Rugged Texas Cowboy Page 18

  “Son of a bitch,” he cursed, throwing himself into the wide, heavily cushioned chair that sat beside the picture window.

  He leaned his head against the back of the chair, breathing out roughly as he fought the nearly overwhelming impulse to go back upstairs. To finish what he had started. To take her, to hear her cries, her pleas, to feel her tight and hot around him. To let loose the control he fought so hard to maintain, and for the first time in his life, to immerse himself in the woman he would have beneath him.

  It was that damned torque’s fault. Had he not bought it, had he ignored the stubborn challenge in Angel’s eyes and let the piece be, then he wouldn’t be in this situation, he reminded himself. Hell, he didn’t even like the damned thing. But he had known she did, and he had known that if he didn’t buy it someone else would. Someone who wouldn’t have made certain, in time, that it was hers again.

  But he was also honest enough to admit that there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to walk away from it now. He had probed at Angel’s guard the full two weeks he had stayed at her father’s estate. Teasing her, tempting her, growing unreasonably aggravated by her cool demeanor of unresponsiveness. No other woman had ever tempted him as she had. He had known that even then and he had fought it. Angel was different, and he didn’t want her to be. He wanted her to be like every other woman he had known in his life. Easy to walk away from. Easy to maintain his control with. There was going to be nothing easy about the confrontation rising between them now.

  He should stalk upstairs, pull the bit of jewelry from his luggage, and just give the damned thing to her. It would belong to her then. She would have sole ownership of it, and he could have some peace.

  And he would have, if she hadn’t tried to steal from him. No, it wasn’t even that. He stared at the ceiling in furious realization that he wouldn’t return it to her simply because he knew if he did, she would walk away. There would be no further reason for her to stay. And he had no desire to have her leave.

  “Jack Riley, you dirty, blackhearted bastard.” Something crashed against the bedroom door as his lips kicked up in a grin.

  Damn, she was a hellcat. And hotter than anything he had touched in his life.

  He breathed out roughly, wearily.

  Something inside him warned that if he took her, if he let himself touch her again, then it would be the greatest mistake of his life. But Jack knew himself well enough to know that he wouldn’t leave her alone long.

  SEVEN

  Dawn was nearing when Jack finally made his way from the guest room he had slept in through the early hours of the morning. He unlocked the door quietly, opening it slowly as he stepped into the room.

  He throttled the groan that threatened to escape his chest at the sight that met his eyes. This was not a sight designed to aid a man in keeping his control. To the contrary, it was like adding fuel to the flames.

  She was stretched out in his bed, wearing nothing but the little black thong and a silk-and-lace bra that cupped the full, creamy mounds of her breasts in a wicked, erotic frame. Long, slender legs were slightly parted; a graceful hand lay on her slightly rounded abdomen. Long, black curls framed her sleeping face, and her soft pink lips parted as she breathed in and out in relaxed slumber.

  His cock hadn’t abated through the night, despite the hour he had spent jacking off before he got out of his bed. A frown creased his brow as he felt a spurt of anger rising inside him. In Ireland she had taunted him with a cool facade, teased him with her haughtiness, and then attempted to steal from him. She had kept him erect, hot, and out of sorts for weeks, and he was trying to be a gentleman?

  His fears from the night before, his knowledge that taking her would somehow change him, receded beneath the arousal twisting his guts in knots. God, he wanted her. He could see clearly, imagine with a realism that shocked him, the sight of her on her knees, dressed in nothing but silk and lace, her lips surrounding his cock, sucking him to her throat, creating a fire inside him that would burn out of control.

  He shook his head, fighting it, fighting his own arousal.

  “Rise and shine, Angel-mine.” He moved to the bed, gripping her slender ankle and pulling at it firmly as she jackknifed in the bed.

  A frown pulled immediately at her brows as fire shot through her gaze.

  “Take your hands off me, toad,” she snapped, jerking her ankle from his grip as she pushed the thick strands of black hair away from her face.

  “Such a sweet disposition,” he chastised her mockingly as he stood by the bed, staring down at her. “Get out of bed.” He bent, picking up her clothing and tucking it beneath his arm as he grinned down at her. “You can wear one of my T-shirts while I wash your clothes. I’ll see about having you a few things delivered today to wear. Be a good girl now and get cleaned up for breakfast.”

  “Excuse me?” she snapped, scrambling across the bed as she attempted to jerk her clothing from him. “Give those to me. I won’t be staying here so I’ll no need you to get me anything.”

  “Tsk-tsk, Angel-mine.” He shook his head in reprimand as he held her clothing out of reach. “Remember the sheriff? The pesky tabloids? We’ll discuss this over coffee and food. But I think you might want to reconsider your position here. Jail can be a very bad place.”

  She pulled back, wondering how serious he was. The one thing she had learned about him while he was in Ireland was that he could be counted on to keep his word. If he set his mind on having her arrested, she had no doubt he would.

  The fury of the night before had receded beneath not just her normal common sense, but also the arousal he had fired inside her. But that didn’t mean she would immediately bow to whatever his arbitrary rules would be. There were other ways of fighting this battle. Jack Riley did not hold all the cards as he believed he did. She wasn’t the only one who had been caught in the web of lust and pleasure the night before. He, too, had burned, and she knew it.

  Narrowing her eyes, she allowed her gaze to rake over him. From his darkened blue eyes, lower to the heavy bulge beneath his jeans. She could feel her pussy throbbing, her breasts swelling as the memory of the night before whipped through her head. His touch, his fingers parting the folds of her cunt, rubbing against the entrance to her weeping vagina. There had been a lesson to be learned in those all-too-brief moments when he had touched her. Some pleasure was so extreme that it wasn’t worth losing. Never had she known such intensity. Such promise of more to come. She wanted, needed more. As though his kiss, his touch was a drug that was rapidly becoming addictive.

  She leaned back, propping her weight on her elbows as she watched his gaze flare at the way this pushed her breasts forward prominently. She loved that look in his eyes, and even though she highly distrusted him emotionally, she had been unable to stem the arousal he could spark inside her.

  “Very well.” She shrugged. “Rather than buying me clothing, ye could just have my things collected from the motel in town. I’m sure that would much easier on ye.”

  His eyelids lowered, his gaze raking over her body, centering on her thighs. The rapidly moistening folds beneath the silk began to pulse in excitement. Her clit was like a living flame, burning out of control with her hunger to feel his mouth suckling at it, his tongue moving around it. She had a feeling she had never truly known lustful pleasure, but that this man could teach her much about it.

  “You’re playing with fire, Angel,” he told her then, his voice deepening, roughening. “You may find that what you’re asking for is much more than you can handle.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Americans are so dramatic,” she sighed. “Do you delight in the warnings? Do they bring you some measure of heightened pleasure? Or do you just enjoy the theatrics?”

  His blue eyes flared at the challenge. Sensuality covered his face, giving him a darker, more wicked demeanor than ever before. She had never known an American lover, she admitted. The few men she had allowed in her bed were cool, well-bred Englishmen who performed between the she
ets in the same manner that they performed in public. Coolly. With dignity. With very little excitement. Were all American men like her captor?

  “You’re asking for trouble,” he growled.

  Her fingers played, with apparent nonchalance, against the flesh of her abdomen, mere inches from the elastic band of the thong as she sighed with mocking patience.

  “Very well, Jack. I will don your pitiful excuse for clothing and come down for breakfast.” She rose on the bed, moving slowly as she swung her legs over the side and stood up, watching him, her gaze locked with his as he stood silent, merely staring back at her.

  The move placed her much closer to him, mere inches from the heat of his body as his eyes darkened, heated sensually. The look had her breathing accelerating, her mouth drying out in anticipation. There was a message in that look, one that backed up his previous warning that she was playing with fire.

  “Any particular shirt I should wear?” She tilted her head, keeping her voice soft and suggestive as she moved away from him, deliberately turning to give him a view of her naked buttocks while she walked to the chest across the room.

  She made it perhaps a few feet before his hand wrapped around her upper arm, bringing her to a stop.

  She turned, staring at him over her shoulder, her brow lifting in a haughty demand despite the dark sexuality that covered him like an aura.

  “Tell me, Angel-mine,” he whispered then. “Do you have any idea of the dirty little games men can play with soft flesh like yours?”

  She licked her dry lips. No, she had no idea, but she was curious about the games he could play.

  “You wouldn’t hurt me,” she finally whispered. “Others might, but you wouldn’t.”

  His expression was almost savage now. His cheekbones seemed higher, sharper, his lips fuller, more sensual than before as he watched her broodingly.

  “And you know this how?” His fingers tightened on her arm as his expression darkened with some undefined emotion. It was gone so quickly that she couldn’t analyze or decipher it, but the shadow of it ran deep.

  “If you were going to hurt me, you would have finished what you started last night, Jack,” she whispered then. “I trust ye with my body. I would trust ye in what ye call yer dirty little games.” She gave a sad smile. “But I would know better than to ever trust ye with my heart.”

  It was there again, that shadow of emotion. For a moment, bleak, almost overwhelming pain flashed in his eyes before it disappeared once again.

  Angel felt her heart trip in dread, felt her chest expand and ache with the need to soothe something she was certain he would never let her see. Why would her declaration that she could never trust him with her heart hurt him? It was apparent it had.

  “And you think your heart is so safe, little Angel?” he asked her, the curve of his lips mocking, almost a sneer as he stared down at her. “What makes you think I couldn’t make you love me?”

  She turned to him, moving her hands until they were braced against the warmth of his cloth-covered chest, feeling the hard thump of his heart as it battered against the flesh there.

  “Would ye want me to love ye, Jack Riley?” she asked him, a wry smile tilting her lips. “If I would risk your ire, and your justice system, to steal back a mere torque I feel is mine, what more would I do to punish one who stole my heart and broke it heedlessly?” Her hands caressed him subtly, moving against him with slow, sensual strokes. “Were you not the one who called me a blackhearted witch with no more sense than to cut my nose off to spite my face? Trust me, Jack, I would cut off the cock of any man stupid enough to steal my emotions and toss them away as though they were no more than trash from the day before. Believe that one well before you make the mistake of taking up a challenge I have not yet offered.”

  One hand retained its grip on her other arm, and it was joined then by his hand at her opposite hip, his fingers cupping it, drawing her closer as his head began to lower.

  Angel felt her heart slam in her chest, her mouthwatering with the sudden need, the anticipation of the kiss she was so longing to taste. Her tongue flicked out to dampen her lips, her eyes widening as a throttled growl of hunger left his chest.

  “You just have me shaking in my boots,” he whispered, no more than a breath from her lips as she fought to hold her eyes open, to catch the flash of emotions that flared in the dark centers of his gaze. “Trust me, baby, it’s not your heart I want. So if you lose it, you do so at your own risk. Now, that sweet, hot little pussy is another matter … After breakfast.”

  *

  Angel was beginning to believe that American men were all tease and no true intent. Twice. Twice Jack had pulled away from her. Was it her willingness to have him that made him draw back? Her mother had always said that men wanted a challenge, not a willing sacrifice.

  She brooded over that thought through breakfast in the large kitchen, sitting at the table and staring outside the window to the bleak Texas landscape beyond and sipping the after-breakfast coffee Jack had provided.

  She had no time for games. She was never a game player, especially not in any relationship she had ever conducted. She pouted silently. She was now ready to merely go home. It was evident Jack was not going to give up the torque, no matter how she pleaded. And what proof would he have that she had broken into his home with the intent to steal it? There was little he could truly do unless she was honest with the law enforcement officials. Who said she had to be honest?

  She sighed in disgust. She hated liars. Of course, as insane as she was, she would have to be honest. Besides, she was a lousy liar. Her father had always known when she was attempting to cover the truth with him.

  “My coffee doesn’t taste that bad.” His rumbling voice drew her from her thoughts as she turned her head and watched him sit once again in the chair across from her.

  “It could stand to be a bit stronger, but it’s fair.” She shrugged her shoulders. The coffee really didn’t matter.

  He leaned back in his chair, his expression thoughtful.

  “You’re too quiet,” he said. “What are you up to?”

  She rolled her eyes. Why did men always think that silence from a woman was a direct insult or possible threat to them?

  “Nothing.” She lifted her cup to her lips, sipping the dark liquid before returning it to the table. “I was merely wondering how long you intend to force my presence here in your home.”

  He lifted a dark-blond brow mockingly.

  “I didn’t invite you here, or force you here, darlin’,” he drawled. “You arrived of your own free will.”

  “And I am now ready to leave,” she informed him coolly. “I came, I failed. The torque, as you say, is fairly yours. I should have heeded my better sense rather than my emotions in coming here.”

  It was a bitter disappointment, losing that torque. Legend held that as long as it stayed within the bloodlines it was created for, then happiness and true love would come to that family. Her mother had known such a marriage. Her parents had loved each other deeply, so deeply there was little left for the children who lived in their shadow.

  “Maybe I’m not ready to let you go.” His expression was once again shuttered, brooding.

  Mockery twisted her smile. “You can’t keep me here forever, Jack. I have a life and a job to return to soon. I’m certain that matters little to you, but other than the torque you purchased from my father, it’s all that matters to me.”

  A smile quirked his lips. “You need to widen your horizons, darlin’. A woman needs more than just a career to keep her warm at night.”

  “I have an electric blanket. It works quite well and bitches much less,” she responded drolly. “What more could a woman want?”

  “An orgasm?” he questioned in amusement.

  “My vibrator does the job.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. Men were so insane.

  “Hmm,” he murmured. “Well, we’ll let you get back to your vibrator and your blanket eventually. Until then, I think it
’s my duty to punish you for your criminal activities. I mean, hell, I let you get away with this, only God knows what you’ll attempt next. Bank robberies, assault—the list goes on and on. I think someone needs to teach you the error of your ways.”

  She would have laughed if his high-handed mocking attitude didn’t spark a flame to a temper already out of sorts. The fact that her mother had always said Angel only raged at those she loved was just a distant memory. She’d been a girl then, not a woman.

  “Excuse me?” She drew herself rigidly erect as offended fury began to fill her. “And what makes you think I’ll allow you to be my judge and jury in this matter? You know what that torque means to me, Jack.”

  He grimaced with mocking sobriety. “Sorry, sweetheart. It’s me or jail.”

  “It’s your word against mine,” she reminded him furiously.

  “Yeah, but the sheriff is a real good friend of mine,” he pointed out. “Hell, we’re almost family. I think he’ll believe me over you.”

  This was a nightmare.

  He looked entirely too confident, too superior for her to doubt his word. Of course the sheriff would believe him over her. Small towns in America would be no different than in Ireland. It would make no sense if they were.

  “So much for American justice,” she harrumphed. “So how much longer do you intend to hold me prisoner here?”

  He tilted his head, watching her with a thoughtful, considering expression. “Oh, I don’t know. How long do you think it will take you to learn your lesson?”

  Angel snorted. As though she would attempt to deal with an American again. “Five minutes after I realized you were aware of my presence?”

  The expression on his face assured her he wasn’t falling for that one.

  “Fine, Jack, you’re going to punish me.” She waved her hands dramatically. “So what exactly do you have in mind? Scrubbing floors? I can do it well enough. Where should I start, me lord?”

  She allowed her accent to thicken, her expression to become disdainful. Damn man. “You’ll definitely be on your knees,” he growled then, his gaze filling with infuriating male arrogance. “But it’s not the floors you’ll have your attention on, woman. Rather, my dick. So open wide and get ready to suck.”