Redneck Romeo (Rough Riders #15)(115)

The muscle in his jaw worked as he stared at her.


She hadn’t thought this new improved Dalton would be a sore loser. “What’s wrong?”


“Didn’t expect that kind of sneaky-assed behavior from you, Rory.” The hard line of his mouth softened when he grinned. “Which is why it’s so awesome!” He picked her up and spun her around. “You totally had me snowed. I might make a poker player out of you yet.”


She snorted.


“So tell me how you’re so damn good at ping pong.”


“The bar I worked at in Laramie had a ping pong table. And since I bartended there for four years…I got pretty good. Used to have guys demand to play me for free shots.”


“How many free shots did you give away?”


“One. But the guy was a tourist and had been a championship ping pong player in China or something. So I gave him a whole bunch of shots, got him drunk and challenged him to a rematch.” She buffed her nails on her shirt. “I beat him. Not the most stellar example of fairness, but hey, I won and that’s all that mattered to me.”


Dalton laughed. Then he kissed her. “I love that you constantly surprise me.”


“Speaking of surprises…how did you come up with playing ping pong as a romantic surprise for me?”


“Lucky guess?”


Rory poked him in the chest. “Try again.”


“An odd whim?”


Another two pokes to his chest as she shook her head. “Tell me.”


“Here’s the truth. I’d intended to take you out for a nice dinner at Field’s. Renting a private room, hiring one of them fiddle players that walks around.”


“You mean a strolling violinist?”


“Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, I thought it’d be romantic, sharing a candlelight four course meal, champagne, roses, chocolate…”


“But?”


His gaze hooked hers. “But since you inspected my land today, I worried all that hearts-and-flowers shit might look like a bribe. Not only to you but to others in the community and I’d never put your professionalism at risk.” He blushed but didn’t look away. “So I brought you to the community center for a game of table tennis, an activity which ain’t romantic and you’d never mistake as a bribe. Especially since you whupped my ass.”


The man was an idiot. A sweet idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. And she was so insanely in love with him it scared her.


“So since you won our battle, you choose what happens next.”


Rory ran her palms down his shoulders, his biceps, his forearms. On the way back up her fingers traced the cut muscles and well defined bulk. She loved seeing him in sleeveless black T-shirts, the tighter the better. He worked hard on this body, he oughta show it off. She curled her hands around the back of his neck and leaned in to rub her mouth across his pectoral. And she got that rush of want from his scent—laundry soap, sweat, deodorant and his underlying musk.



“Rory, you keep doin’ that and I won’t be able to walk out of here.”


“I can’t help it. Sometimes I just look at all this—” her hands slowly cruised down his chest, stopping on his abdomen above his pelvis, “—and I’m blown away that it’s all mine.”


Dalton’s fingers on her chin lifted her face to look into her eyes. “Are you admitting you own me every bit as much as I own you?”


Her this-is-just-sex side didn’t even bother to speak up anymore. Nor did it lodge a protest when she said, “Yes.”


“Need to get you home. Now,” he said in that low, dangerously sexy growl.


She swept her lips over his in a fleeting kiss. “Hold that thought. I won so I get to pick the next activity.” Took every ounce of restraint to step back instead of closer.


“I hope it’s wrestling.”


She laughed. “Nope. But it does begin with a W.”


“There ain’t a pool in there so it doesn’t have to do with water.”


“It’s weight lifting. You lift; I get to watch.”


“Why in the hell would you wanna watch me lift weights? Lots of grunting, straining, sweating.” His eyes narrowed. “Get that look off your face, jungle girl. It’s not even close to sex and it sure ain’t sexy.”


“I’ll be the judge of that, won’t I? It’ll be interesting to see you pump something besides me for a change.”


So she’d never actually watched a lover working out with weights before. Oh, sure, she’d seen guys lifting weights in the gym. Quite a few of them had amazingly hot bodies, but it hadn’t affected her beyond her appreciation for the strength and beauty of a buffed up masculine form.


But watching Dalton pumping iron? Whole. Different. Story. Seeing his biceps and triceps flexing and glistening with sweat. Taking in every inch of his bulky forearms. Seeing the strain across his shoulders beneath his T-shirt as he pulled on the weight and pulley thing. Watching the V ripple in his quads as he performed squats and that also caused the thick bulge in his calf to contract.