“Not really.”
It was so dark out here, but the view above was incredible. “Look, Coop. Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Have you ever seen so many stars?”
“I don’t give a damn about the stars right now.” He backed her against the wall. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all night.”
She hiccupped. “Okay.” She looped her arms around his neck and raised her mouth to his. There was no fighting this.
“You don’t want to try to stop me?”
She laughed at the idea. “Nope.”
“If I start, I’m not sure I can stop.”
“Good.”
He groaned, his hands spanning her hips. “Natalie, we shouldn’t do this. Not now, not here.”
She placed her finger over his lips. “Stop talking, Coop, and unzip this silly shirt.”
“But it’s cold out here.”
“I’m burning up for you.” She pressed against him, sharing her heat.
“Oh, hell, Nat—”
She shut him up with her mouth, tasting the whiskey on his lips, wanting more of Coop. One kiss turned into another and then another and then Natalie lost count. Frenzied touching followed, zippers slid down, fingers explored, thumbs flicked. Her head spun from the rush of feelings, or tequila, or both.
“Holy wow,” she gasped, staring up at the stars sparkling in the dark, plush sky as Coop kissed his way down her neck. Was this really finally happening? It’d been so long since the last time they’d played this game. She’d dreamed about it too many times, aching to feel him touch her, showing her how much he wanted her.
His palms explored the backs of her thighs and higher as his mouth teased her through her bra. She clung to his shoulders as the world tilted and turned around her. A delicious ache grew within her, throbbing in all of the right places. She moaned, craving more of him.
Coop’s lips climbed back northward, his hips pressing into hers. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered in a ragged voice and then licked the shell of her ear.
“I don’t want to.” She lifted her leg and wrapped it around his thigh.
His hands cupped her hips, pulling her tighter against him as his mouth skimmed her collarbone, nipping and sucking as he went. “I can’t resist you,” he murmured against her skin. “Your lips, your body, your smell. You make me ache every night.”
“I can fix that for you.” She moved her hips, teasing him, inviting more intimate touches.
He groaned. His mouth returned to hers, his tongue flirting until she growled and kissed him fully, making slow love to him with her mouth.
When they came up for air, he put his hands on the wall on each side of her head. “We have to stop.”
She covered her eyes. “Oh, God! Are you going to leave me hot and panting against a wall in the dark again?”
“No.” He pulled her hand down. “But we’re not going to do this tonight.” He grabbed the O-ring zipper on her shirt and tugged it up. “Not like this. Not while we’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“You stumbled out of the bathroom.”
“Okay, maybe I’m a little toasted, but I want you,” she said as he adjusted his jeans.
“The feeling is more than mutual, but this is wrong.”
She frowned. “Because I’m a local girl?”
He stilled. “No, Natalie. It’s wrong because I’m crazy about you. When we do this for the first time, it’s not going to be drunken sex behind a bar.”
“What if I change my mind about saying ‘yes’ in the morning light?”
“You won’t.”
“I might.”
He leaned closer and ran his thumb along her lower lip. “I want to be cold sober when I strip you naked, local girl. I want to remember kissing every single inch of you with total clarity.”
“Oh.” She gulped. “What else do you want?”
“I want you to be tequila free, so that you remember not only giving yourself to me, but also feeling every single movement when I’m making you mine.”
Heat filled her.
Words left her.
Her heart fainted.
She nodded, trying to kick start her brain back to life.
“Now, how about some New Year’s champagne?” he offered, taking her hand. “Your cousins were filling glasses when I left the pool table to find you.”
“Don’t we have another game of pool to play?”
“Not tonight. I’ll finish schooling you some other time.”
“You’ll finish schooling me?” she guffawed. “You only won the second game because I drank too much tequila.”
“Ah, hell.” He held the door open for her. “See, I knew you’d use that excuse.”
Chapter Seventeen
Tuesday Morning, New Year’s Day
“What’s the story on this mine?” Coop asked as Mac eased Claire’s Jeep through a dry wash at the bottom of a shallow ravine on the road to the Humdigger mine.
Mac glanced at Coop, who was sitting in the passenger seat. “My aunt Ruby owns it.”
He dropped into a lower gear as he climbed up the other side of the ravine, the tires spinning a little in the loose sand and gravel. This glorified deer trail hadn’t improved since the last time he and Claire had visited the mine, but the Jeep’s four-wheel drive was taking it in stride.
“Has Natalie told you about Ruby’s husband?” Butch asked Coop from the backseat. “The one she was married to before Natalie’s grandpa?”
Mac glanced at Butch in the rearview mirror, wondering how much show and tell was a good idea when it came to the Deadwood detective.
If Claire were along for the ride, she’d be covering their mouths at this point, but she was probably still sprawled out in their bed after last night’s revelry at the bar. She’d downed her fair share of beers, stumbling out to the Jeep with Mac’s help around two in the morning. She’d conked out on the short drive to the RV park, so plastered that he’d had to carry her inside and undress her. When he’d joined her under the covers, she muttered something about “Crazy Kate” and burrowed into his side, returning to her drunken slumber. Those naked plans for New Year’s that she’d mentioned before had been drowned out by alcohol
