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Authors: Michelle Freeman,Gayle Roberts

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BOOK: Guilty Pleasure
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Finally his
breathing slowed, and he rolled onto his back. Ann curled up next to him,
resting her head on his shoulder.

“Holy cow,
Ann. That was… you’re incredible. That was amazing.”

Ann ran her
hand across his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart with her fingers.

“Yeah… it
was pretty intense.” Ann ran her fingers across one taut nipple, feeling it
pucker at her touch.

“It’s been
a long time,” she whispered.

“Yeah… it
has.” Jason turned his head, looking down at her. “You mean for you?” He
laughed. “I think it’s been a long time for both of us.”

Chapter 2 – Love Me Tender

They lay wrapped in
each other’s arms for a long time, Ann’s head on Jason’s chest as he gently
stroked her hair. The twilight outside had deepened into night, and the room
was dark, the only light coming from the kitchen down the hall. Ann could hear
the sheep outside, the noises they made when they were looking for their
dinner. She sighed, knowing as comfortable as she was, she’d have to get up to
take care of them. But not quite yet. She was reluctant to leave Jason, to
break the spell their coming together had created.

“How much more do you
have to do here tomorrow?” She didn’t really want to think about Jason being
finished on her ranch, but she knew it was inevitable that he would be leaving.

“About half a day. Then
we’re… I mean, I’m done for the season.”

“And then where do you
go?” Ann tensed, waiting for the answer she didn’t want to hear; that he had a
wife, or a girlfriend…
A home far away, with someone waiting for him.

“This time? Nowhere
really. I don’t have any place to go… anymore.”

Ann looked up at Jason.
“You have no home other than the shearing van?”

Jason’s fingers tense
against her body. He took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. She wondered if
he was going to answer her. When he did, his voice was low, hesitant.

“I live with…lived with
my girlfriend, with Sarah.”

Ann felt her heart skip
a beat.
The Sarah from the phone call…I knew this was too good to be true.

“She’s… we… I lived
there until the beginning of this season. Until she kicked me out, basically.”

Jason shifted, pushing
himself up against the head of the bed, pulling the sheet across his lap. Ann
sat up beside him, tugging the sheet over her body. He reached over, taking her
hand in his, idly playing with her fingers as they lay in his lap.

“Sarah wants… wanted
something I can’t give her. She’s looking for more than an itinerant sheep
shearer. Her ideal dream is the whole white picket fence experience, a man with
steady work who’s home every night, who doesn’t smell like sheep, who’s not
gone for weeks at a time. A man who can give her a family, and be there to take
care of them.”

There was tension in
his voice as he continued. “She said if I chose to go with Ben, that was it, we
were finished. If I left with Ben, she told me she’d toss all my stuff out, have
the locks changed, and I’d never see her again.”

He sighed. “I don’t
have all that much stuff anyway, and that didn’t really matter, but I told her
this is what I wanted, Ben is family, and he needs my help… but more than that,
that I love this way of life. It’s not the only thing I do. There’s other
seasonal work, and I worked on nearby sheep ranches during the rest of the
year. It’s not that I can’t… or won’t… support her. I can. But for some reason,
explaining what I do to her friends and family just embarrasses the hell out of
Sarah.”

“That must be hard… knowing
someone you love doesn’t understand you or what you love.”

Jason sighed. “You have
no idea how hard it is. I loved Sarah… still do on some level. But I can’t live
with someone and not be who I am, be who I want to be. This is what I know,
what I love. And it’s not like it would be like this forever; my back and knees
would give out long before the rest of me did. But she said it was now or never,
and she chose never.”

Ann thought back to her
husband, David. Jason was still holding her hand, and she gave his a slight
squeeze.

“The same thing, or
something similar, happened here, with me. My husband… David… thought having
sheep was silly. But it was something I wanted to try. He wanted cattle,
thought raising those was a ‘manly’ thing to do. Not sheep though. But I found
that I loved it, everything to do with them. But the more I fell in love with
raising the sheep, the more David fell out of love with me.”

Ann took a deep breath.
“And in the end, it’s what drove us apart… made him leave me… leave the ranch.
This turned out to be my life, not his. He couldn’t love me and what I did at
the same time.”

She looked up at Jason,
offering him a sad smile. “We seem to have more in common than just sheep.”

Jason slid down in the
bed, pulling Ann with him. She rolled on top of him, her hands splayed across
his chest, her body nestling between his muscular thighs. His cock was pressed
against her stomach, and she could feel it growing hard again.

“Love is complicated.
You’d think it should be easy, but it’s not. You love someone, everything is
perfect….” Her voice was almost a whisper.

“I don’t think love’s
enough though… sometimes. With some people.” Jason looked up at her in the soft
light. “It should be, but I don’t think it is.”

Jason ran his fingers
down her cheek. She could see the sadness in his eyes. As he ran one finger
over her mouth, she parted her lips, letting him slip his finger inside her
mouth. She flicked her tongue over his finger, suckling it with teasing
intensity.

It was a long time
before Ann got to the barn to feed the sheep. Jason made her forget everything,
except for the longing and need in her body. His ability to make her senses
come alive, to make her body sing with pleasure drove every other thought out
of her mind.

When they finally
managed to untangle their limbs from the sheets, he pulled on his jeans and
boots and helped her with the neglected chores. Ann watched as he moved
efficiently around the barn, no stranger to hard work and any chores that
involved sheep. She stood near the open barn door as Jason leaned over into one
of the stalls, talking to a sheep that was penned due to an injury. His soft
voice and gentle manner had the skittish sheep eating out of his hand.

Ann walked over,
leaning on the gate. An idea was working its way around in her mind but she
wasn’t sure what Jason would think.

“You have quite a way
with sheep. Beck here has been miserable without the flock. This is the calmest
I’ve seen her in days.”

Jason laughed. “Ben
says I’m part sheep. He would always find me in the sheep pasture, or curled up
with the ewes after they’d had their lambs. I love lambing season, always have.
Even though it’s non-stop days without sleep, there’s just something magical
about all those newborn lambs.”

He straightened,
turning to Ann. “You must have quite a job here, all by yourself. Lambing
season… heck, any season with sheep is a lot of work.”

Ann smiled. “It’s an
amazing amount of work. Lambing season puts me behind on everything else. I
usually just sleep in the barn, so I’m here for the moms who are having a hard
time with delivery, or the newborns that need special attention.”

Jason shook his head. “You’re a
tough lady. You’d never know, looking at you.” He caught her look, laughing. He
took a step toward her, pulling her against him, taking her hand. “Look.” He
made a circle of his fingers, placing them around her wrist. His big fingers
easily circled her wrist, overlapping almost to the first joint. “You’re so
delicate looking…so tiny.” His voice had grown soft. “Not that you’re weak…but
there’s something almost fragile about you. But underneath that there seems to
be a core of steel.”

He held her for a
moment, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Jason?” She could hear
the hesitation in her own voice.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask something of
you? For you…and for me? If you have nowhere to go after tomorrow, will you
stay here?” Her eyes met his, hoping against hope she hadn’t overstepped her
bounds.

He looked down at her,
startled. “You want me to stay with you, here?”

“Yes. I think… if you
want… I mean… I have work. And, well… we… it’s been….” She felt herself
blushing, shook her head. “I’m a writer when I have time. You’d think I’d be
able to say what I mean.”

Jason was smiling at
her. “Just say the words. We’ll figure it out as we go.”

“I want you to stay
here, since you have no place else to go.”

“Why?” His voice was
light but she sensed something else, a question he wanted an answer to.

“Because I like you.
Because we’re good together. Because I have sheep and you need a job.” Her eyes
met his. “It’s not a charity case, I’m offering you legitimate work. But I’d
also like you in my bed at night… and in the morning.” She felt her blush
deepen. She’d never been so brazen with any man before. “Does that work for
you?” She looked into his eyes, holding his gaze.

He cocked his head at
her. “Well, ma’am, I think it’s something I can work with. I mean, work is work.
And pleasure is pleasure.” He bent his head, kissing her hard. “And I like
being in your bed. I like it a great deal.” He held her face in his hands. Then
he stepped away, holding out his hand.

Ann took it, shaking it
formally.

“Okay then, we have a
deal. I’ll start work tomorrow, finish with the shearing first, start on
whatever else you need done.” He pulled her back into his arms. “But for
tonight, I think we should go back to the bedroom, finish up any business we have
there. Does that work for you?”

Before she had time to
answer, his mouth was on hers, locked in a kiss. It was a long time before she
broke away, looking up at him.

She smiled. “I like how
you think.”

Chapter 3 – Please Me, Please

They fell into a
routine, their lives meshing together. Jason took on the tasks around the ranch
that Ann had struggled with, working long hours mending fences, clearing land
for new pastures, helping with anything Ann needed him to do.

At night, he was there
for her, holding her, making love to her until she was completely satisfied.
He’d learned quickly what turned her on, what made her hot.

Jason asked her what
she wanted, talked to her during sex, something David had never done. It was
hard at first, embarrassed her terribly. Maybe it was his openness, or his
youth. It was rare that she thought about the difference in their ages.

“What do you like? What
can I do to you?” They were lying on her bed, a soft breeze blowing across them
from the open window. She shook her head, suddenly embarrassed. “You can say
it… there’s nothing you could ask for that should be embarrassing.”

Ann pulled the pillow
over her face, laughing at her own embarrassment. “I’m a grown woman; you’d
think I’d be able to ask for what I want.”

“Should we play Twenty
Questions? Or… I could try everything I know, and you tell me when I do the
thing you want?” Jason was smiling down at her, his fingers idly playing with
one rosy nipple, drawing circles around it, occasionally leaning down to kiss
her gently. “Or…I’ll just start kissing you here…” He bent his head, softly
kissing the fullness of her breast. “And keep kissing everything in sight until
you say stop.”

Ann closed her eyes for
a moment, giving herself over to Jason, the touch of his lips on her skin. But
she wanted to watch; he was the first man she’d been with who had said it
turned him on when he knew she was watching. And it made her hot, watching as
he used his mouth on her, his lips and tongue touching her, his hands on her
skin…watching as they had sex, as his cock slid in and out of her body.

He was kissing her
nipples now, moving between the two, and as much as she loved the sensation of
his lips on her breasts, his tongue drawing her into his mouth, she let him
move lower.

Jason ran a line of
kisses down her stomach, stopping to circle her navel with his tongue. He
looked up at her briefly, a teasing smile on his lips.

“Am I getting close?
Closer?” His gaze held hers as he kissed a line due south from her navel,
stopping at the tops of her thighs. “I know. It’s your knees.”

She laughed as he slid
down between her legs, gently pushing them apart. He started kissing the inside
of her legs, just above her knee, his lips trailing a soft line of kisses up
her inner thigh.

He was still watching
her, his eyes still teasing her, mouth curved into a roguish grin. “There’s
only one thing left….”

His fingers were gentle
as he spread her soft folds. There was the sensation of his soft warm breath
before she felt the first touch of his tongue, a quick flick against her clit.

“Did I find the right
spot?” Jason was looking up at her, his eyes still locked with hers.

Ann nodded, still
blushing.

Jason shook his head.
“You’re not getting off that easy. I want to hear the words, Ann.” He propped
his head on his hand, looking up at her. “I can wait all night…can you?”

BOOK: Guilty Pleasure
3.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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