by Ann Jacobs
“Doesn’t matter about experience. What matters is that you care about animals as well as people.” The calf was getting restless by now, but they both kept on rubbing him until he bolted. “Guess the little guy’s thawed out enough now. What say we—”
Brad’s phone rang, and he snatched it out of his pocket. “Damn it, Jared, I told you to be careful. What the hell are you doing in the stable? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’ll be right over, assuming that one of my snowmobiles will start.”
He hung up and turned to Keely. “Jared hurt his good leg. Fool doesn’t want Ninia to find out. Want to take a ride on a snowmobile?”
“Sure.” Right now she’d go anywhere with Brad, even if it did mean letting yet another group of people know she was actually “seeing” him. Besides, she’d always enjoyed cross-country skiing whenever she had the chance, and she imagined snowmobiling would be just as much fun. “Then let’s go. Thank God the snow seems to have stopped falling for now.”
He looked at her from head to toe. “We’re not going anywhere until we get you into some clothes that will really keep you warm. I’m not going to have you freeze on me. Go back in the house and find some of Diana’s ski gear. I’m going to go start a snowmobile.”
Keely shivered as she stripped down and slithered into a pair of silk long johns. She was almost afraid to step into Brad’s sister’s red and black Gore-Tex ski overalls and turtleneck sweater. Just these two garments had to have cost more than Keely made in a month. The matching Gore-Tex jacket, also black with red trim, would have kept her starving for at least another month, maybe longer. What if she damaged these things?
Brad would replace them, she knew. He’d probably think nothing of it, but it would make her feel like crap. Never mind, she told herself. She’d be very, very careful with the borrowed outfit. Pulling her own scuffed roper boots back on over thick wool socks, she picked up the heavy gloves she’d found in the pocket of the overalls and put them on. As Keely hurried downstairs she heard the roar of a powerful motor running outside the garage.
“Put on this helmet and climb on, sweetheart. If we ride double, we’ll stay warmer.” She wasted no time straddling the black leather seat behind Brad, because the sudden burst of cold air was freezing her nose and sending shivers all the way down her well insulated body. “Ready?”
“I’m ready—oh, wait a minute, I’ve got to pull my scarf up over my face. It’s okay now, let’s go.”
Blanketed in heavy snow, the scenes they passed by looked as if they belonged on a picture postcard. Keely understood why all of the McTavish siblings had chosen to make their homes on this breathtakingly beautiful, rugged land. The sleds on the Arctic Cat snowmobile dug in to the newly fallen snow, shooting out excess snow and carving a path for them. She hadn’t seen this model before, even though the farm implements store ordered in an Arctic Cat from time to time and had the company’s catalogs for the few of their customers who could afford the pricey toys. If she wasn’t mistaken, this was one of the Bearcat models, undoubtedly the top of that line. As they sped down the drive on the way to the highway, she grabbed Brad around the waist and held on tight.
“Scared?” he yelled over the roar of the engine. “Once we cross the highway we’re nearly there.”
She wasn’t, really, even though she thought she’d been holding her breath for the last two miles, ever since they’d begun the roller-coaster ride down the frozen road. She hadn’t even been able to see the tread marks they’d left last night with his truck. “Not scared, just out of breath. I trust you to take care of me. I didn’t know part of the ranch was on the other side of the highway.”
A long ribbon of undisturbed snow marked where the highway had been last night, and beyond that she saw a house and outbuildings in the distance. When they got there, Brad paused and looked both ways. “Never can tell when some fool’s gonna try to turn his pickup into a sled,” he commented once it became obvious that no one was driving along the road, at least for the moment. “Great-Granddad made a bunch of money when the state decided to put Highway 287 right across his land. Good thing Jared drew the parcel on the other side, since it’s pretty much ideal for the dude ranch he and Ninia will be opening up to occupy themselves in the summertime. There’s a good-sized stream on the western border that guests will enjoy paddling around in. Not that you’d ever catch me in that water on purpose, because it’s snow melt-off coming down from the mountain by way of Dirty Woman Draw. Even in the heat of summer, it’s freezing cold.”
“I don’t think I’d like to swim there, either, if it’s as cold as you say.”
“Trust me, it’s that cold. Flatlanders will enjoy telling their friends back home that they went swimming in mountain runoff though.”
Once they crossed the highway, Brad headed not for the old log cabin with cheery smoke snaking out of the chimney, but for the stable some fifty yards or so farther from the highway. Keely sensed his urgency and said a silent prayer that Brad’s brother wasn’t seriously hurt as he pulled up in front of the stable door and shut off the Bearcat.
* * * * *
“So what the hell have you done to yourself?” Brad asked, letting go of Keely’s hand and kneeling beside his brother.
Jared’s smile looked forced. “Somebody knocked over a bucket of water in here last night, and I took a spill on the ice it turned into while I was trying to hook a bale of hay from up in the rafters. Tell me I haven’t broken my leg. If I have, Ninia will kill me.”
Brad doubted that, but he understood why Jared would worry. Ninia was fiercely protective of her master—especially when it came to him not always acknowledging the physical limitations put on him because of his injuries. “Can you straighten it out, or is it stuck that way?” The angle of the leg didn’t look good, but if Jared could move it…
When Jared tried to move his injured leg, it straightened some but not that much. It had to hurt like hell, because Brad saw the skin around his brother’s lips turn chalky white. “Okay, having you try to move it probably isn’t a great idea. Where does it hurt the worst?”
When Jared pointed to a spot on the outside of his left thigh, Brad turned to Keely. “Get down here and help me shove his pants down far enough that we can see what’s going on.”
Brad liked the way she wasted no time going on her knees on the other side of Jared, working fasteners loose and gently sliding his pants down, not flinching at all when she encountered the straps that helped Jared hold his prosthesis in place when he was exerting himself more than he should. “Do you want me to pull down his long johns?” she asked while Brad was working the pants past Jared’s butt on the left side.
“Sure. Jared won’t mind, will you?”
“Just find out what the hell’s the matter. It’s not as if Keely hasn’t seen me naked at the dungeon. I just want you to patch me up so I can get my miserable ass back to the house before my wife rips me a new one.” Jared lay back and closed his eyes while Brad and Keely kept working his clothes down. He yelped when Brad tugged the pants and underwear over the spot where he’d told them it hurt. “What the hell?”
Brad bent, trying to get a good look in the dim light. The first thing he saw was a nice neat hole that went through both bloody layers of Jared’s clothes, right above a nasty-looking laceration that was still bleeding profusely. “Looks to me like you fell right on the grappling hook you were using to pull down hay. It doesn’t look like you broke any bones, but I doubt you’re going to be walking anytime soon with the mess that hook made out of the muscles inside your thigh. What the hell were you doing? Don’t you hire enough hands to take care of your horses and cattle?”
“Would you leave your animals to the ranch hands in a storm like this?”
“No, I wouldn’t, but…” How the hell could Brad point out the differences between Jared’s physical abilities and his own without fracturing his brother’s still shaky self-confidence? He was about to say more when Keely laid a hand on his forearm and smiled.
> “Of course you wouldn’t. Instead of worrying about what you might not ought to have done, we need to figure out how to get you back to the house so Ninia can take care of this. It’s more than either Brad or I can handle.”
Keely got up and went into the tack room. When she came out, she had a roll of gauze, some adhesive tape and a box of four-by-four sponges. Brad had to admit his woman had common sense as well as the tact he lacked. “I saw some ointment and stuff in there. Do you think we should use it?”
Brad followed her gaze to the gaping wound on Jared’s leg. “Let’s just bandage him up now to slow the bleeding, and get him to the house so Ninia can take care of him.” He hoped she could handle whatever needed to be done in the way of emergency care, because it would be nearly impossible for them to get Jared to a hospital in Laramie or Cheyenne in this weather.
Taking a handful of four-by-fours, Brad laid them over the wound and exerted pressure with the heel of his hand. “Doing this seems to be slowing the bleeding. Let’s wrap the gauze around his leg as tight as we can and figure a way to get him on the Bearcat.”
Jared let out a disgusted growl.” Help me up and I’ll walk to the damned snowmobile,” he told Brad. “You said the leg’s not broken. I’ll be damned if I’ll let you carry me into the house and scare Ninia half to death.”
When Brad was trying to figure out how to tell his brother that he wasn’t about to take on Ninia’s fury if he did what Jared asked, Keely took Jared’s hand and looked him in the eye. “Please, Jared. I don’t want your wife to be angry at me.”
“It’s me she’s going to be screaming mad at. Brad, take it easy with the pressure you’re putting on that pad.”
Brad loosened the gauze wrap until blood started seeping to the surface again. He tightened it up again until the bleeding stopped. “Better? I don’t dare to make it much looser than this unless you want to risk bleeding out.”
“It’s okay. Help me up now.” Jared sat up and held out his hands. “No, before you do, toss some hay in those last two stalls and fill up the horses’ feeders. I’d finished up with all the others before I slipped on that goddamn ice.”
“I can do that.” Without waiting for instructions, Keely got a rake and started loosening the bale Jared had apparently dragged down from the rafters. “About how much?”
“Go ahead and fill the feeders. God knows whether I’ll be able to get out here for the next few days,” Jared told her.
Keely never ceased to surprise Brad with her eagerness to help. It gave him a warm feeling inside, even now, when his hands were freezing without his heavy gloves. “Thanks, sweetheart.”
Securing the grappling hook onto the rail of an empty stall, he tried to figure the best way he could get his brother up without injuring him further. “Jared, sit up if you can.”
Jared did. “Lift me up and let me put some of my weight on the stall rail. That way you can get under my shoulder and be my left leg until we get outside to your snowmobile.”
Although Brad didn’t think it was a good idea for Jared to stand up, he couldn’t see any other way that they could get him out to the snowmobile. As soon as Keely finished filling the feeders, she came back and seemed to size up the situation. “Get on Jared’s right side and steady him,” he told her.
Brad squatted and caught Jared by the shoulders, pulling up until he was able to grab on to the stall railing.”You okay like that?”
Jared nodded, but it was obvious he was in pain. “Let’s hurry and get me out to that snowmobile.”
The snow was coming down again, flakes floating slowly to the already heavily blanketed ground. At least the wind had died down for the moment. With Keely driving the snowmobile while Brad held on to Jared, they made a slow journey the fifty yards or so between the stable and Jared’s cabin.
* * * * *
An hour later, after Ninia had Brad help get Jared to their bedroom and patched up his hurt leg, Brad and Keely relaxed in front of the fire in the bedroom fireplace. They’d be here quite a while, until their outdoor storm gear dried. Keely didn’t mind. She’d thought they’d never get warm again after the long snowmobile ride from Brad’s place, but now she was feeling toasty warm in one of the spa robes Ninia had found for them to wear.
Ninia and Jared wore similar robes. Keely had visualized them sleeping in a room equipped with fucking tables, machines and at least one restraining device, but she was wrong. Nothing readily visible in the massive bedroom hinted its owner was a Dominant—that is unless she counted those red silk scarves hanging from each bedpost on the king-size bed.
Keely smiled at Jared, whom Ninia had settled comfortably on the bed, his upper body propped up by a stack of pillows. Minus his prosthesis and the black leather chaps and vest he’d worn in the dungeon exhibition she’d seen, Jared hardly projected the image of absolute power, complete control. When Ninia perched cross-legged beside him and held his hand, Jared smiled at her.
The obvious devotion the other couple shared made Keely wish she dared enjoy a similar sort of relationship with Brad. Until Jared ordered Ninia to shed her shoulder-length blonde wig, revealing less than a quarter-inch of pale stubble. When Keely would have let out a yelp, Brad pinched her ass and hissed, “Shhh. Don’t let them know you’re shocked.”
“Yes, Master.”
Keely could barely hear Ninia’s whispered apology for having failed to shave her head completely smooth this morning. “Would it please my master if I went in and shaved now?”
Not in a million years, Master.
No way would Keely walk around bald as a cueball because some man told her to. But Ninia seemed okay with it, even eager.
“Not now. If you’re very good, I’ll shave you myself. Later. Right now I want to enjoy the silky feeling of this baby fuzz. It feels incredibly sexy, almost as good as when I run my fingers through your hair.” Jared bent and drew his tongue across the nape of his slave’s neck then traced around her earlobe before dipping inside the ear and tongue-fucking it while Ninia whimpered in apparent delight. “Join us,” he said to Keely and Brad, a broad grin on his rugged face.
Could she? Could Brad? The memory of watching the couple demonstrating Karada bondage at the dungeon titillated Keely. Brad squeezed her hand. “Watch all you want, they’re into exhibitionism. Are you?”
Keely wasn’t sure, even though her nipples had tightened and she longed for Brad’s touch. She couldn’t help seeing the love in Jared’s eyes as he caressed Ninia’s scalp, or the possessive way he stroked beneath the engraved gold collar with its tiny ring above the large topaz center stone that nestled in the hollow of her throat.
A slave collar, it had a ring to attach a leash. Not just a piece of jewelry but an unmistakable symbol that Ninia had given herself to her master. Irrevocably. Keely imagined the emotions that must have gone through Ninia’s mind when Jared had put it on her, the finality of the sound of the collar closing permanently, binding her to him for all eternity. The collar was beautiful, not an ugly black leather one with spikes and a heavy padlock like the one her mother wore. No one who wasn’t into the BDSM lifestyle would recognize Ninia’s collar as anything other than a unique necklace that she wore all the time.
But it was still a collar. A symbol of Jared’s total possession, her complete submission. A sign that Ninia belonged to Jared, as obvious to those in the BDSM lifestyle as the large, elegant set of rings she wore on her left hand was to those in the vanilla world.
When Jared straightened, he rubbed his palm in a circular motion over the crown of Ninia’s head. Keely watched Ninia shudder as though her master’s gentle touch aroused her almost beyond her ability to stay still at his command.
“Take off your robe and suck my cock like a good slave.” Brad said it softly but it was nonetheless a Dom’s order, made as he let his robe fall to the floor and led her to the bed where Ninia was giving Jared head.
Keely loosened the tie on her robe and turned to meet Brad’s hot gaze. “I guess I must be ready.
Feel how hot I am.” Taking his hand, she drew it first to her lips then settled it between her legs. As soon as he slipped a finger up her pussy, she started to pant.
“You’re wet, too. I want to taste you.” Brad peeled her robe off her shoulders and let it fall, then stood and took off his boxer shorts. “Well?”
The sight of his hard, muscular chest made her ignore the voice in her head that said sex play should be between one man and one woman unless you were inside Roped and Lassoed or some other BDSM club. Still she hesitated.
“Come on, now. It’s not like we’re about to switch partners. Not here, not now. Watch Ninia and Jared. Focus on them while I take care of you. By the way, I grabbed some of Jared’s condoms in case we need them once we go home.
“Look. Ninia has pierced nipples. Imagine the feeling when Jared tugs on the chain between them. Have you ever thought about—”
“No!” Keely said it so emphatically, Brad knew she’d thought about it, just as she most likely had pictured how it would feel if she shaved off the curly mop insulating her scalp from his sensual touch. Not that he entertained the idea that she’d ever shave it off or let him do it. And not that he could imagine himself wanting her to do it. Different strokes…
“You know you do.” He pulled her down on his lap and dug his fingers between strands of her hair. “You wonder whether having rings dangling from your nipples would keep you wet all the time, wanting sex with the master who had them put there.”
Keely shot a questioning look Brad’s way. “Does having that bar through your cock keep you horny all the time?”
“It did when I first got the piercing, and each time I switched the bar out for a thicker gauge—that is, it aroused me for a while after the swelling and pain went down. But now it’s almost like another part of me.”