Her Rebel Cowboy: Rodeo Knights, A Western Romance Page 11

  Her skin was incredibly soft, but it was cold. Too cold. She was fading quickly. He closed his eyes, summoning all his healing energy to his hand. His hand began to heat up, and he offered it to her, but she didn’t let him in. He moved his hand lower, trying to find a place where her barriers were less strong, and then he tried again…and again, she didn’t let him in.

  Shit.

  He withdrew his hand, irritated by the fact that his cock was starting to get hard. He needed to focus. Getting a hard-on was a ridiculous lack of discipline that hadn’t happened to him in centuries.

  He studied her for another moment, trying to decide the best place to touch her. The skin on her face was too soft. Her hip…too dangerous. Her arm or leg? Not connected closely enough to her vital organs. That left her torso. He could try her heart, but with her breast spilling out of the bodies, he’d be getting a handful of flesh that he didn’t want to risk.

  Her stomach then. The belly was a powerful source of energy for the soul and the physical being. With another groan of resignation, he tugged her bodice up and shoved her high-waisted pants lower on her belly. Her stomach was flat and muscled, but there was a softness that was pure woman.

  Jesus.

  Gritting his teeth, he flattened his palm over her stomach. Her body was soft and womanly beneath his touch, not the hard, steel of his own flesh. She was strong and muscular, but her body was so different than his. His palm burned with heat, but again, she didn’t accept his help.

  He tried three more times, and got nothing, except a bigger hard-on.

  Swearing, he untangled himself from her and got off the bed. It took a moment to get his balance, but he walked across the room and sat down on the floor, draping his hands over his knees while he took some space from her. “What do I do with you?” he asked her. His voice was low, bouncing off the walls, echoing his question back at him.

  He had to get out of the room. He had to find Dante. And he needed her help to do it.

  Her breath stuttered in her chest, and he narrowed his eyes. Did she look even more pale than she had before? Was her breathing shallower? He jumped up and strode back over to her. He crouched in front of her and touched her cheek. Her skin was definitely colder now. Son of a bitch. What was going on?

  Her eyelids suddenly fluttered, and then opened. He found himself instantly staring into the most vibrant blue eyes he’d ever seen in his life. They were icy blue, like a glacier that was ruthlessly tearing apart everything it its way. But at the same time, there was such pain and fear in her eyes, vulnerability that violated everything that a warrior should be. “I can’t die,” she whispered. “They need me.”

  Her voice was soft, so soft he could barely hear her, but it was laced with fierce determination. She was vulnerable and powerful, both at the same time, a combination he wasn’t accustomed to. Male warriors were only hard. Never vulnerable. But this woman was both, which intrigued him. He leaned forward, his hand still on her cheeks. “What can I do?”

  “Kiss me.” Her gaze was steady and unyielding, but her breath was becoming more shallow.

  He blinked. “Kiss you?” Instinctively, he dropped his hand

  The moment he released her, fear ran starkly across her face, and she cried out in protest. “Don’t let go!”

  He immediately put his hand on her cheek again, and this time, he saw her body shudder in response. “My touching helps you,” he said. “Why?”

  Her gaze met his, and he saw a hint of something in there. Embarrassment? Vulnerability? “I’m a lust demon,” she whispered. “I get my energy from sex. I need you.”

  “Oh…shit.” His cock got hard instantly, and he jerked backward, away from her. “I don’t do that.”

  “Don’t let go of me!” She snapped the command at him.

  For a long moment, he didn’t move, every instinct screaming at him to back off and not get involved. But when her eyes lids fluttered shut and her body went limp, fury tore through him. “No.” He crouched in front of her again and framed her face with both hands. “I need you.”

  For a moment, she didn’t respond, but then her eyes opened again. “Mutual need. Take me, I’m yours.”

  Again, with the surge of blood to his cock, like he was some animal who couldn’t control himself. “My leader is trapped in the demon realm. I need your help to find him.”

  She studied him. “You’ll give me sex only if I assist you?”

  He grimaced at the way she’d phrased it. “I don’t have sex. How else can I save you?”

  She shook her head, and her eyes fluttered shut again. “Lust demon,” she murmured. “Only sex.” She took a shuddering breath, and then went still.

  Shit. He didn’t do sex, and now he was supposed to make out with an unconscious woman? What the hell? If there was any way, any other way, he would do it, but there was nothing else. He had no other choice if he wanted to save his leader. Whatever it took to engage his mission. He’d made an oath, and there was no other path.

  With a deep inhale, he calmed his mind, shutting down his physical response to her. He steeled himself against her femininity, and then he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her mouth.

  The moment his mouth touched hers, he froze in absolute shock. Her lips were softer than he could even conceive of, like the air itself had come together to form her lips. He’d never experienced anything like it, and his entire body came alive. Energy rushed through him in a violent frenzy, and lust slammed into his gut violently.

  He gritted his teeth against the warring urges to drag the woman into his arms and unleashed himself onto her, and the equally strong instinct to hurl her aside and bolt for safety before anything further could happen.

  He did neither. He simply kept his mouth against hers, hoping that the closed-mouth kiss would be enough. Even aside from the fact that he wasn’t going to have sex, there was no way in hell he was going to take advantage of an unconscious woman, no matter what she’d said during her brief moment of lucidity—

  Her lips suddenly parted beneath his.

  Desire rushed through him, and before he could stop himself, he kissed her again, deeper this time, running the tip of his tongue over her lips. The moment he did, she responded. She began to kiss him back, her decadently mouth moving under his in a rush of sensual temptation that was beyond anything he’d every experienced.

  She slipped her tongue between his teeth, and he groaned when he felt it slide across his in a sensual caress. Sweat broke out on his forehead with the effort of restraining himself, but he kept to the script, deepening the kiss while never moving his hands to her body.

  Then she slid her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He lost his balance and went to his knees, falling against the side of the bed as she took over the kiss. Her mouth was hot and sensual, a temptation of the most sinful kind. His cock was hard as a rock, straining against his jeans, and his entire body was screaming for more.

  She deepened the kiss, a carnal assault against his defenses, stirring up desire in him that he’d never experienced. What this what his teammates had felt when they’d met their soulmates? Was this what all men felt when they fell under the spell of a woman? For the first time, he comprehended the power of a woman over a man. He’d always kept himself so far removed that no woman could access him, and yet with one kiss, he was consumed with thoughts about what he wanted to do to her, of what her breasts would taste like, of how he wanted to part her legs and—

  Shit!

  He jerked back, breaking the kiss, but she didn’t release him. Her grip was surprisingly strong, and he didn’t want to hurt her by exerting the effort it would take to break her hold. “I can’t do this,” he said.

  She met his gaze, her icy blue gaze steady. “You have to,” she said softly. “There’s no other way.”

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  Books By Stephanie Rowe

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  Wyoming Rebels series

  A Real Cowboy Never Says No
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br />   A Real Cowboy Knows How to Kiss

  A Real Cowboy Rides a Motorcycle

  A Real Cowboy Never Walks Away

  A Real Cowboy Loves Forever (Coming July 2017!)

  A Real Cowboy Always Trusts His Heart (Coming Soon!)

  Rogue Cowboy series

  A Rogue Cowboy for Her, featuring Brody Hart

  (Coming Soon!)

  Rodeo Knights series

  Her Rebel Cowboy

  Birch Crossing series

  Unexpectedly Mine

  Accidentally Mine

  Unintentionally Mine

  Irresistibly Mine

  Mistakenly Mine (Coming Soon!)

  Mystic Island series

  Wrapped Up in You

  PARANORMAL ROMANCE

  Order of the Night

  (An Order of the Blade Spinoff series)

  Edge of Midnight, featuring Thano Savakis

  (Coming Soon!)

  Heart of the Shifter series

  Dark Wolf Rising

  Dark Wolf Unbound

  Dark Wolf Untamed (Coming Soon!)

  Shadow Guardians series

  Leopard’s Kiss

  Order of the Blade series

  Darkness Awakened

  Darkness Seduced

  Darkness Surrendered

  Forever in Darkness

  Darkness Reborn

  Darkness Arisen

  Darkness Unleashed

  Inferno of Darkness

  Darkness Possessed

  Shadows of Darkness

  Hunt the Darkness

  Darkness Revealed (Coming Soon!)

  NightHunter series

  Not Quite Dead

  ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

  Alaska Heat Series

  Ice

  Chill

  Ghost

  YOUNG ADULT

  Once Upon an Ending Series

  The Fake Boyfriend Experiment

  Ice Cream, Jealousy & Other Dating Tips

  The Truth About Thongs

  How to Date a Bad Boy

  Pedicures Don’t Like Dirt

  Geeks Can Be Hot

  For a complete list of Stephanie’s books, click here.

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Stephanie Rowe is the author of more than forty-five novels, and she’s a four-time nominee for the RITA® award, the highest award in romance fiction. As an award-winning author, Stephanie has been touching readers’ hearts and keeping them spellbound for more than a decade with her contemporary romances, romantic suspense, paranormal romances, and YA contemporary romances.

  For the latest info on Stephanie and her books, connect with her on the web at:

  www.stephanierowe.com

  stephanie@stephanierowe.com

  To Guinevere Jones. Without you, this book never would have been written, and you know it! I love you, babe!

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to my beta readers and the Rockstars. You guys are the best! There are so many to thank by name, more than I could count, but here are those who I want to called out specially for all they did to help this book come to life: Malinda Davis Diehl, Leslie Barnes, Kayla Bartley, Alencia Bates Salters, Alyssa Bird, Donna Bossert, Jean Bowden, Shell Bryce, Ashley Cuesta, Denise Fluhr, Valerie Glass, Heidi Hoffman, Jeanne Stone, Guinevere Jones, Dottie Jones, Janet Juengling-Snell, Deb Julienne, Bridget Koan, Helen Loyal, Felicia Low Mikoll, Phyllis Marshall, Suzanne Mayer, Jodi Moore, Ashlee Murphy, Elizabeth Neal, Judi Pflughoeft, Carol Pretorius, Kasey Richardson, Caryn Santee, Amber Ellison Shriver, Summer Steelman, Regina Thomas, and Linda Watson. Special thanks to my family, who I love with every fiber of my heart and soul. And to AER, who is my world. Love you so much, baby girl! And to Joe, who teaches me every day what romance and true really is. I love you, babe!