The Cowboy's Texas Heart (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 3)

He cranked the music, gunned the accelerator, cranked the steering wheel, spinning the back tires and spraying dirt in a rainbow around them as they fishtailed in a circle.

Swirling.

She squealed with delight, her mouth wide open, eyes pinched shut like they rode a roller coaster, one hand clamping his too-big hat down on her head while the other clenched the oh-shit handle and torqued her lean muscle and damn, it felt good. Felt good to put that smile on her face. Felt good to know that years of slogging through parenthood and divorce stipulations and his momma’s death and an ex whose face smiled back at him from every magazine stand he passed as if to rub salt in his wounds, hadn’t wounded him to the point that he’d lost that spark in him. It was a reawakening, a hot-wiring to an engine.

That stupid, pleased grin he’d been wearing each time he looked at her felt plastered on his face. His laugh lines and that crease she’d noticed, as if him once having a dimple was some deep revelation about his soul, seemed permanently etched on his cheeks. He roared the engine, relishing the horsepower beneath his boot and the bed of the truck cutting through the arc of the dirt in the side mirrors, and the satisfaction of manhandling this brand-new truck and doing something he knew he shouldn’t be doing, and let it slide to a halt.

“Holy hell, that’s a responsive truck!” he whooped. “Must be a woman to melt beneath my touch like that.”

Heather’s head was tipped back as she laughed, and she rolled it his way, their eyes locking. “No way! He handles like a beast and loves the way you grip his stick.”

A laugh huffed up his throat and he glared at her as she waggled her eyebrows. Her finger reached out. Traced a path down his cheek. “There it is.”

“There’s what?” he retorted.

Her smile had grown wistful. “That dimple. It’s like you’re happy and don’t have a care in the world.”

He nipped at her finger and pressed a kiss to it as it lingered on his lip, the burning path her nail had left on his cheek firing through him. Enough time with her, and he might start to believe he didn’t.

He put the “stick” into drive and maneuvered out of the donut. As fun as it was, it was shit on a truck’s suspension and transmission, and the rebel on his shoulder was getting a tongue lashing from the horrified truck enthusiast on his other shoulder. If Harold Dixon had ever learned that Tyler was the one to have taught his little bros how to spin donuts, Harold’s opinion of him as the perfect son might have been blemished.

Parking it overlooking the western side of the escarpment, he flopped back and slung his arm over the passenger seat, flicking the brim of his hat forward so it flipped off her head and upside down onto her lap.

“That, baby, is how you tear up some dirt,” he added with a cocky smirk. “Looks like we christened it.” He streaked his finger through the haze settling upon the dashboard. “Did it drive you wild?”

“I bow to the master.” She laughed, beamed at him, leaned over the center console and brushed his wind-tousled, hat-headed, dark curls off his forehead, grabbed his cheeks, planting a kiss to his lips and before he registered what he was doing, he was unclipping her belt, dragging her over the console, fighting one handed to help her straddle his lap while simultaneously trying to glide the seat all the way back to make more room, her ass knocking the horn and honking it, causing them both to laugh.

She settled her weight across his thighs, her chest pressed to his as his hands slipped onto her rear and pulled her sex firmly against him, chewing his cheek as she bit her delectable lip. Pheromones. They moved in his lungs, floated in his vision, whispered in his ears, as the sun continued its afternoon descent.

“Need your mouth,” he bit out. He wrapped his hand in her hair, dragged her mouth down to his, and relished her tongue running along his lips as he angled her head to him, relished the sting in his back as he pressed into the seat.

“This is no cut. Did someone do this to you…”

God, he wanted to do this right here. Right now. Wanted to be the first guy to get off with her in this truck before she took off down the road of life and made room for future lovers. Talk about christening her bad boy. She rocked upon him, working a groan out of his throat as he deepened the kiss. The moment felt like a bubble that might burst if he stopped. She upped the ante—a wild child if he’d ever met one—and raked her fingernails over his cheeks, over his ears, into his hair.

He gripped her hips, his thumbs pressing into the juncture of her thighs, and rode her more roughly upon him, listening to her breath hitch. Screw these jeans of hers. Her skirt had been far more convenient.

“We got a functional problem with these jeans,” he teased, tugging on her belt loops, his voice rumbling.

Her mouth curved into a smile, but she kept kissing him as his hands dragged up her tank top, slid up her stomach, pushing the garment up over her breasts so he could actually see them for the first time…dark, wine-colored lace. Stop his heart now. My God…had he ever seen such beautiful breasts? Heavy and full and lush and he wanted them in his mouth. He weighed each one in his hands, his frenzy slowing to appreciate his first view of them as his cock pulsed harder and harder, thickening, wedging painfully against his thigh with no way to adjust it as it lengthened beneath her, trapped within the leg of his jeans.

She seemed to understand his wincing brow, because her hand snaked down between them and popped open his belt buckle, flicked open the button at the top of his jeans, unzipped his fly, fingernails scoring down his treasure trail, beneath his boxers, teasing, toying…

“What’re you gettin’ at?” he breathed. It was supposed to sound suggestive, but came out sounding harsh and serious.

He wanted to grab her hand and shove it down his jeans. Instead, he forced himself to let her spin whatever magic she was spinning, because he sensed he would like it, as he stretched his boxers down to give her better access.

“Mmm.” Her nails lazily skimmed the sensitive silk of his shaft. He hissed coarsely. “I think I found what I’m looking for.”

His head fell back. He exhaled hard, as she took him in hand and wedged him up, tugged him loose and gave him a cursory pump with her fingers. He bucked into her touch, bouncing her against the horn again by accident and blasting it, as they both chuckled. Yet his chuckling faded when she bit that lip and seduced him with her amber gaze. His eyes darted down to watch the show as she worked him and he melted into the seat. Groaned as she swirled her thumb over his helm and coated his skin with his anticipation, slickening him, bringing her thumb to her lips and flicking her tongue out to taste him. So hot. My God, he was gonna come right here and now, from a hand job, like an untried virgin, and his hands roved over her breasts animalistically, grabbing, kneading, needing to touch and taste and try to distract himself from the tingling in his spine and brewing pressure in his stones.

The lace was sheer. Soft, mauve nipples begged to be kissed beneath them. He flicked his thumbs over them, pebbling them, preparing them to be suckled, pumping harder into her grip as he contorted her backward across the steering wheel, and leaned in to pluck the hardened nub into his mouth straight through the lace. His eyes rolled shut. Perfect. He nipped it, suckled it, massaging with his tongue and teeth, saturating the lace. Drawing the most sensual moan from her lips, he managed to open his eyes again to watch her head fall back.

The heady haze fogging his thoughts cleared. Her cheeks flushed sweetly. Her hand priming his shaft grew uneven, ragged, as he distracted her. The sensations were too much as she milked him, as the smell of her vanilla and the soft, saltiness of her skin seeped into his system and stoked his desire. He pulled back, letting her nipple pop free and relishing the whine and glare she treated him to as he migrated to her twin, gripping the flesh, and popped loose her jeans, unzipping, unable to decide if he should pinch close his eyes or drink in the beauty of her chest or watch her pump him faster.

His eyes dipped to her stomach to the thin matching burgundy red of her lacy panties as he slipped his fingers beneath the delicate fabric, over her navel, an innie… Concern and curiosity cut through the haze at the sight of that long-healed surgical incision across her abdomen, but he was so far gone, so worked up, questions swirling in his head as he groaned, unable to stop the release, as his hand gripped hers upon his shaft and pumped it roughly, swallowing her fingers in his, and together they fisted him hard and fast, catapulting him over the edge.

He pressed back into the seat, stones tightening and draining in thick, powerful ribbons against his washboard. He exhaled hard, sweat having beaded his brow. He hadn’t even had a chance to return the favor for her, and the scarring was too distracting to ignore. She rested her forehead to his, a pleased smile on her face.