“Mornin’. Don’t you look good enough to eat?”
Her nipples hardened. Her pussy got all wet and swollen. She tried to steady her hands as she smoothed them over her jeans. “Dressed for the brush. Doing as I’m told.”
Beneath his black Stetson, his gray eyes flashed at her with appreciation. “We need to scoot while it’s still cool enough to think. Got a hat?” He pushed his own back from his brow. “If not, that pretty pale skin is gonna fry in the sun.”
“No. I didn’t think.” Haven’t thought about much the last few days but you. Naked. With me. “Maybe I can borrow one from—”
“Never mind. You can have mine.”
“Then you’ll burn.”
He chuckled, snaking an arm around her waist. “Honey, since I first met you, I’ve done nothin’ but burn.”
Same goes. “That’s no way to start a day of tough talk about water,” she chided him as he opened the door of his 4x4 and she slid into the leather seat. Watching him round the truck, she quivered with a mix of fear and excitement. She had expected he’d be a gentleman this morning and let them get their business over with before they got on to the personal side. Evidently he had other ideas.
Slamming his door, he settled himself behind the wheel and turned the key. His half-smile hooked up his mouth to one side.
“What?” she prodded. “What’s funny?”
“You.” He took them around the circular drive and sped out onto the main road. “You think you can separate one part of us from the other?”
“We’ll have to,” she said with conviction as he swerved the truck to the shoulder. “I can’t work if— Wait. Where are you going?”
He shoved the shift into neutral and idled the engine. Then he reached over and pulled her across the buttery leather so that she was crushed against him like crumpled paper. With one big hand to her nape, he held her still. “Here,” he said. “I’m going here.”
This time as he kissed her, he took her mouth in a long, slow exploration. So different from the kiss he’d bestowed on her Friday night, this one was all seduction. A soft, luxurious claim. She melted into the possession of it, moaning at his tenderness. He tasted like mint toothpaste, smelled like Texas sunshine and felt like hot stone. His mouth was the finest invention since God created the earth—warm and wicked. With a fierce tongue, he delved inside and explored every bit of her. She grabbed his shirt. To get any closer, she’d have to crawl inside him. She broke away, panting. “Can’t breathe!”
“Can’t stop.” He picked her up off the seat, angled her around and plunked her across his lap. His fingers, deft and demanding, fisted in her hair. “Need this.”
He kissed her again. This time, the man who took her seemed like one dying of thirst. Open mouth, he sucked at her lips. He let her grab some air and then he drank her up, plunging his tongue inside her.
He’d take all of her! She pushed at his chest.
He must have thought she fought him and caught her wrists.
“No,” she whispered, “let me. Let me.” Have you, hold you, melt right down inside you. She nuzzled the base of his throat, inhaling the musky essence of him.
He plunged his hands in her hair again and tugged her head back to gaze into her eyes. “Can’t go on like this.”
“I know. I want you too. I’ve thought of nothing else but having you all weekend.”
His grin was ear to ear. “Makes my heart sing to hear it. But what I meant was, Joel is meeting us in ten minutes at my place. We can’t do more than this now. But we will later.”
Something she never did was pout. But god, he had started this fire in her and wow, was she disappointed she had to douse it. “When?”
He set her back beside him. “Soon as Joel rides off into the sunset.”
“I can’t.”
Scowling, Case shifted the truck into gear and took them out onto the two-lane highway. “Why?”
“I have an appointment with Commissioner Brunner at two.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You made it so we couldn’t celebrate your birthday?”
She bit her lower lip. “How do you know me like this?”
“Instinct.” He pressed her hand to his heart, which beat frantically. “Cancel.”
“No. I won’t.” She tugged on her hand to no avail. She could not weaken where her job was concerned. This water analysis could be a stepping-stone to the promotion she wanted. She could not allow her pussy to do her thinking for her, no matter how yummy Case Turner was. “I have to make a report in two weeks’ time. I can’t dawdle.”
“Fine. Then you’ll come for dinner.” His gray gaze bored into hers. “Tonight.”
Shimmying in her seat, she beamed at him. This invitation she really liked. “I’ll bring wine.”
“Do that.” He lifted her hand from his chest and bit the tip of one of her fingers. “Bring anything else you might need.”
“For?”
He arched a wicked brow. “You. Me.”
She hooted in laughter. “Don’t you have all of that already?”
“Do I?”
She smothered a chuckle. “I assume, Case Turner, you have great equipment or you wouldn’t be who you are, do what you do or go where you go.”
“Sure. Equipment I got, lady. But what kind do you like?”
Yours. Big, brawny, agile you. She examined his features and offered what he really wanted to know. “All my Doms chose the toys.”
“All? Hell, how many are we talking here?”
“Two.”
Both his brows rose. “Impressive. What was their drug of choice?”
“Rope. Handcuffs.”
“Blindfolds?”
She trembled, remembering the last time she wore one. Sinking her hands between her thighs, she pinned them there so Case might not see how they shook. “Done them, hate them. I need to see. I need to watch.”
“Okay. I can honor that.” He reached over and laid his big hand on her thigh, his fingertips stroking her as though he were gentling a cat. “Tonight.”
She nodded, gazing at anything but him. “Tonight I’d like just you. No restraints. No games. No ties.” She couldn’t tell if she was pleading or demanding, but she had to make it clear to him how conflicted she was about her first time back into submission. Facing him, she tried to smile. “How do you do with the basics?”
“Vanilla?” He donned a carefree smile.
“Yeah. I’m positive anything with you must be extraordinary, but I have to ask about…plain vanilla.”
Expressionless, he was silent and stoic as he came to a stop sign, then turned left. “Let’s say I’ve never had any complaints.”
Afraid she had sent him away with the idea of boring sex, she crossed her arms and tried for levity. “I’d lay money on that.”
He shook his head. “Still think I’m some Casanova, don’t you?”
“Oh boy. Correct me if you can,” she dared him, hating herself for driving him off. Hell, he was the only man she’d considered being with in ages. What was she doing demanding slam-bam-thank-you-man missionary with a sinful Dom who could have any number of subs any way he wanted?
“I will. I don’t make a practice of nailing a lot of women. I have a ranch and a business to run, plus the work of being mayor.”
“And as for the Bravado and shibari?”
He nodded. “Yeah, well. That takes concentration and time. There is a lot more to what I do with the rope than just tying knots.”
“I’m sure. I saw what you did to your sub Wednesday night.” Her core pulsed at the memory of how he had thanked his sub at his conclusion, his mouth on her labia, his tongue on her clit as she hung suspended, spread-eagle in his ropes.
“And?” Case prodded her from her reverie.
“She looked enchanted.” Sam had to cross her legs, her pussy was so drenched at the vision of Case doing that to her.
“Maybe she was. At the end, I had lost my focus.”
She cast a glance out her
window. Crazy with want, jealous as hell, she swallowed hard.
He tugged on her hand. “You were the one who broke it.”
“That’s nutty. I didn’t do anything.”
“Except walk into the room.”
She stilled, recognizing this admission for what it was. A declaration that she could distract him, disturb him. And that, above all else a Dom ever proclaimed, was an extraordinary sign that his armor was cracked. She’d never known a Dominant who confessed any kind of chink. Such weakness was dangerous. Such lack of control was the very thing she feared and she fought hard to get on better footing with him.
But he drove like a man in a trance. He was too quiet, too introspective.
She’d lost him. Her mind scrambled to bring him back, yet she couldn’t give in all at once, could she? She couldn’t become his partner until she had something from him that was mutual. Passion, pleasure. They could find that without bondage, couldn’t they? So many others did. Could she find delight with him? Could he with her? “Do you make love to every woman you bind?”
“Depends on what you define as making love.”
She twisted in her seat, her pussy pulsing at the mental vision of him naked, his cock sinking into a woman as she hung, legs out, in midair. “Sex. Orgasms. Masturbation. You’re the expert. You need to tell me what the rule is for shibari masters.”
“Kinbaku. That’s what erotic bondage is called. How many performances have you seen?”
“Three.” Three exciting shows of master and submissive.
“Then you know they are displays. Intricate. Almost rituals.”
“I saw one where the nawashi’s goal was to work as quickly as possible.”
He shook his head. “Not my style. My work is a meditation. Art. A rendering of my partner’s body like a canvas. Not many women understand what I do. Fewer like what I do. Get off on what I have to offer.”
I think I could climax just sitting here next to you. But what do you get off on? “Are you saying you can’t find any satisfaction in—?”
His gaze fell over her features, his expression still that unreadable blank. “Plain vanilla?”
“Yeah.”
He squeezed her hand. “I can. I do when I have a partner who inspires me.”
“I want to be your inspiration,” she whispered in hope.
“Already accomplished that.”
Victory was double-edged. She swallowed hard. “But I can’t do…more…yet.”
“I saw that the other night. You’re afraid because of what some Dom did to you.”
She crossed her arms. “It’s unnerving that you read me like an open book.”
“Only the first chapter.” He grinned as he turned another corner down a one-lane road. “I’m hooked. Want to see what the heroine does next.”
She rolled her eyes. “Gee, that’s simple. She wants to kiss the hunky guy again.”
“Where?”
She hooted in laughter. “How about…everywhere?”
He grinned like a fool. “That works.”
“Arggh.” She could play too. “How can that be vanilla?”
“Yours to decide.”
She wiggled in her seat, thrilled to her boots. “What if I bring chocolate sauce?’
“Nice,” he agreed, his brows dancing like those of a silent screen lecher’s.
“Sprinkles.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“And whipped cream.”
“My fave.”
“Nuts?” she asked on a sultry whisper.
“Oh honey, I have a couple of those.”
She giggled. “Yeah. I believe your type is called cojones.”
“We’ll see if all that works for you.”
His words both thrilled and alarmed her. What had she done, negotiating with a Dom? No sub did. No Dom agreed. “Big question is, will that work for you?”
He pursed his lips. Thinking. “I know it will. Wear your butterfly outfit tonight. Nothing else.”
He had trapped her. And I helped him. Okay. One way out. Talk like a sub. “May I wear something over it? You know, in case I get stopped by the sheriff?”
Case whipped around. His gray eyes locked on hers, and then took a lazy tour of her body. By the time his gaze had eaten up her nipples, they were as hard as diamonds in her bra and her channel was gushing with juicy delight. “If Wade Saxon stops you, you tell him you belong to me.”
“Think he’ll listen?” she teased, knowing she’d lost this round with Case and going with the banter to lessen her dismay.
“Listen, baby. He’ll get one glimpse of your breasts in those green pasties, and he’ll go deaf, dumb and blind.”
His face did something peculiar then. It melted into a compassion she hadn’t anticipated from the hunky blond Dom with the face of a movie idol. “One night of dinner, dessert of vanilla, comin’ up.”
He turned right at a big black electronic fence marked with a Double Bar T. He hit a button on his visor and the gate slid open to a long pebbled drive leading straight to a white stone ranch house. “This is home.”
“Lovely. How many acres?”
“Two thousand. We’ve been turning Texas soil since 1830 when my ancestor got a parcel from Stephen Austin and we’ve been expanding ever since. Raising cattle has been our livelihood, God willing and the creeks rise.”
“Except when they don’t,” she added, relieved at the chance to talk about something other than sex.
“Turners have been into everything from ranching and raising quarter horses to groceries. One became a Texas Ranger. One was taken by Comanche raiders. A young woman of eighteen.”
“What happened to her?”
“Her brother, my great-great-granddaddy, brought her back but she was already pregnant with the chief’s son.”
“That must have been a challenge for her. To raise a child who was a half-breed.”
“According to what we know in the family Bible, she raised him here, sent him to college back East. But we lost track of him and don’t know what became of him.”
“And what of her?”
“She married the county sheriff, had one son who happens to be the grandfather of the MacRae brothers.”
“So all you boys are kissing cousins?”
Case wrinkled his nose. “Kin, yes. Kissing, no. Got better folks to do that with.”
“Must be wonderful to have a big family like that, to know what they did, where they lived. To be proud of them.”
“Your family is small, I take it,” he concluded as he pulled up the driveway past the house.
She nodded, pushing back the topic she loathed more than any other. “Very small.”
Case didn’t bat an eyelash, but like everything else he did, he picked it over in his brain. She could tell by the way he carefully explored her features. He’d most likely save this tidbit to take out and mull later. He pointed to the horse barn up ahead. “We’ll start the tour of the creeks on my land. Joel’s meeting us here.”
“Why’s that?” Joel. She had forgotten he was accompanying them on this expedition.
“Where we’re going, the terrain is classic Hill Country. Rocky, dry and unpredictable. We’re riding horses.”
“Oh wow! I’m game,” she told him as he got out and came around to open her door for her. “I haven’t been riding in years.”
“Good to hear you city types can sit a saddle,” he joked as he took her hand to help her jump down. “I’ll give you the gentlest mare I’ve got.”
“No need for that,” she said as he plunked his Stetson on her head and she grinned at him. They walked up the path toward the large stone stables, giving her a chance to admire the rambling ranch house and the numerous outbuildings. The lawn in front of the house was landscaped, the barn wore a new coat of white paint and three smaller buildings all bore signs of regular maintenance. The Double Bar T was a prosperous enterprise. “When I was a kid, I used to be pretty agile on a horse. Started to compete in kids’ barrel ra
cing, but…stopped.”
“Did you grow up on a ranch?”
The question gave her pause. Fair game for him to ask about her background. His was purebred Texas gold. Hers was far from it. “No. No, I didn’t. At least, after the first six years I didn’t. I moved to Austin and rode only once in a while after that. When I was in high school and had a few dollars extra from baby-sitting, I would hire out at trail riding clubs to get my fix. But that was not often, let me just say.”
Case’s large gray eyes scoured her features. “Bitter?”
“Angry,” she corrected him. “I work on my resentment. Makes me a happier person than I was as a kid.” She could feel him digging inside her, burrowing deep, rooting around for answers to the big questions of who she really was. Well, damn, she had already given away more of the store to him than anyone.
He certainly would ask questions. Maybe not now, because she could see Joel waving at them from a stall door. But she bet soon Case would delve into her life and that, perhaps more than her roiling experience in the Sundance Club in Austin, was a subject that stuck in her throat. Generalities worked for her. They frightened off the intrusions. Always had. Pushing back at anyone who pried too deeply.
“I didn’t have a picture-perfect childhood.” She squinted into the distance. “Just thought I’d put that out there, knowing how you are going to want details.”
“No fun in your life, is what I hear you telling me.”
She sniffed. “That’s a good summary.”
“You can tell me more when you’re ready.” His hand at the small of her back was gentle reassurance that he wouldn’t push her to do anything she didn’t want.
But his patience was not enough to quell the distaste for the topic of her youth. “That’s a long shot, Case.”
“No problem.” He squeezed the point of her shoulder as they approached Joel. “I am a gambling man.”
Chapter Four
Case watched Joel help Samantha down from her horse at the overlook of the Davison reservoir. He pushed his sunglasses up his nose, grinding his teeth in frustration. His tall, dark, good-looking buddy was moving in on his territory while Case grew hotter by the minute to mark Sam as his own.
Tie Me Down: 2 (Knights in Black Leather) Page 4