Dinners with Fred were agony.

When the restaurant was quiet and the wind was just right, Laura could hear the low thrum of Tex’s laugh from the bar below, and the chatter of the people enjoying his drinks and showmanship. She had to assume his antics were particularly good when there were scattered cheers and laughter.

“What do you think?” Fred asked.

Laura looked up, totally derailed on their conversation. “About?”

“I said, you should go to the swimsuit competition tonight,” Fred said. “I have some paperwork I need to work on, but you should go enjoy it.”

Laura pictured Tex in one of the tiny, glittery swimsuits, and had to hide her sudden flush of heat with a bite of her exquisite roasted chicken in grapes and herb sauce. She had never heard of their chef before coming to Shifting Sands, but was sure he could give any cook in the fashionable LA restaurant district a run for his money.

It suddenly occurred to Laura that if there was a big competition tonight, maybe the bar would be slow. Slow enough for Tex to duck out.

“I think, ah, that I will turn in early tonight,” she said, wondering if she could get away with feigning a yawn. “I was up really early, you know, and it was an exciting day.”

Fred would think she meant the poisoning attempt, but Laura’s thoughts were much more carnal, remembering the feeling of Tex’s hands on her waist, the pressure of his -- she stuffed another forkful of chicken in her mouth and smiled apologetically.

Two tables over, the little blonde event hostess, Jessica Linn, was protesting that her chicken was dry and tough, sending it back so stridently that conversation for several tables around her died to nothing.

“Honestly, as much as I’m paying to be here, I can’t believe they don’t give you more options for dinners. Seriously, the service here is deplorable.”

Knowing the type, Laura suspected she was coming down off a good drunk.

“No, I don’t want a replacement. If you can’t cook chicken correctly, I don’t want any castoffs from the buffet. I’ll just hope I don’t get faint from low blood sugar halfway through the swimsuit contest.” She brushed Breck off with a wave of her napkin. “It’s not like this is the most important event of the contest or anything. I’ll just go see if anyone at the spa isn’t incompetent.”

She huffed away, tossing her long, bottle-blonde hair over her shoulder as she went.

Amused but hushed conversation sprang up in her wake.

“Give my regards to Chef for the meal,” Laura told Breck when he checked in on them next. “I really enjoyed this.”

She wondered if Chef would remember her undignified exit from his office earlier and had to smother a giggle.

Fred made one more weak attempt to convince her to watch the show, but Laura was already waving off dessert. She knew what she wanted for dessert, and it wasn’t any of the choices on the platter making the rounds of the dining room.

For the next hour, she paced her small hotel room. She tried concentrating on Jenny’s laptop, but her mind was not up for unraveling any mysteries, and she listened to the sounds of the resort through her open window instead — a note at the door of the hotel apologized for the air conditioning being under repair. Her heart lifted after a stampede of chattering traffic made its way to the theater, and the noises stilled to muffled music and distant applause.

When Tex finally knocked at the door, Laura was somehow unsurprised that she knew it was him before she opened it.

It wasn’t just a guess, she knew it somewhere behind her breastbone. Her wolf whined in anticipation.

She flung the door open, just as she realized that she should probably have changed into something more inviting during her wait.

Tex, holding a guitar in one hand and a cut flower in the other, looked at her as if she were wearing something that wasn’t even an option from Jenny’s limited wardrobe.

“I hoped you’d come,” she said, breathlessly, wondering if it sounded as foolish as her smile felt.

“The bar was dead,” Tex said, with a slow, appreciative smile. “I got Bastian to agree to serve drinks when the swimsuit contest breaks up and the losers need consolation drinks.”

Laura grinned. “Would you like to host your own swimsuit competition privately here this evening? I’ve got four designs to choose from…”

They didn’t even make it to the first, as Tex put his guitar in the corner and kicked the door closed behind him, reaching for her.

Laura tipped her head back and opened her mouth, sliding her arms up around his strong neck.

This wasn’t the same kind of lovemaking that they’d desperately snuck in Chef’s tiny locked office. This was slower, no less urgent, but more controlled.

He explored her body without removing her clothing, kissing where cloth revealed her skin, but making no move to tear it off. Laura followed suit, running her hands over his chest over the staff polo shirt. She let a fingernail trace his big belt buckle, and ran her hands back to squeeze his fine ass through his khaki staff pants.

They kissed and discovered each other, rising to a fever pitch of desire that Laura had never felt before.

“May I?” Tex finally asked, fingers at the bottom of her tank top.

“Oh, hell yes,” Laura managed, almost past speech with craving.

He peeled her tank top off so slowly that Laura actually whimpered. Then, when her hands were tangled in the garment above her head, he held her there for a long moment, his other hand following the curve of her side with worshipful slowness.

Laura didn’t exactly struggle, but gave a whine and needy wiggle, and Tex finished pulling the tanktop off of her and threw it across the room.

Laura saved him the trouble of fumbling with her bra and unclipped the back, but relished the way he pulled the straps off her shoulders, and released her breasts to the cooling night air as if in slow motion.

The bra joined the tanktop across the room.

Tex stepped back. The loss of his touch was delicious torture, and Laura swayed in place.

He drank her in, all appreciation and awe, then looked her in the eyes, expression overflowing with desire.

Laura had a sudden urge to prolong this, to wind him up and make him lose control, so when he moved to touch her again, she put up a hand and drew back to sit on the bed without him.

“Let’s see your moves, cowboy,” she told him, and she gestured with his hand.

He gave that slow, boyish smile, and reached for his hat.

“No,” Laura stopped him with a word. “Leave the hat for last.”

Tex tipped it at her, then proceeded to reach for his belt buckle. He flipped it open in one smooth motion, but paused, and made a show out of pulling his belt from the loops of his khakis. The cowboy boots went next, and he turned away from her so that his reach for them showed off his ass.

In one smooth move, he managed to flip off his hat, pull his shirt off over his head, and drop the hat back on. Shirtless, now wearing only a hat and his pants, he faced her again to unbuckle his pants, already bulging with promise.

Laura could not believe how hot she was getting. Her nipples were hard in the evening air, and she had to shift on the bed because her pussy was hot and demanding stimulation.

He teased her with the pants, flipping them open then covering up again, in time to the distant strains of the event music. He finally unbuttoned them entirely, and managed to time the release of his barely-clad cock with a distant roar of applause from the Mr. Shifter’s pageant.

They had no idea what kind of a show they were missing, Laura thought.

She lifted a finger and beckoned him nearer.

He sashayed over to her obligingly, and Laura put a finger into the band of his taut briefs.

He hissed, and shuddered.

“You’re quite the showman,” Laura said, voice warm with appreciation.

“It’s not all show,” Tex promised. He drew a finger of his own down Laura’s shoulder and she had to suck in her breath and shiver at his touch.

Waiting was suddenly not the best option.

Laura stood, and let Tex unbutton her shorts with one hand while he caressed her shoulder and side, pausing to cup her breast.

He slipped both shorts and panties down together over her ass, pausing for a squeeze. They were still for just a moment, standing close together and breathing in each other’s air before he kissed her roughly and tipped her down on the bed to pull them smoothly down her legs and toss them across the room.

His weight on the bed on either side of her made it creak, and if Laura had had any thoughts that weren’t of his touch and his smell and his skin, it would have been to be grateful that the hotel was currently deserted.

Then he was touching her eager folds, and she could feel the slick wetness that had gathered during his striptease against his big fingers. He stroked into her, once with one finger, again with two, and she arched up and cried out in a crest of pleasure and need.

Before she could come down from it, he was stripping off his briefs and entering her. His cock filled her impossibly, then filled her more at the next stroke, each thrust feeling deeper and wider.

Laura came again, moaning and writhing in his arms, and he slowed his thrusts to ease her fall from pleasure.

When she could breathe again, she kissed him, and they were a tangle of arms and touches and mouths in waves of sensation.

When he pulled out of her, Laura felt like she’d lost something, even though she was already feeling pounded sore and had found her bliss several times. She gave a little cry, but he kissed her, then turned her on the bed and mounted her from behind.

It was a whole new range of sensation, his cock pressing in new places of joy as he slid deeper into her.

She felt it when he began to lose control, his careful thrusts becoming frantic, and his hands on her arms tightening. It excited her as much as it did him, and she gave a scream of release as her final orgasm outdid any of the previous, matching his own moment of climax.

His last erratic thrusts died off slowly, and Laura enjoyed the spiral down as much as she had the ride up, aware again of the squeaking bed and the sounds of the evening outside the open window.

As their heartbeats finally slowed, they lay together on the bed and Tex stroked her arms and hips and sides as if he was lost in wonder.