by Mia Madison
“You tell him,” one of the cowboys chips in, Corbin I think his name is. “Someone needs to put Rafe in his place.”
That incites Rafe further though. He’s not the sort of man to slink away into a corner.
“Just thought you might need to sit down and try to unwind all that tension,” he says, then his smirk gets wider. “Unless sitting’s too sore that is.”
“Why would sitting be sore?” Dallyce swivels on Shea’s knee to look at him, her face a mask of suspicion.
“Oh I dunno,” Rafe quips. “Don’t those bus seats leave you with a bruising?”
“Yeah, it’s sore,” I say, “but I’ll get over it. Don’t you concern yourself with that.”
“Here take my seat, Modesty,” one of the other boys says. I don’t recall his name at all but I’m flattered that he remembers mine.
“No, she can take mine,” Rafe insists. “Come here, Modesty.”
He looks at me and my eyes are once again trapped in his so that flickers of energy like sparks of electricity course around me. His command is irresistible, drawing me in, my body leans out to move toward him as he says.
“You can take my seat, Modesty,” one of the hunky cowboys interjects.
“And mine,” says another.
Then, “No have mine, Modesty.”
I heat up as a blush rushes through me and surges into my cheeks. I've never been the center of masculine attention like this. I'm very aware that there are, what? Seven, no eight, men, if you count Shea. And only two women, except you can’t count Dallyce as she’s so completely bonded to Shea she may as well be wearing handcuffs. So that leaves only... me.
Me and seven men, who, if I’m not mistaken, are more than a little starved of feminine companionship.
From the furthest corner of my eye, I see Dallyce getting ready to come to my aid. She’s always on the alert to be the shield between me and hungry alpha males. My gaze is still locked on Rafe and as each of the cowboys sitting around the circle steps up to offer me their seat, I notice his jaw locking tighter and tighter.
It’s as though he’s getting mad with every alternative offer I receive. Clearly that’s because he thinks he can control me. That being the older man in the crew, he has some right over me.
I tear my gaze away from his enticing one and walk to the opposite side of the fire. I take a seat on the old oil drum that the cute cowboy with the dimples is offering. He immediately pulls out a kerchief from his back pocket and makes a show of wiping down the barrel before I sit. There’s a wall of flame between Rafe and me, but between the flickers I toss him a victory glance and see his jaw grit down tighter.
My gaze travels around the circle to discover seven sets of eyes are on me (Shea and Dallyce have gone back to being completely absorbed in each other, as though there’s nothing but their love occupying the whole world).
I used to be able to count on Dallyce to keep the social flow going with some witty banter. I’ve always wished I was smart like Dallyce. Smart enough to make those flirtatious comments that get men worked up, but not mad. I only seem to inspire the latter reaction, making a man pissed off at how I’m responding. First from Rafe, then from Andrew and now again from Rafe.
No one understands that it’s from fear and nervousness at getting it wrong because of my inexperience. I’ve touched myself down there and even that I’m not good at, not able to make the throbbing in my folds go away. Never experiencing that explosion of pleasure rocking my body that I’ve heard others gush about. Maybe I won’t ever experience that mysterious O I hear girls talking about constantly. Maybe there’s something wrong with me and I’m just not capable of love.
“How long you staying with us, Modesty?” Jessop asks.
“I’m not too sure,” I say. “Until Dallyce gets tired of me.”
“No one could get tired of having you around, I’m sure.”
“You’d be surprised, I can be a handful,” I reply, noticing the shyness falling away from me and Rafe’s eyes boring into me across the fire.
“I’m willing to take on two hand-fulls” One of the other boys quips.
“You keep your hands where I can see them, big boy,” I say before I realize the words are out of my mouth.
The round of men laugh and I feel myself relaxing. I can do this. It’s not so hard to be amusing to a bunch of hungry men.
“I’ll take care of you Modesty,” another offers. “You have any problem with these lazy rough elements, you come to me.”
“Why, thank you,” I say, going all Scarlet O’Hara Southern Belle on him, just to up the flirt factor. “I sure will, but I think I can take care of myself now.”
Without my willing it, my eyes slide back to Rafe and find his drilling into me like a six-bore.
What is his problem?
I try to look away and get back to the banter flying around the firepit as the boys all josh at each other about who can keep me amused during my stay. But Rafe holds me trapped, his dark eyes blazing so that shivers run down my legs despite the heat from the fire. He sure is hot. Hotter than all the other guys who are each gorgeous hunks in their own right, especially the one with the dimples. Hot enough to brand cattle with his touch. The problem is, he knows it.
Chapter NINE
Rafe
I remain seated in my place by the fire, while every cell in my body wants to leap up and slam my fist into the jaw of every last one of the idiot young bucks pouring themselves at my girl. I don’t of course. These dudes are my family and I’d never wanna hurt them. It’s just what Modesty does to me with her teasing and flirting. She’s got all the guys on edge with her cute smile and perfect little body that any guy in the world would be desperate to own.
“I’d really love to get back in the saddle,” she purrs, clearly relishing the attention she’s holding in the palm of her hand from seven strapping men. “It seems like forever since I’ve ridden.”
“I’ll take you out,” Corbin jump sin first.
“Me too, Modesty,” Lakin says. “Just say the word.”
The blood boiling in my veins is worse than stepping into the flames. Before I fucking lose it with all of them, I tip my hat down over my forehead and pretend to doze, crossing my arms across my chest to hold in the rage that threatens to spill out. No one notices me and Modesty’s tinkly laugh fills my ears and finally I can’t take it any more. I leap to my feet, knocking over my beer and the whiskey glass, making everyone startle. Modesty’s eyes slide over to me and the delight falls from her face when she sees the stern grimace I’m rocking.
“I’m turning in,” I grunt.
“So early, old man?” Jessop blurts.
“Some of us have been working since before dawn,” I half snarl at him, way more aggressive than I meant to.
“Or maybe you’re ready for some hot milk and a pair of slippers,” someone says, as I stride away and leave them laughing.
My blood is raging in every limb until I’m tremoring. I wish I could pick that little girl up out of her seat and carry her under my arm back to my house. I would even keep her there with me and I’ve never once had a woman stay the entire night in my home. But for her I could make an exception. And to stop the others making a play for her.
My skin is crawling with dust and heat so I throw on the shower and drop my clothes to the floor. Every muscle in my washboard stomach twitches as I imagine her little fingers gripping my hard body the way she clawed at the straw bale. I want her scratching at walls and screaming at the stars before I’m finished with her.
She’ll never forget this stay at Foxworth ranch not as long as she lives.
If I’d carried her off with me, I’d have torn the little dress from her body and pulled her into the shower with me. In here I’d make her bend forward again, her palms against the tile but this time she’d receive a completely different experience. As the water pours down the back of my neck, the thought of Modesty naked in here with me has my cock pointing bolt upright. I take the solid pole in
my fist and slide up and down along the prodigious length, picking up speed until my breath is coming hard and fast. In moments I explode with a groan, imagining my release covering Modesty’s perky breasts and hard pink nipples.
I’d expected the force of my release would have me dropping into an instant deep sleep. But no, three hours later I’m still tossing around on my bed, all tangled up in a crumpled hot sheet. That little vixen won’t get out of my head no matter how hard I try to think about something, anything, else.
When the first rays of a tangerine sun press at the edges of the window, I get up and pull on my denim then head out to the stable. I’ve got plenty of tasks to take my mind off the girl and I get to brushing down not only Pegasus, but the other horses too, that are unusually skittish. Maybe they’re picking up on my tension.
“It’s okay, baby,” I tell Venus Gold, one of the mares being put out to stud. She immediately calms under my heavy caress and I wonder why I don’t have the same effect on Modesty.
Forcing that minx out of my mind, I head out to the water pipe to fill a bucket from the trough. I turn back and run slam bang into Modesty, looking absolutely adorable in a pair of dangerously tight denim shorts I have to avoid looking at because my cock springs up with a ravenous flare. Ditto the plaid shirt she’s wearing that accentuates the round curve of her tits. With her hair curling out from beneath a stetson, she looks like the perfect advertisement for a girl cowboy.
“Does that costume come with a horse or are you out here taking selfies for your followers?” I snap.
“No, I’m waiting for Jessop to take me out on the ranch.”
That information sets my rage alight again and the desire to haul her back to my place is eviscerating my calm.
“Jessop doesn't have time to go riding around with girls,” I snarl. “He’s got his chores to take care of. This isn’t a game like being the rodeo princess, this is a real working ranch.”
“I know that. I won’t get in the way, I just want to ride again for a while.
“Well there’s horses in the stable, you don’t need some dimply kid along with you
“What do you care?” she asks with a coercive tone that makes me yearn to drag her over my knee again.
“I don’t. But it’s my job to keep the men focused on their tasks, not staring at girls in tight outfits.”
“Are you always such an ass? Why can’t you just have a normal conversation instead of making everything a fight?”
“I can have a normal talk, with a woman that isn’t a little tease.”
“What? You’re the tease, running hot then cold, then getting all jealous.”
“Go home, Modesty.”
She turns and struts away without a backward glance. The sight of her round butt in those tight jeans is too much. I need to see those cheeks bared under my hand again and lord knows she’s earned herself another spanking for sassing me like that.
I go hurtling after her and when I catch up to her, I pick her up like before, this time I ought to take her back to my house and throw her down across my bed. I wouldn’t care how many of the guys hear her screaming my name as I slide into her. This tension between us has me yearning to ride her so hard she won’t be strutting herself around here for a week to come.
“Let go of me,” she squeals as I toss her up over my shoulder.
“Calm down and stop hollering.” I’m determined to have a talk with her and set her straight.
Now she’s squirming and kicking like a little wild cat and wearing her cowboy boots, her toe points catch me in the groin one time too many. I can’t spank her backside in the skintight denim, I need to pull them open and tug them down her thighs to bare her cheeks to me again. But as I stride toward my house, past the older stables, I get a better idea for cooling off the little wildcat.
I lift her tiny body off my shoulder, my hand grazing the underside of her breasts as she writhes makes us both draw breath in shock. She stares at me wide-eyed, panting hard then starts kicking and flailing all over again.
I see the long wooden horse trough behind her and with a big grin, immediately dump her straight into it with an enormous splash.
She yelps out loud and glares at me through the water streams running down over her eyes with a look of complete loathing. Then her soft cheeks quiver and just that tiny movement almost tears my heart apart.
“I can’t go home,” she whimpers.
Chapter TEN
modesty
The water is a shock that jolts me out of the mood I’d been stuck in like touching a live wire. It’s not that cold, with the constant temperature down here being in the eighties, tepid I’d call it. But being unceremoniously water-boarded by the man I want to have embrace me, has me feeling helpless and vulnerable all over again. I thought getting away from home and coming here would clear my head of everything that Andrew did to me.
But now a surge of something uncontrollable rises in my chest. I’m not that scared little girl any longer, but I do feel tears prickling at the backs of my eyes. I know I’m going to render myself a complete idiot in front of Rafe in about three seconds flat. He’s not a man to be taken in by girlish tears. I’m sure I’m going to reap his disdain for my silliness even more fully than I have to date.
I try as hard as I possibly can to hold back the welling flow but, dammit, a fat tear escapes from my left eye and rolls over my cheek. It plops into the murky trough water with what sounds like the weight of a stone. It’s okay, it’s only one, my face is already dripping with rivulets of water running down from my forehead and damp hair. He’s not going to notice one fat tear in the midst of all the other drops of water.
Determined to stay strong, I lift my eyes up in time to see the satisfied smirk fall down his cheeks like a trail of falling water and a frown replace it.
“Modesty,” he gruffs out, his voice croaking on the one word of my name.
Deeper confusion comes over his features and he reaches out one huge finger to stroke along my cheek, following the trail left by that tear. Before I can withhold it, another tear slides from my eyes and Rafe picks it up on the end of his thick finger where it shimmers in the light.
Then his arms come around me and he hauls me up out of the trough, a surge of backwash sending water flying over the edge. He scoops me under the knees to lift me into the bridal hold and for that brief time I’m safe. I want to stay there in his arms for always, just like that. But he sets me down on the ground, but carefully this time. As though I might shatter like a glass on a stone if he doesn’t take it easy. Is he going to walk away? Is he going to make some joke or call me Little Girl Princess?
“Look at me,” he commands then before I comply he tips my face up to him with his finger, the same tear-scooping finger hooking beneath my chin.
“Are you crying, baby?” he husks.
I shake my head no and at the same moment my traitorous body for the umpteenth time lets me down by dropping another fat roller from my eye. A whole posse of them threaten to fall if he keeps being kind to me like this. It’s so out of character.
“Ohmigod what is it, Baby? Did I hurt you?”
Rafe drags me forward so I go flying into his wall of chest and am smashed up into his shield of muscle where nothing can ever harm me. His huge hand strokes the back of my head over and over, murmuring apologies, saying he was just playing with me and he’ll never forgive himself if he hurt me or made me unhappy.
It’s such a turnaround from his usual attitude to me and I must have been pressing down this massive well of emotion because now tears are pouring down my cheeks. Silently, without a single heave of my chest. Well not from the sobbing, but I notice my breasts are moving up and down very fast and as they do my nipples rub against the hard ridges laddering up Rafe’s stomach. I clutch at his sides and feel how the muscular development along his ribs bristles with seething power. I could stand here all day just running my fingers up and own his incredible torso. But I don't get the chance.
“Ba
by girl, don’t cry.”
He sets me away from him, holding both my arms pinned in his huge palms. His strong hold makes flickers of electricity spark in every cell even as heavy tears continue to pour from my jaw.
His eyes scour across my face and land back on mine where he searches deep into me, seeking my feeling, pummeling into my soul.
“What is it? Tell me? Is it me? Why can’t you go home?”
I’m overwhelmed by the heat from his heavy hand now clasping my waist, while the other one holds me immovable, presumably to stop me taking off on him again. But he has to know I’d never do that. I never wanted to before and certainly not now he’s being so solicitous. I look down, trying to form some words and he tips my head up to face him again. The heat on my skin from where his hand lay on my waist continues pulsating, craving his heavy caress on my body. This is the man I want to be my first. And I don’t know how to tell him.
But my body knows.
An impulse starts in my chest and flashes into my fingers and toes.
Standing up tall, I stretch my face up to him and press my mouth onto his. Rafe freezes cold and for a terrible moment I think he’s going to push me away from him. An involuntary shudder goes down to my tummy because if he does, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at him again. For that instant we’re lip-locked in something close to shock. And then his arms go around me, so tight my feet curl away from the ground until only the very tips of my toes are supporting me.
Then he tightens his grasp around my back so his arms are almost doubled on each other, completely enveloping me so my body squeezes harder into his solid chest. My toes leave the ground and I’m supported only in his embrace which feels… incredible. I’m floating and rock steady and hurtling through the air at a million miles an hour.
This is what a real kiss feels like. Like nothing I’ve had before, when kisses where brief precursors to something else. Something more brutal. It’s not my first kiss, that was the last time Rafe kissed me but this is different from that as well. That first kiss was unforgettable but it almost tore me apart with its fierce honesty, the desire for something more primal behind the tongue delving between my lips.
