ya think?”

Travis stood. “I think you want her so desperately you’ve convinced yourself she already belongs to ya. That’s my opinion. As for Bella goin’ anywhere with you? I don’t think she will. I believe you’ve played enough mind games with her. Corbin, she may be done with you, and if she is, you can’t blame her. A woman can only take so much.”

Corbin balked at that. “I was just askin’ for an opinion, not a full-scale psychological evaluation.”

“That night we took her home…what’d you do to her anyway, Corbin?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Her mom thinks she tried to get ya to fuck her and you turned her down.”

“Of course I turned her down, and what is it with Mrs. McDermott anyway? Is she trying to get her daughter laid?”

“No, but Jane and Bella are close.”

“
Jane
is it?”

Travis snickered. “Well, surely you didn’t think I yelled out Mrs. McDermott when we were in the heat of passion, did ya?”

“I didn’t think you’d go lookin’ for some one-night stand in a woman who is twice your age.”

“She’s lasted a good bit longer than twenty-four hours. Where age is concerned? She’s forty-five, and I’m twenty-two. In matters of the heart, numbers don’t take away from real feelings or have to add up in any particular order, Corbin.”

“I still don’t see it.”

“You wouldn’t. Hell, you don’t know anything about love or companionship. You can’t get beyond the fact that Bella is twenty-one years old and she’s waited her whole life just to capture your attention. You know what really bothers you about Bella? Her inexperience, that’s what. But the damndest thing of it is that if she had any kind of history with men at all, you wouldn’t want her either. Bella can’t win for losing.”

“She hasn’t waited her whole life, for God’s sake. That’s her mother filling your head with nonsense.”

“The hell she hasn’t. Since I’ve been sleepin’ there, I know that girl has had at least five dinner offers. Every bachelor in town wants a chance to tap on her door.”

“Like who?”

“
Who
doesn’t matter. What matters to Bella is that those dinner invitations sure as hell haven’t been comin’ from you!”

“I’ll break her heart.”

“You’ve already done that. See if you can’t try to mend it and see if that doesn’t work out better for the both of ya. Otherwise, Bella is gonna move on, and when she does, I’ll be the first one tellin’ ya all about it. You’re stubborn as hell, but stubbornness won’t help you win the hand of the woman you love.”

“I never said I loved Bella.”

“You didn’t have to. We’ve gotta be in
Tulsa
in two days, and you haven’t been on a bull’s back since
San Antonio
. As far as a horse? Hell, you’ve probably forgotten how to tighten a girth.” Travis stormed out of the office and then returned once more. “There are two things you need to do, and you need to do them today. One, get off your ass and get out there and ride.

“Then, go see Bella. Tell her how you feel. If you don’t, it’s a long way to
Oklahoma
and back. I have a feeling as soon as you get out there you’ll turn around and head straight home. You ain’t gonna do yourself any good until you get your head in the right place—and I ain’t talkin’ about the one toppin’ your shoulders.”

* * * *

Corbin removed his hat. “Mrs. McDermott, I’m here to see Bella.”

“Come in, Corbin. She’s in her room. You can go on up.”

“Thank you,” he said, starting for the stairs and preparing to take the longest walk of his life.

“Corbin?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You can call me Jane, by the way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, trying to hide a smile and continuing up the steps.

“Corbin?”

“Yes, Jane?” he asked, stopping again. This time, he took a deep breath, too, hoping Bella’s mother showed some mercy and didn’t make him dally long.

“You break her heart again, and so help me, I’m asking Travis to beat your ass.”

He smiled. “I’d say he’d like that.”

“I would,” Travis said, appearing in the foyer all spiffed up, wearing a pressed white shirt and black jeans. “In fact, I’ve been waitin’ for a reason, so if Jane gives me one, I may jump at the chance.”

Corbin laughed, thinking Travis sure looked like one henpecked cowboy. “Where are you two headed?”

“Travis is taking me out on the town tonight,” Jane said enthusiastically, a twinkle in her midnight-blue eyes. “He told me about this new steak house on the river. We’re going for dinner, and then he’s taking me dancing. He’s such a romantic.”

Corbin shook his head. “Yeah buddy. He’s one of kind.”

“How about that, Corbin?” Travis said, smirking. “A night out on the town, a
long
night straight ahead.”

Corbin cleared his throat. “Uh, what time do you expect to be home?”

Jane cut her gaze toward Travis. “Didn’t you say we were staying out at the ranch tonight?”

“Yep. I sure did.”

Jane clutched her purse at her side. “Well, what do you know, Corbin? Looks like you and Bella are home alone.”

Chapter Thirteen

Corbin shoved his hands in deep pockets, checking to be sure he had everything he needed. He’d screwed around long enough, and now that he was about to take a big leap of faith, he didn’t want to fuck this up. He’d come to Bella’s place well-prepared.

Corbin’s grandfather had been a rancher. He’d died at a young age. A wild bull got him, which was why his own father eventually joined the rodeo.

Corbin’s mother used to tell him stories about his father, trying in her own way to make him understand why he’d been taken away from them at such a young age. Corbin had been a kid when his father died in front of a stadium full of spectators. If his father’s death taught him anything at all, it was that everyone lived on borrowed time.

Gathering up his courage, he knocked on the door. “Bella?”

“It’s open,” she snapped.

Nothing like a warm greeting.

She was seated at her easel, painting. The ripe smell of acrylics filled her room. She tilted her head and studied her masterpiece, holding the brush between her teeth and acting like the painting was far more appealing than the man in her room.

“Corbin,” she finally said, acknowledging him. “What brings you out here tonight? I figured you’d be over at the club since I ruined your first visit there. From what I understand, most men your age can’t get enough of that place.”

He stalked across the room but stopped when he saw the fury behind an artist’s work. “What the hell is that?” he asked, looking at the distorted images scattered across the canvass. Some of them looked like him, others resembled Bella.

“Mass confusion,” she told him, brushing a few strokes of red across the center, splattering paint all over the place. “It’s a collage of memories overlapping one another. One runs together with another, and they all meet in the middle because it’s hard to tell where everything began or predict where it all might end.”

Corbin knelt beside her, taking the brush out of her hand and placing it on the tray. “Bella, look at me.”

“Let me guess. You didn’t do enough damage the last time you were here, so you came back to humiliate me some more?”

“Bella, you’d been drugged. You’d been drinking. You weren’t in any position to take a man to your bed. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you or take advantage of you when you weren’t in your right mind. Don’t you understand?”