by Mia Madison
“Oh, I'm sure,” her voice slurs all soft suddenly. “I'm Nissa Reynolds, the association's chaperone.”
“Quite a task you've got for yourself I imagine,” Shea lifts his hat again.
If he shakes her hand I'm going to walk away. He can't see me get into a jealous state over the woman set to watch out for my virtue.
“It can get tricky with the younger ones especially,” she replies.
Er, hello, standing right behind you.
“That’s not to say the ranch hands are any kind of angelic,” Shea says with a glance over Nissa's shoulder at me. His grin is all mine.
“Say is there a place around here to hang in the evenings?” Nissa simpers at him. “Once I've got my girls tucked up in bed, it's good to decompress with a few beers away from the ranch.”
She flips her blond hair back over one shoulder and I swear, shoves her big tits out more than is decent. He can't fall for something so obvious, can he?
No. He's not even meeting her provocative stare as he replies.
“Most of us go down to McDools, it's the only bar around really.”
“Perhaps I can get a ride down, next time you go.”
Seriously? Aren't chaperones supposed to be plump motherly types? Why did we have to get a cougar in blue jeans?
I cough lightly but Nissa is either unaware of anything other than the sensual hotness that is Shea Butler's fingers stroking a brush over his horse's mane, or she's blatantly ignoring my presence. If he offers to take her out, even to drive her to the end of the street, there's going to be a battle that'll make that bull steering look like a kindergarten bricks fight.
“I usually ride down there. It's close enough to walk, if you like a good hike. But one of the other guys might take you.”
I'm so relieved he's not taken in by her obvious moves, I want to do a hoedown then wrap my arms and legs around his solid torso while I cover his face with kisses.
“Oh. Okay great,” she says, deflating a bit now that she can see he's not a man that you rope in like a lost calf.
Shea clearly needs to call all the shots. If Nissa had bothered to find out anything about him, she'd have known not to come on so strong. She turns to head back to the house and I'm about to get some alone time with Shea. I could just hang out in here watching him work, his big hands stroking the horse's glossy coat all afternoon.
“Are you coming, Dallyce?” Nissa stops at the entrance and commands me rather than asks.
Shea looks up from beneath his dark hat's brim and I detect the ghost of his enticing grin. It takes everything not to go for that hoedown right now. I shoot him a wry secret smile and go up to the ranch house with Nissa this time. But I'm determined to get to know more about Shea sooner rather than later.
Chapter SEVEN
Shea
I've decided to swear off being around Dallyce as much as possible for the duration of her stay. She's a dangerous proposition that I don't trust myself to be up close with. We've only got the long weekend of the rodeo and then she'll be off on the rest of her tour. Out of my hair. And my head. Funny enough I don't like the idea of not seeing her again. It sets off some kind of surge in my blood that I never felt before with any woman. And that's the way I like it.
Zero complications. Zero expectations.
“You going up to the house for dinner?” Abel emerges from his house, in his usual outfit of jeans and boots but well-scrubbed and shaved.
I grin to myself. I know what he's about, though he doesn’t know it himself.
“Nah. I don't need to be at the fancy table now that the family are back and have delicate guests.”
“Mighty pretty ones though,” Rafe says from his position fireside, where he's monitoring the rattlesnake he's got roasting in the flame.
Abe shoots him a look. But it's pointless where Rafe's concerned. He's a lawless one and lucky the old days of being hounded by the Sheriff are over or he'd have been lynched before now.
I drag a lawn chair from my porch across the yard to where we have the stone cookout pit and grab a beer from the cooler before settling in. The aroma of roasting flesh mixes with the chilli heating up in the pot that Jessop hauled on down from the main kitchen. We settle in with that and some boiled potatoes, along with the hooch and that's all any of us need.
“Is Shea Butler here? I need his assistance?” A female voice jerks me out of my doze.
It's pretty late I guess and I must have dropped off with my belly full and some hot imaginings involving Dallyce's sweet thighs. Nissa, the chaperone is the last one I was expecting to see.
“The girls are gone,” she announces and my heart start to thound under my ribs.
“Gone where?” If anything's happened to Dallyce there's gonna be hell to pay.
“Well, I don't know,” she says. “They aren't in their beds and they haven't been unmade, so I don't know what they're up to.”
“Okay I'll ride out and see if they're takin' a walk.”
It crosses my mind that Abel went up to the house so she could have enlisted his assistance, but maybe she did. Or more like she grabbed the excuse to bat her eyelashes at me once more. I get it's the latter when she insists on coming along.
“No. I need you to stay at the house in case they come back. I move faster alone.”
She juts out her lower lip but I've got no time for that shit. My main and only concern is Dallyce.
“Anyone seen Rafe?” I yell as I stride across to the stables.
“He'all went up to the house after dinner. Said he was gonna let the princesses taste his rattlesnake.”
“I'm sure,” I snarl. “Jessop, you let me know if anyone hears from them.”
The truck's gone from out front so it doesn’t take me two and two to make four. But I don't have to let Nissa in on the calculation. I don't want her bugging me to bring her to the bar again. And I don't have time for any woman, with Dallyce filling my head and my prick with her decadent curves.
I apply knee pressure to move Cinders into gear and she takes off at a kilter, keen to be out under the stars for a night time run. She's worked herself up into a good sweat by the time I unsaddle and tie her up at the hitching rail in front of McDools. I see the pick-up parked across, so I know Rafe's here. I smooth Cinders and quickly calm her down.
“Be back soon. Soon as I've got our girl.”
I don’t know how Cinders is going to feel about having to share me with Dallyce but that's a bridge to cross once I claim her. And I will make her mine, no doubt about it now. The way my heart is racing, I need that girl in my life and in my bed. My cock is already unfurling with eagerness to see her.
“I'll bring you back a drink in two ticks,” I tell the only other female that's ever claimed my heart and head up the wooden steps to slam straight through the doors of the saloon.
I take in the entire joint in one circling stare.
“Whattup Shea,” Edie calls out from behind the bar. “Why are you standing there like Two-Hand-Luke?”
I realize she's right, I'm standing in front of the door like I'm ready to draw. Relaxing the tension across the back of my shoulders running into my taut biceps, I stride across to the bar and step up next to Quint, sitting at a shot and chaser, shooting the shit with Edie.
“Rafe been here long?” I grit out, forcing myself not to wade on over to the pool table where Dallyce is holding her cue like a staff, watching the guy she's playing with take his shot.
“'Bout an hour I guess,” Edie says.
Quint nods, not looking round. I know he takes everything in though. McDools is about the only place he ever hangs, outside of his forge on the ranch. He's a tough sort but a better horseshoe smith never lived. Old Foxworth, the ranch owner and our boss, has never been one for the factory made shoes and since Chloe came back from Europe with a load of fancy ideas, nothing but hand-forged will do for Foxworth horses.
“Those two girls are underage,” I tell her. “You could get in trouble if the Sheriff stops by.”<
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“Don't blame her,” Quint immediately steps up to defend her. “She carded them and Rafe told her it was all good. If she could lose her license, it's on you guys.”
“It's okay, I'm taking them outta here, now” I say with my hands raised for cool.
I've never seen Quint get all protective over anything but I know how he feels. Looking over at the pool table, which I've been clocking non-stop from the corner of my eye since I came in, I see Dallyce laughing too loud. It sets every cell in my body blazing that she's having a good time with some other guy but me.
When she bends over, one foot forward in front of the other so one ass cheek lifts higher in those skin tight jeans, I almost shoot my fucking load just looking at her. She's wearing a low-cut top and although I can't see her half-exposed round tits, from the way her opponent's gurning down, I know they look spectacular and I see red. Like a bull coming out of its pen I storm over there and grab her arm so she ruins her shot.
“What the fuck are you doing,” she yells, trying to snatch her arm away from my grip but no go.
“We're leaving.”
“Hey Mister, you better -” the young guy she playing with in every sense, tries it.
“I better what?” I round on him, towering tall and sending my chest to maximum shield width.
Bring it on. I need to fist something to the ground right about now. He backs off with his hands raised in submission. Good move.
The little filly on the other hand isn't so easy to dominate. She's thrashing and bucking in my hand like a wayward colt. Then she lifts her pretty thigh and plants her pointed toe on my shin. It hurts like hell and with light flashing behind my lids, before I know it, I grab her pliant body, lift her up and over my shoulder and storm out of the bar with all eyes on us.
I'm lucky I make it to the cool air before I lose my shit, what with having her tits pressed into the back of my shoulder and her high round ass under my palm.
Chapter EIGHT
Dallyce
I watched Shea Butler as he rode into the lot through the window, looking like he was on the run from the devil. Even through the glass, I could tell he was steamed up about something. My heart leaps up as he walks into the bar with the power and confidence of a man that knows what he wants and has come to take it. His eyes are ablaze with something that could get me burned.
Then disillusionment sinks in when I see he hasn’t come for me after all. He heads to the bar to hang with some rough guy with blackened hands and doesn’t even look my way. At least he didn’t bring Nissa along. Because that would have been a match in a powder barrel, for him to shove my face in his dalliance with a woman his own age.
I can't take my eyes off him as he leans casually against the bartop looking so hot. My eyes wander over his ass and thighs, filling out the low slung dark jeans. The large belt buckle he's got his thumb tucked into draws my eyes to the bulge right beneath. Even from here it's impressive.
“You're up, pretty lady,” Andy, the guy that invited me to the game nudges me out of my trance.
I was waylaid by the memory of last night and seeing Shea in all his glory. How that kept me awake all night, imagining that huge bulge pressing between my thighs and forcing me open for him.
“Right,” I say and pull out of his orbit.
But not far enough away from the hungry stare he's giving my nipples that I know are erect and sticking out like a pair of marksman's bullets in the low-cut tee I wore thinking I'd get some attention. I got my wish, just with the wrong person. I'm really regretting agreeing to play with Andy, now that Shea's here.
I don't intend to make him jealous although if he was that would at least indicate some level of interest. He's not aware of my presence though, or he is and he's letting me know he doesn't give a damn. It rips a hole in the fabric around my heart that he really isn't tempted by a quick sinful tumble.
I line up a shot and Andy immediately tips his head to one side, wondering why I didn't take the more obvious play. He doesn't know that this way I get to bend over in full view of the bar—where Shea's standing. I arch my back just as far as it will go and tilt my ass up in the air, even though that sets Andy to drooling like a dog.
As I draw my elbow back to cue the shot, I come flying back from the table, jerked into the grasp of the most handsome man on the planet. Even spitting nails, Shea is gorgeous. And he looks like he wants to kill something, especially when he rounds on Andy with a ferocious glare.
“I'm taking you home,” he growls. His fingers gouge into my arm and he looks like a wolf ready to pounce. He's acting like he owns me all of a sudden. I rip my arm away but he restrains me easily. Which only gets me mad. He's ignored me and told me nothing can ever happen and now he's determined to stop me having any fun.
“I'm not a child,” I snip.
“You're underage,” he grits out.
“I am not,” I squeal. He's being so unfair I kick him hard in the shin.
He barely registers the hit, like I’m an irritating gnat. Then I'm flying through the air, hauled in huge hands to land over his shoulder.
“Put me down.”
I pound my fists into his back as he storms for the door. It's like slamming into the side of a barn, his muscles are so solidly toned. When I waggle my legs in an attempt to land another swift kick to the groin, he only holds me more firmly. One hand wrapped around my upper thighs, the other flat across my ass.
My breasts fill with craving at being pressed into his man flesh. His two hands on me make juices pour from me, soaking my jeans and underwear.
He kicks the door closed behind him and strides across to Cinders.
“Now, are you going to sit and ride quietly or shall I throw you over like a wanted woman taken by the posse?”
“Are you nuts? What are you doing? I haven't done anything wrong.”
“As you want,” he tosses me face down, over Cinders back and the horse looks around with a languid 'What now' expression.
Shea's massive palm is still resting on my ass and I'm about to come undone with the need for him to slip between my thighs right here in the lot. Then he removes it and I let out a yelp that he takes for resistance because it comes right back down again, hard on my cheeks. The horse does a little two step but is trained for breaking in wild animals, so she holds firm.
“You brute, I'm going to -”
“What Princess? What are you going to do to me?”
He brings his hand down on my cheeks twice more and I squeal and writhe in rising ecstasy. Then he steps across to the horse trough and fills the pan. For a moment I think he's going to douse me with the cold water but he sets it down in front of Cinders who laps thirstily. He caresses her neck with some soft words that make me wild with hunger to hear the same.
Seeing stars from the spank and the unbridled need for Shea between my legs, all I want to do is run from the humiliation. Sliding my belly down the horse's flank until my feet touch the soft ground, I take off across the yard toward the truck.
In my deranged state, I run to the passenger side of the cab, so have to dash around the front to the driver's. Just as I reach the door my arms are pinned flat to my side. A rope tightens around my chest until I'm held firm and then the load comes on the lasso and Shea pulls me toward him.
“You big old bully,” I shout. “You can't rope me, I'm not one of your wild animals.”
“You sure act like a little wild cat,” he says.
“I haven’t done a thing.”
I can barely talk from all kinds of frustration pummeling at my core. Being roped by Shea is the most exciting thing ever. As he reels me in, my anticipation rises to the peak until I feel ready to go over the edge from tingles and sparks flying all over me. And then I'm brought up short backing into Shea's chest wall.
I whip around, ready to face him and give him a piece of my mind, but his fingers grip my chin to tip me up and his mouth crashes onto me. His tongue delves into me and tangles into mine, like he'd like to lick out ever
y part of me. His other hand slides down my pinned arm to cup my butt cheek and lift my leg. My foot travels up his shin so my pussy lips come apart and grind against his thigh.
I let out a needy moan into his mouth that elicits a guttural sound from Shea in return. He's dropped the rope so I loosen my bond and my hands are everywhere at once, tearing at him, finally getting my hands on the unbelievable solid bulge of every muscle. With his mouth all over me, I'm tugging at his belt buckle. I want him right now.
“Not here,” he grits out.
“Yes here.” I moan. “Here and now.”
Chapter NINE
Shea
My chest wall forces her to back up the length of the truck, out of the light spilling from the bar. She's mine alone and no other fucker is going to steal a single glimpse of this delicious body. I want to take her somewhere pretty that she'll love, somewhere romantic.
But that's talk crazy because there's no way we can break this. The heat pouring from both our bodies and crashing between us is off the scale. No way to slow it down now. She's tearing at my clothes, her little hands slamming against me, clenching me with her small finger points. She's coming undone with the need roaring through her.
For me.
Dallyce and her desire for me is more intoxicating than the strongest moonshine. My cock is adamant that we aren't walking away. I couldn't even if I wanted to.
I push her against the side of the truck and my fingers go inside the opening at her cleavage and tear the tee shirt and soft push up bra cup down together so her perky, high breast is exposed. The flesh melts, both soft and firm into my hand. I immediately tug the aroused nipple between my strong lips and circles fast jabs of my tongue around the solid little pellet. I feel her little body, malleable in my big ol' hands and I want to squeeze it mercilessly, it's just so damn hot.
“Oh god,” she wails with a shudder and daggers her fingers up through the waves at my neck, knocking my hat to the ground as she clamps my mouth deeper onto her.
