The notebook tumbled to the floor.
Luca caught her hand, brought it to his mouth. His lips closed on her fingers; he sucked them into the heat of his mouth and she made a sound that brought him fully, almost painfully erect. Then he let go of her hand and reached for the handle of his door.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to drive,” he said. “There’s got to be an inn or a motel nearby.”
“There’s a motel a couple of miles ahead, just before the next town.” Cheyenne reached for the ignition key. “We can be there in five minutes.” The tip of her tongue swept over her bottom lip. “Two minutes. I’ll drive fast,” she said, and laughed.
“No,” Luca said. “I’ll drive.”
She ignored him. Instead, she checked the mirror, then pulled back onto the road.
Goddammit.
Why did he care which of them drove?
It didn’t matter.
The hell it didn’t.
It mattered, just as it mattered when they pulled into the motel parking lot and she walked ahead of him toward the door marked Office.
“Wait a minute,” Luca growled. She kept moving. He caught up to her, grabbed her wrist and spun her toward him. “I’ll get us a room.”
“Fine.”
She said it in a way that made him feel as if he’d just suggested something stupid and she’d been generous enough to acquiesce.
It infuriated him—but not enough to keep him from dragging her into his arms, right there in a very public place, and claiming her mouth with his.
It was a kiss made up of heat and passion, teeth and tongues. He was on fire when it started and by the time it ended, he was blazing like the prior night’s Fourth of July fireworks.
He let go of her, taking some small satisfaction in the way she looked, her face all flushed, her eyes bright and glittery, her lips parted and trembling. He leaned in, kissed her again, nipped her bottom lip. Then he strode to the office.
He was back a minute later, a key in his hand.
He took her elbow, led her to an outside staircase, down a corridor and to a door. The room was clean, but that was all you could say for it. There was no charm to it, nothing attractive or handsome.
It almost stopped him.
He had not taken a woman to a place like this since he was eighteen.
But when he turned to face Cheyenne, he saw that she had already shut the door.
Toed off her boots.
Pulled her T-shirt over her head.
She was wearing a bra, but it was sheer. Her breasts, her nipples, were clearly visible.
She reached for the clasp on her jeans. He caught her hands and stilled them.
“I just realized… I don’t have a condom.”
“I’m on the pill.”
She undid her jeans. Shimmied them down her legs. He wanted to tell her to slow down, that he would undress her, that he would set the pace, but seconds later she was naked.
And he was burning to possess her.
She reached for the buttons on his shirt.
He batted her hands away, damn near tore off the shirt and the rest of his clothes and then they tumbled onto the bed, her hands on him, his on her. She pushed him on his back and straddled him.
“Wait,” he said, or would have said, but she lowered herself on his swollen penis, slowly, slowly, so slowly that he hissed with pleasure as he clasped her hips and guided her home.
She rocked against him. Once. Twice. Three times.
And came. Fast. Too fast. Not too fast for him—he had never been as ready to come in his life—but surely, too fast for her.
She moaned. Rocked against him again, and he let go and came so hard that he felt as if he’d been caught up in a whirlwind.
She started to roll off him, but he wrapped his arms around her and brought her down against his chest.
“You can let go of me,” she whispered.
It was what women always said, or words to that effect, as if letting the woman you’d just fucked lie sprawled on top of you was some sort of burden.
Generally, he’d wait a minute or two, then roll to his side with the woman in the curve of his arm because the truth was, lying this way wasn’t really comfortable. Even when a woman was slender, you could feel her weight bearing down on you.
This time, though, he didn’t feel anything except the warmth of Cheyenne’s skin, the whisper of her breath. His arms tightened around her; he stroked her hair, stroked his hand down her spine.
It took a while until he felt her muscles relax.
Her breathing slowed, grew more even.
She was asleep.
Too bad, because he wanted her again with him in charge, with things moving slowly. Slow caresses. Slow kisses. Soft whispers telling him what she liked, how she wanted to be touched and taken because he’d yet to take her.
The truth was, she’d taken him.
Not that he had any objections, he thought, biting back a yawn.
He liked sexually assertive women, but he also liked to conquer.
It was male. Purely, basically male…
Luca yawned again.
His lashes fluttered, drooped.
He was asleep.
* * *
He didn’t sleep long.
A few minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour. He woke lying on his belly, still naked, still on top of the bedspread.
Sunlight streamed over him.
They had never closed the curtains.
Quite a show, had someone been standing outside, he thought, and smiled.
He rolled to his side. No Cheyenne. She was probably in the bathroom. Maybe in the shower.
He smiled again at the thought of surprising her there, joining her under the spray, cupping her ass and drawing her back against him.
Soaping his hands and filling them with her breasts.
He hadn’t even tasted her breasts. Her nipples. He knew they were a dusty rose in color, beautiful and sweet-looking. They’d taste sweet, too.
His erection was instantaneous.
So was his bone-deep need to be inside her.
Luca sat up. Swung his legs to the floor. Padded to the bathroom and knocked at the closed door.
“Cheyenne?”
No answer.
He knocked again.
“Cheyenne?”
She might not hear him, if she was in the shower…but if she were, wouldn’t he hear the sound of running water?
A disquieting thought stirred inside him. He said her name once more and turned the knob.
The door swung open on an empty room. Just to be certain, he drew back the vinyl shower curtains.
Nothing.
His mouth thinned.
He left the small room, walked through the bedroom, peering into corners as if he might locate her in one of them.
He didn’t, of course.
She was gone.
Her clothes were gone.
The only sign that she’d been there was a note scratched on the thin memo pad the motel had provided.
Sorry, but I have an appointment in Dallas. I checked—there’s a phone number for a cab service in the directory on the desk. And thanks for your help.
The initial C was scrawled below.
Could a man actually feel his blood pressure threatening to burst his arteries?
Luca stared at the note.
At that thanks for your help.
What was that supposed to mean? His help with her plans for Sweetwater Ranch? Or what had happened here. In this room. In this bed.
She’d had an itch and he’d scratched it.
Was that the ‘help’ she was talking about?
H, made his hand into a fist, then dropped the crumpled pad on the carpet.
His head was pounding. Pounding!
He thought back over the years, to other times he’d been angry. Times he’d been furious. The worst had been when he’d found out that his father was a bigamist, that he’d created four
bastard children.
And even then, his anger had not been like this.
He could feel it rising within him, a black cloud of pure rage, wiping out all logical thought, all civilized behavior.
“Bitch,” he said. “Fucking bitch.”
He told himself to calm down. To take it easy. To be reasonable…
“Goddammit,” he snarled, and he reached for the ugly lamp on the ugly table beside the ugly bed, wrapped his hand around it, yanked its electric cord free of the socket and hurled it at the wall across from him.
It shattered into dozens of pieces.
That, at least, was a start.