Best of Cowboys Bundle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Barbara White Daille, Judy Christenberry, Christine Wenger, Shirley Rogers, Crystal Green, Nina Bruhns, Candance Schuler, Carole Mortimer

  Jo Beth turned her head and gave him a little cat smile, rife with feminine knowledge and satisfaction at his helpless, heated response to her touch. “Don’t move,” she said softly, and then lowered her head and took him into her mouth.

  His response was all she’d hoped for, all she’d wanted, all she’d fantasized about. His body stiffened and arched, taut as a bow beneath her ministering mouth. His hands fisted in the sheets beneath him. He whispered her name, softly at first, almost reverently, and then ever more frantically as her mouth called the passion from his body. He wasn’t playing teasing sensual games now, he wasn’t smug and cocksure and full of himself, he wasn’t even thinking. He was pure, primal feeling, a man at his most elemental, helpless in his desperate desire for what she could give him.

  Jo Beth was drunk on the power of her sensual appeal, delirious with it, and determined to take it all the way. She was unwavering in her resolve to make him lose control the way she had lost it in Tom’s tack room, dead set on making him tremble. And plead. And whimper.

  The way she had trembled and pleaded and whimpered.

  She sucked harder, taking more of him into her mouth on each down stroke, pressing her tongue firmly against the ultrasensitive vein on the underside of his shaft on the upstroke. The muscles in his taut stomach began to quiver. His legs twitched restlessly. His head rolled against the mattress.

  She tugged on his testicles, pulling them gently away from his body, pressing two fingers against the super-sensitive perineum just beneath.

  “Oh, God, Jo. Yes. Please.” His whole body strained upward. “Please.”

  He was on the edge, as she had been, wild with yearning, utterly frantic for release. She quickened the up-and-down movement of her head and felt the crown of his penis swell against her tongue, felt the drawing in and tightening of his scrotum against her caressing fingertips that signaled impending orgasm. He was very close. She increased her pace, relentlessly driving him to the finish.

  “Sweet Jesus God!” The words were expelled on a breathless whimper as his body exploded in climax. She stayed with him, not lifting her head until the final orgasmic spasms racked his body.

  He unclenched his fists and reached down with one hand to touch the side of her face. “Jo,” he said. His voice trembled. “Jo.”

  She turned her head, then, resting her cheek lightly against his half flaccid penis, and looked up at him.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” he said.

  “I wanted to. I’ve wanted to since practically the first minute I saw you. I’ve been dying to do that to you.” She smiled lasciviously. “It’s been one of my most persistent fantasies.”

  He knew she wasn’t lying or exaggerating. She hadn’t done it to please him or to placate him or to make him want her. She hadn’t done it because she thought it was what he wanted, at all. That wasn’t the kind of “relationship” they had; that wasn’t the kind of woman she was. She’d done it to please herself, because it was what she wanted to do. He could only be grateful that he was the man she’d wanted to do it to—and with.

  “Is there anything else you want to do? Any other fantasies I can help you fulfill?” He reached down, cupping her shoulders, and pulled her body up over his until they were face-to-face. He kissed her, a soft, nuzzling butterfly kiss. “Anything at all?”

  “Well, now that you mention it…” She put her hands against his chest and pushed herself upright. Her legs slid down along either side of his waist. Her labia pressed against his belly. “What’s your recovery time, cowboy?”

  Amazingly, his recovery was already well underway. The second she’d straddled him and he’d felt her pussy, wet and aroused, against his belly, his penis had twitched and raised its head in renewed interest.

  “What have you got in mind, boss?”

  She grinned at him. “How do you feel about the woman-on-top position?”

  “Right now, I’d say if the woman on top would slide her luscious little ass down about six inches, I’d feel just fine about it.”

  Jo Beth squirmed around on top of him, rubbing herself against him, moving down inch by exquisite inch until she felt the tip of his newly engorged penis prodding her equally engorged labia. She raised herself to her knees and reached down with one hand, intending to hold his penis upright so she could slide down on it. But Clay forestalled her. His hands were there first.

  He placed his palms against the tops of her thighs. His fingers were curved outward, holding her in place above him, his thumbs were curved inward, touching her soft, wet pussy. He stroked her gently, easing open the slick folds of her body, following the petaled curves upward until his thumbs rested on either side of her clitoris. Squeezing lightly, he coaxed the tiny nubbin out from beneath its protective hood and then caressed it lightly, slowly, with short, languid upward strokes, alternating thumbs so that one caress was barely over before the next began.

  Jo Beth shuddered and started to lean forward to brace her hands on his chest, but that would have dislodged his thumbs. She leaned backward instead, bracing her hands behind her on his thighs. The position arched her body, pushing her breasts out and giving him better access for his busy hands. He widened his field of attack, sliding his hands up her body to her breasts, flicking her nipples lightly, pinching them, then sliding his hands back down again to resume his sensual assault on the throbbing nubbin of flesh between her legs. It went on for several long, delicious minutes, the languorous slip and slide of his hands making their slow, maddening trek up and down her body, stroking and caressing, pinching and tugging, inflaming her, arousing her, driving her mad.

  Jo Beth’s breathing gradually came faster and harsher, until she was panting lightly. She began to tremble, her arms, her belly, her legs, all shaking so badly she could barely hold herself upright. The red flush of impending orgasm covered her breasts and upper torso.

  “Oh, God. I can’t.” Her voice was as shaky as her body as she struggled to hold herself upright. “Please, Clay. I’m falling apart. I can’t.”

  He slid his hands from her thighs to her waist, pulling her upright so that she was, once again, balanced on her knees over him. “Give me a second,” he said, his voice nearly as shaky as hers as he reached under the pillow for one of the condoms he’d stashed there earlier. Quickly he tore it open and sheathed himself, then reached for her again.

  He cupped his hands around the backs of her knees and then moved down her calves to her ankles. He pulled her feet forward gently, guiding them around his waist as he sat up. He wrapped one arm around her, lifting her up as he shifted his legs. When he eased her back down again, she slid smoothly onto his penis. The snug heat of her vagina gripped him like a glove. The hard length of his cock stretched and filled her. She shuddered and sighed and settled onto him, lifting her hands to his shoulders to keep her exactly where she was, exactly where she wanted to be.

  They sat face-to-face, breast-to-chest, groin-to-groin, man-to-woman. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, her ankles locked at the small of his back. His legs were crossed loosely behind her, his heels pressing into the crease of her buttocks to provide support and keep her from rolling backward and losing their connection. He rocked back and forth, slowly, rhythmically, providing just enough friction to keep her on the screaming edge of release but not quite enough to send her over it.

  “Have you ever tried tantric sex?”

  Jo Beth shook her head. “No.”

  “Would you like to?”

  “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “Not exactly.” He stopped moving. “The purpose of tantric sex is to try not to have an orgasm.”

  “Try not to have an orgasm?” Jo Beth said incredulously. She wanted an orgasm so bad, she was almost ready to beg for one, scream for one, demand one. “Why would anyone try not to have an orgasm?”

  “It’s like when somebody tells you not to think about pink elephants.” He smiled into her eyes. “From that moment on, all you can think about is pink elephants.
Big, fluffy pink elephants. So, when I tell you not to have an orgasm…”

  “I have an orgasm?”

  His lips curved up in a seductive smile. “Eventually.”

  She pouted. “I want one now.”

  “Eventually.” He smoothed his big hands down the length of her back, his fingertips grazing the delicate bumps of her spine, and cupped her bottom, one cheek of her ass in each wide palm. He tilted her pelvis forward, slightly, changing the angle and the pressure of their connection.

  Heat sizzled through her like forked lightning. She gasped and closed her eyes, straining for the release that hovered just over the edge of sensation.

  “Don’t have an orgasm,” he said, “and open your eyes.”

  She lifted her lashes and glared at him, her mutinous expression only half-counterfeit. “I want to come. I need to come.”

  “It’ll be better if you wait.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve already had yours.”

  “And you’ll get yours, too. I promise. And it will be spectacular. The longer you wait, the more spectacular it will be. In the meantime—” he ran his hands down to her butt again, tilted her forward, rocked her against him until she shuddered “—enjoy the journey. And open your eyes. Look at me while I’m driving you crazy.”

  She waited until the almost-orgasm slipped irrevocably away and then lifted her lashes again. Her expression was soft and tumultuous, heavy with unsatisfied desire, drowsy with sensuality. His was intense and focused and powerfully, keenly aroused. He held her gaze with his, staring deeply into her eyes, watching her passion rise and fall and rise again as she reacted to the slow, hypnotic stroking of his hands as he skimmed them over her body, barely touching.

  He grazed her strong, supple shoulders and back, the narrow slope of her waist, the enticing swell of her hips. He traced the long, firm muscles of her widespread thighs with his fingertips, down along the outside of her legs to her knees and then back up, his hands floating along her inner thighs, briefly touching the place where they were joined. His fingers skimmed the soft, slippery flesh stretched so tightly around him, and then back up again, over her flat, quivering belly, around and around her breasts, barely brushing her nipples, and back up to her shoulders to start the exquisite torture all over again.

  “I promised you hours,” he said, his voice low and hot and crooning. He rocked her limp, heated body against him. “I can give you hours like this.”

  “I can’t take hours like this.” Despite her melting pliancy, every nerve ending in her body was strung tight, humming with exquisite anticipation, drowning in languorous, lubricous need. “Hours like this would kill me.” She let her head fall back with a ragged, whimpering sigh. “I’m dying now.”

  He caught her head in one hand and moved the other to the middle of her back, keeping her from melting into a boneless puddle on the bed. “Don’t have an orgasm,” he crooned low, calling her back from the edge of the abyss. “And open your eyes.”

  She groaned in frustration and opened her eyes. “Bastard,” she said. The word was a caress and a taunt, accolade, and reprimand all rolled into one. “You’re a cruel, devious, conniving, unfeeling bastard, and I hate you.”

  “Yep, I’m a bastard, all right.” He grinned. It was his slow, I’m-all-that-and-more cowboy grin. “And you’re hotter and wetter than you’ve ever been before, aren’t you? You’re so hot you’re burning up from the inside out.” He shifted his hands to her waist and let her fall a little farther back, so that her spine was arched in a graceful bow and her pelvis was pressed more tightly against his. “Aren’t you?” he demanded.

  “Yes. Oh, God, yes.”

  “You’re primed to explode.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just the slightest touch, the slightest movement, in just the right way, will set you off.”

  “Yes. Oh, please, yes.”

  She hung there between his hands like a rag doll, her back arched, her breasts out-thrust, her thighs widespread, the small soft sensitive opening to her vagina taut and tight around him. He lifted her slightly, pulling her toward him with his hands on her waist, then let her fall back down. Lifted. Let her fall. Lifted…

  It was hardly any movement at all, just the tiniest hint of friction, barely qualifying as a thrust, but it was exactly where she needed it. It was exactly enough. Exactly right.

  The sensation it created was agonizingly pleasurable and unbearably intense, and she couldn’t take it one minute longer, not one second. She was going to explode all over him. She was going to come so deep and so hard…

  “Open your eyes, Jo Beth.” He lifted her just a little higher, slid her up his shaft just a little farther, increased the friction just a little more. “I want to watch you when you come. I want you to watch me watching you.”

  She opened her eyes. They were ablaze with helpless passion, her pupils dilated so that her soft-brown irises looked inky-black in the moonlight. And then, suddenly, inevitably, the feeling twisting her nerves into heated screaming knots crested. She hovered there for a long excruciating, exquisite moment, trembling on the brink of satisfaction. He tightened his hands on her waist, pulling her down tight against him with a hard little rotating motion that ground their pubic bones together. The tension in her body imploded with staggering force. Her eyes went blank with pleasure. She gave a low guttural groan that sounded as if it had been ripped from her body and slipped over the edge of reason into pure physical sensation.

  Clay gathered her up against his chest, holding her close and safe as the aftershocks shuddered through her. She was utterly, completely limp with pleasure, exhausted, overwhelmed, helpless. She made no protest when he nuzzled her neck, didn’t turn away when he kissed her eyelids and her forehead and her cheeks, voiced no objections when he tucked her securely against his side.

  Clay’s own raging orgasm, experienced in the moments just after she reached her final peak, went almost unnoticed, overshadowed and eclipsed by the triumph of hers.

  9

  CLAY TOLD HIMSELF that the faint niggling sensation of discontent he felt when he woke up alone the next morning was nothing more than disappointment at not being able to indulge in a playful bout of morning sex. After all, morning sex was one of his favorite activities. He liked women who were bed-warmed and sleepy-eyed. He liked them with their hair tousled and their makeup gone. He liked waking them up with little baby kisses and sneaky under-the-cover caresses that had them aroused and willing before they were fully awake. He liked it when they giggled and squirmed because his morning stubble was scratchy. And he really liked it when they could be convinced—and they usually could be—to join him in his morning shower for a second go-round. That sort of action always started his day off right.

  Not that Jo Beth struck him as a giggler. In fact, she’d probably have pushed him away and told him in no uncertain terms in that deliciously snooty I’m-the-boss-and-don’t-you-forget-it tone of hers to go shave before he came near her. But then—he grinned into his pillow at the thought—with all of his considerable determination and extensive sexual expertise, he could have convinced her she really didn’t mean that.

  Just like she hadn’t meant it last night when she’d called him a bastard in that sulky sex-kitten voice that was so at odds with the one she usually used. His grin widened at the memory of her sitting hot and naked in his lap with her long lithe legs wrapped around his waist and her firm, slender body limp with desire between his hands. Unlike most women he’d known, who could barely string two coherent words together when he had them in that position, Jo Beth had glared at him through passion-drugged eyes and managed to deliver an entire sentence that succinctly conveyed her annoyance with him and his tormenting sex play. Of course, it’d only taken him about two minutes to change her mind and have her writhing and melting and purring in his arms. A good, heart-stopping orgasm tended to do that to a woman.

  He was confident he could have gotten around the morning-beard problem just as easily
if she’d stayed. Of course, even if she had, it was doubtful she’d be lolling around in bed with him. Despite her adventurous sexual appetites and the obvious pleasure she derived from indulging them, Jo Beth was a nose-to-the-grindstone, no-nonsense type of woman who jumped out of bed at first light without waiting to see if it might be more fun to sleep in.

  Speaking of which, he was pretty sure it was first light he saw creeping around the edges of the pillow he had mashed over his face. He yanked it off his head, tossing it to the floor with the covers he’d lost sometime last night, and squinted at the bedside clock bolted to his nightstand. The bright red numerals read 4:45. If he wanted to impress the jefe of the Diamond J with something other than his sexual prowess—and he damned well did—it was time to haul his ass out of bed.

  JO BETH WOKE the next morning, sleepy-eyed and a bit groggy, her body feeling deliciously relaxed and loose and supple. She stretched her arms over her head and yawned hugely, feeling like Scarlett O’Hara the night after Rhett Butler had carried her up the stairs and had his wicked way with her. A satisfied little grin curled the corners of her mouth as she gazed up at the yellow paint on the ceiling of her bedroom. It was amazing what a good orgasm—or two or three—could do for a woman’s mood. And Clay Madison gave damned good orgasms.

  She wondered if he were awake yet, if he had awoken, as she had, feeling the distinct need for more of the same pleasure they had shared last night. She didn’t usually wake up horny—not that it would do her any good if she did, anyway, because she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d greeted the morning with a man in her bed—but this morning, well, the itch between her legs would have had her straddling her fantasy cowboy to scratch it before she crawled out of bed to face the rest of her day.

  She lay there for another moment, contemplating scratching it herself. It would only take a couple of minutes to achieve release but, hell, fantasy sex and self-gratification would doubtless only provide the same fleeting satisfaction she’d experienced in the water tank. Especially now that she had the reality to compare it to and knew, without a doubt, that her fantasies didn’t even come close to the reality of Clay Madison.