High Octane

And it seemed temptation had led her to all kinds of places lately. To this condo, and now straight into the path of Ryan, who she couldn’t get out of her head. Or her bath, she realized guiltily. Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined him here, naked—water dripping off sleek muscles that she would lick dry. Grrrrr. There she went again!

Anxious to put an end to the unbearable waiting, Sabrina glanced at the lit-up face of her cell phone. Nine o’clock. The chances of good news at this late hour were slim, and she resisted the urge to be pushy and dial Jennifer. The truth was, the disappointment sprang from more than the interview. It was about Ryan and his “deal.” About the excuse that deal gave her to go where she didn’t belong with the man. It was Ryan who could give her Marco. Ryan who could give her…

“More than you can handle,” she murmured, rising to her feet in a splash of bath water, and reaching for a fluffy white towel she’d bought at a Macy’s summer blow-out sale at about half the price of a New York summer blow-out sale. She could get used to these prices for sure. Even her morning Starbucks was cheaper, which helped justify the price of her condo. She liked this city. Austin had an artsy, contemporary feel, the music and movie scene, without the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. Maybe she didn’t have to go home to be home, and maybe she’d even be okay writing about the political scene here, with distance from her father. Her chest tightened. Or maybe not.

She knotted the towel firmly around her chest and padded across the thick teal-blue bathroom rug to the mirror above the stainless-steel sink, where she glanced at her hair piled atop her head in disarray. She looked like a wreck, felt like a wreck. Not one bit sexy, despite the sex on her mind.

She pursed her lips. “You aren’t having sex with Ryan ‘Cowboy’ Walker, nor are you ever going to,” she murmured in denial of her yearning for this man. With a regretful sigh, she opened the mahogany cabinet, snatching the new mud mask that the mall clerk had convinced her was the ticket to radiance.

“No sex with Ryan,” she told her image in the mirror, “so stop thinking about it.”

With determination to do just that, she spread the green goop all over her face. Task complete, she was satisfied that for the duration of her hour-long facial, she would not only look like Frankenstein, but all sexual urges would be diluted.

She’d only just traded her towel for her silver silk knee-length robe and started for the long hallway leading to the sunken living room, when a knock sounded on the door.

With a frown, she hesitated outside the red “good luck” door—as the real-estate agent had called it—certain that whoever was outside wasn’t going to agree it was lucky if he or she saw her in this mask.

Still, what real choice did she have? She called out, “Who is it?”

“It’s your jumpmaster, sweetheart,” came the deep, familiar voice she knew as that of temptation himself. “Open up.”

Sabrina’s heart skipped a beat. A rush of adrenaline ran through her veins.

“You owe me a date,” he said. “I came to collect.”

“You owe me an interview,” she called out. This couldn’t be happening. Not with mud on her face. “You can’t just show up here unannounced.”

“Not even if I tell you Marco is in the car waiting for us to drive him to the airport?”

Marco was here? Without thinking, she flung the door open. “He’s here? As in at my condo? You got me the interview?” She’d barely spat out the questions before she realized what she’d done. Big gorgeous Ryan loomed above her, his arm resting on the frame above his head, amusement in his eyes as he took in her silk robe and the mess on her face. She’d fantasized about losing control with Ryan, and now she had. In the most unsexy of ways.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but not before she noticed his hat was gone, his mussed sandy-brown hair neat to the naked eye. “I’m going to close the door now, and please pretend this never happened.”

RYAN WASN’T ABOUT to forget one moment of Sabrina in a skimpy robe.

“Afraid I can’t do that,” Ryan answered, advancing on Sabrina with nothing short of a predatory stride. In a flash, he had maneuvered them through the doorway and inside the condo, the door kicked shut behind him. And because he was but a man, with only so much restraint, he tugged the silk of her robe over the swell of high, full breasts, barely concealed. “Not when you’re teasing me with so much skin. Your robe was gaping.”

She quickly reached for the opening, her hands colliding with his, her gaze lifting in a panicked flutter of dark lashes on pale skin. “I… This is so not going well.”

“I’m not sure I agree,” he said. “Though taking your clothes off would be a lot more enjoyable than putting them on. I won’t ask about the green stuff on your face as long as it won’t stop me from kissing you.”

“You can’t be serious,” she said, her voice raspy, breathless. “It’ll get it all over you. And what about Marco?”

“Marco knew he had to wait,” he said. He could almost taste her. He wanted to taste her. To hell with the damn mask. “And I’m a soldier, sweetheart. I like getting dirty.” His hand wrapped the back of her neck, drawing her closer, his lips lingering above hers. “And unless you tell me not to and fast, I’ll demonstrate.”

“Ryan—” The one word was a whisper, an invitation, a yes in his book. He took it, swallowed it, angling his lips over hers. She was sweet and delicious, and every thing he’d imagined for the hours since meeting her…and so much more.

Her mouth was soft and alluring, her tongue tentatively responding to his demands. She tasted both exotic and sweet, bold and tentative. A woman who had so much to offer but was afraid to give or take. It was the fear in her that kept his hands from traveling her body, that told him to go slow, to give her time. That she would be worth it. But she moaned, the sound driving him wild, urging him to touch, to take. And her hands—caressing a reserved path up his chest and around his neck—they were the ingredient that nearly set him on edge, them and her touch—knowing that only a tiny piece of silk separated him from her, from the pale ivory skin he’d already admired. Everything male in him screamed to repair that fact, to rip away the robe, to fill his hands with her breasts. He imagined the moment in his mind, damn near tasted how sweet it would be. And then his cell phone rang a rude awakening.

“That’ll be Marco,” he murmured against her lips.

Sabrina groaned and backed away. “I have to get dressed. I have to get this mask off my face.” Her eyes went wide, and she laughed, her finger running down his cheek. “At least I’m not the only one with mud on my face now. You—”

Ryan silenced her with his mouth. Damn, she was adorable. Gently, but no less forcefully, his hand went to her neck again, and he kissed her with a long, quick slide of his tongue. “We’ll finish this later,” he vowed, all too aware of how easily she would then talk herself out of “later.” “You have about three minutes to get ready. Now go.”

“I’ll think about the ‘later’ thing,” she replied with a stern facade she couldn’t maintain. An instant later, a smile touched her lips. “I wasn’t joking about the mud on your face. The spare bathroom is on the other side of the kitchen if you want to clean up.” Her smile widened. “I’ll be back in a flash.”

Not fast enough, Ryan thought. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had him so hot and hard, so ready. She rushed down the hallway—all but running. Oh, yeah, she was running. He’d seen it in her eyes today at the Hotzone. He knew the look all too well, because he’d once done the same. He’d run and found the military. He wondered what Sabrina was running from. He understood she had issues to work through. She’d be emotional, distant, then wild when she finally let herself go. She’d need someone to use and abuse, without any demands beyond pleasure. Someone like him, who didn’t mind a little mud on his face. His lips lifted. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it.

5

SABRINA COULDN’T BELIEVE she was sliding into the back of a Town Car to interview the hottest man on the tracks, with the sexiest cowboy in Texas right next to her. A sexy cowboy whom she’d just kissed. With a mud mask in place. Which had gotten all over him, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him it was still smudged near his ear, though she had no idea how it had gotten there.

His ear wasn’t exactly where her mouth had been, though it was a nice ear, worthy of attention. Everything about Ryan demanded attention. In fact, it was especially hard to remember why she had thought Ryan was more dangerous than jumping out of a plane, when the taste of him still lingered on her lips despite her clean-scrubbed face.

“You must be Sabrina,” Marco said, turning the full magnitude of his blond, city-sleek good looks, high cheekbones and intelligent eyes on her. Yet, all she could think about was the thigh of her rough, tough cowboy settling beside hers. Marco cast her an amused glance, taking in her bare face and piled-high hair, as well as her black sweat suit, the only thing she could manage in the two minutes she’d had to get dressed. “I told Ryan to warn you I was coming.”

“I’ve only just met Ryan, but I think it’s safe to say he likes to shake things up.” She cut him a reprimanding stare. “Namely me.”

“And you like it,” Ryan assured her with a wink, before tugging the door shut, darkness consuming them as the overhead light shut off. Ryan’s thigh melted into hers, a shiver of awareness shimmied up her spine and back down.

Marco tapped the back of the driver’s seat, sparing Sabrina a witty comeback her brain simply wasn’t producing. “Drive like you were me,” Marco ordered. “I have a plane to catch.”

“If I could drive like you,” the man behind the wheel said, “I wouldn’t be shuttling you around. But I’ll give it my best shot.” The man hit the accelerator, and the car jerked into motion.

Sabrina jerked with it, her oversize purse with her notepad, pen and recorder tumbling to the floor at Ryan’s feet. Instinctively, she reached for something solid to keep from falling. That something solid turned out to be Ryan’s jeans-clad leg, the one she’d been admiring earlier. Instantly, his hand came down on hers, holding it captive. Her gaze snapped to his, and the twinkle of his eyes cut through the inky shadows.

“I assume Ryan warned you my sister is a big fan,” Marco commented from her left.

“Big fan?” she echoed, the question barely permeating the lusty Ryan-formed clouds muddling her brain. “I’m sorry. What did I miss?” She glanced between the two men, all too aware that her hand remained trapped beneath Ryan’s bigger, stronger one—on his thigh, impossible for Marco to miss.

“Sabrina and I didn’t get much time to talk,” Ryan replied, releasing her hand and settling into his seat.

“What didn’t we talk about that we should have?” she asked, wondering why her hand still tingled where Ryan had held it.

“It seems today is all about deals,” Ryan said, no mistaking his meaning. “Marco’s sister was with him at the Hotzone when I brought up the interview,” Ryan explained. “She knew you instantly from your column in the New York Prime.”

“And the bargaining began,” Marco said, with a disgusted snort. “She might as well be a politician. Oh, wait. She is. She’s on the city council with aspirations of more.”

Sabrina’s stomach tightened. “Oh, really,” she said, trying to fight the tension in her voice.

“Here’s the situation, Sabrina. My sister’s been trying to convince me to speak at some political fundraiser—and I won’t mention for which party because I try not to talk preferences. It gets me in trouble with the press.”

“Like drinking Red Rock Cola?” she asked, trying to change the subject from anything that involved politics and where his sister was headed.

He laughed. “Exactly like drinking Red Rock Cola. That’s what I get for being thirsty and drinking what someone pushed into my hand.”

“Can I quote you on that?”