Long Hard Ride (Rough Riders #1)(70)

Channing twisted her wrists in his rough hands. “I’m acting like this because I’ve got a cab coming any minute. I’m leaving. So let me go.”


“That sounds good. We’ll take the cab to my motel so we can hash this out in private.”


“We have nothing to hash out.”


“Wrong.”


He wheeled her around and cupped her face between his hands. He settled his mouth over hers, foregoing the earlier brutal kiss and giving her sweetness and tenderness that brought her tears to the surface.


Damn him. Channing realized she was starved for this man’s touch.


The way he alternately inflamed and cherished her. The way he instinctively knew which one she needed.


Yet, her breath hitched in her chest, reminding her of the pain that’d been circling her heart for the last day. She broke the kiss. “Colby—”


“Don’t leave me.” He tracked soft kisses up her jawline. “Please. I missed you, darlin’, something fierce. Stay with me tonight.” Over and over his lips brushed the hair covering her ear as he seemed to breathe her in. “Promise me you’ll stick around so we can talk this through, okay?”


Say no.


A thick pause hung in the air.


Finally, she swallowed her pride and whispered, “Okay.”


“Thank you.” He hefted her satchel over his left shoulder, grabbed her right hand and they sprinted to the waiting cab.


Channing paced as she waited for him to unlock the door to the motel room. “How’d you get a room?” she asked, when she meant “Why did you get a room I didn’t know about?”


“My folks had an extra reservation because my brother Cord and his family were supposed to come. They gave it to me instead.”



“Oh.”


The room wasn’t anything different than the other cheap rooms they’d crashed in for the last week. In the darkness her senses were attuned to sound. The thump of her bag on the carpet. The rattling wheeze of the air conditioner kicking on. The click of the chain as he secured the door. The blood rushing in her ears. The prickle of his beard on her nape as he moved in behind her.


“We’ll talk later. Right now I need to be inside you before I lose my ever-lovin’ mind. Let me show you how much I missed you.”


No. She would not relinquish control to him this soon. She turned and sank to her knees. She had him unbuckled, unzipped and in her mouth before he knew what hit him.


“Goddammit, Channing, that’s not what I wanted… Oh f*ck that feels good. Oh, darlin’, just like that. Baby, don’t stop.”


Channing sucked him off, taking her own sweet time to build him to madness. Dangling him over the edge of reason again and again before she relented to his begging whimpers and finished him in her mouth.


Colby staggered backward and sagged on the bed.


She escaped to the bathroom. Maybe if she cowered in there long enough he’d fall asleep and she could sneak out because being here was a bad, bad idea.


Two seconds later, two raps sounded on the door. “Channing? You okay?”


Crap. “I’m fine.”


“You gonna hide in there all night?”


“Maybe.”


Colby laughed. “Well, as long as I’ve got your undivided attention, let me set you straight on a few things.”


“I can turn the water on so I don’t have to hear you,” she said with false syrupiness.


“And I can break down this cheap-ass door so you’ve got no choice but to listen. You really want that, darlin’?”


“No.” Before he could sweet-talk his way around her, Channing blurted, “Did you ask Amy Jo to come to Cheyenne?”


“No! Why would you ask—”


“Because Trevor hinted you told your dad to bring her here for you.”


“Trevor was drunk. My dad’s been tryin’ to fix me up with her for the last year. Poor thing is shy and unsure of herself and she needs a little—”


“Little Amy Jo didn’t look so shy and unsure of herself when you two were dirty dancing,” Channing retorted.


He chuckled again. “Amy Jo asked me to teach her to dance like that because she don’t know how. And it appears she’s already set her cap for some cowboy back home. So she’s tryin’ to shed her wholesome image. I showed her some pointers. Plus, she wanted to rub it in Keely’s face. And my cheeky little sister deserves it after taunting Amy Jo all these years.”


“Oh.” What else could she say that didn’t make her sound like a jealous idiot?


Silence. Colby sighed. “Shug, please come out here.”


Channing cracked the door an inch and peered a him. “You left your ropes in the horse trailer, right?”


“Yep. Just me, just you.” He held out his empty hands. “See?”


“Okay.” The second she scooted out, he blocked her attempt to dodge him and hugged her spine to his chest.


She tried to squirm away.


“What’s this? I thought you liked me? Now you’re treatin’ me like a leper?”