Which led to a life-guiding question.
Who do I want to see in the mirror tomorrow?
Someone who made her way no matter the obstacles, here or somewhere else in Texas. Success requires perseverance. Mountain climbers don’t let a little rain stop them. Men went to the moon with less technology than I have in my phone.
I can do this.
I can find my story.
Tony stood next to the small nightstand where Sarah had left her spiral notebook. Would she have left it out if she had something to hide? Normally, he would never consider reading the private writings of anyone—mostly because doing so required a certain amount of interest on his part, which he hadn’t felt about anything in a long time.
But that book held the answers he needed.
Is Sarah taking notes on how I run the ranch? Is she working for a news rag? Why is she here?
He flipped the purple cover open and his jaw went slack with surprise as he read the first page.
Day One
This is what life is about: seeing new places, meeting new people, grabbing life by the . . . and squeezing until it coughs up a story worth telling.
Writers do not fear words.
Balls.
Balls.
Balls.
Big balls.
Hairy balls.
Bald balls?
A question was written in the side margin: Do some men shave their balls?
Tony stopped, shook his head and reread the first entry. A grin spread across his face as he did. He picked up the notebook and flipped to the second page.
House:
Shouldn’t use Tony’s in the book. Porch is nice, but inside is too barren. Too cold. No one would believe that someone doesn’t at least have a television. Don’t want people to think hero is boring or out of touch. Visit neighboring homes for inspiration.
Tony stopped. He’d been right that she was taking notes on his place, but not in the way that he’d thought. He wasn’t sure he liked what she thought his home said about him. Boring? Out of touch?
He read the next entry:
Characters:
Need a better name than Tony Carlton. Something more Texan. Something bold. Holt Johnson? Might want him to be a cattle rancher instead of a horse trainer. Something about rustling cattle is sexier. Maybe it’s the rope.
Tony’s mouth went dry at the images that last sentence sent racing through his mind. He shook his head and tried to focus on the words on the page instead of how Sarah would look, naked and tied to the headboard of his bed.
Physical description. Hazel/green eyes like Tony’s. Eyes that change color in different lighting and with his mood. Tall, built like Tony with broad shoulders and that perfect butt that looks great in jeans.
Pleasure whipped through Tony, his grin widening as he read that last part for a second time. She likes my ass. But what does she mean my name is not Texan enough? She’d rather call her hero Holt Penis? That’s Texan?
He continued reading:
Tony is attractive, but . . .
Tony stopped at that word. But what?
He scanned the next few lines with less pleasure.
He’d be sexier if he smiled more. No woman wants to sleep with a man who always looks like he smells a rotten egg.
Miffed, Tony thought, Is that right? Hasn’t stopped you from following me around and giving me those take-me-now looks.
He flipped the page of the notebook and kept reading.
Ridden Hard
By
Breshall Haas
Tony thought: Who the hell is Breshall Haas? Her pen name? If that title is anything to go by, she’ll need one.
Still, he had to admit that he liked the idea of innocent Sarah having a naughty side. She was writing a dirty book—his little blonde angel. He shifted as his jeans suddenly became uncomfortably tight in the front. Short of Sarah coming in and ripping the notebook from his hands, nothing would have stopped him from reading further.
First draft
It’s not stalking if you know he wants you.
I park at the end of Holt’s driveway and curse the heavy rain that makes it impossible for me to see if his car is there. I consider coming back later, but wild acts of abandon cannot be postponed due to poor weather.
Still, it’s a shame that the time I put into styling my long, red locks was wasted along with the money I’d spent on the Jimmy Choo crystal-beaded pumps that likely wouldn’t survive a muddy sprint to his porch. I regret not boldly driving to his doorway, but my plan depends on him not being home.
I have wanted Holt since the first time I met him.
And, now, finally, I’m going to have him.
An arrow pointed to the margin where Sarah had written: Outside of romances, is that kind of desire for a man plausible? Tony’s breath caught in his throat as a revelation rocked him to the core. She doesn’t know. She is as innocent as she looks.
He kept reading, even as his cock countered with a pulsing argument for putting the notebook down, carrying Sarah back to his bed, and showing her what she’s been missing.
His car isn’t in the driveway.
No one answers my first knock or my second.
I shiver with anticipation as I open the door and let myself in.
The clock on the wall ticks away in an otherwise silent hall. Five o’clock. If Holt follows his normal schedule, he’ll be here very soon.
I strip off my wet coat, careful to hang it in the closet where it won’t be seen. I wipe the evidence of my arrival off the hall floor and walk to where I know he’ll head as soon as he gets home.
I fold my dress and tuck my underwear safely inside of it on the counter in the bathroom. I place my muddied shoes neatly beneath the counter and turn on the shower. My wet hair is cold on my bare back and I welcome the warm steam that begins to fill the room.
As I step beneath the hot spray, I lose myself for a moment in the sheer pleasure of it.
I jump at the sound of the bathroom door being swung open, quickly followed by the shower curtain being pulled back.
“What the hell are you doing in my shower?” Holt demands angrily.
“Waiting for you,” I say huskily. “I’m a dirty girl.”
Tony burst out laughing at the line as he pictured Sarah saying it. A memory of finding her in the shower replaced his humor with gut-tightening need as he remembered what she’d looked like in just a towel. His mind flooded with images of what he would have done if she’d greeted him that way yesterday.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to read the scene she’d written with the improved version of him. He was already painfully aroused.
Holt’s eyes burn with passion for me. He says, “Then let me clean you off.”
Joining me in the shower, he soaps me down, careful to remove my nervous smell. He rinses the soap away before slowly drying me with a fluffy white towel.
His penis is erect.
I brace myself against the wall of the shower and prepare myself for when he enters me. I know how good it will feel in a few minutes.
Another arrow pointed to a comment in the margins: condom?
Sarah had skipped a couple of lines on the paper and then had rewritten the last paragraph.
I brace myself against the wall of the shower and prepare myself for when he enters me. I know how good it will feel in a few minutes. He pulls a foil wrapper out of his . . .
Notes in the margin read: Ass? Mouth? Where the hell do people keep condoms when they shower together?
Tony would have laughed again if he weren’t was so engrossed in her story.
I feel him shudder as he orgasms. The kiss he gives me before he withdraws and rinses himself off is every bit as tender as I had imagined it would be.
Tony read the last part again with a confusing mix of emotions. Why would an innocent fantasize about bad sex? Then he read the note in the margin and anger replaced confusion.
Notes: I’ll need more than my personal experience if this
book is going to have sex scenes.
Is that really how it was? No wonder we broke up. Why did it take me this long to realize how bad it was?
Possible spin-off article title: In Search of the Elusive Orgasm.
Or: When to Stop the Blame Game and Take Matters Into Your Own Hands
Her humor didn’t distract Tony from the importance of her entry. Sarah wasn’t a virgin. Just as she had used Tony’s physical characteristics to describe her hero, she was using her past experiences to write the sexual content. He reread her story with this new information and found his fury growing with each word.
He’d enjoy slamming his fist into the face of whoever Sarah had been sleeping with. Anyone who is that bad in bed should come with a fucking label. What an ass.
Angry yet still aroused, Tony read on, and his blood pressure soared to new heights but for an entirely new reason.
First attempt at masturbation—fail.
Tony slammed the notebook closed and returned it to the nightstand.
There is a reason God didn’t give men the ability to read a woman’s mind.
Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing.
He closed the door behind him. As he walked down the stairs he saw his house through Sarah’s eyes. It was empty. He’d never noticed that before. He’d lived here for five years, and not one picture or painting graced the walls.
A house, not a home.
As cold as Sarah had described it.
He stopped at the hallway mirror Melanie had put up before he’d forbidden her to leave her mark anywhere in his domain. He looked older than he should, deep lines born from fatigue and sun. He forced a smile to his lips and hated how out of place it seemed on his face.
“What are you doing?” Melanie asked from the door of the kitchen.
“Nothing,” Tony muttered and strode out the front door, angry with her for catching him and with himself for not being able to stamp out the feelings Sarah’s notebook had stirred within him.
Just losing my mind.
Chapter Six
Tony was already working with a dark sorrel gelding in one of the ranch’s large wooden round pens by the time Sarah walked out of the barn with David. The horse was loose and walking in circles around him.
Sarah paused, and David stopped beside her. “It looks like he’s just exercising that horse in circles, but it is more than that, isn’t it?” she asked. David pushed his hat back a little from his forehead and rubbed his chin, also studying the scene before them instead of answering her. Tony stopped the horse with a shift of his body. He turned the horse on his haunches with a slight flick of his hand. The closer Sarah looked, the more communication she could see between the man and the horse. “He’s talking to him with his body, isn’t he?” she asked without realizing she had spoken aloud.
David nodded. “You could say that. Watch him here.”
Tony raised his arm above his head and the horse began to lope around him. He lowered his arm and the horse slowed to a jog.
“Amazing,” she whispered to herself.
“See how the horse never takes his eyes off Tony? Some call it joining up, some call it becoming the alpha.”
“What does Tony call it?”
Rubbing his chin again, David answered in a slow Texan drawl, “He doesn’t talk about what he does.”
How sad.
“Will it bother him if we go closer so I can see better?”
A quick flash of a smile came and went on David’s face as if he were enjoying a private joke. “Only one way to find out.”
They crossed the distance to the round pen and stopped just a few feet shy of it. Tony turned briefly at the sound. Their eyes met in a clash of unexpected heat. The look he gave her burned with promises she couldn’t begin to interpret, so intense that she turned to see if it was meant for someone behind her.
Nope. Just me.
And David.
That look had better be meant for me and not him.
Sarah suppressed a nervous giggle.
Or it’ll seriously kill my cowboy fantasy.
When Tony turned back to the horse, his expression was angry. His movements were suddenly rigid and the horse turned fully toward him in confusion. He made some small hand motions, then used his voice to urge the horse on, but the horse began to back away as Tony’s temper soured. He raised his arm and issued a verbal command, which stopped the horse but didn’t seem to improve Tony’s mood. He lowered his arm and Sarah heard the echo of his swears.
She looked up at David, who was sporting a huge grin. Despite the growing heat of the day, Sarah’s hands turned cold from nerves and she tucked them into the front pockets of her jeans. “I should probably go.”
Adjusting his hat to shade his eyes more, David said, “No, ma’am, looks to me like you should accept his invitation and stay for a while.” With a nod of farewell, David left her standing there questioning his conclusion.
Really? What exactly gives you that idea?
Tony whipped off his hat and slapped it angrily against one leg as his eyes raked over her again, burning with a desire that sent an answering heat cascading through her.
Oh, that.
Horse forgotten, Tony never broke her gaze as he bent to exit between the metal rails of the pen. He held it until he was standing over her. Sarah looked up at him from beneath her lashes, not bold enough to meet the heat in his eyes head-on. She didn’t trust it to be real. Didn’t trust herself not to squash it somehow. Better to simply savor the idea of it before reality dashed it away.
His tone didn’t match the warmth of his gaze when he ground out, “I know why you’re here.”
Here? Like right here, mooning over you while you try to get some work done? Sarah licked her bottom lip nervously and kept her eyes fixed on his chin. “Because my friends are unreliable and I have no sense of direction?” she asked helpfully.
He shook his head slowly, both of his hands going to her hips and pulling her closer, close enough for her stomach to brush lightly against the physical evidence of his desire. “Look at me,” he commanded softly.
She did and shivered at the intensity of emotion in his eyes. Whatever was between them was sinfully primal and everything she’d wished for but never experienced.
One of his hands came up and cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing her lips with a tenderness that was in direct contrast to the harsh set of his jaw. “I thought you were a reporter.”
His words made no sense. Sarah shook her head silently, giving herself over to the wonder of his touch, the feel of his arousal pushing against her. She opened her mouth to defend her reason for being there, but fell silent when his thumb took advantage of her open lips and softly caressed them more fully. Unable to control herself, she snuck a lick at the tip, and they both froze from the shock of the connection.
“I’m glad you’re not, because I want to taste every inch of you. I want you to beg to take my cock in your mouth and taste me. I can teach you everything you want to learn.” His husky declaration was voiced as his mouth descended toward hers.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
How does he know what I want to learn?
Taking a fast, shaky breath, Sarah asked, “Did you read my notebook?”
His lips replaced his hand on her jaw, lightly caressing their way to her ear. “Oh, yes.”
Sarah wanted to tell him that he’d violated her privacy when his tongue flicked at the spot just behind her ear and she moaned in pleasure instead. His other hand shifted from her hip to cup her ass and lift her more fully against him. Her nipples hardened and pushed at the material that separated them from the rock-hard chest rubbing against her.
I’ll tell him later.
Once again he was whispering in her ear. “I want to teach you to come until you can’t think, until you can’t move, until nothing else matters but having me deep inside you again.”
Okay.
Adrenaline and desire swirled within Sarah. It’
s one thing to fantasize about having that experience with a man you hardly know, and it’s another to receive the offer. And, oh . . . what an offer.
His lips hovered over hers, his green eyes dark with conflict. He growled, “No promises. No expectations. You leave when you want.”
“This is crazy,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“No, this is what you came for,” he said, and his mouth closed over hers. His tongue pushed through her lips without invitation and swept hers into a heated dance. His hands pulled her tighter against him, shifting her ever so slightly back and forth against his evident arousal. Then he nipped the shell of her ear and growled seductively, “I could fuck you right here, in full view of everyone, and not care what any of them thought. That’s what you do to me. What do I do to you?”
Feeling a bit like a fish gasping for air, Sarah opened and closed her mouth a few times as she sought the words to express this overwhelming rush of sensation. He smiled briefly down at her and claimed her lips in a kiss that erased the desire to speak. He trailed hot kisses across her jaw, down her neck, and back to the sensitive skin behind her ear. He murmured against her cheek, “My little blonde angel, don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. I’ll even show you what you could be doing with those shy hands of yours.”
Realizing they were still buried in her pockets, Sarah felt instantly self-conscious and went rigid with embarrassment. I have to be the least sexy . . .
He set her back a step, but held her as she swayed a bit and shook her head. “If you want to go, I’ll help you find a room in town. Your horse can remain here until you’re ready. But if you stay tonight, you won’t sleep in the guest room.” A slow sexy smile stretched his lips. “You likely won’t sleep at all.” His hand slipped beneath her hair and cupped the back of her head, tipping it ever so slightly upward, offering her kiss-swollen mouth to him again. “Your choice.”
Gentling the Cowboy Page 6
