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Unfurling the in-stall water hose, Kenzie filled Indie’s water buckets, watching to ensure the mare didn’t step on the hose as she moved around, inspecting the new space.
“So,” Kenzie called out to Ty, “how’s the dude ranch endeavor going?”
Ty leaned against Indie’s stall door. “It’s been far more successful than we thought it would be, actually.” They’d have to have another two years before they were in the black regularly. No way was he revealing that to a Malone, though. Wouldn’t surprise him if her family lit winter fires with random dollar bills they had lying around their ranch. Kenzie had never known the hand-to-mouth existence he’d lived for a large part of his life. She couldn’t understand.
Shaking off the discomfort of the chasm of differences in their socioeconomic positions, Ty continued, “Cade’s fiancée has been amazing at getting us prime advertising and exposure. Thanks to her efforts, we were rated a five-star resort. She’s pretty great.”
“I heard Cade had popped the question.” She twisted the spigot off before coiling the hose. “You like her?”
“I do. Quite a bit, actually. She’s just what he needed.” From any other woman, Ty would have weighed the comment for its jealousy component. Not with Kenzie. She was far too practical, and for that he was grateful. But it wasn’t gratitude that resulted in the small twinge of emotion that pricked his heart. Truth? He had no idea what it was. And he had no intention of putting it under his internal microscope for evaluations. Some things were better off left alone, and this was one of those things. Besides, there was a bigger elephant standing between them.
He intended to take the title at this rodeo, and probably from this very woman.
* * *
KENZIE MALONE MOVED through Indie’s stall with the ease born of thousands of hours doing the same repetitive tasks for a variety of horses, some of them hers but most her father’s. Indie was all hers, though, and the mare was special. She was one of the first fillies out of a line Kenzie had started the moment she’d received the first half of her trust six years ago. She’d been eighteen.
The animal was an anomaly at five years old. Indie possessed more intuition, more instinctive responses than could be cataloged. Riding her was a dream. All Kenzie had to do was keep one leg on each side of the saddle and park her mind in the middle. The horse did the rest. Indie knew where to step, when and why, and that left Kenzie with less to do than fans might believe. Yet riding Indie always provided a thrill—almost as much as the man currently lingering in the doorway.
Every inch of Ty Covington’s six-three frame was delectable. She wanted to run her tongue through the hollow at the base of his throat...again. She wanted to taste the salt and sunshine on his skin...again. She wanted to nibble her way to the waistline of his jeans and dip her fingers below the band of his boxer briefs, tease the root of his arousal before taking him...again.
It dawned on Kenzie that she should probably spare them both the public humiliation and turn the hose on herself before she mentally stripped Ty naked. Face flushed, she pulled her hat off and ran Indie’s polishing rag over her head, wiping away the excess sweat. Not much she could do about the shortness of breath or the way her nipples pearled beneath her T-shirt. That was simply the way she responded to Ty. Each time. Every time.
Aware it wouldn’t take the man long to pick up on her interest, she focused on tasks that would keep the horse between them. But Ty, being Ty, managed to charm the female in Indie, moving her away from her hay net to accept the small pieces of apple Ty offered. The horse’s move left Kenzie with a head-to-toe view of the cowboy.
She was torn between thanking the gods for his perfection and cursing the same deities for the distraction the man created by simply being. Broad shoulders, a muscular build, dirty-blond hair that was a good four weeks past the point of trimming, brown eyes richer than the most expensive chocolate, large hands, strong jaw and lips made for kissing—all things that drew her. But what really flipped her switch was his confidence. True confidence, though, not arrogance.
For a man who looked the way he did and had so many notches in his bedpost it resembled a totem pole, that was saying something. And as if that weren’t attractive enough, she had to include his sense of humor, compassion, friendliness and easy compatibility—in public, but particularly in private. It was the recipe for the perfect man. Or would have been, save one thing.
Tyson Covington couldn’t stand postsex anything. No cuddling. No pillow talk. She’d never had the chance to wake up to his sleep-rumpled face the next morning because he’d never spent the night. He made a mad dash for the door before she could ask him to stay. It had started out as a relief. Now? Kenzie wasn’t as comfortable about his urgency to get out of her room once they were both satisfied. And it was always her room.
She turned away from him, worrying her bottom lip with such ferocity it hurt.
“It’s not like you to turn your back on me, Malone.” From her peripheral vision, she watched the man step closer and tip the brim of his hat up to better reveal those dark brown eyes. “What’s bothering you?”
The simple question, so softly worded, totally caught her off guard. He’d always been playful. This quiet concern was new, and it threw her off her game. It was the only reason she had for answering, “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“You.” Heat rushed across her cheeks. This wasn’t how they worked, and she doubted he’d take the change well.
She didn’t see him move, but suddenly he’d spun her around and pressed the front of her body against the darkest corner of the stall wall. Running his hands up her arms, he stretched her out, her wrists captured in one hand.
Kenzie yanked on her wrists and arched her back.
Ty kicked her feet wide and, bending at the knees, rubbed the ridge of his impressive erection up and down the seam of her ass. Bending forward to cover her, his lips brushed the edge of her ear as he spoke. “Ground rules stay the same as those we set at regionals. Winner gets his—or her—fantasy night. Or do you want to modify the game for the big show?”
His hot breath tickled her ear and made her shiver.
Her body responded of its own accord, her back arching again to better present her ass, her arms pulling against his hands, her head canting farther to the side so he might have better access to her neck. His actions fed a primal need in her to be taken, claimed, while her mind screamed that they were in public, could be caught. And wasn’t that the crux of being with Ty? There was always a risk, always that touch of spontaneity that was his calling card, that thing that always made sex as fun as it was pleasurable.
Ty let her neck go without warning. Then he stretched her arms higher, forcing her to move to follow them up the wall. “When did little Kenzie Malone decide she liked a little exhibitionism?” he whispered, moist lips barely brushing the top of her ear.
“When did the cowboy who established love ’em and leave ’em decide to stick around long enough to do it right?” she countered.
Ty grabbed her hip and spun her to face him. Wedging a thigh between her legs, he rubbed against her sex with firm strokes. Not once did he tear his gaze from hers. “Where’s this coming from, Kenzie?”
“If you’d park your boots beside the bed instead of being so damn afraid to take them off at all, I would imagine there would be a lot you’d learn about the women you call ‘lover,’ Covington. Including me.” The brazen statement held within it a poorly disguised challenge, one he clearly heard.
He hauled his body back, eyes wide, and let go of her arms before spinning for the door and stalking out.
She never had the chance to ask him to stay.
2 (#ulink_260bd6d0-3275-5451-b9d2-74ce1b871641)
THE NIGHT WAS passing slower than any Ty could remember. The second hand on the clock ticked and paused, ticked and paused, seemingly searching for the energy to tick again. He tossed and turned, went down to check on Gizmo, then went back up to his hotel room to toss and turn again. He needed to blow off a little steam, and sex was his preferred method.
And his mind was locked on one particular redhead, a woman he’d had numerous times but never could get out of his system.
It wasn’t as though Ty was actually into exhibitionism. He’d just wanted to push the fringes of experience and try something new, and she’d always been safe—as well as seriously fun—to play with. And bless the powers that be, darling Kenzie hadn’t balked. His pulse quickened. Hell, if anything, she’d asked him for more. But he hadn’t been certain how much “more” was wise in the barn.
He’d also had a fleeting moment of insecurity, wondering if she’d want more of what he’d offered just then or more of him in general. The former he could provide, and gladly. He’d always liked women, had always been insistent that everyone left satisfied. But him offering more than what the moment afforded all parties? No. That type of “more” had never been on the table. Ever.
His rolled over and punched his pillow.
Earlier, the competitors had drawn for their bracket positions, and he’d drawn third out of fifty riders. It was a crappy pick. He’d have much preferred to ride somewhere between thirtieth and thirty-fifth so he knew how hard to push Gizmo and how much showmanship was required to keep his horse in the top ten while still preserving enough energy to really clean up if he was called to a tiebreaker.
Flopping onto his back, he stared at the shadowed ceiling. Insomnia sucked. Bad. Insomnia alone sucked worse. He really needed some feminine company to get his mind off all the people who’d be watching him and Gizmo, both live and on TV. The pressure of those anticipated stares grew heavy in the silence, then heavier still, until he thought he might not be able to draw a breath due to the weight on his chest.
The bedcovers tangled around his feet as he lurched upward. He got his feet underneath him, shoved his room key in the pocket of the complimentary robe before tugging it on and then grabbed his cell as he headed for the door.
He hit 6 on speed dial and waited as the call connected. When she answered, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Why are you calling me—” covers rustled and her jaw cracked as she yawned “—at one thirty in the morning?”
Thoughts of her in bed, her lithe body clad in little—or nothing—made him adjust his robe for better coverage. “What room are you in?”
“You’re looking for a booty call from the wrong woman. I’m sleeping.”
“You lost the wager.” He spoke so fast his words ran together.
Silence.
“I beat you at regionals, so I entered nationals with a points lead. Means I get my fantasy fulfilled first,” he pressed.
“We aren’t on the boards yet.”
Her cautious tone worried him, made his response sharper than he’d intended. “Actually, we are. I went to check on Gizmo and Indie earlier tonight, make sure they were settled, and end-of-season scores have been posted.”
“Well,” she mused, “I suppose that puts you on top of me.”
His cock kicked hard enough there was no hiding it. Thankfully, the hallway was empty. “On top’s not where I want to be.”
She chuckled, the sound sleep heavy, sultry. “You realize that if I beat you here, I’ll top you in points and earnings for the year.”
His brow creased. “No. Just until the next rodeo season starts.”
“Not by your logic. You’re saying you get to have your fantasy tonight because you’re ahead in points in a competition that hasn’t started. Well, this exact same competition won’t start again until December next year, so I could feasibly be ahead of you in points until they post next year’s regional totals on the nationals boards. Same thing you’re doing, just building out the timeline.”
His mouth went dry and he stopped, resting his shoulder against the wall. “You’re making me think this was a bad idea.”
“Good or bad, it was your idea, Tyson,” she said softly. “Room 1134. Show up and own it, or hang up and don’t. But make up your mind in the next five minutes or I’m going back to sleep and I won’t answer after that. Not the phone, and definitely not the door.”
The line went dead. If he showed up now, he’d be accepting the fact that she was right—his terms had been pretty broad and rather unclear. If she beat him, could she, would she, want to see him for the next year? That would take this thing between them outside their established bounds of competition romps. Make it more than an occasional tryst. As in...dating.
The idea didn’t repel him, and that alone should have been enough to turn him right around and have him back in his room before he lost what was left of his mind.
He decided not to give the thought too much attention, though, so he pushed off the wall and resumed his trek toward the elevator bank.
He reached the elevators just as one opened and dumped off a group of highly intoxicated bridesmaids supporting one barely conscious bride. To a woman, they looked him over as if he were the best thing they’d seen all night. While he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, he still smiled and flirted a little before stepping into the elevator car and winking at them as the doors closed. It was, after all, what anyone who knew him would have expected of him.
He punched the button for the eleventh floor and ignored the way his belly dipped as the car started its upward climb.
Because he knew with the kind of certainty that discomfited a man that the belly drop had nothing to do with the elevator and everything to do with the woman in room 1134.
* * *
KENZIE HAD BEEN fast asleep when her cell phone rang. Part of her had known before squinting at the bright caller ID who it would be. The other part of her had grumbled and threatened to go back to sleep, right up to the point she swiped the answer button on the screen and heard Ty’s voice. His seductive teasing? Pretty much expected. Lust swamping her like a johnboat with a cannonball hole in its center? Not so much.
After disconnecting the call, she lay there considering her parting shot. He’s not going to show up after I challenged him like that.
She had no idea where the idea to challenge him had come from. She’d only known she wasn’t about to simply roll over and let him have his way with her because he was coiled tighter than a self-winding watch on an MMA fighter’s wrist. It didn’t matter that she wanted him just as bad and was wound just as tight. The principle of the thing mattered—the principle and their agreement.
Well, that added to the fact that he wasn’t one to fish the same pond over and over if the catch was too easy. He needed the challenge, and it had to come across as near defiance if a woman thought to reel him in for even a single passionate night.
And she posed a more authentic challenge than most. What she needed was to have a quality man chasing her, not someone simply after the Malone name or associated fortune. As the sole Malone heir, she’d learned this lesson by age fourteen.
At fifteen, Jack Malone, her father and her idol, had pulled her aside to administer some of the best advice Kenzie had ever received. “When we lost your brother, others assumed I’d want another son to pass the Malone legacy on to, but you know—” he’d gripped her arms “—you know I wouldn’t trade you for all the Spanish gold hidden in the ocean’s depths. And when it comes to taking a man as husband, I won’t make that choice for you. I don’t care if the man you fall in love with is an artist, a pilot, a musician, a doctor or a garbageman. I set your trust up for you to be well-off, so your man doesn’t have to be rolling in money to make you happy.” He’d taken her by the shoulders then, his grip just this side of painful. “I have loved your mother through both lean years and flush times. Money can’t make a marriage, let alone a happy marriage,” he’d said softly before clearing his throat, voice gruff when he’d refocused on Kenzie. “You find the man you want to wake up to for the rest of your life, the man you can’t help but give your heart to, and you marry him. Just promise me you won’t elope, baby girl. You’re my one shot to publicly blubber as father of the bride.”
Now here she was, waiting on a man she desired and equally admired to come to her room at her invitation. “Sheer irony. Nothing more,” she whispered, stretching her clasped hands above her head. She should probably brush her hair before—
The rap at her door, soft but firm, had her throwing the covers back at the same time her heart lodged itself in her throat. He showed up. She wouldn’t overanalyze it, wouldn’t overthink it. She’d just enjoy it.
Padding across the room in her cami and thong, she peered through the peephole and bit her bottom lip. Ty stood there, hands in his pockets, and grinned at her. That man wore a borrowed robe better than anyone she’d ever seen. “Hopeless,” she muttered, unsure whether it was him she spoke about or herself.
She opened the door.
Ty slipped inside, bare feet silent on the carpet. He swiftly shut the door and, grabbing her around the waist, spun and pressed her against the wall. Lips, full but soft, teased along her jaw, and he whispered, “Missed you.”
Don’t believe him, her mind volunteered. You’re no one special to him. After all, he’s known as the Rodeo Romeo.
She stiffened.
Lifting his head to stare down at her, Ty’s gaze roamed her face. “Something wrong?”
“No.” She smiled absently. “I’m good.”
He curled a finger under her chin and lifted until met his stare. “Surely you can do better than that.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Ty. ‘Good’ is pretty damn spectacular.”
He laughed quietly, pulling her into his arms and backing her to the bed. “I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t regret answering your phone.”
“Your first task is keeping me awake.”
He nipped her ear. “This is my fantasy, Malone. That starts with you being awake and receptive to my cunning seduction.”
“And it ends with?”
Again he lifted his head, but all signs of teasing had disappeared. Dark brown eyes bored into hers, the weight of their intent scattering goose bumps along her skin. “It ends with you screaming my name.”
Her mouth formed a small O, but no sound emerged. She was too surprised at his directness to utter anything more than the most fundamental thought. “When did you get so serious about sex?”
Ty leaned forward, his lips brushing hers as soft as a butterfly’s caress. “When you answered your phone. I need you as much as I want you tonight, Mackenzie.”
The way her name rolled so richly off his tongue made her whimper.
She should answer. She really should. But the words were stuck in her throat behind her thundering heart.
He wants me, needs me.
Never had he admitted to anything more than “craving” her. The hunger to hear him confess it again almost had her asking for him to repeat his words, but pride intervened. Then he slid a hand between them, deft fingers manipulating her sex with skill born of experience, and all thoughts of admissions evaporated. Heat built between them faster than sheer winds from a prairie storm’s dry line. He’d never been this way with her, never been anything more than a fun bed partner she enjoyed when their paths crossed and she was in the mood. This man? He was different, in control, almost predatory. Closing her eyes, she gripped the looped cotton weave of his robe and let her head fall back, gasping slightly when he laid his lips to the hollow of her throat.
His huffed out a small laugh against her skin. The smell of mint hit her—toothpaste—as his breath wafted up, strong and clean.
“Kiss me,” she murmured, tossing his hat aside in order to run her fingers through his hair.
“Demanding little thing,” he answered, weaving a hand of his own through her mass of curls and fisting it in her hair just tight enough her eyes widened. He stared at her for several seconds before placing his cheek next to hers, so close that his lips caressed her ear as he spoke. “Tonight’s my fantasy. You agreed to the terms when I called. Clear?”
“You going to bite me again?” she asked, exhaling slowly.
“Absolutely.”
“Then, hell yes, we’re clear, but only if you quit stalling.”
Ty chuckled as he shrugged out of his robe and stood before her, gloriously nude and unashamed of his body. His abs tightened as she touched the muscled ridges and valleys, tracing the chiseled six-pack of his torso, the ropy lengths of muscle in his arms and the corded strength in his legs. The way his lats cut down his abs and framed his long, thick arousal. She let her gaze linger there, and that seemed to be his undoing.
Scooping her up, he sank onto the bed and rolled to his back, placing her on top of him. He ran a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down as he rose toward her. Stopping millimeters from their mouths colliding, his hot breath washed over her.
