One Hot Cowboy

by Anne Marsh

  She leaned forward, and he fisted his hands on his thighs because he couldn’t, wouldn’t, move and spoil this moment.

  Her mouth found him, and he bit back a harsh groan. Christ. That mouth of hers was wicked perfection. Hot and wet, she slid herself over the head of him, exploring the hard tip until he almost came on the spot.

  She was killing him.

  The pleasure was tearing him apart.

  She gave and gave, her mouth loving him and her eyes watching him. Keeping still now was impossible. His hips moved, pressing his cock in and out of her soft mouth.

  When her hands moved, stroking his balls, he gave in, sliding his fingers deep into her hair. Not guiding, just hanging on. The world around them narrowed to this woman, to the erotic heat of her mouth, followed by the cooler sensation of the air hitting his dick as he slid free.

  He lost himself in the slick, hot feelings. It was just the two of them. Here. Now. Giving and taking and giving some more. Tension building, he thrust in and out. Harder. Faster. Christ, she was open and trusting, and she was going to make him come.

  “I’m going to come, Rose.” No way she could miss the sensual warning in his voice. He had to make sure this was what she really wanted.

  That wicked smile of hers lit up her face as she looked up at him, lifting her head from his throbbing dick even as she wrapped her hands around him as if she didn’t want to lose the contact.

  “You taste real good, Cabe. Maybe I’m not stopping.”

  “You’re going to make me beg for it, aren’t you?” he growled.

  “Yeah.” She gave him that mischievous smile of hers again, her thumb rubbing over the sensitive tip of him. “I really think I am, Cabe.”

  To hell with it. The least he owed her were the words. “Let me come inside you,” he growled.

  “Whatever you want,” she echoed. The erotic power of those words slammed into him. The fantasies. What he could do to her. With her.

  He lay back, because no way he was slamming into her on top of the damned table. As soon as he’d fumblingly gotten a condom on, he pulled her over him and tucked the head of his penis into her. A little stroke, just parting her. She was tight. Wet where she stretched around him.

  “Let me give this to you,” he growled. He needed to give her pleasure. She parted more, sliding down his hard dick inch by delicious inch. “You can take this. Take me.”

  She stared down at him, her eyes half-closed as she took him, her position letting her control the angle of his penetration. Christ, he loved that sexy little look of concentration on her face as she moved slowly down his dick. Then up and back down again, taking him with her, and it was so damned good.

  “So good,” he bit out, his fingers stroking her hips as he drank in her little hum of agreement. He wanted to give her more words, to let her know just how she was undoing him. How she made him feel, made him want her so bad, but all he could do was lie back and let her ride him.

  Rose.

  The orgasm hit him hard, had him thrusting up, his hands on her hips, as he pushed himself deep and hard into her sweet depths. He wasn’t sure if he was holding on, but he was damned sure he wasn’t steering this. The sun behind her lit her up all golden. She bit her lip, her hands tightening on his shoulders, and he knew she was close to her peak, the sweet, tight clench of her pussy on his dick sending him all the way over the edge.

  “Cabe.” Her eyes shut, she was so lost in her pleasure, but he couldn’t stop watching her face any more than he could stop moving in and out of her. They were connected. Just the two of them, right here, right now, on the picnic table, where the whole damned world could be lined up watching, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was the woman in his arms and making sure she found what she needed.

  “Oh, God, Cabe.”

  She stiffened, the muscles in her thighs tensing, and he reached between them, finding her clit and stroking gently where she was wet and needing. She followed him over the edge, coming around him as his arms wrapped around her, pulling her down to him as he buried himself one last time inside her.

  As she relaxed against him, he lay there on his back on a picnic table, soaking in the fading sunlight and the sweet weight of her. There were a hundred reasons why he shouldn’t be doing this, but he didn’t care. He’d worry about the reasons and the ranch later. Right now, all that mattered was Rose. That Rose was happy.

  She’d wanted to give him something, but maybe she’d taken something, too. His heart. Rose had always pushed him, always challenged him. She’d dared him to come after her and convince her to follow his rules. Now they were lovers, and all the rules had gone right out the window. He’d never had a lover like this before, never felt this kind of pleasure, but something even more significant was happening, and he wouldn’t be willfully blind to it.

  This time, if Rose ran, she’d take a part of him with her.

  Chapter Seven

  The way Cabe saw it, he had three days to figure out a solution. At the end of those three days, he had an appointment at the lawyer’s office. The drill team was standing by, ready to go. All he had to do was give the word, and he’d be that much closer to gaining the new well his ranch needed so badly. Instead, his head had him going in circles, trying to find another way out of the mess he’d landed himself in.

  Three days.

  Of course, maybe Friday would find him signing papers in the lawyer’s office to take title of the Jordan place, but there was no predicting what Rose would do. She’d moved out of the ranch house, but she hadn’t packed up that Honda Civic of hers to put Lonesome behind her. Not yet. He’d checked and that car of hers was parked right in Auntie Dee’s driveway. He’d arranged to have the electricity turned on, but he didn’t like the idea of her staying out there alone. Maybe, it was better than her up and running farther away from him. All Cabe knew was, she wasn’t going to make this easy for him.

  That was fair enough.

  She certainly hadn’t come back to the ranch house after she’d taken him on that picnic table. Hell, he wanted to have the damned thing bronzed, couldn’t stop himself from driving past there twice a day while he gave her the space she claimed she needed to think things through.

  Damn the house and the land. He wanted her thinking about him. About them.

  He had it bad.

  He pointed his horse toward some hands working a fence line under Rory’s direction. At least the fence was something he could fix right here and now. He let himself relax into the easy, familiar rhythm of hooves hitting the sun-baked ground. He had hands to ride the line, but a man needed to see some things for himself.

  Up ahead, one of the cowboys rode after an escaping calf, moving seamlessly with his horse as his lariat slipped through the air and over the head of the recalcitrant calf. That man had been riding for Blackhawk Ranch for thirty years now. Where would he find work if the ranch went under? Every year there were fewer California beef outfits. Cabe’s need for water was about more than just money. This was what he was fighting to preserve. This way of life.

  “You talk to Rose about her place?” Rory slouched beside him on his horse.

  “Yeah.” He made a mental note to send some more hands out. The fence here needed replacing, not a simple fix. “I did.”

  “Didn’t go well?”

  “Not particularly, no. Hell, Rory, how do you think it went? She thought she’d inherited Auntie Dee’s place free and clear.”

  “When what she actually got was a pile of debt she can’t clear. Yeah, I can see the problem there.”

  “She’s pissed as hell, but we need those water rights.” There was a long moment of silence. Cabe knew that Rory liked Rose. He always had. He didn’t like seeing her get hurt now any more than Cabe did.

  But they had to have that water.

  “And she still won’t take the check?”

  “She wanted to fix the place up. Live in it. She had a whole tube of architectural plans that she drew up. Which closet went where and that
kind of stuff.”

  “There’s no way to give her that house?”

  He still had to have those water rights. That water meant this herd kept on going and his cowboys kept riding. “She’s not going to want her front garden to be a stockyard.”

  Rory tipped his head back and studied the calf. “Probably not.”

  Still, those plans said something. Something important. They weren’t just rooms on a piece of paper. His own ranch house, he realized, was more house than home. It was beautiful, it was solid, it was the place he laid his head down, but it was not the place where he’d put down roots. That was out here on the land.

  And with Rose. Because he loved her.

  Question was, would Auntie Dee’s house be enough for Rose? If she needed the house so badly, why not just pick the place up and move it somewhere else? It might be an option. If the old building was stable enough. There was plenty of space out here on the ranch, where she could be as close to or as far from him as she wanted and he could work on convincing Rose to give him a second chance.

  Hell. Was he even making sense to himself? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that somehow, somewhere along the way, he’d fallen head over heels in love with Rose Jordan. Smiling, he slowed the horse and swung down to walk the winded animal a bit.

  He tried his conclusion out on his brother. “I’m going to find her. Make her stay. I love her.”

  Rory nodded as if that was a foregone conclusion. Hell, maybe his feelings were written right there on his face for everyone to see. “You got a plan?”

  Hell, yes. Fuck being responsible. He wanted her. He wanted Rose. Maybe it was time simply to take what he wanted and convince her she could do the same.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I have a plan.”

  Hell if he knew whether it would work, though.

  Chapter Eight

  She’d signed.

  It was Friday, and it was over.

  Seemingly a hundred times in triplicate, her signature getting looser and lighter as she worked her way through the stack of papers the lawyer had handed her, she’d signed over the house and the land to Cabe Dawson. She’d camped out at Auntie Dee’s for the last three nights, saying her good-byes, and now all that was left was to get back into her car and drive. Somewhere. Anywhere, as long as it didn’t mean staying here.

  The lawyer’s door snapped shut behind her, and the street both to the left and right led straight out of Lonesome. Before she could get to her car and hit the road, however, there was her nemesis, riding right on up Lonesome’s main street as if he owned that patch of asphalt, too. Cabe Dawson was all cowboy. Tough and hard, his face determined as that horse of his picked up speed. Of course, she was probably the problem he was riding hell-bent for leather to solve.

  Which was too damned bad.

  She was done with cowboys.

  Done with Lonesome.

  She didn’t want to give up on her dream, but she couldn’t hide her head in the sand any longer, either. She was flat-out broke. The house was falling down. And Cabe Dawson held the mortgage on it, when what he really needed was twenty gallons per minute. He could hang on to his dream if she gave up hers.

  He stopped the horse in front of her.

  It was a really pretty day, the kind of sunny-and-blue that usually had her thinking about picnics and swimming. Shielding her eyes from the glare, she looked up at him. “I wasn’t late this time.”

  For once, she’d been early, eager to get this over with. Knowing why she’d decided to sign—because she loved Cabe Dawson, and he needed this more than she did—didn’t actually make the act itself any easier. It just made her okay with the sadness of it all.

  “That’s not what I’m here about.”

  “Whatever.” Turning away, she started walking. Her Honda Civic was parked down the street. She’d get in, and she’d go. Somewhere. She wasn’t sure where, but there had to be a fresh start out there for her, and she’d find it.

  “Can we talk?”

  The horse fell in beside her. She wasn’t overly thrilled about having nine hundred pounds of animal inches away from her, but any horse Cabe rode would be well trained. As disciplined as the man himself. Unless—and she could feel the small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth—she had him on a picnic table. Then all bets were off. Cabe Dawson losing control was a sight to see.

  “I don’t think there’s anything left to discuss. I read the mortgage. I signed the papers. You own the place now. You go right ahead and drill those wells of yours.”

  “I appreciate it.” His husky drawl was pleasant, as if they were strangers exchanging pleases-and-thank-yous in the grocery. Where had her wonderful lover gone? Was it all so easily over between them? It had to be, she reminded herself, because she couldn’t stay here as his guest. She couldn’t be his plaything or his part-time lover, either. She needed more than that. Twenty yards, and this was over. She reached into her bag for the car keys.

  “But that’s not what I’m here about,” he repeated. “There’s something else. Us.”

  His words had her heart leaping, and, damn it, this was just what she didn’t want. She didn’t need a conversation about how the sex had been great, thank you, but there wasn’t a future for them.

  “Unless you’re breaking up with me,” he said, and she sucked in air. Hard.

  “I didn’t realize we were even dating.” She kept her voice light, hating the sudden pounding of her heart, the prickle of sweat icing her spine.

  “Damn it, Rose,” he growled. “This isn’t a game. Not to me.”

  “I know,” she said. Screw being mature. She broke into a run, picking up her pace until she’d put that handful of yards between them. Dumping her purse on the car hood, she fished blindly for the keys.

  Behind her she heard the steady up-and-down of horse hooves, and then a hard arm banded around her waist, lifting her off her feet. She shrieked before she could stop herself.

  “Don’t scare the horse, darlin’.” Effortlessly, he pulled her up and over his saddle. It was all too easy to imagine him a hundred years ago, driving cattle with maybe a little rustling and thieving on the side. He didn’t take his eyes off the road, but his face was fierce.

  “Damn it, Rose,” he cursed, when she continued to wriggle in his hold, “you’re going to listen to me.”

  Wrapping both arms around her tightly, he guided the horse with his knees. Their departure was accompanied by a whole lot of whooping from the handful of cowboys parked outside Lonesome’s solitary bar. She thought she saw Seth disappearing inside with a grin on his face. The traitor.

  “This is kidnapping, Cabe Dawson. You don’t get to do this.”

  “I figured,” he said, his hold tightening as he nudged the horse into a trot, “that I owed you one for that little swim in the pond the other night. Now we’re even. I brought you flowers,” he continued, as if they were two friends having coffee. As if the papers and the mortgage and the fight over the house didn’t matter. “I figured maybe you could put them on the front porch.”

  Keeping one arm firmly around her, he fished in his saddlebag and produced a little plastic-wrapped potted rose. Tiny and delicate, its miniature pink buds shook with each step the horse took.

  She eyed the small pot as if it was a snake. Hell, he should be glad she didn’t have a gun on her. She was suddenly in the mood to shoot his ass. He’d taken away her home, and he wanted to bring her flowers?

  She shoved at his forearm. “Let me down, Cabe. You can’t ride into town and kidnap me. Wrong century.”

  “I can do whatever I want,” he claimed, not bothering to point out he’d already done just that.

  Her fingers pried at his hold, but there wasn’t an inch of give in him.

  “You don’t want to fall off, darlin’. Sit tight, hear me out, and then I’ll let you go.”

  “I didn’t take you for a roses kind of a man, Cabe,” she mocked. “And here it is, not even Valentine’s Day.”

  “You liked t
he roses on your porch. Those yellow ones. I’ve been thinking,” he continued. “You can plant this rose somewhere new, get it started right. Or, if you really have your heart set on that particular house,” he growled, “I’ll give it to you. I still need the water for the ranch, but I don’t think you wanted that water. You want the house. So, you tell me where to put it, and I’ll see it done.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You pick out a new spot, and I’ll put in a foundation, get a house mover out here, and we’ll make it happen. You can keep Auntie Dee’s house.”

  “I don’t want your gifts,” she growled right back. “I wanted to do this on my own, Cabe.”

  He threaded his fingers through her hair. “Well, that horse is out of the barn, Rose. I can’t turn back the clock. Auntie Dee needed that money, and pride wouldn’t let her take it from me any other way. She signed. I signed. That’s not something I can be undoing now.”

  “I have my pride, too.”

  “Yeah. And you have plenty of reasons to be proud. You’re strong—I get that. Hell, I don’t want to change that, and I couldn’t, even if did. But I still want to fix some things for you, if I can. Is it so damned hard to take something from me, Rose? Let me give this to you.”

  “What do you get out of this? I’m not going to play the beggar here, Cabe.”

  “We don’t have to be square,” he growled. “All you have to do is say yes.”

  “This isn’t about being square.” She stared ahead stubbornly. “I’m not coming to the table empty-handed, Cabe.”

  He cursed, but she was holding out for it all. Why didn’t he want to give her the words? The house, cash—those were the easy things. The words, though—those felt like they were being pulled from him.

  “You’re not coming empty-handed.” Cupping her head he exhaled roughly. Clearly, if he had to say this . . . this thing he felt out loud, she wasn’t moving until he was done. “You want to know why? Because I love you, Rose Jordan. You’re everything I want.”

  His mouth moved against her head, a smile tugging at his lips. “Put me out of my damned misery?” he asked.