Chapter 5
The series of signs hung on the barbed-wire fence like the old Burma-Shave signs years before. Fruit Stand Ahead. Watermelon. Okra. Peaches. Squash. Tomatoes. Souvenirs. One mile. Don’t miss it. Exit now.
Gemma slapped on the signal for the exit, slowed down, and checked the rearview to be sure Trace was aware that she was turning off. It was bigger than the roadside stands in Texas where someone threw a tarp over a couple of folding tables or else over the bed of their pickup truck. It was a permanent pavilion with rows and rows of fresh fruit plus souvenirs and homemade furniture.
Trace parked beside her on the side of the road, got out of the truck, and pointed as they walked toward the building. “Hey, look at that picnic table.”
“Howdy, folks,” the man behind the counter said.
“Hello. You mind if we bring the dog in?” Trace asked.
“Long as it stays on that leash, or you carry it. Them little ones is meaner and faster than the big ones most of the time,” he said.
Trace held up the leash and the man nodded.
“Make you a good deal on one of them picnic tables. I’m trying to sell them before the new stuff gets here,” the man said.
“They are beautiful, but I’m too far from home to buy one now,” Trace said.
The man nodded.
Trace looked over his shoulder at Gemma. “I see a Coke machine over there. Want something to drink?”
“Cold root beer sounds pretty good,” she answered.
He started for the machine, and Sugar pulled against the leash to go outside. “I’ll have to get it later. She’s getting desperate. I’ll let her run in the grass out by the trucks and then come help you carry whatever you buy back to your truck.”
Gemma understood Sugar’s desperation. She looked around, saw a ladies’ room sign at the back of the place, and headed straight for it. It didn’t have a bit of air-conditioning and felt like a sweatbox inside, so she didn’t tarry long enough to check her hair roots or her lipstick. When she went back out, she found a small cart and pushed it straight to the watermelons. She thumped the ends of four before she found one that sounded right. Then she went on to the peaches, cantaloupe, green beans, onions, potatoes, and yellow squash. She was on her way to the counter when she looked up and saw a swinging sign advertising wind chimes at fifty percent off, so she made a turn and headed toward the back of the store.
She picked up one made of old silver spoons and shook it to hear the tinkling sound as they brushed against each other. She felt a presence and, expecting it to be Trace, she turned slowly. But it was a woman wearing a bright-orange and turquoise caftan, sandals, and a turquoise turban on her head.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. You were so engrossed that you didn’t hear me,” the lady said.
Gemma held it up higher. “It is pretty, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. I love wind chimes—and hair.” She touched the turban.
Gemma raised an eyebrow.
“Cancer, but I’m in remission so they’ve promised I’ll get it all back. I do like that wind chime. Are you buying it?” she said.
“I don’t know. It reminds me of one that Mama has on the back porch, but the chimes are horseshoes. I have a construction paper horseshoe in my trailer out there. When I win at a rodeo bronc rider event, I get to put a paper shamrock on it.” Gemma didn’t normally share personal things with strangers and suddenly wished she could take it all back.
The woman smiled brightly. “I bought a horseshoe and hung it above my door. My ancestors were Irish. We’re a tough lot, and I’m going to beat this cancer.”
Gemma smiled. “Can I grow up and have your courage?”
The lady patted her on the arm. “Sure you can, darlin’. Now, which one of us is going home with that wind chime?”
Gemma handed it to her. “You are. I’m going to buy that one with the shells because when I win the title in December, I’m taking a vacation to the beach.”
“Now that is determination, planning, and ambition,” she said. “Is that your husband out there with the little dog?”
“No, ma’am,” Gemma answered.
“Your feller then?”
“I’m not sure what he is,” Gemma shook her head.
“You know him, though, and you are traveling together, right?” the lady asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You got to be from Texas. Folks up here aren’t so quick to say ‘ma’am,’” the lady said with half a giggle.
“I’m from Ringgold, Texas. Little place right across the Red River from Oklahoma. I’m on the rodeo circuit and I’m bound and determined to be the next woman to win the bronc riding event in the Vegas finals.”
“Go get it, girl.” The woman did a head wiggle. “Looks like maybe I need to have your courage.”
Gemma picked up the shell wind chime and headed for the front counter with the woman right behind her. “A word of advice from an old woman who should keep her mouth shut. Don’t shut a door before you look to see what’s behind it. And I’ll mark it on my calendar to watch that Vegas rodeo.”
“Thank you,” Gemma said and paid for what she had in the cart.
The woman paid for her items, and they walked out of the fruit stand together. The lady got into a Cadillac and drove away.
“You buy out the whole place?” Trace raised a dark brow at all the sacks in the cart Gemma had wheeled out to the side of the road.
She held up the wind chime. “Almost. Look at what I bought. It’s going to remind me that I get a vacation when I win the title. You want me to take care of Sugar while you make a pit stop? I made a dash through the ladies’ room while I was in the store. Got to warn you, though. There’s no air-conditioning in the bathrooms, and it’s like a sweat lodge,” she said.
He handed her the leash, and she leaned against the truck to wait. Sugar chased a grasshopper, growled at a bee, and kicked dirt behind her to teach those bugs not to mess with a mean, ferocious Chihuahua.
He brought back two bottles of ice-cold root beer and handed one to Gemma.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome. See you in Boise,” he said as he unloaded all the sacks into the back seat of her truck. Then he took the leash from Gemma’s hand and tipped his cowboy hat toward her.
“With those manners, my daddy would really, really like you,” she muttered.
They pulled into the Boise/Meridian KOA at four forty-five. The thermometer inside her truck said the outside temperature was ninety-six degrees, but it felt like it was only six degrees hotter than the devil’s pitchfork when she stepped out of the air-conditioned truck into the blistering heat.
She hurried inside the front room of a small log cabin that served as an office. Trace followed her inside with Sugar in his arms.
“Cute dog. Y’all got reservations?” an elderly gentleman with white hair and a white mustache asked.
“Yes, sir. Gemma O’Donnell,” she answered and noticed his name tag—Albert Jones.
“And Trace Coleman,” Trace told him.
“Oh, I thought you was a newly married couple. I seen it a million times. Folks get married and get a dog instead of a baby. I must have been wrong this time,” Albert said as he booted up a laptop computer.
Gemma blushed crimson. “Guess so, sir.”
He poked a few keys on the computer and looked up, “Okay, that was Gemma, Emma with a G ?”
“That’s right.”
“Right here. And Trace Coleman. You’d be the bronc rider I been readin’ so much about, right?” Albert asked without even looking up. “I hear you done earned a spot at the big one this winter. I saw you ride last year in Cody.”
“I haven’t gotten that spot yet, but I’m workin’ on it,” Trace said.
“Well, I got y’all hooked up beside each other at the end of the park under a big shade tree. I won’t charge you for the night if you give me that dog.” His dark-brown eyes twinkled in a chiseled face full of wrinkles.
Trace reached for his wallet. “No, thank you. I’ll just pay.”
“Oh! A sale table!” Gemma’s eyes widened and she headed for a table near the back of the room.
“Things left from last year’s stock. I got them marked real cheap, missy,” Albert told her.
She picked up a tiny dream catcher with a shell no bigger than her thumbnail embedded in the web. She held it up and the peacock feathers twirled in the breeze from the ceiling fan.
“I’ll take this. Add it in with my bill for the night,” she said.
When they had paid and were outside, Trace asked, “Why did you buy that?”
“Because I wanted it. See the shell in the middle? It’s an omen that I’m going to win and vacation somewhere on a beach.”
“O…kay,” Trace drew out the word to four syllables long. “I bet you still believe in Santa Claus if you believe that fairy tale.”
She cocked her head to one side. “You don’t? Didn’t you ever sit on his knee?”
“Every year, and Mother has the pictures to prove it. What’d you ask for when you sat on his knee?” he asked and headed toward his truck.
She gave him a brilliant smile. “Depends on what year.”
“How old were you the last time you sat on his knee?” Trace asked.
“That would be last year?” Gemma answered.
Trace stopped beside the driver’s side door and cocked his head to one side. “You really did, or are you yanking my chain, or maybe I should ask if you are yanking my reins?”
“Mama has the picture to prove it, but I’m not telling you what I wished for. It’s between me and Santa. He said he couldn’t get it on such short notice, but he’d work on it for this year. We’ll see if he’s really magic or just a man in a suit,” Gemma told him.
“Come on, what was it?” Trace asked.
“Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me. Let’s go make supper. I’ve been thinking about that watermelon all afternoon,” she said, changing the subject. There was no way she’d tell him that she’d really asked Santa for her very own cowboy and a baby by the next Christmas.
They parked their trucks in the last two lots with a big shade tree between them. Trace climbed out of his truck, shook faded jean legs down over the tops of his scuffed-up boots, and clamped a retracting leash on Sugar’s collar. He hitched it up to the leg of a metal picnic table. He sat down at the table and stretched his long legs out in front of him.
“What can I do to help with supper?” he asked.
“You any good at grilling a steak?” Gemma asked. He raised an eyebrow. “You got a good steak?”
“Angus from my brother’s ranch in Terral, Oklahoma, and there’s a bottle of watermelon wine in there”—she nodded back toward the trailer—“from my sister-in-law’s cellar.”
“Then you’d best let me cook it. It’d be a pure sin if you burned a good Angus T-bone,” he said.
“Who said anything about a T-bone?” she asked. “I’ve got sirloins as big as dinner plates. I brought half a dozen of them from home, and they’ve been stored in my little freezer. I thawed two out for supper tonight, and they’ve been marinating in my secret sauce all day.”
Trace wiggled his eyebrows. “Sounds sexy.”
She air-slapped him on the arm and said, “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Where should it be? We slept together last night,” he teased.
Gemma clamped a hand over her mouth. “We did not!”
“Oh yes we did, darlin’! I don’t mind sharing my bed, but a woman has never put me out of it altogether. Sugar and I were glad to let you sleep on the other side, but we did indeed sleep together,” he said.
She sat down on the top of the picnic table, propped her feet on the bench attached to it, and stared right into Trace’s brown eyes. “Trace, what is this?”
He grinned. “I thought you were smarter than that, woman. We talked about the picnic bench at the fruit stand and this one isn’t that much different.”
“What?” she asked.
“You asked me what this is,” he answered. “This is a picnic bench.”
“You know what I’m talking about,” she scolded and narrowed her eyes into slits.
“A KOA with a grill so we can enjoy supper and fireworks,” he replied.
She air-slapped him on the arm. “I’m serious.”
“Okay, then serious is what you get. Seems like we kinda fell into a friendship of sorts. We are going to the same places, doing the same things, talking the same language, and it’s nice,” he told her.
She nodded. “Okay, then we need to lay down the ground rules. Whatever this is does not interfere in any way with our bronc riding. Agreed?”
“Absolutely. I’m not about to feel sorry for you and let you win just because you want your name in the marquee lights for being the second woman to get the title. I sure don’t intend to just let you wear that glory crown.”
Her green eyes shot daggers toward him. “And I’m not about to feel sorry for you because you want a ranch. I’m going to have that title, Trace Coleman. So, now do you still want to be my friend?”
“All’s fair in love, war, and on the rodeo grounds, right?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, it is! I’ll do anything to break your concentration. I won’t play fair, so be forewarned,” she declared.
He grinned. “And I will do the same thing, so ground rules are accepted. Now let’s get supper going. By the time it gets done, I’m going to be half-starved.”
Trace walked into the trailer and suddenly her tiny trailer was jam-packed full of muscles and it was twenty degrees hotter. He took one look at the paper horseshoe on the back of the door and raised an eyebrow.
“Look closely and you’ll understand,” she said.
He studied the shamrocks with the names of the towns where they’d ridden and realized that only the places where she had won had paper shamrocks glued to the horseshoe.
She tapped the top of the horseshoe. “And that’s where I will hang the big one.”
“Or not!” he protested.
“No doubts in my mind,” Gemma fired back.
“Or mine!” His eyes strayed to her bed where the table used to be. “I vote that we take the food into my trailer to eat where there is more room. What can I do to help?”
She set about cutting up vegetables. “Soon as I get these sliced and diced, you can put the packages on the grill for a few minutes before we put the steaks on.”
“I can do more than that,” he said and joined her at the tiny cabinet area.
She cut tiny newly harvested red potatoes in half and piled them on top of fresh green onions, then topped them with yellow squash circles and a slice of tomato before pulling the edges of foil up to form a pocket. He husked and silked four ears of corn, slathered them with butter, and wrapped them in foil. He bumped against her at least a dozen times, creating so much electricity between them that every touch felt like a blast from a policeman’s Taser gun.
“All done! I’ll get the charcoal going now,” he said as he carried the food outside.
Gemma heaved a sigh of relief. Good Lord, if she bumped into him one more time, she was sure the whole trailer was going to ignite into a raging fire that would leave nothing but ashes and a metal framework in its wake. He didn’t act like it affected him one bit. Was the cowboy made of pure ice?
She wet a washcloth with cold water and held it on her face for a few seconds, but it didn’t help the high color in her cheeks. She threw it into the sink and toted a plastic tablecloth out to the table.
Trace looked up from the grill and said, “Aha, we’re eating out here with the flies and mosquitoes, are we? I told you we could eat in my place since you don’t have a table.”
She stretched the tablecloth over the wooden table and secured it with half a dozen thumbtacks. “You are supposed to swat flies and cuss mosquitoes on July Fourth. They belong to the atmosphere.”
“Reckon one of them will tell me what it was that you wished for when you sat on Santa’s knee last Christmas?” Both of his eyebrows shot up, and his mouth turned up in a grin. “I betcha that’s why that fly keeps buzzing around my ears.”
“I’ll bring a flyswat out next, and you better hope he doesn’t land on your ear, cowboy.”
“Bring two. Maybe he’ll land on your cute little fanny.” Trace’s smile got wider.
“That’s a lame pickup line.”
“It’s not a line. It’s a prayer,” he said.
“I’m not into kinky stuff,” she said and blushed again. Her words didn’t sound nearly so ridiculous in her head as they did when they hit his ears.
“Oh? What are you into?” The smile faded and his expression changed to one that was completely serious.
“What are you into?” She turned the question back on him.
“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”
She started back into the trailer. “It’s not show-and-tell day at the trailer park.”
“So how do you like your steak?” He raised his voice when she shut the door.
She poked her head back out of the trailer and said, “‘Wipe the slobbers off his nose, slap his sorry ass on the grill for five minutes, and bring him to me.’”
“Rare it is, and you got that line from Pepper in Cowboy Way .” Trace laughed. “I brought that movie with me. Want to watch it in my trailer after fireworks?”
“Sounds good to me,” she agreed.
If her attention was on a movie, she wouldn’t think about how much she’d like to kiss him again. Would his lips on hers always conjure up visions of tangled sheets and sweaty bodies, or were those first couple of times plain old beginner’s luck?
She remembered Pepper in Cowboy Way with his cowboy hat hanging just below his belly button. But in her mind, Trace Coleman was the cowboy, and the hat had a gold pin on the brim.
Dammit! Dammit! I need to cool down, not think naughty things that heat me up even more.
She grabbed the wet washcloth, added an ice cube to one corner, and went to work on her face again. It didn’t help a lot when it came to cooling her down because she kept stealing glances out the kitchen window at him turning the steaks and talking to Sugar. She tried lipreading, but she couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying so she imagined kissing those lips rather than listening to them talk.
She tossed the washcloth into the sink again and gave herself a stern lecture. She opened a drawer and took out a long butcher knife, cut the watermelon in half, and started cutting chunks from the heart into bite-sized pieces.
What would it be like to stretch him out on satin sheets and pile little bits of watermelon on his sexy body? He could handcuff my hands behind my back with those pink furry cuffs I saw at Christie’s, and that way I could only use my lips and tongue to get to the watermelon. Dear God, I’ve got to stop this before it causes me to combust right here in the trailer.
The lecture worked until she started peeling fresh peaches.
These would look pretty good lined up from his belly button down, and I could pick them up with my teeth and put them in his mouth.
Fruit was not supposed to turn a woman on, and cutting it up was not supposed to produce pictures so hot that they would melt the devil’s cute little forked tail. She cut up cantaloupe and shook her head every time another vision started.
“Hey, can you get this, please?” she yelled from the doorway.
He jumped like he’d been shot and turned so quick that he was a blur. “You startled me.”
“I can see that. What were you thinking about?”
He smiled. “That, darlin’, is my business. Steaks will be done in about three minutes. Vegetables are tender. Are we eating caveman style?”
“No, I’ve got plates, forks, and even real knives, although if you did it right, the steaks will be tender enough to cut with a fork. Put this on the table for dessert and I’ll bring them out,” she said.
She would give up her next shamrock to know what he was thinking.
Hell, no! I would not!
She argued with herself as she gathered up sturdy red plastic disposable plates, plastic forks, and two real steak knives, along with a couple of paper napkins, a loaf of sliced Italian bread, and a tub of butter. Her hands were full, but she managed to make it from trailer to table without dropping anything, or drooling when he looked around at her with his sexy brown eyes.
Using tongs, he placed a foil package and a sirloin on her plate and turned back to the grill. “Drinks?” he asked.
“Beer or sweet tea?” she asked.
“Beer, please, ma’am,” he replied.
She went back inside the trailer, got two longneck bottles from the tiny refrigerator, and yelled from the door before she took them out, “Coors?”
“Best there is if it’s good and cold,” he called back.
She went back outside, handed him a bottle across the table, and their hands barely brushed, but after the thoughts she’d been having, it was the same as red-hot coals landing in her palms.
“You’d better eat your food before you drink,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked.
“If last night was any indication of your drinking ability, you’ll pass out and I’d hate to waste your steak. Sugar might eat some of it, but those are big bruisers. I don’t think I could eat two, and Uncle Teamer would shoot me if I wasted a single bite of a good beef steak,” he answered.
She cut off a piece of steak, put it in her mouth, and chewed. It was absolutely perfect: rare, hot through the middle, and seasoned just right. When she swallowed, she pointed her knife at him. “You got this steak done perfect, but darlin’ , I can outdrink any cowboy—including you—on the face of the earth. You want a match, just call the time and place.” Trace chuckled.
“What’s so funny? I’m Irish and we can hold our liquor, and besides, my boobs are big.” Gemma giggled.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well, according to Irish legend, it has to do with the boobs. Liquor all goes there before it hits the brain. I’ve got enough to handle a lot when you add it to my Irish heritage.”
Trace’s chuckle turned into a guffaw. “Cute story, but don’t ever think for a minute that you can outdrink or outride me, Gemma O’Donnell.”
“I don’t think anything. I know I can do both,” she said.
A whole string of popping firecrackers sounded in the distance.
Gemma jumped and dropped a piece of steak on the ground.
Sugar hugged Trace’s leg under the table and whimpered.
Trace chuckled again.
“What’s so funny?” Gemma frowned.
“You think you could outdrink and outride me, but a firecracker spooks you. I think that’s funny,” he said.
“Laugh now. Cry later,” she smarted off and changed the subject. “Guess some folks are gettin’ an early start on the evening show.”
“When I was a kid, my father let me start popping firecrackers before dark. Probably so I’d shut up begging him about when we could put off the fireworks. How about you and your brothers?”
“Oh, yeah! We’d do firecrackers all afternoon and then ride over to Terral to watch the fireworks show. They rope off the street in front of the school and it’s a big show. Ringgold is too small to have its own display.”
“Houston has a show that goes on for hours. But I always liked the one we had in the backyard just as well. You mentioned watermelon wine?” he said.
“It is chilling to have with dessert. It’s too sweet to drink with a good steak,” she said.
Another round of firecrackers went off and Sugar yelped.
Trace unfastened the leash and carried the dog into his trailer.
“Poor baby,” Gemma said when he returned.
“She’ll be all right. She was already snuggled down in the pillows. This is a very good steak. Mostly I don’t like marinades. I like the flavor of a good steak just like it is, but this isn’t overpowering. Want to share your secret?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Old family secret, darlin’, and I could tell you, but then… Well, you know what those Navy SEALs say.”
“Would I get to pick the way I die?” Trace asked.
She looked across the table to find him staring right into her eyes. “Maybe. What have you got in mind?”
His voice had dropped an octave and caressed her skin as surely as if he’d been touching her with his big rough hands. “It has to do with a whole night in my bed, lots of watermelon wine, and long, slow kisses.”
“Are you trying to seduce me with words?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Is it working?” He slid another of his long, slow winks her way.
Call his bluff! Don’t let him get into your head and get ahead of you!
“And what if I said that sounded like a fine idea?” she asked.
“Then I’d go get the wine and carry you inside the trailer to my bed,” he replied.
“Sounds nice, but poor little Sugar has been traumatized enough. We can’t throw her out of her pillows. It wouldn’t be right,” she teased.
Gemma had had more than one relationship in her twenty-eight years. But in the past couple of years nothing had crossed her path that even looked interesting. After that last fiasco she was gun-shy and didn’t trust her own judgment when it came to men, but it didn’t stop her from wanting a family—not one bit.
Trace gave her another one of his killer smiles. It was almost as heady as the kiss.
“I’ll get the wine,” she blurted out and escaped again into her tiny trailer where she cooled her face one more time with the wet cloth.
“At this rate I’ll wash all my skin off before the night is over!” she whispered.
She stacked everything she needed onto a tray and picked up the bottle with Austin’s label on the front and carried it outside. Trace reached for the wine and glasses. With very little effort he uncorked the bottle and poured while she set out bowls and dessert. He filled a bowl with fruit, tasted it first, and then sipped the wine.
She shut her eyes tightly. She vowed to look at the sky, her food, or even the ants making a beeline for the edge of the trash can before she let her eyes wander to his lips again.
Trace nodded in appreciation. “Very good together. I usually don’t like wine or mixed drinks. I’m a cold beer man most of the time, and occasionally I like a double shot of Jack Daniel’s with one cube of ice. What about you?”
“The same. Cold beer on a hot night. Jack Daniel’s, neat though, on special occasions. But I do like Austin’s watermelon wine, and when we girls get together, things can get pretty funny after we polish off a few bottles of it,” she said.
“Your smile says that there are stories to be heard. Talk, lady,” Trace said.
“Darlin’, husbands or wild horses couldn’t drag it out of us about what happens on girls’ night out.” She said and gave back one of his slow winks.
“Like huntin’,” he said.
“What?”
“Huntin’. When us menfolk go huntin’, we don’t tell anyone what we talk about either,” Trace said.
Gemma frowned. Just what did all the menfolk in her family and their friends talk about when they went hunting? Dang it, and Trace anyway for the hundredth time that day for raising a question like that. She’d never thought about what the guys talked about, and now she would wonder about it every time her brothers went out hunting.
“Gotcha!” He laughed.
“You are a snake in the grass,” she said.
“It’s not against the rules,” Trace told her.
“I’ll get even,” Gemma declared.
“I look forward to it. It’s at least two hours before dark. Let’s take our wine inside and watch a movie before all the fireworks really start up. We can be cool until it’s time to come back out and see all the pretty colors.” He picked up the bottle of wine and led the way to his trailer.
She followed and hoped the air-conditioning in his trailer would cool her thoughts as well as her skin. She stepped inside and stopped in the kitchen area. Where was the television, anyway?
Trace was halfway to the bed when he turned to see where she was.
“It’s in here,” he said.
But her feet wouldn’t move. Sitting on the bed with Trace after all the sexy thoughts she’d entertained all day and evening was begging for danger.
His gaze started at her toes and moved up her legs to the hem of her cutoff jean shorts and farther, taking a moment at chest level to get even softer, and then to her lips. Hot, liquid want seemed to be in his eyes.
He set the wine on the cabinet, took a step toward her, and she took one toward him. He picked up her hands and held them.
“You are a very beautiful woman, Gemma,” he whispered seductively.
His thumbs grazed the tender part of her palms. His eyes searched hers as if asking permission to kiss her. Pure fire radiated between them. And his lips came closer and closer.
She couldn’t look at anything else. She couldn’t think about anything else but his mouth and the way his lips parted ever so gently. The kiss was both sweet and spicy hot, sending delicious ripples of pent-up desire shooting through her veins like scalding-hot lava.
She wiggled her hands free, snaked them around his neck, and tangled her fingers in his hair. He backed up and sat down on the bed and drew her onto his lap. She thought with every kiss that she’d explode. She tried to slow the process down by thinking about riding broncs, but a picture of him in his chaps came to mind and sparks danced around the bedroom like lightning streaks. If he could control the bedroom scene like he did a bronc, they were in for a long, long evening of amazing sex.
His hands rested on her slim waist, but she wanted them to travel. Up! Down! It didn’t matter as long as they went somewhere. She moved back enough that she could tug at the top snap on his shirt and little popping sounds opened it up. She ran her fingertips down the soft hair on his chest and he groaned.
Good! I’m glad my touch makes you as hot as yours does me.
He eased a hand up her back, unfastened her bra, and gently massaged her back from neck to waist. His rough hands felt so good on her skin that she didn’t want him to quit, and yet she wanted his hands to move on to touch more and more, to see how many blazes he could start all at once on her body.
It had been months since Gemma had had sex. It was as if the whole scene was being played out in slow motion and she loved every moment of the foreplay. Trace tensed and pulled back, asking with his eyes if he should stop or go on.
Trace scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom. Sugar climbed down from the bed and went to the living area. Trace shut the door with the heel of his boot.
Later, they both fell asleep. When she awoke, his face was buried in her hair and all the gorgeous rays of the setting sun were trapped in the bedroom. The romance books lying around her beauty shop talked about sex like that, but she’d thought it was fiction right up until that moment. She’d experienced afterglow, but she’d never experienced it in living Technicolor like what was surrounding her right then.
She nuzzled her lips into his neck. “Is that real or is it the aftereffects?”
“Whatever it was, words can’t describe it,” he muttered.
“Amen,” she whispered.