Wrangled Fate: Book One: Black Claw Ranch

by Lane, Cecilia

  A month, in fact. Rye taught her years ago and they played on slow nights when she visited him in their hometown. Without him, she only passed by tables while trying to corral Viho in an effort to get him to work.

  “Come on.” Ethan stood. “I’ll teach you.”

  Score. Maybe she could make some extra cash and take back a little control. Ethan tipped her off balance too much.

  After racking the balls and chalking the cue sticks, he crooked a finger for her to join him. Tansey reached for the cue he offered her, but wasn’t prepared for what came next.

  He stepped behind her, bending them over in the process. He covered her hands with his and positioned them on the cue. If it weren’t for all the noise and chaos of the bar around them, her thoughts would have slipped into what other fun could be had in the position. Even so, her skin prickled at the warmth behind her and her stomach tightened.

  “It’s like shooting a gun,” he said against the shell of her ear. “You know how to do that already.”

  Tansey glared over her shoulder. His eyes laughed at her. And her body heated another ten degrees.

  “Take a breath and line up your shot. Draw back.” Ethan eased her into the movement. “Exhale and shoot.”

  It was just the first shot, so she landed her hit off center and sent the ball flying to split the rack. Colors tumbled in all directions, but none made it into a pocket. Perfect.

  “Your turn,” she said brightly and glanced over her shoulder again.

  Ethan’s eyes dropped to her lips and he hesitated a moment before stepping away. He stayed silent through his turn, eyebrows drawn together and a heaviness around him.

  Tansey didn’t know what to make of the critical gaze that watched her line up her shot and once again miss hitting anything of use. Blue and silver swirled together into the mixture that was quickly becoming her favorite color.

  Ethan seemed to find an answer and nodded to himself, then stepped around the table to find his spot. Just as he bent into position, he raised an eyebrow. “There’s something I just can’t quite wrap my head around. How is it that you were the one to track down your brother?”

  “What do you mean? Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to find your sister?” She chose her next spot of attack at the far end of the table.

  “Yeah, but you have other family, don’t you? A man back wherever you come from?”

  “A man?” she asked flatly. Her eyebrows shot up and her jaw tightened. “You think I need a man to tell me where and what I can do?”

  “Never mind.” Ethan smirked around his beer bottle. “I get it now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Eyes narrowing, she paused before taking another shot.

  His smirk didn’t falter. “I meant no offense. You’re clearly a strong, capable woman. Some men might find that intimidating.”

  More than some. She was too self-sufficient. They didn’t feel needed. The complaint was a common one when the men of her life inevitably departed for greener pastures. But why was she supposed to pretend at weakness for someone with one foot out the door?

  Tansey grimaced and sank a ball into a pocket. Ethan scratched at his stubbled chin and fixed her with an unreadable expression. Damn. She was supposed to be playing poorly this round.

  “Our mother wasn’t very happy when Rye went furry and holds the opinion that he’s out howling at the moon.” Tansey tucked her hair behind her ears, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious and irritated. At her mother not giving a shit and everyone else unwilling to help. At herself for having no one else to rely on. “And I’ve been on a lot of last dates,” she admitted in a rush.

  His throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “They can’t have all been bad.”

  She ticked off her fingers while Ethan took his turn. “There was the one time I was invited on a group outing, and he tried to fob me off on his brother, who took one look and asked what he’d get paid. Another time where I was supposed to meet him for dinner, and found him at the tail end of a date with one of my friends. Oh, you’ll like this one. I catered an event at a country club and met a guy. A couple weeks later, he rescinds an invitation to a different event at the same club because he didn’t want to be seen with the help.”

  By the end of her litany, he stared and shook his head in silent commiseration. Not willing to end there, she took him through a second category of greatest hits.

  “Those are just the biggest w-t-f moments of my long-term relationships. I could tell you about the first-last dates, too. Like the guy who showed up and asked if we could eat and drink with horse masks on, the one who told me to go wipe off my makeup because the lipstick was the same shade as his ex’s, or the one who insisted that my shellfish allergy was fake and slipped some clams into my meal when I went to the bathroom. Joke’s on him, I threw up on the armrest on the way home. Hope he had fun cleaning between his seats.”

  “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

  She feigned innocence. “Rude. I would never act so maliciously.”

  “He deserved it,” Ethan chuckled.

  The rich notes echoed through her like a chord strummed to life. For a split second, she thought warmth and awareness flared to life in the exact center of her heart. But that was silly. She couldn’t think of him as anything more than a friend. One she recently tried to interrogate and have arrested, but a man who still came to her when he stumbled on the information she sought. Nothing else existed between her and Ethan.

  He tapped her hand resting on the table and brought her attention right back to him. “You know what your problem is?”

  Tansey motioned for him to give up his words. The earliest memory she had of her father was him sniping to her mother about opinions being like assholes; everyone had them and most of them stank. “Here we go. Let’s hear it.”

  “You choose the people who won’t be a challenge.” He laughed at her scoff and eye roll. “I’m serious. You squared up to me, ready to throw down to get answers about your brother. That takes balls. You know what I hear when you tell me about these boys? They couldn’t handle you.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life.”

  “So find someone that challenges you. Do you want the guy who hands you to his brother? The one who is seeing someone behind your back? Or do you want to be the one they drop everything for?”

  Like he’d done for her?

  Tansey shook her head to clear the stray thought. Impossible when his hand pressed against her lower back as he edged behind her and to his drink.

  Suddenly parched, Tansey followed suit. The air between them felt as thick as ever, pressing them closer. Part of her resisted. Another part, the selfish side she rarely let out, wanted to give in.

  Find someone who challenged her? Ethan had done little else since she put herself in his path. He clashed with her, tempted her, and drove her crazy in the space of a day. Every moment they spent together built up more electricity than she knew what to do with, or could even guess how it would discharge.

  She knew the moment the game was up. Ethan’s eyebrow drew together and his eyes bounced around the remaining balls. Suspicion and a little bit of humor tightened his features when he turned to her.

  “You’ve done this before.”

  “What? You’ve never been hustled?” Tansey dragged a finger down his jaw as she swished past him to take her shot. “Don’t let a pretty face distract you.”

  “Well played, Nichols. Well played,” he said in a gravelly voice. His eyes didn’t leave her for a moment, blue swirling into bright silver. “You’re not anything like what I expected.”

  Tansey fluttered her eyelashes to hide her sudden pleasure at his compliment. “Don’t go falling in love with me, Ashford. Apparently, I’ll demand all your time.”

  “You’re safe,” he said flatly. “No mates for me. I have my hands full already.”

  “With your ranch and lending helping hands to anyone who waves a gun in yo
ur face?” She missed and cursed under her breath. “Does your sister listen when you hand out all the good life advice?”

  “Colette?” Ethan snorted. “Colette doesn’t listen to anything I say. She’s a lot like you, actually.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  A small smile lifted his lips. “Colette’s studying for a degree in agricultural science, maybe wants to spin that into being a vet for large animals. She has this idea about coming back home and helping out here, but I don’t want that for her.”

  “No family business, then? No Ashford dynasty extending through the ages?” Tansey wrapped her fingers around the cue stick and leaned against the table next to Ethan.

  His expression shuttered. “No. No dynasty. That’s asking to have your life burned to the ground. It’s just us trying to make it from one year to the next.”

  That sounded heartbreakingly familiar. Pinning her future to a hope and a dream never worked out.

  “Were you very young when you started caring for her?”

  “About thirteen.” He leaned against the pool table next to her. “I used to take her out with me when I’d do chores. I remember one summer, she couldn’t have been more than six or seven, I found her swimming in one of the cattle troughs. She said she didn’t need to go to the lake when we had pools at home.”

  There it was again. That deep, tricky feeling of longing for something more spiked as he talked about his sister. He had a family he could rely on, and that depended on him. Not just blood, either. The other shifters of his clan were under the umbrella of his care. She wanted to belong to something more than just herself.

  Tansey sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  Too late, she realized what she’d done.

  A low growl vibrated in Ethan’s chest. He wrapped his arm around her waist and spun her into him. She stood between his legs, hands splayed across his firm chest, lips inches from each other.

  Tansey leaned back. Her fingers stroked against his chest of their own accord. Bright blue eyes swam into focus, the heat and intensity residing there stealing her breath away.

  The moment stretched on. They were caught in their own tiny bubble and the rest of the world slipped away.

  “What are we doing?” she whispered.

  This version of Ethan was different from the confident cowboy flashing a bright smile, or the one that filled the air with the tension he carried, or the man willing to get into a fist fight for her. The Ethan holding her steady by the hips was untamed charisma. Enticing. Sensual.

  “You told me to find your brother,” he said in a low voice.

  Tansey swallowed hard. A challenge and a promise-keeper, that was Ethan. “And you did.”

  A crack of thunder overhead preceded the sudden blackout. Haunted howls sparked a ghoulish cacophony in a truly juvenile fashion.

  “Five minutes!” Leah shouted. “If we don’t have lights by then, you’re all kicked out!”

  A swirl of air was her only warning that Ethan leaned closer. The darkness cloaked him and gave her no clue where he’d touch.

  She shouldn’t have wondered.

  Ethan growled, the words indistinguishable to her human ears, then crashed his lips against hers. Tansey gasped and he took advantage of the moment to seal them together in another world-tilting, mind-altering kiss. His mouth moved firmly over hers, tongue tangling and tempting her as surely as the needy snarls that rumbled in his chest. Savage, sexy man.

  The lights were still out when Ethan eased back from their kiss. He didn’t let her have a moment to think. His hands closed over her shoulders and his mouth dropped to the crook of her neck. “I don’t want to wait around. Do you?”

  Tingles raised the fine hairs up and down her body. She slowly shook her head. Could he see it in the darkness? She needed two tries to find her voice. “Where do you say we go?”

  “I’d never let a woman walk herself home.”

  Chapter 17

  Don’t fall in love.

  The words stuck to the back of his mind since she spoke them. Teasing, like fifty percent of the words that fell from her lips, but they wouldn’t leave Ethan alone.

  Too bad his bear decided that was out the window the first time he caught Tansey’s honeyed scent. Then she’d held her ground and twisted him into knots at every turn. The bear was ass over snout for her.

  He wasn’t much better.

  Don’t fall in love.

  Tansey stumbled through her door at the inn and rounded on him. Wet strands of hair clung to her face and neck from their run between the parking lot and building. Her chest heaved with big breaths, but nothing in her scent or eyes said she was scared. Hungry, that’s what they were. Those whiskey-brown orbs of color demanded he finish what he started at the bar.

  Ethan advanced on her, slamming the door shut behind him in his haste to get to her. He was so fucking glad she had a room at Muriel’s. He wouldn’t have been able to wait the entire drive back to Black Claw and he wanted to take his time. Taste all of her. Build up her moans before he even unzipped his jeans. He would have fucked her hard in his truck, too, but this would be so much better.

  He cupped her cheeks, angling her face for him to devour her lips. He couldn’t stop tasting her. She was like a meal he’d been starved for his entire life. Now that he had her, he wanted to savor her and inhale her equally.

  This wasn’t love, he told himself. This was infatuation. Hot, dirty, need to feel her break all around him infatuation.

  His bear snarled at him and Tansey pulled away.

  She ran her fingers lightly over his lips. “Was that…?”

  “My bear.” He swallowed hard. Would she run? Sour her sweet scent with fear? He tried to shove his bear to the back corner of his mind. “Yes.”

  She leaned forward and nipped his lower lip. “Don’t you hide him from me,” she ordered.

  “Good girl,” Ethan growled. In a flash, he snaked an arm under her ass and hauled her up. Tansey automatically wrapped her legs around his waist and smoothed her hands against his chest. Yes, he wanted to purr. Touch me.

  The fearlessness she showed at every turn demanded his attention. She wasn’t one to back down from anything. By the Broken, she spent the last month with an entire wolf pack in her determination to find her brother. That was the hard core of steel he needed in a mate. She wouldn’t run scared from the wildness at his center.

  Mate? No. He might have defended her against Viho, maybe let himself think it was true for a flash of a second, but she couldn’t be. He didn’t have a mate waiting for him. He couldn’t.

  His protests grew weaker with each utterance.

  His bear swiped at him, then turned sweet as pie for the hot little piece in his arms.

  Colette would have laughed at him. His sister wasn’t scared to stand up to anyone. She would have looked him in the eye and asked if he was an alpha of his own clan and ready to take what he wanted, or a boy scared to repeat the mistakes of the past.

  He was not his father. He’d never leave his people to flounder without him. He had skin in the game to make them work, make them better. The time spent with Tansey was proof be could balance his life and hers. He’d been useless without her, wondering if she was in danger and who he’d have to rip apart if she got hurt.

  So, what did he want?

  Tansey. He wanted Tansey. Her nails digging into his shoulders, her hot mouth trailing kisses down his neck, her arousal filling his nose… She wanted him, too.

  With their massive misunderstandings out of the way, it wasn’t hard to picture her at his side. They had a lead. They’d set aside their issues and gotten in sync. That was what it meant to have a mate, wasn’t it? Working together instead of in opposition.

  Tansey groaned and Ethan echoed the sound. He reached the bed and let her slide out of his arms. Her hands shoved under his shirt and pushed until he reached behind his back and hauled the wet fabric off his body.

  The AC kicked on and scattered goose bumps
over her damp flesh. Her discomfort wasn’t allowed.

  Ethan grabbed the hem of her shirt and peeled it off her body. Black lace clung to her frame and Ethan groaned. Perfect, just fucking perfect. His cock pressed painfully against his jeans at the sight of her luscious curves. She wasn’t coy, either, and didn’t try to hide behind her hands. She knew exactly the effect she had on him.

  Tansey reached forward, one arm wrapping around his neck. Her other hand closed over his shaft, squeezing and rubbing him through his jeans.

  Ethan growled. In one motion, he had her flat on her back. A tiny, shocked breath left her lungs. Her eyes snapped open and focused on him. He tested the air; no fear. The sweet scent of her arousal made his mouth water.

  He leaned back and allowed himself a moment to admire her and get a grip on himself. His balls ached with the pressure the sight of her built in him. He thought he’d have a heart attack if he had to spend another minute not inside of her heat.

  He kissed a path over the swell of her breasts. Her nipples peaked under the fabric and begged for his attention. He bit through the lace, teeth softly closing around the bud. He ran his palm up her ribs and closed around her neglected breast. He lapped and sucked until her breaths came in needy pants and she arched her back to give him more.

  More. He wanted everything she’d give him. He wanted to taste every inch of her before the night was over.

  Then he wanted to do it all over again. His bear rumbled a lifetime of agreements.

  Don’t fall in love.

  Fuck, but the feisty woman had dragged him halfway down the path already.

  He slammed the brakes on that thought. She had her own life and family. Her own dreams. Just because she was unlucky in love and tangled up in her brother’s problems didn’t mean she was ready to throw everything away. She could skip town as soon as her brother was found.

  Infatuation. Lust. One night, maybe a handful, of feeling her shatter around him. That was all he could allow himself to grasp at, no matter how she looked with her hands twisted into his hair and back bowed in a silent plea for more.