by Heidi Rice
She jolted, shocked at the rush of endorphins turning her knees to jelly.
Who is this guy? And who am I? Because I am so getting off on his caveman act.
This big, bold, brooding man and his pushy, dominant behavior was the opposite of what she should normally find arousing. And yet she had never been more turned on in her entire life.
She didn’t have more than a few seconds to contemplate that, before he leant forward and blew across the swollen folds. “Put your legs over my shoulders.”
Again she obeyed without question. So not like her. But when he licked the skin of her inner thigh, she could not give a toss.
He nudged her sex with has nose, breathing in her scent, then drew his tongue over her center.
She groaned, her head falling back, her body bracing for the onslaught. He licked with agonizing slowness at first—the long, darting laps, gathering her taste, discovering her weaknesses, and devouring her self-control. Her cries became hoarse, foreign, the spiral of need winding into a tight knot of desperation at her core.
How much of this erotic torture could she stand? The need to hold on, to hold off, became a frantic struggle. Her head thrashed, her thighs trembled, trapped by his hands as he continued to eat her from the inside out. She thrust into his mouth, demanding more, demanding completion, but every time she got close to tipping over that high, wide edge, he would retreat.
“Please just… Oh God!” she cried, her sobs echoing off the kitchen walls as he feasted on the firm nub at last.
She cried out, bowing back as the orgasm slammed into her, robbing her breath, exploding out of her lungs, firing across her skin, and shredding the last of her control.
She came down in slow painful increments as he continued to lick and suck.
Holding her quivering thighs, he drew her legs over his shoulders and then stood. Towering over her, he produced a condom from his back pocket, then ripped open his zipper, and shoved down his pants and shorts.
She watched, dazed, disorientated, stunned by the intensity of her orgasm, and the rapt hunger on his face as the huge erection thrust up toward his belly button.
He tore open the condom packet, flicked the foil away and rolled the rubber on.
Gripping the back of her head, he dragged her mouth to his, the taste of herself on his lips was unbearably erotic before he drew back and then grasped her hips.
She sucked in staggered breaths as he pressed into her, the stretched feeling verging on pain as he sunk in to the hilt. He gave her a moment to adjust to his size, then began to move, thrusting so deep inside her she was no longer sure where he finished and she began. Her muscles gripped, massaging the thick length and driving her back toward another impossible peak. Too fast, too fierce, her breathing clogged in her lungs as she clung to his shoulders, spellbound by the feel of him so deep, so huge.
The crescendo built, higher, hotter, than before. The vise-like grip of the orgasm licking at her spine was stronger if that were possible. Sweat slicked their bodies, the shuddering thumps as the table rocked on its legs matching the thudding beats of her heart as he thrust harder, faster.
She screamed as she crested, all of herself rising up and flying over the edge then dropping down, down, down into the welcome oblivion.
*
When she came round, it took her a moment to realize the weightless feeling was because he was carrying her.
“You okay?” he asked as she raised her head.
“I think so,” she said, disorientated and utterly shattered. “Did you actually just screw me into unconsciousness?”
His deep chuckle reverberated in her chest—the sound as raw and ragged as she felt.
“Apparently.”
He mounted the stairs, then headed down the corridor to the bathroom. Depositing her naked body on the stool beside the bath, he stripped out of his own clothing, revealing the magnificent slopes and planes of his body. She noticed he was still semi-erect as he took off the condom and discarded it. The renewed arousal surged through her exhaustion, disturbing her even more.
Seriously? How can I want him again already? If I’m not careful I could end up getting screwed to death here…
He switched on the shower in the enamel tub, flicked across the curtain. Then bent to scoop her into his arms again.
“What are you doing?” she asked, shocked by the care he was taking with her. As if she were fragile, or precious. Hadn’t she just proved she was tough—and not the type of woman who needed to be cherished? But she couldn’t find the strength to resist as he stepped into the tub with her cradled in his arms.
“We’re having a shower.” He stood her on her feet, but held on to her waist until he was sure she wouldn’t collapse.
She wanted to object; she didn’t need any of this. But she couldn’t find the will to stop him as he washed her hair, massaging her scalp with strong fingers. Or soaped the rest of her body, bringing awareness tingling back to life.
“You all right?” he asked. “I should go finish my supper.”
“Yes, of course.” She nodded, but felt bereft when he stepped out of the shower. She shuddered, reaction pulsing through her veins from the fury of their lovemaking as she rinsed off the last of the soap.
The fury of their sex-capade, she corrected. This wasn’t love, just a beyond incredible physical connection. But had it been a bit too incredible tonight?
Turning off the water as it began to cool, she whipped back the curtain, to find him standing with a towel wrapped around his hips. She had assumed he would have left. Had he been waiting for her? Watching over her?
She crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling weirdly exposed—which was absurd, because he’d seen and licked and kissed pretty much every part of her already this evening.
He lifted a towel off the pile in the corner of the room and wrapped the fluffy sheet around her shoulders to cover her nakedness. She shivered as he rubbed her back.
“Thanks,” she murmured, stepping out of his arms—freaked out even more by the desire to have him hold her. “I’ve got this.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again. “You look kind of washed out.” The concern on his face wasn’t helping with the deep, heavy thuds of her heartbeat.
“I’m fine. It’s just been a tiring day,” she said. “I did back-to-back calendar shoots. And then you screwed me to within an inch of my life on the kitchen table,” she added, desperate to lighten the mood.
But instead of laughing, he winced. The slash of color hit his cheekbones. Was Deputy Hard-Ass blushing? What was that about? And why should she find it so endearing?
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I’ll try and use more finesse next time. I swear to God, I don’t usually treat women so roughly.”
“Logan, you’re not serious?” she said, the urge to sooth and reassure not like her, but somehow unavoidable. “I loved the way you handled me downstairs. It was some of the hottest sex I’ve ever had in my life.” Not some of, the hottest sex she’d ever had in her life, but she didn’t want to let him know that. Getting screwed into unconsciousness had already put her at way too much of a disadvantage.
He scrubbed his hand over his chin, the rasp of stubble reminding her of the sting of beard burn he’d left on her thighs. Then he stared at her out of those broody blue eyes. “You sure?” he asked.
“Sure, I’m sure,” she said. “It’s not every day a girl has an orgasm so epic she passes out.”
The laugh that left those gorgeous lips was strained, but somehow all the more enchanting for it.
Lyle had been right, despite his dominant, sex-god tendencies—tendencies she suspected were as new to him as they were to her—Logan Tate was a gentleman.
She had a moment to contemplate how much more vulnerable that discovery made her feel when her stomach rumbled loudly enough to be heard in Texas.
He smiled, the slow sexy quirk of his lips making her thumping heartbeat thud right back into her sex.
Oh for�
�� Get a bloody grip, you nymphomaniac.
Thrusting his fingers through his hair, he said, “Why don’t you go get dressed? I’ll clean up the mess we made in the kitchen and reheat what’s left of the food.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said—because she really wasn’t that hungry for food. And she did not want to give in to her hunger for Logan again tonight. “Half a cow was enough for me.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I think I’ll just go crash. I’ll see you in the morning, Logan.”
He dipped his head, in an approximation of a nod, but his gaze roamed over her, as if he were checking for himself that she was really okay.
She could feel the weight of that assessing gaze following her out of the door as she hightailed it out of the bathroom. She felt like a coward as she reached her own bedroom. But as she dumped her towel and slipped under the patchwork quilt, the lingering soreness between her thighs making its presence felt, her heartbeat finally stopped pummeling her chest like a heavyweight champ on speed.
Beating a hasty retreat tonight had been necessary. She needed a chance to regroup and re-establish the emotional distance that was part and parcel of all her sexual relationships. Somehow or other—while he’d been pounding her to orgasm—Logan had shattered her trusty shield, and then delved behind the armor she kept around her heart. If she wanted more spectacular sex without any scary consequences, she needed to rebuild it, which meant getting a good night’s sleep.
That weird wobble in the shower had been brought about by fatigue. After all, she’d been running on adrenaline for days now. The work setting up the calendar and the pressure she was putting on herself to do a spectacular job—not to mention all the sex-capades with Logan—had depleted her usually boundless supplies of energy.
Tomorrow she’d be back to her usual self. Tough, smart, and up for sex—without making any unnecessary emotional connections.
Chapter Nine
“Easy, boy,” Logan crooned as he rubbed the sweat off Mystic’s coat with a handful of straw. He’d ridden the four-year-old Kentucky colt hard that morning, cutting ten more head of cattle nearing their time from the main herd and bringing them down to the calving pens. It would be several more weeks at least before the calving started, but getting the cows all in the right place still provided enough work to keep him and Mystic busy. Which was a good thing, because he’d needed a distraction from his thoughts this morning about last night and Charlotte.
She’d looked so small and fragile after they’d made love. And he’d felt like a jerk. Even more of a jerk than he had the night before.
He still did not know where that pushy streak had come from. Ordering women about was not in his nature. But she’d looked so damn hot draped over his kitchen table, her breasts high and firm and begging for his mouth. Her sobs echoing in his ears as he feasted on her. And seeing that bright reckless light in her face when he’d pushed and provoked her had told him she was getting as hot as he was. But afterward. Jesus, he’d wanted to hold her, to make sure he hadn’t hurt her. The urge to nurture and protect her something entirely new—as new as that pushy streak.
He stroked the horse’s flank, then threw down the straw and drew the hoof pick out of his belt.
Luckily, there wasn’t anything more distracting—or energizing—than crashing through the heavy brush on a well-trained cow pony while trying to keep ten ornery pregnant ladies moving in the right direction. It had cleared his mind, made him come to some important conclusions.
He’d woken up a couple of times in the night, in his empty bed, and imagined Charlotte in her lonely bed in the room next door. It was probably dumb to want her in his bed—because what were the chances he wouldn’t have worn her out even more—but the yearning had been there all the same. If they were going to go on sleeping together—and he figured that was a given, seeing how good it made them both feel—he wanted to actually sleep with her. Because having her in the next room, and not knowing if she was okay, was going to lose him a lot of sleep.
“Good, boy. Let’s have a look at those feet.”
Mystic lifted his foreleg for him, and he began cleaning out the dirt from their ride. He did each foot in turn, checking the horse’s shoes for stones. Mystic stood docilely by. He’d always enjoyed having his hooves cleaned, which was why Logan always made sure to check them after as well as before riding him.
He finished the job, but when he put the last hoof down and straightened, stretching out his back muscles, he spotted Charlotte, standing silently by the stall door with her camera obscuring her face.
The jolt of awareness was kind of surprising, seeing as they’d both worn themselves out the night before. And he’d just spent three hours on a horse exhausting himself even more.
“Hey, there?” he said. “How you doing?”
She lowered her camera. “Good,” she said, the slight edge to her voice reminding him of the night before. The wariness in her eyes when she’d caught him making her supper, or later, much later, in the bathroom, when she’d shot off rather than join him downstairs.
She was skittish, prickly, and wary of letting anyone care for her on some fundamental level. And he planned to find out why. Eventually.
He gave Mystic’s rump a pat to move him out of the way so he could exit the stall and get a better look at her.
She was wearing her usual outfit of scuffed jeans, a skimpy tank, and a western shirt, her wild hair swept back with a couple of pins. He studied her face, glad to see the shadows under her eyes from last night—which he’d noticed for the first time in the fluorescent light of the bathroom—had gone.
“Logan, I’m good. Stop staring at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m about to break in two. I had a good time last night. A really good time. But I’m going to have to call a halt to any more good times, if you’re going to start acting weird every time we screw each other’s brains out.”
He tried not to flinch at the deliberate crudity. And tried not to get turned on by it too, even though he already knew that was a losing battle.
“Making sure you’re okay is acting weird?” he said, taking off his gloves and whacking them on his chaps to clean off the dust.
“Yes, it is. I’m not your responsibility, just in case you were wondering.”
Yeah, she was. But he wasn’t going to argue the point with her. He knew a misdirection technique when he saw one; he was a trained officer of the law, after all.
She was going to have to get used to him keeping an eye on her while they were hooking up on a regular basis. Maybe they weren’t dating, per se. Maybe this was only a booty call with benefits. And maybe it had a one-month embargo at best. But he took care of the women he slept with. Especially women he’d managed to screw into unconsciousness as she’d put it—and she was a first there.
That was the kind of guy he was. He guessed it was a layover from his childhood—when he’d had to hold everything together while his old man was falling apart—but he couldn’t switch off that side of his nature.
And the truth was, he didn’t want to. Because there had been something about the way she’d curled into his arms, the way she’d stood quietly under his ministrations when he’d washed her in the shower that had called to him. And made him realize that even if she wasn’t used to having other people do for her, it didn’t mean she didn’t need it.
From her provocative behavior, and that mile-wide independent streak, he had a feeling Charlotte was a woman who had been on her own for a long time. She was used to doing for herself. But she wasn’t all alone on the Double T. He was here too, and he planned to watch over her. But being subtle about it would probably be best until he’d won at least a little of her trust.
Mystic had run wild for four years on a ranch in West Texas before Logan had bought the thoroughbred colt at a knockdown price. It had taken months to get him to even accept a human touch. Obviously Charlotte wasn’t a horse, and she’d probably skin him if she knew he was
making the comparison in his head, but it didn’t alter the fact her skittishness only made her more intriguing for him. And all the more determined to win her trust. And find out what the heck had made her so scared of letting anyone—even a casual booty call—get too close.
“We had great sex. But that’s all it was. Okay?” she said, still protesting.
He shrugged. “I don’t remember saying any different.”
“Great,” she said, her relief palpable.
Moving past her, he grabbed some hay from one of the new bales and stuffed it into the feed bucket roped to Mystic’s stall.
The colt stuck its nose into the trough and began to chew.
Logan ran his hand down the soft hair of the horse’s snout. He heard the whirring clicks and turned to find Charlotte with her camera to her face again.
Did she know she used the thing like a shield?
“You’re taking an awful lot of pictures of nothing,” he said. “Can’t see how photos of me stroking a horse is gonna be much use for your project.”
She lowered the camera, the quick smile devoid of tension, and all the more captivating for it. “You’d be surprised. Hunky guys and horses are some of the top eye candy choices for the discerning woman.”
He frowned. “Wait up, you’re not gonna put those pictures on the Internet are you?” He’d agreed to take off his shirt for this project, not have his whole life stuck on Instagram.
Her smile widened. “No actually, these are just some black and whites for my own personal enjoyment. Don’t worry, if any of them are good enough for my book, I’ll check with you first and get you to sign a release form.”
He grunted. “Okay, good. Fire away then.”
“Thanks.” She lifted the camera back to her face and took a load more shots. “Just pretend I’m not even here.”
Yeah, right.
He set about filling Mystic’s trough and the stalls of the ranch’s other cutting horses with fresh river water, and then oiled and hung up the tack. By the time he’d finished putting everything to rights, he’d almost forgotten she was there. Almost. The wisp of her scent curled around him—that sweet sultry combination of orange blossoms and spice mixing with the earthy smell of hay and fresh horse manure. But the clicks of the camera shutter didn’t bother him.