Cowboy Cravings

by Morgan Ashbury

  Did she? She’d never considered it before, but the tease intrigued her. Just then, Jesse threaded the fingers of both hands through her hair, grasping hard, and Grant reached around and found her clit with his finger.

  Hands on her hips and rough words, the sensation of two cocks, hot, hard, and twitching in the first stages of ejaculation proved the last trigger she could take. Annie’s orgasm overwhelmed her, tremor upon volcanic tremor of pleasure that nearly brought her to her knees.

  * * * *

  The bedroom was lit by only the soft glow of the light from the hallway. Annie blinked sleepy eyes and took a moment to appraise her situation.

  One hot, naked male body pressed against her bare breasts, and another snuggled up against her back. Her hair still felt a little damp from her hot, steamy shower, and her body felt loose and limber from hot, steamy sex.

  “What time is it?” her voice came out more like a cat’s purr, and that fact pleased her immensely.

  “Mmm. Nearly midnight.” Jesse’s voice, coming from behind her, sounded just as sleep-sexy. Annie smiled. She couldn’t deny she had satisfied both of these strong, virile men. So much for being frigid.

  “I feel that grin of yours against my back, baby,” Grant said.

  “I’m going to be grinning for a month,” Annie responded. She yawned, then stretched.

  “I hope by that comment you don’t think this was just a one-shot deal,” Jesse said. Annie wondered about the trace of steel in his tone.

  Grant chose that moment to turn over, and Annie found herself flat on her back looking up at her two lovers who both focused on her, frowns on their faces.

  “I know it wasn’t. You both shot twice,” Annie quipped.

  “Our woman is a smart-ass,” Grant said. “I like that.”

  Annie knew something more was called for. The truth was the sex between them had left her shaken.

  She’d never craved the way she had when they all stepped into the kitchen tonight. Neither had she realized how strongly these men hungered for her. Her desire to have Grant’s cock in her mouth shocked her. And when Jesse put his lips and tongue on and in her pussy, she thought she must surely be going to die soon, because that had to have been the biggest high in all the world and nothing could ever feel better than that.

  These two cowboys already engaged her emotions. Jesse made her laugh, and appealed to the care-free, slightly mad-cap side of her. Grant’s deep brown eyes held promises of tenderness and care and a kind of bedrock stability she’d longed for all her life. If she wasn’t careful, she would fall in love with these men and expect more than the pleasurable interlude they offered. That would never do. So her sense of humor had stepped into the breach, but she never meant to make light of what passed between them tonight.

  The gazes staring down at her prompted her to set humor aside. She was glad she had two hands. One to gently caress each face.

  “I do know this wasn’t a one night stand. But I can’t say exactly what it is. I don’t have a lot of experience, and until very recently, never thought I would ever take even one lover, let alone two. I’m out of my depth, here. So if I come off a bit flippant, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.”

  Jesse bent over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. She thought it might have been a kind of an apology for his edginess.

  “Grant and I have the advantage of time over you. We’ve thought about having you right here, with us both, for a while now. But that doesn’t mean we really have any more answers than you do,” Jesse said.

  “The only thing we ask,” Grant added, then mimicked his friend and kissed her lips, “is that you keep an open mind.”

  “I can do that.” Annie sighed, because although this king-sized bed was a lot more comfortable than her own, much smaller one, she knew she needed to get out of it. “I need to get home.”

  “Yeah. Grant’s going to drive with you in your car and I’ll follow, so I can bring him home. How do you feel about coming here again Wednesday night? You can have a second horse-back riding lesson, then dinner. We’ll cook. And we’ll see what happens from there.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Actually, it sounded better than good. Annie had never experienced such pleasure, such bone-melting bliss as she’d just shared with these two men.

  She might not have any answers, but she knew one thing with absolute certainty. She wanted to experience it again.

  Chapter 9

  Rick Rutherford was not a happy man.

  For the last two years, two months, and twenty-one days, he’d had a plan. Yes, that plan had been altered slightly when his asshole brother got himself killed. Stupid bastard.

  More than a year later and Rick still couldn’t think of his brother’s death without shaking his head at the great cosmic irony—Jimmy getting himself shot and killed during a heist at the jewelry store where he’d worked.

  Mentally going over his plan, moment by moment, step by step, helped Rick survive that fucking sentence in that stinking pen. His goal had been to take the first step in that plan within a couple of hours of tasting freedom.

  Here it was, his third day of the rest of his life, and nothing had gone right for him. His cunt of a sister-in-law had disappeared as if she’d never even fucking existed.

  He came very close to decking his mother for the first time in his life when he found that out, especially when he found out his mother had known all this time she’d left.

  “What do you mean you don’t know where she is? She’s your daughter-in-law!” He’d seethed while his mother looked at him as if she didn’t know what he could possibly be upset about.

  “After your brother died, she never had the time for me. It was like she blamed me for that fancy woman your brother had taken up with. Or for that other thing that happened, just before he died. Imagine her nerve trying to tell me my Jimmy pushed her down the stairs, causing her to lose the baby. She just wasn’t woman enough to carry a baby to term, that’s what. Little tramp just tried to blame my boy for her being a failure as a woman.”

  Rick knew who his mother meant when she said ‘fancy woman’, of course. Jimmy never had been very good at keeping it in his pants, or keeping his mouth shut when he was getting some on the side. But in this case, the ‘fancy woman’ wasn’t exactly a piece. Or maybe, he thought, she wasn’t only a piece. As for the other, his brother never could control his temper, either, so he likely had pushed his wife down the stairs. He wouldn’t share his opinions with his mother, of course. Jimmy had always been Mommy’s favorite, but he was gone now.

  “The super at their old apartment said Annie’s been gone a year, that she took next to nothing with her and never left a forwarding address. Why didn’t you tell me she moved? You must have known.”

  “What could you have done, being in jail? Besides, my Jimmy is dead. What do I care about his so-called wife? Like I said, she couldn’t even make him a father.”

  If he’d known she’d lit out, he could have contacted people, found out where she landed, saved himself a shitload of time. But he couldn’t tell his mom that, either. Rick just shook his head in disgust. Sometimes, talking to his mother was a complete waste of time, and this was one of those times.

  Annie’s leaving the way she did made Rick think that maybe Jimmy had told her what was what—even though he’d sworn, on his last visit upstate, that his wife remained in the dark about everything.

  No, Annie likely knew, and the fucking bitch had probably fled, thinking she could get away with taking his loot with her.

  So he borrowed Squirrel’s car and was on his way to visit Annie’s mother. He didn’t believe for one minute that a mousy little bitch like Annie would pull up stakes and not tell her own mother where she’d headed.

  No, Mrs. Smith knew where her little girl had gone. Before he left Albany, Rick would know where she’d gone, too.

  He knew Annie’s mother could be cowed into keeping silent about his visit. Hadn’t her old man managed to keep her in her place a
ll those years? He didn’t want Annie to know he was on to her, or that he was coming. He wanted to make his reappearance in her life a complete surprise.

  Rick grunted and adjusted his cock. He started to get hard just thinking about the kind of reunion he planned to have with sexy little Annie. One of the other things he spent a lot of nights dreaming about to help pass time in the pen after Jimmy died was how he would stick it to Annie.

  Never far from his thoughts was that time he very nearly had Annie under him. If Jimmy had been just ten minutes later coming home that day, he’d have fucked her good and proper. She fought him, of course, but he’d known then she really wanted it. Really wanted him. All women were whores, and Annie was no different.

  Maybe she’d fight him now, even though she was no longer hooked up with Jimmy. Couldn’t say he’d mind if she did. He felt pretty pissed about this runaround. Her fighting would give him the perfect excuse to get rough with her. Hell, maybe he’d get rough with her anyway. Yeah, I really like that idea.

  The loud blare of a car horn brought his attention back to the road. He’d put thoughts of fucking Annie aside for now. Maybe, if she was a good little cunt and made it up to him, if she sucked his dick real good and freely offered him her asshole, he’d take her with him to the Tropics. And when he was tired of her, he might give her ten grand or so, just so she could get herself home. He could be a generous man if she took good care of his cock.

  Yeah, that sounds good. But first he needed to find her. He passed a sign that told him he was only about fifty miles from making that happen.

  * * * *

  “Well, girlfriend, I hear you took a riding lesson last night.”

  Annie looked up into the laughing eyes of Veronica Ferris. She’d seen the woman come into the store a moment ago, and noticed that she hung back until Annie finished ringing up Mr. Busbies’ purchases.

  Veronica carried a bag that smelled suspiciously of hamburgers. Obviously, she’d stopped at the café before coming to visit. Annie could count on sharing lunch with Veronica at least a couple of times a week.

  “Does my getting one of those burgers hinge on whether or not I confirm what I imagine everyone in town already knows and has shared with you freely?” Annie asked. Her tummy growled and her mouth watered. She’d slept later than usual—probably thanks to the unaccustomed activity the night before—and therefore missed breakfast. She hoped she would have a slow day so she could run upstairs and at least make a quick sandwich, and to have time to put her mind back on the events of last night. But business had been booming this morning, largely due to gossip. Every single customer had remarked on her taking riding lessons from ‘the boys’, as Jesse and Grant were collectively known.

  “No, I don’t need that gossip confirmed. I’m convinced of its veracity. As far as it goes, at any rate. I brought you a burger as a bribe for you to fill in the missing details. I called your place last night, hoping to talk you into coming over to watch a movie with me. But you weren’t there.”

  “No. I, um, fed the men after my riding lesson. And what with one thing and another…” Annie knew the blush coloring her cheeks and her inability to put together a coherent sentence were not good signs. In the face of Veronica’s laughter, her savoir-faire completely disintegrated.

  Veronica’s eyes fairly sparkled. “I see. Well there’s riding, and then there’s riding. There’s feeding and then there’s feeding. The rest of the town doesn’t know that you didn’t get home until well after eleven, girlfriend, which was the last time I called you. But I do. So 'fess up. Which one of those studly cowboys were you riding and feeding last night?”

  Oh, my. At that moment Annie was very grateful Veronica didn’t tend toward spreading gossip. In fact, in the course of their friendship she’d not heard one word about another person pass that woman’s lips.

  Under the current circumstances, that was a very good thing.

  “Which one?” Annie felt like a parrot, repeating Veronica’s question. Why did her voice have to pick just that moment to crack? She cleared her throat, meaning to divert the question, but what came out was, “Which one—”

  “Oh, my God! Both of them? Oh, Annie!” Veronica paused as if looking for just the right word. Then her lips curved into a definite feline smile. “Congratulations.”

  Annie figured there didn’t seem to be much point in denying it as the truth must have been written all over her face.

  “You are now my hero,” Veronica continued, a thread of awe in her voice. “Here, maybe you want my burger, too? To keep up your strength? ”

  Annie burst out laughing, covering her mouth with both hands when it felt as if she wouldn’t be able to control her mirth.

  “No, just one burger, please, and thank you,” she managed at last.

  Veronica came around the counter to perch on the second stool Annie kept there. Opening the bag, she handed Annie one foil pouch and pulled one out for herself. Annie walked over to the soda cooler and took out two chilled bottles of water, handing one to the other woman.

  “Both of them,” Veronica repeated once Annie was sitting next to her. “However did you manage to talk them into that?”

  “It was their idea. I’m still not really sure what the heck is happening, to be honest with you. I’m just so pleased that I could—” Annie had always found it difficult to talk about intimate matters. One night, a couple of months ago during an evening of chick flicks and wine with Veronica, she let slip that she believed herself to be frigid. When prodded, she’d confessed why.

  “See? I told you! From all I’ve heard and read, men who are selfish or controlling lovers accuse women of being frigid to excuse their own piss-poor performances. Very few women truly are frigid. So, what happens next?”

  “I have no idea. They both made it perfectly clear that last night was not a one night stand. So I guess I’m just going to have to take it one day at a time, and see.”

  Veronica burst out laughing at her unintended pun. Annie wondered what she would have said if the door to her store hadn’t opened just then. Billy Woods ambled in, looking, as he always did, to be in no particular hurry. He had his MP3 player hooked to his ear, a usual sight. Sometimes she thought he would nod his head to the beat when there wasn’t even any music playing.

  She knew Veronica thought the man was slow and lazy, but Annie liked Billy.

  “Don’t interrupt your lunch, ladies,” he said, flashing them a smile. “I’ll just look around a bit. Hey, Annie, are you sore today after your exercise yesterday? Or did the boys give you a break and tell you how to take care of that?”

  He stood waiting for an answer and Annie felt at a complete loss. Beside her, Veronica made a strangling sound as she choked back more laughter.

  “Ah, no, I seem to be fine. No, um, soreness at all. In fact, I think I could have ridden even longer than I did.” Oh, my God, I did not just say that. She was bad, bad, bad.

  “Stamina’s an important quality to develop,” Billy agreed. “But it’s probably best to build up your time gradually until you get used to the action.”

  Annie felt on the very verge of losing it. She swallowed, and tried to change the subject. “I was probably as surprised as everyone else last night to hear that you’ve spent some time in the saddle yourself.” Oh, that didn’t come out right at all. Billy’s eyes twinkled, as if he shared her joke. But surely not. No, that was likely a figment of her just-slightly-guilty conscience. Not guilty for having ridden two saddles the night before, but rather for her conversational coquettishness.

  “My mother held cherished dreams of an Olympic gold medal hung around her son’s neck. Me, I just liked the feel of having a fast, hot animal between my legs. Ah, well, here I’ve interrupted your lunch after all. You go ahead and eat now, Miss Annie. I’ll have a look-see for the items I came in for. Not even sure if you can meet my needs, but I’ve been constantly and pleasantly surprised every time I’ve come in this store.” Then he paused and nodded to Veronica “Afternoon,
Ms. Ferris.”

  Billy turned and wandered to the back of the store, the area where all the tools and odd pieces of repair parts and other gizmos were kept.

  Annie slapped a hand over her mouth for the second time in a half hour. She looked at Veronica, who crossed her eyes, then laid her head down on the counter. The other woman’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.

  Annie could only hope Billy took his usual long time finding what he’d come in for. She needed every moment she could grab to corral the imp that had made her say those things and get herself back under control.

  * * * *

  Billy peeked around the shelf to check on the women. Veronica had her head down on the counter and Annie looked like she was about to choke. Oh, well, it couldn’t be helped. Well, yes, it could have. He didn’t have to choose just those exact words a few moments ago. But it had been kind of hard to resist.

  As he listened to the expert way Veronica goaded Annie into confessing all, he felt his temper spike. Personally, he didn’t care if Annie played hide the snake with both Jesse and Grant. How could he, considering he often entertained more than one bed mate at a time? Billy could be called a lot of things. A hypocrite wasn’t one of them.

  But he absolutely hated that female pit viper pretending to be Annie’s friend and sucking up all those intimate details.

  He put his hand up to the pod attached to his ear and adjusted the volume. This handy little device cost him a small fortune about a year ago, and had since proven to be well worth the expense. He’d worn the other one—the one that actually played music and looked identical to this one—right from the first moment he arrived in town. People were used to seeing him with it day and night. Now that things were beginning to move, he could wear this one so he could keep track of things. He’d placed two “bugs” in the store, one in Annie’s apartment, and one in Veronica’s. He’d hidden another couple around town, too, just in case.