by Johnson, Cat
And then he was inside her, shuddering with the overwhelming feel of the pleasure he had feared he would never get to feel again.
Vicki took in a deep shuttering breath. “I read the blog.” He thrust into her again and she closed her eyes for a second, before opening them to stare into his. “And I love you, too.”
He lowered her over him one more time and groaned as she said the words he so wanted to hear.
Reaching down between then, Ryan found the spot that would throw Vicki over the edge. He felt her body start to tighten around his as he watched the pleasure on her face. She watched him through heavily lidded eyes that kept drifting closed as she came, her body milking his until he felt the familiar tingle inside him and his toes in the rubber shower shoes starting to curl. With barely a second to spare Ryan remembered himself and hoisted Vicki off of him as he shot off between them.
Vicki still wrapped around him, Ryan leaned his forehead against hers as the spray deflected in all directions around them. “Mmm. One day, I’m going to be someplace where I can get my hands on a condom so I can stay inside you.”
“That would be nice.”
Her giggle sent shivers down his spine. He took in a deep breath. “I am so in love with you.”
Vicki smiled. “You know, I think I started to fall in love with you when I first read your blog. Why didn’t you tell me you were Groundpounder?”
He shrugged. “I tried to tell you a few times, but something always interrupted me.” Embarrassed at keeping that little secret, Ryan changed the subject. In between planting kisses on Vicki’s face and neck while enjoying the weight of her in his arms, he asked, “How did you know where to find me?”
“I stopped by the hut first and Wally told me. Then I saw your uniform hanging on the hook.”
Ryan grinned. “Good. I’d hate to think that my girl is popping naked into a shower stall with any old Joe.”
Vicki got an uncomfortable look on her face and unwrapped her legs from around his. “Listen, Ryan…”
Uh, oh. He let her stand on her own, but kept his arms firmly anchored around her back. “Yeah?”
“About your quitting the Army…”
Ryan shook his head to cut off any protest on her part. “Vicki. I meant what I wrote. There are lots of things I want to do with my life. When my current contract is up, I don’t have to reenlist to be happy.”
“I can’t…no, I won’t ask you to do that for me.”
He opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off.
“No. I fell in love with a soldier.” She laughed. “Even before I knew it was you, when you were just the author of a milblog. I would never ask you to give that up.”
“I don’t know if I like the fact you were in love with Groundpounder before me.”
“Well, it was more of a crush on him, I guess. And stop being silly, you’re the same person. But seriously, about your quitting...”
“I…we have plenty of time to think about it. I still have a few more months here, then another year before my contract is up and I have to decide anything.” Ryan ran his hands lightly up and down her arms, and watched the goosebumps rise to the surface of her skin as the hot water began to run out. He flipped the shower stream off. “So let’s not waste time worrying about it now. Okay?”
She nodded, then grimaced. “What’s Hawk going to do now that I’m back? Was he doing a happy dance when he heard I had left?”
“He’s the one that told me I should do whatever it took to get you back.”
“No!”
Ryan grinned. “Yeah, but don’t tell him I told you. It will spoil his mean guy act.”
Vicki smiled. “Okay. I promise.”
Regretfully, Ryan said, “We better get dressed. We’re lucky to have this much alone time in here already. Don’t want to push our luck.”
“You’re right.”
Getting dressed after having her totally naked for the first time in their relationship was not easy, but they managed it and were finally both decently clad to cross the base.
Walking back to the hut, Vicki turned to him. “I’m going to share my byline with you, you know.”
“What?”
“For the article on the women of Afghanistan. You did the interview, which was perfect by the way, so I’m putting you on my byline.”
He grabbed her and spun her to face him. “You are one amazing woman. Do you know that?”
“No, you are the one that is amazing. Soldier. Writer. Investigative Journalist. I think I’m a little jealous. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day you and your milblog get published. Your writing really is amazing.”
“Really. You think?” A writer. Now there was a post-military profession he hadn’t considered, but it kind of appealed to him.
She eyed him sideways. “Uh, oh. I better stop with the compliments. I can see your head swelling from here.”
An evil grin bowed Ryan’s lips. “Oh, I’m swelling alright. What do you say we get inside my quarters and I show you how much?”
“Oh, boy. Is this what life with you is going to be like? Just sex and orgasms all day long?” A coy smile played across her heart-shaped lips.
“You got a problem with that?”
“Nope, not one bit.”
“Good.”
The End
Available December 2008!
ROUGH STOCK
By Cat Johnson
Turn the page for a sneak peek…
Bronc riders Mason and Clay have shared both good times and bad, but they never expected to share their boss’ daughter, April. Can two friends love one woman, body and soul, without it destroying them?
The heart wants what it wants. For April that means not choosing between the two cowboys she loves, no matter how wrong it may seem inviting them both into her bed. But can the relationship survive when life sends the three lovers in opposite directions?
Filled with hot sex, passion, and realistic characters, and set amid the world of rodeo where life is lived eight seconds at a time, Rough Stock sends author Cat Johnson galloping full speed into the tantalizing realm of ménage romance.
Chapter One
The sudden appearance of pale, silky, feminine stomach stopped Clay Harris dead in his tracks. His greedy eyes devoured the smooth, firm skin, shadowed beneath the newfound lushness of her breasts.
He swallowed hard and found his voice husky. “April Elizabeth Carson. What do you think you’re doing?”
She paused to look at him, one hand stopped in mid-motion as it tugged the hem of her shirt up over her bra—her white, thin, lacy bra. “What? It’s hot. I’m going swimming.”
Clay’s best friend Mason Smith shot him a meaningful glance, a wide-eyed look of fear mingled with anticipation. “Um, shouldn’t you go home and change into a suit first?” Mason suggested.
“Why? The house is so far and I’m hot now.” Her guileless pale blue eyes proved that she had not a single clue what she was doing to them.
Clay knew exactly what Mason was thinking when he made the suggestion about the swimsuit. Their good old buddy April who they’d met when they came to work for her father five years ago was hot all right, but not in the way she meant when she said it. She had filled out over the past school year. April had turned eighteen and suddenly transformed from an underweight, gangly teenage girl whom they had always treated like one of the guys into someone who was all female. One look at her and all of her new shapely curves and there was no denying it.
Clay swallowed hard. She was going to whip off her t-shirt and shorts and dive into that lake in nothing but her bra and underwear, like she had done at least once or twice each summer whenever the heat got unbearable. But this time, unlike the others, his raging eighteen-year-old male hormones would not be able to ignore it. Nor would she be able to ignore his hard-on, which was already starting to wake up just at the thought.
“Shit,” Mason drawled out softly next to him as April did exactly as they feared, and what Clay suspected
they both secretly wanted.
Stripped down to white bikini undies and the lace bra that looked nothing like last year’s plain cotton tank-top style one, April pulled the elastic band out of her ponytail to release a tumbling cascade of long blonde curls, and then dove into the clear lake water.
Hell, this was way better than sneaking peeks inside the skin magazines when the store clerk wasn’t looking, but April was their friend. Now that she had suddenly turned into a woman, enjoying ogling her just seemed wrong, not to mention very weird.
Clay felt the already stifling Oklahoma heat around him ratchet up another notch. He wasn’t convinced it had anything to do with the weather, even though it had never been quite this hot during the last week of the school year before. Now was a hell of a time for the weather to go wonky, Clay thought, as both boys watched April’s progress.
She swam beneath the surface, gliding as easily as a fish through the water, before surfacing with a splash and a shake of her long, wet hair. Fish? Hell, she was more like a mermaid, and every man’s wet dream.
“Aren’t you two coming in?”
Hands buried deeply in both pockets, Mason surreptitiously adjusted himself within his jeans and glanced quickly at Clay. “Um, we need to get to the farm and start breaking that green horse your daddy just brought in or he’s gonna tan our hides.”
Barely comprehending Mason’s excuse over his own lusty thoughts, Clay nodded in agreement with whatever his friend had just said.
“Fine. I’ll get out. It’s no fun swimming alone.” With a pretty pout worthy of a centerfold, April stood, the water sleuthing off satin skin that Clay longed to run his hands over, his tongue, too, while he was at it.
She began walking toward them, her water-soaked bra and panties so see-through, she might as well have been wearing nothing. Though somehow this was more enticing.
Clay swallowed again and nearly choked. He realized he had no spit in his mouth, even though he seemed to have plenty of sweat on his palms. He reached down and wiped them on the denim covering his thighs while what he really longed to do was reach down and adjust himself, because the seam of his stiff jeans was not doing his now wide-awake hard-on any good.
Before them, April bent over to grab her clothes off the grass, revealing the tops of two creamy breasts. Clay had barely noticed the plump globes above the scalloped edge of her bra before because he was too distracted by the dusky traces of her nipples through the wet material, not to mention the barely visible outline of the pale curls beneath her undies that proved she was all natural blond.
Mason hissed out a breath next to him. “Crap, Clay. This just ain’t right.”
Clay didn’t take his eyes off April as she dressed, wiggling and jumping to get her clothes on over wet skin. The act was somehow as enticing as a striptease, only in reverse. As April sat on the grass to pull her boots on, Clay asked, “What ain’t right?”
Mason, the dark-haired, brown-eyed compliment to Clay’s paler dirty blonde, blue-eyed appearance, glowered. “You know damn well! She’s our friend.”
A quick sideways glance told Clay that in spite of his sudden moral protest, Mason hadn’t taken his eyes off of April either. Clay grinned at him. “Yeah, but now she’s our really hot female friend.”
Mason finally broke his gaze from the sight that consumed them both to look at his buddy. He let out a resolution-filled sigh. “Yeah, she is, but how do you reckon we decide which one of us gets to take a shot at having her?”
Clay raised a brow. Shit. He hadn’t considered that, but it was more than obvious, based on the physical evidence, that they both wanted her. Two of the Three Musketeers splitting off to be a couple while the third stood by and watched was not going to work well for the group dynamic.
“What are you two whispering about?” Suddenly, April was beside them, her still loose hair dripping down her back and over her shoulders, insuring that her white t-shirt stayed nice and wet and translucent just a little bit longer before the summer sun dried it and ruined the view.
“Nothing. Come on. I can’t wait to get my hands on that new stock.” Lying to her, Clay realized the new horse wasn’t the only thing he couldn’t wait to get his hands on.
He also realized that turning a good friendship with April into an even better one would surely be nice, but losing his best friend Mason in the process would suck.
One last thought crossed his mind as his pants felt tighter than ever. Riding a horse with a hard-on was going to really suck, too. Clay sincerely hoped his dick went down before he had to get up in the saddle or he’d be one unhappy cowboy. Next to him, Mason pulled his hat lower over his eyes and concentrated overly hard on the ground at his boots. Clay would bet this week’s paycheck from April’s daddy that Mason was thinking the exact same thing. They both had better rein in their hormones.
“Clinton asked me to go to the prom with him next week.”
At April’s announcement, Clay tripped over the toe of his boot and came to a sudden jolting stop in the road, Mason nearly running into the back of him.
Clinton was the quarterback of their high school football team, on top of having a rich daddy and a full-ride athletic scholarship to one of the big schools back east. He had everything cowboys like Clay and Mason, who worked for a living and couldn’t afford college, didn’t have. Clay would handle losing April to Mason if it came down to it, but he’d be damned before he let Clinton get April on top of everything else the privileged ass already had.
He tried to make his voice sound casual. “What’d you say to him?”
April shrugged. “I told him I’d give him an answer tomorrow.”
Mason gave his hat a shove backwards so he could look April in the eye. “What are you going to tell him?”
Yeah, Mason was no happier about this than Clay. Even if April hadn’t suddenly turned into a hottie they wanted for themselves, Clay still wouldn’t want her anywhere near Clinton. The guy had a hell of a reputation as a womanizer already, and he had only just turned eighteen. Clinton took after his daddy, if rumors were anything to go by. Clay knew that usually there was a bit of truth in even the most outrageous gossip. It was hard to keep a secret in a small community like theirs.
April looked from one boy to the other. “I’ll probably say yes since you guys aren’t going, right?”
Mason frowned beneath the brim of his hat. “We can’t. You know we’re both signed up to ride in the rough stock competition in Elk City that day. It’s the big championship.”
Clay nodded. “Yeah, we assumed you’d be coming to Elk City. You know, to watch us ride, like you usually do.”
April’s face fell a bit. “You guys ride in every rodeo within driving distance. I can come and see you anytime. But the prom…that’s once in a lifetime. You know? I kind of wanted to go.”
She scuffed the toe of her boot against the ground and Clay couldn’t help but notice exactly how sexy the long lean muscles of her legs looked in those denim cut-offs and boots. The discussion about Clinton had momentarily deflated his formerly happy erection, but the view was stirring things up again.
“I thought maybe if you two wanted, we could all go to the prom together.” April watched both he and Mason expectantly.
Why hadn’t she told them before now that she had suddenly become a sentimental girly girl who would choose a prom over a rodeo? Shit.
Clay frowned. “Mason and I already paid the entry fee.” Nearly half a week’s pay for each of them, but it was worth it. The purse, if either of them won, would way more than make up for what it had cost them in the entry fees and food stops while they were on the road.
“And your father is supplying rough stock for the amateur division. He’s counting on us driving the horse trailer out for him ‘cause he and your mama have plans that night.”
“Then I’ll tell Clinton I’ll go with him. No problem.” She turned on her heel and started down the road again.
Clay jogged after her. “Now, don’t get all mad at us
, April.”
“I’m not.” She shot him a look that belied what she said.
Clay huffed out a breath in frustration. “If you had told us you wanted to go before we signed up and paid for the competition, maybe we might have gone with you to the stupid prom instead.”
Her stiffened spine as she walked on ahead told him he hadn’t made things any better.
Shaking his head with a scowl, Mason shot Clay a look that had the word idiot written all over it and stepped faster after April.
Buckets of bull crap. Clay ran after them, regretting that April had grown up. If this new and wonderful woman’s body came packaged with the typical female inexplicable weirdness and perplexing behavior, he could do without it. He missed that she was no longer just one of the guys. Then he looked up and noticed her nicely rounded butt cheeks jiggling temptingly within her shorts as she angrily stomped down the road and he changed his mind.
When they reached her daddy’s farm, she broke off from them with barely a goodbye and headed for the house, while he and Mason turned toward the barns.
“Way to piss her off there, Clay.”
Glancing up, Clay noticed Mason was smiling. “What the hell are you smiling about? We’re both going to Elk City instead of with her to that prom.”
Still grinning, Mason grabbed a lead rope from the wall. “Yeah, but I didn’t call the prom stupid, genius.”
Following Mason to the paddock where the new horse had been turned out, Clay scowled. Calling it a stupid prom probably hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d done in recent memory, but he wasn’t going to let Mason get away with assuming he had any better chance with April than he did.
“Hate to burst your bubble there, buddy, but it’s not me you have to worry about. Clinton’s daddy can buy and sell both our families with what he’s got in his wallet alone. You think that’s not going to turn her head? Shit. She goes with him and we can write off any hope either one of us had with her for anything more than just friendship.”