Playing With Fire (Tangled in Texas, #2)(31)
Mentally, I was still hesitating, though. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” I whispered between kisses.
In answer, his hands moved into my hair, tilting my head slightly to the right, as his breath tickled across my lips. “Open your mouth and shut up,” he murmured, bringing my face back to his.
I did as he asked, and his tongue swept inside, delving deep. My good sense flew out the window. He was warm and tasted like wild honey. The insistent rolling of his tongue against mine excited me more, enticing me to participate. Feeling braver than normal, I ran mine across his bottom lip and gave him a little nip.
He stilled.
At first, I thought I’d done something wrong, but my hand resting on his chest pulsed with the acceleration of his irregular heartbeat. Keeping his lips glued to mine, Cowboy spun me around with dizzying speed and planted me firmly against the door. Before I could say anything, he hungrily kissed me. His enthusiasm grew immensely, radiating off him with each insatiable thrust of his tongue, beckoning me with every curl.
His right hand moved lower, past my hip, and cupped the back of my knee, raising it to his waist. My robe lifted higher and left me feeling a breeze in places that shouldn’t be breezy. I arched my hips forward to keep my balance, and the large bulge in his jeans rubbed against the thin fabric of my cotton panties. The delicious friction shot sparks throughout my body, and a purr-like sound rumbled from deep within my throat.
His warm fingers found their way to the back of my thigh, stroking and kneading, as he moved higher and higher. He used the position we were in as leverage to access an intimate part of me and easily slipped two fingers under my panties.
I was long gone. He could’ve taken me against the door with the neighbors watching for all I cared. But as Cowboy’s fingers met damp flesh, he hesitated, then tore himself away from me completely. I could see in his lustful eyes it had taken everything he had to do so.
“One taste,” he said, panting heavily. “That’s all I meant to take.”
Flustered, I swayed unsteadily as my breath synched to his. I had never felt so alive. “I…I’m discombobulated.”
He released a shaky breath and squinted at me in confusion. “You’re what?”
“Discombobulated.”
Cowboy frowned with disapproval. “What the hell does that mean?” He stared at me intently, his gaze penetrating me so deep that my thighs trembled.
“It means…” That’s when my sanity came back full force, and I realized what exactly I would have let him do to me against the door. Correction: what I wanted him to do to me against the door. No matter how good it had felt, I couldn’t believe how out of control I’d let things get. “It means you have to leave,” I said with exasperation.
“What? Why? Because you say weird shit and expect me to know what it means?”
“No, I just…need you to go,” I told him, pushing him steadily out the door. Before I lost my godforsaken mind. Again.
He let me shove him out onto the porch, but he turned and grasped the doorjamb with both hands and leaned toward me with a smirk. “Discombobulated, huh? That’s not one of those sex change operations or something, is it?”
Oh, Lord.
Without another word, I shut the door in his face.
Chapter Seven
From the shadows of the living room window, I watched as Cowboy strolled out to his truck, climbed inside, and drove away. My fingers feathered across my lips, still numb from the searing kiss we’d shared minutes before. A moment of closeness that had derailed me mentally, as well as physically…and yet, he’d barely even touched me.
But why had he touched me? And more importantly, why had he stopped?
As his taillights faded into the night, I took a ragged breath, closed my eyes, and wished for… What exactly? For him to come back? For him to have never shown up at all? I wasn’t really sure. Or maybe I was and just wasn’t willing to admit it to myself.
Regardless, I couldn’t rationalize my behavior in a logical manner. Not when it had been nothing more than a self-indulgent whim. A fantasy, really. Clearly, the emotional cocktail of fear, need, wanting, and loneliness had played a giant role in me making such a poor, thoughtless decision.
I released the curtain, letting it fall back in place over the window as I plopped down on the couch and folded my legs under me. A frustrated breath escaped my lips. What the hell was I thinking, allowing him to kiss me, to touch me? It was Cowboy, damn it. I knew better than that.
Sure, ten years ago, I’d longed for him to notice me and look at me the way he did other girls. But he hadn’t, and with good reason. I wasn’t like those other girls. And now he’d undoubtedly seen that for himself.
Obviously, it had been a bad idea from the start, even if I’d seen some hidden layers to Cowboy, which made it harder to dismiss the strong, irrefutable attraction I felt toward him.
But that was one slippery slope I wasn’t willing to climb. He may have kissed me senseless once, but if I had any brain cells left, I’d stay as far away from him as possible.
Then I sighed. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. I hadn’t stopped thinking about him since he’d left. Oh, hell. Who was I kidding? I hadn’t stopped thinking about him since camp ten years ago.
In an effort to shake all lustful thoughts of Cowboy from my mind, I busied myself by cleaning up the kitchen. But as I picked up the teacup from the table, I remembered how tiny it had looked in his large, masculine hands. The same hands he’d gripped my thighs with as he… Holy hell. What was the matter with me?