Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy (5 page)

He chuckled at my ear. “Is this gonna do it for you”—his dick stretched my slick folds wide open— “or are you wanting something more?” His teeth grazed just below my earlobe as his thumb toyed with my asshole.

That was the death of me. Gasping, I rammed myself back onto his cock, then slowly withdrew, taking my time sliding up and down. When he latched onto my hips, I knew I’d gotten him where I wanted him. Again I slammed back until I was trembling and feeling so sinfully damn good. “Now,” I whimpered. “Oh God. Please,
now
!”

I’d garnered his attention with that remark. He reared back, leaving me hanging for a split second before lunging forward to sink deep inside me in one fluid, hard movement—then he withdrew and did it again. And again. And all the while I heard myself crying his name and urging him on.

I curved my back and lifted my ass, welcoming the pounding as it sent jolts of delicious pain and pleasure into the pit of my stomach. I swear his dick was so deep it was tickling the back of my throat. His hand curled around the nape of my neck as he impaled me, slapping my ass cheeks against his thighs. And then I gave him a slight wiggle, jutting his cock into my wet walls. That tipped the scale. Immediately, he yanked at my hair, jerking my head back, and slammed his dick up to the hilt. I arched my back when he pumped, hard and deep, all restraints gone. He dug his fingers into my hips as he picked up speed.

“Yes!” I moaned. “God damn it, Gunner. Fuck me. Fuck me
hard
!” I screamed, gripping the couch’s armrest for dear life.

He plunged into me, jolting me until my arms went slack and dangled off the couch. I pushed back, forcing him deeper, and when that special sting circled my gut I knew I’d experience bliss in two seconds flat. He impaled me once more, drilling his thick cock higher and faster, not even skipping a beat until he’d filled me up and I’d milked him dry.

Chapter Three

Sunlight filtered through the bedroom curtains and a warm morning glow settled across the worn patchwork quilt. I rolled onto my side and rustled my hand beneath the cotton sheet, only to come up empty handed. Instead of running my fingers over the sexually spent body of a cowboy, I found a note. After scanning it over, I came to the conclusion that maybe Gunner’s boss and I would never see eye to eye on certain things. It was pretty darn sorry of him to call Gunner out before the crack of dawn. And I didn’t like it one bit that Gunner’d snuck out on me before I got a chance to talk to him about dinner plans, which were of utmost importance, seeing as how my mother was coming over bearing gifts of Marlboro smoke and backhanded compliments. When it came to my mother and Gunner, she seriously needed to get that stick out of her ass and realize that he was gonna stay around for good this time.

Or at least I was hoping so. I sure didn’t need to be shooting myself in the foot over him again.

The sound of the doorbell dinging snapped me out of my reverie. I thought about ignoring whoever it was, but then the buzzer rang again.

This was the exact reason I lived in the boondocks. Unexpected company sucked balls, and right now I heard the one thing I dreaded most before I’d even had time to tinkle or drink a cup of coffee—boots clomping up and down my front porch, heralding unwanted company. I figured I’d get down there before whoever it was had a chance to ring the bell a third time.

Flinging back the comforter, I slid into my bunny slippers, slung a bathrobe over my sheer beige nightie, and padded downstairs. I tiptoed around the banister, trying to sneak a peek at my guest through the living room’s bay window. I was able to make out the side view of a cowboy hat, which could belong to just about anybody. Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the front door and squinted through the peephole.

Crunching gnats on my doormat, wearing a brown leather bomber jacket, jeans, and his trademark gray cowboy boots was none other than that pesky federal marshal, Colt Larsen. I checked the clock above the mantle. Eight thirty.

“I told you to meet me at the station at ten,” I said loudly through the door.

He waved a plastic bag and two Styrofoam cups in front of the peephole. “You wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, would you?” he hollered back, still hanging on to that wide I-could-screw-your-wife-and-have-you-thanking-me-for-doing-it-afterward grin.

I slid back the chain, unlocked the deadbolt, and pulled open the door. “How did you know where I lived?” I asked, securing my robe tightly against my chest.

“Pearl Tompkins down at the Filler-Up was kind enough to point me in the right direction.”

“
Pearl
told you?” I said, making sure I heard him correctly. Pearl Tompkins wasn’t known for her benevolence or chattiness.

“Yeah. I just asked, and she told me.” He smiled, clearly proud of himself.

He tried to step inside, but I slung an arm across the threshold and leaned a shoulder into the doorframe, blocking his advance. “And you just thought it would be a great idea to hop on over and say hello?” I snuck myself a peek inside the plastic bag. “Did it not occur to you that if I didn’t want to get in your Jeep last night, then I definitely wouldn’t want you at my house this morning?”

He smiled and shoved past me, stopping in the middle of my living room; his eyes immediately landed on the clothes and couch cushions tossed about the floor. He stood by my coffee table and grunted in amusement before saying anything. “The difference between last night and this morning is that I have something to offer you now,” he said, handing the Filler-Up bag to me. “Would you like a doughnut? Some coffee to get you going? Or both, Deputy Briggs?” Colt threw me a knee-buckling wink as he lifted the goodies to eye level. I ignored the wink and sighed. “I myself enjoy a powdered doughnut as much as the next guy.”

It sucked how much I was a pushover. I snatched the doughnuts and a coffee from his hands. “Give me five minutes, and we’re out of here.” I took a sip of coffee as I headed toward the stairs.

“By the way, where are we heading?” he asked, bracing a hip against the banister.

I crammed half a doughnut in my mouth. “Where else,” I said, then laughed through a mouthful of food, “but the picturesque Horseshoe Trailer Park.”

He raised a brow. “‘Picturesque’? That word must mean something different out here in west Texas.” He kicked away from the banister. “Because, darling, down on the coast, the trailer parks are where the bottom-feeders hang out.”

He really needed to be given the scenic tour of Pistol Rock. I tipped my chin back at him. “I know. Why do you think we’re heading over there? Now, take a seat and find something to keep yourself busy. If you wanna watch TV, I don’t have cable.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I know a perfect way to keep us both busy.”

“Perhaps you’d prefer to wait outside on the porch?” I asked.

“I apologize.” His laugh was way too casual for my taste. “I know now why I like you so much, Laney Briggs,” he called as I stomped up the stairs. “You remind me of my ex-wife. A lot of temper mixed with a little bit of sweetness.”

I stopped on the top step and peered over my shoulder.
Oh boy
. It was a miracle no woman had ever brought sexual harassment charges against him and that he was still on the job, given the amount of sexual innuendo he was slinging at me.

Colt smiled. I gave him a blank stare, and then went into the bedroom, taking a moment to double-check the lock before shucking my nightie and heading for the bathroom. After a much needed potty break, I pulled on a pair of Levis, my sheriff’s uniform blouse with “Pistol Rock” stitched across my left boob, and stepped into my red cowboy boots. When I rounded the stairs, Colt was leaning against the door, hands still stuffed in his pockets, head down and lost in thought.

I cleared my throat. “Are you ready to book?” I asked, strapping my .9mm into the holster around my waist.

He looked up at me. “I’m ready if you are,” he said, backing away from the door.

I picked up my keys off the table, pushed through the door ahead of him, and locked it behind him. “So when we get to Abby Sims’s trailer, please try not to scare the woman away.” I stared at Colt digging at the grass with his boot tip.

He stopped and peered back at me, frowning. “What are you getting at, Deputy Briggs?”

“Sometimes you come across kind of unfriendly,” I stated flatly.

“Sort of like you,” he answered, opening the Jeep door. “Although I get the feeling that I’m growing on you.”

I shrugged. “Not really. I don’t like you that much, either.”

Horseshoe Trailer Park was sort of a community all to itself, a group of people pretty much isolated from the rest of Pistol Rock—mostly because the rest of the town tried to avoid the place like a Baptist preacher does liquor. Seeing how it wasn’t the type of place that saw many outsiders, I witnessed a few curtains part and a couple screen doors crack open as we crawled along the gravel road winding through the trailer park in Colt’s red Jeep.

The last time I’d seen Abby Sims, she’d called in a meth lab complaint on my former classmate, Skinny Picket. Now Skinny was dead, and Abby was standing, a baby on her hip and a cigarette stuck to her bottom lip, at the top of the concrete steps leading up to the door of her trailer, eyeing Colt’s Jeep as it idled outside her double-wide. To add a little curb appeal to their trailer, the Simses had placed an assortment of wilted marigolds on the steps. A mint-green lawn chair sat at the bottom of the porch, and a cooler was tipped over on its side surrounded by what looked like at least an eighteen pack of empty Natural Light cans. Cigarette butts carpeted the ground.

With the fall wind blowing her hair about her sour puss, Abby shifted her weight, took a final drag, and flicked away the cigarette.

“I don’t recall inviting over visitors,” she called in a voice so hoarse it could have chipped paint off drywall.

I shot a look at Colt.

“Thanks for letting me tag along,” he mouthed at me, then shrugged and waved at her.

Wonderful
,
this is going to go down about as well as a Briggs family reunion
.

We bailed out of the Jeep and made our way to the steps. It was Saturday morning, and all bets were off whether Mr. Sims had made it home last night. He was known to hit the bar after the Rattlers lost a football game. I reckoned that had something to do with why Abby was so uncordial.

Colt and I both stopped at the bottom of the steps and gazed up at Abby, who in all honesty looked meaner than shit.

She eyed Colt. “Well, what do you want, asshole?” she snarled.

I smiled over at Colt. “Asshole? It’s like she knows you already.”

“Just wait. I haven’t even asked her a question yet,” he said, adjusting his hat.

“Maybe I should do the talking,” I offered.

“Please do.”

“Mrs. Sims, we’re here to ask you a few…”

“So you’re gonna let our little slut of a deputy do all the talking for you?” she interrupted.

That was the moment that my cup of tolerance shamefully spilled over.

“If you wanna talk about sluts,” I told Abby, “I can talk about sluts. I can talk about how everyone in town knows that you might be married to Holt, but your children all look like his best friend, Jasper Wilgens. Now why is that?”

“The doctor says it’s a recessive gene, a coincidence.” Apparently, this was a touchy issue with her.

“As long as Holt believes you, I guess that’s all that matters,” I fired back.

She cocked a hip, readjusting her baby. “Fuck you, Deputy Briggs,” she said. “It’s no secret that you chew through men like a pack of Juicy Fruit.”

I was about to let loose on her, but when I saw Colt’s astonished expression I figured I better act a little more professional. Getting into a pissing match out here wasn’t good for the case.

“Marshal Larsen and I are looking for information on Missy, and we knew you two were kind of close from your bowling league,” I said.

“What’s going on with Missy?” she asked.

“It seems we can’t get a line on her.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m afraid so,” I replied.

“Holy Jesus.” She looked a little shaky. “Y’all come on inside,” she said, motioning into the trailer house.

She led us into the kitchen, but since the trailer wasn’t much bigger than a boot box, I stayed in the living room. Colt stepped forward, looking like he was sucking in his breath and holding it so he didn’t have to touch anything or breathe in the nicotine-heavy atmosphere.

Abby placed her baby in a high chair and shoved a pacifier in its mouth. “Deputy Briggs, who’s the sexy cowboy following your ass around and breathing so heavy?” she asked when Colt let out the breath he was holding and gasped hopefully for clean air.

“Federal Marshal Colt Larsen, ma’am,” he answered proudly. Or it would have been proudly if he didn’t look like he wanted to get out of there pronto.

“Feel free to use the couch if you need a rest, Marshal,” she offered.

“I’m fine,” he said, stepping closer to an open window. I didn’t know why he was doing that, since the air outside the trailer was laced almost as heavily with spent cigarette smoke as the inside air.

“So what do y’all want from me?” Abby stretched on tiptoe, rooting around the cabinet above the stove for something out of reach. She eventually found the soft pack of menthols she was looking for and began smacking it into her palm. “You know I ain’t gonna go ratting on my friend now, don’t you?” She slapped a coffee percolator on the stove, fired up a cigarette and the burner, then turned back to us while enjoying a long, satisfying drag.

I sidled over next to the window Colt was trying to catch a clean breath through and said, “We’re just trying to figure out where she might be at this point. The marshal here has been following Missy for some time and believes she might have taken Rip for everything he had.”

Abby looked at me, and I nodded. “It’s true,” I assured her. “So if there’s anything she might’ve talked to you about at league nights, it’d sure help us.”

Colt finally gave up trying to keep his lungs clean and sidestepped around me, closer to Abby, and added, “That way, we can talk to her and sort this whole snafu out.”

Abby leaned her butt against the stove. “Yeah, sure,” she said a little guardedly.

“We all love Missy,” I said diplomatically, “and we can’t help her if we can’t find her.”

“I’m sure that’s your intention, Deputy. Helping her is the only thing on y’all’s agenda,” she shot back. Just because the woman was trash didn’t mean she was a complete idiot.

The coffee had begun to boil in the percolator, and it smelled wonderfully potent. She turned off the gas and hustled over to the fridge, flung open the door, and stuck her head inside. She came out of the fridge with a carton of milk in hand.

“Who takes milk?” she asked.

Colt tipped his Stetson at me, and I mouthed “sure” as we each took seats at the tiny kitchen table. “Both of us, please,” he said in that charming drawl I was beginning to like a little too much.

After topping our coffee off with a splash of milk, Abby handed mugs to us and proceeded to fill us in on “Kate’s” side gig. “About a week ago, Missy came by acting pretty damn weird, now that I think about it.”

She paused to take a slurp of her thick and deliciously strong coffee. “I tried talking to her about normal kinds of things, you know? Like kids being a pain in the ass, and husbands being a bigger pain in the ass, but she didn’t seem interested in anything, which was kind of weird, ’cause it was the same shit we always talked about. But when I got to talking about money problems, which, as you can see, I have plenty of, she finally came alive. She started telling me how desperate she was for money. I asked her if she and Rip were in some kind of financial trouble, you know, credit cards or something like that. But she said it had nothing to do with Rip. She said she just needed money really quick or she was gonna be in some real deep shit. When I asked what the hell was going on, I couldn’t get anything more specific out of her. But whatever it was, it had the shit scared out of her.”