Cowboy Heat (22 page)

Closing her eyes, she let tenderness wash through her, let her words flow without worrying she’d scare him off. “I spoke the truth. You are the most interesting, kindest man I’ve ever met.”

“You don’t strike me as someone who’d just say that to be nice.”

She turned to lie on her back and looked at him. “I’m not, Kyle. It’s true.”

His gaze met hers, his brow furrowing. “I want to get to
know you. Damn it, I’m not willing to let you go tonight.”

Her breath hitched as her chest flooded with warmth. “What are you proposing, cowboy?”

“Come to the ranch with me. Right now. I want you in my bed.” His thumb traced her lip. “I want to make love to you as the sun comes up. We can watch it as it hits the mountains. It’s as beautiful as anything you’ve ever seen.”

How could she resist? “I’d love to. I just have to put on some
unripped
clothes and grab my suitcase.” She gave him a blazing smile. “I’ll follow you.”

“No. You’ll ride with me. I’ll send a couple ranch hands back to get your car.”

Now
her
brows furrowed. “Ranch hands? On a three-acre ranch with two cows?”

His smile was crooked, almost shy. “I guess it’s a little bigger than that.”

“By how much?” Was this cowboy a major-league rancher?

“Well, deeded acres, about twenty thousand.” He blinked a couple times. “With the leased land, over three-hundred thousand.”

“What?” She couldn’t imagine that much space, that many beautiful spots to ride… “Wait, do you have horses?”

“I do. You ride?”

“I do.” She gave him a loud kiss on the lips. “Cowboy, you may want to rethink your offer. You may never, ever get rid of me if you take me to your ranch.”

His face grew serious. “Promise?”

She nodded as her heart skipped a beat. “This runaway may just be done traveling.”

DROP TWO TEARS IN A BUCKET

Shoshanna Evers

E
llie had expected more. Instead, she sat at her kitchen table, alone in her home, and didn’t cry. She had no tears left to be shed over her ex-husband, not even today, when the divorce was made officially final. He’d left their home and their marriage long before a document told her it was over.

The late afternoon sunlight reflected off the snow-topped mountains around her cabin and filled her kitchen with low light. Her ex hadn’t wanted to keep their Montana cattle ranch, and she supposed she could get a good price for the acreage and the herd. But the isolation suited her. No neighbors. No city lights.

Just the men who drove along the unpaved road every morning before dawn to work. They were tight friends and hard workers. They handled everything except the books, which had been her husband’s job until he left.

“Ellie?”

At the sound of her foreman, knocking and opening the
door at the same time, she looked at the clock. “Little early for quittin’ time, Shayne,” she said, but without any real concern. The guys never left unless their work was done.

“Janet’s water broke,” he said, talking about another cowboy’s wife.

Ellie tried to smile, but to her horror, a sob escaped her lips.

“Hey now!” Shayne rushed to her side, his muscular young body pressing against her. “She’ll be fine, Ell. It ain’t like she’s never done this before.”

“Of course,” Ellie said, looking away. “And of course, if Dean’s gotta go, then he should go.”

“He’s already gone.” Shayne took her face in one hand and turned her head toward him, something he’d never done before.

Ellie felt a frisson of desire but brushed it off immediately. Shayne was a good decade younger than her, and though he didn’t have a wife or family yet, she knew it was only a matter of time before some young cowgirl caught him.

Why had a handsome guy like him stayed single for so long?

“Don’t think I ever saw you cry before,” he said softly.

“I cried when that calf had to be put down.”

“Damn, I nearly cried over that one too.” He took his hat off and hung it on the back of a chair. “Mind if I sit down?”

Ellie didn’t bother answering, since he’d already turned the chair around backward and straddled it, his strong legs seeming to fill her space.

He nodded toward the papers on the table. “I saw the FedEx guy show up earlier. That what I think it is?”

Ellie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but her tears were already gone. No more tears for that man. “Yeah. It’s official.”

“I think that calls for a celebration.”

She laughed and shrugged. Shayne had always been good at cheering her up. He even danced with her, back when they all went out to town, while her husband sat at the bar and got drunk. When her favorite cowboy whirled her around, he made her feel young and attractive again.

Then she’d traverse the windy unpaved road back home with her husband and put him to bed while Shayne closed the bar down, dancing with every woman who came in, no doubt.

But he always saved a dance for her.

“Lemme tell you something, Ellie.” He rubbed his jaw with his rough, calloused hand. “Best piece of advice I ever got for dealing with trouble.”

Ellie cocked her head to the side, running her fingers through her hair—hair that had once been blonde and was now light brown.

“You’re
gonna tell me about trouble?” She laughed and shook her head. “You
are
trouble, boy.”

“Yeah I am.” Shayne stood from the chair and pushed it aside. “Here it is, and excuse my language for a moment. You ready for some mountain wisdom?” He paused, as if to make sure she was paying attention. “Drop two tears in a bucket—and motherfuck it.”

Really.

Ellie burst into laughter. “Drop two tears in a bucket and motherfuck it,” she repeated. “That’s some honest wisdom, right there.”

Shayne grinned and lifted her by the hands from her chair until she stood.

He was a tall man, that cowboy. His body filled her vision, the muscles in his shoulders straining against his work shirt. He smelled like the horses he and the men rode around the property, but she didn’t mind. Liked it, actually.

Shayne smelled like home.

“You wanna celebrate?” he asked softly.

She nodded, not quite sure what she was agreeing to.

His rough-skinned hands were gentle as he carefully pushed her hair behind her ears, out of her face. But instead of stopping there, stopping short of doing anything—the way he always did—he left his hand in her hair, slowly pulling it back behind her shoulders and down, so she had no choice but to look up into his handsome face.

“Shayne,” she whispered, but he cut off her words with a kiss.

Sandpaper stubble scratched her chin, but the heat of his mouth and lips on hers made her push up onto her tiptoes to give him better access.

“I’ve been wantin’ to do this for so long now,” he murmured against her mouth.

He unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, still kissing her, and she ran her hands against the smooth muscular span of his chest. The thud of his heart pulsed against her palm, and she lowered her lips to kiss him there. His skin tasted of salt, and she was hungry for him. For more.

“Would you like to…” Ellie stopped, suddenly shy.

“Hell, yeah,” he said, and lifted her against his torso, his shirt open, and carried her like a newborn calf in his arms up the narrow staircase to her bedroom.

She’d long stopped thinking of it as “their” bedroom. Her and her ex-husband’s.

The down quilt on the bed was still pulled back from that morning when she’d risen late, way after daybreak.

Shayne set her on the bed and pulled off his boots and dirty jeans, barely giving her time to even realize what was happening.

Shayne was happening. Now. To her.

The best-looking, strongest young man she knew in the world outside of the television set, and he was staring at her like she was some sort of delicious prey to be devoured.

Not that she’d mind being devoured, not by him. Ellie pulled her shirt off, and unclasped her bra, letting her breasts lie heavy against her chest.

“Good Lord in heaven,” Shayne said, and climbed onto the bed. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

He took her nipple in his mouth and suckled it, nibbling on the tender peak until she moaned, kicking off her own boots. They fell to the hardwood floor by her bed with a dull thud.

His mouth on her breasts was beyond heaven, the harsh scratch of his stubbled chin rubbing against her delicate skin only serving to increase the pleasure he brought her with his lips.

“Help me,” she whispered, unable to take her jeans off with his weight on her.

With an easy maneuver, he unzipped her fly and tugged off her jeans, taking her panties down with them. Ellie hadn’t done any grooming down there in a while, since there hadn’t been a need to, and she flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she said. “Been a long time.”

“I like my women natural,” he said, and slid his fingers along her labia, pushing her nether lips apart to reveal her clit, already swollen with need. “This is beautiful, right here.” He touched her gently, slowly, making her dizzy with need. “You’re beautiful.”

The lust in his eyes made her believe it. Tonight, she was beautiful.

“You lay back now,” he ordered. “It’s celebration time. I ain’t stoppin’ till I hear you scream my name so loud the neighbors can hear.”

“Ain’t no neighbors,” she said breathlessly, slipping easily into his casual way of speaking. Her fingers gripped the cool sheets beneath her hands, grasping as if the world had tilted on its axis.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Shayne licked her clit, sucking it into his mouth, and she gasped. No one had touched her there in ages, it seemed. Ripples of pleasure coursed through her as he continued to lave her, pushing a finger deep inside of her and flicking her clit with his tongue. He pushed her thighs apart, holding her there, captured beneath his hands as he tasted her, licked her, nibbled her sensitive bud.

The man had a way with his hands and mouth. Her climax crested, and he sped up the pace.

“Oh my god, Shayne,” she cried out, bucking her hips against his face as she came.

He held on, keeping her from closing her legs so he could extend her orgasm, drawing out every last quiver. “There you go, Ell, there you go,” he whispered, rising up to her neck, her lips.

She could taste herself on him, the scent of her sex mingling with the scent of horses and man and mountains.

“Do I need a rubber?” he asked.

She shook her head. Ellie was past her baby-making years. She reached down between their naked bodies, and he pressed his cock against her hand, so thick she couldn’t wrap her fingers all the way around it.

After the two-year-long drought in her sex life, she drank in his masculinity like rain. “Please,” she whispered.

He slowly entered her wetness, pushing forward until he was completely in, filling her, stretching her.

Shayne kissed her face, raining down light, tender kisses,
and rocked his body against hers, his length sliding in and out.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung to him, letting him ride her as he saw fit, harder, faster, until they were both panting.

The slam of his cock inside her, over and over, shook her body like the ground in a stampede. She thrust her hips up to meet him stroke for stroke, wanting everything he had to give her. Her vaginal walls spasmed around his cock and she moaned with desire, the orgasm wrenching open something within her that she’d kept shut off ever since her husband had walked out.

It was as if a dam had broken inside, as if everything she’d stored up and bottled and pushed away came free at once.

Free
.

Freedom here, in Shayne’s arms. It was exactly where she wanted to be.

Tears of catharsis filled her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, falling silently on the cotton pillowcase. Yes, the dam had broken, and it felt damn good.

Shayne stopped moving, pushing his weight off of her. “Ellie…did I hurt you?”

She couldn’t answer at first, but she shook her head no and smiled up at him. “You are one man who’s never, ever hurt me, Shayne.”

He kissed her tears, wiping them away.

“Baby, baby,” he whispered. “I never will.”

A COWBOY FOR DELILAH

Sabrina York

W
hat a disaster. Delilah glared at her rental car in helpless frustration. She hated the feeling. She was hardly a frail, fragile woman. She prided herself on the fact that she was self-sufficient and didn’t need anyone. Counting on others was, after all, a recipe for disappointment.

Hard, cold experience had taught her that.

Yet here she was. In the boondocks. In six-inch heels. With a flat tire.

Oh, she could change a fricking tire. Hell, she could rip out and refurbish a transmission. But the idiots at the wilderness rental car company hadn’t bothered to put a jack in the trunk. She was resourceful…but not that resourceful. Even if she could channel her MacGyveresque tendencies, there was nothing out on this barren plain she could use to lever her car up high enough to do the job.