Page 18 of The Trouble With Tomboys (Tommy Creek 1)

Chapter Five

Grady crawled out of bed before dawn. All night, he kept jerking awake every half hour, haunted by erotic images, until he finally grew fed up with trying to sleep and shoved the sheets off his burning skin. He took a shower. As the water sluiced over his shoulders and through his hair, steaming the air around him, he closed his eyes, rested a hand against the shower wall, and bowed his head. Deciding this had to be about the most confusing moment of his life, he let out a long breath and lifted his face to the spray.

From one perspective, he wanted to hate B.J. Gilmore. She had no right to pressure him into doing anything he didn’t want to do, something he hadn’t been prepared to do. This was his life. He decided when he was ready to move on and when he wasn’t.

Damn some hot-headed tomboy who thought he needed a little prodding.

On the other hand, he wanted to return to her room, lock them both inside, and continue where they’d left off. She’d been right about one thing. Going without sex for too long couldn’t be healthy. . .hadn’t been healthy. It’d turned him into a maniac, an utter savage. He just wanted to tie her to the nearest bed and keep her there for two weeks straight. He wanted to pound and rut until she passed out from orgasm overdose. The things he had in mind would make it so she’d never walk right again.

God.

Rippling with need, his dick lengthened and his balls tightened. His body wanted more of B.J. Gilmore, and it didn’t care what he had to do to get her.

Yet decency told him he should apologize. His mother hadn’t raised him to be the type of man who kicked up a woman’s skirt twice in a row without protection and then ditched out on her at the first opportunity. He was better than that. A gentleman.

Guilt clogged his throat, and he swallowed, trying to work it loose.

Truth be told, he wouldn’t have survived if he’d stayed in her room. His nerves were rent to hell, and every particle of his being felt scattered and disorganized. He didn’t know who he was or how to be. He just knew he had to get as far away from her as possible.

In his entire life, he’d only been with one woman. He’d dated Amy for three years until they’d had sex on the night of their junior prom. At that point, it was a given they’d eventually marry. So, he’d never thought he’d be with anyone else. She’d been “the one.” He’d assumed he’d never have another for the rest of his life. But he’d had B.J., the very woman his dead wife had helped raise.

He’d always thought of her as the mouthy little Gilmore tomboy whose mama had died in a car accident when she was only three. B.J. was a tough hard-ass who didn’t take crap from anyone. Grady had never looked at her in a sexual light before, not until he’d glanced at her in the elevator and seen her nipples poking through her wet shirt, making him want to warm them with his breath. Of course, she’d been talking to him about sex, so at that point it was the only thing on his mind. But Grady was thirty-two years old, for Christ’s sake. He should’ve had more restraint. The mere sight of a woman’s tits definitely shouldn’t have pushed him over the edge.

Yet it had.

And now, here he was. . .confused. There was shame, sure. He’d just been with a woman who wasn’t his wife—whom he never intended to make his wife—and he’d liked it. It went against every single old-fashioned moral fiber he possessed.

Then there was anger. If she’d only left him alone, he wouldn’t have touched a hair on her head the entire trip, and none of his morals would be compromised. God, why hadn’t she just left him the hell alone?

The guilt for ditching out on her afterward ate at him the most, but the longing thumping through his bloodstream didn’t help in the least. His libido craved her again. Like a junkie going through withdrawal, his body felt edgy and impatient, needing more. . .now.

He didn’t want to want her. He wasn’t ready for this pulsing, gut-eating kind of necessity. He still loved Amy. He wanted to be with Amy. He wanted to make love with her, not some rude, irritating wannabe man.

But Amy was gone, and he felt lost and so conflicted, the water turned cold in his shower before he realized how long he’d been standing there.

Cursing under his breath, he shut off the stream and pushed the shower door open to reach for a towel.

One thing was certain. He needed to apologize. It didn’t matter how much he blamed B.J. for their encounter, he’d fully participated. And leaving her alone afterward was inexcusable.

He’d say something on the plane.

But damn. . .he certainly didn’t relish the idea of being stuck alone with her on a tiny aircraft the entire way back to Tommy Creek. . .not when she’d be close enough he could smell her or, God help him, lean over and taste her.

****

B.J. arrived at the rented hangar half an hour before their rendezvous. Blood thrummed through her veins as she neared her plane. Today, she wanted to fly fast. She needed to vent, and her skywagon was just the tool in which to do that.

She’d had her Cessna TU206 for five years now. The Gilmore family business already had three planes between them. But ever since she was six years old and

her father had taken her up on a crop-dusting job, she’d wanted one to call her own. Pop let her think she was commandeering the throttle, and she’d been a goner. It’d taken her sixteen years to finally get approved for the loan to buy her own.

The money she’d borrowed for her twenty-year-old Cessna exceeded the mortgage on her house, but B.J. thought it was worth it. Her single-engine aircraft did everything she needed it to do. It was an SUV of the air. She used it for aerial photography on occasion, cargo-hauling at other times, and least frequently she transported up to four passengers or flew for skydiving lessons and jumps. She figured it’d pay itself off in another ten years if business kept on as it was.

Thankful it was a bright, sunny day, she pushed her mirrored sunglasses into place, making sure they were snugly settled before she patted the side of her Cessna in welcome. Nothing short of the hand of God was going to make her take those shades off either. Under the reflective lenses, her eyes were puffy and red.

Her hair was up in a ponytail—big shocker there—and she wore a black tank top with blue jeans. It definitely didn’t scream, come and get me, big boy, but when she glanced up and saw Grady watching her as he approached, she felt as if she were wearing the slinkiest, hottest piece of lingerie on the planet. He wanted her. It was spelled out in his clear blue eyes as his gaze slowly traveled down her body and meandered its way back up again.

Shock and animal awareness collided hard in her gut. She still couldn’t believe he’d actually showed. It wasn’t like there would be any commercial flights landing in their small countryside airstrip anytime in the next millennium, but she’d wondered if he’d just rent a car or something and drive home. She’d in no way thought he’d torture himself by riding back with her in a small enclosed space for nearly a whole hour.

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