by Jenny Penn
He caught the glint in her eyes a second before all the tension and anger relaxed out of his angel. A smile blossomed across her lips as she rose up on her tiptoe to press a quick kiss to his lips.
“I do love you, Malcolm Tanner. I just knew when I stepped into this cabin I had finally come home, but I never expected to fall in love as hard as I’ve fallen for you.”
Her words lulled the tension right out of him, and Malcolm gave over with a snort. “Of course you love me, and you ain’t got to worry about Mike. He’ll come around once we’re married.”
“But I don’t want to wait.” God, she really put the screws to him with that pouty girl voice and those sad eyes. Malcolm shifted under the weight of her look but couldn’t dodge far enough to avoid the next hammer blow she dealt him. “You promised me my fantasy.”
“Fine.” Malcolm sighed and reached for his coat. “I’ll go talk to Mike and figure out what the hell his problem is.”
Her hand rested on his wrist, stopping him without applying any pressure. “If you go out there, the likelihood is that you two will get into a fight. I don’t want that, Malcolm. I don’t want you fighting over me.”
Malcolm narrowed his eyes on her. She’d done that woman thing, making sense and making him feel cornered by it. With no apparent error in her logic and no argument he could think to offer up, Malcolm slowly withdrew his hand.
“Fine. You go.”
That earned him a big smile and a smack in the head with her hat as she pressed another kiss against his lips. “You’re so sweet, Malcolm. Why don’t you get yourself cleaned up, and when I get back I’ll show you just how thankful I am to have a man like you.”
Malcolm grunted at that but didn’t stop her as she lifted up the lantern hanging by the back door and escaped into the frozen night.
* * * *
Mary Anne slammed the back door and flew across the yard as fast as her feet would take her. They almost froze as they sank into the snow already collecting on the grass. Each painful bit of cold fueled her silent screaming tirade as she mentally raged against the injustices of the world. As much as she loved the Tanner brothers, they also annoyed the crap out of her with their melodramatic temperaments.
Now she had to run around naked in a damn snow storm just to find out what the hell Mike’s problem was. She had no doubt it was stupid and pointless, but she’d have to pretend he had the right to be concerned and then argue why he was wrong.
Mary Anne didn’t imagine it would be too hard to get him to tell her. The man was probably ready to yell at somebody by now. She didn’t doubt that if she’d let Malcolm go, Mike would have greeted him with fists. He wouldn’t hit her, but she braced herself for the nasty words he’d probably start throwing her way.
Pushing the heavy wooden barn door open wasn’t easy with fingers that already started to lose sensation, but she managed to make enough of a gap to slide into the darkened confines. Despite her grim expectations, nothing greeted her but the murmur of animals and the stench of their waste.
From the cabin’s windows she’d been able to tell how massive the barn was, and now she knew why. In the stripped bands of moonlight that cut through the cracks in the wood, she could easily make out the small corral that actually encompassed the majority of the barn.
Packed full of cows, combined body heat kept the barn warmer than freezing. The wood-slatted walls offered up some protection from the bitingly frigid air outside. It still felt cold to her and she blew into her hands, trying to warm them as she looked for any sign of Mike
Only darkness and stale, musty air loomed in all directions. Unwilling to step in a pile of anything soft and stinky and wary of tacks or other debris that might be hidden in the dirt and straw floor, she crept slowly down the line of stalls that branched to the right.
Peeking in one by one, she found nothing more than horses and supplies until she came upon the last one. In the soft glow of the lantern’s reflected flame, one set of hollowed eyes gleamed. As the pool of yellow light spilled over the edge of the wood gate, a living mass of hard muscles and sharp shadows shifted as more and more eyes began to glint in her direction.
The dogs.
Mary Anne froze as the pack slowly shifted and roused as each member of the group turned its unwavering attention in her direction. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold passed through her. Mary Anne didn’t like dogs. Smelly, bug-ridden animals that had big jaws and a tendency to bite, they were one of the few things she feared in life.
Everything inside her screamed at her to flee, but she held perfectly still in absolute horror as one massive black beast rose. Its lips curled back to reveal gleaming white canines, curved and pointed. It growled and snapped at the air. That’s all Mary Anne needed to send her screaming and running in no general direction.
She could hear the scrape of claws over the ground, feel their heated breath as they snarled at her heels. Fleeing with the absolute certainty that death awaited if she faltered, Mary Anne rounded the corner of the corral. Alongside her, the cattle caught the frenzy of her panic and started to sway and bolt along the corral’s fence line, joining in her flight.
Running full tilt and screaming loud enough to make her own ears ring, Mary Anne didn’t have any time to protect herself from the large obstacle that suddenly stepped into her path. Bouncing off the wall of muscles and bones, she hit the ground and the dogs were on her. She could feel their slimy, heated breath and the cold bumps of their snouts. Curling into a ball, she prayed for a quick death.
“Get back!” Mike snapped overhead, and she didn’t know exactly who he was talking to, her or the dogs. “Go on, I said get.”
Even as he snapped it, he was yanking her up and demanding to know what she thought she was doing. Mary Anne barely heard him even though he yelled. Still too filled with fear of the dogs, she cowered back behind him, hiding from the beasts still growling and yapping inches away.
Mike wouldn’t let her hide from him. Turning around, he demanded, “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to burn down my barn or cause the animals to rip it down around my head?”
“The dogs,” Mary Anne whispered back. She knew she was acting all foolish, but she couldn’t help it.
“The dogs ain’t gonna hurt you, Mary Anne. Don’t pay them any mind, and they won’t pay you any.” He could say it all he wanted, but she didn’t believe him. He must have understood that because after a moment he sighed that painful sound men made when they were annoyed. “Fine.”
With a huff, he turned and began corralling the pack back to the stall they came from. Mary Anne didn’t follow them as they moved off into the darkness. She didn’t relax, either, but she did regain a measure of her sanity and dignity by the time Mike came strutting back out of the darkness. The determined set of his jaw and the cold look in his eyes told her he’d come back prepared for her assault.
“Go back to the cabin, Mary Anne,” he growled at her and kept on going.
Plucking the lantern off the floor where Mike must have righted it when she fell, Mary Anne followed on his heels. “We need to talk.”
“There is nothing left to say.”
“Don’t you even want to know if we’ve had sex?”
That had him whirling around on her, and she could see just how pissed he was by the tick in his cheek. “It doesn’t matter. I know you slept with my brother and all that needs to be said is ‘I do’ by both of you to a preacher. Then the two of you can go make your life elsewhere, because you won’t be making it here.”
He tried to walk away from her again, but Mary Anne didn’t intend to let him get away and said as much. “I ain’t going anywhere, Mike Tanner, so you might as well turn around and face me.”
“No.” He slammed into some kind of equipment room. Filled with saddles and leather straps, it smelled of leather and musk. “Now go away, Mary Anne.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Mary Anne charged into the room after him. If she had to say it a hundred
times, so be it. Eventually, Mike would listen. “Even if Malcolm himself tried to make me, I won’t leave you, Mike Tanner. I love you as much as I do your brother, and my home is here with the both of you.”
“Don’t say that!” He turned on her. Gripping her arms in a nearly painful grip, he gave her a harsh shake. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. Trust me, Mary Anne, you don’t belong here.”
“I most certainly do and don’t even try to fluff me off with general threats. If you’re worried about something, then just say it.”
Mike muttered an obscenity and released her to sulk off toward a darkened corner before turning around. “You can’t stay here, Mary Anne. Not here. You think it’s just Malcolm and me but wait until my other brothers come up. All you see right now is how things would be with the three of us, but come spring, Digger and Charlie will be back. How long do you think it will be before they’re doing more than looking at you and wishing?”
“That’s what this is about?” Mary Anne laughed. “You worried I won’t be able to handle your brothers?”
“Damnit, Mary Anne, this is no joke! I’m not just talking about having four men to pick from when it’s time to go to bed. I’m talking about my two other brothers who will eventually return and live here. If they don’t bring wives with them, they’re going to start to look at you, and it ain’t going to be with love in their eyes but with something else in their britches.
“Trust me, you don’t even begin to understand the things we’ll do to you, and you don’t want to.” His tone turned pleading as he took a helpless step forward. “I know you, Mary Anne. You’re a sweet, gentle born lady. Your husband should treasure you and protect you, not trap you in the wilderness to be passed around to all his brothers.”
Mary Anne’s head dropped and her shoulders slumped. She should have known better than to try and reason with a man. They just never listened, always so assured they knew better. Well, he couldn’t say she hadn’t tried. Without a word, she turned and walked slowly to the door.
Chapter 13
Reaching the edge of the tack room’s door, Mary Anne kicked it closed and snapped the latch before Mike could react. Hanging the lantern on the hook by the entry, she let the coat shrug right down to the floor as she turned back on Mike. He froze at the sight of her naked body, and she couldn’t help but smile.
“You don’t know me at all, Mr. Tanner,” Mary Anne purred as she paced seductively toward Mike. “You’re afraid of what your brothers might do to me? Well, you should be afraid of what I will do to them, or have you not considered the possibility of what I’ve already done to you?”
She captured his gaze and held it as she moved in closer. “Every night, I snuck into your brother’s bed and spent hours fulfilling all sorts of wicked fantasies while dreaming up new ones. That wasn’t enough. Maybe I need more.”
It was a lie, but the sheer suggestion had him stiffening up right before her eyes. Mary Anne laid her hands flat on his chest and felt how tense he was. It made her smile as she slowly slid her hands up to his shoulders.
“Maybe it’s you I needed, Mr. Tanner, and there you were all sexy and defenseless. Do you know you know how many times I fantasized about kneeling down beside the bench and sliding my hands all over your chest, feeling your strength and heat through your shirt, but it wouldn’t be enough?
“Never enough,” she whispered as she matched her hands to her words. “Just a few buttons in my way, so easy to undo.”
He didn’t resist or even breathe as she worked her way slowly down his shirt until the sides hung free and her hands could slip easily under their edges.
“You are so handsome, Mr. Tanner, and I love the way you feel. All these rough little hairs.” Mary Anne sighed and went to her tiptoes to rub her breasts against his chest. “You feel so good against my breasts it just makes me want to rub them around, letting all these hairs tickle and tease them.”
Mary Anne panted under the impact of her own seduction. “It gets me so hot.” She breathed out. “I just have to taste.”
Her mouth closed over his nipple, and she treated it to the same rough, nibbling kisses Malcolm used to torment hers. He might have been a man, but his nipples still puckered and pouted as he sucked in a hard breath. She followed the motion over the sudden, slight indent of his stomach to find the sticky, flared head of his cock already waiting, having jutted out from his waistband to greet her.
Mary Anne giggled. “My touch makes you outgrow your jeans, Mr. Tanner. That’s quite impressive, but it does make it hard to get them undone.”
She grunted that last bit out as she fought with his belt. Mike didn’t offer any assistance, but neither did he try to stop her. He’d gone as still as a statue, and Mary Anne was certain as aroused as he was he could snap out of his shock at any time and put an end to her seduction. It didn’t happen before she managed to free his erection completely from his jeans. It fell thick and heavy into her hands. Her fist closed over it, and she began tormenting him, already knowing just how he liked to be stroked.
“As impressive as you are, you still get fuller and longer with a kiss,” she whispered as she began to nibble her way down his abdomen. Muscles flexed and quivered in the wake of her lips. She paused just below his belly button to lick downward and tease the very head of the cock straining upward. He jerked under the contact, and she couldn’t help but smile.
That’s all the warning she gave him before she swooped down and took him right to the back of her throat. Capturing almost half his length between her lips, she sucked hard as she pulled slowly up. Over and over again, she tormented him with deep, hard pulls until he growled and buried a hand in her hair. Her hand closed around the base of his cock, keeping time as he began to pump her head up and down his length in an ever increasing rhythm.
Mary Anne could feel him tensing, quaking with the first spasms of release, and quickly looped her hands around his ankle. It didn’t take much strength to tug him right off his feet. The cock whipped out of her mouth with a pop as he fell back onto his ass, knees spread right before her. She crawled up his body as he was shaking the sudden bump from his head and levered himself up on his elbows.
Their eyes met, and she smiled. “That’s not the way this story goes, Mr. Tanner. It has a different ending all together,” she stated as she lifted a leg over his hip and then the other. “Isn’t this what you really wished happened? Haven’t you been fantasizing how I’d mount you on that bench every morning when you wake up? With one leg on the floor and the other high up on your hip, I could tease myself with the feel of you.”
Pressing her dripping cunt down along the length of his erection, Mary Anne slid back and forth. Letting him feel how her clit pulsed and quivered as it rippled down the heated silk of his cock, she moaned over the tingles of euphoria sprinkling down her spine. Shivering and panting with the motion, she couldn’t help but to roll her hips again.
“So good, Mr. Tanner, you feel so good I ache to feel you from the inside.” Even as her words started out as a breathless pant, they ended with a growl as her pussy slid up enough to lodge the head of his swollen cock against the aching entrance to her pussy. Savoring the burn, she pushed herself slowly down his length. “That’s just what you always wanted me to do.”
* * * *
Mike’s breath caught as the angel over him took what only a man had a right to give. The reality that this sweet and gentle woman dared to seduce him, that she had the brazen audacity to even think of it, made every fiber of his savage soul cry to be unleashed.
He couldn’t. She had him mesmerized by the tightest velvety vice he’d ever been a captive of. Sweet Mother of God, she sank her weight right down on him and took his full length to the very back of her womb and then panted with the pleasure of it.
Just as she had in the cabin, his angel seduced him right out of the ability to even move as she rose above him. His eyes watered at the sight of her beauty. Her breasts, so plump that they cast a shadow down her
ribcage, bounced and swayed, making his cock jerk and pulse. Mary Anne smiled and treated him to a twirl of her hips, making her sheath flex and tighten around him. Instinctively arching up with the pressure, he snorted through the sensation as her soft, husky voice began to torment him anew.
“Every morning you laid there wishing I’d ride you slow, just like this. Don’t you, Mr. Tanner?”
Her hips built in a steady pace that matched the escalation in her breathing. Mike clenched tight and fought against the pain and agony building in his balls. He wouldn’t give her this satisfaction, but she was taking it. Through cracked eyelids, he watched her hands shift into motion. One lifted toward her breasts while the other dipped to where they were joined.
It might have been the most erotic scene he ever witnessed, but by far the greatest aspect of the moment was the way her sheath suckled and rippled all around him, waging a full out war as it spasm itself toward release. He felt it the second it hit her.
A flood gate opened. The painfully sensitive skin of his dick felt scalded by the heated cream all around him. Her hips jerked into a wild seesaw motion as her fingers pinched and twisted her tight little nipples. Like a summer storm, her release hit her hard and fast but began to dissipate quickly.
With a series of gasping breaths, she came back to her senses. All the tension seeped from her muscles, and she beamed down at him as if she’d done good by herself.
“If I had molested you, Mr. Tanner, I would have only taken what is mine, but never,” she leaned forward to plant a quick kiss on his lips, “ever give you yours. If you’re not man enough to take it, then you don’t deserve it, so you can rest assured I left you to your peaceful slumber all along.”
With that she shoved off him and onto her feet, leaving his wet cock cooling in the wind as she strutted toward the door. Mike blinked, his mind finally rousing to what just happened, what she had just done to him, and what he had just let her do. Aroused near the point of spontaneous combustion, his mind latched onto her final statement and the beast inside him roared into control.
