He was half-naked, and he was handcuffed to her bed. Lucy stared at the sleeping cowboy, unable to move or even utter a cry of protest.
Everything else about her day so far had been normal. She’d put in a 12-hour shift at Sunny Horizons Travel dealing with frantic last-minute vacation planners, all the customers her coworkers didn’t want to handle. She’d had lunch with Claire--the one bright spot in her day--and she’d stopped at the ATM and the gas station on her way home. Now it was Friday night, time to relax and watch TV, maybe balance her checkbook and do some laundry.
But there was this stranger in a Stetson, and those silver handcuffs. Where had they come from, and what were they doing on her bed?
For one horrifying moment, Lucy wondered if she’d somehow stumbled into an intimate scene about to unfold in someone else’s apartment. Muscle-bound men didn’t fall asleep on her bed, and she didn’t own a pair of handcuffs.
But it was her bed, and her room, and her apartment, she assured herself as she looked around at the familiar setting. That didn’t change the fact of the slumbering, handcuffed cowboy.
Long, muscular arms stretched over his head, and a white Stetson tipped forward covered the face of the stranger. Impossibly wide shoulders tapered down to a smooth torso that begged to be touched by a woman’s hands, and faded jeans hugged narrow hips and enveloped bulging thighs. The picture was made complete by a pair of white snakeskin boots, accented by what looked like silver spurs.
In the agonizing moments it took her to recover from the shock, a voice in her head screamed, “call 911!” and yet she stood in the doorway paralyzed, unable to look away from the intruder. Somehow, by some bizarre stroke of luck, here was her fantasy come to life--a real, live, hunk of a cowboy at her mercy, in her bedroom. Her tired body was suddenly awake and on alert, her libido kicking into overdrive and sending tingles to places that had gone dormant for months.
Her heartbeat thudding in her ears, she willed herself to run, but she couldn’t move.
If she hadn’t been so numb from work, she might have found some humor in the bizarre scene, but she’d spent the last two hours at work dealing with the very angry Mr. Dorfler, whose vacation on the Family Fun Ship had been marred by a belligerent cruise ship employee in a Loopy the Cat costume. Now all she really wanted was to slide into her fuzzy pajamas and watch reruns of I Love Lucy on TV.
Something, some important fact she seemed to have forgotten, was nagging at her. And then she remembered... Claire had said she’d be leaving Lucy’s birthday gift in her apartment for her this afternoon.
It would be waiting for her on her bed.
Suddenly it all made terrible sense, and she was going to kill Claire Elliot.
Easing back out of the room for fear of waking the cowboy before she knew for sure that he was indeed her gift and not a masochistic intruder, she rushed to the phone in the kitchen and hit the auto-dial button for Claire’s number. The phone rang, and her friend picked up after two rings.
“Are you insane?”
“Hi, Luc. I presume you’ve found your birthday gift.” Claire’s self-satisfied smile was apparent even over the phone.
“If you’re speaking of the Western-style gigolo or whatever he is, I found him.”
Her friend’s raspy laughter came across the phone line loud and clear. “He’s not a gigolo, but I’m sure he’d be willing to accommodate a pretty girl like yourself during his off-hours--“
“Claire!”
“He’s your escort to the ranch. Didn’t he explain that?”
“He hasn’t quite had a chance yet, since he’s currently sawing wood in my bedroom.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s asleep! Now what’s this ranch you’re talking about?”
“Oh dear. I didn’t realize you’d be working so late. I had him arrive there at five o’clock,” Claire said, ignoring Lucy’s question. “The poor guy’s been handcuffed to your bed for over three hours—and what did you think of the handcuffs, by the way? Those were my idea.”
“What ranch?” By the time she got the words out, a horrible thought had occurred to her: The Fantasy Ranch. It was the infamous adults-only resort several hours out into the desert where party people like Claire loved to vacation. Rumors of wild parties and sexual escapades that took place at the resort circulated constantly around Phoenix. Just last month there’d been a story in the gossip pages about a party at the ranch that had ended with a fight between a popular movie actor and the paparazzo who’d caught him on camera literally with his pants down.
They’d gotten a fax at the travel agency several weeks ago saying that the ranch’s end of summer celebration was coming up, and it would be just like Claire to book her a surprise vacation at such an outrageous place.
Claire sighed over the phone. “I wish I could go with you. That was the plan, but these weekend meetings came up at the last minute--“
“We can go on a trip together any time. When you get back we can plan that trip to Hawaii we’ve been talking about. I’m just going to spend the weekend watching reruns--“
“No, you’re not. As your boss, I order you to take the trip as planned. Just go with Buck instead of me. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get him for you.”
Lucy felt her insides go all jiggly as she considered the possibility of going off to a resort with a complete stranger. “But I--“
“No arguments. You’ve said yourself that you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with no one but your cats to keep you warm at night. This is your chance to learn how to loosen up and have fun. In fact, I dare you to be a little naughty for once in your life, and you’d better not show up at work for at least another week.”
Lucy blinked in shock as the line went dead. She hit redial several times, but the line was busy now. Claire had hung up on her and left her to deal with a stud named Buck. She should have never, ever told that awful woman about her secret cowboy fantasy.
If the half-naked man asleep on her bed is a sign of things to come, then Lucy Connors is in for the time of her life! She’s never been given such a sexy gift. Wide-awake, Judd Walker is irresistible and suddenly she’s shedding her conservative ways and heading off to an adult-only resort-with him as her personal escort. The possibilities for this week of celebration are endless...
