Nightfall

by Joey W. Hill

  What was it she'd said? There's a different kind of male power, Quinn. One that you've always known is waiting for you, waiting to serve a woman if she knows where to look for that treasure.

  It would have to be on her terms. Could he accept that?

  Maybe.

  Maybe that was why he'd had the dream. A message that she was unlocking a side to him he'd never acknowledged but sensed, particularly in his growing dissatisfaction with his existing relationships. He saw it as a battle of wills, himself the animal craving to be both goaded and tamed. While one part of his brain said fuck, no the other part said more, more, more.

  Forcibly shutting down his internal dialogue, he shoved himself out of bed and padded into the bathroom. In the shower he realized he couldn't possibly get dressed with his penis so heavy and hard. As he leaned against the tile wall of the shower, hot water beating down on him, he stroked himself roughly to completion.

  Closing his eyes, he imagined standing before her. His mouth grew dry at the vision of her spun-gold hair drifting around her face, the pale tracery of veins beneath her delicate skin, the faint beat of her pulse at the sweet hollow of her throat, blue eyes gleaming with hunger as she watched him come for her. Maybe when he was finished she'd lift his hand and lick it clean before wrapping those moist lips around his cock.

  Stop!

  He had to get dressed. Get outside. The hands were moving part of the herd from one pasture to another today and everyone was needed, including him. His hand was shaking as he turned off the stream of water and stepped out to dry himself. He managed to pull on his clothes and his boots without passing out, but his body was so weak it took a supreme effort of concentration.

  By the time he reached the kitchen he had thankfully managed to pull himself together.

  "Everyone else ate and headed out," Annette scolded.

  The woman had come with the ranch, so to speak, having served as housekeeper for the previous owner. She lived in a tiny house just past the barn that looked as if it had been built one year before God, but she always assured him that it suited her just fine. No, she didn't need him to make any improvements, thank you very much, so quit pestering her about it. Quinn wasn't sure of her exact age. Somewhere between forty and sixty, he guessed, with a solid body. She wore her graying dark hair in a long braid down her back and he'd never seen her with makeup. Or clad in anything except jeans and shirts, come to think of it. She dispensed the law of man according to Annette along with the most delicious meals he'd ever eaten, and kept the hands under tight control. Every morning he prayed she hadn't decided to pull up stakes and move on.

  "Late night?" she prodded.

  "Hard night at the bar," he mumbled.

  That had been the damn truth. Only it wasn't the bar that had been hard.

  Annette poured coffee into a mug for him and took two egg and sausage biscuit sandwiches out of the oven. She studied his face. "You'll kill yourself running the ranch and that bar at the same time."

  He swallowed some of the coffee. "I think I might have fixed that last night."

  "Yeah?" She lifted an eyebrow. "Not with that piece of trash Artie you've had in there."

  Quinn smiled, remembering Selene's attitude where Artie was concerned.

  "No, Annette. Artie's history." Another gulp of coffee. "Got myself a new one who knows what she's doing."

  "She?" Annette's jaw dropped. "I heard the boys saying something about it when they ate but I didn't pay it much attention. Where'd you get her? What makes you think a woman can handle those roughnecks, anyway?"

  "She wandered in looking for a job. Can you believe it? By the end of the night she had everyone eating out of her hand."

  Annette barked a short laugh. "This I gotta see."

  "Maybe I can coax her out here for one of your meals sometime."

  When exactly would that be, you idiot?

  Last night he'd wanted very badly to spend the rest of it with her but she was adamant.

  "Vampires need to sleep. Alone."

  Vampires, for shit's sake.

  Of course, between Sam's shaman stuff and his grandfather's tales, it didn't sound near as crazy as it should. He slugged down the rest of the coffee and picked up the two breakfast sandwiches. "I expect the boys are already out with the herd?"

  "And probably cussing you for sleeping in."

  Quinn looked at his watch. Six thirty. Yeah, she was right. But that damn dream--

  "On my way."

  He strode to the barn to retrieve his black gelding, Midnight, and saddle him. While he was doing that, Kevin Lang limped out of the barn. Unable to work the cattle after an accident, he now kept the tack in shape and made sure the stalls were mucked and the horses fed.

  "They're all out in the west pasture, Quinn." The old man squinted up at him. "Heard you drive in real late last night. I'm surprised you can even sit a horse today."

  "I'm fine, old man." About to get better. "See you later."

  He wolfed down one of the breakfast sandwiches before swinging up into the saddle and urging Midnight forward. As he cantered past the barn, Annette's little place and the bunkhouse, he skirted around the big steel building that held his small private plane.

  Along with having a ranch, flying his own plane had been another deep-seated goal. He'd taken some of his rodeo winnings and bought the little two-seater for a good price, had the steel building thrown up, tarmac poured for the runway and some landing lights installed. Though he used the plane sometimes to check fences and water holes, he hadn't had the opportunity to use it for pleasure, embrace the sense of freedom flying brought him. Maybe if Selene worked out at After Hours he'd be able to take off for some place now and then.

  With Selene.

  Yeah, he'd like that. Always supposing he could talk her into it.

  Riding to the west pasture, he relished the feel of the big horse beneath him, muscles moving rhythmically between his thighs.

  Unbidden, his mind called up the image of Selene straddling him last night, riding him as he rode this bronc, the silken fall of her hair like a curtain surrounding him. Did she get the same feeling when her thighs were pressed against his body? Did the same sense of dominance race through her, the edge of excitement at controlling such power with just a touch of the hand or a flex of thigh muscles?

  There was that word again. Dominance. He hadn't been able to get it out of his head.

  Quinn was far from a sexual novice and Lord knew he'd played his share of kinky games. But this thing with Selene was something way beyond that. When he drove his cock into her he'd felt like a bucking horse thrusting into a brood mare. Her being in complete control of the situation only ramped up the lust and desire boiling inside him.

  He couldn't lie to himself. The sex had been amazing. No, beyond that. Mind-blowing. His mouth watered as he recalled the perfect deep rose of her nipples and the sweet pink flesh of her cunt.

  Business, Pedraza. Pay attention. You have a ranch to run.

  The men were already rounding up the cattle when he reached the west pasture. He kept a crew of four experienced and dependable hands who needed little supervision from him. They'd taught him everything he now knew about ranching, all the things he'd refused to learn as a boy. He shook his head over the memory of that sullen adolescent, the rebellious teenager who could have ended up doing nothing with his life, if other factors hadn't intervened. Well, one major factor. Sam.

  He wondered what the old shaman would think of Selene. He'd probably get that sage look on his face but say something smartass, like a 1950s cheesy western flick. "White man who thinks with his little head ends up losing his big one."

  "Hey, Quinn." Johnny Barragan urged his horse forward and trotted over to greet him. His foreman had worked for the old man who owned Last Chance before Quinn and knew more about ranching than even Quinn's dad had. "Planning to wait until we got all the cows moved before you got your ass out of bed?"

  Moving part of the herd from one pasture to the othe
r in preparation for planting new grain was something they could almost do in their sleep. Considering his schedule lately, today he was more than grateful for that. Even so, he had to give the guys a hard time. Part of the comfortable routine of the day.

  "Yeah." Quinn grinned at Johnny. "Thought I'd let you guys do all the hard work before I showed up."

  "Heard you got a fine new bartender."

  Quinn frowned. "News sure travels fast. I just hired her last night."

  Johnny nodded. "Word is Artie's been blabbing to everyone how he got thrown out on his ass for no good reason."

  "Artie needs to shut his mouth before I punch his head down where the sun don't shine. But yeah, he's out. Thank God. Got someone in there who knows how to run a bar. Tamed the help and the customers without even raising her voice."

  And me.

  "We could sure use a fine-looking woman around here," the cowboy said.

  Quinn's fists knotted on the reins. "Pass the word the rule is hands off, Johnny. No one touches her or they'll have to go through me."

  The man's eyes rose almost to the Stetson that sat on his head. "That so? Any special reason?"

  "Because I said so. Now let's get to work."

  Johnny gave him a speculative look but trotted back off. As they all fell into a working rhythm like a choreographed ballet, Quinn was nevertheless glad that they were only moving a small part of the herd today, because his mind kept wandering. He had the feeling he'd been bewitched.

  "I'm a vampire."

  Had she really said that? Did she even expect him to take her seriously?

  In Texas, outrageous legends were as common as household pets. So many had been handed down by the Comanche who had settled this particular area of the state. His grandfather had told him plenty of those stories. The one uppermost in his mind was the chupacabra, the bloodsucking beast who wreaked havoc wherever it went.

  Legends are not necessarily fantasy, haitsi.

  Sam again. Given how tumultuous his thoughts were today, it was no wonder that the man who'd shown him how to find a quiet inside, who'd helped point him toward better goals than rebelling against his father's hardness, would be coming to mind again.

  He wondered if Sam would believe Selene was a vampire. If he did, Quinn knew he might just do the same, without question. That was how much faith he had in Sam's judgment.

  He still remembered the day Sam had first shown up in his life. One of the hands, out riding fence line, had radioed in to Quinn's dad that there was an intruder who'd set up camp on the edge of the north pasture by a tiny stream. Quinn's father had gone out there with couple of hands to send him on his way. Curiously, when he returned, he'd merely said the man meant no harm and suggested the owner allow him to camp there a couple weeks. He'd also told Quinn and his brothers not to bother him.

  Which meant Quinn went out there to get a look. The man was anywhere from sixty to a hundred and sixty, white hair flowing past his shoulders, creased skin leathered by the sun. Piercing blue eyes looked Quinn up and down when he rode up as if he was the stranger.

  Then the stranger rose gracefully and held out his hand.

  "I'm Sam," he said in a voice that, hand to God, sounded as if it rolled out of the deep earth where centuries of his ancestors might be buried.

  Quinn's grandfather had told him stories of men like Sam Red Elk. Not shamans, but Native American philosophers. His grandfather had died when Quinn was very young, no more than seven or eight, but he'd made an indelible impression on him, a stark contrast to his own father. Maybe for that reason and some inexplicable others, he'd sneaked out and camped overnight with Sam more than once. On that handful of nights, Sam had taught Quinn what peace and serenity was. He'd helped Quinn let go of his angers from his many clashes with his father and helped him find the quiet he'd needed to center himself, decide what he wanted to do with his life.

  Ironically--given how much he'd always thought he hated this life--what he'd realized he'd wanted was to own his own ranch.

  But it wasn't necessarily those memories of Sam that were dogging Quinn's mind today. It was the glimpse of a different world where outlandish things were possible, and the stories Sam had told him that supported that idea. Stories so unbelievable Quinn had to believe they were true. No one could make up such fanciful things.

  A land so big and open as this, with so many empty spaces, made a man consider things other people scoffed at. But he'd had a real live piece of it up close and personal. After Quinn had bought the Last Chance Ranch, Sam had come back into his life, camped out on the edge of the property for nearly a year. He'd said he was monitoring some kind of magical fault line, one of the things that had made him recommend the place for Quinn. It has good energy, haitsi. You'll be happy here.

  Quinn hadn't known how to process that, at least not until he'd seen firsthand what Sam had meant about "monitoring". He could say it was tricks played by the dusk hours, but he still vividly remembered the night he'd stayed with the shaman on the spring solstice. Sam had laid a hand on him while his eyes were closed and Quinn had felt the energy of the earth beneath them. That fault line was a living, breathing snake the size of a river, coiling and moving, carrying them. It filled Quinn up, held him under, held him still in every part of him and told him the world was way damn more than he'd ever know, even if he lived a thousand years.

  Sam had opened his eyes at one point, and Quinn had looked deep into the center of the earth. Maybe the man had spoken, maybe he hadn't, but he'd heard the words as if they were writing themselves across his soul.

  You will find your heart in the otherworld, Quinn. The world men deny because they fear its strength. They fear losing control of what they know. Be brave, Quinn, and find your heart.

  If Selene was a vampire, that would qualify as the otherworld, wouldn't it?

  He wanted to scoff at himself, but he remembered those energies uncoiling beneath his feet, in Sam's eyes, inside of Quinn himself. Damn, he sure could use some advice from Sam. He lived in Nevada now. Quinn missed him, but he knew the man was as close as a phone call or a day trip in his plane. The line with Sam had always felt sure and strong.

  Lifting a hand, Quinn touched the bite mark on his neck. He could easily dismiss it as a love bite. Other women had marked him that way before. But this one appeared more detailed and precise. That had been no nip, but a full, locking penetration that set a tingle to his balls just thinking about it. Had she actually drunk his blood? When her silky skin had pressed against his and her sensuous lips caressed his neck, he'd felt lightheaded. Last night he'd chalked it up to the incredible intensity of the orgasm, but was it more than that?

  Maybe she was just one of those Goth freaks who liked to pretend she was a vampire. There were towns in Texas where whole groups of people dressed in black and red and made themselves up to look like denizens of another world. Even brewed bloodlike concoctions they drank, saying it empowered them. Quinn thought they were crazy, but to each his own. Selene seemed as far from those people as it was possible to be, but she'd given no clue as to where she came from.

  Whatever she was, she'd mesmerized him last night, leading him in an exquisite erotic dance.

  When had he ever seen himself as a submissive? Yeah, he knew what the word submissive meant. You didn't get to be his age with his experience and not know a whole lot about the different sides of sex. Or the fantasies that just being near her seemed to evoke. He could still feel the press of the leather belt confining his wrists.

  Okay, the sex with Selene, both real and imagined, was beyond amazing, but regardless of last night's play and his early morning dream, he was still a guy. He needed to establish more balance between them if they were to continue on with this--whatever it was. There was no question that they'd be moving forward. The lust and hunger boiling between them wasn't going to disappear.

  He should take the reins a whole lot more. Right? Last night he'd been willing to let her lead the dance because, truth be told, he wanted her with
a hunger he wasn't sure would ever be appeased. But tonight would be different. The roles would be reversed. He would be in charge and the lovely Selene would do his bidding. Count on it.

  A sharp whistle pierced the air, interrupting his conversational duel with himself. "Hey, Quinn."

  As Dave Ojeda spurred his horse in Quinn's direction, Quinn pulled up on Midnight's reins and waited for the hand to join him. "What's up? Looks like we're in good shape here." The herd was moving slowly but compactly. They hadn't had to chase dogies or look for lost calves.

  "We are, but Johnny and I wondered if you want us to head them a little farther north. The next pasture is still showing signs of a lot of new growth. We might want to give it a little more time to fully mature."

  Quinn lifted his Stetson, wiped his forehead with his forearm and resettled his hat on his head. "I guess. If you guys don't mind the extra time. It means making sure we get them through two gates."

  Dave chuckled. "They're just moseying along in this heat. I don't think they'll give us any trouble."

  "Okay then. Thanks for noticing. I'll go on ahead and open the gate and ride sentry."

  As Dave nodded, Quinn turned Midnight in that direction. Then Dave hollered after him again.

  "While you're going that way, can you give that cow that's decided to wander a nudge back with her friends?"

  "Sure. No problem."

  Quinn urged Midnight forward with the pressure of his knees to where the stray cow was ambling from the herd. When it refused to respond to Midnight's insistent movements, Quinn uncoiled the single-tail whip hooked at the side of the saddle and cracked it in the air. The cow gave him a what the hell look but turned and moved back to the others. He flicked the whip once more for good measure.

  Looping the whip onto his saddle again, he recalled Selene's words from the night before. "Do you own a whip?"

  Exactly what the hell did she think she was going to do with it? He wasn't into pain. Was he?

  This was ridiculous. He never let himself get distracted while he was working. The ranch was serious business to him. He'd known this woman less than twenty-four hours, spent only a brief time with her in bed, yet his body burned for her and his mind kept drifting back to her. On sex. With her. Hunger simmered constantly beneath the surface like liquid on a slow flame.