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  But when she lay the cash down on the dashboard and then propped her sandaled foot right next to it, assuming a sultry position, he wondered if that would be possible.

  He caught a glimpse of pink panties and he all but blew apart.

  “One more thing, stranger,” she said. “If you get all my clothes off with your bad guesses, then you get that dirty money back, too.”

  She smiled, probably already thinking she’d won.

  6

  THE CONTINUATION of a fantasy. Sex with a stranger.

  That’s what she wanted from him: no small talk, no wooing and definitely no names.

  Besides, she doubted he would guess hers. How many people nowadays were named something old-fashioned like Lucy anyway?

  She moved her bent leg, which was propped on the dashboard, back and forth. That caught his eye.

  He was all hers, and the power of that knowledge turned her on.

  “Any more guesses?” she asked, provoking him even more by tracing her fingers along her inner thigh.

  She saw his Adam’s apple work in his throat. Oh, she was being a real bad girl, toying with him like this.

  Who would’ve guessed she had it in her?

  He surprised her by slowly taking off his hat, smiling a secret smile, then putting his headgear in the window, as if to partially block what was about to go down.

  “No one’s around to see,” she said.

  “Maybe I’m just overprotective.”

  The way he said it gave her pause. Fierce, dead serious. His tone strayed too far from the amusing scenario she’d constructed.

  So she pushed the game. “I’m waiting for your next guess…or don’t you want to play?”

  A predatory grin curved his lips, and her blood raced.

  “All right then,” he said. “Eliza. It’s a soft name, but it also sounds like a genteel woman who craves action.”

  Lucy reached over to her dashboard-bound foot, slipped off her sandal then allowed it to drop to the floorboards. Lowering her leg, she anchored her bare foot near the stick shift, canting her knee against it, coyly inviting him without even saying a word.

  “You aren’t going to give me any hints, are you?” he asked.

  Gosh, a girl might think he was more focused on getting her name than seeing her body. But, then again, every time she looked at him, she could see how much he wanted her.

  “It’s fewer than ten letters,” she said.

  “Great.” He leaned an arm on the steering wheel, his muscles straining. Sleek under the tan of his skin. “That rules out something like Cinderella.”

  “I’ll count that feisty comment as a guess.”

  She doffed her other sandal and rested that foot on the seat, parting her legs so that her skirt rode up to clearly show her undies.

  His grin became even more wolfish, and he touched the red nail polish on her toe then traveled his fingers to her ankle, wrapping them around it.

  “Fewer than ten letters,” he said, massaging her with his thumb. “How about Tara? You look like a Tara to me.”

  At his every stroke, pressure thrummed between her legs, her clit swelling to a keen throb. She must not have been thinking straight, because the next thing she knew, she’d remarked, “You say that like you know a few Taras.”

  “Maybe there was one.” He ran a thumb over her instep, making her jump. “Back in my wayward youth, before I realized that I preferred not sticking around for long, no matter what their names were.”

  Too much information. She didn’t want him to think that she needed to know anything more, so she forged on.

  “Next guess?” she asked.

  “How about…Sheri? You look like you could be a sweet Sheri type in normal life.”

  He traced his thumb over the tender sole of her foot, and she bucked again, her clit seizing.

  “Ticklish?” he asked.

  Sassily, she tugged away from him. Then she reached up to her ear and removed one of her plain diamond earring studs.

  “Aw, earrings count?” he asked as she set the jewelry in a cup holder near the dash.

  “We’ve got two hours. Gotta stretch this out.”

  “I suppose we do.” He went for her ankle again, but she moved farther away, just to be cruel.

  “Next guess,” she said, batting her eyelashes, totally out of control. Or way too much in it.

  “At your command.” He motioned toward the earring in the holder. “Just to get that other ridiculous ear accoutrement out and move this game along, my next guess is…Snow White.”

  Okay, fair enough. She discarded the other stud.

  Then…an interruption.

  A person was yelling and squealing outside the truck, and Lucy looked through the window. A laughing couple in bathing suits and flip-flops ran past in the near distance, the man chasing after the woman. When they reached a compact car, he pinned her to it, and they kissed, then opened the vehicle to get something out and leave.

  The reminder that she and the cowboy weren’t alone out here heightened the sexual stakes, thickening the air, her blood.

  Her limbs went sensuously heavy with it, and she sank against the door, waiting for him to continue as adrenaline pushed her on.

  “Next?” she asked.

  He was ready. “Judy, Judith or any variation thereof.”

  The last word—plus his previous uttering of “accoutrement”—sounded strange coming from a cowboy. As she started to unbutton her blouse, she found herself wondering if he’d perhaps gone to college.

  But that didn’t mix with her fantasy. She wanted a simple lover with no complications, a rough-around-the-edges man who brought her that much closer to the elemental pleasure of discovering the woman who’d been buried inside her.

  As if knowing what she needed, his gaze devoured her while she undid the clothing. Then, making the most of it, she gaped the material enough to give him a hint of her simple white lace bra. It gave her boudoir cleavage, made her feel feminine and sexy.

  The sun slanted through his window, making his brown hair more golden, his eyes a hungrier shade of pale. She liked the way he looked at her, with no judgment. She didn’t need to please him—only herself.

  But best of all? She liked that she could leave at any time.

  Inspired, she shrugged the blouse off her shoulders, and it skimmed down her arms. Her nipples beaded against the bra lace, and as she did away with her top, she slumped down in the seat, stretching her arms over her head. The position emphasized her breasts, showing them off to full advantage.

  “Darlin’,” the cowboy murmured, running a hand through his hair.

  “Definitely not my name. Why don’t you help me off with this skirt for that particular wrong guess.”

  He paused, then shifted forward. His hand flattened over her belly and forced her to suck in a breath. Her sex had tightened again, going plumper, damper.

  With aching deliberation, he searched for the opening of her skirt, found it near her hip, undid the button, then the zipper. The friction of the sound wrested the air apart.

  Even though the languorous process took him forever, it was worth the wait. When he was done, he tugged her skirt down her legs, discarding it on the floorboards and running his fingertips down her thighs.

  Then he backed off, as if to give as good as he was getting from her—taunting and building the anticipation.

  He hovered and, even though he was inches away, she could feel him on her flesh, a vibrating stimulation.

  “Mary,” he said, venturing another guess. “Common enough name. I’ve got to go with the odds.”

  Unable to break gazes with him, she shook her head.

  “Bra,” she whispered.

  Reverently—how could she better describe it?—he unhooked her front clasp.

  The cups parted, and he carefully peeled them away from her breasts. The air excited her nipples even more, or maybe it was the fact that his eyes were feasting on her again.

  “Only one more chanc
e to get it right,” she said on the edge of a shiver.

  As if in slow motion, she saw him start to form an L with his mouth, and she panicked. Hearing her name from him might ruin everything. Surely he wouldn’t say—

  “Laurie,” he murmured.

  Relief surged through her, infusing her with the confidence she’d lacked for an anxious moment.

  She smiled, victorious. “Undies.”

  A hint of that darkness shaded him again—was her name really that important?—but it was overtaken by lust, pure and simple.

  He placed his hand on her chest, then slid it between her breasts, making her rock upward as he continued down. Her stomach, her belly, her pubis.

  Then he grasped her underwear with both hands and yanked it down, over her legs, her feet, freeing her of them.

  “What now?” he asked, sounding as if his voice had been dragged through cut glass.

  “You knew your way around me last night.”

  She didn’t understand why, but he seemed to recall something about their encounter that needled him. She could tell by the sudden distance in his eyes.

  “I get it,” he said. “You’re a player, and when you’re done, you like to put the pieces back willy-nilly then stuff the box away.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  But then some warmth eased back into his gaze, and he cupped one of her breasts, idly kneading it. She bit her lip, unable to talk anyway.

  “It’s just that I’m used to taking charge.” He flicked a thumb over her nipple. “And that’s not how it went last night at the end.”

  She was about to tell him to stop conversing, but when he took one of her legs and wrapped it around him, allowing him to get both knees on the seat, she sucked in a breath. Then he slid his hand to the junction of her legs.

  Gently, he separated her already drenched lips, then coasted his thumb between them. Her hips automatically moved with his ministrations.

  “I like to see what I can do for you,” he added. “I like to see your face flush because I know that I made it happen.”

  Without warning, he inserted a finger into her, and she gasped.

  “And I like to hear the sounds you make when you’re pleased.”

  She moaned, wanting to please him right back, and he smiled at her satisfied response. Then he coaxed another finger into her, widening her passage, stretching her until she opened her mouth and uttered a tight cry.

  She gyrated with his insistent rhythm, groping for a hold on the edge of the seat.

  “Can you come for me?” he asked.

  “Make me.”

  He used his other hand, his knuckle, to work her clit. As she grinded against him, she went blind, as if she’d gone out of body again, launched into a place where she was someone she hadn’t fully become yet.

  He kept going, pushing, urging, and she half whimpered, half groaned. It was the only sound she could hear in the echo chamber of her mind as she arched with the churning of his thrusting fingers.

  Circling, building like a storm rising above the ground…

  She zoomed along in the dark, rolling with every sensation. But when he lightly pinched her clit, he made her hit a wall.

  She screamed, clutched at him as she threatened to blast apart.

  But the pain felt so damn good, especially when she ricocheted off another wall, then another, finally blowing, fragments of her shooting up, falling…

  A rain of ecstasy hitting the ground and forcing her sight to come back little by little.

  She panted, vision clearing until she could see her cowboy above her, watching her meld back together in the heat of the air.

  A stranger who had stayed, she thought, even when all the other men who’d made love to her had left.

  A definite fantasy.

  After a time, he withdrew his fingers, then stroked her legs, as if taming her. He looked so very content at having created her orgasm.

  Soon, he reached down to grab her undies from the floor.

  “You keep them,” she said on a whim.

  He laughed.

  “Really.” She pushed her damp hair back from her forehead. “Along with the money you just won, mister.”

  At the false name, his laugh dissipated, and he picked up her other clothes, helping her get back into them.

  “How about a compromise then,” he said.

  She was just getting back into her shirt. It felt weird to go commando, but it felt wonderful, too, as if she’d accomplished something.

  She’d joined the secret club of every happy woman who’d gone without panties, and it’d been quite the initiation.

  “A compromise?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He got behind the wheel and held up the money.

  “What would you say to putting this toward our own room tonight?”

  Miss No Undies shot her cowboy a big smile, wondering if she dared to go further.

  EARLIER THAN EXPECTED, Lucy strolled into the microbrewery. She was on Sex Cloud Nine and had no doubt that it was obvious.

  She found Carmen chatting with a few of the college kids in an atrium that overlooked the channel and London Bridge. They were nursing beers and snacking on baby back ribs, and when Carmen spotted Lucy approaching, she toasted her with a mug.

  “Well, lookee here,” she said, extending an arm so she could cradle Lucy into a welcome hug. At the same time, she stood and began to lead her friend away from the table. “What a rascal.”

  The Lindsay Lohan girl waved to Lucy, seeming happy to see her. At her side, the Roy Rogers clone said, “Hey, Lucky!” and Nickelodeon guy asked her if she wanted a beer.

  Waving back, Lucy shook her head and thanked him. Meanwhile, Carmen guided her into a bar area, where the Yankees were playing on the TVs, then toward the restrooms.

  “Back in the parking lot, when you were walking toward that cowboy, I watched for a few minutes,” Carmen said, pushing open the door and ushering them inside the empty space. “Not long, but just enough to assure me that you had things in hand.”

  Lucy wasn’t positive about who had been more in control during the parking-lot rendezvous. All she knew was that her skin still felt flushed, as if the stranger’s hands had made her blood rise and burn her from the inside out. She also felt exposed, her skirt barely covering what she’d always hidden with underwear before now. The air tickled her there, a constant reminder of him.

  Carmen checked under all the stalls, then turned to Lucy when she found them empty. “So…you look very well fed, my dear.”

  “We had a nice…chat…in his truck.”

  “Chat. Is that the euphemism for hot sex?”

  Knowing a query for more information when she heard one, Lucy revealed her so-called tête-à-tête, again stopping herself from going into the details, even though Carmen was always the first person she confided in. It seemed right to keep something to herself, just as she had last night.

  A secret written down and kept in a closed box, Lucy thought. It belonged to her alone, so it was all the more precious.

  Carmen leaned back against the counter. “Can I meet him at some point? Just out of utter curiosity.”

  It was on the tip of Lucy’s tongue to say, “Sure, why not?” but she hesitated. Truthfully, she didn’t want to make any introductions. That would make him too real, not the figment of a more exciting life that was still too new to fully believe in.

  Not yet, at least.

  She tried to explain that to Carmen. Tried. But her friend only looked confused.

  “I’m not leaving you out of anything,” Lucy said. “Really. But once you start introducing a guy to friends, that’s a step. Know what I mean? It brings the interaction to a new level, and that’s the last thing I want.”

  “Luce, I just wonder if he’s a good guy or not. If he deserves you.”

  “So says the lady who plans to meet up with her own stranger today.”

  “Eddie’s not…” Carmen clearly didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
>
  “What? Even though you still don’t know much about him, he doesn’t fit into the ‘stranger’ category?”

  “I suppose. You’ve met Eddie, but I don’t know thing one about this cowboy. What if he…”

  Lucy fetched a piece of paper from her purse. Before she’d left her cowboy, she’d written his license number down. Texas plates, she’d noted, putting the information away so he wouldn’t see what she was doing before he’d gone to the nearby resort hotel to get a room.

  She’d only done it for Carmen’s sake. And…okay, maybe to appease the responsible Lucy that still nudged at her every so often.

  Handing the number to Carmen, who inspected it, Lucy glanced in the mirror and ran a hand over her loose, wild hair. Yeesh, she looked as if she’d been tumbled but good.

  Sweet.

  “And where’s his name?” Carmen asked.

  “I don’t want to know his name.”

  “Lu—You still didn’t get it?”

  Lucy sighed. “I seem to remember a conversation I had with some redheaded girl outside Peggy Sue’s yesterday. What did we talk about…? Oh, yeah. That strangers were the beauty of the road and we could drive away from them the next morning and it wouldn’t matter. You don’t happen to recall that discussion, do you?”

  Lowering her head, Carmen hid her expression. But when she glanced back up at Lucy, there was genuine concern in her gold-flecked eyes.

  “Touché,” her friend said. “I was running my mouth. But I never, in a thousand years, thought you’d listen to my nonsense.”

  Whoa. The girl who was supposed to be busting out after her breakup with Mal was actually the careful one here? The world had flipped upside down.

  Lucy came to rest on the sink counter next to her friend. Their arms brushed and neither of them said anything for a moment.

  Have I gone too far? Lucy asked herself. More importantly, when she returned to real life, would she look back in embarrassment on what she’d done on the road?

  She thought of the surge she got every time the cowboy set eyes on her, touched her. How could a girl who followed someone else’s rules for a profession ever regret that?