Her Sexy Texas Cowboy

He smiled back, a little stiffly, making her wonder exactly how inconvenient this errand had been. But then he shrugged and his lips softened. “No problem. I was coming into town anyway. Do you have a bag to pick up?”

She looked up and noticed that the carousel closest to them displayed her flight information and luggage was starting to slide down the chute. She nodded, and after an awkward pause that seemed to stretch between them, she was grateful to see her bag coming her way. Before she could do more than place her hand on it, though, he had it by the handle and was picking it up as if it weighed nothing. She briefly imagined him picking her up with the same strength before stopping herself.

No sexy thoughts, she reminded herself yet again. Jessica freaking out. Jeremiah not interested.

Except something in the way he looked at her made her think that maybe that second one wasn’t true.

She tried to shake off the thought as she followed him out of the airport and into the parking structure, where he stopped at a large silver truck that screamed cowboy. It was huge. Everything’s bigger in Texas, she thought to herself, sneaking a peek at Jeremiah, her mind drifting off into forbidden, jean-clad areas. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, a good-natured grin on his face as he broke the silence between them.

She blushed for the second time in as many minutes, a bad omen for their drive together. There was definitely no way she would admit where her thoughts had gone, so she thought up something else as quickly as she could. “Nothing. Just the sheer number of trucks. It’s all so very...Texas.”

He smirked, and her heart skipped a beat. He said, “Most people in the city drive them for that reason. They don’t actually get used to haul stuff around.”

He settled her suitcase into the truck bed, among a variety of boxes, some plants, a bunch of metal rods and a number of other things Renee couldn’t identify. Before she could reach for the door, he had it open for her and helped her climb in, making her fingers tingle where they touched. She tried to keep her mind on acceptable topics. “You clearly use yours to haul around plenty. What is all that stuff?”

He gave her a crooked grin. “Most of it’s for your sister, actually. She had a whole list of things she needed to pick up, and I volunteered since I was coming into town to replace a broken generator.”

She looked out the back window and tried to identify the wedding items. “Those metal rods are some kind of arch thing, I’m guessing?” He nodded. “And the plants, of course. And me. She’s really putting you to work,” Renee finished, laughing.

Jeremiah chuckled and raised an eyebrow. “I’m positive it’s nothing compared to what she has in store for you.”

Renee laughed again. A little of the awkward tension was gone and she felt lighter than she had since seeing him, but that ache didn’t go anywhere. He was even sexier when he was being funny, God help her.

Jeremiah swung the truck out of the parking structure. Renee racked her brain for any safe topics that could keep the silence from settling between them again. When they were quiet, her mind wandered, and she didn’t want to spend the entire drive wondering whether or not the bench seat of his vehicle was long enough for them to act out a few of her spicier fantasies.

“So, how far away do you guys live from the airport?”

“You guys?” he repeated with a thick Brooklyn accent. “You’re never going to fit in around here with talk like that. We say y’all around here.”

Renee tried again, this time putting the thickest drawl she could muster into her voice. “Well lookee here, Jeremiah, just how long of a ride do we have in this here fancy horse buggy till we mosey into y’all’s neck of the woods?”

He let out a peal of laughter that reverberated through her chest, so loud and genuine that it made her laugh in response. He had an amazing, infectious laugh, and she was swept away in the silliness of the moment. When was the last time she’d joked with a guy? It seemed far too long.

“We all live about sixty miles away,” he said, finally getting himself enough under control to answer her question, adding an adorable Texas accent to his words.

An hour alone with him. God help her. Renee looked out the window. The city—if you could call it that—was already shrinking in the distance, leaving them surrounded by a few homes and a lot of open land. “And that’s the closest town to you? To get a generator, you need to drive all the way to, um—” she panicked for a moment as she realized she didn’t remember the name of the city she had just flown into “—Tyson?” she finished, hoping it was right.

He raised his eyebrow and smiled at her again in the way that made her insides twist. “You mean Tyler?”

She flushed, embarrassed. “Yeah. That.”

“There are a couple of small towns that are closer, but Tyler’s the biggest nearby. We’ll be at Jessica and Aaron’s before you know it.”

Although that was what she told herself she wanted, the idea was not a pleasant one. She was enjoying talking to Jeremiah, and didn’t want it to end too quickly. “Was it weird to start calling it ‘Jessica and Aaron’s’ instead of just ‘Aaron’s place’?”

He thought for a moment, tilting his head. “Not really. They just fit together so well that the moment she moved in, it became their place, you know?”

Renee nodded, but didn’t really understand. She looked at the window as they flew past large homes and swaying trees, already well out of the city. The fields in the distance were a wintry brown, showing off a wide expanse of countryside. How did Jessica transplant her whole life to this strange place and settle in so smoothly? Renee felt like a fish out of water looking at the vast nothingness around her.

* * *

JEREMIAH TRIED TO keep his eyes on the road, but his gaze was continuously drawn to the woman only a few feet away. He’d been failing miserably at self-control since the moment she walked into baggage claim in that sexy, curve-loving skirt and heels that made him want to drop to his knees and worship her legs. There were a lot of things he’d like to drop to his knees and do to her, in fact.

He focused back on the present, trying to stop those thoughts. They were exactly what he couldn’t let himself get caught up in this week if he wanted to survive.

He glanced at her again. Instead of thinking about the way her shirt moved against her breasts as she shifted in her seat, he tried to think of something to say to her. Her mood had switched from silly to thoughtful in a matter of seconds, and he wasn’t sure what he should do. For a guy who’d always felt so confident around women, this was a new one on him.

He grabbed at some new topic of conversation. Anything to keep her talking. “It’s nice of you to fly in a week early to help your sister. According to Aaron, she’s been fighting off a state of panic for the past week or so, worrying that things won’t be ready in time.”

Renee nodded, as if this wasn’t new information. “She’s always been the anxious one. She wouldn’t be Jessica if she wasn’t worried. Really, though, it should be Cindy here. She’s always been the enthusiastic, creative one. I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to help much, but with the pregnancy and all, Cindy couldn’t take that much time off from work.”

“If Jessica’s the anxious one and Cindy’s the enthusiastic one, what are you?” He wasn’t sure if he was prying, but he just had to know more about her.

She paused, thinking. “I guess I’m the focused, driven one.”

Jeremiah tried to read between the lines. “Is that code for ‘workaholic?’”

Renee gave him a small smile. “Pretty much.”

“And what else are you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think that’s about it.”

He could think of some other adjectives that described her, but didn’t say them out loud. He wasn’t sure if she even realized she was the funny one, the sexy one, the dear-God-I-wish-she-was-in-my-arms-right-now one.

He tried to think of something else to talk about. Normally he’d be fine with silence, but silence around her made him want to say and do things that were all on the “terrible ideas” list. At least when they were talking, he could focus on their conversation instead of on the way her hair fell across her shoulders and that one darker freckle just below her left ear.

Lucky for him, she seemed just as willing to keep up continuous chatter as he was, and the rest of the drive passed quickly while she described her favorite things about New York, asked questions about her sister’s life in Texas and told him about her job.

“It’s not a sure thing yet, but the lead designer spot would be amazing. I’ve been working toward that exact position since high school. It’s my dream job.”

He glanced at her out of the side of his eye, even though her face was already indelibly printed in his mind. She couldn’t possibly be older than twenty-eight. “You’ve managed to land your dream job before turning thirty? Is that some kind of a record?”

Renee smiled and her eyes lit up, changing her face from beautiful to stunning. “I’m younger than a lot of people on my team, but I have just as much experience as pretty much anyone there if you look at the work I’ve done. I usually pick up a few extra pages each issue, and my work hardly ever needs to be retouched. I don’t think my age will matter.”

“I guess you were right about being the workaholic one.”

“That was your word,” she pointed out. “I said I was the focused one.”

Jeremiah was impressed, but something about her dedication to her job sent up an alarm. “How do you manage to do all that and still have fun? Doesn’t it make it hard to relax, take vacations, date?”

Jessica had mentioned at one point that Renee was single—Jeremiah was sure she had no idea how that offhand comment had affected him—and he’d been perplexed as to why. Now he was beginning to suspect the reason.

“I don’t really have the time for that kind of stuff. My job is too important to me and I wouldn’t want to screw that up because of those types of distractions.”

Renee’s shrug seemed casual, but her voice sounded very serious to him. Jeremiah wondered if she was sending him a message between the lines. If she was, he got it loud and clear.

Even though he’d known from the start that there would be no dating this woman, here was yet another example of why he needed to let go of all the little fantasies and quit mooning over her.

For a guy who was normally so great at looking on the bright side of things, he couldn’t seem to find the silver lining for this one.

Relief swept through him as he drove up to Jessica and Aaron’s house. He’d made it through the entire drive without saying or doing anything inappropriate, and now he could try to keep his distance and avoid being alone with her for the rest of her visit. Once she went back to New York, it would probably be years before he saw her again.

He didn’t enjoy that thought.

He parked on the side of the large yellow ranch house, angling the truck so it would be easy to empty the wedding contents from the back. After turning off the engine, he shifted to look at Renee, who had turned her body toward him, as if she wanted to say something.

“Thanks for the ride, Jeremiah,” she said, and he looked into her eyes deeply for the first time since they had left the airport.

It was no problem.

Anything for Jessica’s sister.

That’s what you do for friends.

All of the correct responses died in his throat. There was only one way he wanted to answer her, and before he knew what he was doing, he leaned across the small distance between them and pressed his lips to hers, his hand grazing across the soft skin of her cheek.

It took him less than a second to realize how awful that decision was, but then she pressed back into him, parting her lips and tilting her head, her urgency matching his. Any self-control he could have used to pull away dissipated when her tongue slid against his, sending tendrils of heat through his entire body.

His hand slid from her cheek down her neck, slowly inching lower. Before he could fall deeper into the kiss or his hand could move past her collarbone, though, she leaned back, separating from him. Her breathing was heavy and her eyes wide, and he realized what had just happened. He rubbed his hand across his face and tore his eyes away from her, checking to be sure Jessica was nowhere in sight. Dear God, he’d kissed her. How could he have been so stupid?

Still, he couldn’t help but feel excitement course through him. She had kissed him, too. He looked at her again. She was shaking her head, her eyes closed, her hands covering her face.

“I’m so sorry—” he began.

“That was so bad,” she moaned, cutting him off.

He grimaced. “The kiss was bad?” he asked, unable to help himself.

She shook her head even more furiously. “The kiss was too good. That’s what makes it so bad.”

Jeremiah knew he should feel awful, but he was happier than he’d been in a very long time. Just to be sure, he asked, “So you liked the kiss?”

She looked at him through her fingers. “That’s not helping. There’s no way we can do that again. Jessica will flip if she finds out. She doesn’t take unexpected new information well, and this is her wedding week. A curveball like that might send her into seizures.”

Jeremiah wasn’t sure if Renee was talking to him or herself, but her arguments seemed much less convincing than they might have been a few minutes before. There seemed to be one pretty glaring way around the issue, after all. “I’m not going to tell her about it. Are you?”

“No way,” Renee responded immediately.

“So...” he said slowly, picking his words with care, “if neither of us tells her, and she doesn’t see us, is there any reason why we can’t do it again?”

3

RENEE WAS ABOUT to roll her eyes at Jeremiah and explain exactly why they could never do anything like that again, but something stopped her before she could. Her libido spoke up with full force, demanding why exactly that was such a terrible idea.

She’d been thinking about this guy for weeks, and here he was offering her a chance to live out a few of those fantasies that had been running through her mind. It wasn’t like she’d have another chance this good again.

And the look on his face wasn’t helping her make any prudent decisions, either. The hope in his eyes combined with a smile that promised so much more. How could she let this opportunity go by?

Renee took a deep breath and looked out the front windshield in order to keep herself from leaning toward Jeremiah again. She tried to focus some of her attention on the view, but the trees and mountains spread before her were overshadowed by the sexy cowboy sitting inches away. “Okay,” she answered, and out of the corner of her eye she saw his smile widen into a full grin. She had to force herself not to smile back. “But,” she continued, “there have to be ground rules. Number one—Jessica and Aaron absolutely cannot find out about this. Jessica would turn it into such a big deal, and even though Aaron’s your best friend, he might tell Jessica. And number two—once I go home, we’re done. This is just a casual thing. Just sex.”

She continued looking out the windshield, waiting for a response, but was met with silence. It was only then that she realized he’d never said anything about them having sex. They’d had one two-second kiss and she had already good as told him that she was ready to jump into bed with him at a moment’s notice. What kind of woman did that make her?

The kind of woman that hadn’t gotten laid in a long time and had spent way too much time thinking about getting laid by this particular guy. But had she gone too far too quickly?

She looked over at him, hoping for some kind of positive response. Jeremiah was looking at her, that half smile still on his face.

* * *

JEREMIAH STARED AT RENEE, surprised. She couldn’t get much more straightforward than that. Just sex? He had given up the casual-sex thing months ago, and was serious about finding something more than that. Did he really want a secret one-week fling? To risk hurting his best friend’s fiancée for something that would be over in just a few days?

Then she looked at him, her green eyes silently questioning, and reminded himself that Jessica wouldn’t find out, and therefore couldn’t be hurt. He knew it was a weak argument, but really, there was only one answer he could possibly give this beautiful woman beside him.

He leaned forward again, pulling her into another kiss, this one slow and deep, full of the promise of more to come.

She responded immediately, falling into the kiss, but he pulled away after just a few moments. The indignant expression on her face made him want to laugh. The way her erect nipples showed through her shirt made him want to tear her clothes off. He took a breath. “Rule number one, remember? It’ll probably be pretty hard to keep this thing a secret if Jessica finds us making out in front of her house.”

Renee’s eyes grew wide and she turned to look out the back window, searching for her sister, worry evident on her face. This time he couldn’t stop the laughter.

Once she had carefully scanned for any sign of Jessica, she looked back at him and smiled. “Right, so maybe this isn’t the most discreet location.”

He knew they only had a few more seconds of privacy together, and he didn’t want to separate without planning something. He needed to have another opportunity to kiss her in the near future, or it would drive him crazy. “When can we meet?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what Jessica has planned for me. I might be able to get away at some point tonight, but won’t you need to go home?”

Jeremiah smiled. “I think I can manage to stick around here for the evening.”

She looked like she was about to say something else, but before she could, a door somewhere nearby closed loudly and two voices started moving toward them. Jeremiah tried not to look too disappointed. “That’ll be Jessica and Aaron,” he said, opening his door and tearing his eyes away from the beauty next to him.

He climbed out of the truck cab just as Aaron and his tall, leggy fiancée walked around the corner of the house. Before Jeremiah could walk around the truck to help Renee down, she was clambering out herself and moving with quick footsteps to hug her sister.

Jeremiah watched, comparing the two women. At first glance, they looked very different: Jessica was tall, with long auburn hair and lightly tanned skin. Renee looked almost petite next to her, though she couldn’t be under five foot six, with strawberry blonde locks barely grazing her shoulders and freckles dotting her pale cheeks and nose.

There were plenty of similarities when looked at more closely, though. They had the same shape of face, and something about the way they stood made it clear they were related.

He watched them embrace, their wide smiles nearly identical. He kept looking at Renee, studying the way she held herself, the tilt of her head, and thinking about what he might expect when they managed to find themselves alone together. Would she be as straightforward as her talk and her kisses implied? If so, he was in for one hell of a week.

He relived the kiss in his mind, feeling the sensations again as her tongue slid across his teeth. His heart revved back up to sprinting speed just thinking about it.

“Hey man, thanks for grabbing all that stuff and picking up Renee and everything,” Aaron said, startling Jeremiah out of his reverie. While he’d been absorbed in every movement Renee made, he had completely failed to notice that his friend had come up beside him.

Jeremiah looked at Aaron and tried to sound casual, as if he hadn’t been mentally undressing his buddy’s sister-in-law. “No problem.”

“Everything okay?” Aaron asked, his forehead creasing as he lifted an eyebrow. “You seem a little distracted or something.”

Jeremiah wanted to smack himself. It hadn’t even been two minutes and Aaron could already tell something was up. How was he going to manage to keep this thing quiet? It didn’t help that he was a horrible liar. He just had to act normal, that’s all. Jeremiah shrugged and replied, “I’m fine,” then waited to see if he had pulled it off.

Aaron looked at his friend for another moment, then moved toward the bed of Jeremiah’s truck. “Let’s get this stuff unloaded,” he said.

Glad to be out of the spotlight, Jeremiah immediately went to work.

* * *

JESSICA HUGGED HER AGAIN. “It’s great to see you! How was your flight? And the drive in? I hope it was okay that Jeremiah picked you up.”

More than okay, thought Renee as she glanced at Jeremiah, who was standing with Aaron. Just the sight of him made her heart beat loud in her chest, and she hoped she hadn’t started blushing. She suddenly felt warm despite the cool February weather.

“Everything’s been great. I’m ready to be put to work. Should we start unloading the truck?”

Before she could even turn to make good on the offer, though, Aaron and Jeremiah were tackling the job. Jeremiah climbed into his silver monolith of a vehicle, and Aaron shook his head at the two women. “We’ll take care of this. You ladies go catch up.”

Jessica ran over to her fiancé and gave him a kiss, which seemed to Renee as if it was going to turn into much more when Aaron looped his arm around Jessica’s waist and lifted her up, pressing her body against his. Renee looked at Jeremiah again, and found him looking back at her and smiling. She wasn’t sure if it was because of his friend’s antics or because he was thinking of what he would do to her when he got the chance to get an arm around her. The latter was probably wishful thinking and she was definitely projecting some of her own thoughts on him.

But a girl could hope.

Then Jessica was back, a little breathless. She grabbed Renee’s hand and started steering her toward the front of the house.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t help?” Renee asked, partly because her New York sensibilities rankled a bit at the idea of letting the guys do all the work and partly because she wanted to watch Jeremiah using those very sexy muscles she could see straining beneath his shirt.

She didn’t let herself think about how much weight each reason held in her mind.

Jessica shrugged. “Nah. It’s a bit of a battle trying to get these Texas boys to stop doing stuff for us. They’re very gentlemanly. There are definitely worse problems to have. Anyway, I want to show you around and hear how things are going, so we can let them win this one.”

If Texas is a state where “letting the guys win” means sitting back while they unload a full truck, maybe it isn’t such a bad place after all.

She had without doubt warmed up to Texas over the past ten minutes. And if she kept thinking about Jeremiah’s lips against hers, it would soon become one of her favorite places.

Before Jessica could pull her around the corner, Renee took one look at Jeremiah. He stood in the back of his truck, his body all muscle and hard lines, which made the perpetual smile crinkling his lips and eyes that much more breathtaking.

* * *

JEREMIAH WATCHED RENEE disappear around the corner of the house. Just before she was out of sight, she turned and gave him a smile. Not the sweet smile he’d seen her use on her sister, or the tentative one he’d seen when he first picked her up from the airport. This smile held a promise that made his pulse pound in his ears. It was only for a moment, but it was enough.

He had to figure out how to get her alone as soon as possible, or he might internally combust from all the heat flowing through his veins.

He would have kept staring at the place where he’d last seen her, picturing all the things that smile hinted at, but Aaron interrupted his train of thought.

“You’re staying for dinner, right?”

You couldn’t drag me away. Aloud, though, all he said was, “Yeah, if that’s okay.”