Chapter 6
At the first touch of Liberty’s lips, Jesse completely lost the tight reins he’d been holding on his desire and it raced through him like a calf out of a roping chute. He wanted this woman like he had never wanted a woman before in his life. He actually shook from the potent need that coursed through his veins when she deepened the kiss and offered him the sweet heat of her mouth.
She tasted like cinnamon and apples. It was comforting and at the same time hot as hell. He’d had his fair share of kisses, but none of them had made him feel like this. The other kisses had just been necessary foreplay. He’d enjoyed them, but could have easily done without them and gotten straight to the main event.
But this kiss . . . this kiss was different.
Yes, he wanted sex. Since seeing her shorts playing peekaboo with one curvy butt cheek, he’d been living with a semi hard-on. Now it was a straining full-out erection begging for release. Usually, his brain would be trying to figure out the fastest way to get the woman’s clothes off and get that release.
But with Liberty, his brain wasn’t working on that plan. It wasn’t working at all. His mind was completely blank as he just enjoyed. Enjoyed the way her breasts felt snugged against his chest. Enjoyed the way her fingers felt threaded through his hair. Enjoyed the way her lips and tongue felt brushing his. He didn’t care about what came next. All he cared about was this kiss.
This amazing, heart-stopping, mind-stealing kiss.
“When I asked you to show Jesse around, Libby Lou, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
At her grandmother’s words, Liberty pulled back and stared at him in stunned disbelief for a second before she scrambled off him and turned to Mimi, who was standing in the doorway of the stall with a knowing twinkle in her eyes and the same smirk she’d had before.
Jesse thought Liberty would start rambling off an explanation. He should have known better. Liberty wasn’t a woman who made excuses.
“Then you should have shown him around yourself.” She swept by her grandmother without one glance in his direction. When she was gone, Mimi shook her head.
“She’s like a wild mustang, that one. Her daddy thinks she needs a man with a firm hand to tame her. I think she needs one with plenty of patience. Are you patient, Jesse Cates?”
Jesse had thought Hank had been teasing his mama when he made the comment about Mimi trying to marry off her granddaughters. Now Jesse realized it hadn’t been a joke. He wanted to make it extremely clear that he wasn’t in the market for a wife.
Pulling his legs off the hay bale, he got to his feet and dusted hay off his backside. “I’ve never thought mustangs should be tamed—just appreciated . . . from a distance.”
She chuckled. “It didn’t look to me like you were admiring from a distance.”
Damn. He’d walked right into that one.
“You’re right. And I had no business kissing your granddaughter when I’m just passing through town.”
Mimi didn’t seem to be fazed by his announcement. “I had no desire to settle down either when I met Dale Holiday. I just stopped into town for gas on my way to wherever life led me. It turned out that life was leading me here.” She hesitated. “I didn’t have much of a home growing up. When I saw this place, I knew I’d found one to live out my days. Although it looks like that’s not going to be the case.”
He was really starting to wish that his curiosity hadn’t gotten the best of him. Instead of coming to Holiday Ranch, he should have gone back to the trailer and stayed put until Corbin returned. Now he was stuck right smack dab in the middle of this mess and needed to take a side.
Having lived without one, he knew the importance of home. Which was why he sympathized with the Holidays. This was their home and it sounded like it had been their home for a long time.
But Corbin was his blood brother—a brother who had just started to trust him. He couldn’t see Corbin being happy if Jesse broke his word about staying out of Oleander business and promised the Holidays they could keep their house.
So he only nodded. “Homes are special places.”
“You have one?”
“No. I’m not really a home kind of guy. I’m more the sleep wherever I can rest my boots type.”
Mimi studied him. “Well, maybe you’ll find a place you feel comfortable enough in to take off those boots. Now come on and I’ll give you the rest of the tour.” Her eyes twinkled. “Not that it will be as entertaining as when my granddaughter showed you around.”
He cleared his throat. “Thank you, ma’am, but I should probably get going.”
“Nonsense. Darla has already cut you a slice of apple pie and she makes the best pie in the county.”
So that’s why Liberty had tasted like cinnamon and apples. One of Jesse’s favorite desserts of all time was apple pie so there was no way he could decline. But before he could accept the offer, a meow drew his attention. He’d forgotten all about Tay-Tay.
He got down on his hands and knees to search for her. She was wedged between two stacks of hay bales. Preparing himself for pain, he reached in. But before he could grab her, she shot out and headed for the open door.
For an older woman, Mimi was fast. She reached down and scooped the kitten into her arms before Tay-Tay could escape.
“Be careful,” Jesse warned. “She bites and scratches.”
Tay-Tay hissed to prove his point, but Mimi didn’t pay it any attention as she tucked the kitten close. “Now you just calm down, little lady. There’s no reason to be scared. Mimi’s got you and she’s not going to let anything happen to you.”
The kitten seemed to understand because she settled against Mimi’s bosom like she’d just found a home.
Mimi stroked her head as she looked at Jesse. “Well, come on. Your slice of pie will sit there for only so long before Liberty helps herself. That child never has been able to resist temptation.” She smiled. “Of any kind.”
Darla’s apple pie turned out to be a temptation. After wolfing down one slice, Jesse couldn’t help accepting another. Although no matter how good the pie was, it didn’t come close to being as good as the kiss. Now every time he ate apple pie, he’d think of Liberty Holiday.
Which was why he’d come to a decision.
There would be no more kissing Liberty.
Even if she was an ebony-haired beauty who kissed like a fallen angel.
He glanced across the table where that angel sat. Her hair was no longer in a bun. It fell around her shoulders in inky waves. He remembered sliding his hand into those silky strands as she’d kissed him and loosening them from the bun. They had slipped through his fingers like expensive satin sheets.
“So did you tell Jesse about your event-planning business, Libby Lou?”
Mimi’s question pulled him out of his hair fantasies. He should have known Liberty was a business owner. She was too stubborn to work for anyone and too competitive not to want to prove she could succeed on her own.
“There’s nothing to tell.” Her voice was clipped. “We plan events.”
“Now, Libby,” her mama said. “You don’t just plan events. Holiday Sisters Events have planned weddings and parties for some of the most influential people in Texas.”
Jesse lifted his eyebrows. “Really? Like who?”
She duplicated his eyebrow lift. “I doubt you’d know them.”
“Liberty Holiday!” Darla scolded before she changed the subject. “So I hear you’re a professional rodeo roper, Jesse.”
“Actually, I’m an ex-professional roper. And it was really more of a hobby than a job.”
“So what’s your job?” Hank asked. “Taking people’s homes away?” He sat at the head of the table and, like his daughter, was looking at Jesse as if he were a spider who had been, unwittingly, invited into the fly’s parlor.
He cleared his throat. “No, sir. I buy and sell things.”
“Like what?”
“Whatever I think I can make a profit on—stocks, land, businesses.”
“Ranches,” Liberty said.
He shook his head. “I haven’t bought or sold any ranches.”
“So you’re a city boy?” Mimi asked.
“I was until I was nine. Then I moved to the country. My family doesn’t own a ranch, but they have horses and plenty of dogs and cats. And Sherman. But he’s more of a family member than a pet.” He glanced over at Liberty to find her studying him intently. What was going on behind those pretty green eyes? Was she thinking about their kiss and regretting it? Or maybe she wasn’t thinking about the kiss at all. Maybe she was thinking about something else entirely.
Why that bothered him, he didn’t know. Maybe because the kiss was all he could seem to think about. He had expected her to be a demanding kisser who took what she wanted. But she hadn’t taken as much as given.
“Sherman?” Mimi brought him back to the conversation. Tay-Tay was curled up on the older woman’s lap and purring like the sweetest little kitty cat ever as Mimi stroked her back.
“Sherman is our pet pig,” Jesse said.
“A pig?”
“He’s actually my Aunt Hope’s. But Shirlene—my mama—loves him so much that Hope is willing to share custody. Half the week, he lives at my parents’ house. The other half, he lives with Aunt Hope and Uncle Colt. Although I think he prefers our house because Shirlene gives him chocolate.”
“Your house?” Liberty studied him. “So you still live with your parents?”
“Just a slip of the tongue. Like I said before, I don’t stay in one place too long.”
“So you’re leaving soon?” Darla asked.
“As soon as Corbin gets back.”
Hank snorted with disgust and Jesse figured he’d overstayed his welcome.
“Thank y’all for the pie and hospitality, but I should be going.” He got up and everyone followed suit.
“Well, it was lovely to meet you, Jesse,” Darla said.
“The same, ma’am.” He carried his dishes to the sink, then walked over to Mimi and held open his jean jacket for her to put Tay-Tay in. Neither female was having it.
Tay-Tay hissed and Mimi scowled. “Now you two aren’t ever going to get along if you don’t accept and love her for who she is. She might be feisty, but she’s just as scared as you are.” Mimi sent him a pointed look. “You need to remember that.”
Jesse had the scratches and bite marks to prove otherwise, but he didn’t argue the point. Instead, he pulled on the jean jacket—mostly for protection—and reached for the kitten. She yowled and hissed, but only succeeded in scratching him once before he tucked her into his arm. “Nice meeting you, Ms. Mimi.”
“Nice meeting you, Jesse. You need to come back for supper before you go. How’s tomorrow night sound?”
He could tell by the looks on Liberty’s and Hank’s faces that the invitation wasn’t being issued by all the Holidays. “Thank you, but—”
“No buts. We’ll see you tomorrow around five,” Darla said. “Why don’t you show our guest out, Libby?”
Once on the porch, Liberty shot him a mean look.
Talk about feisty. But he couldn’t help laughing.
“I’m not coming to dinner tomorrow. So you can get that scowl off your face.”
It remained. But it turned out it wasn’t about the dinner invitation.
“I hope you didn’t get the wrong idea about the kiss,” she said.
“And what idea would that be?”
“That I’m interested in you. The kiss had nothing to do with you.”
He should have left it at that and hightailed it out of there. He had made up his mind that any further interaction with Liberty was a bad idea. But bad idea or not, he couldn’t leave without knowing.
“What did it have to do with?”
“Believe me, I don’t have a clue. You are not the type of man I’m attracted to.”
That stung. “Really? And exactly what type of man lights your fire, Libby Lou?”
“Not you. That’s for sure. And would you stop calling me that?”
“I can’t help it. It just sorta, involuntarily, rolls off my tongue.”
Her gaze flashed down to his mouth and her lips parted on a soft exhalation like she was having wicked thoughts about his tongue. When she lifted her gaze, her green eyes were lit with fire. A fire that completely incinerated him. He forgot all about the promise he made to himself to stay the hell away from Liberty Holiday. With the hand that wasn’t cradling the daughter of Satan, he reached out and hooked his thumb into a belt loop on Liberty’s jean shorts and tugged her closer.
“So I don’t light your fire? ’Cause you look pretty hot right now, darlin’.”
She hooked her arms over his shoulders, her fingers threading through the hair at the nape of his neck. A tremor ran through him. “You look pretty hot yourself, darlin’.”
“Burning up,” he whispered right before he lowered his head and kissed her. Just like before, his mind went blank and all he could do was feel. The softness of her lips. The welcoming heat of her mouth. The wicked brush of her tongue as it danced with his in a hot tango that left him breathless and wanting more.
But as mindless as she made him, he had enough sense left to realize he couldn’t take more on the front porch with her entire family—including her shotgun-toting daddy—only feet away.
Still, it took every ounce of willpower he had to pull away from those lush lips.
They were both breathing like they’d just finished a marathon. He was sure his eyes looked as lust filled as hers did. Before he gave in to those eyes and kissed her again, he stepped back and tried to put things into perspective.
“Obviously, we both light each other’s fires. But considering the business side of things, I don’t think it would be a good idea to let that fire burn.”
The lust drained right out of those green eyes and they narrowed. “Let that fire burn? Exactly what fire are you talking about? Because if you think I’d have sex with you, you have another think coming. We might have kissed a couple times, but don’t you dare be thinkin’ I want to roll around in the sheets with you, Rodeo Man. Whatever it was that just happened had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with boredom.”
Damn, the woman knew exactly what to say to piss him off. “Boredom?”
She smiled smugly. “Exactly. You were just a fun little distraction. A distraction I’m over. So run along, darlin’.” She flapped a hand like she was swatting a fly away. “You’ve overstayed your welcome.”
For a moment, he had to fight the overwhelming desire to pull her back into his arms and prove her wrong. But that would contradict his entire previous speech. So he turned and headed for his truck. Once he’d climbed in and settled Tay-Tay in the passenger’s seat—with only one nip—he reached for the key in the ignition. But before he could start the engine, Liberty stepped out in front of the truck. With her green eyes blazing and her ebony hair blowing in the stiff breeze, she looked like a pissed-off banshee.
Damn, she turned him on.
“As soon as your friend gets back in town, you tell him Liberty Holiday is looking for him. And I always find what I’m looking for.”