by Becky McGraw
“No, I’m not. That’s a woman’s belt.”
The woman huffed out a breath. “It will work. I left the other ones at home.”
“That’s your problem,” Dean replied smugly.
“Just take the damned belt,” she said with frustration. When he didn’t move, she sat back on the floor and glared up at him. “Are you always this difficult?”
Dean heard a hoot from behind him, and spun around. “No most of the time he’s much worse. This is his best behavior, Belinda. Be thankful,” Cord said with a smile for the woman, and a sideways glare at him. “C’mon man, just take the damned belt.” Cord took the belt from Belinda and laid it over the clothes on his arm.
“What the hell are you doing in here? You’re supposed to be working,” Dean reminded gruffly. It sure didn’t take his brother long to shuck off the responsibilities Dean had given him this morning. So much for him doing what Dean asked him to do, while he did this. Not only had Jeremy been in here this morning bugging the crap out of all of them, now Cord was doing the same.
“And so are you,” Cord reprimanded. “Sounds like the only thing you’re working at is being an abrasive asshole. Oh yeah, that’s not work for you. It comes naturally.”
“Pssht—this isn’t work either. But it is frustrating as hell.” Dean shoved a hand through his hair, and heard dual gasps from Belinda and Paulo. He patted the top of his hair then let his hand fall to his side.
Paulo grabbed the can of hairspray and a pick off of the coffee table and headed his way with a determined look on his face. Dean turned and almost ran down the hallway toward the bathroom. He felt Paulo hot on his heels, but he shut the bathroom door in his face and locked it for good measure. Dean needed some breathing room for a minute to get his head right.
He’d told his brother this wasn’t work, and compared to being a rancher it wasn’t. But Dean was fast seeing that the frustration factor alone made it worth every penny of the money they were paying him to do it. Even a thousand bucks an hour almost didn’t seem like enough. All those people buzzing around him like he was some kind of project they had to complete for a grade made him nervous.
Dean laid the clothes on the vanity, and pulled the jeans off the hanger then unbelted the robe he was wearing and let it drop to the floor. He inspected the jeans and decided they were a little heavy on the fancy stitching on the back pockets, but might be something he wore for special occasions. He surely wouldn’t be working outside in them.
At least they were bootcut and not those damned skinny leg jeans that men were wearing these days. He had no idea how men wore those damned jeans. He’d feel like he was in a sausage casing. One thing was for sure, the men that wore those type of jeans like Paulo, didn’t wear cowboy boots with them. Boots would never fit under the tight legs.
Dean put his legs in the jeans then pulled them up. To get them buttoned he had to suck in and lean back against the vanity. Before he zipped them he had to rearrange things to make sure the zipper didn’t catch anything important. God, if a man got excited in these jeans, there would definitely be trouble, he thought, as he finally got the zipper up and looked down at himself.
They were too tight, he decided, patting his ass and not feeling an inch of give in the material. He ran his thumb along the waistband and there was no room there either. Surely, that woman Belinda had brought more than one pair. Tina had sent a tailor out Wednesday to take his measurements, but the guy must’ve gotten the numbers wrong. Dean shoved his undershirt into the waistband of the jeans, put on his boots then opened the door. He walked back down the hall to the living room of the bunkhouse. Belinda was talking to Hope and Tina, so he just walked over there.
“These pants are too tight,” Dean complained and all three women swung around to face him. He figured they must’ve realized it too, because as a group they gasped and put their hands to their chests. He even heard a whimper from over by the sofa that had to come from Paulo. “I’m gonna bust out of these if I breathe too deeply. Get me another pair,” Dean said shortly.
Tina broke from the others to walk over and slowly circle him, inspecting him like she would a side of beef. That’s exactly what he felt like right then with the petite brunette’s hot eyes on his body. Uncomfortable, Dean shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“They’re perfect,” she said softly, as she stopped to face him.
Her gray eyes made it up as far as his mouth and lingered a second, before her gaze tracked back down his throat, moved slowly over his chest down his legs to his toes. “Perfect,” she repeated. On the return trip up his body, her eyes lingered for a moment at his crotch. That look he’d seen in her eyes the other day when she was moving the car came back. Interest. Desire.
Dean quickly found out that he was right about the lack of stretch in those jeans. Tina might as well have actually touched him there considering his reaction. That thought made him harder. “Get me another pair of damned jeans!” he demanded as he turned away quickly before anyone noticed his problem.
He strode back down the hallway, and slammed the bathroom door behind him. Leaning back against it, he shut his eyes. He’d had a fucking hard on since he met that woman. Her staring at him like that when he hadn’t had sex in three fucking years wasn’t helping his problem. He hadn’t taken the edge off in a long time either.
Why did his damned sex drive have to come out of hibernation now? And why because of a woman he did nothing but argue with? Because even though his mind might resist the idea of being attracted to the tiny spitfire, his body was definitely there.
Big time, he thought, looking down at the straining zipper on the jeans.
He kept feeling her soft skin against his palm when he took off her boots, and wondering if the rest of her shapely body was just as warm and silky. Wondered if the tips of her perky breasts were dusky pink or coral colored. And how they would taste. The tip of his tongue tingled, and Dean got so hard, he really did think he might break the zipper out of those jeans.
And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. This photo shoot was about to go to hell in a handbasket. Dean was about to be humiliated too. He knew someone would probably be knocking on that door soon, expecting him to come back out there. When he did, the whole crew was in for a surprise. Unless he did something to fix the situation himself.
Dean unzipped the jeans, and shoved them down his legs, grabbed the hand towel off the rack beside the sink, then shuffled over to sit on edge of the tub. He jerked his underwear down and fisted himself. Sitting sideways he leaned back against the wall, straddled the tub edge and closed his eyes. He gripped his painful erection, and stroked himself, as he pictured Tina Montgomery using that beautiful mouth of hers on him. Dean held back a moan, his breathing hitched, and his heart beat an unsteady rhythm in his chest.
With each stroke, each fantasy he indulged, the tension inside him ratcheted up. Pleasure built, his balls tightened and he moaned, damned close to coming when the bathroom door opened. A soft gasp followed, and his eyes flew open to see the woman he was fantasizing about standing there, looking as embarrassed as he felt right then.
God, he wished someone would just shoot him. Put him out of his misery. His face felt like it was on fire as he threw the hand towel over his lap and sat up.
“Um, I was just coming to see what was taking so long,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She waved her hand, put it to her cheek, then shook her head and dragged her eyes toward the toilet. “You just, ah…finish up…and I’ll be out there,” she said without looking at him. Tina crawfished back out of the door and pulled it shut. Dean just sat there with his heart pounding in his ears, more embarrassed than he’d ever been in his life.
His chin dropped to his chest, and he took slow even breaths trying to get himself together.
How in the hell was he going to face that woman now? Dean didn’t know, but he knew he couldn’t hang out in the bathroom all day. His eyes slid to the wall and up to the small window near the
ceiling, gauging his odds of fitting through it. Not good. With a heavy sigh, he stood and grabbed the hand towel before it fell on the floor. He looked down at himself and realized his problem had resolved itself now.
Odds were he would never have to worry about that problem again. Every time he looked at Tina Montgomery from now on, he’d probably shrivel up. She definitely wouldn’t be giving him that look again. Her walking in and catching him, a thirty-four-year-old man, jerking off like a teenager had to have been a shocker. A teenager would have been smarter than he had been. At least a teenager would remember to lock the damned door first.
Dean shook his head, and situated his underwear, then pulled the jeans up and zipped them. He tucked in his undershirt, then grabbed the shirt off of the vanity and slid into it. How the hell was he going to explain this and not look like the fool he was?
There was no explaining it. But she was a grown woman, and she knew he was divorced. Out here in the country there wasn’t an overabundance of available women. He was a man. With needs. But damn.
Dean felt his face heat up again, as he worked the buttons on the shirt, and tucked it into the jeans. The sparkly belt on the vanity mocked him. He stared it a minute, then decided that the best thing he could do was keep his mouth shut and do as he was told. He needed the money he made from this shoot. So maybe he could run away to Tahiti where nobody knew about what had just happened. The most he could hope for was that Tina Montgomery knew how to keep her mouth shut. Dean sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then slid the belt through the belt loops on the jeans and buckled it.
Stiffening his shoulders, Dean grabbed the knob and opened the bathroom door. He walked down the hallway to the living room, and saw her entourage standing in a circle on the other side of the room talking and laughing loudly. Paulo stepped to the side, holding his flat stomach while he laughed uproariously. Tina was standing right in the middle of the group holding court. Her eyes met his, a small knowing grin kicked up the side of her mouth. The conversation stopped, and all eyes swung his way.
The entire group grinned from ear-to-ear, including Tina, whose grin was wider than the rest. Tina Montgomery had told them. They were laughing at him. A feeling of betrayal momentarily displaced his embarrassment, but then turned into full blown anger.
If he felt like a teenager jerking off in the bathroom, then they were acting like teenagers gossiping about it. And it looked like Tina Montgomery was the head cheerleader. Dean was done with this shit. And he was done with her. He had work to do. They could enjoy their laugh, because they wouldn’t be taking any pictures, since their model had just quit.
“I’m outta here,” he said as he stomped across the room past them to the door.
He flung it open, and Cord stood there looking surprised. Dean gave him a heated glare, as he brushed past him. He was almost to the driveway when Tina yelled behind him. Dean didn’t stop. He needed to go for a ride. Maybe he’d just keep riding and never come back. That’s how he felt about his life these days. It sucked. The situation sucked. Tina called him again, and Dean increased his pace toward the barn. As short as her legs were, he could probably have Blaze saddled and be out of the barn before she caught up to him.
When he walked inside, the familiar smells comforted him, and he took a deep breath. This was what made him happy. Hope said he needed friends? The animals in this barn were his friends. They understood him, he could talk to them and not worry about them telling tales and laughing behind his back. These were the only friends he needed.
At least he could trust them.
Dean walked to the tack room, and pulled his saddle off the rack. He grabbed a striped blanket from the stack on a shelf, then took his bridle down from the peg by the door. When he walked out the door of the tack room, he went straight to Blaze’s stall, where he angrily unlatched the door. Blaze nudged his shoulder with his nose, but stepped back when he walked inside. Dean didn’t waste time with cross-ties today, he tossed the saddle blanket over the horse’s back, then haphazardly sat the saddle on top and secured it. He needed to get out of here fast.
The stall door creaked and swung wide. Even as small as she was, Tina Montgomery filled the space with all five feet of her angry body. “What the hell are you doing? We have a photo shoot to do.”
“We don’t have anything. I’m done with this shit,” Dean replied just as angrily, moving around in front of Blaze to slide the bit between his teeth. He pulled the straps over his ears, then scratched his jaw before grabbing the reins to move him out of the stall. Tina didn’t move. She stood there with her tiny fists perched on her hips, and her eyes burning him.
“Move,” he grated through his teeth.
“Not until you tell me what the hell is wrong with you.”
Dean laughed dryly. “You have to ask me that?”
“Are you upset because I walked in on you choking your chicken?” she asked and her lips twitched. “Because if so, trust me, I wanted you to finish. It might improve your disposition.”
“My disposition?” Dean repeated with a snort.
“Yeah. I think I finally figured out why you’re such an asshole.”
“Oh yeah? Do tell,” Dean invited sarcastically. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
To Dean’s mind, the only thing wrong with him was the woman standing in front of him being at the ranch. Ever since he met her, his life had been one trial after another. His peace was shattered, and his life disrupted. She just needed to take herself and her entourage right back wherever they came from and he would be just fine.
“I think you need to get laid,” she announced bluntly.
Shock shot through him, then anger. “Is that what you and your friends concluded after your discussion?” he asked gruffly, taking a step forward, leading Blaze with him. She had no choice but to move. Dean tied Blaze to the rail, then closed the stall door.
“Me and my friends?” Was that confusion he heard in her voice? He took a sideways glance at her, and saw it in her face too. No, he heard what he heard, saw what he saw. They had been laughing at him.
Dean shook his head, and untied the reins. “Playing dumb doesn’t work for you, buttercup. You’re too smart to pull it off.”
Her brows pinched tighter between her gray eyes, then suddenly her face lit up and her eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “You think I told them what you were doing in the bathroom?” she asked with an incredulous laugh.
Dean didn’t laugh. He didn’t find a damned thing funny about the situation. “Ya’ll were sure enjoying something when I walked into the room. Everyone shut up real fast to stare.”
“We weren’t laughing at you, and I didn’t tell them. I wouldn’t embarrass you like that. Paulo was telling us about his date from hell on Saturday night. That’s what we were laughing about,” she said, coming to stand in front of him.
Dean looked deeply into her eyes, gauged the sincerity in her tone and almost believed her. Almost. His chest loosened a little.
Tina took a step forward to put her hand on his chest and his heart did a funny little hop. “The reason we shut up was because we were all in awe of how handsome you looked. How perfect you are for the Texas Tomcat.” She moved her hand up to his face, and her thumb stroked his cheekbone. “Thank you for agreeing to do the shoot. It means everything to me.”
Silence settled between them, as their eyes held. The air between them sizzled, and tasting her lips became a driving need inside of him. Dean’s head gravitated toward hers as if pulled there by a magnetic force. Tina slid her hand to the back of his neck and pulled him toward her. The reins slithered from his fingers, and he put his hands at her hips to pull her closer. His lips met hers, and she sighed.
Her plump lips tasted like water to him, a dying man who had been marooned in a desert of loneliness far too long. Sweet desire ripped through his veins, and Dean lapped it up. Her tongue traced the seam of his lips, and his heart kicked in his chest. Opening his mouth, he deepened the kiss and lifted he
r against his body.
Tina moaned, leaning in to press her breasts against his chest, and he held her tighter. She said he needed to get laid. Well at that moment, she couldn’t be more right. And Dean was definitely on board with the sexy woman in his arms being the layer. Her enthusiasm for the kiss told him she was offering, and he was not about to refuse.
At least he might get something out of this damned situation.
“Daddy why were you choking the chickens? Grandma gets mad at me for chasing them. She’s really gonna be mad at you,” Jeremy informed and his laughter mixed with feminine giggles.
Shock broke the sensual dream world Dean had been caught in and he moaned, as he eased Tina back to her feet, and took a step back. She stumbled and put a hand on his arm to steady herself. His eyes flew to the stall adjacent to Blaze’s stall then back to his son. “Were you eavesdropping?” he asked sharply.
Jeremy cast his eyes down at the toes of his boots. “No, sir, we were just playing a game of marbles in there and heard ya’ll talking.”
The little blonde girl beside Jeremy folded her arms over her chest, and her eyes took on a look very similar to her aunt when she was pissed. “Aunt T, why were you kissing him? He’s mean to Jeremy!”
Tina groaned and slapped a hand to her forehead, then cast him a mischievous sideways glance at him. “He’s not mean, sweetie. He’s just frustrated from having to choke the chickens. Me, I just prefer a nice sharp knife to take care of them.”
A cold chill passed through Dean’s body, and he slid his hand up between her shoulder blades to grab a hank of Tina’s silky black hair and jerk.
She squealed then laughed. Both kids said, “Ewwww.” Tina’s laughter mixed with Jeremy and Laney’s. The joyful sound danced around inside of Dean’s skull, and carried a happy feeling through his body. At that moment, the last thing he wanted to do was work, either on a photo shoot or ranch chores. What he wanted to do was get this woman alone and kiss her again.
“Do you ride?” Dean asked when Tina’s laughter subsided.