Christie Ridgway Read online

  Oh, wow.

  Her womb clenched, her thighs trembled, a flush of heat washed over her skin.

  “Yes,” she said, tilting up her chin. “I want action.”

  Zane felt Harper’s body vibrating in his hold and it only served to ratchet up the heated lust pulsing through his veins. Hell, who knew how, but the sweet woman could bring out the down-and-dirty in him.

  He tried to rein in the burn, though, gentling his hold on the back of her neck and lifting his free hand to caress her cheek with his thumb instead of finding the nearest bed ASAP. Her skin flushed under his touch.

  “I think I know some of the problem,” he said, staring into her upturned face. So. Damn. Pretty. “It’s your name. Your first is a last name. Your last name is a first name. It’s messed you up—makes you do things backward.”

  He saw her swallow. “How so?”

  “You coupled yourself to someone then expected exciting times in bed. You should have experienced exciting times in bed with someone before even considering coupling yourself up with him.”

  Her small pink tongue darted out to moisten her bottom lip, and his cock went from hard to hard. “People think you and I are a couple,” she said, her voice breathless.

  “Yeah.” He read where this was leading and he didn’t think he had it in him to turn them back from this path. Not with that shy-but-needy librarian practically demanding “action” from him.

  “Then I think I’m still doing it wrong,” Harper said.

  Yeah, demanding action. What man could resist? Certainly Zane knew it was impossible for him to resist her.

  “You want to right that, honey?” He couldn’t stop from asking the question as the edge of his thumb traced the apple of her cheek.

  She took in a breath. “Yes, I want to right that, Zane.” Her tongue made a reappearance, moist and pink, and he bent to capture it before it touched her lower lip.

  He sipped it into his mouth, felt her jerk of reaction, felt his cock jerk too, trying to get out of his tight jeans and into her wet heat. His hands clutched, one at her neck, the other on her shoulder, his intentions instantly honed to one—seeking a bed, caveman-style, with Harper over his shoulder.

  Then conscience intruded. No, he told himself, loosening his fingers and sliding them to either side of her waist. He could not turn rutting beast with the librarian. He could not show himself as one of those ill-mannered local mountain men he’d warned her away from.

  Lifting his head, he stared down into her dazed eyes. “You want to take me to your room?”

  She nodded, then he dropped his hands so she could turn and lead the way.

  Though his cock thrummed with the solid beat of his heart, he managed to stroll behind Harper as she guided him into a spacious bedroom that smelled faintly of citrus blossoms. She’d be lost alone on the big mattress set at an angle in the corner, but it would fit the two of them just fine. Lamps on flanking bedside tables glowed at the flip of a switch and he saw that one held a stack of books and the other a chunky, unlit candle the size of a grapefruit.

  He arrowed for it. “Matches?”

  “In the drawer below,” she said, and watched silently as he set flame to the three centered wicks.

  The sweet, delicate scent wafted into the room as he crossed back to the switch and doused the lamps. He glanced at Harper, the candlelight flickering across her face.

  “Nervous?” he whispered, again shutting down his urge to grab and plunder.

  Her head shook slowly from side to side as he prowled nearer. “Ready.”

  “Not in all those clothes you aren’t.” Her hands instantly lifted to her top pearl button, but he brushed them away. “That’s for me.”

  Unable to help himself, he bent to her face. “This is all for me,” he said against her mouth.

  As they kissed, he stripped her of the cardigan. The sweater shell went next, he whipped it over her head then returned to kissing, her smooth shoulders beneath his hands. She didn’t seem to know what to do with hers. They fluttered at his biceps, moved to his waist, went back to his upper arms.

  So he took her wrists and drew her arms around his neck. Her hold tightened there and he slanted his head to deepen the kiss as he unfastened and unzipped her pants. The fabric pooled at her ankles, and that’s when he stopped kissing and started looking.

  His head lifted and his breath stuttered in his lungs. She wore a matching bra and panties—of course Harper Grace wore a matching bra and panties—and they were of an ivory lace so close to the color of her skin it was nearly as if she wore nothing. But it was almost better than nothing, because he could see the jut of her rosy nipples through the bra cup and the panties molded her so closely that he could make out the contours of her sex.

  Before the top of his head could blow off, Zane put pressure on her shoulders, pushing her to a sitting position on the end of the bed. Then he knelt on the rug at her feet, removing the snakeskin pumps to slide the pants away then popped the shoes back on her small feet.

  Lust punched through his bloodstream as he sat back and allowed himself another look at Harper. Creamy skin, lacy underclothes, those high heels.

  It felt as if one of them had pierced his heart.

  “Lie back on your elbows, pretty thing,” he said, feeling saliva gather in his mouth. He yanked her ass to the very edge of the mattress. “I’ve got something I need to do and you’re going to want to watch.”

  Then he kneed closer, spreading her thighs to make room for his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her fingers dig into the coverlet as he buried his face in the heat of her, in the scent of female, in the heart of what he wanted more than his next breath.

  She moaned, her hips lifting as he tongued her, wetting that lace until he could wiggle into the folds and find the bundle of nerves. She twitched, and fell back against the bed, one arm flung over her eyes. Zane lifted his head.

  “Don’t hide from exciting, little darling. Feel it. Let me hear it. Let me know you know how much I’m enjoying myself.” He slid one finger under the elastic at her inner thigh, and let it skim her slippery wetness until he found her flowered opening and could ease his longest finger inside.

  She clenched down on the intrusion, her moan sweet, low, and long.

  His heart lurched. His cock protested the uncomfortable confines of denim. “That’s it, pretty thing,” he said, ignoring the sensations, as he slid in and out of her tight, hot channel. “Feel it. Feel everything.”

  Need burned in his veins. “Up on your elbows, Harper,” he ordered now. “You don’t want to miss this.”

  When she obeyed, he caught her gaze with his, then lowered his head to place a kiss on her belly just above the panty elastic crossing her hip. Then he caught it in his teeth, drawing it down without stopping the in-and-out movement of his finger.

  The catch of her breath was loud in the room as he began to bare her. The panties stalled, and he tugged with his free hand so they cleared the curve of her ass. Then the scrap of material caught on his wrist, the lace brushing the inside of her thighs as he continued to slide in and out of her.

  He stared down at her beautiful petals, her intimate flesh swollen and glistening with her arousal in the candlelight. A shudder worked its way down his back and around to his dick, which made its hunger known by releasing a hot spurt of pre-cum.

  Then, on a groan, Zane lowered his head and fed the craving.

  Harper cried out, more sweet and low, and he did work, man work, the best kind of work, tonguing and sipping and nipping and sucking. Her hips lifted to him, her wetness spreading on his lips and cheeks and chin and he felt the tension gather in her thighs that were clasped around his shoulders. He redoubled his efforts, the flat of his tongue on her hard clit then the slightest edge of his teeth.

  She cried out again, louder this time. Sensing the crisis upon her, he sucked in that bundle of nerves and carefully inserted another finger inside her. Harper gasped, froze, clamped down on his possessive ha
nd, and then—God, beautiful—came.

  He pressed kisses to her belly as he waited for her tension to abate. When her inner muscles relaxed, he withdrew his fingers, let her panties fall to the floor, and climbed onto the bed, only to immediately crawl up her body in the direction of the neglected part of her he was about to pay attention to next.

  “I’m a breast man,” he said, undoing the clasp of her bra. “Well, to be honest, I’m an every- erogenous zone man.” His head bent to kiss a suddenly freed nipple when a small hand pushed back on his forehead.

  “You’ll be a dead man if you don’t get out of all your clothes,” Harper declared.

  Quite forcefully, it must be said.

  Bemused, he sat up, straddling her nakedness and sent her a quizzical glance.

  “Take them off, I said.”

  He felt his smile grow, even with his raging hard-on. It was impossible not to smile looking down at all her creamy nakedness and that set expression to her swollen mouth. “Your turn to play,” he said obligingly, and tossed off his clothes.

  Then she was up and on him, shoving his back to the mattress. He laughed, low and dirty, as his hand trailed her spine to her ass. He froze, then lifted his head and craned his neck to peer around her hip.

  “Harper Grace,” he said, taking in the lush, luscious curves of her butt. “You’ve been hiding that from me under those long sweaters, and I’m a definite ass man.”

  She pushed his shoulders back down and cruised her mouth across his collarbone. “Call me Stella.”

  “What?”

  “When I’m going for exciting in bed I’ve decided I want to be called Stella.”

  He laughed, the sound cut off when she found his nipple and gave it a sharp little suck. He groaned, palmed her ass again, and gave it a light slap. “Whatever you say, Stella.”

  It turned out that Stella/Harper used her mouth for more important things than talking. She took it on a trip all over his chest, delivering peppery kisses, sucking kisses, the kind of kisses that drove a man mad. Then she attacked his mouth, taking the lead on even more kisses, as her hand traveled toward his groin.

  Her fingers curled around his shaft.

  Zane groaned into her mouth, his hips lifting, more pre-cum oozing. She found it with her thumb, wetting the head and making him crazy. “Do you have a condom?” she whispered against his mouth.

  “Yeah.” He panted instead of losing it, reaching a blind hand for the foil packet he’d placed on her bedside table. The books sailed off the surface because of his clumsy searching but then she had the foil and he watched, fascinated, as her small fingers tried to peel it open. Snatching it from her, he tore it with his teeth and rolled the thing on himself, his patience wearing thin.

  Finally, she crawled on top of him. He steadied her with one hand, then helped her lower. “I’ve got myself a cowgirl,” he said, grinning and groaning at the same time as her hot, tight flesh closed over him.

  “Cowgirl Stella,” she said, as if testing it out, and then she was riding him, taking him to a heavenly rodeo.

  He gritted his teeth and merely accepted what she gave, trying to hold out as long as he could. But then it was impossible—he couldn’t check himself any longer. So he lifted his head, found one sweet, pouty nipple, and drew it into his mouth. Hard.

  She froze, then began to move again, grinding herself onto the root of his cock. “Touch yourself,” Zane said, releasing her nipple. “Touch yourself, Stella.”

  And at the sound of her new name, the librarian slid her hand down her belly and found the right spot. Or so he figured, because her inner muscles began to spasm, her head dropped back, and her orgasm triggered his. His hips jerked, short thrusts that tumbled him over the edge of heaven and into the wide and wonderful pleasure fields below.

  Later, coming back from the bathroom where he’d ditched the used condom and washed up, he found that Stella had turned to Harper again because she’d crawled between the covers dressed in a nightgown. The sheer cotton of it wrapped the part of her shoulder where the sheet left off. The candle still flickered, lighting her sleeping face.

  He smiled and resisted the urge to wake her for a round two. That could wait.

  Snagging his boxers from the floor, he glanced at the bed again. She’d pulled back the covers on the other side as well, a clear invitation. That didn’t need to be made twice. He’d roll in there beside her, get some shut-eye, and in the morning he’d show his good manners and his gratitude by rocking Harper’s—Stella’s, whatever—world once more.

  She’d find it was going to be even more exciting when he could play with all her pretty curves in the light of day. Into this moment of delightful anticipation, his twin’s voice intruded.

  Twenty says you’ll wake up in that woman’s—I’m sorry, your friend’s—bed in the morning.

  Damn it.

  Zane couldn’t stay, right? If he did, he’d owe his brother forty—he’d upped the ante himself—and there was no reneging on bets. Then the other guys who’d been at Baldie’s with them would be sure to find out—not a one of them would have the decency not to pry, not when it meant foregoing a chance to rib a friend about a wager, won or lost.

  But Zane didn’t want them talking about Harper. He didn’t want them picturing Harper in bed.

  Quickly donning his clothes, he crossed on stocking feet to the candle and blew out the flames. Then he high-tailed it to her kitchen where he found a scrap of paper and a pen. Unsure exactly what to say, he scrawled a thanks and headed for the front door.

  He eased it open and glanced right then left. If anyone saw him slipping out, they’d certainly guess what he’d been up to with her just by looking at him. He didn’t need to confirm for anyone that Mr. Rowdy Fun and Right Now had been up close and intimate with the new librarian.

  Chapter 7

  Early Sunday morning Zane sat in his desk chair at A To Z, scrolling through the schedule and trying to focus on the day ahead instead of whom he’d been with the night before, when Adam strolled into the office. He set a coffee beside the computer and then wiggled two twenties in front of Zane’s face.

  Damn.

  Snatching the bills, he half-shoved them under the pen- and pencil-filled cube on the desk.

  “No wonder you look like hell,” his twin said. “Blue balls, huh?”

  “We shouldn’t have made that bet,” he muttered.

  Adam fell back on one foot, his hand over his heart like he was having an attack. “You never hesitate to make a bet, take a bet.”

  “I shouldn’t have done it this time.” Only jerks bet on bedding woman, though he had bet that he would not. No difference.

  “But—”

  “Shouldn’t have done it,” Zane repeated, aware he sounded surly as hell.

  “It wasn’t exactly a land giveaway,” Adam said.

  That had been the seed for five decades of feuding that had divided the town. A card hand and a bet gone wrong…meaning that Grandpa Max had lost a tract of his most valuable land and winner John Westbrook hadn’t hesitated to scoop it up. But there’d been other causes and other grudges that kept the hostility alive for years until Bailey and Ryder’s romance forced everybody on both sides to begin to play nice, finally, just this spring.

  At that moment, Gambler ambled into the office, took one look at the low cupboard door Zane had left open when he went for printer paper and nearly jumped out of his fur coat. With a whimper, he dashed to the knee well cut into the desk, knocking over a waste basket on his way, and cowered between Zane’s legs.

  His brother bent to peer inside the cabinet. “Better add boxes of paperclips to the Terror List.”

  Zane sighed, his hand reaching down to fondle the dog’s ears. Just yesterday Gambler had seemed to be a whole new canine when listening to little Bella read. But there it was, proof that leopards didn’t change their spots.

  Adam hitched his hip onto a corner of the desk. “You know, we haven’t talked about Wednesday night.”


  “Huh?” Zane gave his brother a wary look. He’d kissed the librarian in public on the sidewalk then. “What about Wednesday night?”

  “When Bailey shared with us that Mom is coming back to town for her restaurant opening.”

  “Oh.” Zane frowned. “That.”

  “I guess they’re making a reunion movie for Mom’s old sitcom.”

  “You mean Tori Remington’s old sitcom.” Their mother left for Hollywood as Vicky Tucker, but when she’d been cast as the mother in Mother May I, she’d become another person. Leaving her real name behind as well as her husband, sons, and daughter.

  “According to Bailey, it got her thinking she wanted a chance to reunite with us.”

  “Huh.” Zane returned his attention to his computer screen.

  After a moment’s silence, he sensed his twin’s impatience. “Well?” Adam finally said. “What do you think about it?”

  “That’s my favorite part about being a twin. We know what each other’s thinking most of the time, meaning we don’t have to get into it.”

  “So then I’m right and you think it’s crap that she’s coming back because it might upset everybody—including threatening that he-man, got-no-soft-side front you show to the world—and you feel—”

  “The two of us definitely don’t get into our feelings,” Zane hastily put in.

  “Brother.” Adam shook his head. “For God’s sake, just because you don’t like to talk about your feelings doesn’t mean I believe for a second you don’t have any.”

  Zane’s head shot up and he pointed an accusing finger at his twin. “That woman has done something to you.”

  A small smile turned up his brother’s lips. “That woman is Jane and you know you like her. I know you like her.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Zane said, conceding the point with little grace.

  Adam remained looking amused. “And now that we’re on that subject of females…what’s up with you and the librarian?”

  Zane would have liked to say it was none of his twin’s business, but the fact was…twin. It came with the territory that he had to string a few words together to make an answer that filled in what his brother hadn’t already intuited. Zane sighed. Opened his mouth.