Lori Armstrong - No Mercy

He stared. Then that damnably appealing cowboy grin appeared, slow, sexy, and hot as sin. “Two out of three works for me.” Dawson stripped off his jeans and climbed in.

His mouth and hands were on me before he’d jerked the shower curtain closed.

“Wait,” I said, breaking my lips free from his. I hooked my index finger next to my gums to remove the tobacco pouch from my mouth, tossing it toward the sink.

Dawson frowned at it. “Were you chewing?”

“Yeah.”

“I quit last year.”

“Good for you.” My arms circled his neck, and I plastered myself against his slick body.

“God, I miss that sweet minty taste.” He traced my lips with the tip of his tongue. “Give me a taste of what I’ve been missing, Mercy,” he said, and crushed his mouth to mine.

He kissed me until I felt I was drowning. In him. In the shower spray. In my own confusion. But for once I didn’t fight the deluge; I just let it carry me away.

I woke the next morning with a freight train roaring in my ear and pinned beneath a railcar. I squirmed. The snoring stopped. A rough hand dragged up and down my naked back in a sweetly intimate wake-up call.

“How’s your head?” he murmured.

I mumbled and hoped he’d take the hint and let me sleep.

Dawson rolled me on my back, gently pushing away my snarled hair. He stared at me until I worried that warts had popped up on my face overnight. Or was he in shock by how bad I looked in the morning? I hadn’t been a fresh-faced, dewy-eyed ingénue for years. “What?”

“You let me stay.”

“I wasn’t exactly in any position to throw you out.”

His left eyebrow winged up. “Complaining about the positions we tried last night?”

My body burned hot as a branding iron remembering the sexual heat and the intensity and the synchronicity between us. “No. Good thing I practice yoga, huh?”

“Very good thing.” A shy smile tilted the corners of his mouth, then spread across his rugged face. Not necessarily a movie-star-handsome mug, but well worn. Interesting. A little tough, a little tender.

I smiled back.

“Although I am an old man and I’ll probably be feeling it all day.”

“Doesn’t seem like you’ll need to raid Mr. Pawlowski’s stash of Viagra anytime soon.”

“Hey, that was almost a compliment, Gunderson.”

“It was a compliment, Dawson.” I traced the boxy shape of his jawline with my fingertips.

He turned his cheek into my hand and kissed my palm. “Are you gonna throw me out now?”

“I should. But how about if I make breakfast first.”

When Dawson headed to the bathroom, I escaped to the kitchen.

Cooking is not my forte. Food might help settle my stomach, although I couldn’t blame the way my insides jumped solely on too much liquid fun from the previous night.

While the coffee brewed, I tossed a half stick of butter and frozen hash browns in the cast iron frying pan, microwaved a package of bacon, and scrambled a half-dozen eggs.

I’d never mastered morning-after chitchat. Sex has never been a big thing for me, maybe because I’d gotten used to the feast or famine cycle of it. Been a dry spell lately.

The stairs creaked; my heart rate spiked. Christ. I’d had Sunnis shooting at me and I hadn’t reacted this skittishly.

Dawson poured himself a cup of coffee. “Want a reheat?”

“Sure.” I slid my mug across the counter and flipped the hash browns.

“If I were a gentleman I’d say you didn’t have to go to all this trouble, but damn, it smells too good to lie.”

The grandfather clock chimed seven times. “You proved you aren’t a gentleman a couple of times last night.”

“Mercy-”

“Butter the toast, Dawson. Everything else is almost done.”

He mumbled and grabbed the butter dish.

Once we sat down, I couldn’t help but watch him devour every morsel. Been a long time since I’d seen a man enjoy a meal with such… gusto. I shivered discreetly, recalling being on the receiving end of such single-minded concentration in another room of the house.

When we finished the meal, I poured more coffee.

He said, “Wanna talk about it?”

“About what? Last night?”

“Yes, but not the slamming, jamming sex. About before. Why you were getting drunk and picking fights at the bar.” Dawson held up a hand. “This is not an official interview. I’m asking as your friend.”

“Oh. So we’re friends now?”

He grinned. “Friends with naked benefits. Who pissed you off last night?”

“Geneva.”

His smile morphed into a frown. “Haven’t you been pals with her since you were both little cowgirls?”

“Yeah. Makes me wonder how long she’s been holding off on telling me how she really felt about me.”

“What’d she say?”

“That I’m a spoiled jet-setting ‘hobby rancher.’ It was time for me to grow up and become a responsible member of society. But if I sell my ranch, I’ll ruin her life… oh, and the lives of every single person in Eagle River County. A little contradictory, doncha think?” I sighed. “And Kit was sniffing around the other day basically saying the same thing.”

“He wants you to sell to him, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

Dawson’s gaze sharpened. “He threaten you?”

“No more than he did the last time.”

“I’m serious.”

“I am, too, friend . The truth is, I sort of went off on him when I found out Trey’s been his employee for the last year.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Not a clue.” I brooded into my coffee cup. “Does it make you wonder who else is in his employ?”

“Yeah. Kit hasn’t been telling anyone, even the people who work for him, who his investors are.”

“So Trey doesn’t know?”

“Nope. Neither does Laronda.”

“You asked her?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Part of me wondered how far Dawson had gone to pump Laronda for information.

“Evidently Kit thinks I’m the only thing standing between him and owning the ranch.”

“All the more reason to watch out for him. He’s up to something.”

I stood and refilled my cup. “I can handle Kit no problem.”

His chair scraped on the linoleum. From behind me he said, “I recognize the dismissal, so I’ll drop it for now. But if you need to talk, you know where to find me, okay?”

“Okay.” That was surprisingly easy.

“I have to go home and change before going into the office. Can Jake or Sophie give you a ride to your truck?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

“Can I get one for the road?”

I set down my cup and rummaged in the cupboard. “I don’t know if we have any Styrofoam cups with lids, Dawson.”

He turned me around. “I wasn’t talking about coffee.” Then his mouth came down on mine hard and he kissed the living daylights out of me.

I could scarcely breathe when he finally pulled back.

“Mercy Gunderson, you make me lose my ever-lovin’ mind.”

Dawson left without another word, which was good because I was pretty speechless anyway.

An hour later, I looked up from the Tri-State Livestock News when Jake said, “I’m borrowing the truck for a little while today. I need to haul the ATVs over to Bernie’s place. They’re running like a pack of crippled old dogs.”

“How about if I do it and save you the trip? I wanted to talk to him anyway about Axel, and this’ll give me a reason to show up.”

“Sure.” Jake didn’t demand to hear my plans, wasn’t his way, but I sensed his curiosity. “Another thing. Queenie’s back in the old barn. We need to talk about options with her. She’s old and that sore on her leg ain’t healing. The vet’s done everything he can.”