“Yes. I guess.”
His answering grin was decidedly wicked. “Good. Let’s go shoppin’.”
The inside of the store was as deserted as the parking lot. An oblivious teenage girl leaned against the register partition, texting.
Bran approached her. “Excuse me. Is anyone around tonight to load corrals if I buy some?”
She shook her head. “We close in an hour. Just me and Reggie here and he’s in the back.”
“Thanks. Next time I’ll have to come earlier in the day.” Bran placed his hand in the small of Harper’s back and directed her to the glove aisle.
She snagged the first pair she saw, while Bran debated on styles, thickness, and new brands until she couldn’t stand it. She wandered over to the clothing section.
Ranch-supply stores had everything from baby chickens and corrals to industrial tools and livestock feed to food and clothing. Harper had a serious thing for Western clothes.
At first she’d worn the traditional floral patterns and flannel to make herself feel more like a Wyoming native, but along the way she’d fallen in love with Western styles. The slim cut of the women’s dress and casual shirts. The rhinestones on everything. The sheer variety of jeans that fit every shape and size of woman under the sun. And the boots. If she had the money, she could spend every last dime on cowgirl boots. She loved to browse, trying to figure out funky ways to put together cool outfits with limited cash. She let her fingers follow the ruffled pattern on the bottom of a denim miniskirt.
“You should try that on,” Bran said behind her. “I bet it makes your ass look fantastic.”
What a flatterer. But she wasn’t immune to it. “Really?”
“No foolin’. Go on. Try it. The dressing rooms are straight back there.” He pointed.
Harper peered over his shoulder at the girl employee still engrossed in poking buttons on her cell phone. “Do you think I should ask her first?”
“No need. We’re the only ones in here.”
Okay, then. Harper picked the biggest dressing room, in the corner. She slipped off her skirt, leaving on her knee-high heeled boots. Just as she was about to shimmy the skirt up her legs, two brisk knocks sounded on the door.
Crap. She knew she should’ve checked with that girl first. Holding the skirt across her lower half, she cracked open the door. “Yes?”
Not the employee standing on the other side, but Bran.
He bulled his way inside and locked the door.
“What are you doing?”
He snatched the skirt out of her hands and tossed it on the bench. He stalked her until her spine hit the mirror. His fingers pinched the fabric of her shirt beneath her collar, and the metal snap buttons went pop, pop, pop, pop, pop until her shirt hung open. Then Bran’s mouth was hungry on hers, his fingers twisting the front clasp of her bra. The little chunk of plastic was no match for his determination, and her breasts tumbled free.
She considered protesting for five seconds until Bran’s wonderfully rough hands were on her breasts, rasping across her nipples. Her heart kicked into double time when he shoved his thigh between hers and began to slide it up and down, creating delicious friction across her damp slit.
He kissed a line from her mouth straight down her neck to gift her cleavage with sucking kisses. “I want to fuck you. Right now. Facing the mirror.”
“But—”
Then he was nose to nose with her again, all hot, hard, single-minded male. “You drive me wild. I can’t get enough of you.” He nuzzled her cheeks with his, rubbing back and forth as if he was marking her. “You’re a drug,” he whispered huskily. “Feed my addiction, Harper. Right now. No one will know what we’re doin’ in here besides us.”
She lost control of her will when he blew in her ear. His magical hands spanned her hips, and his thumbs hooked the edges of her panties as he whispered hot, sweet, sexy words against her throat.
“Be adventurous, darlin’. Say yes.”
Harper wanted this. To be wanton. To be fun. To be sexually spontaneous. To have a man want her so desperately that he’d take her hard and fast in a dressing room of a Western store on a Monday night. “Yes.”
Bran smashed his mouth to hers and roughly pulled her to him. He tore at her clothes. Her shirt hit the floor. Then her bra. He tugged her panties until they pooled between her feet. He broke the kiss and turned her around. “Bend over and put your hands on the mirror,” he said while unbuckling his belt.
She watched the play of emotions on his face in the mirror as she placed her palms at waist level. Lust. Eagerness. Mostly she sensed his impatience as he threw off his duster and shucked his jeans down to his knees.
He inserted his booted foot between hers, gently kicking her feet apart. “Wider.” He kept his focus on her sex as he fed just the tip of his cock into her wet channel. Then he ran his rough-skinned hands up her naked back, curling one hand over her shoulder and twining her long tresses around the thick fingers of his other hand. He pulled her hair hard enough to get her attention. “Keep your head up. I wanna see your face while I’m fucking you.” He snapped his hips and filled her in one endless stroke.
Yes. He knew just how she liked it. Hard. Fast. Deep. Harper arched her neck and let her eyes flutter closed.
Another sharp tug on her hair and her eyes flew open. “Watch,” he demanded.
His next couple of thrusts were powerful enough that Harper was thankful she’d braced herself against the mirror. The warm friction of his cock was familiar and yet foreign as he drove into her without pause.
Bran’s eyes were no longer on her face but on her breasts, which swayed and bounced with his every jackhammering thrust. He licked his lips and growled before catching her gaze in the mirror. Then he stopped moving. Keeping their gazes locked, he angled forward and placed a surprisingly tender kiss on her left shoulder. “Sweet Jesus, look at you. So goddamn lush and sexy and beautiful.” He kissed the hollow below her shoulder blade. “I love takin’ you from behind, but this is so much better because I can look at you. I can watch your eyes. I can see how you react to what I’m doin’ to you.”
The fact that he’d practically snarled the words only increased their impact. Harper felt like the sexiest woman on the planet, with Bran’s possessive touch on her body, his fiery eyes locked to hers, his hard cock impaling her. She tilted her hips, bringing him deeper inside her. “See my reaction, Bran, when you make me come.”
A smug expression of satisfaction entered his eyes, and he returned to fucking her with absolute gusto. He kept one hand tangled in her hair, forcing her head up, while the other smoothed the outside curve of her body, over her swaying breast and the slope of her belly, stopping at the rise of her mound.
Keeping the base of his hand anchored on her pubic bone, his middle finger followed her slit to where his cock joined their bodies. He dragged his finger back up, separating the pussy lips hiding her clitoris. After a few teasing circles, he began to stroke that pouting bit of flesh in a counter-motion to his pumping hips. But since his strokes were getting faster, his attention to her clit was constant. And accurate. Holy cow, was it accurate. The man knew—had memorized—all her hot buttons.
That drone of need began to build. Harper’s fingers slid on the mirror as she tried to squeeze the glass. She looked at herself, bent over, spread wide, sex drunk, seeking that point of pleasure that only Bran could provide her.
He slightly changed the angle of her head. Without missing a single stroke, he opened his mouth over the vulnerable slice of skin next to her nape and sank his teeth in.
The sexy love bite sent Harper sailing into the chasm of bliss. She gasped loudly, forgetting they were in public, as each orgasmic wave throbbed through her body. She gasped again when the clenching pull of her interior muscles clasped Bran’s cock, bringing it to that magical spot inside her that caused another set of strong ripples.
Then Bran swore and started to come.
How much time passed, Harper didn’t know.
Her world had been pared down to this small space filled with heat, the scents of sweat and sex and Bran. Just Bran. Nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered.
Keep telling yourself that and you’ll end up like your mother.
Whoa. Talk about a random thought to take the shine off the afterglow.
Bran was slumped across her back, pressing his sweaty forehead between her shoulder blades, his breath stuttering and his body shuddering from his climax. His cock was still buried inside her when three insistent raps sounded on the door.
“Hello? Are you all right? I heard noises in here.”
Noises? Had they really been that loud?
“Hello?” Then, “Shit, I’ll have to get the key.”
That spurred Harper to answer, “Ah, no, it’s okay. I’m fine. Just having a devil of a time getting this”—she pushed her hips back into Bran’s pelvis—“thing off me. It’s a tight fit.”
Bran murmured, “It is a tight fit,” and bumped his hips forward into her again. “Really tight. Perfectly tight.”
“Did you say something?” the girl demanded.
“No. I’ll be out in a second.” Using the mirror, Harper pushed herself upright, intending to dislodge Bran from her body.
But he held her in place and let his hands skate up her torso, cupping her breasts. She watched his slow, sensual movements reflecting back to her. He acted as if he had all the time in the world to touch her, which spoke volumes about the type of man he was. He would not be rushed. He would not be bullied. His breath was hot in her ear. “I wanna fuck you like this again.”
“Now?” she whispered.
“Would you say yes?”
She nodded her head yes even as she mouthed, No.
He laughed softly.
When she turned, he kissed her in an openmouthed duel of sliding tongues and lips.
As he pressed a moist kiss to the cup of her shoulder, he pulled out. Although he’d only untucked his shirt and dropped his pants for their encounter, he helped her put her clothes back on. Bran’s idea of help was stealing kisses, copping a feel, generally making a nuisance of himself. But Harper didn’t mind a bit.
Once she was as presentable as she could make herself, she was half tempted to tell Bran to sneak out first.
Why? You aren’t ashamed, are you?
No. Heck, Harper was proud that she’d brought out such a primitive need in a man like Bran Turner, who prided himself on total control. She opened the door and walked out of the dressing room in front of him.
The salesgirl looked at them. Suspiciously. Knowingly.
Harper smiled and handed the girl the skirt. “You know, I don’t believe I need this today. Thank you.”
She looped her arm through Bran’s and they didn’t stop laughing until they reached his truck.
Chapter Nineteen
“You promised you’d feed me. Steak, if I recall.”
Bran started his truck and looked at her. Damn. He liked that Harper sat right next to him on the bench seat. He really liked the shine in her eyes and the soft set of her mouth. He fastened his lips to hers, taking the lazy, slow kiss he wanted. When she started to inch her hand up his leg, he broke the kiss with a smile. “Food first. How about the Cattleman’s Club?”
“Sure. I’ve driven by a bunch of times, but I’ve never eaten there.”
“They’ve got decent steaks. Cheap beer. Good music.”
“Sounds like my kind of place.”
After Bran parked and helped her out of the truck, he kept hold of her hand as he led her inside. The joint was hopping, but he didn’t recognize anybody—mostly because he couldn’t look away from his beautiful date. The hostess showed them to a booth up front by the stage and dance floor. When Harper tried to sit across from him, he nudged her into the booth and scooted right next to her.
“What can I getcha to drink?” the waitress asked.
“She’ll have a Jack and Coke, and I’ll have a Bud Light.”
Harper turned toward him after the server left. “You’ve got a funny look on your face. What are you thinking about?”
“Miniskirts. Specifically, about the time you and Celia came along with us to Cactus Jack’s. You wore that faded-jeans skirt that made your legs look a mile long. Did you hear the collective male groans every time you angled across the pool table to take a shot?”
Harper blushed. “No. I don’t know what possessed me to wear that skirt. I’ve not worn anything that short since.”
“I know. Why do you think I was so gung ho for you to try on that miniskirt in Runnings?”
“Because you wanted to nail me in front of a three-way mirror and see if you could make me scream?”
He grinned. “That too. But damn, I really love the way your ass and legs look in them short skirts.”
She blushed harder, if possible. “I didn’t think you noticed.”
“I would have had to’ve been blind and dead from the waist down not to’ve noticed you.” Not to have wanted you. Fantasized about flipping up that sassy little skirt and bending you right over the pool table.
“Such a sweet talker.”
He focused on the menu. “Any idea what you’re havin’?”
“The petite sirloin, hash browns, and a salad with blue cheese dressing.”
“Sounds good. Except a small sirloin is just gonna piss me off.”
She laughed.
The waitress dropped off their drinks and took their order. Bran lifted his bottle to Harper’s glass. “To miniskirts.”
“And your sudden need for leather gloves.” She clinked her glass to his and drank.
Silence descended. And lingered.
Why?
Because this felt like a date.
Shit. Was he supposed to exhibit datelike behavior? Ask about her interests? Movies she’d seen? Places she’d been?
No. This was Harper. His Harper. They were beyond typical date behavior. He’d seen her covered in manure. He’d seen her wearing nothing at all. He’d seen her angry and aroused and determined and exhausted. He knew her, dammit. Straight down to the bone. They were beyond this trivial stuff.
Yes—he knew her because he was head over heels in love with her.
Almost as if she sensed his realization, she pushed him to move, scooted out of the booth as soon as he stood, and sat across from him.
“Was it something I said? I did put deodorant on before I left the house.”
“Don’t go getting your boxers in a twist, Bran. I’d like to look at your face when I talk to you.”
“We don’t seem to be doin’ a lot of talkin’.”
Harper cocked her head. “Why is that? We never run out of things to talk about on the ranch.”
“We’re mostly talkin’ about work stuff.” He grinned. “Or we’re getting nekkid.”
“Since we’ve already done that, are we just going to sit here and stare at each other?”
Bran reached out and touched her cheek. “That ain’t such a hardship for me, bein’s you’re so beautiful you take my damn breath away.”
Her eyes softened. “I like this side of you.”
“Which side is that?”
“Sweet. Romantic.”
It was Bran’s turn to blush. “So is it considered romantic if I ask you to spend the night with me before we even get our food?”
“Only if your offer includes breakfast.”
“Done.”
The waitress served their salads and they tucked in. However, Harper’s gaze kept straying off to the right.
“What’s captured your interest over there?”
“I thought I saw someone I knew.”
Speakers crackled and the feedback from a microphone reverberated loudly. They both winced. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Monday night karaoke at the Cattleman’s Club. I’m Bob Carlson and I’ll be your host. So if you’ve got a burning desire to sing for these fine folks, come up and see me and we’ll get you on the list.”
Bran groaned and felt H
arper’s gaze burning into him.
“Not a karaoke fan? Or are you worried someone is going to pick your song first?”
He shook his head. “First, I don’t sing. In public. Ever. Second, what song do you think is my favorite?”
She smirked. “Honky-tonk Badonkadonk.”
“Not hardly. What about you?”
“Do I sing? Or do I like ‘Honky-tonk Badonkadonk’?”
“Do you sing?”
“Singing was my talent in the various beauty contests I competed in,
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