Читать книгу The Fantasy Factor - Kimberly Raye - Страница 8

SHE NEEDED A REALLY GOOD orgasm in a really bad way.

That was the only reason Sarah Buchanan kept stealing glances at the hot, handsome, sexy-as-sin cowboy standing at the bar of Cadillac’s most notorious honky-tonk. Otherwise, she would have kept her gaze to herself and her attention fixed on the five women seated at the table with her.

She smiled and busied herself taking a drink of the Diet Coke she’d ordered. The cool liquid slid down her throat, but it did nothing to ease her pounding heart or the craving in the pit of her stomach. Her gaze slid sideways again, seeking out the western shirt and Wranglers. There.

Her gaze lifted, drinking in the sight of him, from the straw Resistol perched on top of his short-cropped blond head, down over the western shirt that outlined his broad, powerful shoulders, the large rodeo belt buckle that glittered at his trim waist, the tight jeans that cupped his crotch and hugged his powerful thighs, to the tips of his worn brown cowboy boots.

Houston Jericho was hot and hunky and he practically guaranteed a top-notch, first-class, screaming-good orgasm.

She knew that firsthand because she’d been on the receiving end, not once but three times. Three hot, wild, wicked times.

Of course, that had been a long time ago, and Sarah had since traded hot, wild and wicked for lukewarm, tame and boring. She’d given up her bad-girl tendencies—along with her sexy clothes and her favorite red leather cowboy boots—and completely changed her image.

Houston, however, looked as hot and wild and wicked as ever, his sensual lips crooked in a grin, his stance easy and relaxed and so damned sexy.

She got the distinct impression that he’d only gotten better with age.

“…your turn.” The female voice drew her attention and she forced her gaze to the blonde who sat across the table from her. Janice Alcott was a corporate oil executive from Houston, and had, at one time, been the vice president of the Chem Gems, the only academic club at Cadillac High, a school where football and cheerleading had been considered hot and everything else—particularly anything that involved a textbook—not. “Looks like Maddie—” she pointed to the blonde sitting next to her, their once-upon-a-time president who’d traded her frumpy high school image and shy demeanor for a svelte new figure and a tight leather halter top “—isn’t going to nail this one. That means you only need five points to beat her.”

They were on the last round of Who’s the Baddest Babe?—the sexy board game that had been the center of tonight’s bachelorette party honoring Cheryl Louise, the youngest Chem Gem, who was tying the knot first thing tomorrow.

Cheryl had been a member of the club via her older sister, Sharon, who’d been the smartest girl in school and the founder of their group. She’d also been one of Sarah’s closest friends.

Until Sharon had wrapped her car around a telephone pole a few days before graduation. Maddie had been in the driver’s seat, and she’d walked away with only a few scratches, thanks to the steering wheel. She’d been lucky.

As lucky as Sarah herself, who would most certainly have been crammed into the passenger seat with Sharon when the dashboard had caved in—had her grandmother not grounded her yet again, and sentenced her to her room for the weekend.

“Child, why can’t you be more like your mother? She was always such a sweet girl. Always thinking of others and making straight A’s and doing me proud. Why, you wouldn’t catch her swiping the school mascot the night before a football game. She always used her head.”

Because Lorraine Foster Buchanan had not only been the smartest girl in her class, she’d also been perfect. She’d always said the right things and worn the right clothes and married the right man and made all the right decisions….

Unlike her only offspring, who’d never managed to measure up. At least in Willemina Foster’s eyes, and so Sarah had stopped trying early on. In fact, she’d gone the opposite direction, determined to set herself apart from her mother. To be different. To be her own person rather than a replacement for the daughter her grandmother had lost.

Instead of being sweet and wholesome, she’d been a daring, do anything rebel in red-hot cowboy boots who’d loved to shake things up and shock the fine, upstanding citizens of her small hometown. She’d been the first out of her clothes to go skinny-dipping down at Cadillac Creek, the first out of the car to toilet-paper the captain of the football team’s house the night before homecoming, the first to ask a guy out for their junior prom, and the first to proposition Houston Jericho, the town’s resident badass and the hottest, hunkiest guy ever to walk the hallowed halls of Cadillac High School.

Her gaze started to slide his way, but a passing waitress killed her line of vision. Thankfully.

She was here with her friends, for her friends. This was the first time they’d all been together in twelve years. And possibly the last they would be, since they led separate lives, two of them far, far away from Cadillac. She shouldn’t waste her time scoping out men.

She gave herself a mental shake and forced her attention back to the game.

Maddie, despite her leather halter top and go-get-’em attitude, had just failed the latest assignment that would have made her an extra fifty points and secured the title. All of the other women were too far behind to win, but Sarah was right on her heels, and if she aced the next question, she would walk away the winner.

Not that Sarah intended to win, no matter how much she wanted to. She had an image to maintain. A wholesome, respectable, safe image that she’d spent too many years building to blow now.

“Girl, if you ace this, you’ll be sleeping late tomorrow instead of picking up Uncle Spur,” Eileen, the petite blond supermom told her.

Image aside, Sarah was in no hurry to spend two hours cooped up in a vehicle with Cheryl’s uncle Spur, an ornery eighty-four-year-old man who prided himself on his tobacco spitting abilities and always being right.

She reached out, picked the top card from the deck and read it out loud.

“A true bad girl loves to make the first move, Whether it’s a kiss, a touch, or catching her groove.

So prove yourself by taking this chance,

Find a sinful minded man and ask him to dance!”

“That’s no fair,” Maddie complained. “I had to dance with someone and kiss him. All she has to do is dance.”

“With a sinful minded man,” Brenda pointed out, “which means he’ll have more on his mind than, like, dancing if he’s really in the sinful category. Not to mention, they’re playing a slow song right now.” A slow, sweet Toby Keith song wailed from the speakers.

“It’s still no big deal,” Maddie said. “This is too easy.”

Maybe for any of the other five women at the table. But for Sarah, a former bad girl trying desperately to be good, dancing meant getting close, and slow-dancing meant getting even closer, and that meant trouble.

Her nipples throbbed at the thought, and frustration made her fingers tighten.

Yep, she needed a sinful man, all right. But needing and having were two very different things. She needed a lot of things. A new haircut. An extra large bag of Doritos. A pair of short-shorts and a slinky tank top to keep her cool while she worked at the family garden center she’d taken over from her grandmother several years back.

But she wasn’t having any of those things because Sarah steered clear of anything and everything that spelled B-A-D, from junk food to revealing clothes to her favorite red boots to men. Life was short enough on its own without tempting fate by living dangerously.

She’d realized her mortality and decided to play it safe. At least that’s what she wanted everyone to think, especially her grandma Willie. She owed the woman for saving her life that night, and so she followed a strict diet regime, got plenty of sleep, wore tasteful, conservative clothes and steered clear of sinful minded men.

Men who made a woman’s heart pound and her legs quiver and her panties damp.

Men like Houston Jericho.

Her gaze shifted to him again and her lungs constricted. He was still as handsome as she remembered. More so because his wild, carefree aura now contained an air of maturity that plainly said he knew what to do, when to do it and exactly how to do it.

Definitely bad.

“Fifty points,” Brenda Chance said. Brenda was a hopeless romantic. She’d married her high school sweetheart, Cal, given him a handful of kids and now lived and breathed the local PTA. “If you pull this off,” she told Sarah, “you’ll get, like, fifty points. More than enough to put you in the lead and win the game.”

“I say she should pick another card,” Maddie said. “Dancing is nothing for Sarah. I say she needs something more challenging. Something befitting the baddest bad girl ever to flash her boobs at a bus full of rival football players after a game.”

Janice smiled. “Girlfriend, that was so funny.”

Cheryl Louise grinned. “It was classic.”

Sarah frowned. “It was stupid. It was forty below out. I nearly gave myself frostbite.” She would have, except that she’d been laughing so hard, her heart pumping even harder, thanks to the rush of excitement at acting on a dare, that she’d actually felt warm. Hot.

Almost as hot as she felt right now.

She took a sip of her cold drink and forced a nice, easy, controlled breath. It was all about control. Something she’d manage to perfect thanks to twelve years of deprivation.

“I agree with Maddie,” Janice said. “Sarah needs something more challenging. Girlfriend, she’s already a bad girl, so that gives her an advantage over Maddie.”

“Nonsense,” Brenda said to Janice. “You and Maddie, like, have obviously been away too long. Sarah is the activities chairwoman for the local chamber of commerce. She spends her weekends hosting bake sales and organizing car washes. Why, she’s about as bad as Pastor Standley’s grandmother.”

“She’s still alive?”

“Barely. She’s ninety-seven and she spends twenty-four/seven watching Wheel of Fortune reruns and reading Reader’s Digest.”

“Sounds totally unexciting,” Janice said.

“That’s Sarah,” Brenda replied.

“Unexciting is good.” Sarah took another sip of cola. “Too much excitement leads to stress and heart attacks.”

Janice shook her head. “Whatever happened to the old Sarah we knew and loved and envied?”

But they all knew what had happened. They’d lost one of their closest and dearest friends the night before their high school graduation, and it had changed all of their lives forever.

Maddie, who’d been so set on following in her father’s footsteps at the town’s bake shop, had left to attend college in Dallas and ended up in a high-powered career with a leading cosmetics company. Janice had traded a local junior college for a major university and a career with a big oil company in Houston. Eileen had forfeited college to be a wife and mom and the local PTA president. Likewise, Brenda had given up college entirely to marry her high school sweetheart and have the first of five children, all of whom were scary at best—at least to Sarah, who’d grown up an only child with her grandmother and a house full of plants.

Cheryl Louise had still been in high school. She’d worked afternoons at the local five-and-dime and fantasized about Prince Charming sweeping in and saving her from her humdrum existence.

He’d swept in. Literally. Jack Beckham owned the only floor cleaning company in town and he’d been polishing the tile at the local TG&Y when he’d first spotted Cheryl Louise. He’d smiled and she’d smiled and now, several years later, they were about to say, “I do.”

And Sarah?

She’d traded her big-city dreams, a chance at an architectural degree from the University of Texas and her one opportunity to get the hell out of her stifling hometown to stay right here, attend the local junior college, take over the family business and play the dutiful granddaughter.

“The card said ‘sinful,’ so don’t even think about Marty Snifferdoodle.” Janice pointed to the man sitting at the far end of the bar. He had a can of soda in one hand and a handful of peanuts in the other. He tipped his head back and tossed a peanut into the air, catching it in his mouth.

“He’s coordinated,” Sarah pointed out.

“Coordinated is not sinful.”

“And don’t think about old man Wally, either.” Maddie eyed the ancient-looking man standing at the far end of the bar. His shock of white hair had been slicked to the side. He wore a starched shirt and Wranglers and made kissy faces every time a woman walked within his line of vision.

“He’s sweet.”

“He’s old and frisky.”

“But old, frisky men are sort of cute.”

“Then you won’t mind picking up Uncle Spur tomorrow,” Maddie told Sarah.

Just the mention of Cheryl’s obnoxious uncle made Sarah’s stomach knot, and she pushed to her feet. Spur Tucker wasn’t just obnoxious and loud-mouthed and downright mean. He was a threat to her nice, wholesome image.

If she had to hear him say even once more that her hair was too red or her skin too pale or her hips too wide or her butt too out there, she was liable to do what every woman in town had wanted to do since he’d started spending his holidays in Cadillac and running his mouth off—she was liable to wring his scrawny little neck until his eyes popped out.

Popping out an old man’s eyes, even a hateful, ornery, critical old man’s eyes, wasn’t something a nice girl would do.

Which meant Sarah had to dance with Houston Jericho.

Just a dance, mind you. An innocent, you-stay-on-your-side-of-the-invisible-line-and-I’ll-stay-on-mine sway of bodies.

No kissing him or jumping his bones or begging him to take her right here and now and sate her deprived libido.

No matter how hot he looked.

HE WAS TOO DAMNED HOT.

Houston tugged at the top button on his shirt and tossed down another swallow of his beer. Neither did much to cool the heat burning him up from the inside out. A heat that had very little to do with the crowded atmosphere of his old haunt and everything to do with the fact that she was here.

He still couldn’t believe it. He’d been home a time or two over the years, but he’d never run into her. They kept company with totally different crowds now. While they’d both been into fast and furious fun way back when, Sarah Buchanan had since changed her ways. She spent her Saturday nights hibernating at home while he burned up the dance floors when he wasn’t riding a thousand pound bull on the pro-rodeo circuit.

At least that’s what Houston had heard about her.

He still couldn’t believe it.

His gaze shifted across the room, to the table filled with familiar faces. Her nerdy friends, or so they’d been in high school. Age and success had turned them into a fairly nice-looking group.

Back then Sarah had fit in with them when it came to brains. As for her body… She’d been centerfold material, with a beautiful face, long hair, luscious breasts, a round, soft bottom and long legs.

Despite the talk around town, he didn’t think she’d changed much at all. She still had a killer body, though it looked as if she tried to hide it. She wore a white, long-sleeved blouse with tiny pearl buttons rather than a tight T-shirt or sweater. Slacks rather than snug, fitted jeans. Conservative pumps rather than the come-and-get-me red cowboy boots she’d flaunted along with a lot of attitude.

She was still as hot as ever.

And she wasn’t there.

He blinked and eyed the familiar four faces. Four, not five. Christ, he could have sworn he’d seen her just a few seconds ago.

Then again, maybe it had been wishful thinking. An extension of any one of the fantasies that had haunted him over the past years. Sarah, naked and beautiful, in the shower. Sarah, naked and beautiful, in a public rest room. Sarah, naked and beautiful, in a dark movie theater. Sarah, naked and beautiful and riding him, in a moving elevator. Sarah, naked and beautiful, in any and all of the last four of The Fantasy Factor: Sexiest Seven Places to Do It, a self-help sex video that had caused quite a stir back in his high school days.

By today’s standards, the content seemed extremely tame. There were no below-the-waist shots, though the video had hinted at total nudity. It had been primarily an instruction video for couples who wanted to spice up their sex life. But to a bunch of giggling teens in a small town, it had been a veritable porn fest.

The bootleg copy, courtesy of one of the football players who’d found the original in his parents’ bedroom, had circulated throughout the senior class. It had been passed from one hand to another until a teacher had confiscated it from someone’s locker.

By then, however, practically everyone had seen it, including Houston.

He’d caught his glimpse of it at an after-game party, the crowd made up primarily of seniors and a handful of freshman from nearby Kendall County Junior College. Sarah had been there, too, caught in a groping session with some junior college jerk who’d been pushing her too far, way too fast.

Houston had stumbled upon them in one of the back bedrooms when he’d been looking for the bathroom. They hadn’t made it past second base, but the guy was quickly gunning for third despite Sarah’s struggles. Houston could still remember the fear in her eyes and the relief when she’d caught a glimpse of him standing in the doorway. He’d pulled the guy off her, tossed him on his ass, and then he’d offered her his jacket to cover her torn blouse.

She’d taken his hand and, together, they’d slipped out the back door and headed for his souped-up Corvette. She hadn’t wanted to go home for fear of facing her grandmother while she was still so shaken up, nor had she wanted to go back to the party and face her friends. She’d been fearful that the jerk would run his mouth and blow her hot-to-trot image. And so they’d wound up down by the creek with a bottle of homemade strawberry wine, an ice chest and some 7UP. They’d poured the wine and soda into the chest and mixed up some homemade wine coolers. Then they’d sat on the hood of his car and talked for the rest of the night until the sun had come up.

She’d admitted the truth to him then. Despite her ready, willing and able image when it came to sex, she was really only two out of three. She’d had only two sexual encounters and neither had been nearly as wonderful as she’d anticipated because they’d both been with assholes like the Junior College Jerk.

She wanted great sex. Wild sex. Hot sex. The stuff fantasies were made of.

She wanted Houston.

Even then, he’d had a reputation for being outstanding in the sack, and so she’d asked him to help her beef up her sexual knowledge by playing out the Sexiest Seven from the video.

He’d been a little shocked at her request, and a lot turned on because, like every other guy in school, he’d thought about being with her. Pleasuring her. Making her feel so good that she’d scream his name and come apart in his arms.

He’d kissed her then and they’d started that very night.

He’d expected it to be good. Sex was always good. But with Sarah, it had been phenomenal. She was so uninhibited when it came to her body, so vocal when it came to her feelings, and the combination had turned him on in a major way. Every time he’d touched her, kissed her, plunged into her, he’d seen the pleasure in her eyes and on her face, and he’d heard it in her loud, frantic cries.

Unlike most other girls, who’d been more interested in having him as a boyfriend than a lover, she hadn’t been into playing games. She hadn’t worried about saying the right things or holding out or maintaining an air of propriety. She’d been straightforward and free and very, very improper.

And he’d enjoyed every moment.

But then Sharon had passed away and Sarah had withdrawn and Houston had done what he’d been planning to do for as long as he could remember—he’d left his desperately small town and his sorry excuse for a father, and he’d built his name and his reputation as one of the best bull riders on the pro-rodeo circuit.

Houston was the middle brother of the notorious Jericho brothers. Austin was the oldest. Dallas the youngest. All had been as bad as a hot summer day was long. They’d been the town’s rebels, a legacy inherited from their hell-raising father and wild-child mother. His mother had died early on, just months after giving birth to Dallas. She’d been diabetic and the birth had been too much for her. There’d been complications and her kidneys had failed. She’d fought for her life on a dialysis machine, but it hadn’t been enough to save her. She’d passed on, and his father had crawled into a bottle and the three boys had been left to fend for themselves.

They’d all grown up to be independent, none of them depending on anyone except one another to overcome their past and rise above the town’s expectations of them. Dallas had built a successful construction company. Austin was a rancher with the fastest growing spread in the county. And Houston was this close to breaking the national bull riding record of ten consecutive championships.

He’d worked hard to get to this point. Over the years, he’d spent most of his time on the road, focused on the next practice and the next competition. Always focused.

Except at night, when the exhaustion weighing on his muscles wasn’t enough to pull him into a decent sleep. Then he would close his eyes and sometimes—oftentimes—picture Sarah.

They’d made it through the first three of the Sexiest Seven. They’d gotten hot and heavy on the bank of Cadillac Creek on a moonlit night, which had satisfied number one—sex outside in nature. They’d done the wild thing in her Grandma’s Impala, which had satisfied number two—sex in the back seat of a car. They’d set each other on fire in a cheap but clean room at Hotel Heaven just outside the county line, checking off number three—sex in a sleazy motel room. They’d been scheduled to fulfill number four—getting slippery and wet in the shower—when one of Sarah’s best friends had passed away.

Sarah had changed then and he’d left, and they’d never made it into the shower for number four of the Sexiest Seven, or into a crowded movie theater for number five, or a public rest room for number six, or an elevator for number seven.

No, they’d never had a chance to finish, but he’d often thought about it. Fantasized about it.

“…there, sugar?” The voice drew his attention and he turned to see the sultry blonde to his right who had been coming on to him all night. He’d been trying to warm up to what she’d been offering, but then Sarah had walked into the bar and the blonde had suddenly lost all her appeal. Now she licked her lips suggestively. “This place is getting too crowded. What do you say we cut out of here and have a little private party of our own?”

“I’d love to, honey, but I think I’d better stick around a little while longer.” He eyed the group of men at the bar, all arms raised in a toast to the groom, who wore a foam ball and chain around his neck. “Jack and I go way back.”

What the hell was he saying?

He wanted to get out of here. Out of the building, out of his clothes, away from the damned heat. He needed to sate the lust burning him up from the inside out.

Unfortunately, the lust had nothing to do with this woman and everything to do with the woman he’d spotted only a few minutes ago.

Correction—the woman he’d imagined only a few minutes ago.

“Then how’s about an itty-bitty dance?” the blonde asked. She moved her hips suggestively, rubbing her pelvis against his thigh. “I bet I can change your mind about the private party.”

He tugged at his collar and tipped back his Resistol. “Maybe later. I think I need another beer.” She glared and walked off while he stepped up to the bar and signaled the bartender.

A minute later, he slid a few dollars across the bar top and raised an ice-cold mug to his lips. The freezing liquid slid down his throat in a rush of cool relief. He grimaced. While the beer hit the spot, he didn’t have much of a taste for it after watching his old man drink himself to death. Which was why he never passed his three beer maximum when he drank.

If he drank.

But tonight was a special occasion. One of his old buddies was tying the knot tomorrow and so Houston had come back to Cadillac. Only for a few days, then he was off to practice for the next Pro Bull Riding championship in three weeks. Before then, however, he was going to make another pass through town to say goodbye to Miss Marshalyn Simmons, the most headstrong woman ever to come after him with a switch and a good lecture. The whole town was scheduled to say goodbye to her at a party being planned in her honor over at the VFW Hall.

She was moving down to Florida to live with her sister. Miss Marshalyn had grown tired of the hot and sticky climate. Tired of living alone. Tired, period. She wasn’t getting any younger and the hassle and responsibility of caring for a three-hundred-acre spread and a fading farmhouse was simply too much for her.

She wanted peace of mind, and so she’d made Houston and his brother Austin—the two Jericho brothers still single from the original notorious three—a proposition they couldn’t refuse.

Dallas, the youngest boy, had already found the love of his life and walked down the aisle. He was now only a few months away from becoming a father—a responsibility Houston knew Dallas would take very seriously thanks to their own sorry excuse for a father.

Miss Marshalyn wasn’t the least worried about Dallas, which was why she’d already handed over a prime hundred acres to him as a present for the new baby.

It was Houston and Austin who caused her the most concern. She wanted them to trade in their bad-boy ways and settle down. In return, she promised one hundred acres to each of them. But only if they managed to convince her they’d really and truly changed their ways in time for her going-away party.

Houston slid a glance toward the exit door where his brother Austin had disappeared only a few minutes earlier after having danced with Maddie Hale, the shy, frumpy leader of the Chem Gems who’d turned into a bona fide hottie. Much too hot for Miss Marshalyn’s tastes. She wanted both men to choose a prospect from the town’s pick of nice, quiet, wholesome conservative good girls.

Maddie no longer qualified, and it was no wonder Austin—who was dead set on making Miss Marshalyn happy—had walked out before things had really heated up.

Houston, on the other hand, had no intention of taking Miss Marshalyn up on her offer. He wasn’t the settling-down type. He’d worked too damned hard to get the hell out of Cadillac. He certainly wasn’t coming back now. Not permanently. Not ever.

He’d meant to say as much to Miss Marshalyn. He’d tried, but she’d cut him off in that way that told him she knew best. And so he hadn’t been able to set the record straight about the land and the fact that he was leaving.

He would, of course. He just didn’t see the need to disappoint her right now. He had a good two weeks. Plenty of time to let her down slowly, easily, before he had to leave for Las Vegas and the Pro Bull Riding Finals, where he was scheduled to compete for his tenth consecutive championship.

A record-breaking win that would put him right up there with the greatest riders of all time.

The knowledge didn’t send nearly the jolt of adrenaline through him that it usually did. Understandable, since he was still sore from a hard but high-scoring ride the night before in Cheyenne. A man most certainly couldn’t be excited when it hurt just to breathe.

He drew a deep breath and an ache gripped his left lower rib cage. He hadn’t broken any bones this time, but he’d come close. She’d almost stomped him square in the chest. She would have if he hadn’t rolled just in time.

In time, but still too late. He was getting slower each and every time he hit the ground. No one else noticed, but he did. He felt the weariness pulling at his bones and it bothered him.

PBR champion cowboys weren’t slow. Slowing down meant losing, and Houston had been winning much too long to stop now. Even more, he liked winning. He loved it. He lived for it.

He just wished it didn’t hurt like hell.

“I hate to bother you.” A soft, sweet voice drifted from behind him. “But would you care to dance?”

“I’m afraid not—” he started to say as he turned. The words stumbled to a halt in his throat when he found himself staring at the sultry redhead who’d lived and breathed in his memories for the past twelve years.

His pain faded into a rush of heat and his heart thundered because Sarah Buchanan wasn’t a figment of his imagination this time.

She was real. With eyes as warm as the hot fudge he loved to pour on his favorite vanilla ice cream, and just as decadent. And she was standing so close he could actually touch her.

And that’s just what he did.