Two To Wrangle (Hotel Rodeo #2)(24)

“Yes, Ty,” she whispered back. “I’ll give you the chance.”

She felt the rush of warm air from his exhale before his mouth took hers again, this time deeply, with more passion. Any remaining doubts vaporized the moment their tongues touched, tangled, and twined.

“Protection?” she asked breathlessly as he nudged her legs apart with a hard, hairy thigh.

“Do we need it?” he asked. “I haven’t been with anyone but you.” His eyes held hers again, seeking reassurance.

“Me either, Ty. There’s nothing between Evan and me anymore.”

The words were barely out of her mouth before . . . Sweet Jesus.

His bare flesh pierced and impaled her, hot and pulsing, blinding her with marrow-penetrating pleasure. Maintaining eye contact, he moved inside her, barely blinking through every core-deep thrust. Her world contracted to their two joined bodies filling the air with synchronous sighs and the sound of softly slapping flesh.

Her climax came in a sudden surge of sweeping waves. Ty’s groan accompanied her muffled cry, followed by spasmodic spurts of scalding heat. He held her tightly, in a locked tangle of limbs, until the ripples subsided, leaving them in a mindless state of sated repletion.



“Where are we now, Ty?” Monica pushed closer into the curve of the big warm body wrapped around hers.

“In Bumf*ck, Oklahoma,” he replied sleepily.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I want to know where we are going from here.”

Once more he answered her literally. “Back to Vegas. We have a deal, remember? I have a week to convince you we make a good team.”

“Six days and nine hours by my watch,” she corrected.

To her surprise, he rolled her back beneath him. “Then I’d best not waste any more of it.”





Chapter Eight


The second time they rode out, instead of doubling with Ty, Monica rode her own horse down to the river—a sleepy-eyed, swaybacked bay gelding named Cooper. He was certainly gentle enough for her, but he had a propensity to stop and graze whenever the fancy came over him. Once he even tried to lie down, likely to nap, but Monica’s shriek as his knees buckled startled him back to a wakeful trot—a jarring pace that made her ass bounce in the saddle. Her thighs were already screaming in agony, as if she’d done a marathon session on a Thighmaster, but she was hard pressed to say who was most to blame for that, the horse or Ty.

They rode in almost complete silence, but it was far from unpleasant. It was the kind of stillness borne of a calm heart and a peaceful mind. After last night Monica felt a little of both, more in harmony with the world than she could recall for a very long time. She and Ty had begun to connect on a level she hadn’t anticipated. It was a lot like the breakthrough that Ty had spoken of in regard to training horses—something that happens when you least expect it.

Ty continued to surprise her in so many ways. He was tough but also tender, commanding but considerate. In bed, he’d always been passionate, but last night he’d also shown patience and understanding. Ty was almost an antithesis to her ex-fiancé Evan, and everything she never knew she wanted in a man. But her wants and needs seemed to have taken such an unexpected course.

She didn’t know what had prompted her decision yesterday, unless it was all just a subconscious sabotage of her plans to return to New York. She knew she should go back, but in that brief silence between her own heartbeats she could almost hear Tom’s voice saying “Stay.”

She glanced up from her horse to watch Ty, sitting broad-backed and tall in the saddle. Just watching him ride made her ache in two places at once. He turned his head and smiled as if reading her thoughts, and then pulled up his horse. They’d taken a slightly different route this time, a short ride that bypassed the river and took them straight to the hill and the lone oak tree. Ty dismounted from his horse and reached up to help her down from hers.

He grimaced at her moan as she slid from the saddle. “That bad, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “If I never mount another horse it’ll be too soon.”

“I can fix you right up, sugar. Half hour in the Jacuzzi tub in the hotel owner’s suite followed by a deep-muscle massage will have you right as rain again.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be right again. Just for the record, in case you’re getting any ideas about that deep massage, Monicaland is closed until further notice.”

Ty returned a cocky grin. “We’ll just see ’bout that.” He turned back to his horse and unbuckled his saddlebags to remove Tom’s boots. Just as he’d said he would, Ty was determined to lay Tom to rest in them, but rather than scattering the ashes as she’d expected, he placed the boots against the tree.

“If I shut my eyes I can still imagine him propped against that oak, dozing with his hat slung down over his face.” He surprised her by doffing his own hat and laying it on top of the boots.

Suddenly she could see it too. She watched as he stood there, eyes shut and head bowed, his lips moving in a silent prayer. Tears fogged her vision at the realization that this was it, the final goodbye.

When he finished, Ty came to stand behind her, with his big strong hands resting on her shoulders. “You take all the time you need, sugar.” He murmured in her ear.

There was that kindness and compassion again. She closed her eyes, leaning into the hard wall of muscle that supported her back. The hands on her shoulders tightened ever so slightly as she slowly inhaled a lungful of air scented with grass and just a hint of river mud. Her throat went painfully thick as she released it to whisper a last goodbye.