Cowboy Take Me Away (Rough Riders 16)

This was a no-win situation and he oughta keep his damn mouth shut…but of course he just had to open up his trap. “I haven’t been on a date since I was nineteen. I pick women up in bars, get what I want from them and walk away. I don’t want that from you.”

She looked affronted. “You don’t want me?”

“I want you like f**kin’ crazy.” Carson snagged her wrist and pressed her palm against the fly of his jeans. “But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna maul you at the drive-in.”

“Even if I ask nicely?”

“Carolyn.”

“You only have yourself to blame for how I’m acting. Since the night we met you’ve been showing me what desire is. What passion feels like. Is it any wonder I want more whenever I’m with you?” She traced his lower lip with her thumb, then she angled her head to make the same sweeping pass with her tongue. “Carson. Say something.”

“It’d probably be best if you got off my lap.”

“I thought you wanted me to sit on your lap.”

“Not like this.”

He felt her smile against his cheek. “You like this. I can tell.”

The woman rocked her hips until her pubic bone bumped his erection.

He tried to stop her, but his hands gripping her ass had the exact opposite effect. The greedy male part of him wanted her to grind on him and show him how well she moved. Then he’d slip his fingers beneath her panties and see if it made her wet. Then he’d start sucking on her ni**les…

“Carson. Touch me.”

“No.”

“Why not?” She dug her fingers into the back of his neck forcing his attention. “I see you looking at my chest all the time.”

Do not look.

Dammit, why wouldn’t his eyes listen?

“Don’t you want your hands and mouth on me?”

“Of course I do. But that don’t mean I’m gonna tear off your shirt, and take off your bra in a public place where anyone can walk past and see your bare chest.”

Her eyes widened as if that hadn’t occurred to her.

So he took it a step farther to drive home his point. “If we get busy in my truck, everyone will know what we’re doin’ when it starts bouncing up and down. That’ll draw an audience. That’s what you want for your first time?”

“No. But—”

“Trust me. I’ll know when you’re ready. There’s nothin’ wrong with waitin’ for it. Planning it.”

“You’ll know when I’m ready,” she repeated.

“I ain’t sayin’ this to piss you off, but I do have more experience in these things than you do.”

Carolyn pushed away from him and put distance between them.

The rain was really coming down and the movie was a total blur. But the voices coming from the speaker were rife with anger.

That’s when he understood the anger in the air wasn’t only from the movie effects or the humidity. She was mad.

Which meant she was really mad because he’d learned one thing about her in the times they’d spent together; she didn’t have time for games. She wasn’t playing at being mad.

“You gonna tell me what’s got you huffing like an angry bull?”

Comparing her to livestock? Didn’t think you were that dumb.

“Your expectations of how sex with me is going to play out—candlelight, flowers, chocolates and the release of beribboned doves at the moment of breaching my maidenhead—are not mine.”

Christ. He hadn’t thought she could be sarcastic either. Once she sank her teeth into something she wouldn’t let it go.

“I thought you were different.”

“Carolyn—”

“You look at me but you don’t see me. You see what you want to see. You are like everyone else in my life who thinks it’s their job to make decisions for me and what I want.”

“Because I wouldn’t f**k you, I’m an ass**le?”

“No. I didn’t ask you to have sex with me. But even if I had? You are dismissing what I want and how I feel.”

Sadness filled her face and it hit him as hard as a punch in the nuts.

“Take me back to my car.”

“We can talk—”

“No. It’s not like we can watch the movie.”

Fuck. Rather than try to climb over her into the driver’s side, he jumped into the downpour and skirted the front end. Then getting in he almost sat on his hat. In trying to avoid that, he slammed his groin into the steering wheel.

“Motherfucking-cocksucking-son-of-a-fucking-bitch.” He breathed through the excruciating pain—he’d never racked himself with a hard on before—and hoped he didn’t pass out. He chanced a look at her.

She didn’t even have that pursed set to her mouth when he cussed. She didn’t snap, “Language,” at him.

The windshield wipers slapped angrily as he pulled out of the parking lot onto the road. “This is not how I wanted the night to end.”

“Just drive.”

The air in the cab on the drive back to her car was hot and sticky—but that wasn’t what made it uncomfortable.

Carolyn hadn’t looked at him even one time. She’d just retreated. Hands folded in her lap, her gaze aimed out the window. Not that she could see anything through the fog on the inside and the driving rain surrounding them, but she pretended she could.

He hated dropping her off in the middle of nowhere, wishing instead he could pull up to her house, walk her to the door and give her a goodnight kiss. Yeah, like a normal date. Didn’t most women want that?

So why the hell was this beautiful, sweet, pure woman so eager to give her virginity to a man like him?

Maybe for that reason.

Carson remembered from talking to the women who’d shared his bed that their initiation into sex left a lot to be desired. His first time at age fifteen hadn’t lasted long at all. His partner, a twenty-year-old teacher’s assistant, had lectured him on making sure the women he bedded had as much fun as he did. She’d taught him a lot.

And it wasn’t as if he wasn’t f**king dying to get his hands on her, his mouth on her and his dick in her. He just didn’t want it to happen in a car or a truck. Carolyn deserved all that romancing stuff women loved.

He’d make it up to her. He’d take her out for supper tomorrow night. Then back to his place where he could get her completely nekkid and feast on her. Touch her, kiss her, taste her and show her how good it could be when he took his time.