King's Treasure (Oil Kings Book 3)

by Marie Johnston

  “I need you now. I’ve dreamed of this every night and thought I wouldn’t have the chance to be with you anymore.”

  She’d pulled those words from my mind. My gaze strayed to the door. “What about . . .”

  Hell with it. We were adults, we were married, and as old-fashioned as her parents seemed, I didn’t think they’d mind if Savvy and I messed around in this room. Her mother had practically shoved me in here.

  I unzipped my jeans enough to get my dick out, cool air kissing the tip and making it throb harder. I didn’t have time to do anything more before she straddled me again. Sliding my hands down her sides, I relished her warm, satiny skin. I kissed my way across her cleavage to capture one nipple in my mouth. As I did that, she positioned herself over me and pushed down.

  My head dropped as hot, wet paradise enveloped me. “Savvy . . . You feel so fucking good.”

  All she did was moan and bite her bottom lip. If she was afraid of making too much noise, I could help with that.

  I cupped the back of her neck and drew her close. She rode me with slow, sensuous rolls of her hips. I muffled her moans and she stifled mine. Palming her breasts, I moved as best I could with her.

  Her knees dug into the cushions. I thrust up as much as possible. Were the flaps of my jeans digging into her? Would the denim rub her raw? She didn’t act like she cared.

  I let her ride me until her hands tightened on my shoulders. She needed more. Threading an arm between us, I found her soaked clit.

  “Xander,” she moaned.

  I licked up every syllable as I massaged lazy circles on her bundle of nerves.

  Her whole body jerked as her climax hit. Her teeth caught my lip, but I held on to her as she shook in my arms. Just as she was coming down, I flipped her onto her back and spread over her, shoving my pants further down with one hand. Using that same hand, I hitched her knee up and drove into her willing body.

  “Savvy.” I touched her forehead with mine as I worked in and out of her tight channel. “I don’t care where we’re at—we’re fucking like this any time you want.”

  “God, yes. And I’m going to scream your name over and over.”

  My orgasm swelled and I angled my hips just right, just how she liked it, and stroked her enough to give her another climax.

  Somehow we managed to keep it down, grunting and moaning through our peaks. I stayed in her for minutes afterward, both of us catching our breath, then I took the throw we’d cuddled under the last time I was here and covered us both.

  I maneuvered us onto our sides, and we spooned. No one entered. I didn’t know if her mother was even home, but we were left alone. I stroked the skin of her abdomen. I’d never get enough of touching this woman. I’d never get enough of her. The need was stronger now than when we’d met.

  “Are you sure about Montana? We can look here.”

  “I love Montana.” She looked over her shoulder, a furrow between her brows. “I really would love that job.”

  “Dad would love to have you.”

  “But I’ve been working on something I’m really excited about.”

  “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  I lost track of the hours we spent on the couch. Eventually, we dressed and ordered in food. Then I took my wife upstairs and did everything she begged me to.

  Chapter 23

  Savvy

  I jumped out of the car and sprinted across the short driveway. Rina caught me and we danced in a circle while we hugged.

  “I can’t believe you made it back!” Rina laughed.

  After squeezing Rina for several more moments and then flinging myself into Eris’s arms, Xander and I switched. I gave Hector a quick squeeze around the baby he held.

  Brady was next. He squished me against him and twirled around like I’d done with Rina. When we were done and laughing, he held me at arm’s length. “Look at you, pampered princess. All country girl now.”

  I kicked up my new but broken-in Ariat boots. “I was a ranch hand all winter.”

  Not really. Dawson had humored me, but since winter was their slow season and I hadn’t wanted to take away from the work of his employees, he’d let me follow him and Xander during my break from planning.

  “I won’t believe it until I see it.” He crossed to Rina and threw his arm around her. She playfully scowled at him but cuddled into his side.

  Xander chuckled. “You’ll see it in several installations that are scheduled to start posting next week.”

  The launch of his new business, and we weren’t going to be in the States for it. Xander and I had worked hard the last few months, him taking pictures of Dawson and the land, and me getting the nonprofit going from our apartment outside of Billings while our new home was being built. With the trust, we had enough money to use all the best environmentally-friendly methods for building.

  I oversaw construction and prepared to open the doors of Savvy Energy Solutions, a nonprofit that provided education on energy consumption and offered scholarships and grants for small companies that worked within the environment. Small companies like Hector’s, who’d agreed to let us make him the first recipient. There’d be an application process for the rest, but this benefitted my business and Hector’s, and gave us an excellent excuse to fly and visit.

  I even had a client ready to work with me once this vacation was over. Gentry had reached out to Savvy Energy, insisting that he could not find anyone to fit the new position and he’d gladly work with the company until he did.

  I’d told him it was nepotism. He’d claimed that Brady had refused to move back to the States since he’d gone into partnership with Hector and Eris and I hadn’t given him another contact.

  My father-in-law was a slick oil man.

  Xander crossed to me and hooked his hand through mine. His camera was over his shoulder. He never went anywhere without it anymore. Half his SD card was filled with photos of me. I had a notebook in my backpack for ideas for future content. His passion was my hobby, and a nice distraction from launching a nonprofit.

  I pointed at Brady. Rina’s hand rested on his abdomen, a familiar move that Brady seemed more than content with. “I didn’t believe that until I saw it.” They’d started dating before Christmas and it was probably the hardest Brady had ever worked for a girl. That he put out any effort at all meant he was serious.

  “She made me work for it,” Brady drawled. “I might’ve bought into this business, but she thinks she’s still in charge.”

  “You got discounted shares because of me.” Rina lifted a dark brow. “City boy.”

  We all laughed and piled inside. It was almost exactly a year since I’d arrived the first time. Xander and I were no longer the broke married couple we’d been when I’d first landed on their doorstep, but we’d only parceled out some of the money for us, for the property near Billings we’d bought, for the travel adventures we’d decided to take once a year—and for our future children. With no stipulations on the trust.

  Eris waved us to the table, where she had set out homemade pastries and steaming cups of what everyone had started calling Hector’s Tar. “So, tell us all about what’s happened this last year.”

  “Xander refused to divorce me.” I didn’t gloss over a thing. Then Xander pulled out his camera and showed everyone the photos we were using for our first series on ranching and the environment. Then we switched to the nonprofit.

  “I picked the name and convinced Savvy to use it,” Xander said.

  I hadn’t needed much convincing. Savvy Energy was both a play on words and an excellent way to describe what the company was all about.

  “Wait.” Brady leaned in to look at the header on the website. “Are you the spokesmodel?”

  “Yep,” I said. Not only would the company sport my name, but the picture Xander had taken of me framing the sky the afternoon we’d spent together in the pasture was plastered across the website. The about page on my website was open and honest about who Xander and I were and
where we came from.

  We’d most likely get pushback, having grown up wealthy. We’d get doubted. We’d get questioned about what seemed like a conflict of interest working with King Oil, but I wasn’t worried. I hooked my fingers through Xander’s and exchanged a smile with him.

  We’d proved ourselves already.

  Epilogue

  Dawson

  “I can’t believe you showed your smug face here.”

  I tucked a hand into the pocket of my black jeans. My good ones, the pair that I wore to church and get-togethers where dirt on my boots wasn’t allowed. I shouldn’t have worn them here.

  Danny Cartwright didn’t deserve my best, even at his funeral. Technically, this was a viewing or a memorial, not a funeral. He’d died and was being laid to rest within days. I’d almost missed the announcement.

  I faced Bristol so she could see that I wasn’t smug. I was relieved, dammit. Danny Cartwright had been a raging alcoholic who’d made rash, uneducated decisions that had gotten people hurt and made his cattle sick.

  Bristol’s pale-green eyes flashed. No one had eyes like her. I didn’t have to travel around the world like my globe-trotting brother to know. She looked at me like she was calling my bullshit each time—and she probably was. Polite and demure were not qualities given to her by her piece-of-shit father. God knew her mother hadn’t stuck around long enough to impart anything but grief.

  Bristol was brash, insensitive, and blunt as fuck. She was a thorn in my side and now she controlled her ranch and land—and might prove more ruthless than her dad.

  “Paying my respects, Bristol Jane.”

  Another spark of fire in those rare gems. She hated when I added her middle name. I used to do it as a kid. Mama used to call her that and I’d continued to do it afterward. Once I realized it irritated her, I never let up.

  Bristol put her hands on her trim hips. She wasn’t dressed up any more than I was. Well-worn blue jeans that hugged her athletic figure and a black long-sleeved shirt. The girl was burying her father, you’d think she’d wear a dress—but no. I’d never seen Bristol in a dress. Never. But maybe trousers and a nice blouse? Did she even own those? Or did she think her father wasn’t even worth a dry cleaning bill?

  She lifted her pointed chin. “You didn’t respect Pop and you don’t respect me. So you can go.”

  She shifted, and her cowboy boots, the same ones I was sure she’d worn this morning for chores, scraped against the wood floor of the funeral home. Her gaze darted around the empty space. I doubted anyone else was going to arrive. No one had liked Danny. The only person who’d given him their unfailing loyalty—or loyalty of any kind—was his daughter and I couldn’t figure out why. Blood ties? Pride? Or was she just like him? She could be mean as hell.

  “People pay respects, Bristol Jane, even if they didn’t get along.”

  She tilted her head, her orange hair swaying. “Is that what you call our family feud? Your grandparents stole our mineral rights because they ‘didn’t get along’? Your family calls the police on mine because we ‘didn’t get along’? You come to a funeral home like it’s a petting zoo because we ‘didn’t get along’?”

  “I don’t know. Is that why you didn’t come to my mom’s funeral?”

  She reared her head back like I’d slapped her and I’d never raised a hand to a woman in my life. Even my heifers got spoiled. “I was eight, asshole.”

  “Swearing in church is never recommended.”

  She looked at me like I couldn’t figure out how to chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. “It’s a funeral home.”

  So it was. “When’s the funeral?” Fighting with Bristol used to be something I looked forward to, like a hobby I rarely got to engage in, but lately it was tiring. I only had a couple of months before I had to secure the trust so she didn’t get it and then I could forget she’d ever existed.

  I could forget that we used to meet where her land bumped up against mine and crawl through the hills like explorers in new territory. I could forget that I’d helped her name their new dog and I’d held her hand when she’d cried after her dad had run that dog over on one of his many drunken trips home from the bar. I could forget how long I’d looked for her at Mom’s funeral and how she’d never shown.

  “There isn’t a funeral.” Bitterness laced her voice and she clenched her jaw. “I didn’t even want this—Pop. He didn’t want this.”

  That surprised me. I’d ask more, but she wouldn’t tell me anyway.

  I glanced around. The coffin lid was closed and I wasn’t surprised, and yet I was. Danny had looked more and more haggard every time I’d seen him. Yellowish skin without an ounce of fat, bags under his eyes, more missing teeth each time, breath reeking of stale booze, and a body long overdue for a meeting with a bar of soap. His clothes hadn’t been in much better shape.

  Bristol was right and I’d never tell her. I’d come partly to make sure the boogeyman was dead. I could blame curiosity too. I had wondered how Bristol was taking her dad’s death. The obituary hadn’t said how he’d died, but we all knew. A liver could only take so much. Any living thing around Danny Cartwright could only take so much.

  Bristol glared at me, her arms not quite crossed, but more hugging herself.

  A tendril of concern snaked through my gut. Was she doing okay?

  I shook my head and she narrowed her eyes, her lips lifting in a half sneer. Mean as always. What the fuck was I still doing here?

  “I’ll see you around then.” I tipped my head, stuffed my cowboy hat on my head, and walked outside without looking back. I didn’t have to in order to feel the lick of her hot gaze between my shoulder blades, likely wishing she had her rifle sighted on that spot instead.

  The bitter wind kicked around my body, picking up loose snow. Each footstep sent up a flurry. This winter had been a hard one and it didn’t look like it was stopping anytime soon.

  I shivered and tucked my face into my Carhartt coat. Mama had always joked that she hoped the snow was melted by my birthday.

  My summer birthday. My twenty-ninth birthday.

  I didn’t have much time. Bristol would get every cent of my trust if I didn’t marry by then. Mama had told me that Bristol was like a daughter to her and if she could ever find a way to raise her instead of Danny, she would. But after she’d died, after the way Bristol had acted, like my mother had never existed?

  I wouldn’t let her get a damn cent.

  ________

  Will Dawson be more determined to keep the money or win Bristol? Find out in King’s Country.

  Thank you for reading. I’d love to know what you thought. Please consider leaving a review for King’s Treasure at the retailer the book was purchased from.

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  About the Author

  Marie Johnston writes paranormal and contemporary romance and has collected several awards in both genres. Before she was a writer, she was a microbiologist. Depending on the situation, she can be oddly unconcerned about germs or weirdly phobic. She’s also a licensed medical technician and has worked as a public health microbiologist and as a lab tech in hospital and clinic labs. Marie’s been a volunteer EMT, a college instructor, a security guard, a phlebotomist, a hotel clerk, and a coffee pourer in a bingo hall. All fodder for a writer!! She has four kids, an old cat, and a puppy that’s bigger than half her kids.

  mariejohnstonwriter.com

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  Also by Marie Johnston

  Oil Kings

  King’s Crown

  King’s Ransom

  King’s Treasure

  King’s Country

  King’s Queen

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