In a Cowboy’s Bed

by Cat Johnson

  Mike was fucking her, finger fucking, expertly plundering that secret place and making her desperate. She couldn’t hold still, couldn’t direct her movements. She dimly recognized the harsh breaths as coming from her. Breathing gave her purpose, something to do while Mike carried her to the edge. His expression spoke of determination and arousal. He was getting off on exciting her.

  Of course. Mike didn’t believe in letting others do to him. A man’s man. Strength and determination, leather and stone, and yet, somehow, attuned to a woman’s needs.

  Her needs.

  “I love how you look right now, the hunger in the way you move,” he told her. Retreat and advance, retreat and advance, his finger further blurring her ability to concentrate. As she moaned and twisted, her legs gaping and closing repeatedly, she somehow focused on the man’s dark eyes and clenched jaw.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” she whimpered.

  His nostrils flared and his mouth opened. Even as release lapped at her, she guessed his arm had started burning. He was punishing himself for her, attacking her sex because instinct or experience had told him this was what she needed.

  Gifting her. Putting her needs before his.

  Why did she feel so full down there? Had—oh, yes, he’d slipped two fingers inside her, doubled her pleasure.

  Her spine bowed, pressing the back of her head against the spread and lifting her ass off it. Crying, she opened herself to him even more by deeply bending her knees and splaying her legs. Became a bitch for both of them.

  The volcano opened up in front of her. She twisted toward Mike and locked her hands around the closest masculine arm. A heartbeat later, a climax slammed into her, knocking her off the cliff and making her shake. Cry. She kept going up, up, spiraling into the night sky. Hanging there. Her sex muscles contracted, fluttered, contracted again. Lost as she was, she remained aware of the man responsible.

  “Thank you,” slipped past her numb lips. “Thank you.”

  When she extended her arms toward him, Mike climbed onto the bed and positioned himself over her. Looking up at him with her body spent made her feel vulnerable, but even though she didn’t yet trust her muscles, she wanted to do this for him.

  “That was incredible,” she said. Her legs had remained open, not just because she hadn’t been able to think how to change their position, but because modesty had no place in this room.

  He knelt within the space she’d created for him with his hands on either side of her ribs and his elbows locked, making her think of a predator crouching over his kill. Big as he was, maybe she should be uneasy, but his earlier handling of her told her she could trust him in all things and all ways.

  Smiling, she slid her hands over his arms. “You did me good,” she admitted. “Fast and hard. Incredible.”

  “Good.” He started sinking lower, closing the space between them. “I wasn’t sure that was what you—making love’s a lot different from running a ranch.”

  Making love.

  Separation evaporating, body heat joining. Dizzy with anticipation, she dug in with her fingers. She tried to look down his length for a glimpse of his cock, but they were too close to each other. There was another way of accomplishing what she wanted, a taste of intimacy she might never recover from. She planted her feet on the spread and tilted her pussy toward him, let her body say what she didn’t have the words for.

  Mike understood the invitation, of course he did. As his weight settled over her, she spread her fingers over his back. He was so damn strong with muscles honed from a life she barely comprehended.

  There. Hard heat covered by silken flesh touching her entrance. Earlier, she’d loved watching him, but now she closed her eyes so she could lose herself in the feel of him inside her. The darkness took her, not just into a world created by sensation, but to a place bordered by a man’s strength.

  Deeper, deeper still, his cock stretched the walls of her sex, making them one. She kept herself loose and easy for him until the touch of his balls on her pussy told her he’d gone as far as he could. Then she closed her sex muscles around him. Captured him.

  “Yes.” His arms pressed against her sides. “Yes.”

  As he hovered tense and trembling over her, she stroked his arms. She wanted to ask why he he’d stopped moving but couldn’t find the right words. Any words. Determined to get through to him, she lifted her legs and closed them around his buttocks. A shudder ran through him, then tailed off. Moments later his cock drove deep into her, sliding her along the spread and prompting her to tighten her hold on him.

  He gifted her with something that wasn’t quite a rhythm, his movements were too jerky for that. The power behind every thrust made her wonder if he was capable of breaking her apart, not that she cared.

  Her body wasn’t done in after all. Grunting with every breath, she threw herself into delirious fucking. So Mike wanted to play rough and hard, did he? Fine, she’d meet him halfway by holding on with every bit of strength she owned. Her muscles burned. She wondered if they might cramp, but until they did—damn it, until that happened, she’d be what this cowboy wanted.

  Good. Ride him. Let him ride her. Slip into a place where nothing except sweat and strain mattered. Release intellect and bury herself in sensation. Take Mike’s frenzied pace and make it hers. Live for this.

  Pain screamed through her legs, warning her she’d asked too much of them. Reluctantly releasing her grip on his lower body, she let her feet slide down his thighs. He slowed, nearly stopped, yet his deep breaths said he was gathering himself for the next assault.

  Wanting to encourage him, she stretched out her arms and settled her fingers over the backs of his shoulders.

  “I won’t break. Whatever you throw at me,” she said, “it’s what I want.”

  “You better mean it because—”

  She silenced him by raking her nails over his shoulder blades. She didn’t think she’d applied enough pressure to draw blood, but so what if she had? He was rough. Rugged. Physical. Unbreakable.

  “Hold on,” he hissed. “Hold on.”

  Thrilled beyond understanding, she flung her arms over her head and braced her hands against the headboard in an effort to anchor herself. She stared at the dark, sweating, intense man looming over her. Her breasts shook, so she felt the movement all the way to her back.

  Flames tore at her pussy as the fierce advance and retreat continued. She was falling apart down there, caught on the tip of release, holding on to the edge so anticipation would last. Wanting control of her body.

  Not giving a damn.

  “Yes!” she screamed. “Yes, Mike, oh, God, yes!”

  Release slammed into her with such force she briefly lost consciousness, but she found her way back to awareness. Her climax became a wonderful storm, a rolling, ripping sensation. Despite the damnable latex between his cock and her pussy, she knew when his body let go. Mike rose up, arched over her with his eyes locked on her. Even as her sex muscles continued their frenzied pulsations, she slipped out of herself and joined him in his release. The sounds coming from him made no sense, said everything about a man lost.

  “So good,” she crooned. “Both of us—so good.”

  Judging by the way his mouth worked, she thought he was going to say something. Instead, he sank down and rolled onto his side, taking her with him. She lay half over him listening to her body hum. There hadn’t been anything delicate about their union, too much sweat, strain, and noise for that, but it was wonderful.

  Completed her.

  Made her long to spend the foreseeable future with him.

  8

  Judging by the standing water he could see out the bedroom window, Mike concluded it must have rained all night. He couldn’t remember when he hadn’t been attuned to the weather. Any other morning, he’d already be up and in his boots so he could make sure the stored hay wasn’t getting wet. Instead, he’d slept until after six.

  He eased out of bed and bent over Kathy, then touched his mouth to her fo
rehead. That’s when the memories began. They’d pretty much passed out after having sex, but he’d come back to life in the middle of the night to find her studying him. It had taken him awhile to realize he’d left the light on, but no time at all to understand the message behind her gaze.

  Sex twice in a single night. No wonder he’d slept in.

  When she woke up, he’d ask about her plans for the day, suggest she spend it here with him.

  Buffeted by the thought, he continued to study her. Her hair was a disaster, and the pillow had left a crease on her right cheek. Even so, he was drawn to her in ways he couldn’t fathom. Given a day without chores, which would never happen, he’d crawl back into bed and keep her there with him. They’d make love, talk some, maybe get something to eat, make love again.

  But that wasn’t his reality.

  He kept his mind in neutral while getting a shower. His intention had been to grab a change of clothes and get dressed once he was in the living room, but either the sound of the shower or his leaving had wakened her. Whichever it was, she was looking at him when he stepped naked into the bedroom.

  “Where are you going?” she asked as she sat up. The bedding slid off her, exposing her breasts. The twin mounds looked overly pink and her nipples appeared swollen. Both conditions were his doing.

  “I need to check on things. The rain—”

  “Do you?”

  Between her steady gaze and lack of concern about her nudity, he understood the question wasn’t a casual one. Back when she’d been asleep, he hadn’t given a thought to putting distance between them. Now he acknowledged a need for space and thinking time. Things had happened so damn fast between them.

  “If you want to take a shower,” he said, “the coffee should be ready by the time you’ve finished.”

  “Do you mind getting my backpack out of my car?”

  “Not at all, and take all the time you need.”

  He couldn’t say she looked disappointed. Maybe she needed to be alone as much as he did. Just the same, when she nodded and got out of bed, he had to clamp down on the desire to bring her back to it. Her gaze strayed to his semi-erect penis, then settled on his chest.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Trying to wrap my mind—last night was, well, you know.”

  Was what, he should ask but wasn’t ready for her answer. When she turned from him, he watched her retreating naked ass. After she shut the bathroom door, he stood there a moment longer.

  A woman had spent the night, he unnecessarily reminded himself once he was dressed and measuring out coffee. For the first time since his marriage had ended, he hadn’t slept alone here. Maybe more to the point, he’d gone through the dark hours caring about nothing except Kathy—Kathy who?

  He wanted her to leave, he needed her to stay. He didn’t want to rehash their lovemaking—was there really enough between them to call it that? At the same time, he wished he could ask her if what they’d experienced had left her as physically satisfied as he’d been.

  He needed to explain why he’d come on so hard, fucked like some teenage boy. Pent-up sexual energy factored in all right, but there was something else.

  Kathy had touched him in ways he hadn’t known were possible.

  Once the coffee was perking and he’d left her pack in the bedroom, he turned on the morning news. Then he checked his smartphone for messages and e-mail. The way he saw it, smartphones had been developed for people like him who were seldom around a landline or computer. He was scanning through his e-mail when he spotted one from his former brother-in-law. Most times when Jarred wanted to get in touch, he called. A little uneasy, he opened the message.

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard about this,” Jarred had written. “Thought you should see it.” There was an attachment.

  Mike put down his phone and poured himself a cup of coffee. He thought about doing the same for Kathy, but maybe she spent a lot of time in the shower. Despite his reluctance to see what Jarred wanted to draw his attention to, he opened the attachment. It was an article from a Nevada newspaper about a rancher in the northern part of the state who’d been charged with unlawfully running sheep on BLM land. The sheep had been removed and the rancher fined. The group Watershed Protectors was up in arms. According to them, they’d been trying for months to get BLM employees to respond to their complaints about the damage the sheep were doing.

  “It’s unconscionable,” a spokesman for Watershed Protectors was quoted as saying. “It’s our contention that the agency turned a blind eye to what was happening on their land because agents were bribed. We won’t be satisfied with the farmer having his hand slapped. The entire public lands grazing program must be shut down before it’s too late.”

  He turned off his phone and started pulling cereal boxes out of the cupboard. He was angry at both the so-called rancher and the reactionary group. The rancher had deliberately broken the law, no doubt about it. At the same time, Watershed Protectors were trying to convince people that everything about the leasing program was wrong. Fortunately, because the crime had taken place in another state, he wouldn’t be drawn into the conflict.

  Unless Kathy heard about it.

  “Thank goodness I’d packed for several nights away from home,” she said as she joined him in the kitchen. She indicated her backpack. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have clean clothes.”

  She looked amazing, sexy, an incredible distraction from bad news. Her faded jeans covered her in all the ways denim should cover a woman. She wore a long-sleeved blue top. Two of the four buttons at her throat were undone. Her hair had been towel-dried and finger combed, and he didn’t think she was wearing makeup.

  “What are your plans?” he asked when she’d dropped her pack on the floor and was pouring herself some coffee.

  She studied the dark steaming liquid in her cup. “I . . . I should work on my article.”

  “You don’t sound very excited.”

  She sighed and lifted her head. Was it his imagination or was there something in her expression that hadn’t been there yesterday, a softening maybe? “I think I mentioned this before, but Outdoor Odyssey is successful because most of the articles are controversial.”

  He had to take a deep breath before he could continue. It was a good thing he hadn’t done something stupid like kiss her. “Are you saying you’re going to take sides about the grazing program?”

  Instead of answering, which he really didn’t want her to do, she crouched and unzipped an outside pocket on her pack. She pulled out her cell phone.

  “I got an idea when I was in the shower,” she said. “I want to propose it to my editor, but first I need your approval.”

  “For what?”

  The phone clutched in her right hand, she straightened. “To let me follow you around for a few days. I’d love to do a feature about modern ranching. People have this romanticized impression of what it means to be a cowboy. They deserve and need to know what the reality is. In part, I’d like to focus on what the BLM program means for ranchers like you, how it contributes to you being able to stay in business.”

  He’d still run cattle if he didn’t have access to the rangeland. It would cost him more for feed, which would lead to trying to sell the livestock for more.

  “You think people would be interested in that?” The image of her walking beside him for days—and in his bed at night—emptied his mind of all other thoughts.

  “With the right approach, of course.” She winked. “I’m not saying I’m an award-winning journalist, but I know how to use words to evoke emotion. Besides, with you as my subject, women would be salivating all over their monitors.”

  Making a lie of his earlier belief, he took her in his arms and buried her smile under his mouth. He held her small warmth against him, making no attempt to hide his sudden arousal from her. She hugged back, holding on with surprising strength. A small whimper slipped from her.

  The way she moved against him as if trying to turn them into one broke him
down even more. He wanted to start every day with his woman under his roof and in his embrace, her body always ready, understanding how much he loved this land and loving it back.

  He knew he was getting ahead of himself. They were much too new with each other to even think of a future together, but in the wake of what Jarred had sent him and the potential for water-damaged hay, he needed to focus on something good.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered when they drew back to take a breath, “whether you still wanted me here.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  He held her so close that her upturned face was blurred, so maybe he was wrong about seeing tears. “Things happened pretty fast between us,” she said. “From strangers to lovers in less than twenty-four hours—I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it. Is it the same for you?”

  “What I think . . .” No matter how hard he tried to plan his words, he wasn’t sure they’d come out the way they needed to. “Is that we should do what feels right.”

  “What’s right? What makes sense?” She ran her knuckles over his cheek. “My modern ranching article idea—maybe it’s just an excuse to hang around you.”

  “Is that wrong?”

  Eyes downcast, she slipped out of his embrace. “I don’t know what to think, Mike. Maybe . . . maybe what I need is some thinking space.”

  She was right. His mind all but shut down when she was close to him, gave way to physical need. Despite the impact on his emotions, he left her standing near the counter and took a couple of bowls out of the cupboard. He put one in front of her with a less than steady hand.

  “I eat cereal eight mornings a week,” he told her. “Gets breakfast out of the way in a few minutes.”

  She nodded and reached for a box. He couldn’t say what was so fascinating about the way she filled her bowl, just that every movement she made contributed to the burn between his legs. Their fingers brushed when he handed her the milk jug. Not trusting himself to get close to her again, he started eating standing up.