Page 22 of Taking Charge (Lone Star Burn 4)
She glanced across the small aisle at David. He was reading a magazine, but he looked up and met her eyes. She opened her mouth to apologize. She wanted to say she knew how ungrateful she seemed and how much she appreciated his kindness, but she closed her mouth without uttering a word and turned away from him again.
The pilot announced they were preparing to land, and Lucy let out a sigh of relief. After landing, she unbuckled her seat belt, gathered up her purse, and forced a smile to her face. “I can’t wait to see Sarah.”
When David didn’t say anything, she raised her eyes to his. In one strong, incredibly sexy move, he dug his hand into the hair on the back of her neck and kissed her until she was arching against him wantonly. He released her and said, “Me too,” as if they hadn’t just exchanged a soul-rocking kiss.
Lucy swayed on her feet and brought a shaking hand to her lips. David stepped back and motioned toward the door. “Ready?”
She searched his face for what he was thinking but couldn’t read his expression. “What are we doing, David?”
A gentle smile stretched his lips. “Forgetting about everything else and enjoying the weekend.”
The pilot opened the door of the plane, and before Lucy had time to think much about what David had said, Sarah was bolting up the plane’s steps to hug her. “It is so good to see you,” Sarah exclaimed.
Lucy hugged her back tightly. “You too.”
Once released, Sarah threw her arms around David and gave him what looked like a bone-crunching embrace as well. “It feels like you’ve been gone forever.”
David laughed. “Hardly more than a week.”
Sarah’s smile was infectious. “Tony missed you, too, although he probably won’t say it.” The three of them walked down the steps of the plane together.
Tony pushed himself off from the front of an SUV and came to greet them. He wasn’t the huggable type, but Lucy gave him one anyway. He hugged her back, proof of Sarah’s influence on him.
David and Tony shook hands with warmth. “How is the Double C surviving without me?” David asked.
“It’s barely holding together,” Tony said. That description might have fit the ranch before Sarah came into Tony’s life, but not since. Still, it was probably nice to think he’d been missed.
“So nothing has changed,” David joked.
Tony made a face. “I’ve lost count of how many people came to see you but settled for talking my ear off. How did you ever get anything done?”
Sarah wrapped an arm around Tony’s waist and smiled up at him. “Poor Tony. It’s a burden being so popular.”
He attempted to look irritated, but failed. Instead, he swatted her behind playfully and said, “Don’t mock me, woman, or you’ll ruin my ability to intimidate people.”
Sarah laughed up at him. “That’s already shot to hell. Even Jace isn’t afraid of you anymore.”
David nodded in the vague direction of Tony’s ranch. “How is he?”
The pilot interrupted the conversation briefly to place the luggage in the back of the SUV and to give David and Lucy a card with his number on it. Tony suggested they continue the conversation while driving, and all agreed.
Sarah sat in the front seat with Tony. Lucy was with David behind them. As they drove, Sarah half turned in her seat so she could see them as she spoke. “Jace is still in New York with Charlie and Melanie. He’s anxious for the renovations to be done so they can move back into their house, but he says he’s having fun. We haven’t told him that you left. No one wants to be the one to break that to him.”
David’s expression tightened, and Lucy watched in wonder at his affection for someone else’s child. “He’ll always be welcome wherever I am. He knows that. I’ll make sure I have a man-to-man talk with him when he returns.”
“Can you do that with a six-year-old?” Sarah asked. David grunted as his reply, and Sarah reached back to give his knee a sympathetic pat. She directed her next words to Lucy. “He probably can. David has helped take care of Jace since he was a baby. He’s going to be an incredible father.”
David and Lucy looked at each other and then away. An awkward silence dragged on for several minutes. Eventually, David cleared his throat and asked, “Did Mason and Chelle fly in yet?”
Sarah shook her head. “They were supposed to be here already, but Mason had something come up at the last minute. They should arrive early tonight. They’re staying at a place in town, but I made up the bedroom with the queen-size bed in case—you know. David has his own room in the bunkhouse, but you two can do whatever. We’re all adults.”
Lucy’s face burned with a blush.
David’s eyes danced with amusement when they met hers.
Tony reached for his wife’s hand. “You might want to let them figure all that out for themselves.”
Happily oblivious, Sarah answered, “They shouldn’t feel awkward. We’re fine with whatever. As long as they don’t use that tree in the far field. The one with the low branches that has our names etched in it. That would be weird.”
David covered his mouth with a fist and choked back a pained laugh. “I won’t ask.”
“That’d be for the best,” Tony answered gruffly, but the look he gave Sarah was hot with old memories.
Lucy felt completely off-kilter. Part of her wanted to sink into the seat and disappear, but another part was tempted to laugh along with David. She settled for swatting the side of his leg.
David took her hand and settled it beneath his on his thigh. With a playful grin, he nodded at her as if to ask if she wanted to test out a tree of their own. A collage of erotic possibilities flew through Lucy’s head, and she suddenly found it difficult to think of anything else.
She pictured herself naked with her legs spread at just the right height for David to feast upon. When they kissed, his tongue was strong and bold. Would it be the same as it adored her eager sex? Would he circle her clit or tug at it with his teeth? She closed her eyes briefly and imagined how that powerful tongue would feel plunging in and out of her.
David’s thigh tensed beneath her hand, and when she looked back at him, she saw a mirroring need in his eyes. The front of his jeans bulged, and Lucy fought the impulse to move her hand over to caress him. Although Sarah had turned to face forward and was chatting with Tony, she could turn back at any moment.
David leaned over and spoke softly into her ear. “When you look at me like that, all I can think about is fucking you. I was enjoying the heaven between your legs, and you were begging me not to stop. Tell me you were imagining the same.”
Lucy’s mouth went dry as she fought the desire to turn and kiss the lips that were caressing her ear as he spoke. Saying yes would open a door she wasn’t ready to walk through yet. Even if my body feels ready. So ready.
Sarah saved her from having to answer by turning in her seat again. “We thought we’d have dinner at our place tonight, then do something together in town tomorrow. How does that sound?”
In a somewhat strangled voice, Lucy said, “I’m game for anything.”
“I like the way you think,” David said softly to her, then straightened. Heat spread through Lucy until nothing else mattered but David and every place where they were touching. “I’m surprised Melanie and Charles didn’t come back for the we
ekend.”
“Mason and Chelle are heading to New York next, so I’m sure they’ll meet up then,” Sarah answered.
Tony added, “Mason said he has news.”
Sarah’s smile shone. “Maybe they picked a wedding date.”
“As long as they don’t have it here.”
David smiled across at Lucy. “Tony always did like his privacy. If you think he’s bad now, you should have seen him before he met Sarah. At least now he knows the names of his employees.”
Sarah smiled at that. “Lucy, he really was that bad. He’d fire some of the hands, and David would rehire them without Tony even realizing they were the same men. He refused to talk to anyone but David and Melanie. Then I came along.”
Tony bemoaned, “And ruined my plan to die a lonely, miserable bastard.”
David laughed.
Tony shot a quick glare over his shoulder. “Push me, and we’ll see if we can line up some charity riding lessons while you’re here.”
“God, no,” David said with such disgust that it piqued Lucy’s curiosity.
“I thought you liked giving riding lessons,” Lucy said.
The car fell quiet again.
When no one else looked as if they would explain, Sarah made an awkward face and said, “I may have taken advantage of David’s good nature a teeny-tiny bit, but it was for a good cause.”
Lucy looked back and forth between David and Sarah. “Now I’m curious.”
Sarah waved a hand expressively beside her. “Remember that you were engaged to someone at the time.”
Lucy watched David’s expression closely. “What did you do, Sarah?”
“I encouraged women to pay to fly in from all over to meet David. They said they wanted to learn how to ride from him, but really they came to flirt with him. You wouldn’t believe what they were willing to pay simply to meet him. It was steady money for the children’s hospital. I’m glad you two are a couple, but it’ll be tough to find another fund-raising gig like that.”
“No need to; we’re not a couple,” Lucy said curtly and was just as shocked at her own announcement as Sarah looked. What did I think David was doing while I was engaged? Pining for me? She pictured him laughing and meeting different women every week, and just as quickly as desire had rocked through her, jealousy darkened her mood. How gullible can I be? He talks like he fell for me the moment he met me, but it’s obviously an exaggeration. What is it going to take to learn that people lie?
