Copyright © 2009 Mari Carr
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication
Tequila Truth
The front door swung open and she watched Colt step out on to the front porch.
“You gonna sit in that damn car all night?”
She grinned at his gruff manners. Colt was a true cowboy, born and raised on a ranch outside of Dallas. He moved with a slow, country grace that never failed to take her breath away.
Climbing out of the car, she laughed as she walked toward him. “Waiting for me?” She couldn’t help but be pleased at the idea, no matter how unlikely.
“You’re late.” His voice was rough and she got the sense he was angry for some reason.
“I decided to get my grading and planning for next week finished at school, so I wouldn’t have to drag it home. Now I have the weekend all to myself. Are you going out tonight?”
“Nope. I’m in for the evening. Don’t you have a phone in that classroom of yours? You should have called. I was starting to get worried.”
Kylie felt a tremor of confusion at his words. Although they typically called if they were held up, there was no hard and fast rule about checking in. “Sorry, Colt. I figured you’d be going out for the night. I didn’t think it mattered when I got home.”
“It matters,” he grumbled.
As soon as she walked in the house, Heath emerged from the kitchen with his hands on his hips.
“Well, it’s about damn time. Where the hell have you been?”
“Welcome home to you too,” she teased as she walked over to give him a friendly kiss on the cheek. “We didn’t expect you back until Tuesday.”
She was shocked when Heath turned at the last second and her welcome home kiss missed his freshly-shaved jaw and landed straight on his lips. She tried to jerk back, but two strong arms wrapped around her and held her in place as he deepened the kiss before finally releasing her.
The entire embrace couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but she staggered back when it ended as if she’d drunk a whole bottle of wine.
“Now that’s worth coming home to.”
Kylie shook off his actions and words, thinking perhaps it was her roommates who’d been drinking. She caught the light scent of beer on Heath’s breath.
“Start the party without me?” she asked.
“Nope. We were waiting for you.” Heath winked at her and returned to the kitchen. She stood for a moment trying to understand the unfamiliar tension she felt in the air, but before she could sort out her thoughts, she felt Colt’s strong arm encircle her waist. He pulled her back against his chest and his breath tickled the hair on the back on her neck.
“Colt?”
“You hungry, darlin’? We were about to throw some steaks on the grill.” At his words, he moved her into the kitchen with his arm wrapped tightly around her.
She glanced over her shoulder, uneasy with his casual closeness. Heath smiled at them as they walked in and acted like there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong with the way Colt was holding her.
“I picked up some T-bones on my way home from work. Hope you’re hungry.”
She was completely flummoxed. “Are we celebrating something?”
“The weekend,” Colt replied, releasing her with a quick kiss on her cheek. He crossed over to the refrigerator to pull out a bottle of her favorite wine. When he reached for three wine glasses, instead of one, she narrowed her eyes. Colt and Heath never drank wine—ever. They were strictly hard liquor or beer men.
“Okay, that’s it. What the hell is going on here?” She placed her hands on her hips and struggled to stop her toe from tapping in annoyance. Her mother was an angry toe-tapper and Kylie had, much to her chagrin, picked up the habit. To add to her aggravation, both men merely laughed at her pose and continued about their duties as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
Once Colt had the wine poured, he carried a glass over to her.
“Watch your mouth, darlin’. Ladies shouldn’t cuss.”
“Lucky for me I’m not a fucking lady. Now what the hell are you all up to?”
Colt shook his head at her response, putting her wine glass down on the kitchen table. Then he even had the nerve to tsk at her. “I’m afraid that filthy mouth of yours is going to get you in a whole heap of trouble. What do you think, Heath?”
She watched Heath’s expression flicker between amusement and anger before he turned his smoldering gaze toward her. “I think it’s a shame that ass of hers is too sore for what I’ve got in mind. You’re looking to get punished, Red, but after that stunt you pulled the other night, you no doubt need more time to heal. Best not push us too far.”
She felt her face flush with embarrassment and fury. She whirled on Colt. “You told him?”
“’Course I did, darlin’.”
“It was none of his business. Shit, it wasn’t any of yours. This is unbelievable.” She felt betrayed and mortified and completely out of her element.
“None of my business?” She flinched at Colt’s heated reply. “Is that what you just said? Let me tell you something, Kylie Halston, you made it my business when you brought that son of a bitch into our house and let him abuse you. You listen to me now and you listen good. Your willful, impulsive, reckless days are at an end.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She was taken aback by the anger in Colt’s face. Never in all their years of friendship had he lost his temper with her and she didn’t doubt she’d tested him plenty. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Heath coming toward her and was shocked to see the same intense look in his gaze.
“It means,” Colt said, stepping closer, “that from this point on, you answer to us.”
She burst into laughter at his haughty reply. “Ha!” she yelled before common sense kicked in. Neither man seemed pleased by her dismissal.
Heath reached out and ran the back of his knuckles down her cheek. She gasped at how much the simple touch affected her. “Ah, Kylie. It would seem you need a bit of convincing.”
“Can you two please stop talking in code? I haven’t understood a word you’ve said since I got home. It’s like I’ve dropped into the Twilight Zone.”
Heath’s hand stopped caressing her face and ventured around the nape of her neck where his grip tightened and he pulled her closer to him. “You want plain-speaking? Fine. The terms of our friendship are on hold. For the rest of this weekend, you aren’t simply our roommate or our buddy. You’re going to become our lover as well. From this moment on, you’re ours.”
Speech seemed to desert her. One word kept resonating in her brain. The only word she seemed able to process amidst the rest.
“Ours?”
Heath grinned as he repeated the word. “Ours.” Then he bent down and kissed her.
Erotic Research
A loud knock at the door had Julia jumping up. Suddenly feeling very isolated and unprotected, she scanned the room for some sort of weapon. Spying a big log in her pile of firewood, she grabbed it, cowering in the corner. The pounding on the door continued, louder this time, and Julia’s heart began to race. Who the hell would be on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere on a day like this? It was a virtual whiteout outside.
“Jules, open the damn door. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Ross? She sighed in relief, rushing to unlock the door, and there in the doorway stood her very tall, very wet editor.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, aware her tone was distinctly unfriendly, but he had scared her half to death.
Eyes narrowed, Ross entered the cabin, his arms laden with packages, a large duffel bag thrown over one shoulder, a backpack over the other. “I tried to call, but the phone lines are down,” he answered gruffly.
“My cell?” she asked sarcastically.
“No service up here,” he replied with equal irritation.
“Is something wrong?” She couldn’t imagine what could be so bad it would compel Ross to leave the comfort of his penthouse apartment in New York City to drive for nine hours to the mountains.
“Blizzard.” He unloaded his bags on the kitchen counter. “Headed this way. I was worried you’d be snowed in without enough food.”
Secretly pleased at his incredibly sweet gesture, Julia smiled and helped him unload the soggy paper bags. “You’ve brought enough food for an army.” She gaped at all the meat, vegetables, fruit and snacks he carried in. “I hope you don’t think I need all this to survive. Hey, I didn’t hear a car. How did you get here?”
“By the grace of God and my four-wheel drive. I almost made it all the way to the cabin. The snow is already pretty deep. I got stuck about a mile down the road. Had to walk the rest of the way. Looks like we’re going to be stuck here for a while.” Pulling off his drenched coat, he hung it on the peg by the door.
“My God,” she exclaimed, glancing out the frosted window, “it’s freezing out there and the visibility must be zero. You’re lucky to have made it at all. What the hell were you thinking? You could have been killed.” She put her hands on her hips, suddenly aware of the very real danger he’d just escaped.
“What was I thinking?”
“Yes. Good Lord, Ross, of all the idiotic things to do. What if you’d crashed the car? What if you’d gotten lost in the snow while looking for the cabin? You could have frozen to death.”
Ross shook his head. Clearly, of all the receptions he’d imagined, this nagging scold was not one he’d considered. “I guess, like the idiotic fool I am, I thought you’d be glad to see me. That you’d offer me a warm drink and some supper. I thought you’d be happy not to be stuck up here in this godforsaken cabin alone in a blizzard!”
Biting her lip, she said softly, “Well, I am. Happy, that is. I was feeling rather trapped—and alone.”
As quickly as his anger came, it left him. Smiling, he admitted, “It was a damn stupid thing to do. Unfortunately that fact didn’t occur to me until I was about halfway up the mountain and I realized it was too late to turn around.”
“Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,” she said, suddenly very pleased to have him with her. “I’ll put some water on for tea.”
“Don’t bother with the tea. I brought a bottle of Southern Comfort.” His hands shaking, he attempted, with little success, to tackle the buttons on his soggy flannel shirt. “We are in the South, after all.”
“I’m not sure West Virginia classifies as the South. It’s really sort of the middle. Here, let me.” Pulling his trembling hands away, she quickly unbuttoned his shirt and tugged it off. His skin was like ice to the touch. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t catch pneumonia or frostbite,” she said, unable to resist one more scold. “Come stand by the fire.” Taking his icy hands in hers, she rubbed them lightly. “I’ll get a blanket for you. Stay here and try to get warm.”
Crossing the room, she retrieved a fleece blanket from the foot of the bed as Ross struggled with the button fly on his damp jeans.
“I’ll do that,” she said, concerned for his health. His hands were still trembling and looked blood red and chapped. No doubt he’d lied about how long he’d really been roaming around in the snow and wind.
“Jules,” he started to object, but she was already working the buttons free, concern distracting her from exactly what she was offering to do. When she had the last button unclasped, she grabbed the waistband and started to pull the clinging denim off his legs. The task was harder than she would have thought, but sheer determination and worry kept her going. She struggled for several minutes, working the material down his muscular legs, stopping only to pull off his boots and socks, before finally peeling the jeans completely off.
“There,” she exclaimed, looking up into Ross’s suddenly pained face. Her mouth went dry as she realized that during her exertions she’d knelt in front of him and was now eye level with his barely clad cock straining through the material of his silk boxer shorts. This part of him certainly gave new meaning to the term “frozen stiff”.
“I—” she stumbled, unwilling to take her eyes off his very large appendage. She was sure she’d never seen anything quite so big and her curiosity outweighed her embarrassment.
“My God,” she whispered, awestruck as the monstrous cock seemed to grow even larger before her eyes. Without a thought, she reached up and nearly touched it before a growl above her and a strong hand on her wrist stopped her.
“Brown Eyes,” Ross said, his deep voice flowing over her like honey, “if you don’t move away from that this minute, I’ll keep you kneeling there the rest of the night.”
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