The Rodeo Cowboy’s Baby

by Heidi Rice

  “Everything,” she said. The laughter bubbled out again. “You know, for a farm boy you take instructions really well.”

  “I’m a cowboy not a farm boy, and now you know the difference,” he said, but then he laughed too, and her heart soared—with joy and euphoria and reckless abandon.

  He grasped her hand and led her back out from under the bleachers, toward the parking lot.

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Irish,” he said, his warm, firm grip helping to keep her giddy heartbeat at least a little grounded. “Wait till I demonstrate my pussy-eating skills.”

  The pussy in question pulsed as cool night air brushed against naked, swollen flesh and made her wickedly aware of what she didn’t have on under her dress.

  Bring it on, cowboy.

  Chapter Four

  A warm weight rested on Evie’s belly and cocooned her back.

  She’d never been a snuggler, but the novel sensation felt so grand, she burrowed into the warmth. The weight on her belly shifted and something firm prodded her bottom. Tingles of arousal spread over her skin, making her aware of the slight soreness between her thighs, the sting of sensation in her nipples.

  “Hmmm,” she sighed, as the pulsing spot between her thighs grew hot.

  “Mmmm,” a gruff voice behind her ear replied. Her eyelids fluttered open.

  Pearly light seeped through a bare window frame, giving a ruddy pre-dawn glow to the silhouette of Copper Mountain in the distance, the deep purple of its bulk topped by snow-capped peaks.

  “Flynn?”

  The name sighed through her consciousness as all the heady memories from the night flickered through her brain. His lips sucking her nipples, firm and strong. The touch of his tongue—swirling and centering on her most tender flesh—drawing forth her sobs on undulating waves of pure pleasure. His deep emerald eyes watching her—gauging each tiny reaction, each titanic response.

  The thick ridge nudging her bottom pressed at the heart of her and she flinched, the erotic memory becoming focused and intense.

  “Can you take me again, Irish?” said a sleepy voice, the breath brushing her ear, filling her senses with need and excitement.

  “Yes,” the word came out on a moan.

  When had she ever felt so wanted? So needed? So cherished?

  The warm weight on her belly edged downward, to press her bottom back, and position her for the deep thrust. The thick length slid inside her and she sobbed, the sound raw and elemental.

  She flinched as he anchored himself deep, the tenderness making her aware of all the times he’d taken her during the night.

  She couldn’t move, could only take, as his thumb found the place where their bodies joined. Heat pummeled through her tired body as she gave herself up to the shattering sensations.

  The stretching feeling filled her up all the way to her throat, as the waves battered her.

  She heard his grunt but it seemed like miles away, maybe even on that mountain as she floated in afterglow—and hot seed splattered her insides.

  “Shit!” The hoarse curse woke her out of the erotic dream as the thick erection withdrew sharply.

  She found herself rolled onto her back, his palm resting on her naked belly, and his face, tight with concern, loomed above her.

  He stroked her cheek, the shaky breathing not like him.

  What was wrong?

  “Irish, I didn’t suit up. I’m so damn sorry. I was half asleep.” He sounded furious with himself. He placed an achingly tender kiss on her lips. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  The words registered and she felt the drop in the pit of her stomach as reality crowded into the beautiful dream—bringing with it all the usual insecurities that she had somehow managed to shuck for one night.

  “No,” she managed round the lump of inadequacy. “As long as you’re clean.”

  He nodded, his gaze searching her face. “Yeah, I’ve never…” He paused, his expression becoming a little wary. “I’m clean, I guarantee it,” he said.

  “Good. So am I. We should be fine.”

  He searched her face. “So there’s no chance of…” He cleared this throat, the conversation obviously uncomfortable for him. His gaze dipped to her belly, where his hand spanned her waist. The warm weight had a strange pang pushing against her throat. “You won’t get…you know,” he said, obviously so uncomfortable with the thought, he couldn’t even say it.

  A wry smile pulled at her lips, the irony so sharp it pierced her chest. Being infertile had its uses after all.

  Who knew?

  She cradled his cheek, the morning scruff rough against her palm, and let the smile curve against her mouth. If only he knew how unnecessary this conversation was. But it felt oddly empowering to know she was just a one-night hookup to him. And news of her infamously useless womb hadn’t reached Montana—or at least hadn’t reached him. That here was one person at least who didn’t know anything about Evie8. To Flynn she was just Evie, the girl who had embarked on a wild uncomplicated ride with him—to recover from a life that had become far too complicated.

  “Relax, cowboy,” she said. “You’re safe. There’s absolutely no chance of ‘you know’ happening.”

  “Hallelujah,” he said, then leant forward and placed a kiss on her belly.

  The tender gesture brought a poignant roll of sadness with it—that felt a little like regret. And a lot too intimate.

  Rolling away from him, she scooted to the edge of the bed, tucking her oversensitive ego back where it belonged.

  “Hey, wait up,” he said, placing a restraining hand on her hip. “Where are you going?”

  “I need to shower.” She threw the words over her shoulder. “Charlie said there’s a pancake breakfast in town this morning. I’d like to check it out for my column.”

  She drew up short, as his grip tightened on her waist.

  “Not so fast.”

  “Flynn, seriously, I need to get moving. Charlie’s giving me a ride into town.”

  She still had a job to do. And she was going to have to face Charlie’s smug expression and the morning-after inquisition soon, so she needed to get her emotions in check. Charlie was a photographer, she happened to be uber-observant, and Evie didn’t doubt for a second that she would have spotted her and Flynn leaving the steak dinner early last night, along with everyone else in Marietta who had seen them dancing together like a couple of teenagers.

  A blush spread up her chest. Charlie and Logan’s room was at the other end of the hall from the room Flynn had smuggled her into last night when they’d got back to the ranch. She just hoped to hell it was far enough away that her friend and Flynn’s boss hadn’t heard the two of them banging like rabbits all night. Because she was pretty sure screaming had been involved at one point when he’d been doing a demonstration of his gold-standard pussy-eating skills.

  But before she could make a dignified getaway, Flynn gave a swift tug and she collapsed against him.

  “I’ll give you a ride into town,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “Because you’re my date for the pancake breakfast, not Charlie’s.”

  “I am?” Evie said, feeling like a sixteen-year-old who’d had the best-looking boy in the class offer to take her to her debs—the Irish equivalent of a prom.

  “Abso-damn-lutely.” He nudged her nose with his thumb and her smile spread as she took in all that buffed muscle, the scattering of hair that tapered down to a spectacular V, the long cock that had started to perk up again. Already.

  Her mouth watered. And her spirits lifted.

  This had been a one-night hookup. A really great one-night hookup with a man who knew how to eat pussy like a connoisseur and had a wonderfully eager—and satisfyingly enormous—cock.

  She and Flynn were equals—absolutely no vulnerabilities or weaknesses to see here.

  His hand caressed her hip, sending shivers through her tired body.

  “How about I come scrub your back in the shower? And we can go bareback again. That was a
first for me, and it felt awesome.”

  She blushed, and then giggled. Like a five-year-old. For pity’s sake.

  “That’s a yes, on one condition,” she said.

  “Which is?” he asked, dragging her back so he could circle one eager nipple with his tongue.

  “No more cowboy analogies,” she said, going for indignant but getting breathless instead when his equally eager cock butted her thigh. “I’m not your horse.”

  He laughed, and the rough sound rolled through her tummy on a tide of longing. “Irish, you’re a much better ride than my horse.”

  “You!” She gasped in mock outrage, then tried to punch him.

  But she was laughing too hard to make much of an impression as they wrestled.

  Getting the better of her, he gave her a resounding smack on the ass before bounding off the bed ahead of her. “Come on, Irish. Stop lazing about, we’ve got pancakes to eat.”

  Grabbing her wrist, he tugged her off the bed, and into his arms, his rampant cock trapped against her belly. Rubbing a hand over her stinging butt cheek, he kissed her neck, finding the spot he had located several times during the night.

  She moaned.

  “And another bareback ride to fit in first,” he murmured as he dragged her into the shower. She was laughing too hard to fake outrage.

  *

  “So was I right, or was I phenomenally right?” Charlie asked as she drizzled maple syrup over her mile-high stack of pancakes.

  “You know, smug really isn’t a good look for you,” Evie said, unable to contain her grin.

  “But apparently it is on you,” Charlie shot back.

  Evie would have disputed that fact, except she was finding it very hard to detach her gaze from Flynn’s butt as he disappeared into the crowd heading toward the rodeo arena.

  He’d said goodbye to her with a firm kiss in front of Charlie and his boss, before heading off to prepare for the rodeo finals, or the short round as he called it, which would be starting in about an hour.

  “Oh, feck off,” was the best Evie could manage, her color high.

  Charlie chuckled. To be fair, smug actually was a pretty good look on her friend, Evie decided.

  “So fess up, was he awesome?” Charlie asked.

  Logan cleared his throat loudly as he sat down next to them with his own stack of pancakes. “Zip it, Charlotte,” he said sending his girlfriend a stern look. “You’re not discussing another guy’s sack action right in front of me.”

  “Don’t worry, Logan,” Evie said, trying to look prim, which was not easy when she hadn’t felt so loose and relaxed in…well, in forever. Dan had never made her feel this good. Probably because no one would ever consider her ex to be in the same league as Flynn O’Connell—pussy-proficiency-badge-of-merit wise. “I have no intention of sinking to Charlie’s level.”

  Charlie gave an unladylike snort around a mouthful of pancake. “You two are no fun at all,” she grumbled. But she was still grinning.

  Evie knew she was going to get the inquisition later, when Logan was out of the way. But nothing could wipe the beatific smile off her face this morning. Not even the little pang in her chest at the thought that she and Flynn only had one more night together before she headed home to Brooklyn.

  He’d made it pretty damn clear he wanted a repeat performance tonight, and she wasn’t going to let any misguided pangs get in the way of indulging herself. Why shouldn’t one wild night with her cowboy become two wild nights?

  Just remember he’s not your cowboy. He’s just a passing fancy.

  But as Logan walked her and Charlie over to the rodeo arena, to watch the finals, Evie could still feel that persistent little niggle in her chest. She ignored it. He was only hers for another night, so where was the harm in indulging herself for the next twenty-four hours?

  *

  Evie sat in the stands for the finals, as she waited for the tie-down roping, and found herself strangely gripped by a sense of camaraderie, even belonging as she swapped small talk about some of the local competitors and their prospects with Logan and Lyle and Charlie and Em and The Double T hands as each new event was called.

  She even got up to turn her back on a saddle bronc fella called Dean Maynard with Charlie and Em and a group of local women, when Charlie whispered to her that the guy was a misogynist dick and they had organized a shunning protest. When Maynard hit the dirt right out of the chute and the protest ended, a couple of the women behind Evie high-fived her and Charlie.

  But as the swell of friendship, of acceptance pushed against Evie’s chest, she forced herself not to make too much of it. After all, she had no clue who the guy was, she didn’t know any of the other women involved in the protest except Charlie and Emily, and she’d only been included because she was a friend of them both. She was not invested in Marietta or the local community, she was just a visitor, an observer, and the illusion of belonging would all be gone again tomorrow when she got on the plane to LaGuardia.

  But despite her best intentions, Evie could barely contain her excitement when Flynn’s event was finally called.

  Flynn won with two-tenths of a second to spare and all Evie’s attempts to remain neutral and reserved hit the dirt harder than Dean Maynard when she screamed herself hoarse as Flynn shot out of the chute on Baby and roped the unsuspecting calf in a staggering seven point four seconds.

  As Flynn picked up his winner’s buckle, Evie stood and clapped, her chest bursting with pride, unable to dismiss the proprietary feeling that this was her man. And he was a winner.

  Even though she knew they weren’t a couple, that knot of pride and acceptance stayed lodged in her chest as they strolled down Main Street together after the prize-giving ceremony and Flynn wore his winner’s buckle—a copper and silver nickel design that glinted in the sunlight—proudly displayed on his belt.

  They browsed the different shop fronts and stopped in at Java Café to share a slice of carrot cake, with a mug of coffee for him—and the best pot of tea she’d ever had in the US for her. And she was stupidly touched by the way he introduced her to the barista as an important New York journalist. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him she only wrote a column for a minor local paper.

  They didn’t do homecoming kings and queen in Ireland, and she hadn’t even been able to go to her debs, because her mother had grounded her for some minor infraction she couldn’t even remember now, but strolling through Marietta on Flynn O’Connell’s arm had made up for that long-ago disappointment.

  As people came up to congratulate him, or slap him on the back, for his win—and more than a few women gave him the once-over—Evie felt like a homecoming queen on the arm of the homecoming king. And okay, she may have wondered how many of the women he said hello to in passing had slept with him, but she forced herself to stifle the bitchy thought. She had no claim on him. This was just a weekend hookup. But still it felt sexy and impossibly sweet the way he treated her as if she were more than just another booty call, even though she knew she wasn’t.

  Clearly Flynn was a guy who liked and respected women, even if they were only his for a day, or two.

  They snuck away in the late afternoon and headed one last time to the rodeo grounds so that Flynn could load Baby onto a trailer that his friend Tad was driving back to the ranch to reinstall the horse at The Double T’s stables. Before they bid Baby goodbye though, Flynn taught Evie how to give the horse a carrot and she found herself bonding with the animal—no longer jealous of the attention the horse got from Flynn, perhaps because he was going to be all hers tonight.

  The sun had begun to dip toward the snowy peaks of Copper Mountain, as Flynn drove the ranch pickup back down the highway, behind the trailer, but when the horse box took the turnoff for The Double T, they sailed past it.

  “Isn’t that our turnoff?” Evie asked, eager to get back to the ranch so Flynn could deal with Baby and then she could jump her cowboy’s bones for the rest of the time she had left before her morning flight from Bozeman. W
atching him win the rodeo and then hanging out with him for the rest of the day had got her appetite up.

  “Yeah, it is, Sherlock.” Flynn grinned across the console at her. “But I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  “But what about Baby?”

  He smiled at her, obviously pleased with her concern for the horse. “Baby’s good. I already wished her good night, and Tad’s going to get her settled back at the ranch. Plus I picked up a picnic basket at Main Street Diner after breakfast this morning to sweeten the deal, so you won’t have to miss supper.”

  Supper wasn’t what she was hungry for, but still she was charmed. He’d brought her dinner, planned this excursion this morning, and even arranged to have Tad deal with Baby for him, which seemed ridiculously romantic.

  “What do you want to show me?” she asked, curious again.

  He tapped her nose. “It’s a surprise, Little Miss Nosey.”

  “Oh goodie, I love surprises.” She touched his thigh and ran her hand up the hard muscle. “Especially if I get to unwrap them later.”

  He groaned and gripped her wrist, to halt her progress. “Damn it, Irish, don’t tease me. I’ve been semi-hard all damn day. And I don’t want to risk totaling the truck.”

  She laughed, loving the strain in his voice. And the thick ridge already stretching his jeans, which she’d felt the edge of before he’d pulled her hand away from his groin.

  He lifted her fingers to his lips and nuzzled the knuckles, keeping his gaze on the road ahead as they took a turn off the highway. They jostled down a country track and he was forced to let her go to keep both hands on the wheel. The twilight cast the landscape into shadow, the huge mountain looming over them as he drove to a stand of trees. She could hear the burble of water as he switched off the engine. The fresh smell of ponderosa pine sap and the heady perfume of late summer wild flowers hung on the air.

  Leaning across the bench seat, he threaded his fingers into her hair and gave her a glancing kiss. But before she could get more than a lick, he pulled back.

  “Come on, before I get sidetracked. And you end up starving to death.”