He could tell she tried to hang on to that smile, but she couldn’t do it. Grasping a corner of the bedsheet against those flat-out gorgeous breasts, she sat up. “Tag.”
Pulling up to face her, he regretted that she’d brought her knees up between them, keeping him from getting his arms around her.
“It’s not a far drive into Cheyenne from my ranch. They got a high school there, a bigger one than we have local. A performing arts theater, too.” She’d told him about her job, how she taught drama at an arts school. He was a rancher. He couldn’t move himself to Denver. But there was no reason she couldn’t come to him. Really, there wasn’t.
Liberty looked at him, her eyes nervous. She’d told him, too, about how she’d put an end to a four-year relationship, with an engagement and a date already set, because she’d finally decided she deserved something better than a man whose eyes wandered to other women even as she sat across a table from him.
He agreed.
Despite the fact that she’d given him her weekend, though, the girl was cautious. Age twenty-seven, and she no longer trusted her judgment.
“I love my job,” she said. “People in theater wait all their lives for a job like I have.”
“Is it the only job in the world that can make you happy?” he asked. “Does any job mean that much to you?”
“What does your ranch mean to you?” was her answer, and it was a good one. She touched his face. “I don’t mean you should give it up. Of course I don’t. But I can’t give up my work on the basis of one weekend.”
“A really good weekend.”
She nodded. “A spectacular weekend.”
He’d known it was a long shot. His heart had gotten ahead of him. But he wasn’t throwing in the towel. “You have your summers off?”
“I usually run the summer drama program.”
“Are you committed to doing that this year?”
“Not yet.”
“Then come spend the summer at the Bluff.”
She chewed her lip, but he wasn’t going to be distracted. Though his dick was, no denying that.
“Lib.”
“I have a week off in April.”
“Come then, too. Will you?”
She set her knees down on the bed and came up on them, leaning in for a kiss. “I like you, Tag.”
Pretty weak, he thought, given that he’d already proposed. Sort of. “Come to the ranch, Liberty.”
She kissed him again, putting a little more into it. “Okay. In April. I’ll call you and see if you still want me.”
“I’m going to want you.”
“We can talk about the summer after that.”
“I already know what I’m going to say. So—don’t commit, okay? To the summer drama deal.”
With a little breath, she gave him what he wanted. “Okay.”
Tag took her down and came over her. He put his weight on one elbow and moved her hair so he could see the mark he’d put on her. He liked seeing that. He liked everything about her, but he especially liked that. He rubbed his thumb over her lips.
“Open your legs,” he said.
Those blue eyes went dark, like he already knew happened when she got turned on.
Beneath his hips, her thighs moved, making way for him to settle further between. He nuzzled there with his cock, feeling already that she was hot and wet. He leaned over to kiss her, then pushed himself up.
He took the sheet with him, so when he was on his feet at the end of the bed, she was fully exposed to him. “Bring your knees up. Show me what you got.”
He’d pushed until she’d found her sexual courage these three days. She only hesitated for a moment now, her gaze on his. Then it tracked lower, when the stirring of his cock drew her attention. Slowly, she raised her eyes back to his—she liked looking at his body, he thought, almost as much as he liked looking at hers. Like the game girl she was, she brought her knees up and let them fall open.
He felt his cock lengthen and rise as he looked at her, that bare pussy pretty as a ripe peach. “Touch yourself,” he directed her. “Rub your clit.”
She hesitated again like she had with each new experience he’d led her to. Like when he’d gone down her throat or taken her in the ass. A little hesitation, a shimmer of nerves, and then a spunkiness that had her stepping up to it.
Like the vamp he knew she wasn’t, she slowly slid her hand down her body, a caress like his own hand would have given her. Until long, tapered fingers, pink polish on the tips, centered over her clit.
Tag stroked himself as he watched, his cock eager for the show. “Keep going,” he told her. “Put your other hand on your tit. Squeeze your nipple for me. Hard.”
He watched as she complied, even while he moved to his bag for a condom. She was heating herself up as he came back to the foot of the bed. “Harder,” he said. “The way I know you like it.”
She plucked at her nipple, tugging and squeezing. Her breath was faster now, and her body gave a little shudder of excitement. “Push into your cunt,” he instructed. “I want to see you finger-fuck yourself.”
The sight of two of those pink nails disappearing into her pussy was hot as hell. “Yeah. Good girl.”
Her fingers as they came out were moist now, and he caught the scent of her arousal.
“Rub yourself some more. Make yourself come.”
She moaned out a little objection, but she kept her fingers moving. Her eyes followed his action as he covered himself with the condom.
“Tag,” she said, a plea.
“Not yet, baby,” he said. “This one’s on you. Do it.”
Her eyes roved over his body, and he figured she was imagining what he could do to her with it as she continued to pleasure herself. He’d do it, do it all, but not before she took care of herself first.
Lib’s body rocked a little now, her heels digging in so she could flex her pelvis. Her breath was quick, rough. Tag almost caved, almost leaned in to give her a hand, but he held out. He was dying to see this.
Panting, plucking at her tit and rubbing frantically at herself, she went over. She shuddered and moaned, stretching out the orgasm over several breaths like he’d learned she could do.
Just as she gave that last sigh of relief, he filled her.
Her eyes had fallen closed, but she opened up now and looked at him.
“That was good,” he said, “but not like what I can do to you, was it?”
She shook her head, but he knew she was still coming down from her O, not hearing him all the way.
“I’m going to do it now,” he told her. He slid out of her and then shoved back in, and she focused a little more. “I’m going to fuck you hard. Hard and deep. Because your cunt feels so fucking good.” While he spoke, he raised her feet and placed them against his chest, one on each side. That lifted her ass off the bed, just like he wanted it.
“And you know what I’m going to do here, don’t you?” He held his weight on one straight arm. With the other, he slid his hand along her thigh to her hip. He drew it down, gave her ass a pinch, then circled his thumb at her anus.
On Saturday, he’d taken her virgin ass. That was an experience he’d never forget—the tight clasp of that most intimate cavity, her anxious whimpers as she gave herself over to it. He loved the gritty, almost savage taking and her edgy capitulation. She’d fallen into it, taken a pleasure that had surprised them both.
Not exactly the sort of reaction that discouraged him from doing it again. On Sunday, he’d had her up against the shower wall, her tits pressed into the tile, his soapy fingers working her clit. He’d been bare inside her—they’d negotiated the condom deal as necessary only to prevent pregnancy—and his cum had exploded into her. His head had nearly exploded, too. They’d both fallen to their knees as he’d ground out the last spasms, too overwhelmed to keep them on their feet.
“You know, right?” He circled, waiting for her answer.
“Yes.”
“You want it, don’t you? You like
it when I do your ass.”
She’d worked herself down on his cock now, grinding, letting him know without words that, yes, she wanted it.
“Say it,” he told her. “Say what you want.”
“Put your thumb in my ass,” she said, almost in a whimper. “Hard. R…ream me.”
He almost laughed out his victory. She was a fucking hell of a woman.
And he wanted nothing more than to please her, so he gave her exactly what she wanted. He fucked her hard, and he shoved his thumb up her ass. He thrust deep and then he circled, stretching her sphincter, working her until her breath came in jittery squeals.
“Oh, God.”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Tag.” Anxious now.
“I’ve got you.”
And she had him, too. Her tight cunt squeezed him so good, like she’d been made just for him. Her hips rocked, matching his thrusts, her need and drive as great as his. It was a glory, the way they suited each other. The way they fit.
Tag felt her grip tighten in his hair, felt her nails score along his back. He thrust into her like a madman, wildly growling. He knew he was taking her with him, that they were in sync, driving each other toward a harrowing climax.
Loud, rough, vicious, it took them. Lib flexed spastically on the bed, the last of her breath a scream. Tag fucked like he’d lost his mind, grimacing and shuddering as his cum tore through his cock like a geyser.
He collapsed down on her as they ended it, her legs falling limply to the side, her arms fallen, too, one held in place only by the tangle her fingers had made in his hair. They drew harsh breaths. His head was at the crook of her neck, the other side from where he’d marked her before. His lungs still sawing, he opened his mouth, drew her skin in, and left another brand on her.
Chapter Two
Liberty hadn’t ever called or texted Tag to see if he still wanted her to come to his ranch in April, because, for the last three months, he’d regularly texted her with the same four words—I still want you.
They’d talked fairly often, too, at least once every week.
He’d been a good telephone friend. Maybe she should’ve used the word boyfriend, because that was how he acted. The first conversation they’d had was one he said they should have had before he left Denver. He wasn’t going to be seeing other women, he told her, and he didn’t want her to see other men.
Liberty didn’t have any trouble making that commitment, and it wasn’t just that there’d been no other men on her radar. He was an attractive and appealing man, and she liked him a lot. She hadn’t been ready to give up her life in Denver back in January on the basis of a single good weekend, but she was definitely willing to see where things went between them.
Tag had asked, and so he’d learned about her. About her family, though there wasn’t much to say. She had a father more invested in his work as a physician than in his three children, a mother who spent her days at the spa and lunching with friends, and a significantly older brother and sister who were decent and friendly but not really close. About her work—he learned the school was presenting The Addams Family as its spring musical, and, by the third time they talked about it, Liberty realized that Tag had studied up. He knew some of the numbers as she described the score, that the kid playing Gomez was having trouble finding his inner Flamenco, and that Morticia’s tango was fantastic.
He learned that her secret love was writing musicals. That DSA’s musical the previous spring had been her original work and that a friend of hers from her days at NYU was shopping it on Broadway. That same friend had written the book for a new show, and Liberty was working on the score. Tag had coaxed her into singing for him the song she was currently drafting.
She learned about him, too—the heavy responsibility he bore at an early age, the love and pride he had for his brothers. She learned that Orion had done graduate work in grasslands management and now saw himself as steward of the portion of the Great Plains that had fallen into the ownership of the Harper family. That Keegan was a dreamer and also a writer, and Tag had every expectation that the youngest Harper would be their generation’s voice of the Plains, like Willa Cather and O. E. Rölvaag.
She learned about phone sex and that, with the proper motivation, she was good at it. That Tag was the proper motivation.
Even from a hundred miles away, Tag was a good lover. She didn’t mean just phone sex skills, though he had those in spades. But he was caring and interested and, during all of their conversations, he listened. Despite the fact that they weren’t seeing each other, she felt like he was very present in her life.
So, when spring break came, she found herself on a pretty Saturday driving to Cheyenne and then north and east to the Chimney Bluff Ranch.
She knew that Tag loved the piece of earth he owned, and she could see why. The temperature was cool—hovering in the mid-fifties—but the sun warmed her inside the car. The sky was nothing but blue, and the land…turning green. Clouds stacked up toward the horizon, but that was only the effect of the vast space—overhead, not a single cloud came between her and the sun. From a distance, the land appeared flat, but close up, she could see that it was textured with small gullies and rolling hillocks. Grasses were peeping through the earth now, already thick enough that she could imagine the summer view of it, waving in the breeze like oceans of green.
She could see to the horizon in all directions. Small bluffs cropped up in spots, but the mountains were too distant to be seen. When the highway rose with even the smallest elevation, she could pick out the meandering paths of streams.
The roads were straight and crossed each other at right angles. It was a land cut into squares. She knew much of it had been settled in post-Civil War land grants of one hundred and sixty acres and figured a good historian would still find those parcels in the jigsaw puzzle of the terrain. Originally, the settlers had been homesteaders, encouraged by the government to plant trees. Then ranching came, more successful in the fairly harsh environment than farming. Texas longhorns, driven up along the Goodnight Loving trail that ended in Cheyenne. The Union Pacific came through, opening up commerce with points east and west.
Ranches ate up those hundred-and-sixty-acre plots, coalescing them into properties that amounted to thousands of acres. Additional grazing land was often leased from the state, so sometimes ranchers managed ten thousand acres or more.
Things were big here—the sky, the land, the men.
Buffalo, Liberty had been informed, could jump a six-foot fence. They weren’t cattle, and they wouldn’t be penned in by three strands of barbed wire strung along sun-bleached fence posts, the sort of fencing she’d seen stretch for miles as she drove. She knew when she reached Chimney Bluff land by the change. Here, the posts were thick four-by-fours and the field fencing—heavy mesh made of metal wire—between them reached a height of seven feet. She drove along it for a mile before she reached the gate at the entrance, and Liberty could only imagine the tremendous work of constructing miles of that fence.
Even so, Tag had said, it wouldn’t hold up to an angry buffalo. Mostly, the Harpers’ herd was contained because the brothers provided what the animals wanted—food, water, and family. Contented bison didn’t challenge fences.
They looked more than contented, Liberty thought. She passed a herd of maybe fifty animals. The new calves—around twenty of them—were easy to spot. They were much more active than the adult cows, bouncing and tearing into a run for no apparent reason, and they were…orange. She could see the older ones were transitioning to that dull brown, but the young ones were frisky, homely-cute, and orange. She stopped for a minute to watch them, and they made her laugh.
The Chimney Bluff Ranch had a pretty stone arch over the substantial gate. It was constructed with round river stone that made her think there must be a decent-sized stream or small river on the land. She didn’t figure the long-gone hands that had built the arch had spent time carting stone in from any distance.
There was a post ou
tside the gate with a push-button and a speaker. Almost the second she hit the button, the heavy gate began to roll open, making Liberty smile. Someone had been waiting for her.
The ranch road meandered a bit, curving around an outcrop of huge, stacked boulders and then following the stream that came into view maybe a quarter-mile along. The path of the water was marked by groves of cottonwoods and willows.
From a small rise, she got her first view of the ranch house. The brothers had built to suit themselves, Tag had told her. They’d had no fondness for the small, two-story frame house they’d grown up in, and it had suffered years of neglect when it just hadn’t been a priority. She heard the grim satisfaction in his voice when he described the day they’d bulldozed the old house, and she understood the decades the brothers had lived there had not been happy ones.
If the house reflected their lives now, she thought the men must be happy these days. It was a sprawling, modern one-story construction of stone, glass, and wood. Very organic, looking as though the materials had risen right up out of the ground to form a pretty dwelling. Four arms branched out from the central core, two at either side, and Liberty knew each of the brothers had space of his own in those locations. The full expanse of the front was a low stone terrace and, beyond that, a face of glass oriented to the south.
They’d built off the grid, Tag had said, with wind and solar power. Behind the house was a field of solar panels, and a half-dozen tall, high-tech windmills were visible on a far ridge.
The house and a large yard, including the solar panels, were surrounded by a high fence that was obviously utilitarian—forming a buffalo-free zone for the home and its inhabitants—but also attractive. It was built of steel pipe and wood. The wood appeared to be oiled but not painted or stained, another extension of the land around it. The yard within was already green and well-tended, with an abundance of small flowerbeds with crocuses in bloom now.
A hundred yards or so behind the house was another fenced-in cluster of buildings—a horse barn, Liberty knew from Tag’s description, shop, and machine shed.
Three Men and a Woman_Liberty Page 2