His balls drew up tight as heat shot down his spine and along his shaft as he came. The orgasm that tore through him nearly knocked him on his ass with its intensity. His arm shook as he fought to hold his weight off her rather than collapsing onto her back like his body wanted him to.
He untangled his hand from her hair and she dropped her head down. Her loud breathing matched his own as they both gasped. Resting against her back, he placed a kiss between her shoulder blades and she shivered. He ran his tongue up her back and nipped the soft skin at the nape of her neck and her pussy clenched tightly around his cock. He’d have to remember that spot for next time. He carefully pulled out of her and disposed of the condom in the wastebasket beside the bed. Kat collapsed onto the mattress on her stomach, her face buried in the pillow.
Dropping down beside her, he ran his hand down her spine and rested his palm on her butt. She had a fantastic ass. After several minutes Kat turned her head and looked at him. “Now I know where the saying ‘rode hard and put away wet’ comes from.”
He burst out laughing. That was quite possibly the last thing he’d expected her to say.
She rolled onto her side and smiled. “That was amazing. Holy shit. Wow, we are so doing that again as soon as possible. I just need a minute.” She closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them again her eyes were twinkling with mischief. “But next time I’m on top. I have to try out that whole ‘save a horse ride a cowboy thing’ if that’s all right with you.”
“You’ve been listening to too much country music.” He laughed. He rolled onto his back and placed his hands behind his head. Damn, he felt good. He sighed. “Honey, you can ride me anytime you want.”
She glanced down his body and her eyes widened when they landed on his cock as it sprang to life again. “Already? Mmm, there is something to be said for clean living.”
“We’re just getting started showing you all the benefits to life on a ranch,” he said. Cupping the back of her head, he pulled her in to a kiss. He intended to show her exactly how amazing things could be while she was here.
Chapter Four
The sun poked its way through her sleep-filled haze. Peeking open her eyes, she glanced at the bedside clock. Seven-eighteen. Way too early to wake up on a Sunday morning. Kat rolled over and glanced at the empty space beside her. Instinctively she’d known Justin wasn’t the type to wait around for the awkward morning-after discussion. Hell, she’d known when he’d carried her to her room that he was keeping things nice and casual. But still that didn’t stop the stab of disappointment that cut through her gut.
Kat rolled out of bed and quickly dressed. She slid on a pair of jeans, tank top and boots before slathering sunscreen on every inch of exposed flesh. With one last look in the mirror, Kat inhaled deeply and opened her bedroom door. From down the hall she could dimly hear the clinking of glass and soft chatter. Following the sound, she strolled into the kitchen.
The sight seemed so normal, like a real family, not that she’d ever experienced that firsthand, but it was just what she’d always pictured a family looking like.
Denise stood with her back to Kat at the large gas range, spatula in hand as she tended to several frying pans all loaded up with various breakfast fare.
“Good morning, Kat,” Duncan said, watching her from his place at the table.
Denise spun around. “Oh Kat, morning. Sorry, I didn’t know you were up. Let me get you some coffee.”
Waving her off, Kat smiled. “You’re busy enough without waiting on me. Just point me in the direction of the cups and I’ll help myself.”
Kasey hopped up from the table, opened the oak cabinet beside the fridge and handed her a heavy stoneware mug.
“Thanks,” she murmured. Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she liberally added creamer until it looked the right color and scooped in a spoonful of sugar. Kat brought the cup up to her lips and inhaled deeply. “Mmm.” Now that was exactly what she needed to kick her body into gear. The first sip of the steamy brew was like liquid heaven, every cell in her body sighed with pleasure as the caffeine zipped through her system.
Coffee in hand, Kat eased herself into a vacant seat at the table. She couldn’t help wondering where Justin was. Judging by the spread of food Denise was cooking up, she expected more than just the four of them for breakfast. Her stomach clenched as she anticipated seeing him again. Would things be awkward if he pretended nothing had happened between them or would Justin treat her like a woman he was interested in? Damn it, they should have discussed this last night.
“Kat?”
She glanced up to find Denise, Kasey and Duncan all staring at her. Oh crap, how long had she been zoned out in her own little world?
“Sorry, I missed that,” she apologized.
“No problem, I just asked how hungry you were?”
No sooner had the question been asked than her stomach rumbled loudly.
“I guess you’re hungry.” Denise laughed then loaded up dishes with eggs, hash browns, bacon and pancakes and set them on the table then took her own seat.
Kat’s eyes widened as she stared at the spread placed on the table before her. Good lord, if she ate like this every morning, she’d never fit into any of her clothes back home. For her a normal breakfast consisted of a cup of coffee and a piece of toast or maybe a banana.
Watching Kasey and Duncan pile up their plates with food, she stared in awe. No way they’d be able to eat all that. Would they? Kasey rolled up a pancake and shoved half of it into his mouth with his fingers. As he lowered his hand Denise whacked it with her fork. “Hey, come on, manners, Kase.”
He glanced at Kat and mumbled, “Sorry,” around his mouthful of pancakes.
“No problem.” She stared in awe as they all continued to fill their plates.
“I thought you were hungry,” Denise said.
“I am.” She placed two pancakes and two strips of bacon on her plate.
“Is that all you plan to eat?” Duncan asked her.
“Mmm hmm.”
“You’re gonna need to eat more than that tomorrow if you’re working, we don’t stop until noon usually, so you’ll need lots of fuel to make it.”
She smiled at him. “I’ll be fine.”
Duncan shrugged. “All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Noted.”
Trying to be casual, she glanced toward the back door.
“Jus is already out working, a neighbor spotted a coyote this morning on the east pasture and gave us a call so Justin’s out dealing with it.”
The tension she hadn’t even realized she had in her shoulders eased. Maybe he hadn’t slipped out to avoid the morning-after thing at all.
“Do you get a lot of coyotes here?” she asked no one in particular.
Duncan shrugged. “I don’t know. Guess it depends on your definition. It’s a big ranch and as the weather gets hotter the animals go to ground, hiding from the heat, so food becomes scarcer. It makes the predators get a bit more daring looking for a meal. Thankfully there are plenty of ranches around so they seem to spread out their attacks a bit.”
The phone rang, interrupting the discussion around the table. Denise answered and after a brief conversation she hung up and sat back down. “That was Jus. He’s on his way back in. He said to ask you to meet him at the barn and he’d take you out and show you a bit of the ranch so you were ready to dig in tomorrow.”
Eager to see Justin again, she shoveled her food into her mouth and gulped down the last of her coffee. Denise laughed. “No need to rush, it will take Jus at least fifteen or twenty minutes to get back to the barn so you have time.”
Heat ran across her cheeks. Busted. God, could she be more obvious? She forced herself to slow down and eat the last couple of bites normally. Done, she pushed away from the table and put her plate in the dishwasher. Trying to look casual, she looked around the room.
Denise caught her eye and shook her head. “Just go.” She chuckled.
Kat turned to say bye to the guys and found them watching her. Kasey’s eyebrow arched in speculation, desire and interest burned in his eyes. He studied her as if trying to decide what the news meant. Duncan flashed her a bad-boy grin she couldn’t even begin to interpret. If she didn’t know better, she’d think finding out she was eager to see Justin had just made her more appealing to these two rugged cowboys.
“I’ll see you guys at lunch then I guess,” Kat said.
“You bet. Have fu-un,” Denise sang.
* * * * *
Outside in the yard, Kat looked around at the expansive land. It seemed to go for miles and miles before meeting up with the rocky slopes of the Santa Catalinas. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to live out here. Even with the cattle milling about, it was so quiet. She could actually hear herself think. Not something she’d ever been able to say in New York. She inhaled deeply and coughed. The air was too clean. Her lungs didn’t even know what to do with it. Where was the smog and car exhaust?
She rested her elbows on the top rung of the corral to wait for Justin. A cool breeze brushed against her skin and she leaned her head back to enjoy the feel of the sunshine on her face. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, it was incredibly peaceful here. She could certainly understand the appeal.
After several minutes she opened her eyes and scanned the horizon before she saw him riding across the land toward her. He looked amazing, so comfortable in the saddle. Man and beast moved as if they were one unit, each an extension of the other as they raced across the field. She’d never seen anyone ride with that kind of ease.
Her heart thumped against her chest. What would things be like when he reached her? Would there be that awkward morning-after, light-of-day discomfort? She certainly hoped not.
Justin rode up and stopped at the edge of the pen. As he dismounted, Kat strolled over and stopped beside him while he looped the reins over the rail. The beautiful buttery Palomino nickered and pushed her shoulder with his head. Kat laughed. “All right, you bossy thing.” She ran her hand down the horse’s soft muzzle. “Aren’t you gorgeous?”
The horse nickered again as if agreeing with her. Glancing at Justin, she asked, “What’s his name?”
“Scout.” Justin’s deep voice slid over her body. He glanced around the yard. They were completely alone. A slow, sexy smile spread across his face as he moved closer to her. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her toward him, lining up their bodies.
“Morning,” he whispered against her lips then kissed her. When they parted, they were both breathing heavily. “Sorry I wasn’t there this morning, I wanted to talk to you before I left, but holy smokes, woman, you are virtually impossible to wake up.”
She laughed. “I know, it’s awful. I sleep like the dead. I have to set three alarms every morning to make sure I hear them.”
“That explains it.” He looked at her and held her stare. Heat flared between them. Justin cleared his throat. “Right, well, if I plan to get any work done today I think we should uh…get rolling.”
“Sounds good.”
“You ever been on a horse before?”
“Yeah, I grew up riding.”
“Great, that makes things easy.” As they were talking, an older gentleman walked toward them with a saddled Appaloosa. Justin looked up. “Thanks, Jimmy.” The older man nodded as he stopped in front of them.
“Kat, this is Jimmy, Jimmy, Kat, she’ll be staying with us for the next six weeks or so.” He turned to Kat. “Jimmy has been working here since before I was born, so if you want to know anything about the area, he’s the one to ask.”
The grizzled old cowboy looked down at his boots and made a grumbling noise. She wasn’t sure if it was one of agreement or not.
Kat ran her hand along the nap of the Appaloosa. “And what’s your name?” she asked the horse.
“That’s Slick, he’ll be nice and gentle with you,” Justin told her.
The horse nickered in agreement.
“All right then, let’s get going. Do you need help getting on or are you good?” Justin asked.
Kat bristled at the implication that she needed help getting on her horse. “I’m fine, thanks.”
Justin chuckled and tipped his hat at her. “All righty.” He walked over to his own horse and in one smooth movement he was atop Scout.
“Show-off,” she muttered. Even with her long legs, it was a big reach to put her foot into the stirrup. With her foot situated she grabbed the horn of the saddle and bounced, once, twice and up she went onto the horse. Adjusting herself on the saddle, she took hold of the reins in both hands and sat up tall. It would definitely take some getting used to riding on a western saddle. Finally feeling as if she was ready, she glanced over at Justin who watched her with a little smirk on his face.
“We good?” he asked.
“Mmm hmm.”
He started the horses at an easy walk. Unfortunately her horse kept shaking his head.
Justin stopped alongside her. “Maybe just try holding the reins looser in one hand.”
She looked at him puzzled. “Why?”
“He’s not used to getting pulled like that from both sides.”
Kat wrinkled her brow but did as he suggested and transferred the reins to one hand and immediately the horse calmed beneath her. Huh, guess that was the problem after all.
Justin snickered. “Sorry, he’s not a fancy English kind of guy.”
“Ha ha.” She shifted on the saddle, trying to get her seat. Was it that obvious that she’d never ridden western? Great way to impress a cowboy by looking like a total city slicker.
Justin walked his horse over so he was practically resting against hers, with his thigh pressed up behind her leg. He placed his hand at the small of her back. “Slouch down in your seat a little.”
She curled her back.
He pushed a foot against hers in the stirrup. “Turn your foot out a little.” Doing as she was instructed, she moved her feet, the action forced her hips to shift deeper into the seat.
Justin nodded. “Yeah, more like that.” He adjusted the cowboy hat Denise had lent her and winked. “Now you look like a cowgirl, so let’s see what you’ve got.”
* * * * *
Several hours later Justin led Kat back toward the barn. He eased himself off his horse and looped the reins over the post. By the time he got over to Kat she was easing her leg over Slick’s back with painstaking care. It looked as if every one of her movements hurt. She’d no sooner planted her feet on the ground than she stumbled backward into his arms. If he hadn’t been standing behind her she would have fallen on her ass. With a groan Kat leaned against his chest and bent her legs. “Oh my god, my knees hurt.”
“It takes a little bit of getting used to.” He laughed. She’d done really good considering she didn’t do this every day. He rubbed her shoulders and she groaned. The raw, pleasured sound instantly shot a bolt of lust directly to his cock.
“Mmm, that feels good.” Kat tilted her head forward. He dug his thumbs into the knots on her neck.
“Holy crap, you’ve got magic hands.” Kat practically purred beneath his palms.
“Oh yeah, does that mean you don’t want me to stop?”
“Want you to stop? Hell no, I’ll be your frickin’ slave if you don’t stop.”
His dick twitched against his fly. “My slave, huh?” He liked the sound of that. A picture of Kat on her knees sucking his cock flashed through his mind. He pressed his hips against her ass. “So what exactly does being my slave entail?”
She smacked his arm. “Geez, perv, not what you’re thinking.”
Justin chuckled. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“Oh I don’t know, maybe the big hard dick in my ass.” She snorted
Justin groaned as the dick in question flexed at the idea of being in her ass. He pushed his hips against her and rubbed. “If my dick was in your ass, honey, you’d be moaning, not laughing.”
Kat snorted again. “We’ll see, cowboy.”
He gripped her hips and spun her around. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her head toward him. He held her stare. “You can count on it, Kat,” he whispered.
Chapter Five
Friday, after a long grueling day of work with Denise training cutting horses, Kat raised the brim of her hat off her forehead and dragged her sleeve along her face to wipe the grit and grime off her skin. What she needed was a nice hot shower. She bent over at the waist to stretch her back. With a groan her hands immediately went to her aching muscles.
She couldn’t believe she’d fallen off her horse today. Putting a cutter through its paces was a lot harder than it looked. When Slick had cut hard to the right to chase a calf, Kat had flown left and landed on a heap on the ground. Thank god Justin and the guys hadn’t been anywhere around when she’d fallen or there would be no way they’d take her with them next week.
Kat dropped the curry comb into the bucket, untied her horse from the post and set him loose in the field. She hoisted her saddle from its spot beside Denise’s on the fence. With the saddle on her shoulder she turned to Denise. “I’ll put the tack away if you want to grab first shower.”
“No, leave it, I can put it away.” Denise waved her hand.
“Don’t be silly, you’ve done it all week. I’m pretty sure you’ve more than earned first shower after putting up with me.”
Denise watched her and wrinkled her nose. “You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“That would be amazing.” Denise sighed. “You did good today. I think you’re really getting the hang of things. It’s been a huge help having you around. I’m not sure I want you to go work with the guys for the next couple weeks.”
“You never know, they might get sick of me the first day and send me packing.”
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