Saddle Up: A Ryker Ranch Romance

by Loraine, Kim

  “See, you’re warming up already. Your cheeks have some color in them now.”

  I might have been warmer, but it wasn’t because of the fire. I tried to force my attention away from him as he stripped down to his jeans, but the firm ridges of his muscular chest and abs called my eyes like a beacon. I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “Aren’t your jeans wet?”

  He grinned, and his cheeks turned red. “I…This is my last layer of clothes.”

  It took me far too long to realize what he meant by that. “Oh, well…uh…yeah. I guess that makes sense.”

  “Why does that make sense?”

  “I mean, your jeans are tight…like, really tight. I guess there’s probably not a lot of room down there for anything else.” I was babbling, incoherent, and my tongue felt like it was three sizes too big. God, I had to stop talking. “Anyway, uh…I’m just going to sit by the fire.”

  “Ever,” he said, his voice low and amused.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re still shivering, and sitting around in those won’t help. I’ll look away if you need me to. Just strip down to your underwear and grab a blanket off the back of the couch here. Tell me when it’s okay to look.” Then he cocked a brow. “Unless…you’re not wearing any other layers either.”

  “Uh, these boobs can’t go unrestrained.” I motioned to my full support requiring breasts.

  He lifted his brows and smiled at my admission. Then I twirled my finger as an indication I needed him to turn away, and as soon as he was facing the door, I whipped my shirt over my head and shoved the pants down my legs. I pulled a plaid fleece blanket over my shoulders and made sure I was covered before saying, “Okay, you can look.”

  That was a mistake. The moment his eyes found mine, heat flashed over my skin, and everything changed between us.

  * * *

  Clint

  Ever had no idea how sexy she looked wrapped in nothing but a blanket. She was still shivering slightly, and I couldn’t stop myself from striding across the room and pulling her into my arms.

  “Clint, what are you—” she started, but I interrupted.

  “Gotta get you warm. Your lips are blue.”

  I rubbed her back and sat us both on the couch, fighting a shiver myself.

  “Your jeans are soaked.” Ever ran her fingers across my knee. “You need to take those off.”

  My dick was a length of steel in my pants. There was no way I’d be able to hide what she did to me if I took off these jeans. “I’ll be naked if I take these off.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Something you’re ashamed of behind that denim?”

  I sat up straighter. “No. I wouldn’t want you to be scared off.”

  She laughed. “Scared off? I’m sure they don’t grow men differently in Montana than in LA.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.” I couldn’t resist teasing her.

  “There’s another blanket right next to you. Just wrap it around your waist. It’ll be like a kilt. I can pretend this is Outlander. Can you do a Scottish accent?”

  I laughed out loud. “No.” Standing, I unbuttoned my jeans but stopped when I felt the weight of her gaze on me. “You gonna watch?”

  She bit her lower lip, and I had to fight a groan. “Sorry.” Then she looked away as I unzipped and rolled the wet fabric down my thighs.

  The blanket was rough on my skin, but better than soaked denim, and I was immediately warmer. I wrapped it around my waist, just as she’d suggested, and sat next to her again. “All clear,” I murmured,

  She scooted a little closer to me, her body still shaking enough that it was noticeable. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her against me. Her hair smelled so damn good. I had to lean nearer and inhale the scent I’d been craving since I kissed her a few days ago.

  “I’m feeling a little warmer now,” she whispered.

  “Warm enough you don’t need me to hold you?”

  “No.”

  Something eased in my chest. I needed to hear that. “Good, because I don’t want to let you go.”

  “You can be really swoony when you need to.”

  A low chuckle rumbles from deep inside me. “I don’t get much opportunity to make a pretty girl swoon.”

  “You think I’m pretty?”

  “No. I think you’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. Pretty doesn’t even cut it.”

  I stared hard at the woman in my arms. How was I going to let her go when this was over?

  She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and glanced away from me. But I caught her chin between my thumb and forefinger, tilting her face back toward mine. “Don’t look away from me. I’m serious. The moment you stumbled toward me on those ridiculous shoes, I was hooked, and I didn’t even know it. You got into my head, and I couldn’t stop thinking of you. Even though I wanted to.”

  “Why did you want to?”

  “Because I know you’re not meant for this life. You’re not planning on leaving everything and coming to be a rancher’s wife. You’re a city girl with big dreams, and those don’t include me.”

  “Clint—”

  I stopped her with my lips on hers. I couldn’t hear the words leave her mouth, not right now. We’d deal with reality tomorrow. Right now, we had this…a moment in time that was wholly ours. I wasn’t gonna waste it. The kiss was slow and heady, filled with everything we had been fighting since she arrived. When she let out a little moan, I nearly lost control and would’ve ripped the blankets from us if she hadn’t broken away from me.

  Palm against my chest, she breathed heavily, lips swollen from my kiss. “Clint…we shouldn’t.”

  Gritting my teeth, I took a long breath. “I want you, Ever. I know we shouldn’t, but that’s not gonna stop me.” Her eyes flashed with heat. “God, please say you want me too. Put me out of my goddamned misery.”

  “I want you. I’ve dreamed about your touch and ached for you every night.”

  Fuck. Did she really just say that? “What did I do to you in your dreams? Tell me.”

  Her cheeks turned pink, but she locked gazes with me. “You kissed me.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere.”

  The erection I’d managed to mostly tame came back with a vengeance. I shifted in my spot and had to adjust myself to avoid tenting the blanket. “Here?” I skimmed my fingertips over her throat.

  “Mmm-hmm.” She tossed her head back and moaned.

  I replaced my fingers with my mouth, and she sighed my name. “What about here?” I kissed along her collar bone as I pushed the blanket off her.

  “Yes.”

  She wore a lacy white bra, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight of her hard pink nipples clearly in view through the lace. “Jesus, Ever. That’s what you wear to work a ranch?”

  “You don’t wear anything,” she challenged.

  “True.” I cupped her breast and groaned and the full weight of her in my palm. “Fuck, I love your curves. So fucking sexy.”

  I slid my hands behind her back and caught her gaze as my fingers found the clasp of her bra. When she nodded, I unhooked each of the clasps and pulled the garment off her, baring her to me. She was perfect, bathed in the golden light from the fire. Each and every curve and valley of her cast in either shadows or a glow. I ran my palm between her breasts and down her soft belly. Her skin felt like velvet.

  “Clint,” she whispered. I loved the sound of my name on her lips.

  “What do you need, darlin’?”

  “Call me that again.”

  At the hunger in her voice, my cock jerked. “What? Darlin’?”

  “God, yes. It’s so hot.”

  “Tell me where else you want me to kiss you, darlin’?”

  She groaned when my fingers teased at the waistband of her panties. “There. Kiss me there.”

  I dipped my head and stopped at her breast on my descent down her body. I had to taste her perfect nipples first, flick them with my tongue, feel the warmt
h of her. She writhed under me and begged for more as my hand worked under her panties and down to the neatly trimmed thatch of hair that hid her pussy. She parted her thighs, granting me access, and I took her invitation. My fingers spread her, running across her swollen clit before finding the slickness at her opening.

  “Shit, Ever. You’re so wet and ready.”

  “I’ve been ready for so long.” Her voice was breathy and needy. “Please.”

  I sank one finger inside her, and she bucked under my attention. She was heat and pressure and perfection. Then I added a second finger and began to really work her. “Ride my hand.”

  She rolled her hips and whispered, “Rub my clit with your thumb.”

  My thumb immediately found her needy clit, and I rolled it in tight circles. She whimpered, the sound reaching straight for my dick. I was sure I’d last less than five strokes before I’d come all over the damn place if this kept up. The feel of her, the sounds she made, the fucking smell of her need, all were too much for me to take without some relief.

  Then her walls began clenching around my fingers, and she cried out as she came against my hand. “Fuck me, Clint. Right now.”

  I nodded, removing my fingers from her before pulling down her panties and tossing them aside. My dick throbbed with need, and I thought I might die right then and there if I wasn’t inside her soon. But one very important detail came to mind as I unwound the blanket from my waist. “I don’t have protection.”

  Her eyes widened. “Neither do I.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. “I won’t put you at risk.”

  “I’m on the pill. And…well, I’m healthy. I just went to the doctor for a physical a few weeks before I came here.”

  “Same. I got checked after…everything happened with Jess. I haven’t been with anyone else since her.”

  She rubbed her thighs together, and her gaze lit on the long, hard cock that was begging for attention between my legs. “So…is it worth the .01 percent chance of pregnancy?”

  Honestly, I thought I might sell my soul to be between this woman’s legs. “I’ll pull out.”

  “Only if you come on my tits.”

  Jesus fucking Christ. “Spread your legs, darlin’. I promised you I’d get some cowboy in you while you were here.”

  13

  Ever

  Clint was big. Like really big. And I’d been single a long time. It didn’t hurt, but it was…a stretch, to say the least. More like a delicious ache where he stretched me as he slowly sank inside. His eyes watched mine, searching for a reaction. Maybe judging whether he was hurting me or not, I wasn’t sure. I saw flickers of desperation in him, that fleeting fear he’d lose control, vulnerability, and trust. He was safe with me, just as I knew I was safe with him.

  “Good God, Ever. You’re so small. Am I hurting you?”

  “No. It’s so good. Please don’t stop.”

  He cupped my cheek in his large palm and braced himself over me with the other arm. Watching him move into me at this excruciatingly slow pace was tantalizing. But then he was seated fully, his entire length deep inside me, and his body trembled with obvious restraint.

  “Don’t be gentle,” I whispered. “I won’t break.”

  He laughed, the action making him move inside me slightly, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted him to ride me to completion and take what he needed. “I might.”

  I rolled my hips and lifted myself up so I could kiss him hard and deep. I pulled him down on me, his chest against mine as I wrapped my legs around him. His answering groan was pained and filled with a plea for me to slow down.

  “I want to make this last. If you keep doing that, I won’t stand a chance.”

  “We have all night, cowboy. If you think I’m stopping this after one time, you’re dead wrong.”

  He groaned again, this time against my lips as he thrust deep and made me cry out. “I want to make you scream my name.”

  “Yes,” I cried as he pulled out and slammed home.

  “I want you to be ruined for any other man.”

  “God, yes, Clint.”

  He continued this pattern of rasping out dirty desires while punctuating them with deep thrusts of his hips, and soon I was begging him to make me come.

  His hand snaked between us where he traced everywhere but on my clit. It was a tease, a cruel promise of what he was going to do. But when he locked gazes with me and cocked a brow, I knew it was time. The orgasm which had been building all this time was right there, just on the cusp, and he had the power to give or take.

  “Come all over my cock, darlin’.” His deep rumbled order, combined with the pressure of his fingers on my desperate bundle of nerves, sent me right over the edge. I screamed his name and clawed at the couch.

  “Shit,” he muttered, pulling his cock from my still fluttering body. “Oh, fuck.” It was a tortured groan as he stroked himself, wet with the evidence of my pleasure, and shot streams of his climax across my belly and breasts. The look on his face was something I’d never forget. It was a mixture of agony and euphoria. Like he was dying and being born all at the same time. He was lost in his orgasm, an orgasm I gave him. I knew in that moment I’d never find something as perfect as this again in my life.

  His abs contracted and released in time with the pulsing of his cock even after he stopped spilling across me. Pleasure still etched in his features, he looked at me, eyes hooded and a lazy smile on his lips. “You all right?” he asked.

  “That was…” What did I want to say? Intense? The best fuck of my life? Like nothing I’d ever known? It all seemed too honest, too open. He’d already said it; we weren’t going to be able to make this last. I settled for one true thing I could admit without opening my heart completely. “I want to do it again.”

  He chuckled and stood, dick still half-hard. “We will. First, we’ll clean up a little and let everyone know where we are. Then we need to eat something. You were right. We’ve got all night, and you’re gonna need your energy for what I’ve got planned.”

  * * *

  Clint

  After we both got clean, I went to the small kitchen and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard along with two glasses. Then I opened a can of chili and started it heating on top of the wood-burning stove.

  “It’ll take a while, but at least we’ve got food.”

  I’d radioed in to Buck and told him where we were, that we were safe, and he’d let me know the storm had gone from one weather system to two merged storms. They were calling it a bomb cyclone and expected another two feet of snow to fall over the next twenty-four hours.

  “Are we going to be okay in here?” Ever asked from where she stood looking out the window at the swirling white air.

  “Yeah. We’ve got enough wood to keep this fire going for three days if we need it. I’ll have to go out and tend the horses once this dies down a little.”

  “Will they be all right out there?”

  It warmed my heart to see her so concerned about them. “They’re sheltered. That’s the biggest thing.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you out there at all. It’s nasty. What if you get hurt in all this wind?”

  “There’s a reason we put this place here, you know. It’s not just a little escape. It’s a refuge when the weather turns, a first aid station if someone gets hurt. We keep it stocked with canned goods, wood in the winter, and fresh hay and feed for the horses. You never know when you’ll need a place to shelter this far out from the main house.”

  I poured liberal servings of whiskey in two glasses and brought them back to the couch. “Close the shutters and come sit by the fire. It lets the cold in when they’re open.”

  She did as I asked, wrapped in her blanket, and hiding her gorgeous curves from me. Sitting next to me, she cast me a sidelong glance. “Trying to get me drunk? You’ve already got me naked and had me under you.”

  “Don’t I know it. My master plan.”

  She chuckled and took the glass from my hand. �
�I don’t really like whiskey.”

  “It’ll help keep you warm.”

  “That’s not true.” But she brought the glass to her lips and took a small sip. I held back my laugh at the face she made after swallowing.

  “You’re right, it doesn’t really warm you, but it makes you think you’re warmer. At least for a while.”

  “You know what does work?” There was a note of desire in her voice, and my dick twitched in response.

  “What?”

  She dropped the blanket and stood before me gloriously nude. “Skin against skin.”

  “Jesus.”

  I stood and kissed her like I wanted to devour her. Hands in her hair, tongue dancing with hers, cock rock hard against her belly. I ran my palms down her back until I cupped her luscious ass, kneading the roundness and loving every inch of her. I brought her with me as I sat down, pulling her to sit astride me. “It’s time for a riding lesson, darlin’,” I growled.

  She raised her hips and gripped my length, giving it a cursory stroke before sinking down on me and sheathing me in her tight heat. I hissed out a breath and gripped her thighs as unbearable pleasure raced across my entire body. “You know,” she said on a moan. “I’ve gotten really good in the saddle.”

  “Yeah…God, yes you have.”

  Her fingers played at the back of my neck before she gripped my head with both hands and began riding me hard. I dug my fingers into the cheeks of her ass and urged her on, wanting her to take her pleasure. “That’s it, city girl,” I groaned. “Make me yours. Break me.”

  She threw her head back, hair trailing behind her, breasts bouncing with each motion she made. The sight was something that would be permanently burned into my mind. I’d get off to memories of this for years to come. Reaching up, I cupped both perfect tits and fought the sudden urge to spill myself inside her by biting the inside of my cheek. Not yet. Not yet. I needed to feel her walls tighten and that familiar flood of her release first.

  “God, Clint. How is this so good?”