Good Time Girl (9 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. I’m sorry for implying that you were a tramp. I’m sorry for acting like a goddamned jealous jackass. I was wrong. And stupid. And—” He groped, searching for another word, any word, that would satisfy her and get him back in her good graces. “I was just flat-out wrong, is all. And I’m sorry.”

Roxanne smiled beatifically. “I forgive you.”

Tom eyed her suspiciously. “That’s it? That’s all I had to say? You’re not going to make me eat shit?”

“Dirt,” she said. “I was thinking of making you eat dirt. And no, I’m not.”

He couldn’t quite believe that’s all there was to it. “Why not?”

“Because when I walked in here tonight and saw you talking to that silicone-enhanced little chippy, I wanted to tear her bleached-blond hair out by the roots.”

Tom smiled. “You were jealous.” He all but crowed the words.

“When you’re with me, sugar, you’re a one-woman man. Or you’re not with me.”

Tom’s smile widened into a grin. He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. She melted against him, her hands flat on his chest, her face tilted up like a flower to the sun, her luscious ruby-red lips a kiss away from his.

“So,” he said, and his voice wasn’t quite steady. “You wanna dance?”

She shook her head, brushing her lips back and forth across his in an almost kiss. “No.”

“Drink?”

Another brushing butterfly kiss. “Uh-uh.”

“What, then?”

She leaned in that tiny, necessary fraction of an inch and pressed her lips to his. When she finally drew back, a long delicious minute later, she had his lower lip between her teeth. She nipped it lightly before letting go. “I’ve got us a room down at the Round Up. How ’bout we skip the preliminaries and get right to it?”

T
HEY DIDN’T MAKE IT
to the Round Up Motel. They didn’t even make it as far as the car. They were hardly a dozen steps past the front door when Tom pulled her into the dark, concealing shadows at the far side of the building and pressed her up against the unpainted plank wall.

His mouth crashed down on hers, lips open, tongue seeking, teeth nipping and nibbling, his hands on either side of her head to hold her still for his invasion. He didn’t come up for air until their lips were red and wet and swollen. Just like certain other parts of their collective anatomy.

“I missed you,” he said, and skimmed his mouth down the side of her neck with tender, avaricious hunger. “I know it’s only been a couple of hours, but I missed you something fierce.”

She tilted her head to give him better access, then sighed when he took it. “I missed you, too.”

He smoothed his hands downward, palms open, fingers curved, letting them glide over the curves of her shoulders and arms and breasts. “I’ve been miserable ever since you walked away from me.”

“Me, too.” She moaned and arched into his caress, lifting her hands to the backs of his to press them more firmly to her breasts. “Oh, me, too.”

“I couldn’t do anything but think about you.” He flicked open the first button on her denim vest. “About this.” He flicked open another button, and then another, and another. “These,” he said as he brushed back the sides of the vest and exposed her breasts to the warm night air.

The two ends of the silver lariat necklace she’d purchased that afternoon hung between her breasts, the vivid blue stones dangling on a level with her erect nipples, making her look more naked, more sensual than she would have without the added adornment.

Tom sucked in his breath. “You have the sweetest little breasts,” he murmured raggedly, and cupped his hands over them, enveloping them completely, squeezing them together so they plumped up in delicious little mounds of flesh that overflowed his hands and caused the turquoise stones on her necklace to disappear into her cleavage. “Sweet little cupcakes.” Slowly he drew his hands away, bringing his fingers together in a pinching motion at the tips of her breasts. “With sweet little cherries on top,” he said as he rolled her nipples back and forth between his fingertips.

Roxanne felt everything inside her turn warm and liquid and wanting. She arched her body even more, thrusting her breasts outward, pressing her head back against the rough-hewn wall. “Please,” she said.

Tom smiled into the night. “Please what?”

“Touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

“With your mouth.”

“Where?”

“On my breasts. Put your mouth on my breasts.”

He bent his head, flicked a nipple with his tongue. “Like that?” he said, knowing he was teasing her, knowing she wanted more.

“Yes. Like that. More.”

“More how?” He flicked her nipple again. “Like that? Or like this?” He circled his tongue around the hard, distended little bud, slowly, making it thoroughly wet, then drew back and blew on it.

She shuddered.

“Tell me,” he murmured. “Tell me what you want and you’ll get it.”

She put her hands on either side of his head and tried to draw him closer. “More,” she said, her voice low and petulant and rasping, a mere breath of sound.

Gently, he took her wrists in his hands and pushed them down to her sides. “Keep them there,” he said, and pressed her palms flat against the wall. “And tell me what you want.” He leaned in close for a minute, swaying against her, letting the fabric of his shirt rasp against her sensitive nipples. “You can have anything you want,” he crooned. His lips hovered a tantalizing inch above hers. “Anything at all. But you have to ask for it.”

“Kiss me,” she said.

He did. Thoroughly. Completely.

“Now what?”

“Kiss my breasts.”

He scattered a wealth of baby-soft kisses over the upper slopes of both breasts.

“My nipples. Kiss my nipples.”

He placed a soft sucking kiss on the tip of each breast.

Roxanne’s fingers pressed into the wood beneath her palms.

“Tell me,” he murmured again, his voice rough and ragged. She’d lost her cornpone-and-molasses twang again and it drove him nearly crazy to hear her talk dirty in that starched New England accent. He circled his tongue around her nipple, slowly, stopping just short of giving her what he knew she wanted. “Tell me what you want, Slim. Tell me and you’ll get it.”

“Suck them,” she said, and moaned when his mouth closed around the tingling tip of one breast.

He drew it deep, taking as much of her breast as he could into his mouth.

She bit back a whimper as he began to suck, and then let loose a low, aching moan when he cupped his hand around the other breast and began rolling the nipple between his finger and thumb.

“Ohmygodohmygod
ohmygod!
”

Tom lifted his head. “You came, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to come again?”

“Yes.”

“How? No,” he said as she reached for his hand, “put your hands back on the wall and tell me. That’s the only way you’re going to get what you want.”

Quivering, aching, feeling thwarted and rebellious and all the more aroused because of it, she did as he ordered and pressed her palms flat against the wall.

“Good girl.” He kissed her approvingly. “Now. Tell me what you want.”

“Put your hand between my legs. No. No, under my skirt. Inside my panties. Rub me. Yes, like that. Please. Oh, yes. Yes. Just like that. Right there. Oh. Oh. Oh, please. Oh, Tom. Please, Tom.”

“Hands against the wall,” he ordered, stopping the tantalizing manipulations of his fingers when she clutched his arms. “And keep your hips still.”

Shooting him a fulminating glare, she slapped her palms against the wall and went rigid, biting down her bottom lip in an effort to stay that way.

He rewarded her with the soft, slow strumming of his thumb against her clitoris, just the way he knew she liked it, drawing it out, waiting…waiting…waiting until she was on the screaming edge before he slipped two long fingers inside of her and stroked her G-spot. Her body convulsed as a torrent of feeling burst inside her, her whole body clamping down in an orgy of wild, intemperate, unstoppable sensation.

“Again?” he said, when she’d caught her breath.

“Yes.” The word was nearly a sob. “Yes. But I want your cock in me this time,” she said, telling him before he could ask. “And I want to touch you.”

“Be my guest,” he invited, angling his hips so she could get at the fly of his jeans.

She flicked open the metal button on the waistband, then grabbed the two sides and pulled, popping the rest of the buttons in a single motion. His erection bulged through the opening, covered now only by the white knit fabric of his briefs. She grabbed the elastic waistband with both hands and pulled it down. His erection sprang free, iron-hard and pointing straight up at his navel. She trailed her fingertips up its length and then down again, slowly, watching it jerk in response.

Roxanne all but licked her lips in anticipation. “I want this inside me.”

“Lift up your skirt,” he ordered.

Her gaze on his face, she gathered the eyelet fabric in her fists and pulled it up, slowly, revealing the tops of her red boots and the lacy white stockings. The stocking tops stopped midway between her knees and crotch, held up with lacy elastic bands that gently hugged her thighs. Above them her legs were smooth and bare all the way to the high-cut legs of her white lace panties.

His eyes glazed over, his gaze riveted on the tiny triangle of white lace between her thighs. “Take them off,” he said, indicating the panties with a jerk of his chin.

Transferring the froth of fabric to one hand, she attempted to remove the panties one-handed.

Evidently, she was taking too long. “Let me help.” He curled his fingers over the waistband, and yanked.

Hard.

The fragile lace split without a protest.

Roxanne nearly came again, right then and there.

Tom grabbed her hips in his hands, curling his fingers under her bare bottom, pulling her forward and lifting her all in one smooth motion.

She started to come again as soon as he entered her.

“Not yet. Not yet,” he murmured desperately, pressing her hips hard against the wall to keep them both from coming.

It was too late for Roxanne. She went up and over, her face buried in the curve of his neck to muffle the sounds of ecstasy.

Tom managed to hang on, holding back until her spasms subsided, and they could begin again, together. And then he began moving. Slowly. Powerfully. Pumping in and out of her in unconscious time to the heavy beat of the music pulsating against the wall at her back. The band was playing “Wild Thing,” the unlikely hard-rock anthem of the rodeo cowboy. The crowd was really into it, stamping and screaming, rattling the walls of the old barnlike building from the inside, while they shook it from the outside to the same wildly sensual beat.

Wild thing, I think I love you!

Oh, no, Roxanne thought, as she tumbled over the edge again into the mindless abyss of blinding physical sensation.

Did she?

8

R
OXANNE TURNED IN
her Mustang at the Santa Fe airport on the theory that there was no reason to waste money on a rental when they’d be driving to the same places all the time.

“If you get sick of us, you can always rent yourself another car and be on your way,” Rooster said as they all settled into the cab of Tom’s pickup for the one-hour drive from Santa Fe to Albuquerque.

It was one of the extended crew cab models, big and black and macho, so there was plenty of room for the three of them as well as the occasional fourth passenger—or even a fifth, if nobody minded getting cozy and they ran across a cowboy in need of a lift to the next rodeo. The truck bed was fitted with a low, windowless camper top that could be locked to secure their gear. It was equipped with an inflatable mat and a double sleeping bag, so it was even possible to sleep in shifts, if not actual comfort, during the frequent overnight hauls between venues. Given that it was the virtual home-away-from-home for two men, Roxanne found the interior of the truck was surprisingly neat and tidy. There was a big cooler behind the driver’s seat for soft drinks and cold cuts, and a plastic bag for the inevitable trash one accumulated on a long road trip. There was a thick stack of well-worn maps stuck under an elastic band on the visor, a jumble of mostly country-western CDs mixed in with several books-on-tape in a shoebox on the floor, a radar detector mounted under the dashboard, and nearly a dozen paperbacks and as many magazines strewn over the top of it.

Someone, Roxanne noted, was quite fond of the more sensational tabloid magazines, which, together with the books, made for a very eclectic mix of literature. There was a copy of the most recent
Prorodeo Sports News,
of course, three or four of the requisite Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey westerns, a couple of Robert Parker and Sue Grafton detective stories, a Tony Hillerman, a meaty Wilbur Smith novel, a recent Oprah pick, and—

“Harry Potter?” she said, picking up the young magician’s latest adventure.

“That’s Tom’s,” Rooster pointed out quickly, in case anyone thought he might be reading a kid’s book.

“I like to keep up with what my students are reading,” Tom said. “Turns out, it’s a real good book. Have you read it?”

Roxanne goggled, just a bit. “‘Students?’”

“Tom’s a teacher,” Rooster said helpfully. “When he’s not rodeoin’ he spends most of his time trying to pound some learnin’ into the young hooligans at the Second Chance Ranch.”

Roxanne really did goggle then. She couldn’t help it. Her good-looking, dangerous cowboy was a
teacher?

“Surprise,” he said softly.

I
T WAS NEARLY
an eight-hour drive from Albuquerque to Phoenix, if you kept to the speed limit. It was considerably less if you pushed it. After only two days in their company, Roxanne had already learned that cowboys
always
pushed it. Even cowboys who taught school. It was simply the nature of the beast, and the way the rodeo game was played if you wanted to win.

A cowboy had to compete at a lot of rodeos to make a living. And a lot of rodeos meant a lot of traveling.

“Say you win first place at one of the big venues and pull down fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand dollars for a single event,” Tom said quietly, talking mostly to keep himself awake on the long overnight haul. “That’s considered big money because, more often, you’re looking at a couple of hundred dollars, max. But say you win that two thousand. You’ve got to pay your entry fees out of that, and those can be four or five hundred dollars at a top venue. You’ve got to pay all your own traveling expenses. If you’re a family man, with a wife and kids waiting for you at home, you’ve likely got expenses there, too. A cowboy can be a top rodeo star and still make less than a hundred thousand a year, gross. Usually way less.”

She wanted to ask what he’d “pulled down” for the third place he’d taken in the saddle bronc event that afternoon, but didn’t. It wasn’t any of her business what he made or didn’t make. “Then why do you do it? Why does anybody do it?”

“Why did Joe Namath play football with braces on both knees? Or Steve Young keep playing after his sixth concussion? Sure as hell, neither one of them needed the money.”

“So you’re telling me it’s the love of the game? That you actually
like
being tossed on your head at regular intervals?”

“Hey, now, no need to be insulting,” he chided. “I don’t get tossed my head on a regular basis. Just often enough to keep it interesting for the paying customers.”

“But to risk life and limb for that piddley amount of money! That’s just crazy, is what it is.”

“No, darlin’,” he drawled, “that’s rodeo.”

“H
ERE
, R
OXY
, take a sip of my Co’-Cola,” Rooster said, thrusting the familiar red-and-white can at her when she paused to clear her throat. “Wet your whistle. We can’t have you gettin’ dry, now, can we?”

Roxanne took the can from him and took a small sip. It was the full-octane version of the soft drink, chock-full of caffeine and sugar, too sweet for her taste and warm, to boot, from being clenched between Rooster’s hands. But she’d been reading out loud for the past two hours and needed, as he’d said, something to wet her whistle. Having done so, she handed it back to him with a smile, silently vowing to make sure they added diet cola and a six-pack of spring water to the contents of the cooler in the back seat at the next refueling stop.

“For a kid’s story, that Harry Potter ain’t half bad,” Rooster said, and gave Tom a friendly whack on the back of the head. “You shoulda told me how good it is. I might have started in to read it myself if I’d known.”

“I did tell you.” Tom said without rancor, neglecting to add that it hadn’t done any good because Rooster had never willingly cracked a book in his life.

His choice of reading material tended toward the tabloids,
People,
the latest issue of the
Prorodeo Sports News,
and, once a year, the swimsuit issue of
Sports Illustrated.
Like most cowboys, he did love a good yarn, though, and was an avid fan of the books on tape that could be rented at one truck stop and returned down the road at another. It hadn’t taken him long to discover that having somebody read to him was better still for whiling away the long, dreary hours on the road.

“It is a good story, isn’t it?” Roxanne said, turning her head to smile at Rooster over her shoulder.

Tom cast a speculative sideways glance at her, amazed at her patience and good humor, not to mention her skill at reading out loud. Not everyone could do it well, either reading too fast or too slow, or plodding along in a monotone that could render a book boring no matter how talented the writer. She read with verve and animation, bringing the characters to life in a way that suggested she’d had a lot of practice—and making Tom wonder just where she’d acquired the skill.

“You need another sip, Roxy?” Rooster said, none too subtly prodding her to resume reading. “You want me to open you up a cold one so’s you can finish the next chapter?”

“No, thanks,” she said and, taking the hint, resumed regaling them with the magical adventures of Harry Potter and his friends.

“T
HERE’S A RODEO
someplace in the country almost every day of the year,” Tom told her as they sped along the highway between Phoenix and Window Rock, which was seven and a half hours away in the heart of the Navajo reservation in Arizona. “Considerably more, of course, during the summer months,” he continued, his voice low to avoid waking Rooster, who slept stretched out on the back seat of the cab because sleeping in the back, inside the camper top, made him carsick. “On weekends, it’s not unusual for a cowboy to compete in three or four different rodeos in as many different cities. Two a day, sometimes, if he can squeeze them in. Fourth of July week is especially crazy because of all the festivals and celebrations going on then. A lot of them have rodeos attached.”

Roxanne tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a yawn. “Why?”

Tom slanted her a glance out of the corner of his eye. “Why what?”

“Why would you want to compete in more than one rodeo a day?”

“Points,” said Rooster from the back seat, proving he wasn’t asleep, after all.

Roxanne started and looked around guiltily, devoutly hoping he’d been asleep thirty minutes ago when she’d distracted Tom from the tedium of the road with a little digital sex.

“Points and money,” Rooster said. “Each dollar you earn in winnings counts as a point in the standings. And only the top fifteen cowboys—the top fifteen money winners—in each event go to the finals in Las Vegas. The more rodeos you enter, the more money you earn, the more points you win. See?”

“That’s the theory, anyway,” Tom said.

“So, how many rodeos does a cowboy have to enter to get the points he needs to make the finals?” Roxanne asked.

“Well, now, that all depends. You ride in a lot of little Podunk rodeos, with Podunk purses, you don’t make many points. What you gotta do is hit as many of the big venues as you can, that’s where the big money is.”

“Big being a relative term,” Tom said dryly.

Rooster paid no attention. “Cities like Dallas and Fort Worth. Denver. Phoenix. That’s where the big money is. And your big state fairs and festivals, now, there’s good money to be had there, too. The Buffalo Bill Rodeo in North Platte. Pike’s Peak or Bust in Colorado Springs. Frontier Days in Cheyenne. And Mesquite, a’course. The Mesquite rodeo has become real popular. There’s a rodeo going on there purt’ near every weekend. Big money there.”

“Big being a relative term,” Roxanne said, and earned a sly, sidelong grin from the driver.

“N
O, ABSOLUTELY NOT
. No way.” Roxanne slapped at Tom’s hands and tried to stifle an excited giggle. “I am absolutely
not
going to have sex in the back of a pickup,” she said primly, even though the very thought of it had her juices flowing. “They’ll hear us.”

“They” were Rooster and two other cowboys who were hitching a ride to the next rodeo. Their car had overheated in the middle of the Arizona desert, causing the engine to freeze up. Since it was on its last legs, anyway, an oil-guzzling junker purchased for a couple of hundred dollars, they simply left it where it was, hefted their gear on their backs, and started walking. Tom picked them up about a hundred miles east of Window Rock, which worked out just fine because it gave them two more drivers on the long haul to Canon City.

“Nobody’s going to hear a thing, Slim,” Tom wheedled, his voice warm and cajoling. “Rooster’s got his George Strait CD turned up full blast. And even if he didn’t, what with the road noise and the wind, and us back here all private and cozy under the camper, snug as two bugs in a rug, they wouldn’t hear us, anyway. Not unless you scream real loud.” He grinned wickedly, and tugged at the placket of the Western-cut shirt she’d bought at the rodeo in Santa Fe, popping the little pearl snaps to expose her leopard-print push-up bra to his avid gaze. “Damn, you wore this on purpose, didn’t you?” He ran his hand over her décolletage, tracing the upper curves of her plumped-up breasts with his fingertips. “You know it makes me crazy.”

“No,” she said, although it was true. “I wore it because it’s the last clean one in my suitcase until we can stop at a Laundromat.”

He skimmed his hand down over her stomach to the top button on her jeans and popped it open, too. “Are you wearin’ those sexy little leopard panties, too?” He pulled the zipper down before she could stop him. “Let me see.”

She slapped his hand away again. “I mean it. We’re not having sex back here.”

He traced a fingertip along the edge of her panties. “How about we just fool around a little bit, then?”

“Absolutely not,” she said, and rolled over on her side, away from him. “Go to sleep. You’ve got to ride in less than eight hours.”

“I’d rather ride you right now,” he murmured, and kissed her nape.

Roxanne steeled herself against temptation. “Sleep,” she said sternly, and closed her own eyes.

“I’m too keyed up to sleep.” He slid his hand over her hip and down inside the opened fly of her jeans. His palm was flat on her belly, his long, callused fingers sliding under the edge of her panties to touch the crinkly blond hair that covered her mound. He brushed them back and forth, just above where she was beginning to crave his touch. “I’d probably drop right off to sleep if I was more relaxed.”

“Relax yourself,” she suggested. But she scooted back, just a little, until the curve of her butt was pressing into his groin and he didn’t have to reach quite so far to caress her.

He returned the pressure of her hips, snugging his erection up against her, and inched his fingers a little further down inside her panties. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that relaxing yourself will make you go blind?”

“My mother didn’t talk to me about relaxation. She talked about the importance of a diversified stock portfolio and how to hire a good caterer and cleaning ser—” She gasped as his fingers found just exactly the right spot. The gasp turned to a moan, and her hips rolled, moving rhythmically against his clever fingers.

He took advantage of her momentary distraction to ease her loosened jeans down over the curve of her hip, baring her to mid-thigh. His fingers slid deeper between her legs, cupping her, his long index finger sliding in and out of her wet sheath, his thumb riding her clitoris.

She bit back a shriek. “Stop that,” she moaned, casting an apprehensive glance toward the cab of the truck.

He started to draw his hand away.

She grabbed at it, keeping it right where it was. “No, don’t!”

He chuckled wickedly and popped the buttons on his own fly, freeing his erection. Roxanne arched her back and wriggled her butt against him, her legs parting as far as the restricting jeans would allow. Tom slipped his cock into her from behind and began a slow, leisurely pumping, while his fingers continued manipulating her clitoris from the front.

“Don’t scream, now,” he whispered, just as she was about to come. “They might hear you.”