Good Girls Don't (11 page)
“How far are we from your place?”
His laugh echoed through the car.
“What?” Lettie asked.
“We passed it ten miles ago.”
She nipped his ear, cuddled close, her bare breasts pushing against him. “I swear, Bill, I’d never dreamed.”
“Dreamed what?”
“That you were so bad.”
“Lettie Campbell, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” He steered up an exit ramp, then crossed over the interstate to head back toward home, and hoped his words conveyed his confidence in his ability to be bad. So far, she seemed convinced. Then again, giving her a screaming orgasm while doing eighty in the HOV lane qualified as pretty damn bad, if he did say so himself.
Now he had to prove his wildness in the bedroom. Without a car, the wind and the traffic adding to the appeal. Sure, he knew his way around a woman’s body. He’d even wager he’d find that spot Jeff had missed during Bill’s first tangle with Lettie in the sheets.
However, he wasn’t all that certain what was different about a bad boy having hot and heated, wild and wicked, sex in the bedroom . . . and a good boy doing the same thing?
Because deep down, Bill Brannon knew he wasn’t bad; he was good. And deep down, he knew he wasn’t bad in the sack; he was good.
Damn good.
In a matter of minutes, he pulled in his driveway and prepared to head inside and continue being bad. But he quickly learned that being wild, being bad, didn’t take much effort on his part, not with Lettie so willing to aid in his corruption.
His hand had barely grasped the door handle on the car when she stopped him in his tracks with, once again, three potent words.
“Do me here.”
He turned toward her, surprised to find her hands already at his waist, fumbling with the button, then sliding the zipper down.
“You need this, don’t you?” he asked as she jerked his pants down and curled shaky hands around his erection.
“You have no idea,” she whispered, pushing his boxers down as well. Then she stalled her frantic attack and raised her eyes to his.
The light from his porch illuminated her pale blond hair and let him see the urgent desire in her eyes. But it also identified something else in her gaze—a question. And he’d die before he let her believe there was anything one-sided about what was happening here. “I need it too, Lettie. This. Here. With you.”
Her smile warmed his heart. “You have protection, right?”
“Oh yeah.” He withdrew the foil packet from his pants. “Lettie.”
“Yeah,” she said, her eyes never leaving his hands as they rolled the latex down the length of his penis.
“Are you still as limber as you were in high school, when you did all those cheerleader stunts?”
She laughed out loud, climbed across the console and eased a long, slender leg down the edge between the door and the seat. Her hot, slippery center found his aching penis and slid down his length, enveloping him like a glove.
“What do you think?” she asked, easing back up, then taking him in again.
“Hell. Yeah.”
He’d never been with a woman whose intimate femininity was so bare, shaved and slick and ready. And he’d never been with a woman who made his world spin, urging him to delicious heights of ecstasy as she took control.
He clamped his mouth over one nipple, pulling and sucking and licking, while she worked her hips, gasping and panting as she drove him toward the edge. Moving a hand between their hot, heated bodies, he found her tender cleft, still swollen and waiting for his touch.
She increased her pace as he matched her rhythm, thrusting inside, while teasing her sensitive nub.
“Bill, I’m—almost—” She screamed out, and he lifted his hips and drove in hard, climaxing powerfully into her hot core as she convulsed around him.
Bill pulled her close and held her as her body, slick with sex, shuddered. He held her there, his penis still deep within her, while she collapsed against him, her soft blond curls tickling his cheek and her luscious lips nuzzling his neck.
True, he’d never been with a woman like this before. Never been so bold, so wild, so intense. Then again, he’d never been with Lettie.
C
an I buy you a drink?”
Amy often came to Cowboys, the Atlanta bar known for fast-paced line dancing and bull rider wanna-bes, to dance away the stresses of work. She never came looking for a man specifically, rather someone who knew the latest steps, was willing to take a spin on the floor and would concede to Amy’s adamant stance of returning home alone.
She wasn’t like so many Atlanta women in their twenties who looked for heated action on the dance floor, then hoped for honest-to-goodness cowboys heating up their beds later on. Amy knew most of them were disappointed at night’s end, anyway, because she’d swear 95 percent of the Stetsons in the room had never seen hide or hair of a horse.
But the six-foot-plus cowboy standing in front of her right now was in the other 5 percent. The real deal. Cowboy through and through, from the black Stetson on his gorgeous head to the just-as-black Ropers on his feet. And, consequently, every female in the room eyed him like the last brownie at a fat person’s convention.
Everyone but Amy, that is, who wished Landon Brooks would sidle up to someone else. He was way too tempting.
She knew because he tempted her daily.
“I asked if I could buy you a drink, Amy,” Landon said, standing with his Wrangler-clad thighs and his give-me-a-shot smile.
Amy glanced at the two cellulars in her purse. The phones had kept her off the dance floor all night, though Brenda had said she’d sit out a dance and phone-sit if Amy wanted. Why couldn’t one of them ring right now? And keep her from having to attempt small talk with Landon.
She glared at them, willing them to ring.
They didn’t.
“I’m drinking Coke. I’m driving,” she said, using as few words as necessary and hoping to dissuade him as she sipped at the straw in her half-empty glass.
“Another Coke on the rocks it is,” he said, and motioned for the waitress.
Amy sighed as he sat down. The women at the surrounding tables turned their attention to the other men in the room, assuming this one had just been claimed.
A small stack of cocktail napkins sat in the center of Amy’s table. If she had tape in her purse, she’d use one to write a “Still Available” notice and plaster it to Landon’s broad back.
Why the devil didn’t she keep tape in her purse?
She sucked on her straw until it made that obnoxious gurgling noise around the bottom of her empty cup and hoped the sound irritated the good-looking cowboy. In a minute, the band would resume playing and he wouldn’t be able to hear her attempt to shoo him from the table.
He looked at her glass, winked as though she’d done something cute, then laughed.
Great. She’d managed to turn him on. Super.
Like Amy, Landon Brooks was a project lead for Adventurous Accessories. He wasn’t on her team; he wasn’t even in the sex toys section. He’d been hired for his nose, so to speak. According to Amy’s boss, the company’s president, Landon could pick a pheromone-emphasizing scent merely by inhaling. No tests required.
Amy, and every other Adventurous Accessories employee, had been impressed . . . and jealous. And, like every other female employee, she couldn’t deny a little surge of pheromone-emphasizing
something
whenever Landon Brooks appeared.
Now was no exception.
The waitress arrived and he placed the order, asking for a couple of cherries to be included in the drink; then he turned back to Amy.
“You here with Brenda Henson? I saw her on the dance floor.”
“Yeah. Brenda was in the mood for a little line dancing, and she knows I like the music here.”
“Just the music?” he asked as the waitress brought the drink, and he withdrew one of the cherries by the stem. “Mind if I have one?”
“Why not? You ordered it,” she answered, handing the waitress her empty glass.
“Yeah,” he said, grinning as he popped it in his mouth. “I did.”
The band returned to the stage and started an exaggerated version of “God Bless Texas,” while Amy watched the only real Texan she knew skillfully maneuver the fruit in his mouth. She tapped her fingers on the table. “Well?”
His mouth stopped moving. “Well what?” he asked, easily forming the words in spite of the stem.
“I figure you’re about to show me how you tied it in a knot. So, go ahead,” she said, raising her voice above the music and trying her damnedest to act as though his tongue talents wouldn’t impress her.
His smoky gray eyes drank her in, and he removed the stem.
“A double knot,” he said, nodding his head and making his Stetson bob. Then he winked at her before turning his attention back to the dance floor. “So, do you like to . . .” he started to say, but stopped when Amy stood, left the table and flagged down the waitress.
He watched her return, then leaned across the table to be heard above the music, which had escalated to a low roar. “If you were hungry, you should’ve said something. I’ll get you whatever you want.”
“I took care of it.”
“Do you always take care of yourself?” he continued, and a wicked grin claimed his face.
Amy fought the heat in her cheeks and hoped to hell he wasn’t asking what she thought. Because she wasn’t about to get into details with Landon Brooks about her orgasm-for-one ritual.
“I’m very self-sufficient,” she said, jerking her head toward the approaching waitress.
Landon eyed the bowl the waitress placed on the table, then started laughing. “Damn, you’re competitive, aren’t ya?” He stretched a long-fingered hand across the table and touched her wrist. “Listen, your toys are as good as my massage oils. Matter of fact, today’s sales report had your orange stallion edging past my fuzzy navel. The stallion’s ahead by a nose, so to speak.”
“You’re a riot,” she said, trying her best not to look impressed by his wit.
He smiled. “We don’t have to compete at everything, do we?”
“Not everything,” Amy said, pulling a cherry from the bowl. “Just the things I’m better at. On your mark,” she started as he grabbed a cherry, “get set.”
“Go,” he said, fighting a laugh as they both put cherries in their mouths and started a knot-tying battle any Boy Scout would envy.
By the time Brenda finished her line-dancing lesson, Amy and Landon had made their way to the very last pair of cherries, and were tied eight all.
“All right, lady, this is it,” he said, fingering the last piece of fruit.
“This is what?” Amy asked.
“Winner takes all.”
“Oh, this should be good,” Brenda said, plopping in the third chair and fanning her flushed face. She withdrew a barrette from her purse and pulled up her straight black mane. “That’s better,” she said, picking up the drink menu and using it to fan her exposed neck. “Now, what exactly constitutes all?”
“If you lose, you owe me one dance tonight and one date this weekend,” he said without batting an eye.
Amy smirked. He’d come up with that bet way too fast. How long had it taken him to realize what he wanted?
“That sounds like two things to me,” Brenda noted, holding up two fingers.
“So I’m greedy,” Landon said, answering Brenda but eyeing Amy.
“And if I win?” Amy asked.
“You name it,” he said. “And you can be greedy too, if you want.”
Brenda gasped audibly, but Amy didn’t flinch. “Fine. If I win, you never hit on me again. Never so much as flirt. Matter of fact, you only speak to me when absolutely necessary. At work. And never outside the office, like you’ve done tonight.”
“An odd choice on your part, don’t you think?” Landon asked, once again tipping that black cowboy hat. “So, if you win, you basically want me to leave you alone?”
“That’s right.”
“Reckon why that’s so important to you?”
“Because you drive me crazy?” Amy supplied as Brenda snorted.
“Yeah,” Landon said, seeming way too pleased with her response. “I think that’s it.” He twirled the cherry stem in his fingers. “So, are you ready?”
“Go!” Amy blurted, putting the cherry in her mouth and hoping she got a decent head start.
He was right, and he knew it. Something about Landon Brooks, cowboy, good ol’ boy—and good-with-his-nose boy—drove her near out of her mind. And had driven her to a few orgasms too when she’d pictured his face while using her toys at home. Which ticked her off, since she couldn’t control the image that always came first and foremost when she climaxed.
Landon Brooks, in nothing but a Stetson and boots.
Lord, she suspected he was good at everything.
Which meant she had to win this race. She didn’t need a man—had never needed one—and Landon threw an industrial-sized wrench in her well-laid plan to steer clear of them. All of them. Especially the one smiling like a thief and holding his double-knotted cherry stem up for the world to see.
“Dang, you’re good.” Brenda breathily appraised him, her eyes practically glazing over, while Amy snarled.
Landon stood, held out a hand. “I believe you owe me a dance.”
“I’ve got those phones to watch,” she said, pointing to the cellulars sticking out of her purse, and wondering why they hadn’t rung all night. Or why they couldn’t start beeping out a happy tune now.
“I’ll come get you if they ring,” Brenda said, nudging Amy from her chair. Then she looked at Landon. “She promised her sister she’d catch her calls.”
“On two phones?” Landon asked, his hand still outstretched.
“It’s complicated,” Brenda answered, then shrugged when Amy frowned at her. “Well, that’s what you told me.”
Amy took Landon’s hand and ignored the tiny tingle it sent through her fingertips, over her wrist, up her heart and straight to her libido.
Super.
“You were holding out on me,” she grumbled as he led her on the dance floor and the band geared up for the next tune. “You could’ve beaten me every time, couldn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged,” he said. “So shoot me. You’d have never accepted the bet if I hadn’t manipulated the situation a bit.”
“Dang right, I wouldn’t. Why’d you do it?”