Hope on the Range

by Cindi Madsen

  “Feel free to tell me things while topless anytime.” The smile he flashed her was familiar yet new, with a hint of kindness and understanding she’d caught glimpses of whenever he worked with the teens at Turn Around Ranch. “Messing up this”—he gestured between them—“is the last thing I want to do. You’re in the driver’s seat. Same way you were at prom when I kissed you and you let me know you didn’t want that.”

  “Wait, what?” she automatically responded, even as a memory from a decade ago began to take shape. “Oh, yeah. You totally attack kissed me that night. How’d I forget about that?”

  “Ouch. Guess my ego needed taking down a few notches.”

  “Hey, this is karma for claiming all the credit for how good we are at kissing,” she teased, placing a hand on his biceps. “I honestly thought you just didn’t know how to say goodbye, so you thought kissing was the way to go. Are you saying…? How long have you felt…whatever you feel?”

  He chuckled, and she did her best not to be offended, because if he avoided the question again, she was going to activate the flashlight on her phone and interrogate him. She’d get it on video to later analyze, too. He sat back, and her body screamed noooo. “You’ve never thought of crossing lines before?”

  With the conversation going on longer than expected, she felt extra naked, so she sat up and secured an arm over her breasts. “It’s all I’ve thought about for months!” Okay, that slipped out rather ungracefully, but playing it cool had never been in her skill set. “The past five or six months, for the record. I’m not sure precisely when it started. I tried to shut the notion right down, but you’re you, and I…” She shrugged. “I couldn’t seem to stop it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me at prom?”

  “You shoved me away. I figured kissing you told you well enough, and you answered right back with a loud-and-clear no. Which I totally respect. After that, I deleted you from the list of possibilities. Over the years, yeah, the thought occasionally flickered, but as you’re well aware, I’m also a bit of a skeptic about love and the way people wield that word these days.”

  Every emotion she’d experienced since climbing into the truck completed a full one-eighty. Talk about internal whiplash.

  Brady cupped her cheek as she reached for a shirt—his or hers, she didn’t care, as long as she covered up her exposed body and emotions ASAP. “But I don’t want to always have to wonder, either. Better to take our shot in the arena instead of sitting and dreaming on the sidelines. Wasn’t that our motto?”

  Warmth suffused her, reassuring her frayed nerves. This was another version of Brady. The pro-rodeo companion who’d pushed, validated, and given her pep talks before big events.

  She’d already wondered what-if for way too long, and she could kick herself for not saying or doing something sooner.

  Then again, sitting in the homey cab of Brady’s truck, her heart beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings, the timing felt right. Like maybe it wasn’t quite right before. Or maybe there was no perfect time and you just had to seize moments. “I say we take our shot. If that’s what you want.”

  “I do,” he said, and relief tumbled through her.

  Before she allowed herself to surrender to his magnetic pull, she placed a hand on the side of his face and anchored herself in his gaze. “Just swear we’ll remain friends no matter what.”

  Brady twisted his head and kissed the center of her palm, and her heart melted into a puddle of happy goo. “I swear. Now, do we need to discuss anything else before the intermission comes to a close?”

  “I think we’ve done more than enough talking.” She curled her fingers into his waistband and tugged him on top of her until their bodies were flush, shoulders to thighs.

  He kissed her lips, along her jaw, and the column of her neck. The tip of his tongue darted out, and her hips automatically arched into his. “Yeah, this tastes like a very good idea.” He lightly abraded her skin with his teeth as he undid the button on her jeans, lowered her zipper, and palmed her over her panties.

  “Brady.” She licked her lips, a thrill going through her when his gaze tracked the motion like a predator waiting to pounce. “If you don’t get on with it, I’m gonna accuse you of being chicken again.”

  His knee slammed into the gearshift as he advanced, the loud whack followed by a string of swear words. Tanya giggled, and then they both burst into laughter. This so wasn’t how she imagined sleeping with Brady Dawson would go, and yet it was so them. At their meetup spot between their two ranches, in the truck they’d driven to countless rodeos and horse sales, the pitter-patter of rain providing a steady soundtrack that drowned out the rest of the world.

  She recalled his earlier joke about the crickets. “See? You don’t have to work very hard to get into a girl’s pants. I didn’t even make you rub your legs together.”

  Brady’s ear-to-ear grin caused her heart to skip a couple of beats. “Probably for the best, as the situation in my pants would make it rather painful to rub my legs together anyway.”

  “Guess I’d better help you with that, then.” Due to his insistent erection, undoing the button on his Wranglers required a bit of extra work. He let loose a massive sigh as she lowered the zipper and he sprang free of the tighter fabric.

  One by one, his boots thumped to the floor, and then the only sound was the swoosh of fabric as he wriggled free of his jeans. The boxer briefs plastered to his muscular thighs did little to conceal his arousal, and desire thrummed through her until her body vibrated from it.

  He yanked off her boots, and poor unfortunate soul that she was, she had to sit up slightly and stare right at his package as he got to work on her pants. The wet denim stuck to her legs, but when Brady was determined, he didn’t let anything slow him down.

  A stupid thread of nervousness stitched its way through her once only their underwear remained. It’d been a while, and now she was thinking she should’ve worn sexier underwear. When was the last time she’d even trimmed her bikini area?

  Brady ran a fingertip from the center of her chest, down between her breasts, sending those thoughts far, far away to where they belonged. He flattened a palm to her stomach and gazed at her exposed body. “Damn, Yaya. Sexy doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  Dizziness set in. Oxygen no longer mattered.

  She was seriously about to explode from the amount of love swelling within her. She squirmed, unable to wait even one second longer, and let out a pleading whimper.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll take care of you.” Brady glided his fingertips the rest of the way down her stomach, taking a quick dip into her belly button, before finally—blessedly—wandering beneath her panties.

  His mouth came over hers as he touched the spot that’d been begging for attention since he’d dared to stop touching her. At her strangled noise of pleasure, he increased the pressure and tempo.

  With his free hand, he tugged her panties down around her thighs and continued his ministrations until she was a delirious, needy mess. Another stroke, another kiss, and then she was adrift on a sea of bliss, Brady her lifeline.

  Slowly and tenderly, he brought her down. Pride radiated off him, and if she could figure out how to get her tongue to work, she’d call him a cocky cowboy again.

  He locked eyes with her as his thumb flitted across her lower lip. “You okay?”

  “Mm-hmm. Better than okay. Amazing. Reeling. Eagerly awaiting more.”

  “More, huh?”

  Considering how pleased he was with himself, Tanya figured it was time for some sexual retribution. She gripped his arousal over his underwear and applied pressure.

  His eyes rolled back, and he thrust into her hand as if he couldn’t help himself. A lot of times in her work life, she’d felt powerless. The rodeo circuit was the only place she’d felt completely in control, but
this went beyond even that. She’d never felt so sexually empowered, and she found that she really, really liked it.

  “What were you saying?” she asked once she remembered she’d been in the middle of proving a point.

  “Nothing.” He groaned and worked his hips again. “Nothing at all.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said, reaching into his boxers and taking him in hand, no pesky fabric in the way. “I do hope you brought a condom.”

  “Me too,” Brady said, and that effectively popped her smug balloon. He leaned over her, opened the glove box, and shuffled around papers. “Aha. We’re in luck. I have three.”

  “Ambitious,” she joked, which was much easier with her libido mollified. She was far too turned on not to have sex with this man.

  “This has been a long time coming,” Brady said as he rolled on one of the condoms. “I think ‘making up for lost time’ is a better word for it.”

  “That’s”—she lifted her fingers and counted—“five words.”

  Brady lowered his head so that his lips brushed hers as he spoke. “If you can still count, clearly I haven’t given you enough orgasms.” He kissed her hard on the mouth and poised himself at her slick, ready entrance. “Sounds like I’d better fix that.”

  Chapter 13

  Life was made up of little moments, most of them ordinary and expected. But then there were bigger moments, like that instant before a roller coaster soared downward after taking you to its highest point. Holding your breath in the chute at a rodeo before the buzzer went off and you had to charge into the arena and lay it all on the line.

  Free-fall moments.

  Make-or-break moments.

  Extraordinary moments that could change everything.

  This was all of those rolled into one, and Brady took another second to marvel at the image of Tanya, naked and underneath him, her damp curls spread out on the seat of his truck. It was an image he’d hold on to forever, no matter what happened next.

  He pushed inside her, groaning at how incredible she felt. How right everything about this felt. Her lips tempted him closer, and he lowered his mouth to hers, mimicking the movement of their bodies with his tongue.

  Her nails dug into his skin, testing the bounds of his self-restraint. Especially after all the buildup and flip-flopping of emotions during their earlier discussion. Since ridding her of her shirt, it’d been difficult to think of anything besides getting his hands on her. He palmed one of her breasts, massaging it and pinching one of her sensitive nipples.

  Like earlier, she came off the seat, and he slammed all the way in to the hilt. Tanya tensed beneath him, and black dots danced across his vision. It’d be so easy to lose himself to the barrage of intoxicating sensations, but he held on until she cried out his name and shuddered around him.

  The instant she went pliant underneath him, he let go.

  His orgasm ripped through him, fast and hard. His fuzzy vision didn’t sharpen immediately, and it took a couple of blinks to realize the fog on the windows was so thick he couldn’t see anything outside his truck anymore.

  Not a surprise, considering their rapid breaths and the steamy temperature inside the cab. Feeling slowly returned to his limbs, and Brady flopped to Tanya’s side. They barely fit on the narrow seat, and he secured an arm around her middle to prevent himself from accidentally bumping her off.

  Then he pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. “Am I cleared of all previous charges if I give you credit for the amazing sex? Because hot damn, woman. You and I should’ve done that long ago.”

  Tanya spun to face him, her breasts squishing against his chest. “I’ll take full responsibility.” He lightly smacked her on the ass, and a wanton smile spread across her kiss-swollen lips. “If that’s my punishment, I’m afraid I didn’t learn my lesson.”

  She was absolutely perfect for him, and why the hell did it take him so long to see it? Although like he’d said, he’d forced himself to repress it for a while, on account of his mama raising him to respect women and their wishes. In hindsight, he might’ve gone overboard tuning out that frequency when it came to Tanya. “I reckon it’s better this way. My teenage self wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive.”

  “Wow. Your humility lasted for all of”—she glanced at her watchless wrist—“five seconds. Admittedly, if I’m picking and choosing, I’d rather that be the super short thing as opposed to your stamina.”

  Before he could conjure a retort, she planted a kiss on his lips that short-circuited his brain. Sex with Tanya managed to be both incredible and comfortable, the afterglow stimulating yet completely natural.

  This could actually work. We take things slow and see how they go, and… The haze that’d obscured reality began to clear, and he wished for it back. “Shit. I just thought of something we probably should’ve discussed earlier.”

  She tensed, and he wondered if the thud in his chest was from his accelerating heart rate or hers.

  “If our families get wind of this, they’re going to be all up in our business and super pushy. Like jump right to wedd—” The word snagged on the way out, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “—big plans kinda pushy. There’ll be many refrains of ‘I knew it’ and ‘I told you that you were in love with her.’”

  Tanya sucked in a sharp inhale, and hell, had he just implied…? Not that he didn’t love her, but being in love with her and confessing that kind of thing was putting the cart before the horse. No matter how many breaths he attempted, his lungs couldn’t get their fill.

  “Hey.” Tanya placed her hand on his cheek, same way she’d done before to center him. “We don’t have to pay them any mind. This isn’t about them. It’s about us.”

  He nodded. “Okay. That’s just a whole other level, and I want us to be able to enjoy the beginning exciting stage.”

  “I get that. So maybe we just keep it to ourselves for a while?”

  “At least until after our friendly rodeo competition. We don’t want to end up looking like clowns instead of cowboys.” His mind whirred, spinning over how tricky it was to hide anything in Silver Springs. And after he’d experienced how amazing it could be, not seeing her in this capacity wasn’t an option. “We should go to the state fair in Ogallala weekend after next. Nash asked if we’d come watch and cheer him on. No one will think twice about us going, and Nash can keep a secret if need be. He’s the last guy who’ll suggest settling down. Then we can have a weekend away to explore this. Once we open the doors to our family and the town, the complications will be plenty, the peaceful times few and far between.”

  She wrinkled her nose, and while that was more adorable than it had any right to be, he worried he’d somehow said the wrong thing again. Then he realized he knew this woman better than anybody.

  “Phoenix will be okay. Fridays evenings are pretty hectic at the ranch, but we can head out bright and early on Saturday morning and be home late Sunday night. I’ll also have Aiden and Chloe check on your mare and send daily reports,” he said, and when the nose remained scrunched, he tapped it and added, “Twice a day.”

  “You have yourself a deal, Mr. Dawson. Pleasure doing business.” Despite not having on a cowboy hat, she tipped the invisible brim at him. “Now, if you’ll be so kind as to hold me in place so I don’t fall while attempting to gather my clothes?”

  “Who says I’m gonna let you get dressed ever again?”

  Tanya wriggled against him. “It’s late. And I’m getting cold.”

  “I have a solution for the latter that’ll convince you to forget the former.” Brady hauled her against him, so she couldn’t miss that he was well and ready for round two. “Plus, I feel like that jab about using all the condoms was a challenge, and you know I can’t back down from those.”

  “It wasn’t a challenge,” she rasped as he hooked his hand under her knee and closed that last millimeter of space. He
r eyelids fluttered closed as he dug his face into the crook of her neck and nibbled at the silky softness there. “You don’t have to win every single time, you know.”

  “The best thing about tonight is that we’re both gonna win.”

  Chapter 14

  On Friday afternoon, Harlow told herself to pay attention to the words Maddox was saying instead of the way his muscles flexed as he pointed to the parts underneath the car and rattled off their names and functions.

  His arm came to rest against hers, evoking that fresh-from-the-roller-coaster feeling. “Are you even listening?” he asked, his low voice booming through her like the steady bass in a hip-hop song.

  “Yes?”

  He sighed, and even though she never would’ve thought the word adorable could describe someone like Maddox Mikos, there was no other word for him. “What’s that part, then?” he asked.

  “The radiator pipe thingy?”

  “Ahhhn, wrong,” he said, mimicking the buzzer on a game show. “Looks like it’s my turn for a question.”

  “Wait. How is it fair that I’m the one who suggested this game, and you get to ask the first question?”

  “I don’t make the rules; I just follow them.”

  “Both of those statements are false,” Harlow said with a shake of her head. She was going to emerge with rocks, dirt, and grass in her hair. Being dirty after a day of roping and riding was hardly new; however, curling her hair before she came to train at the Dawsons’ ranch was.

  Obviously, she’d lost her mind.

  Maddox asked for the wrench at her side, and she handed it over. Their fingers brushed, and static electricity streaked up her arm. Either her body was going to get used to Maddox’s light touches, deep voice, and nearness, or she’d eventually explode from the combination.

  Ending up in rubble should probably concern her more than it did, but as she studied his profile, she thought it might be worth it.