Unbroken: Country Fever, Book 3 (15 page)

With her father in and out of her life, it was no wonder she enabled Tucker to do the same. But it wasn’t exactly right, was it? A woman should be treated better.

She reached the top of the hill and peered out over the landscape. Rolling hills, mountains in the distance. Horses dotting the ranch like tiny fleas on a dog’s back. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of stirring dust. And out of the dust walked a man.

Her breath hitched and her heart did a slow flip. Christian’s solid form drifted down the dirt path, boots churning the dry earth. He walked with a rolling swagger that drenched her panties instantly. Her breasts seemed to swell, pressing hard against her shirt.

His arms swung loose at his sides, but he gripped a coil of rope in his gloved fists.

Oh my God, where’s his shirt?

At some point, he’d stripped it off and tucked the end into his back pocket. It moved with him, brushing his leg in a way she longed to do.

Who was she kidding? She wanted to rub herself all over him.

She stuck two fingers into her mouth and blew. Her shrill whistle pierced the air. Christian stopped walking and looked straight at her.

Her heart throbbed once…twice. Then it flipped again and sped out of control. Racing, just like her feet were now. Without conscious thought, she’d taken off toward him, running through the grass like a lovestruck woman in a cheesy commercial.

The matching corny grin claimed her features.

Christian kicked it into high gear too, walking impossibly fast even for his long legs. As she neared, she was able to see the harsh rise and fall of his chest and sweat beading his torso.

She drew up short, her curls jiggling forward as if to reach him first. She released several small pants that had nothing to do with exertion.

“Hell, Claire.” He yanked her flush against him.

Dark heat slithered low through her belly. He jerked her off balance, and they tumbled into the high grasses, his strong body pinning hers. The scents of wild switchgrass flooded her senses, along with hard-working male musk.

He stared down into her eyes for a single beat before slamming his mouth over hers. Claiming her. Devouring her.

She nipped at his lips and tongue, writhing to get closer to his extreme heat. His steely erection ground the V of her legs, causing her clit to swell and throb.

“I need you. Right here. Now.” He spattered kisses down her throat to the tops of her breasts even as he adeptly stripped her.

“Hurry,” she breathed. She raked her fingers over his shoulders and down his spine, weaving them under the fabric of his waistband.

He flashed a crooked grin, then ducked his head and sucked her nipple through the cloth of her shirt. Gasping, she arched, seeking more of his insanely hot touch.

When he popped her jeans button, she thought she’d combust. His scent maddened her. The heat of his skin drove her out of control.

He sank his teeth into her nipple hard enough to make her squeak. But oh, what a delicious feeling. Her skin broke out in goose bumps. Then suddenly, he manhandled her out of her top and bra, her jeans, panties and boots, until she was stretched bare beneath the hot harvest sky.

He rested back on his heels, gazing at her with an intensity that made her squirm. Wetness pooled between her thighs and her need to be touched chased over her skin.

He yanked his jeans to his knees and then stood to kick out of boots and fabric. She stared up at him, memorizing the ripples of his upper body and the hard bulk of his hips.

She let her thighs fall apart.

Christian groaned. Very slowly, he stooped to collect the abandoned rope from the ground. She shivered when he doubled it and created a loose loop. “Give me your wrist.”

Her stomach pitched sharply with excitement. She extended her hand, and he slipped the rope around her wrist. With a few tugs, he tightened the coarse hemp. Prickles of awareness broke over her.

“Other wrist.” His gravely tone made her pussy squeeze hard. She did his bidding, and he bound her hands together but about a foot apart. She waited helplessly, gagging for what would come next, as he located one of the rubbers in his wallet and slid it into place.

His eyes darkened. Easing over her body, he guided the rope loop around his neck and poised at her apex. “Hold on, cowgirl. This is gonna be a bumpy ride.”

He buried himself to the root. His cock stretched her perfectly, and she cried out. Juices pooled around his invasion. Using the rope, she tugged his head down and kissed him.

With a jerk of his hips, he pulled out. Gazed at her until her skin pebbled. Then slammed into her once more. Every inch of his cock set her ablaze. A throb the same tempo as her heart took up residence in her belly.

She yanked him down using the rope again.

He hissed as the fibers obviously abraded his skin, just as it was chafing hers. She didn’t care. If he wore her marks and she his, she’d go to bed happy tonight.

Christian licked her lips, her tongue, the inner walls of her mouth. He rolled his tongue down to her cleavage, which he worshiped for long minutes while the sun started its descent in the sky.

When he sucked her bud into his mouth, she felt the first spasms of her release washing over her.

“Hell,” he ground out and bit her nipple.

She eased the rope down his spine and locked him to her, bucking against his hips, taking him as deep as possible. “More. I’m so close.”

“You can’t come until I tell you it’s time, cowgirl. Now ride me harder.” He snapped his hips with a groan. “Yeah, just like thaaaat.”

His cock provided a fullness she couldn’t get enough of. She wanted him deeper and on the verge, so filled with lust that he distended her. Just when she thought she’d surely die, he reached under her, ran a fingertip around her rim and drove a finger into her ass.

The breach sent her flying over the edge.

“Now, baby.”

She couldn’t have held back if she tried. Juices soaked him as each spasm stole more of her breath.

And her heart.

He thrust his finger in and out in time to her pulsations. He splayed her open on his cock. Their eyes met briefly. In that look, a thousand silent words were exchanged.

Christian threw his head back and roared his release. Liquid heat filled her pussy, driving two more mind-stealing throbs from her.

Several moments passed. When he shifted over her, she realized she had the rope pulled so tightly over his back, it was likely cutting into him.

He raised his head and smiled at her. Eased his finger from her body, which clutched at the air, wanting him inside her again. Gently, he removed his cock and toppled into the grass, shoulder first.

She giggled and rolled with him, the rope still connecting them. But the sound was removed from the turmoil she knew in her heart. Somehow, Christian had grown on her. Too much. This wasn’t only a man who could give her toe-curling orgasms or acted as a friend when she longed for Tucker the most.

No, Christian possessed his own corner of that body part thumping under her breast. He searched her gaze, and God help her, she thought she saw the same emotion pooling in the depths of his pale green eyes.

She purposely tightened the rope on his back.

Tucker picked out Jake Mickelson the instant he walked into the bar. The man leaned against the counter, beefy arms crossed, casually talking to Jones.

Goddammit.
Jones had mentioned Mickelson stopped here every time he passed through, but did it have to be during Tucker’s extended stay?

Tucker hated everything about Claire’s father. From the way he wore his 49ers cap low over eyes that looked too much like Claire’s, to the arrogant set of his shoulders. This was a man who knew who he was, or at least thought he did. He probably considered himself to be a good dad, on the road providing for his little girl all these years, when in actuality he had taken so much away from her.

Claire didn’t talk about her father except in passing, but Tucker was good at reading between the lines.

While he looked on, Jones said something to Jake that made the man look up. Directly at Tucker.

Every muscle all the way down his spine tightened. His heart rate slowed as they took each other’s measure.

The jukebox rolled over to a whiney tune by an artist whose voice had always gotten stuck in Tucker’s craw.

Jake pulled away from the bar and started for him. Tucker steeled himself, legs braced wide, crouching low enough to hit the bigger man’s midsection and tip him off balance if necessary. And it might be. Claire’s father looked like a bull ready to charge.

He wore cowboy boots with gleaming silver tips and a pair of jeans that rode low under his trucker’s paunch. The closer he got, the more Tucker found that the wide-spaced, almond eyes were the only feature this man shared with Claire.

But damn, seeing those eyes tore Tucker up.

“Langley.”

Jones hadn’t been given his real name. He snapped his hands into fists and gave a sharp nod. “Yeah.”

Jake stopped a few paces from him. His cheeks and jaw were darkened by a shadow of a beard and mustache. Tucker stared at him for a full minute before he realized that the facial hair reminded him of Christian.

He scuffed a hand over his own clean-shaven face.

“I talked to Claire this morning.”

Tucker jerked. The last thing he’d expected to hear was that.

“She’s told me a lot about you. Say…what are ya drinkin’?”

Drawing a deep breath through his nostrils, Tucker analyzed the emotions ping-ponging through his body. Punch the man square in the teeth or sink to a barstool next to him?

“Beer.” His throat constricted around the word, making him sound as if he really needed that drink.

Tucker shot a glare at Jones on his way to the stool, but his bartender friend tried to make peace by sliding a longneck of Tucker’s favorite brew across the wooden bar top. Damn the man for knowing too much, but most bartenders did. Of course he would know. Tucker had been holding down this barstool long enough.

Mickelson hitched himself onto the stool beside Tucker. Too close for Tucker’s comfort, but there was nothing to do but wait to see if the man challenged him.

Tucker took three long swallows of the earthy liquid before Claire’s father spoke.

“Heard you was on the run from my little girl.”

The cords in Tucker’s neck grew taut. He slowly turned his head to pierce the man in his gaze. “You heard that, huh?” Hurting Claire made Tucker’s stomach burn.

“Letty told me.” Mickelson raised a brow as if in challenge then sipped from his foamy glass.

For a moment, Tucker couldn’t make sense of the name. Then it filtered in, along with the wail of the woman on the jukebox. Claire’s aunt. Sweet woman, who also saw too goddamn much.

“Ah.”

Mickelson shifted on the stool. “A lot of guys are clamoring for my girl’s attention, you know. She’s a beauty, and men want her. Letty acts as a sort of buffer between them, and in my stead.”

In your absence.

“So my mother’s sister tells me everything about the goings-on with Claire. Says she’s living in your house.”

Tucker dug his boot into the wrung of the stool to keep from falling off. “What?”

Mickelson’s eyes were dark, too much like Claire’s when she got angry. “Yeah, Claire moved in to take care of your cattle—”

With Christian. Fuck.

“—and she brought Letty along.”

So they were all living there, cozy as three bugs, while Tucker camped out in a shitty motel room with nothing but beer and afternoon game shows for company. But whose fault was that?

“Seems that you had something serious with my little girl.” The accusation was clear in Mickelson’s tone as well as the set of his jaw.

Tucker looked away. That dark shadow of hair on her father’s face brought a dizzying need for Christian. He brought the mouth of the bottle to his lips and drank the rest down.

“Drowning yourself in beer won’t make that guilt go away.”

Tucker swung around in a flash. “What do you know of my guilt?”

“I know you were fooling with my Claire, and you left her. Anyone with a brain would feel guilty about that. Hurting her is like hurting Mother Theresa.”

Fuck, the man was right. Maybe he did know his daughter—at least well enough to know she was soft and pure as new snow.

Tucker nudged the brim of his hat lower. “Your daughter is an amazing woman.”
And she deserves better than me.
“And I wish her the best.” Tucker climbed off the stool and made it two steps before Mickelson’s low voice reached him over the dying remnants of the song.

“What if the best was you?”

Swallowing convulsively, Tucker stared at the door.
Move toward it. Don’t look back.
With supreme willpower, he moved one boot ahead of the other. Outside, he controlled the urge to break into a run. To run long and hard across the land until grasses swished around his knees and his lungs burned for air.