“You really need me to say it?”
His big brown eyes smoldered as he caressed her cheek with his finger, and he nodded in that way that made her swoon the day she met him. Lyric reached up and ran her hands over his wide shoulders, down his strong arms, and to his powerful chest. To look at him, King appeared to be a big teddy bear with a boy-next-door smile. Underneath, though, he was a grizzly.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears when he crushed his lips against hers, and she moaned into his mouth. “King…”
“Say it, baby.”
“I need you.”
“Tell me what you need, and maybe I’ll give it to you.”
Lyric looked left and right at the hoards of people who continued to swarm around them. Not a single one seemed as though they noticed King practically taking her right where they stood.
“God, help me,” King moaned, pulling back from her. “Let’s go.”
Lyric was as shocked as she was elated. The man with infinite patience was the first to cave tonight.
The surprises from him continued as King hustled her into the back of a long, black limousine, and before she could even ask whose ride they were hijacking, heard the driver ask, “Where to tonight, Mr. West?”
“Hyperion,” King answered and closed the door in the driver’s face.
“That wasn’t very nice—”
King’s mouth covered hers to shut her up, that she didn’t doubt. His hand hit a button, and a dark panel closed between them and the driver.
“Climb on up, baby,” he demanded more than asked, and pulled Lyric onto his lap, situating her so she was straddling him. “We’re gonna start our celebration here and now.”
He reached over and opened a small door, pulling out two bottles of beer.
Lyric laughed. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be opening a bottle of Champagne.”
“Shit, no,” mumbled King, reaching around her to twist off the caps. He handed her one of the bottles and took a swig of the other.
“If all we’re doin’ is drinkin’ beer,” Lyric looked around the expansive back of the limo, “why do I hafta be on your lap?”
She watched as King took another swig, and another, until he emptied the bottle and set it aside. Then he took hers and set it in a cup holder.
When his hands were free, he cupped the cheeks of her bottom, like he’d done in the concourse, and pulled her closer to him. Lyric wound her arms around his neck and leaned in to kiss him.
“I missed you,” he murmured before he let her tongue do battle with his.
It had been King’s idea to leave Las Vegas two days ago, after the steer wrestling finals were over, in order to look for a woman who had falsely accused Lyric’s brother, Bullet, of being her unborn child’s daddy. When Bullet swore up and down that it wasn’t possible, that he hadn’t laid a hand on her, Lyric had defended him.
What complicated the whole thing was their suspicion that Bullet’s girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend was setting Bullet up. Up until King offered to go back to Colorado Springs and hunt this woman down, there was little hope of proving what was really happening.
This morning, King delivered the woman, and Bullet was able to straighten it all out and prove to Tristan that he hadn’t been unfaithful to her.
At the end of tonight’s finals, after Bullet had the best ride of his life and won the championship, he got down on one knee in the middle of the arena. Everyone, including Lyric, was sure he was going to propose. He didn’t though. He only asked if her company, Lost Cowboy, would consider sponsoring him now that he’d won.
The crowd had gone wild, and Lyric had to hand it to Bullet. It had been an epic move. She didn’t doubt her brother would eventually propose; he was crazy in love with this woman. But knowing him, the proposal would be just as epic as his stunt in the arena had been. Bullet didn’t do anything in an understated way. No one in her family did.
“I don’t think I properly thanked you for saving my brother’s ass,” Lyric whispered, leaning forward to run her tongue over the saltiness of his skin.
King growled, like the grizzly bear he was, and moved his hands from her bottom, to cup each of her breasts, pushing them together and burying his face in her cleavage.
His phone vibrated at the same time Lyric’s did. King wouldn’t answer, but she sure as hell would—and it pissed him right off. Since she was on top of him, it wasn’t hard for him to hear Ben Rice asking if she knew where he was.
“He’s right here.” She put her phone to his ear and went back to licking his neck.