a drinker, he rarely went into the bars, much less picked up a playmate for the evening. They were usually more trouble than they were worth, expecting more than he could give.
Which was pretty much nothing.
But something seemed to be propelling him tonight. Like the tide carries a bottle from one shore to another, ever since he left the station he seemed to be succumbing to a force stronger than his will. And as he began the slow climb toward another searing climax, he opted to go with it rather than question it, for once relishing this life that had somehow gone out of his control.
“So WHAT WAS IT you were celebrating again?” Rick asked under the soft glow of the lone lamp that rested on his bedside table. Jessie had snuggled against him, her dimpled chin digging into his chest, sheets draped haphazardly around her waist while she trailed a finger over his abs.
Her eyes lit with a smile and she bolted from the bed. Excitement bounced in her steps as she shot out a quick, “I’ll show you,” before disappearing into the front room.
Where she got the energy, he’d never know. Though he’d discovered far more stamina than he believed he had, three hours of sex had officially drained every muscle in his body. The way he felt right now, brushing lint from his arm would be a stretch. Yet there was Jessica Beane, her perpetual beat leaving him wondering if she had a point of exhaustion.
Settling back next to him, she propped against a pillow and held up a worn and wrinkled copy of People magazine. Pointing to a celebrity photograph, she proudly exclaimed, “That.”
He squinted to find the significance under the dim light.
“Jewel Murray?” he asked, vaguely remembering the name of the blond starlet pictured strolling across a street.
“No, that,” Jessie replied, moving her slim finger to the handbag the actress was carrying. It was bright pink, adorned with shiny black sequins and—were those green feathers?
Jessie beamed, “It’s a Beane Bag. This photo just made me famous.”
A sliver of their bar conversation came back to him, something about the fact that she made designer handbags for a living—or was trying to. She was part of a co-op of struggling artists who owned a boutique on the edge of Union Square.
“Would you believe I was down to my last three hundred dollars when this photo appeared in People?” she went on. “I was actually canvassing the neighborhood looking for another job. That’s how I found Scotty’s. They’d posted an ad for a waitress and I liked the fact that it’s a hangout for cops.” She eyed him with all innocence. “Safer, you know?”
He nearly laughed out loud. Sure, cops typically upheld the law, but put a few together with a couple of cocktails after an especially tough day and any woman intent on keeping her pants on could hardly consider herself safe.
He decided not to burst her bubble.
“I’d just accepted a part-time shift at IHOP when this photo hit the stands,” she said. “It took twenty-four hours before stores all over the country were calling me for inventory. I even got a call from Paris. Paris, can you believe it?”
No, but her excitement was contagious. Those caramel eyes had a way of sucking him in, beaming so brightly with delight he couldn’t help but feel a little thrill for her.
She hopped up to her knees and clutched the magazine to her chest like it was her most prized possession. “I was able to get a loan from the bank. Just enough to cover supplies on order and hire myself an assistant.” Her grin widened. “I’m still in a daze. One minute, I’m going to be a waitress at IHOP and the next I’m hiring assistants to help me make purses I’ll be shipping to Paris.”
With a bounce to every move, she tucked the magazine into her purse and slid back into bed. “So, yeah, I’m celebrating.” She swung a leg over his waist and straddled his lap. Her girlish innocence darkened to pure woman as she traced a finger over his lips, eyeing them as if she were imagining what he might do with them. “And you’re the lucky guy who gets to celebrate with me.”
Unbelievably a wave of heat hardened his cock. Moments ago, with her curled up beside him and every part of his body tucked in for the night, he’d doubted a typhoon could have gotten him to stir. Yet all it had taken was a wiggle of Jessie’s round, little bottom, the crush of her breasts against his chest and that sneaky look of sex in her copper-kettle eyes to get his body buzzing all over again.
Just when he thought he’d broken the record on marathon sex, he found the will to sink into her one more time, to drive his tired, sated body to one last brink and beyond.
And that’s exactly what he did. One more taste of that sweet, supple body. One more sweep of life through his veins. One more climb to the tip of ecstasy and one last crash into the abyss.
And when they were done, he slipped into the longest, deepest sleep he’d enjoyed in as many years as he could remember.
Chapter Two
THE RING of her phone stirred Jessie from what had been a light and restless sleep. Not that she was troubled. On the contrary, she felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, excitement and anticipation keeping her too pumped up for anything more than a turbulent doze.
Granna Hawley had been right. Get out of Texas and all the bad luck that had plagued her life would come to an end. And if Jessie had doubted her paternal grandmother before, these last few days proved the woman had been right. Life had definitely been on the upswing since she’d stepped off the plane in San Francisco, the latest in her run of good fortune being an incredible night of sex with the gorgeous cop beside her.
Rolling off the bed, she grabbed her purse and his charcoal-gray T-shirt and headed for the front room, wanting to close the door behind her before the phone woke him. Although, looking over the broad mound, she doubted a hurricane would pull the man from sleep. Every inch of him was crushed against the big bed, those sharp, chiseled features sunk so deeply into his pillow she had to do a double take to see if he was actually breathing. Only when her phone sounded again, prompting the slight twitch of his right index finger, did she turn and step out of the room, satisfied her handsome lover hadn’t slipped into a sex-induced coma.
The thought made her smile, and as she flipped open the phone, the memory of the last few hours brought a layer of steam to her voice.
“Hello?”
“So you are alive.”
It was her friend and roommate, Georgia. “Of course, I’m alive, though when my strong and studly sheriff wakes up from his nap, I might be indisposed.”
Georgia didn’t sound impressed. “You forgot the rule.”
“What rule?”
“I’m serious, Jessie, if you can’t remember the rules, I’m not letting you go home with strangers.”
The giddy smile wilted from Jessie’s face as she recalled the drilling she’d received from Georgia earlier that evening, before the two women stepped out for the bars. “I was supposed to call.”
“Ding-ding-ding-ding! We have a winner.”
Still clutching Rick’s T-shirt in her hand, she pressed it to her forehead and lowered to his couch. “I’m sorry,” she replied, her voice muffled through fabric that smelled deliciously like musk and man.
“I’ll give you a break this time because it’s your first pickup date, but I’m serious. If you want to play the cosmopolitan woman, you’ve got to think like one, and that includes remembering that you’re not in Tulouse, Texas, anymore.”
And wasn’t Jessie thankful for that? Not that she had a problem with cowboys. She’d heard plenty of favorable stories about the rugged men on the range. It was just that the men in Tulouse were more boy than cowboy, and especially after this evening, she’d take the dangers of the big city over what she’d found back home.