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Holly nodded. “I’ve been operating from Houston, but the city is so crowded and my place is too small to accommodate all of my customers.” When the woman’s eyes widened, Holly realized what she must be thinking. After all, Red Rose Farraday hadn’t just been Holly’s grandmother. She’d also been one of the most notorious madams in Texas history who’d plied her trade at none other than the Farraday Inn.
Oddly enough, her grandmother’s notoriety hadn’t come as near a shock as the news that she’d had a grandmother in the first place.
“I make desserts for a living,” Holly explained. “I sell through a mail-order catalog and on the Internet. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.”
Sue teared up again. “I always thought I knew how to satisfy Bert Wayne, but then he up and left. Didn’t even say goodbye.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Not really.” She sniffled. “I mean, it is terrible, but I don’t blame him. He’s right. I am dried up. I’ve been sitting here for three hours and not one man has tried to pick me up. I’m a total loser. I’m a jawbreaker in a candy store full of mouthwatering chocolate. No one in their right mind picks a jawbreaker when they’ve got wall-to-wall Hershey’s Kisses.”
“You’re not a jawbreaker.”
“Yes, I am. I’m a big, fat, round blue jawbreaker.” She hiccupped. “On top of that, I’m drunk and I can’t drive home.”
“You don’t have to,” Holly said as she climbed from her bar stool. “Let’s go.”
Sue shook her head. “Thanks, but you shouldn’t have to leave and ruin your Saturday night just ’cause of me. I’ll just walk. It’s not far. Just a few miles up the—whoa,” she said as she tried to slide off the bar stool. She teetered and would have fallen flat on her face if Holly hadn’t caught her by the arm.
“I think walking is out of the question.”
“That’s funny,” Sue said as she leaned against Holly. “My legs were working just a few minutes ago. It’s probably arthritis.” She sniffled and sobbed. “That happens when you get old and dried up.”
“It’s not old age. It’s the tequila,” a deep voice said.
Holly glanced up just in time to see Mr. Hot and Hunky Cowboy walk up next to her. He gave Holly a smile and a wink that stalled her heart before turning to Sue.
“Hey there, Josh,” Sue said, a smile warming her face as she glanced up.
“Hey there, Sue. You look mighty nice tonight.”
“You’re just saying that.” But she smiled anyway. “Josh McGraw, have you met Heidi. Or is it Hominy? Or Hailey?”
“My name is Holly,” she told Josh.
“Nice to meet you, Holly.” The name rolled off his tongue, so deep and husky, and heat rushed through her body. Her nipples pebbled and pressed against the lace of her bra. “You need a lift home, Sue?”
“Hannah’s takin’ me.” Sue beamed at Holly. “She’s my new friend.”
“That’s right,” Holly said. “Let me just pay for my soda and—oomph!” she groaned as Sue teetered, threatening to pull them both to the ground if the cowboy hadn’t reached out and steadied the woman again.
“I’ll help you get her to the car,” Josh told Holly. He motioned to the bartender. “Put everything on my tab.”
Sue’s eyes teared up again as Josh slid an arm around her and hefted her to her feet. “You’re so nice,” she told the cowboy. “Bert Wayne was nice, too. But then he got bored and I got fat and…” She rambled on as Josh steered her after Holly who headed for the exit.
A few minutes later, Josh settled Sue into the passenger seat of Holly’s champagne-colored Lincoln Navigator. He clicked her seat belt into place, closed the door and rounded the front.
“Nice wheels,” he said, trailing his hand over the hood as he rounded the front of her SUV.
“Thanks. I got it in Houston.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
She nodded. “Thanks for the help,” she told him as he came around to the driver’s side where she stood. “I don’t know how I would have done it without you.”
“No problem.” He stopped just inches shy of her. So close she could feel the heat coming off his body and smell the faint scent of beer and leather that clung to him. “Sue’s not usually like this,” he went on. “She’s just having a hard time. She’s been pretty torn up since Bert Wayne moved out and filed for divorce.”
“I know the feeling.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “You know what it’s like to have a cheating husband?”
“I know what it’s like to be alone. I’ve been that way most of my life.” Until now.
She had a home now. And she intended to plant roots and make friends.
Starting now.
“So you don’t have a husband, cheating or otherwise?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Not at the present time.”
“Girlfriend?”
She grinned. “No. How about you?”
“No girlfriend or boyfriend.”
“A wife?”
“I don’t have one of those, either.”
“That’s good.” The lust she’d felt inside the bar returned in full force and she forgot all about her vow to hold back and take things slow and… Permanent. Her nipples throbbed and heat flooded between her legs and she had the sudden urge to lean up on her tiptoes and touch her lips to his to see if he tasted half as delicious as he looked.
She leaned up and he leaned down and—
“The car is spinning,” Sue said from inside.
Holly froze, her mouth just inches shy of touching his, and licked her lips. “I, um, think I’d better be going.”
“Let’s go.”
“I thought I was driving her home.”
“Do you know where she lives?” When she shook her head, he ducked his head to glance in at Sue who’d tilted her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. She murmured something incoherent and whimpered. “I don’t think she’s going to be much help. I’ll drive.”
Holly handed him her keys and climbed into the backseat. She settled into the soft leather as Josh McGraw climbed behind the wheel of her Lincoln Navigator, started the engine and pulled out of the gravel parking lot.
The drive took less than five minutes, but it was the longest of Holly’s life. He was too close, too tempting, his gaze too disturbing every time he glanced in the rearview mirror and eyed her.
Awareness rippled along her spine and heat fluttered over her nerve endings. Her stomach hollowed out and a hunger, fierce and demanding, settled inside. It was one thing to watch him from afar, and quite another to have him just an arm’s reach away.
So close all she had to do was reach out and…
She wouldn’t. Not really. But in her mind’s eye, she leaned over the edge of the seat and touched the soft strands of dark hair that brushed his collar. Her fingers dipped beneath and grazed the hot flesh of his neck. Her palm trailed over the leather strap of his choker, tracing it toward the front. She undid the first button of his shirt. The hard muscle of his chest met her palm as she leaned over him and moved lower, down his rippled abdomen, around the indentation of his belly button to the waistband of his jeans. With a flick of her wrist, she eased the button open and urged his zipper over his erection. She tugged at the elastic of his briefs and slid her fingers beneath and—
“We’re here.” His deep voice drew her from her thoughts. Her head snapped up and her gaze collided with his. A fierce light gleamed in his blue gaze, as if he knew where her thoughts had almost taken her. As if he were already there, waiting and burning and wanting.
She cleared her throat and slid from the backseat as Josh climbed out of the car and went to help Sue from the passenger’s side.
It took fifteen minutes to get Sue settled inside her house before they finally climbed back into the Navigator, Josh back in the driver’s seat. He keyed the ignition, gunned the engine and pulled out of the gravel driveway. A few seconds later, they reached the stop sign at the end of Sue’s street.
“What are you doing?” she asked him when he just sat there, engine idling, as if he didn’t know which way to turn.
He stared straight ahead at the quiet expanse of road. “Wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“If I should head back to the bar, or if I should head for the interstate and the nearest motel.”
The bar, her conscience whispered. The last thing she needed was to start the permanent phase of her life with a one-night stand.
Then again, a one-night stand was someone that you slept with and never saw again. This guy was obviously local. In a town this small, she would be seeing him again. And again.
A problem in and of itself.
Her head knew that and it started to send a warning south to all of the relevant body parts.
But then his gaze caught hers and there was no mistaking the heat that burned in the dark depths. Her breath caught and her body throbbed and the words were out before she could stop them. “I could use a good minibar right about now.”
2
JOSH MCGRAW’S hands actually trembled as he shoved the key into the lock after registering them at the Lone Ranger Motel, a clean but ancient establishment just outside the city limits. It had been a long, long time since he’d been this worked up. This hot. This hard. This…desperate.
The knowledge would have been enough to send him running for the next county if the circumstances had been different—if Holly had been any of the dozen or so “Juliets,” Romeo’s official organization of single women—who’d been in hot pursuit since he’d returned to town six months ago for his grandfather’s funeral.
Hell, they’d been after him even before then. Since he’d turned thirteen and played his first game of hide-and-seek with Dana Louise Shipley. Not the traditional version, mind you. The game he’d played with Dana had involved hiding a certain body part, and had caused quite a stir when the captain of the cheerleader squad had found them out behind the bleachers during a pep rally and let loose a scream. He’d been just one of the rough and tumble McGraw triplets—an unruly trio notorious for making noise and breaking rules—until damn near every female at Romeo High had gotten a glimpse of him naked. He’d gone from a troublemaker to a lovemaker in the blink of an eye, and he’d had a ready supply of females ever since.
The trouble was, where they’d once wanted a good time back in high school, they now wanted a walk down the aisle. Marriage. Forever.
Hell, no.
Josh wasn’t the marrying type any more than all of the McGraw men who’d come before him. From his great-grandfather who’d had not one, but two mistresses, to his grandfather who’d kept company with Red Rose Farraday herself—the notorious madam and owner of Romeo’s very own house of ill repute—to his own father who’d had affair after affair.
Unlike them, however, Josh wasn’t going to ignore his shortcomings and make false promises by saying “I do.” Instead, he made it a point to stay single, which meant steering clear of the Juliets who wanted commitment in addition to sex.
So for the past six months, he’d traveled the few hours to Austin whenever the urge overwhelmed him and visited any one of the handful of women he’d developed a physical relationship with over the past years. The knowledgeable sort who took their own pleasure and didn’t rely on him to tease and tantalize and coax them into an orgasm.
Making the trip every so often wasn’t exactly convenient, but it was a damned sight more safe than getting lassoed by a disillusioned Juliet who thought he was the answer to all of her romantic prayers.
He wasn’t. He was just a man. Selfish on occasion. Egotistical most of the time. Hardheaded all of the time. And too friggin’ lusty—thanks to the McGraw blood-line—to commit himself to one female for the rest of his born days.
Josh liked his freedom and he liked playing the field.
Even more, he wasn’t of a mind to hurt anyone.
He’d done that once before and he’d lived with the guilt ever since.
His gaze slid to the woman who stood beside him. She wasn’t tall, but she wasn’t small, either, with a pair of two-inch black stiletto heels that made her legs seem endless before they reached the short black skirt that molded to her round ass. A white silk tank hugged her luscious breasts. Her soft red hair hung down around her shoulders and framed her heart-shaped face. Her lips were full and pink, her green eyes hot and bright, and his cock twitched in anticipation.
Holly with her high heels and expensive clothes and fancy SUV wasn’t one of the women in town. She was a stranger. She was single. And judging by the way she licked her lips, she wanted the same thing from him that he wanted from her—sex.
He pushed open the door, stepped back and let her precede him inside. He expected more of an exotic fragrance from her given her big-city appearance. Instead, the warm scent of sugar and vanilla filled his nostrils as she eased past him. She smelled like sweet, fresh-from-the-oven cupcakes and his nostrils flared. A warning sounded somewhere in the back of his brain, but it wasn’t loud enough to push past the sudden hammering of his heart. A bolt of need shot through his body and his muscles bunched. He barely resisted the urge to haul her into his arms, back her up against the wall and take her hard and fast right there under the bare porch light, the june bugs bumping overhead.
As appealing as the notion, the thought of laying her down on a soft mattress and peeling away her clothes one piece at a time suddenly made him even hotter. Harder.
He followed her inside, closing the door behind them. A click sounded as she turned on a nearby lamp. A pale yellow glow pushed back the shadows and illuminated the interior. The room was far from fancy, but it was neat and clean. An unfinished pine dresser sat in the far corner, an ancient-looking television rested on top. A king-size bed took up the rest of the space. Beige curtains patterned with silver spurs covered the one window near a window air-conditioning unit. A matching comforter covered the bed. The slightly scarred hardwood floor gleamed from a recent polishing.
“I don’t see a minibar,” he said as his gaze swept the interior. “But if you’re hungry there’s a vending machine around the corner near the ice machine. I could get you something.”
She eyed him. “It was just a figure of speech. I wasn’t really in the mood to raid the minibar.”
“Then what are you in the mood for?”
“I…” She licked her lips and he had the gut feeling that she’d never done this sort of thing before. And then his gaze caught hers and he knew deep down that this was, indeed, a first for her.
His blood rushed even faster at the notion. A crazy reaction because Josh wasn’t in the habit of being the first anything when it came to women. Be it a first lover or a first one-night stand or the first man to actually cause an orgasm. Rather, he steered clear of any situation that might set him apart in a woman’s mind and make him more than just a really good lay.
He stiffened, his fingers tightening on the room key. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“You’re right about that.” The hesitant light in her gaze faded into a wave of bright green heat as she stepped closer. “It’s not good at all.” Another step and her nipples kissed his chest.
The one touch shifted him into high speed. He pulled her close and thrust his tongue into the heated depths of her mouth, kissing her, devouring her.
His hands massaged her soft, round ass and he rubbed his throbbing erection against the cradle of her pelvis. His fingers bunched material until he reached the hem of the skirt and felt her bare flesh beneath. Her thighs were hot to the touch. Soft. Quivering.
Holy hell.
Urging her backward, he eased her down onto the bed. He captured her mouth in a deep, intense kiss that lasted several heartbeats before he pulled away and stepped back. He worked the buttons free on his shirt and let the material slide from his shoulders. He unfastened the button on his jeans and pushed the zipper down. The pressure eased and the edges gaped and he could actually breathe for a few seconds.
Until she pushed to a sitting position and leaned forward.
Her fingers touched the dark purple head of his erection where it pushed up above the waistband of his briefs. The air lodged in his throat and he ground his teeth against a burst of white-hot pleasure. Her touch was so damned soft and he was so hard and…
He needed to touch her. To see her.
