at his desk and his overnight bag in the hallway. Housekeeping would deal with it in the morning, after he went to his business office on the third floor.
It was only one in the morning. He should have been fired up to hit the casino floor, or to check out one of the shows playing at the hotel. He should have hit his office, but he was tired. That fact might have worried him but he was too tired—or too bored—to care.
The bedroom door swung open soundlessly and he didn’t bother with lights. He could navigate this room in the dark. After stripping out of his clothes, he slid between the 1200-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets and rolled toward the center of the bed.
Where he encountered a warm body.
Reaching out, he found the soft cotton of a T-shirt. Chase wondered briefly if it was one of his. His palm dipped into a nipped-in waist before smoothing over the curve of a hip and down to the bare skin of a muscular thigh. Tucker must have hustled to get him this coming-home present. He dipped his head and nuzzled the sweet spot behind the woman’s ear as his hand cupped her full breast.
The next thing he knew, the woman raked her nails down his arm, rolled, tucked her feet into his chest and kicked. Chase flew off the bed and hit the carpeted floor with a soft thud.
“What the hell!” The woman scampered to the other side of the bed and hit the on button for the lamp on the nightstand. “Who are you?”
He stood up, naked and unembarrassed. She was in his bed in his apartment in his hotel. He had nothing to be embarrassed about. “I might ask you the same thing, wildcat.”
“Oh, my God, you’re naked. Get out!”
Before he could move, she nailed him in the chest with a boot. A Western boot. Covered in mud and...he sniffed the air. Bending, he snatched the boot and stared at it, barely ducking in time when a second boot sailed toward his face.
“Get out of here, you pervert!” She snatched the phone and began dialing. “I’m calling Security.”
“Good idea, since I’m throwing you out.”
“What? You can’t do that.”
“Sure I can, kitten. This is my apartment.”
Her jaw dropped and then her full lips formed a perfect O. Chase liked the looks of that. And it showed. Her eyes dropped and she flushed before tilting her chin to face him eye to eye. She stood on the far side of the bed and he got a good look at her.
She wasn’t too tall—maybe five-six or five-seven—and while the baggy T-shirt covered most of her attributes, he could scope out her legs—long and muscular. Then he caught the saying emblazoned on her shirt: Sometimes A Cowgirl Has To Do What A Cowboy Can’t. Reading the message stretched across her chest didn’t help calm his libido. He dragged his gaze to her face, which was surrounded by a thick curtain of black hair, sleep tousled and begging for a man to run his fingers through it. Brown eyes bored into him from behind thick lashes that swept her high cheekbones with each blink.
“You’re one of the Barrons,” she murmured, her eyes still fastened on his face. Her tongue darted out from between her lips and he had to bite back a groan. “Can you, uh, put on some pants or something?”
He turned and walked to the chair where he’d dropped his jeans. Stepping into them commando, Chase glanced over his shoulder, only to catch her staring at his butt. His libido immediately whispered sweet nothings in his ear, but he’d already been burned twice in the past month. That shut up his libido and his body calmed down immediately.
“You wanna explain why you’re in my bed?”
“I’m Savannah Wolfe.”
She said it as though he should know the name. He didn’t. “Yeah, and?”
“I... I have permission to be here. Kade—”
“No one has permission to be here.”
“But—” Her face flushed as her temper flared. Chase discovered he liked putting that color in her cheeks.
“No one, wildcat, especially not you.”
“Stop calling me that.”
He showed her the four red marks on the inside of his forearm. “I think it fits. However, as much as I’d like to play, you’re not staying. Get your stuff and get out.”
“But—”
“We can do this like civilized people or I can call Security and have you arrested for trespassing.”
“But—”
He pulled his cell from his hip pocket. “Tired of the buts, cat.”
“I—”
He hit a button and she dropped her gaze.
“Fine. Get out so I can get dressed.”
“Not happenin’, girl.” He snagged her boots and tossed them to her. She caught them easily.
“Fine. If you get off on watchin’, then you are a big ol’ pervert.” She strode over to another chair and grabbed her jeans and a plaid shirt. An old canvas duffel bag slouched on the floor next to the chair. She had her shirt on but not buttoned and one leg in her jeans when Security hit the doorway.
“Problem, Mr. Barron?”
“Not anymore. Please escort this woman off the premises.”
The dark-suited security officer didn’t give Savannah a chance to get dressed. He snagged her bag, draped it over her shoulder, grabbed her boots and jammed them into her chest, gripped her arm and frog-marched her out. Sputtering and cussing, the girl did her best to get her jeans on. Chase followed them to the door and out into the foyer. He was grinning in the face of her scowl as the elevator doors closed. Pink polka-dotted panties. Now that was a sight he wouldn’t forget any time soon.
Savannah had never been so mortified in her life. She was going to kill Kaden Waite the next time she saw him.
“Chase is in Nashville until after the rodeo,” Kade had told her, knowing money was tight and she’d probably be sleeping in her truck or in Indigo’s stall. “No one will be there. I’ll call the hotel and set it up.”
He had. She’d checked in that night with no problem. The desk clerk had barely looked at her. Either Chase Barron had strange women asking for his card key all the time or Kade had totally smoothed the way. Before her ignominious exit, things had been great. She’d gotten Indigo settled into his stall at the Clark County Fairgrounds and had enough grain left to feed him well. She’d unhooked her horse trailer and parked it in the designated area near the barn before driving to the Strip.
She’d found a place in the Crown Hotel and Casino’s parking lot and locked up her old truck. Not that it would take more than a twist of baling wire to pop the locks. Even with the odometer logging 200,000 miles, the old Ford still got her from rodeo to rodeo. She even had half a tank of gas—hopefully enough to last until she won the barrel event that weekend. And she had to win. She had a total of $175.00 in her checking account and twenty bucks in her pocket.
Then she’d woken up to a strange man in bed with her. The man who lived in that penthouse suite. Chase Barron. All six-plus feet of sexy male with his lean, I-run-on-the-treadmill-every-day body, his silky dark hair and those coffee-colored eyes. She jerked her thoughts back and remembered she’d nailed him in the chest with her boot. He deserved it. He was the world’s biggest jerk.
The security guy mostly ignored her, but the walls of the elevator were polished to the point they might as well have been mirrors. She struggled into her jeans, got them buttoned and her belt buckled. He didn’t give her time to dig a pair of socks out of her duffel. Marching her barefoot across the lobby to the obvious entertainment of everyone they encountered just added