Having the Cowboy's Baby

He got to his feet and walked toward her. When he stood less than an arm’s length away, he reached around her to pitch his napkin. “But redheads who like blueberry ice cream most of all.”

Skyler laughed and realized that despite his corny lines and cocky self-assurance, she liked him. He was good for a laugh.

And for kissing.

As if he could read her thoughts, Logan pulled her to him and lowered his lips to hers. Beyond the blueberry flavor coating her tongue, she tasted the vanilla. Something about the mixing of flavors sent a burst of heat through her and had her hands finding their way up his chest. Even through the fabric, she could tell he had the kind of chest that made covering it with a shirt a crime.

She moaned into his mouth at the thought, and that seemed to toss fuel on the fire beginning to blaze between them. Logan pulled her even closer, so close that she felt his arousal. If she’d thought she was buzzing with desire before, that had been nothing compared to the zing that went through her now.

His hands ran up her ribs and brushed the underside of her breasts. She gasped, but another kiss captured her surprise.

The sound of a car starting barely registered, but when light suddenly illuminated them, Skyler startled enough to end the kiss and take a step back from Logan. Right as loud music filled the night air, Skyler realized the car belonged to Mari and she’d gotten a good show as she left work for the evening.

Skyler spun away, turning her back toward Mari’s car. Not that it mattered. Her face was likely flaming enough to light up the night more than Mari’s headlights.

As Mari took off, letting the darkness settle again, Logan walked up behind Skyler. Trying to gather up some common sense, she didn’t give him the opportunity to pull her to him again.

“I need to get back before India and Elissa call out the cavalry.”

He didn’t argue but rather took a step back and extended his hand toward the sidewalk, inviting her to proceed ahead of him. She took a shaky step then another. Her nerves continued to buzz even though Logan didn’t make any attempt to touch her. How crazy was it that she already missed the feel of his hand around hers, the warmth of his body pressed against hers?

Still, crazy or not, she couldn’t get the idea out of her head as they walked past businesses closed for the night. The closer they came to the music hall, the more she slowed her pace, knowing that when they reached the hall, that would be the end of being with Logan. And despite the fact they were little more than strangers and he was too cocky for his own good, she couldn’t deny he made her feel like no man ever had, daring and wonderfully nervous and...alive.

She might have lost her mind, but she didn’t want to lose that other Skyler quite yet. It was her birthday, after all, and it was time she gave herself a present. As they reached the narrow opening between Tumbleweed Books and Rand’s Western Wear where the city had built a tiny park, Skyler stopped walking.

“Something wrong?” Logan asked.

For a long moment, she said nothing, just stared at the sidewalk while an argument took place in her head. Her normal, sensible self said her day had been filled with enough excitement already and it was time to return to real life. But an increasingly loud voice told her that it felt good to really live, that it was still her birthday and she should enjoy it to the fullest.

“Skyler?” Logan sounded concerned this time, and that sealed the deal.

She grabbed the front of his shirt with both of her hands and dragged him into the darker confines of the little park. She pushed him up against the side of the bookstore and captured his lips with hers, filling her senses with him.

Logan wasted no time returning the kiss, spinning so that her back was against the wall. He pressed his body close, every bit as eager as she was. His hands slid under her shirt and skimmed along the sensitive skin of her sides and then up her spine.

Skyler somehow gathered enough brain cells together to realize they had to go somewhere or they were going to end up naked against the side of a building. That thought half scared her, half excited her even more than she already was.

“Do you want to come back to the inn with me?” She breathed the words against his mouth. They sounded as though they were coming from someone else, certainly not careful-to-a-fault Skyler Harrington. But she couldn’t deny she wanted this man and she wanted him now.

Logan’s mouth moved from her lips, up her jaw to her ear. He captured her earlobe with his teeth, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to make her arch against him. “My motel room’s closer.”

Something low in her belly, lower even than that, screamed yes. But Skyler hesitated, a sliver of the person she really was trying to assert itself.

Logan moved away enough that she could look up into his eyes. He lifted a hand and smoothed her hair behind her ear in a surprisingly tender gesture. He probably didn’t think anything of it, but that simple movement tipped the scales away from caution toward total abandon.

Skyler entwined her fingers through his and followed the part of herself she’d never known existed, the part that had gone through with jumping out of that plane, the part that would likely disappear with the morning light. But that was still hours away.

“Lead the way.”

Chapter Four

The music and laughter coming from the music hall faded as Skyler allowed Logan to lead her off of Main Street onto Seven Hills Avenue. Her heartbeat thundered louder and harder with every step they took away from the music hall, her friends, safety in numbers. Her step faltered as they came within view of the Country Vista Inn, a little strip of a motel frequented more by cowboys and road-maintenance crews than tourists. It wasn’t a dump, just not the Wildflower Inn. The Country Vista served its purpose, giving people a place to sleep.

Or something else.

Logan stopped and spun her into his arms. “Don’t think too much.”

“I don’t know. I—”

He halted her words by capturing her mouth with his and overwhelming her senses with pure, undiluted desire. She felt that kiss zing along all of her veins like a hit of some intoxicating drug she was powerless to resist. As Logan started walking backward without breaking the kiss, her feet followed. When he finally broke the kiss, her body buzzed with need as her thoughts swirled like a hurricane in her head.

When they reached the door to his room, her common sense made one final desperate attempt to stop her. But the moment Logan slid his key card through the reader and opened the door to his room, allowing her to see the king-size bed, she was lost.

Logan led her inside and locked the door behind her. In the next moment, he backed her against the door and kissed her again. This time his hands slid down her ribs to rest on her hips. When he pressed closer, Skyler gasped at his obvious arousal. Logan chuckled against her lips as his hands untucked her T-shirt. When the callused texture of his palm made contact with her skin, she recaptured his mouth.

She’d never wanted to have sex so much in her life. Logan could consume her right now, and she wouldn’t care. In fact, she’d welcome it.

The next thing she knew, Logan grasped the bottom of her shirt and quickly pulled it over her head. Before she could catch her breath, he lowered his wet, warm mouth to the swell of her breast above her bra. She grabbed the hat still on his head and tossed it onto a chair in the corner, then ran her hands through his hair, pulling him closer.

Logan unsnapped her bra, allowing him to nudge the fabric aside and capture her breast in his mouth.

“Oh, yes.”

She felt him smile against her, probably because it was obvious she’d never done anything like this before. But then he flicked the sensitive tip with his tongue, and her eyes closed as she pressed her head back against the door. As Logan shifted his talented mouth from one breast to the other, Skyler’s legs shook.

“You need to get off your feet,” Logan whispered in her ear. Then he scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. He lay her crossways on the mattress, then followed her down.

She realized she’d lost her bra when Logan captured one of her breasts again, then wrapped his arms around her to lift her closer to his mouth. Her hands gripped the back of his shirt, pulling it up so that she could run her hands over his naked flesh.

Her body warmed even more as she ran her fingers across all that taut skin over well-defined muscles.

Logan lifted himself and smiled down at her. “Let me help you with that.” Without breaking eye contact, he unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside as if he didn’t care whether he ever saw it again.

Forget a crime. It would be a sin to cover up that chest. Every woman was turned on by different parts of a man, and for her it was definitely chests and arms. And Logan’s were perfect—tanned, toned, with the kind of muscle definition that came from hard work rather than pumping iron.

Logan’s mouth quirked up at one end. “Like the view?”

Skyler licked her lips. “Yes.”

Logan smiled wider as he lowered himself to her mouth, kissing her deeply as his hands went to the top of her jeans and slipped the button free. Her breath came faster as he lowered her zipper and slid his hand inside the top edge of her panties.

A five-alarm fire started in her middle and flashed out to the tips of her extremities in the blink of an eye. Unwilling to wait any longer for what her body craved, Skyler found the top of Logan’s jeans and mimicked what he’d done to hers. When she slid her hands inside to cup his naked hips, Logan growled against her lips.

He rolled away only long enough to pull off his boots and rid himself of the rest of his clothing. Then he made quick work of making her every bit as naked as he was.

Mercy, he was gorgeous, from head to toe. And gone was their relatively slow progress. She shocked herself by watching his every movement as he ripped open a foil package and sheathed himself. If possible, she grew even hotter and needier at the sight. She found it difficult to breathe, as if her lungs were as stunned by the view before her as she was.

Logan lowered himself to the bed and pulled her beneath him, nudging her legs apart with his knee. He kissed her again, his tongue dancing with hers and making her wonder how she’d ever made it through a day without being kissed like that.