Falling for the Rancher

by Tanya Michaels

  “You don’t need fancy lingerie to be sexy.” He walked to her and took her hands in his. “You already look like a fantasy come to life.”

  Her grin tipped up, more confident and sultry. “Had a lot of fantasies about me, have you?”

  “Maybe one or two.” Or a hundred.

  “What’s your favorite?” she asked.

  He sat next to her, running his fingers through the damp silk of her hair. “The one where you say ‘make love to me.’ I’m not a complicated man.”

  She fell back on the mattress, pulling him with her. “Make love to me, cowboy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sierra’s life centered around physical responses and understanding the human body. But even with her vast knowledge, she was amazed by the overwhelming kaleidoscope of sensations she felt at Jarrett’s touch. The weight of him over her, the stroke of his fingers along her upper thigh, the playful sting as he gently bit her earlobe—it was all jumbled together in a dizzying, addictive heat.

  His mouth brushed over hers in teasing, minty kisses that made her desperate for more. Not a woman to be passive about what she wanted, she cupped his face and kissed him deeply. She felt his groan throughout her body, a rumble of approving thunder. By the time he unbuttoned her shirt, their kisses were becoming frantic.

  He traced the slope of her breast with his lips. “I think you’re my new favorite dessert,” he said, glancing up with wicked eyes before his tongue flicked across her nipple.

  She arched beneath him as he enthusiastically devoured her. Her hips rose to meet his in an unconscious rhythm that grew faster and more abandoned. Pleasure tightened inside her, and she trailed her fingers down his rock-hard abs until she slipped past the waistband of his pants and found something even harder.

  He drew in a sharp breath, thrusting against her hand. “Damn, that feels good.”

  “You’ll feel even better inside me,” she said, barely recognizing the husky, passion-drugged voice as her own.

  “I didn’t want to rush you.” He brushed his fingers over the excruciatingly sensitive skin of her inner thigh, closer and closer to where she needed him. “I wanted to make sure you—”

  She grabbed his hand, shutting her eyes and breathing hard, not wanting to spiral any closer to the edge without him. “Trust me. I’m—” she parroted back his words from the ring earlier today “—‘ready to proceed to the next step.’”

  He grinned against her skin. “Smart-ass.” Moving away from her just long enough to strip off his pants, he retrieved a condom from the pocket. She’d never been so happy to see a foil square in her entire life. He tore open the wrapper and she watched with unabashed eagerness as he unrolled the latex over the length of his erection.

  He braced himself over her, and just as she was thinking the intensely possessive look in his eyes was the sexiest thing she’d ever experienced, he pushed inside her. After that, there was no thinking at all. He was big, but she was so ready for him that there was no discomfort, only tantalizing friction as she tightened around him.

  Lacing his fingers through hers, he held her hands against the mattress as he moved inside her. He kissed her and the tight spirals of pleasure she’d experienced earlier were back, coiling and twisting and building on themselves until she shattered with an involuntary cry of release. Jarrett gripped her hips, thrusting into her more fervently, then following her over the edge. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and squeezed her to him. Squashed under his six-foot-plus frame, panting for breath and sweaty, she was utterly, blissfully content.

  Would wow be a completely unsophisticated thing to say right now?

  Eventually, he rolled off her, flopping onto his back but still holding her hand. Dazed, she watched the ceiling fan whir above them. It was set to a high speed, but hopelessly outmatched by the heat they’d just generated.

  Thinking about the sky she couldn’t see beyond the ceiling, she chuckled. “I’ve been meaning all week to go out one night and do some stargazing. I wasn’t expecting to see stars in my own bedroom.”

  He propped himself up on his elbow, smiling down at her. “There were stars?”

  “Shooting stars. Supernovas. A majestic orchestral score. It was like the best astronomy documentary ever.”

  He laughed. “For the sake of my fragile male ego, I’m going to pretend you didn’t just compare me to a film in science class.” After a moment, he said, “We’ll go stargazing before you leave. You, me, a picnic blanket in a secluded corner of the pasture...”

  Before she left. She swallowed, not wanting to think about that right now. “Do you know the names of a bunch of constellations?”

  “Beyond the Big Dipper, no. But I’ll learn them all if it impresses you.”

  She grinned at the idea of his still working to impress her even after he already had her naked.

  For a few minutes, they lay there in companionable silence. Her eyes were starting to drift closed when he admitted, “I’m starving.”

  She wasn’t surprised. Neither of them had eaten much at dinner. Had he, like her, been too keyed up with anticipation? “I wonder if we’d disturb Vicki if we went down to the kitchen for a late-night dessert run.”

  “Hey.” He rubbed his thumb over her hand, his voice suddenly serious. “About Vicki... I think it would be best for her if she doesn’t know there’s anything between you and me.”

  “Huh.” She bit her lip, considering. As he’d noted this afternoon, she had no real poker face. Being deceptive did not come easily to her. If she couldn’t keep Will Trent and Kate from seeing her attraction to Jarrett, how long would she be able to hide it from someone who was living with them?

  He sat up. “That’s not a problem, is it?”

  “Well, I wasn’t planning on anything obvious like throwing you down on the breakfast table and having my way with you—”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “—but I’ve never excelled at keeping secrets.”

  “You work in the medical field. Doctor-patient confidentiality is standard, right? Can this be employer-therapist confidentiality?”

  Actually, she preferred not to dwell on the fact that she was sleeping with the guy who signed her paychecks. In that context, it seemed unsavory.

  “She’s a kid who just got dumped,” he continued. “Finding out about our getting together days after Aaron broke her heart would be cruel timing.”

  “I guess you’re right.” No point in rubbing salt in Vicki’s emotional wounds.

  “Thank you.” His earnest gaze made it clear this was important to him. But after a moment, his expression turned playful. “I have some ideas about how I can demonstrate my gratitude.” The seductive drawl in his voice brightened her mood considerably.

  “Yeah?” She reached for him. “Like what, exactly?”

  As he began whispering his very detailed plans, they both forgot all about dessert, their only hunger for each other.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS the dinner dishes had been cleared away on Tuesday, Sierra declared, “Game night! Participation is mandatory.” She delivered the announcement with a smile to make herself seem like less of a dictator, but no way was she letting Vicki disappear into her room for the remainder of the evening.

  With the exception of two hours today at the weekly festival meeting, where Vicki had been as animated as any of the other women on the committee, she’d been fairly subdued since her friends left Sunday. Sierra was determined to keep the young woman engaged. Plus, structured evening activities for the three of them kept Sierra from counting the minutes until bedtime. Last night, Jarrett had appeared in her doorway to kiss her good-night. Which had taken three hours. So far, rain had made stargazing impossible. Luckily, the forecast for this weekend’s festival was clear. She jus
t hoped the ground had dried sufficiently by then so that the Rosses weren’t hosting the first annual Harvest Day mud pit.

  “Game night?” Vicki echoed disdainfully. “What is with you and the days-of-yore quality time? Last night, it was a jigsaw puzzle—”

  “I’m still bitter we turned out to only have 1,499 pieces of a 1,500-piece puzzle,” Sierra fumed.

  “And now board games? Throw in some paper dolls and blue hair rinse, and you’d be the little old lady my parents used to hire to babysit me.”

  Undeterred, Sierra plopped the Monopoly box she’d pulled from the hall closet onto the table. “So, basically, what you’re saying is you don’t want to play because you know I’ll win?”

  Vicki narrowed her eyes. “Big talk for a woman who’s about to get her ass kicked. I’ll be the banker.”

  Jarrett unfolded the board, holding out the silver tokens in his palm so everyone could choose what they wanted to be.

  “I’m the hat,” Sierra said.

  Jarrett set two pieces on Go. “And I’ve got dibs on the guy riding the horse, obviously. Vic?”

  “I’ll be the wheelbarrow. Closest thing to a wheelch— Wait, screw that. Give me the race car.”

  An hour later, Jarrett was smirking from behind a pile of money. Vicki didn’t have quite as much cash, but, since she’d amassed far more property than her brother, she didn’t have reason to worry yet. Meanwhile, luck had not favored Sierra, who’d landed in jail three times.

  “These freaking dice are cursed,” she muttered, preparing to roll them again.

  “Sore loser,” Vicki said.

  “Hell yes,” Sierra agreed, tossing the dice. She moved her token around the corner of the board, growling in frustration. There were only two spaces that already had hotels, but she had to land on one of them?

  Jarrett didn’t own much, but his strategy of investing everything he had was paying off. “Looks like someone can’t afford the rent,” he singsonged.

  “Only because my employers don’t pay me what I’m worth.” Since she had no properties of her own, she couldn’t even mortgage them to complete her turn.

  Jarrett’s teasing gaze dropped slowly over her, and her skin warmed at the memory of his touch. “Maybe we can work out some kind of trade for services.”

  Vicki whipped her head around. “Ew.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I was going to ask her to bake more of those caramel brownies. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  “I might as well make brownies. I’m done here.” She tossed the top-hat token back into the box and pushed her chair away from the table.

  “Guess it comes down to you and me,” he challenged his sister. “To the victor go the brownies!”

  She rolled her eyes. “You can’t eat a whole pan by yourself.”

  “Shows what you know,” he said, reaching for the dice. “I am a man of insatiable appetites.”

  Sierra poked her head into the pantry to hide her smile. Jarrett’s insatiability was why their lovemaking had gone on for hours last night. He’d been teasing about going to his room for more condoms when she’d fallen asleep limp, exhausted and thoroughly sated in his arms. But I’m wide-awake now. She darted a glance at the clock.

  All right, so she’d failed to avoid the bedtime countdown. But she awarded herself points for temporarily delaying it. That qualified as willpower. Almost.

  * * *

  SETUP FOR THE Harvest Day Festival began on Friday after lunch. The entire festival committee showed up, many women accompanied by husbands and brothers to assist with the manual labor. Kate had both Will and teenage Luke with her.

  “Cole said he’ll stop by once he’s off duty if we still need him,” she told Sierra. She consulted the binder in her hand with a worried sigh. “We could be at this all night.”

  “I don’t know.” Sierra was less daunted by the workload. “Between Vicki and Becca, they have the troops whipped into shape and executing their orders with precision.”

  Vicki was stationed on the porch with half of a two-way radio set, signing in volunteers and surveying the landscape. Meanwhile, Becca Johnston, armed with the other radio receiver, was zipping around the ranch like a hummingbird that had just downed its first espresso. Sierra’s theory was that the woman was moving too fast to be seen by the naked eye; the brain just filled in an image every time it detected the hot pink of her shirt flit by.

  Jarrett was down by the stables, where pony rides would be offered in the small practice ring tomorrow. Goats and a friendly pig would make up a temporary petting zoo in the bigger ring. Sierra was relieved he wasn’t anywhere in her vicinity, lest Kate see them together and somehow deduce their affair. The blonde’s detecting skills were every bit as honed as her policeman fiancé’s. At the committee lunch on Tuesday, Carrie Ann Rhodes, who was in her second trimester, said Kate had figured out she was pregnant before Carrie Ann had even taken the test.

  “Kate?” A woman at the base of the hill cupped her mouth and yelled up to them. “Anita just got the sound system into the tent and says we’re missing some cables. You happen to know where they are?”

  “I’m on it.” Kate headed in that direction at the same time a truck pulling a long trailer approached the house.

  Sierra went to meet the driver to let him know Vicki had everyone’s assignments. Three men climbed down from the mud-spattered cab.

  The driver’s eyes widened when he saw her. “And who might you be, little lady?” One of his companions ogled her outright, while the younger one ducked his gaze with a quick, deferential tip of his ball cap in greeting.

  “Sierra Bailey, festival volunteer, physical therapist and ornery cuss who doesn’t appreciate being called ‘little.’”

  The man laughed, nearly good-looking if it weren’t for the tobacco-stained teeth. “Well, I’m Larry Breelan. This is my brother Daryl and my other brother, Grady. We’ve got the risers for the tent.” He winked at her. “The Harvest Queen pageant is our favorite event of the whole festival.”

  She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “You’ll need to see Vicki about unloading the risers and anything else she needs your help with. Don’t give her any crap, and there’s fresh-squeezed lemonade and homemade brownies in your future.”

  “You can count on us.”

  Not only did she end up supplying snacks for the volunteers, the ranch was still bustling with volunteers by dinner.

  “I took care of it,” Vicki told her, rubbing the back of her neck. “The local pizza parlor is bringing us twenty pepperoni pies in exchange for special advertising at the festival tomorrow and preferential booth location.”

  Sierra leaned against the porch railing, regarding her with admiration. “I don’t know what your major is, but you could have a future as some kind of events coordinator. You’ve done a fantastic job today.” She hesitated, wondering if she should suggest the girl go inside and rest for a little while. She looked beat.

  “What?” Vicki glared.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You had that expression like you were about to ask me how I’m doing. That’s been the only thing I’ve hated about today, the constant questioning of how I’m doing. I’m fine.”

  Sierra held her hands up in front of her. “All right, no need to bite my head off. Just make sure you save some reserve energy for tomorrow. That’s when the real work is.”

  “Nah. Tomorrow will be fun. Sunday is the part that will suck.” Vicki screwed up her face, looking like a four-year-old who’d just been served a plate of broccoli. “Cleanup.”

  “Yikes. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Well, now that you’ve been warned, plan accordingly. Stay hydrated, take your vitamins, that kind of thing.” She gave Sierra an assessing look. “You probably shouldn’t stay up too late tonight.”
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br />   Was there a hidden meaning in that? Sierra’s stomach knotted. Did Vicki somehow know that Sierra’s past few nights hadn’t been all that restful? Oh, hell, what if we’ve been making too much noise? That was a mortifying thought. Then again, maybe the effort of keeping a secret was just making Sierra paranoid. She could be reading too much into Vicki’s suggestion.

  “I’ll be sure to get plenty of sleep,” she said, striving for a casual tone. “You do the same.”

  Before Vicki could answer, her walkie-talkie crackled.

  “Victoria? Becca here. Holt Miller has a question for you.”

  Sierra took that as her cue to leave.

  All of the people who were still present when the pizzas arrived expressed heartfelt gratitude and undying devotion to Vicki. Cole Trent teasingly asked her if she had ever thought about a future as an elected official.

  “Mayor Victoria Ross,” he said, reaching for the soda he’d set on the porch railing. “Something to consider a decade or two down the road.”

  Kate and Cole were the last ones to leave. By the time they drove away, Vicki was nodding off in her chair. Sierra helped with her pre-bedtime routine and didn’t leave her alone until she was actually tucked in, sticking around longer than usual in case Vicki needed her for anything.

  Now I just need someone to help me to bed. Stifling a yawn, Sierra tried to muster the oomph necessary to climb the spiral staircase. With slow, shuffling steps, she made her way to the top. Jarrett met her on the landing, toweling off his damp hair.

  “You look as beat as I feel,” he said sympathetically.

  “Never tell a woman she looks tired.”

  “Okay. But when you catch sight of yourself in the mirror, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on top of the head. “I’m assuming that we, by mutual agreement, are far too tired to fool around.”

  “I’d nod, but I don’t have the energy.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’ll leave you be tonight.”