by ML Michaels
Madison grinned.
“Well it sounds lovely,” she admitted, “Although I’m not exactly sure how to GPS a hop, skip and a jump.”
Luke chuckled.
“Don’t worry yourself, Ma’am,” he reassured her, adding as he made a broad gesture straight in his own direction, “I’ll be supplyin’ the transportation this evenin’.”
Madison arched her eyebrows.
“Are we going on horseback?” she queried.
Luke shook his head.
“Never have figured out how to navigate Blaze through the rigors of Atlanta traffic,” he joked, adding with a casual shrug, “Would you be too offended if we took a big ol’ black limo instead?”
Soon the couple faced each other across a lace-covered table in an expansive, high-ceilinged Atlanta restaurant that boasted red brocade walls lined with sterling examples of Old West art.
While digging in to two prime cut rib eye steaks and swigging beer mugs filled with crystalline champagne, Luke and Madison engaged in a professionally conducted interview. Luke revealed all of the details of his career to date—also delivering several PR-friendly quotes about just why it’s important for a rodeo star to smell good, in and out of the ring.
Finally, Madison put aside her pen and notebook and their discussion turned more personal, with Luke divulging the details of his recent breakup to his empathetic dinner date.
“I tell you, I thought that the two of us were meant to be, as totally trite as that sounds,” Luke insisted, shaking his head from side to side. “What did that crusty old stockbroker have that I didn’t?” he paused here, adding between gritted teeth, “Well, I mean besides the extra two mill in the bank, but that’s trivial!”
Madison laughed, but only briefly.
“Actually in my eyes, Luke, that is quite trivial—to me, at least,” she revealed, adding as she squared her shoulders for emphasis, “The way that I see it, Luke, I can make my own money. I’ll take a strong and rugged down home man over some big city billionaire any ol’ day.” She paused here, adding with a playful wink, “And if he also happens to be unforgivably hot, well then all the better!”
Luke guffawed outright.
“I like your style, Girl,” he praised her, applauding her words outright. “You’re so refreshing, and so unlike my ex, who I now realize was a brain-dead bimbo.” He paused here, raising a sturdy hand for emphasis. “Allow me to declare this here and now. No more supermodel air-heads for this dude!”
Madison lifted her crystalline goblet in something of a robust toast.
“Hear hear, my good man!” she praised him, adding as she rolled her eyes heavenward, “I only wish that my ex-boyfriend felt the same way. Truth be told, Luke, I originally had a partner on this particular PR assignment—and, for that matter, a partner in life. I lost both earlier this week, when I caught my boyfriend with a lingerie model—and on his desk, of all places. Could he be any more…?”
Madison froze here, her words faltering, and her voice cracking as she seemed to contemplate the depths of Lawrence’s betrayal.
“She wants to joke about it, but I do believe that the gal is hurt a lot more than she’s lettin’ on,” Luke observed in silence, “And if there’s anything that I cannot stand, it’s to see a woman in tears.”
Acting on impulse, the cowboy set aside his fork and cupped Madison’s cheeks in two tender hands, seizing her lips in a passionate kiss.
His full moist lips soothed and massaged hers in long, luxurious strokes, their tongues entangling as Madison sighed contented in response to this heated, impulsive advance.
“Must be doin’ somethin’ right,” he mused through a haze of passion, his own heart pounding as he savored the taste of her moist cherry-red lips.
Seeking to do even more right, an impassioned Luke angled his head over hers to intensify their pleasure, as his long wet tongue tenderly explored her mouth.
Finally, he broke their kiss, drawing back to stare deeply into her eyes as he whispered against her lips, “It makes me so angry, sweet Darlin’, that someone would hurt a bright, funny, amazing woman such as yourself. And I am tempted to do two things in response. I’d either like to find the no good varmint and beat him senseless…or take you back to my hotel room and make mad, passionate love to you.”
Madison thought a moment, then nodded.
“Well although I do happen to like both ideas,” she admitted, “I really, really like the second idea. Let’s go with that one!”
Soon Luke had escorted his dinner date to his deluxe suite at La Maison, a luxury hotel in the heart of downtown Atlanta.
Sweeping Madison up in his arms and carrying her over the threshold, Luke soon tossed her voluptuous body in a cushiony mass of sleek silk sheets. He then treated his admiring date to a flirty little striptease, taking off his button-down denim shirt and ultra-tight blue jeans painfully slow to reveal his sculpted form.
Soon he knelt naked at his lady’s feet, freeing them from their confining high heels and suckling her toes before working his way upward, licking his way up her long sturdy legs before resting finally at the juncture of her thighs.
Reaching his strong hands upward to strip away her pantyhose and the crisp white cotton undies that lie beneath them, Luke finally licked open her feminine folds with the single lap of his long wet tongue.
He savored Madison’s moans of pleasure as he graced her with the intimate kiss, molding his full soft lips around her throbbing nub and suckling her to send spasms of ecstasy careening throughout her entire body.
Shifting his head from side to side to intensify the feeling, Luke continued to lick and suckle her nub as she sighed her greatest contentment. He finally delivering a long last lick that sent her careening over the edge.
Luke smiled as his lover let loose with a robust cry of satisfaction, joining her on the bed to catch her trembling body in two embracing arms.
Cradling his lady in the sweetest of hugs, Luke stripped away the silken fabrics of her long red dress—tossing the garment to the ground as he covered her body with his.
The couple’s arms and legs entangled between them as their lips collided in a passionate kiss, their tongues also entwining as they rolled wildly and recklessly across the surface of Luke’s bed.
Gyrating his trim hips in a playful tease against those of his voluptuous lover, he lost himself in Madison’s softness, running his hands like warm water down the surface of her back before shifting his fingers to coddle her breasts.
Soon his agile fingertips raised her nipples to hard, erect points beneath his touch, his long, hard shaft soaring upward to kiss her feminine cleft.
The couple continued to kiss and cuddle as they immersed themselves in a binding embrace, their hips and thighs locking between them as she wrapped her legs tight around his waist.
“I want you inside of me,” Madison gasped out, thrusting her body hard against his as she welcomed him inside.
Eager to fulfill his lady’s desires, an impassioned Luke pulled her closer than close as fully and finally he joined them as one, surging his long hard shaft to the depths of her soaking wet pussy.
Their hips claimed an immediate rhythm as his cock surged forth to her very core, probing and penetrating her as his long smooth tongue replicated the motion of his seamless penetration.
Rolling as one radiant constant across the surface of his silk-lined bed, the couple continued to kiss and cuddle as passion overcame them – driving them deeper into one another’s arms as their bodies writhed and slithered in the heat of ecstasy.
Finally, and with a single hard thrust, Luke exploded inside of Madison with a long, lusty growl; hearing her scream outright in response as she reveled in the heat of ecstasy.
Soon the couple collapsed exhausted into one another’s arms, kissing and cuddling as Luke whispered softly and sweetly in her ear.
“That was so amazing,” he told her, squeezing her closer to him. “So magical. So….”
“Incredibly s
tupid.”
Luke froze as his lady stiffened in his arms, searing him with a hard look as she informed him, “While it is true that what happened between us was indeed magical, we made one big mistake while we were doing it.” She paused here, adding as she looked him straight in the eyes, “No. Protection.”
Immediately Luke grabbed a frozen Madison up in two nurturing arms, cradling her body closer than close as he whispered words of intended comfort.
“Now don’t you worry one moment, baby,” he cooed, rubbing her back in long loving strokes. “I’m sure that nothin’ came of this, what we just did. Nothin’, that is, except somethin’ real special. Despite what you might think, Miss Madison, I don’t sleep with groupies or have casual relationships. I don’t make love unless I mean it.” He paused here, cupping her flushed cheeks in two tender hands. “I have to see you again, Madison—and not just for this PR campaign.” He paused here, adding with a grin, “Unlike that addle-brained ex of yours, I know a good woman when I meet one. And I aim to prove that in my arms is where you belong.”
Backing up his words with even more action, Luke called room service and ordered that a decadent hot fudge sundae be delivered to their room. When it arrived moments later, he spoon fed its sumptuous contents to a relaxed and contented Madison. Then he treated her to a nice slow massage at the center of his bed—one in which he rubbed and kneaded her shoulders and back as the two watched old Westerns on TV.
“You can be my Dale Evans any old time,” he whispered in her ear, finally collapsing with her between their sweat-lined sheets as their arms and legs entwined.
Losing themselves in a cocoon of sweet intimacy, the couple held each other tightly as they surrendered finally to the tender solace of a good night’s sleep.
Throughout the night Madison awoke from time to time, shifting in bed to observe the handsome face of her sleeping lover.
“I just want to make sure that he’s here, that he’s real,” she mused in silence, running two adoring hands through the strands of his thick reddish blond hair. “This man—this whole experience—seems too good to be true.”
Luke McCade just couldn’t believe his luck sometimes.
Especially when it was this bad.
After their dream of an evening together, he and the wondrous Madison had embarked on a weeklong romance that—to be as trite and nauseatingly romantic as possible—had stolen his breath.
“Yep, the truth is out,” he reflected at one point to Norman, his manager, “If I spend much more time around this gal, I might just have to invest in an economy sized ventilator to help me catch my breath. Woooo-eee!”
The two devoted their weekdays to the planning and execution of a winning PR campaign for Lasso Sportswear, doing interviews and photo sessions, coordinating ideas for promo materials and products, and earning raves in the process from both Agatha—Madison’s boss at the Barnes and Callas PR agency—and from top executives at Lasso Sportswear.
Their nights proved even more exciting, as Madison occupied the front row at every rodeo show and hit the town with him afterwards, dining, dancing, and making hot sweet love ‘til all hours of the morning—hot, sweet, and properly protected love, that is.
“Again, I repeat,” Luke reflected, waggling his eyebrows to salacious effect, “Woooo-eee!”
But Luke soon learned that the course of true love—or at least intense like and certain lust—never did run smoothly.
“And at times,” he reflected now, heaving a sad sigh. “The course of true love can run downright sucky.”
Just a week after their initial meeting, he and Madison found their romantic fantasy startlingly disrupted by a phone call, of all things, that relayed some very bad news.
Reclining in his hotel suite with his lady on a lazy Sunday morning, Luke almost ignored the insistent ring of his cell phone. Yet when he saw the name of his beloved kid sister show up across the screen of his caller ID, he thought he’d better silence the ringtone variation on the Glen Campbell country classic “Rhinestone Cowboy” and see what in the blazes the overgrown brat wanted.
“Hey Charity,” he intoned into the phone, all the while running an adoring hand through Madison’s long brunette locks.
His hand stilled, and every muscle in his body tensed, when his light, friendly greeting was met on the other end by a loud pronounced sob.
“Luke, please come home,” Charity, a strong willed 21-year-old, cried like a child as she let loose with a weepy, heartfelt plea. “Uncle Joe is gone.”
After issuing some quick apologies to an understanding Madison, Luke drove to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and booked a noon flight to Dallas, Texas, the only place he truly called home.
Although moving slowly and sluggishly, as if captured in the web of a stunned, grief-stricken daze, Luke did smile a bit as a taxi cab delivered him to the place he came to know as Tiny Tara, the small but classically designed ivory ranch house that came complete with stately columns, a sloping roof, glossy black shutters, a sprawling front porch and dignified balconies.
Luke’s parents, Martin and Bess McCord, worked their lives away to build this house and plant the crops that surrounded it only to be killed in a truck accident en route to a neighboring farm.
In the wake of their tragic deaths seven years ago, their father’s brother—a wealthy rancher who made his home and fortune in San Antonio—agreed to help him and his sister run and maintain Tiny Tara. And after Luke left home to pursue a promising career on the rodeo circuit, Uncle Joe had personally supervised Charity’s quest to become a high-powered independent rancher.
“And from the looks of this place,” Luke reflected now, striding with near frenzied steps onto the porch that fronted the arched entrance of the semi legendary Tiny Tara, “Little Sis is doing a pretty durn good job.”
Within seconds he had enclosed said Little Sis in a warm, nurturing hug, holding her petite, trembling frame as she wept and sobbed in his arms.
“I am so so sorry, Sis. You well know that I loved Uncle Joe just as much as you did,” he told her, tone low and comforting. “And at 65, the man was nowhere near old enough to die. What happened?”
Raising her sculpted, tear-stained face, the beautiful Charity let loose with a gut-wrenching sob as her older brother wiped stray strands of thick honey blonde hair clear away from her wide dark eyes.
“Carla, his ranch manager, called me to deliver the awful news,” she revealed, “Apparently Uncle Joe suffered a heart attack. One minute he was out plowin’ his corn field, the next minute he clutched his chest right in front of Carla and fell clean off of his plow.”
Luke sighed.
“That’s awful,” he gulped hard, sitting down with his sister on the rickety swing that took center stage on their sprawling front porch.
As they continued to cry and cling to one another, the siblings discussed further the unspeakable tragedy of their uncle’s sad demise and the future of their family ranch.
“I know that this is a terrible time to bring this up,” Luke admitted, “but his lawyer called and wants to talk with us. Seeing as to how Uncle Joe had no wife or youngins’ to speak of, it may have something to do with his huge estate.”
Charity gritted her teeth.
“Well as it turns out, Uncle Joe already told me what was in his will. I never expected that he would die so young but maybe he had a premonition. Luke, you and I inherit his estate,” she revealed, adding as she raised a slender finger for emphasis, “What I didn’t know until the lawyer called me a few hours ago was that there is one very important condition. Accordin’ to Uncle Joe’s last will and testament—you and I are supposed to split his estate, straight down the middle; but if and only if we each marry and produce an heir sometime in the next year.”
Luke froze in his place, eyes flying wide as he considered these words.
Then he opened his mouth and said the only word that came to mind, indeed, the only word that seemed at all applicable in this part
icular situation.
“What?”
Two weeks later.
Standing just outside the front entrance at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Madison shuffled her feet beneath her and gritted her teeth tightly, trying to fight the wave of sheer panic that threatened to overwhelm her.
When Luke had phoned her yesterday saying that he was finally ready to return to work in Atlanta in the wake of his uncle’s untimely passing, she’d informed him in a calm, modulated tone that she would be there at the appointed hour to pick him up at the airport.
Then she hung up the phone and let loose with a sharp, high pitched wail that she was passing sure could be heard by canines in four surrounding counties.
Just a few days ago, she mused, she would have been overjoyed at the news that her lover was coming home to her.
“Ah,” she mused now, burying her head in her hands, “But that was before I failed the test.”
As a longtime honor student who had graduated cum laude from the prestigious Emory University, Madison Stone was not at all accustomed to the singular experience of failing a test.
“But this one, I failed,” she said aloud, “And failed big time.”
And as a result of this unmistakable failure, she had some unmistakably unfortunate news to deliver to her new beau.
“Not quite yet, though,” she thought, lifting her head as she witnessed said beau clearing the entrance of the airport and heading toward his lady with a broad smile and arms outstretched. “First I’ll drive us to a nice restaurant for lunch, where I’ll encourage him to tell me all about his uncle’s funeral. Then, when we’re all good and comfortable, I’ll break the news to him in a subtle, gentle manner.”
“Howdy, Miss Madison!”
Her troubled meditation was interrupted by the arrival of the man who quickly was becoming the bane of her existence, an admittedly gorgeous man who now swept her up into two encompassing arms and seared her lips with a passionate kiss.