Call Me: sold live on CBS 48 Hours (Barnes Brothers Book 1)

by Alison Kent

  Harley’s eyes widened at the wicked lift of his darkly arched brow. At the mischievous eyes sparkling with fire. At the sly curl of his lip. And the smile that enticed and seduced.

  Gardner braced his hands at his lean waist, the tail of his shirt flaring wide. “Now let’s get you out of those clothes.”

  “You want me to take off my clothes?”

  He nodded.

  “Here?”

  He nodded.

  “Now?”

  He nodded. It was all he could manage with Harley not ten feet away. Damn, but reality beat the pants off phone calls. “Do you need some help?”

  “Do you want to help?”

  “No,” he croaked, making fists of both hands. “I’ll watch.”

  “All right,” she whispered and shrugged, tossing the gown toward the suitcase lying open on the rack.

  The wrapped top moved with her, slipping from one shoulder, then the other. Sliding down her arms. Catching on her wrists. Hitting the floor with the sound of a sigh.

  God, what breasts. Her simple white bra matched the panties in his hat. Her rib cage was narrow, her waist narrower still. And her breasts were what breasts should be. Plump, round, heavy. Perfect. She released the hook, eased the straps from her shoulders, and let the bra fall.

  His lungs compressed. His veins constricted and cut off the flow of blood to his head. But not to his groin. His erection tested the durability of denim better than weeks in the saddle.

  Harley smiled a tentative smile. With nervous fingers, she undid the three buttons on the side of her skirt. Her breasts swung free; her nipples pouted, puckered, and begged for attention. Gardner swallowed a gallon of saliva.

  And then her skirt hit the floor.

  Her hips were made to cradle a man, her legs to hold him once he came home. Her belly was flat, her sex hidden beneath a riot of curls he wanted to part with his tongue. Sweat pooled at the base of his throat. He couldn’t move to wipe it away.

  Harley Golden embodied everything female—from the mystery of innocence, to the madness of seduction, to the arousing potential to carry his child.

  He backed up and sat in the room’s single black wrought-iron chair. “C’mere.”

  She shook her head, chewed at her lower lip.

  “Why not?” A tiny hint of apprehension nudged him. If she’d been teasing, he could’ve ignored it. She was serious.

  “Promise not to laugh?” she finally asked, her expression uncertain.

  “Why would I laugh?” He was so tense, a gust of breath and he’d snap.

  Her tongue dotted her lip. “This is so stupid. I want to do this right.”

  She didn’t know. She really didn’t know. “Harley, honey, if you were any more right, I wouldn’t be here now.”

  “You wouldn’t?” She twisted her hands at her waist.

  “I’d be buried, six feet under, with an epitaph that read, ‘Here Lies Gardner Barnes. He Died Of A Broken Hard-On.’” She blushed, and he loved every red streak. “Now are you gonna come here?”

  “You didn’t promise not to laugh.”

  He made a bold X over his heart and she stepped around the foot of the bed… wearing nothing but leather boots.

  Gardner had died and gone to rodeo heaven. “Come over here and ride me, city girl.”

  Her steps drowned out her cry of delight, then she was on his lap, straddling him. His hands cupped her bare bottom, his fingers searched out the warmth he’d wanted so long. His face found a home in the creamy valley he’d dreamed of forever.

  He took one pink bud between his lips and Harley bowed her back. He sucked harder, filled his mouth with her taste, tugged with his lips, drew her deep inside.

  “Gardner,” she cried. “Stop. Please.”

  “Not a chance.” He flicked one nipple, pinched the other.

  “Please. Your shirt. I want it off.”

  She yanked at the snaps. Gardner reached between their bodies and jerked the shirt from his jeans. Harley helped him slide it off.

  Holding her plump breasts in his palms, Gardner dragged her nipples through the hair on his chest. Then Harley took over. Pushing his hands away, she held herself against him, moving skin against skin, virgin white against hardened bronze, pebbled female peaks against flat male discs.

  Gardner glanced up, then wished he hadn’t. How was he going to last? Eyes closed, Harley chewed on her lower lip, pouted and whimpered, and made throaty little moans. He couldn’t help it. He thrust upward.

  Sleepy and aroused, her bluebonnet eyes drifted open. She found him watching. Her lips parted and he ached to be between, to feel them close around his… his tongue would have to do for now. He pulled her head down to his.

  Her sweet little palms framed his face, holding him still for the motions of her mouth. Speaking with her tongue, her lips, with tiny nips of her teeth, she told him of her loneliness, her want, her ability to fulfill his desires.

  Need devoured him, tearing at his soul, ripping at the answers, the plan he’d laid for his life, leaving jagged edges that only Harley could mend.

  Then the kiss deepened. And her body moved The gentle song of her spirit vanished. Rock ’n’ roll hunger took its place. She ground her hips on the bulge in his jeans.

  And Gardner was through playing.

  “Wrap your legs around my waist.” His hands stroked her bottom—stroked, explored, and squeezed. Then in one clean motion, he gained his feet. He backed her into the bed and fell into plump pillows, feathers, and a quilt old enough to have seen decades of love.

  His skin kissed hers from belly to breast Braced on one arm, he gazed down. “I’ve finally got you where I want you.”

  “You do?”

  He palmed her rib cage, just below one breast. “It can’t get any better than this.”

  Harley trailed one finger down his breastbone. “I wouldn’t think a man like you”—she’d reached his navel now—“would be satisfied with so little.” She slipped her fingers behind the fly of his jeans. Her eyes brightened. “Especially when you have so much to give.”

  He’d kept his jeans on to last longer but her sloe-eyed gaze turned his resolve into jelly. Everything else remained rock hard.

  To hell with making this first time last. To hell with sweet nothings and skillful seduction. They’d had three days of extended foreplay. It was time for the fireworks. Gardner rolled over, shucked off both jeans and drawers.

  And that’s when he saw the hat. Floppy brimmed and hanging on the wall. A hat tucked full of flowers. And feathers. He smiled, plucked a bright yellow plume from the brim, then rolled back to Harley.

  “Close your eyes,” he ordered, parting her legs and kneeling between.

  “No.” Her hair fanned across the quilt like summer’s wheat. “I want to see you.”

  At her soft words, her tone of awe, a proud and mighty surge of blood thickened his arousal. He let her look… until he thought he’d come from the impatience in her gaze.

  He brushed the feather across her eyelids. “You’ve looked enough. Now I want you to feel.”

  “Gardner,” she complained.

  He silenced her with a stroke of down across her lips, then dusted each eye one more time. “Time’s up, Harley. You’ve spent your quarter. No more looking. No more talking.” His gaze skimmed her pliant body; his stomach rolled in hunger. “Now it’s time to feel.”

  Gripping her hips, he pulled her toward him, placing the backs of her thighs high over his. Their positions afforded him a hell of a view; his condition allowed him the briefest enjoyment. This was going to be so good.

  Sliding the ripe tip of his sheathed sex into her feminine folds, he drew the feather down her body in a line from breastbone to navel.

  “Feel the difference. Soft.” He circled each breast with the feather then pushed his erection into her wet and waiting heat. “Hard.”

  He tangled the yellow fluff in the curls between her thighs. “Soft.” Gut clenched, he entered her slowly, fully. Harley tight
ened around him. “Hard.”

  And getting harder. Why had he started this game?

  Leaning forward, he touched the tip of his tongue to the peak of each rosy breast. “Feel the difference. Wet.” He blew across the distended tips. “Dry.”

  Harley shivered

  “Cold.” He licked her again, blew again. Then pushed into her, deep and hard. “Hot.”

  Grinding his jaw, he pulled out completely, eased back in, then withdrew. “Slow.”

  He was never going to last. Lifting her heels to his shoulders, he supported his weight on his palms, stretched his legs out behind him. His hunger set the tempo. “Fast.”

  Deliberately, he forced himself to slow. “Gentle.” Then said to hell with it and let the demands of his body rule. “Rough.”

  Harley writhed beneath him. Insanity fired the animal sounds rushing up his throat. Sobs and whimpers spilled from between her lips. He took them with his own.

  His hands went crazy, kneading, probing—but no more crazy than hers. Clinging, digging, her needy fingers gouged his back from shoulders to ribs. He wanted to crawl deep inside her and make her body a part of his.

  He didn’t want it to end. Ever.

  Thighs clenched, he lowered their weight into the mattress. Harley wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his back, and held him close. She opened her eyes and looked up.

  “Sex,” she said, squeezing him with muscles he’d driven deep to find. Then she took his mouth and mated her tongue with his. Long slow strokes. Wet and welcoming. Sizzling and sweet. Hot and wonderful and as intimate as the act itself.

  Nipping his lower lip, she gentled the kiss and pulled back “Making love.”

  That was all he needed to hear. His control was history.

  With her boot heels digging crescents into his hips, Gardner rocked against her, rocked the bed off the wall, and rocked himself home in the cradle of her body.

  Gardner banked the Cessna to the right, giving Harley a clear view of the green-and-brown patchwork fields that comprised the whole of Camelot. His home. His legacy.

  He’d chosen his lifelong mistress well; Camelot’s demands were harsh but definable, their bond irrevocable —not one made of the capricious, temperamental knots in which his mother had bound his father in the name of love.

  Gardner watched the sweep of land roll by, his pride a heady thing. Only Jud and Ty aroused his emotions more than the land. He loved his ranch with a passion of the heart, one he could never feel for a woman. No matter how much he wanted her.

  And he wanted Harley Golden again, and again, a deeper want than he’d thought—feared—possible.

  After they’d made it out of bed, Gardner had dressed and carried Harley’s bags to his truck while Harley, insisting he not look, grabbed up her clothes and hustled into the bathroom. As if he hadn’t seen everything. As if she hadn’t given him more.

  Looking as pulled together as a woman could wearing more whisker burns than clothes, she’d come back into the bedroom and demanded the return of her panties. He’d refused.

  It was a small show of wills, but when he’d pulled her flush against him and shown her exactly why he liked her bottom bare, she’d acquiesced.

  Together they’d ridden in silence to a private airstrip on the outskirts of town, the cab of the truck seeming smaller than Gardner had noticed on the drive in. Of course, then he’d been alone, not accompanied by one very sexy woman he knew inside out.

  Fighting back the urge to stop the truck in the middle of the road and take Harley’s sweetness once more, Gardner had returned the borrowed crew cab and arranged to have Harley’s Blazer picked up and stored at the hangar.

  Other than acknowledging his profession, Harley had made no comment regarding his wealth. She’d remained quiet, even in the air. But Gardner hadn’t minded. The silence was comfortable. They didn’t need conversation to communicate.

  He pointed out the lay of the land but she never glanced his way. Instead, she reached across the cabin and touched his thigh, the contact no more than a quick squeeze of affection.

  It didn’t matter. He wanted her again. He wanted to take it slow and easy, to talk to her about the future. But later. After they’d gotten beyond this stage of brushfire lust.

  Because as much as he hated to admit it, they had to get to the other side to find any sort of lasting compatibility.

  It might’ve been a better idea to contain his search for his children’s mother closer to home. Women raised under ranching conditions knew the kind of life they were in for. But none of the available women he knew lit his fuse like Harley Golden.

  Physically, their encounter in Fredericksburg was what first times should be, what first times rarely were. But he knew that, emotionally, Harley hadn’t been sure how to deal with his unexpected arrival.

  At the auction barn, she’d been tense, uptight, not the Harley he’d grown to lo… grown fond of. In her room at the bed-and-breakfast, she’d been unsure of both herself and him.

  Release was all he expected from sex. He’d thought that would be enough in his marriage. He wasn’t so sure anymore. Harley altered beliefs he’d clung to for a lifetime when she demanded he make love.

  Gardner turned his attention to the controls. Now they were home. The land looked fertile, the future loomed brighter. He had Harley at his side. The woman he wanted in his bed. And in his life.

  The one who told him about growing up on a motorcycle and hating it. The one who felt disjointed, lost, disconnected from her family. The one who needed friends besides those who ate tofu for Christmas.

  The one who wished someone other than her sister would give her sexy underwear. Who wanted someone other than a business associate to know her better than anybody.

  A few of these things she’d told him. The rest he knew. He just… knew.

  THIRTEEN

  “WELCOME TO CAMELOT.” TYLER SMILED up at Harley, a Lone Star Feed and Fertilizer bill cap pulled low on his brow.

  Placing her hand in his uplifted palm, Harley swiveled in her seat and smiled at the younger, but no less devastating, Barnes family male. “You must be Tyler.”

  “The one and only,” he answered, a grin to rival Gardner’s in hunk appeal splitting his face. “And more competition than big brother cares to admit.”

  “I can see the resemblance in your e… go… ooh,” Harley cried, airborne. Hands at her waist, Tyler whirled her through the air. Harley braced herself on his muscled shoulders. A gust of wind whipped up her skirt to her bare bottom.

  Mortification followed until she realized her skirt still hugged her knees.

  “Tyler!” Gardner barked, and Tyler swung her to the ground.

  “Looks like I’m in big trouble,” Tyler exaggerated, his Gardner-green eyes dramatically wide.

  A true ham if Harley’d ever seen one.

  Harley’s bags in his hands, Gardner stomped around the rear of the plane. “If you can drag your hands away from Miss Golden, little brother, I could use ’em over here.”

  Tyler frowned down at his hands on her waist. He shook his head. “What can I say? They’ve got a mind of their own.”

  Thoroughly—though, she prayed, not too obviously— charmed, Harley smoothed down her skirt once Tyler released her. “Maybe you should see a doctor about that.”

  “And miss all the fun?” Tyler tipped his hat, added a wink, and jogged around to the back of the Rover.

  “Damn, I’m glad I’m not that boy’s father,” Gardner muttered, shouldering past Harley with several crates of what appeared to be hardware and foodstuffs.

  She paid no attention to his lie but studied the two men who’d spent a lifetime side by side. Whose camaraderie spoke of friendship as much as brotherly love and respect.

  A bittersweet smile tugged at her lips. It was the only outward show of emotion—regret? jealousy?—she allowed, refusing to indulge in melancholy when the immediate future held such potential.

  Leaving Tyler to arrange the vehicle�
�s cargo, Gardner approached. This time Harley’s smile was heartfelt and pure. He stopped two feet away. She resisted closing the distance. “Did you have room for everything?”

  “Tyler will figure it out.” Hands at his waist, Gardner glanced back at his brother. “That boy. He knows I fly in supplies. One of these days he’ll learn not to drive out without emptying the back of the Rover first.”

  “You’re a good man, Gardner Barnes.”

  He leaned in exhilaratingly close, his gaze a sizzling blend of everything masculine when he said, “I was good, wasn’t I?”

  Heart fluttering deliciously at the reminder, Harley pushed against his chest, moving him back—hmm, eight inches seemed far enough. “I’m not talking about that kind of good.”

  “It’s the only kind that counts,” he said with a wicked lift of one brow. Capturing her hand, he dragged her palm back and forth across his chest, then urged her fingers lower.

  “Would you stop?” She jerked away and could’ve sworn the tips of her fingers burned. “Someone might see. Besides, I’m trying to give you a compliment.”

  “You just did.”

  “You are incorrigible. A trait you picked up from your brother no doubt.”

  Gardner searched Tyler out with stark eyes.

  Harley went on. “What I was trying to say is that you and Tyler have a very special relationship. You seem to know when he needs a brother, a father. Or just a friend.”

  Gardner shrugged and motioned for her to follow around the Rover’s front end. He opened the passenger door and handed her in just as Tyler slammed the back. “I’ve been doing it so long it’s second nature. Don’t read anything into it.”

  “Modesty does not become you.” Harley put on a schoolteacher scowl.

  “It doesn’t become you, either.” Hat in one hand, Gardner leaned into the cab, his lips on Harley’s ear. “That’s why I’m keeping your panties.”

  Tyler jerked open the driver’s door, cutting off Harley’s response.

  Fist below her chin, Gardner closed her mouth, then reached for the seat belt and fastened her in. His hand barely brushed her lap. Harley felt his touch in the pit of her stomach.