Holy hotness. The distinctly male noise that drifted through the vent gave her a pretty good idea what he’d been up to while in her shower.
“That doesn’t smell like any spaghetti I’ve ever had. Where you want the towel I used?”
Ainsley dropped the cloth into the sink and tried to look casual. Hard to do when the man was sex-on-legs in his denim and black tee. What she wouldn’t give to have been upstairs with him, watching as he pleasured himself.
Her cheeks flamed again. So much for acting natural. More like a bitch in heat.
Ainsley pointed to the set of folding doors by the back door. “The washer is in there. Where are your clothes?”
“In my bag. You aren’t washing my clothes, Ains. I’ll get them later.”
“That’s silly. There’s no reason not to do them here.” When she reached for his bag, he held it out of reach, the look of panic in his eyes so fleeting, she could’ve imagined it. Probably had.
“It’s no big deal. I’m gonna put this in the truck and then I’ll be ready to eat. My mouth’s already watering.”
“You got some weird laundry phobia I should know about?”
“Yes,” he said as he opened the back door. “My brother shoved me into a dryer when I was a kid. I’ve been afraid to get near one ever since.”
Ainsley sucked in a breath. “Are you serious?”
“Nope.” He winked. “Rest assured. I’m one-hundred percent pro-laundry. I even did a load this morning.”
Ainsley clasped a hand to her chest. “A man who does his own laundry? Be still my heart.”
His laughter followed him out the door. By the time he returned, Ainsley had dished up heaping plates of spaghetti noodles topped with the sauce she’d spent the last few hours making.
He pulled out a chair for her, making sure she was settled before he took his own seat across from her.
“This looks amazing, Ainsley.”
Pride filled her as she passed over a basket filled with fresh, warm bread. Clay took two slices, placing one on the edge of his plate, one on hers. A simple gesture, yet it warmed her heart all the same. She could really learn to like this man. A lot. She was afraid she might already.
“It’s nice to have someone to cook for other than myself.” She took a bite of spaghetti and silently congratulated herself. She’d been so nervous, wanting to get the sauce just right, she’d been afraid she’d mess up the whole batch. She hadn’t. It was delicious.
Clay swallowed and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “If this is any indication as to your cookin’ skills, save me a seat at your table every night.”
Her belly fluttered. In her dreams, she had a place. A home of her own. Children who’d know they were loved and cherished. A handsome, rugged man with enough love for all of them.
Good lord. She’d waxed poetic about her future more in the twenty hours since she’d met Clay than she had in the last ten years. He made her want … everything.
“Ains? You okay?”
She nodded, too embarrassed by her thoughts to trust her voice. She busied herself with twisting noodles around her fork. They ate quietly for a few minutes.
“That was Ed Marks who stopped by earlier. You know him?”
Clay nodded. “He still help out around here?”
Ed had managed the ranch for years. While he refused to talk much about her uncle, he’d agreed to stay on. He hadn’t been happy about Ainsley’s decision to sell off part of the herd, and they’d gotten sideways over it. He’d walked out on her that day.
“No, but apparently his wife insisted he bring me some of her homemade bread.” Ainsley had been surprised by the rare gift. Friendship hadn’t come easy in her nomadic life, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want or need it. Bread did not equal friendship, but Ainsley hoped it was a start. She made a mental note to take a few jars of spaghetti sauce over to Ed’s wife tomorrow.
“He worked here for as long as I can remember. I hadn’t heard he retired.”
“I don’t think he’s retired from ranching, just from ranching for me.”
His fork stopped halfway to his mouth. “How’s that?”
She shrugged. “We didn’t see eye-to-eye on some things. He decided it’d be best to move on.”
“Ed’s good people. He knows his stuff.”
“I’m sure he does.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm. The old man was set in his ways. He also hadn’t understood the financial trouble Ainsley had walked into. If she hadn’t sold the cattle, none of them would be here now. Not her, certainly not Ed, and not the smokin’ hot cowboy sitting across the table from her.
“I’m guessing this is a touchy subject?”
“Touchy in that I don’t like the implication I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“And … do you?”
His gentle tone eased the bite of his question.
Ainsley laid her fork against her plate and took a drink from her glass of iced water. She had no reason to lie. Her fate would be decided within the next three months anyway.
“Not entirely,” she finally admitted. “But here’s the thing. Business is business. Whether it’s raising cattle or selling cars. The way I see it, the financial principals are the same, no matter the commodity. I don’t know all I need to know about running a successful cattle operation—yet—but I understand how finances work.” Or don’t work, as the case may be.
If the bank loan she applied for came through, Ainsley’s problems wouldn’t be over, but she could breathe a little easier. She knew enough to know it would take years to breed the herd back to what it had been. So what if she had a few lean years? She’d had twenty-four of them so far, and she was still standing.
If the loan didn’t go through, well … she wouldn’t think about it unless it happened. She could make herself nuts with what if’s. If she’d learned anything, she’d learned not to buy problems she didn’t have yet. Best to focus on the ones she did have.
“Where’d you learn about business?”
Ainsley relaxed, happy to steer the conversation away from ranch talk. “I got a job straight out of high school with a local cable company. I started as a low-level data entry clerk for their accounting department.”
“You go to college?”
“No. College wasn’t really an option for me. I could’ve gotten loans, I’m sure. But after a few months in accounting, working with all of the delinquent accounts, I realized taking on debt that massive wasn’t for me.”
Oh, the irony. The loan for the ranch would pay college tuition several times over.
“I didn’t go either. I never felt the need, much to my parents’ dismay. The way I see it, the cattle don’t care if I have a piece of paper saying I learned something I’d probably forget a year out of school anyway. Why bother? Experience and working knowledge, I’ve got in spades. Did your parents give you grief about not going?”
Ainsley hesitated. She’d never shared her story with anyone. Until now, no one had cared enough to ask.
“I grew up in the system. I didn’t know my parents. I didn’t know the man who owned this place. In fact, until he died, I didn’t even know he existed.”
Clay set down his fork and reached for her. He took her hand and brought it to his lips, placing a kiss on each of her knuckles. Once done, he didn’t release her. “How is that possible?”
She stared at their joined hands resting on the table between them, his much larger one cradling hers. “Honestly? I have no idea. I suppose because I never took the time to look. I was too busy surviving to spend time searching for people who, I believed, hadn’t wanted me to begin with.”
“I asked the wrong question. Nelson must’ve known about you to leave you this place. He didn’t try to contact you?”
His thumb brushed across the back of her hand, sending shivers up her arm and through her breasts. She swore she felt them swell as her nipples tightened.
He made it difficult to concentrate on anything but his touch. “No. He had an att
orney who’d been secretly keeping track of me, which pissed me off and creeped me out at the same time. A few days after Lawrence … or did he go by Larry?”
“Most folks called him Nelson.”
Not a hint of fondness to be heard in Clay’s voice.
Right after she’d arrived, Ainsley overheard the crew discussing what an asshole her uncle had been. It seemed the men hadn’t been talking smack as she’d assumed.
“I guess not a lot of people liked him.”
“He wasn’t known for his friendliness. But I won’t speak badly about a man who isn’t around to defend himself. To be honest, I didn’t know him all that well. I’d heard he didn’t have any family.”
“According to the attorney, my mother’s sister was married to Nelson, making him my uncle by marriage. The story goes: my parents were killed when I was a toddler. By the time my aunt learned what had happened, I was already well-buried in the foster system. My mom and aunt weren’t close. Lots of bad blood. Of course, I’m only repeating what I’ve been told, because I don’t have any memory of it, or of them. The attorney said Nelson had no other living relatives. My aunt, either. Apparently, she looked for me until the day she died.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how the foster system works. Weren’t there records of where you’d been? At the very least, where you lived at the time?” He turned her hand palm up and traced soft, tiny circles across the surface.
Ainsley didn’t know how much more she could take of his gentle ministrations. “Yeah, that’s the thing about the system. It doesn’t always work. I moved around a lot, until finally I took off on my own.”
“How old were you?”
“Not old enough to be alone in the world, that’s for damn sure. And it beat the alternative.”
The caresses stopped. His gaze sharpened. “Someone hurt you?”
Clay’s deadly tone caught her off guard. She rushed to reassure him. “Bumps and bruises mainly. Nothing time and a little peroxide didn’t heal. Trust me when I say, it could’ve been worse.” She cleared her throat, not wanting to drag the ugly parts of her past into their dinner. “This isn’t the greatest conversation for a first date.”
Oops.
A sly smile tugged at his lips. “Date, huh?” He stared at their hands as he brought them palm-to-palm and laced their fingers together.
Her breath caught. “Let’s just say I wasn’t easy to find.”
“And now you’re here.”
“And now I’m here.”
Clay stood and pulled her to her feet. “Thank you, Ainsley. For sharing your story with me and for the best spaghetti I’ve ever had.” He placed a soft, almost chaste kiss, on her lips. “But now you need to come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
His molten expression melted her insides. “We’ve waited long enough. And I’m ready for dessert.”
Thank God.
#
It had taken every ounce of his self-restraint to keep his hands to himself during dinner. Once he tugged her into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind them, all bets were off.
Clay kept her hand in his as they scaled the stairs at a pace much slower than the breakneck speed his body demanded.
The loneliness in her voice had torn his chest wide open. Children should be loved and cared for—not cast aside or lost in the goddamn system. What kind of shit was that? The fact she’d been mistreated, her beautiful skin marred… If Nelson were alive today, Clay would kick his ass up one side and down the other. The old bastard had found Ainsley, had kept tabs on her. He’d left Ainsley alone on purpose.
Clay stopped climbing and took a breath, willing his temper to recede. She’d known darkness and pain. He couldn’t change her memories, but he could damn well give her better ones. He’d show her how she deserved to be treated—her body revered for the pleasure she’d give him, the woman cherished for the strong, independent person she’d become. Every fucking inch of her was his tonight, and he wouldn’t stop until she was hoarse from screaming his name.
“Clay?”
He turned and looked down at her. God, she was beautiful. Desire darkened her eyes. Her full lips glistened, begging for his kiss.
Ainsley let out a shriek as he tugged her to the landing, scooped her into his arms, and carried her the rest of the way.
She met him halfway as he took her mouth, their tongues meeting in a fierce duel for control. Her greedy hands dove into his hair, sending a sharp surge of sensation across his scalp. Feisty little wildcat. How far would she go to get what she wanted?
He couldn’t wait to find out.
Clay made it to the bed. He released her legs. Her outer thigh brushed his hard length and they both groaned at the contact.
“Let’s get these clothes off, Ains. I’m dying to get my mouth on you.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and looked at him, her long lashes blinking innocently. The sexy mix of sweet and sassy was hot as hell.
“You just had your mouth on me.”
“It’s not your lips I want my tongue on.” Clay lifted the hem of her shirt. She let him go to raise her arms. He peeled the shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her breasts swelled above the plain, black cups of her bra, rising and falling with her quickening breaths.
“My neck then?” She tilted her head, tracing a finger from her ear to her collarbone.
Clay slipped his fingers underneath the straps of her bra. He leaned in, his lips following the path she’d drawn. He eased the straps from her shoulders.
“Getting warmer.” He left a trail of wet kisses to where her bra strap had been. He reached for the clasp.
Her shoulders rolled back and the little minx traced above the swell of each breast. “Here?”
His dick pulsed as he opened the clasp. Her bra fell away, revealing her gorgeous tits, creamy and rose-tipped.
“Getting warmer.” He brushed the backs of his fingers along her collarbones, but his gaze rested firmly on her breasts. She shivered. Her skin erupted with tiny bumps and her nipples shrank to tight points. “So pretty,” he murmured.
Christ. She was fucking perfect.
“On the bed.” He barely recognized the guttural sound of his voice. Ainsley trembled as he urged her back. She scooted to the center and rested back on her elbows, her legs stretched out in front of her.
Clay jerked his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. His dick was killing him, but he wasn’t ready to shed his jeans yet. The minute she touched his naked cock, he’d lose his fucking mind. Hell, he was halfway there.
He loosened his belt. Her eyelids flared as the leather whispered from the loops and dropped to the floor with a thud. He angled forward, braced his hands on either side of her, and kissed the inside of her ankle.
“Spread your legs for me.” He kissed higher, nudging her to open as he moved.
“Clay.” She squirmed. The muscles in her stomach tightened as she complied.
He crawled up her legs, placing tiny nips and kisses along the way. “Your skin is so soft.” She gasped as he rubbed his cheek against the inside of her thigh. “Time to let me see the rest of you.”
“That’s not fair. You left your jeans on. I want to see you, too.”
He knelt between her knees and reached for the button on her shorts. “You’ll do more than see me, sweetheart. Trust me. Lift up.”
Ainsley lifted her hips, and Clay finished the job of getting her naked. The glistening lips of her pussy were his reward for the torturous speed he’d taken to get there. And he wasn’t done yet. Not even close.
“Don’t just stand there. Do something.”
Clay stretched out beside her, his hand splayed over her abdomen. “Something like this?” His mouth surrounded her nipple. He swirled his tongue around the puckered bud, then flicked back and forth across the sensitive tip.
Ainsley gasped and arched her back, pressing her breast more firmly against his mouth. A fact he took complete advantage of by sucking
her deep into his mouth.
His hand moved lower. Her stomach contracted and he smiled against her breast. She’d be wetter when he got where he was headed, her pussy swollen and ready. He forced himself to go slow, to continue to build her arousal until she was crazy with need.
He feathered kisses along the underside of her breast while his finger circled her navel. He circled lower, through the golden curls on her mound. Lower still to the delicate hood protecting her clit. He wanted his mouth there. Wanted to hear her cries of pleasure while he got drunk on her taste. He slid his finger through her wet folds. He stroked over her entrance before sliding back up to circle her sensitive bud.
Ainsley whimpered and arched into his hand. The scent of her arousal went to his head. Made him crazy to plunge into her. Take her hard. Fast. Now.
He tore his mouth away from her breast with a growl. His control hung by a thread.
“No!” Ainsley reached for him as he moved away. “Clay, please. I need you.”
Later, he’d realize those three words were his undoing.
He moved between her legs. “This is where I need to be, Ainsley.” He licked through her slit, capturing her juices, coating his throat with the very essence of her. “Right here.”
And then he feasted.
No longer concerned with going slow, Clay licked, sucked, nipped until she writhed beneath him. She tasted good. So fucking sweet.
Addictive.
He slipped a finger into her slick channel. Then another. He rotated his hand and added a third finger, causing a sexy-as-fuck moan to escape her throat as he stretched her. He latched onto her clit and sucked hard. Her moan turned into a startled cry of pleasure he wanted to hear over and over again.
Ainsley’s legs shook. The first pulse of her release caused his balls to tighten beyond their already painful state. He curled his fingers inside her, extending her pleasure until her legs went limp.
“Jesus,” she panted. “I … you … holy shit.”
He placed a gentle kiss on her mound. “We’re not done.”
Shadow Maverick Ranch Box Set Page 26
