Part Time Cowboy (Copper Ridge Book 1) (24 page)

“This is not the way to relax me,” he said, putting his hands on her hips. “You realize that, right?”

“I was going to relax you,” she said. “Lick the wine flavor off your lips.” She leaned in and traced the outline of his top lip with the tip of her tongue. “But I have to say you taste pretty good all on your own.”

He took a deep breath, his hold on her tightening, his head falling back. “You’re dangerous. Do you know that?”

“I’ve never been accused of being dangerous.” She planted her hands on his chest and leaned forward, kissing him hard. “Flaky. Fun. Fluttery. Lots of
F
words, none too naughty. Never dangerous.”

“Then the men you’ve been with before were blind.”

“Or maybe we just didn’t have this kind of chemistry. It’s definitely a little bit more combustible than the norm.”

“True,” he said, sliding his hand upward, forking his fingers through her hair, his thumb teasing the edge of her lips. “You still mad at me?”

“Not really,” she said.

“Good. Because I didn’t come here to fight.”

“I’m hoping you came for another one of those
F
words.”

“Yep,” he said, “and I stand by my original statement. You, Sadie Miller, are dangerous as hell.”

“You’re not exactly a kitten, Deputy Garrett.” She arched her hips forward and gasped as she came into contact with his erection, rock-hard and obviously ready for her.

Really, she was becoming less and less disappointed in the loss of her brief domestic fantasy.

He tightened his hold on her hair and tugged her face down to his, kissing her deep and long. Leaving her gasping for breath. “Not exactly,” he said.

Just like that the intensity was back. The need that hit hard like a punch to the stomach and made it hard to breathe. The desire that verged on pain, her core already so slick with need for him, so sensitized, one more calculated move against his cock would send her straight over the edge.

But the releases Eli offered weren’t easy. Not a sweet relief like the opening of a flower, they were like going through a storm. And she was charging in willingly, knowing full well how it would be. Knowing that this time might be the time that saw her washed overboard, completely adrift.

It was worth the risk. Every time it was worth the risk.

She kissed him back, bit his lower lip as she tugged his T-shirt up over his head. Then she put her hands on his chest, all that hard, hot muscle for her to explore. Just for her.

“You, too,” he growled.

And she hastened to obey, tugging her shirt up over her head, undoing the front clasp on her bra. She leaned forward, a short, sharp sound escaping her lips when her nipples came into contact with all that hot bare skin.

He moved his hands over her back, his touch firm and sure. He touched her with the kind of authority she had no issue with at all.

He tightened his hold on her and picked her up, switching their positions so that she was lying sideways on the couch, on her back, with him over her, his hands on the snap of his jeans. Heat flooded her face, her body, anticipation coursing along her veins as she waited for him to get his pants off.

She undid her jeans and pushed them and her underwear down her legs. “Come on,” she said, “you’re going to kill me.”

“I don’t think you’re going to die,” he said, leaning in, tracing the outline of her nipple with his tongue.

“Yes,” she said, the breath rushing from her lungs, “I really think I might.”

“I didn’t realize you were so fragile,” he said, kissing her lightly on the breast before moving downward, pressing another kiss to her stomach.

“I am not fragile.”

“You sure, baby? Another one of those
F
words.”

“You turn into such a bad man when your dick is hard,” she said, her voice shaky.

“And you like it,” he said.

“Hell yes, I like it.”

“Then we don’t have a problem.” He took hold of her leg, his fingertips sliding along her inner thigh, her muscles quivering in response.

“Except the little problem where I die because you won’t give me what I want.”

“What do you want?” he asked, pressing his lips along the path his fingers had just traced.

“Oh...I... You know.”

“You want this,” he said, leaning in, hot breath blowing across her clit.

“Oh...yes. Please.”

“You’re going to have to ask me by name.”

“Please, Eli,” she said. She wasn’t above taking orders. Hell, at this point, she was so desperate for release she wasn’t above begging. “Oh, please.”

“Please what?”

“Please do...you know.”

“You want me to lick you until you scream?”

Heat shot through her, her face burning hot. She was not a prude, but she’d never had a man talk to her like this before, either. And the fact that it was Eli, straight-arrow Eli Garrett who didn’t get double entendres and who’d once put her in handcuffs in an un-fun way, made it feel all the more illicit and shocking.

“Eli...”

“Do you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

He curved his hands around both of her thighs and tugged her down hard, his lips meeting her tender flesh, his tongue stroking her clit. She threw one arm over the back of the couch, putting the other one on his shoulder as he teased her, as he pushed her, mercilessly, straight over the edge into a climax she wasn’t even remotely prepared for.

Pleasure poured through her, threatening to drown her, and all she could do was cling to Eli. Cling to him and hope she survived the storm.

“Turn over,” he said, his voice rough.

“What?”

“On your knees, babe,” he said.

She sat up and obeyed, resting part of her body against the arm of the couch, her knees pressing into the cushions.

She could hear him getting his wallet out, tearing the condom packet. Her throat was dry, her body throbbing. She could not need to come again this bad less than a minute after that last orgasm. It wasn’t even possible.

But it was happening.

She was shaking, she needed him so bad. And shaking with fear because this level of need was terrifying. But she couldn’t stop him. Which only made it scarier. Because she didn’t want to. She should be running. She should be in her Toyota and halfway to the Washington border. But she was here, bracing herself on the couch, waiting for Eli. Needing Eli.

She didn’t have to wait long.

He pushed inside her, and she lowered her head, her forehead pressing against the arm of the couch, the brocade pattern biting into her skin.

He gripped her hips and established a steady rhythm, his hand drifting between her thighs, stroking her clit, making her shiver. She was powerless in this position, at his mercy. And she loved it.

It was so different from the last time they’d been together, when she’d ridden him until they both lost their minds. This was his game. He set the pace, and he had total control. She’d never liked this, submitting to a guy like this. But she liked it with him.

She more than liked it.

He pulled her back against him and increased the intensity, her whole body tightening up, pleasure twisting around her, reaching that unbearable point where she knew something had to give.

He pressed down hard between her thighs, the added pressure the final straw that snapped the tension, sending waves of release pounding through her.

He put both hands on her hips, his fingers digging into her skin as he rode her hard, chasing his own release. He found it on a harsh growl as he stiffened against her, then relaxed, his head resting against the curve of her back.

He moved away from her, her skin prickling in the cool air after he removed his warmth. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

She lay flat on her stomach, her knees and arms like wilted kale. She tried to catch her breath, to catch a thought, before he came back. So she didn’t do something dumb and needy like crawl into his lap and bury her head in his chest.

But she kind of felt dumb and needy. Which was really aggravating.

She pushed herself into a sitting position so that she would look a little less pathetic upon his return.

He walked back into the room, beautifully naked, his eyes most definitely focused on her breasts. “Hi,” he said.

“I’m having déjà vu. Except you were wearing clothes last time you walked in and said that.”

“So were you.”

“Yes, well. Not now.”

“Obviously.”

“Don’t leave,” she said, and she could have bitten her tongue off.

“I won’t,” he said. “Just yet.”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant. Just not...right now. We could... We could go into the bedroom, and...”

Toby chose that moment to jump onto the floor between them and look at them both, judgment gleaming in his golden cat eyes.

“Oh, you,” she said, “go make yourself useful. Catch vermin!”

“You said he didn’t catch vermin,” Eli said, a smile curving his lips.

“He needs a hobby. One that is not staring at us after we have sex. Over it, cat. I’m over it.”

Toby meowed and walked over to Eli, rubbing against his bare legs and winding his tail around his calf. Eli looked pointedly at Sadie, his eyebrows arched.

“He can smell your disdain. It’s...well, it’s like catnip to him. He feeds off hatred.”

“Why do you like him again?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think for reasons similar to the ones I like you for.”

He looked back down at the cat, who was winding himself around his ankles, then back at her. “Excuse me?”

“We don’t always get along. You can be grumpy. Standoffish. Judge-y as hell. But there is just something about you.”

“You’re really selling my personality.”

“Hey, I know what I like. Grumpy, judgmental cats and...grumpy, judgmental men in uniform.”

“I’m not judgmental,” he said.

“Sure you’re not.”

“I’m not.”

“You seem upset. Are you going to punish me to the fullest extent of the law?” She wiggled her brows and stood up, her legs wobbling beneath her.

“I might,” he said, his voice getting deeper, huskier.

Oh, yes, this was better than the alternative. Desire was better than that other stuff. The intense aftershocks of sex with him. The deep need that it seemed to expose, without ever satisfying it.

“I think it’s time for us to go to bed.”

And for once, he didn’t argue with her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I
T
WAS
EARLY
.
It was cold. And it was fence repairing time.

All things that, in many ways, Eli found enjoyable. All right, so fence repair wasn’t the most fun thing he could think of to do on a Saturday, but it was quiet work. And he and Connor had thermoses of coffee set on the fence posts, their breath putting out bursts of condensation in the cold air, and there was something about it that was familiar. Constant.

Of course, his brain was back in bed with Sadie. He’d gone to her place every night that week. He hadn’t slept there any of the nights, but last night he’d stayed until the sky had started to lighten, slept for an hour, and now, here he was out in the field.

It was jarring. To go from this sort of out-of-reality experience with Sadie, in her arms, in her bed. He had the kind of sex with her he’d barely even fantasized about. Because he hadn’t thought it was real. Or even a possibility.

What they had was hot, on a level he hadn’t known existed. He wasn’t used to sex consuming him like this, but he sure as hell wasn’t arguing.

But yeah, the transition from there, to sleep, to this had him a little off his game.

“Hand me the wire cutters,” Connor said, his voice still rough from sleep.

“Sure,” Eli said, reaching out and taking the cutters from the ground, and placing them in Connor’s outstretched hand.

“You’re quiet this morning,” Connor said.

“And you appear to have woken up with an estrogen surge.”

“What the hell?” Connor asked.

“Seriously, what was that? ‘You’re quiet this morning.’” Eli knew he was being a jackass, because he
was
tired, because he’d been up all night having sex. Which he felt kind of smug about, but also which he didn’t want his brother to know about. “Only women say crap like that.”

“You seem to have woken up on the asshole side of the bed this morning and stepped in a pile of sexist on your way out to the barn,” Connor said.

“You make a similar trek every morning. Why should it bother you if I’m trying to speak your language?”

“Because you don’t normally. You are normally very well-adjusted, which actually kind of pisses me off, because you’re my younger brother and your shit is way more together than mine. In fact, no matter what’s going on, it all seems together for you. Which makes me very suspicious of why you’re acting this way.” Connor straightened and tugged off his glove, leaning against the wooden fence post and picking up his thermos, unscrewing the cap. “Yeah, very suspicious.” He poured himself a cup, black, no sugar. “Either you’re still mad because you want to screw Sadie, or...oh, no,” he said, a smile curving his lips. Eli groaned internally. “No, that’s not it. You said you weren’t going to sleep with her, so even if you were in full monk vow of celibacy mode you wouldn’t be grumpy like this. You did sleep with her. And you’re mad because you broke your little vow.”

Wrong.
He was not mad about sleeping with Sadie. He loved every minute of it. He was, however, more than a little pissed that his brother had guessed so close to the truth.

“Shut up, Connor,” he said, reaching for his own thermos and pouring himself a cup, with cream and sugar.

“You did. You slept with her.”

“I
am
sleeping with her,” he corrected, his tone hard. He hadn’t intended to admit it, because it just wasn’t Connor’s damn business. It felt like something that was just for him and Sadie. And it felt wrong to talk about it. Like it violated what they had. Like it violated her.

“Well,” Connor said, pushing his hat back on his forehead. “I did not expect that.”

“What?”

“To be right, for you to admit it if I was, and for it to have happened more than once.”

“I can’t even count how many times it’s happened.” And there he was putting male ego over decency, which he rarely did, but he was only human.

Connor shook his head and took another sip of his coffee. “For a second, I was jealous of you,” he said.

“Only for a second?” Eli asked.

“Yeah, then I remembered how much I don’t want to screw with any of that stuff ever again.”

Eli let out a long, slow breath. He didn’t want to have this conversation with Connor, but they were apparently having it. “You’re never going to sleep with anyone again?” he asked.

“Not planning on it.” He took another sip of coffee.

“That’s not... You’re thirty-four years old, Connor. That’s not healthy.”

“You don’t still believe in blue balls, do you?” Connor asked.

“No. Look, I just...” He swallowed. “I don’t like to tell you how to deal with this. To deal with Jessie, and the loss of her, because who am I? I’ve never loved a woman, Connor. I don’t plan on ever marrying one. It’s just not in the cards for me. But
you
have to move on.”

Connor shook his head, his jaw tight. “No, Eli, I don’t. I don’t have to move on. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.”

“So you’re going to be like this forever?”

“Maybe. I run my ranch. I get the work done. What the hell else do I need to do?”

“Be okay?” Eli asked.

Connor laughed. “I’m not okay,” he said. “Why should I bother acting like I am?”

Eli looked down. “It’s been three years,” he said, his tone soft.

“And it was supposed to be a lifetime.” Connor put the lid back on his thermos. “When is the appropriate time to get over the loss of your whole life? Answer that question, Deputy.”

“I can’t,” Eli said.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. You don’t want to get married.”

“Give me one reason why I should,” Eli said, leaning forward on the fence, propping his boot up on the bottom slat. “Love comes here to die.” It seemed a weird thing to say, with the pine trees in the distance tipped in gold from the sun, and the breeze coming in from the sea, mixing with the scent of earth, trees and livestock. With all these things that made the ranch look like heaven, it was hard to see it for what it was.

But the simple fact was, no one in his family had ever managed to hold on to love. The house, the Catalog House that he was starting to think of as Sadie’s, was the original monument to that. A gift for a woman who wouldn’t stay.

And on it had gone, all the way to Connor.

No, Eli had no plans to get married. He’d never seen a good reason to want love, and he’d seen plenty of reasons to avoid it.

“Yeah,” Connor said. “Sometimes it feels that way. But my point is, you already don’t want marriage. With the way things were for Dad after Mom left...I did, and look where it got me? Don’t you think I have enough of a reason to not want to get married again?”

“Sure, but not to never have sex again.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“Yeah, I promise I’ll never think about it again. Or ask you about it again.”

“Sounds like a plan. So there. You had the talk with me. You said the thing that’s been brewing. And I spoke my piece. You can call your brotherly duty done.”

“Good,” Eli said, but none of it felt good.

“The sex good?” Connor asked.

“What?”

“With Sadie. Is the sex good? Tell me that at least.”

“Damn good.”

Connor groaned. “Okay, well, we got that out of the way, too. World’s most awkward conversation?”

“Very.”

“Did you want to talk about religion or politics next?”

“I’ll pass,” Eli said.

“I guess we just fix the fence and mind our own business, then.”

“I’m okay with that.”

Eli went back to work, his eyes on the pale blue sky extending above lush green mountains. He tried not to replay the conversation he’d had with Connor. Tried not to remember the bleakness in his brother’s eyes. It was everything he’d been afraid was in him, said out loud. That Connor wasn’t okay at all.

And he couldn’t fix it. Dammit, he hated when he couldn’t fix it.

It was like his dad all over again. Watching somebody drown in sorrow, doing their best to manage their addiction until just once...just once you weren’t there to stop them. To care for them.

At least Connor wasn’t drinking as much as their father used to. But Eli worried. His brother sure as hell drank more now than he had before Jessie’s death.

The thought gave him heartburn. More than that, it made him want to get back into Sadie’s bed. At least there things were good.

Mind-bendingly good.

There, he didn’t think so much about the things he needed to fix that couldn’t be fixed. He could just think about himself. Just a hell of a lot more length of fence to fix, some calf vaccinations to deal with, and he’d be back with her.

That would be his happy thought for the day. It was rare he had a happy thought, and no one was more surprised than he was that today Sadie Miller was his.

* * *

“T
HANK
YOU
FOR
COMING
, K
ATE
,”
Sadie said, standing with one hand outstretched, an apron dangling from her fingertips.

Kate looked from side to side. “I see no half-naked deck builders.”

“You’re not here to ogle, sweetheart. You’re here to bake.”

Kate crossed her arms beneath her breasts, her dark eyebrows shooting upward. “I am?”

“Yep. We’re going to make dinner rolls. I mean, if you want to. I thought we could hang out. And since I’m trying to learn how to get some recipes perfected I thought this might be fun.” Sadie really hoped this might be Kate’s idea of fun. Otherwise she feared hanging out with Kate might involve intensive horseback riding, or something equally outdoorsy. Not that Sadie was opposed. She just needed to work up to it.

Much to her relief, Kate brightened and took the apron. “Sounds great.” She started putting the apron on. “Not that I really need to protect my clothes,” she said, indicating her plain white T-shirt and high-waisted jeans.

“Better than wearing flour for the rest of the day.”

Sadie started getting out mixing bowls and ingredients while Kate stood in the center of the kitchen, obviously slightly out of place in the environment.

“Let me guess,” Sadie said. “You don’t have much cooking experience.”

“Not really. Eli’s always done that. Throw meat on the grill, bring home pizza or whatever. Why are you cooking rolls for a bed-and-breakfast?”

“Well, I have to eat so I thought I would offer additional meals for an additional price a few days a week,” Sadie said. “Anyway, I like cooking.”

“Oh.” Kate moved in closer and stood at the counter.

“You sound surprised.”

“Eli never seemed to like it. But, I mean, he did it. And his food is edible. Unlike Connor’s...”

“So Eli did all the cooking for you guys?” Sadie asked, unbearably curious and slightly guilty. She should not be interrogating Kate about her brother. Especially because Kate’s brother was her secret lover. And if Kate knew that Sadie and Eli were sleeping together, she would probably make a horror face and run screaming from the room and never speak to Sadie again.

And thus, Sadie would lose one of the very few friends she had.

“Yeah. He did. Connor kept the money coming in, and, I mean, Lord knows that was important, but...Eli was the one who made sure I was ready for school. He learned to braid my hair,” she said, her hand going to the hairstyle she still wore.

Sadie’s stomach squeezed tight, her eyes stinging. Eli’s strength was sexy, no question, but this? This was even sexier. It was a part of the strength, really. A part that most people wouldn’t see.

Braiding a little girl’s hair.

Sadie saw it, though. An older brother, a teenager, getting his little sister ready for school. Cooking meals. All things that would never be public, but that had shaped Kate into the woman she was.

Eli was all that had stood between Kate growing up to feel safe and secure...and growing up feeling like Sadie had. Like no one cared. Like she was better off cutting ties and leaving parents who didn’t want her anyway.

It was Eli who’d protected Kate’s trust. Her openness. Eli who’d given her her strength.

Sadie couldn’t help but be envious. And she realized then that the little fascination she’d had for him when she was a teenager hadn’t been about a bad girl wanting a cop. It had been about wanting a man with that kind of strength to protect her. Care for her.

Well, he didn’t. No one did. Deal with it.

“That’s...really sweet,” she said, grabbing a measuring cup and pushing it down into the flour bag, a white cloud rising up around them.

Kate smiled. “Well, don’t let him hear you say that. But then, if he’s still avoiding you, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Sadie felt a twinge of guilt, which made a sucky companion to the envy. “Yeah,” she said. “Not sure when I’ll see him again. So, let’s make rolls.”