The Rancher's Rules

by Lucy Monroe

  “Come on, Grant. You took her for a midnight ride in your plane. What else were you going to do when you brought her back to the ranch?”

  “Take her home.”

  She let her expression speak her disbelief for her.

  “Zoe, I took Madeleine up in the plane so I wouldn’t take you to an empty line shack and finish what we’d started in the barn. I didn’t want to have sex with her.”

  For four years Zoe had taunted herself with the image of Grant and the willowy blonde in a clinch, and now he was telling her he had not even slept with the woman.

  “Then why did you reject me?”

  Confusion clouded his eyes. “Reject you? I never rejected you. You’re the one who ran from the barn wearing an expression that accused me of damn near attacking you.”

  “I never did!”

  He just stared at her.

  “Okay. So, I ran. I’d never experienced anything like that before. It scared me, and I wasn’t ready to make love for the first time.”

  “That’s what I said earlier.”

  “But I got ready.”

  His hands settled on her thighs. “What do you mean?”

  “I wanted to make love with you that night you took Madeleine up in your plane, after dropping me off at home like a pesky younger sister.”

  “Well, you couldn’t have wanted it very damn bad. You left for college two days later—a full month before you had to be back for classes. And you didn’t come home for a long visit again until you moved back a year ago.”

  Old anger and hurt welled up inside. “What did you expect me to do? Stick around and watch you have an affair with the bimbo model after treating me like your girlfriend for several weeks?” She shoved against his chest. “Let me down.”

  He didn’t move an inch. “No way. We’re talking this out.”

  “What’s the point? It happened years ago. It’s over and done with.”

  “If it were over for you, you wouldn’t have brought it up.”

  He was right, darn it. “Okay. Tell me again why you took Madeleine up in your plane if you didn’t want her, and while you’re at it try explaining why you had a rule against kissing me and why you asked Carlene out.”

  He wanted a conversation? He could do the talking as far as she was concerned.

  He opened his mouth and then closed it, an arrested expression coming over his face. “I did it all for the same reason. To protect you and our friendship.”

  “Oh, right.”

  His grip on her thighs tightened, reminding her that talking wasn’t the only thing on Grant’s mind. “You weren’t ready to make love when you were nineteen. You even admitted it. I knew if I didn’t do something, I’d end up seducing you.”

  “And seducing me would have been bad?”

  “Yes. You were nineteen. A teenager. Totally innocent. And if that weren’t enough you had two years left of college and a career choice that could have taken you anywhere in the country after you graduated.”

  Well, she was twenty-three now, but she was still pretty innocent. She wasn’t in college any longer, but her career could still take her away…if she wanted it to. She didn’t want to leave Sunshine Springs, but apparently Grant didn’t know that. “I came back to Sunshine Springs and you still had that stupid rule against kissing me.”

  He smiled wryly. “I was still stuck in that mode of protecting you from my evil desires. It’s a tough instinct to fight once embedded in the male psyche, and I’ve been protecting your feelings one way or another for the better part of my life.”

  “And Carlene?”

  “I’d done a pretty good job of forgetting how much I wanted you, but all of a sudden everything about you turned me on—and I knew if I didn’t do something I was going to seduce you.”

  Everything about her turned him on? Her fingers trembled as she laid them over his hand on her thigh. “And seducing me would still be a bad thing?”

  “I thought so—at first. But then I realized two things.”

  “What?”

  “One, you aren’t nineteen anymore.”

  “Four years of living will do that.”

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “Yeah.”

  “And the second thing?”

  “I can’t resist you.”

  “But you resisted Madeleine and Carlene?”

  “Absolutely, and without any problem.”

  A sudden thought stopped her from closing the distance between their mouths. “What about Bud and the parrot?”

  His laugh sounded something like a strangled groan. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but Tyler has already come by for the bird and your student’s dad picked up Bud this afternoon.”

  “That’s good.”

  He nodded, but said nothing, his intensity surrounding her like a physical presence. She opened her mouth to say something else—she wasn’t sure what—but his lips cut off anything she might have said. Passion exploded inside her like a launching space shuttle, fire and sound roaring through her with amazing force.

  The second his tongue touched her lips she opened for him. He groaned his approval and pulled her body into his, holding her still for one slanting kiss after another as the urgency behind each one increased with every subtle shift of his lips.

  He placed hot open-mouthed kisses against her chin and throat. “You smell like bleach.”

  She laughed, the sound coming out strangled. “I’ve been cleaning.”

  He tunneled his fingers in her hair and kissed her ear, tickling her with his tongue. It was a good thing she was sitting on the counter because her leg muscles had turned to water.

  He tugged her hair out of the ponytail holder she’d used to keep it out of her face while she was tidying up. “I didn’t know household cleaning products could be so erotic.”

  “Me neither.”

  He didn’t reply. His mouth was too busy tantalizing her collarbone. She didn’t mind. In fact, she threw her head back to give him better access. “I like that.”

  “You don’t taste like bleach. You taste so damn sweet. Just like I fantasized.”

  “You fantasized about me?”

  He licked the column of her neck and she shivered. “Yeah.”

  Remembering what he had said when he’d first got there, she asked, “Was I naked in these fantasies?”

  “Yes. I never forgot the sight of you without your top that one time we went crazy together in the barn.”

  That was nice. She melted back into his embrace, eager for another of his searing kisses.

  Talking about it was making Grant desperate to feel her naked flesh. Flowers weren’t the only things he’d bought at the grocery store. He leaned forward and scooped her up in his arms.

  She gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you to bed.” He leaned down to kiss her again. She averted her face, so he concentrated on her neck while making his way to her bedroom. He walked in and dropped her on the bed. He started stripping out of his clothes.

  She began to unbutton her blouse, and he stopped moving just to watch her.

  She stilled. “You’re watching me.”

  “I want to see you. All of you.” With a body as beautiful as hers, she should expect it—or had she always made love in the dark?

  Her cheeks turned a very pretty shade of pink. “I want to see you too, but there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “You know how tonight seems so much like four years ago?”

  Except for the fact that tonight he was going to have Zoe, and four years ago he had only dreamed about it. “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s a lot more like it than you might expect.”

  “What do you mean?” If she didn’t get to the point soon, he wasn’t sure he’d have the patience to let her.

  “I was prepared to give you my virginity that night, Grant.”

  He realized that was why she had been so hurt. “I wish I had known, querida. I would have handled th
ings differently.”

  “That’s the point. I need you to know now.”

  His breath stilled in his chest. “Are you saying you are still a virgin? None of the men you dated in college and since…?”

  “No.”

  His knees threatened to buckle. She’d never had another man. She belonged to him. Completely.

  “I…” He didn’t know what to say. Emotion welled up, clogging his throat.

  She finished unbuttoning her shirt. “Promise me something?”

  “Anything.” He was so overwhelmed with his desire to touch her that nothing else registered.

  She peeled out of her shirt and his fingers literally trembled with the need to touch the sweet flesh she’d exposed. She stopped with her hands on the front clasp of her bra. “Promise that you won’t regret this.”

  Regret it? He wanted her more than anyone or anything he had ever desired in his life. “The only thing I regret is how long you’re taking to get out of your clothes.”

  He loved the way her breath hitched at his words. “No more talk about spending time apart?”

  He frowned. How could she even suggest such a thing? They were about to make love. Her for the first time. And he liked that more than he should. “You know I only said that because I was worried about your reputation. I wanted to protect you.”

  She smiled. “We’ll have to discuss that tendency of yours sometime, but not right now.” She unclasped her bra.

  He was out of his jeans in seconds.

  He stopped his rush across the room when her wide brown eyes looked at his erection with a certain amount of trepidation. “It’s going to be okay, baby. I’ll be gentle.”

  She swallowed, and then shifted her gaze to his eyes. “I know. I trust you.” She opened her arms to him.

  He dived across the space that separated them, wanting to touch her, to taste the nipples that peaked at him like raspberries on top of two scoops of luscious, sweet, French vanilla ice cream.

  She gasped when he landed on her with a thud. He smiled, feeling like a predator blessed with the sweetest prey ever sighted. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” She sounded breathless, but not nervous, and for that he was very, very grateful.

  He shifted his weight to his forearms and started kissing her again. She hadn’t made it out of her jeans, and they rubbed against the bare skin of his thighs and his hardened male flesh, making him burn. He skimmed his hand down her shoulder, then over her chest, until he cupped the fullness of her breast against his palm. Its soft resiliency intoxicated him.

  She groaned, and bucked against him with her hips.

  He lifted his mouth from hers and looked down, drinking in the sight of his hand against her breast. “Zoe, mi precioso, you are so damn beautiful.”

  Zoe stilled beneath him and he looked up to her face. Crystalline tears trembled on her lashes.

  He sucked in his breath. “You okay?” She didn’t move. “What’s the matter? What did I say?”

  Maybe he was rushing things. She hadn’t seemed nervous, but maybe she was.

  “You think I’m beautiful?” Her smile did as much to warm him as her naked body beneath him. He bent his head and kissed each eyelid, brushing her tears with his lips.

  “I have always thought you were beautiful.”

  “You never said so.” Her voice trembled with emotion that Grant did not understand.

  “That’s not true. I’ve always told you I thought you were the prettiest girl in Sunshine Springs.”

  She sniffed. “But that was because you were my friend.”

  “It was because it was true. But it wasn’t enough, was it?” He brushed his index finger over her pebbled nipple. “You’re beautiful. Pretty doesn’t cut it.” He wanted to taste her. Moving down until he could take the sweet little bud in his mouth, he reveled in her silky skin. “You are so soft.”

  She groaned and bowed under him, pressing her breast against his lips. “Grant, I want you to touch me everywhere.”

  He was more than willing to oblige. He started by nibbling on the tender, creamy flesh surrounding the wet morsel he’d been suckling.

  She nearly came off the bed. “Don’t stop. Oh, please, don’t stop.”

  He caressed her shoulders, her rib cage, and reached under her to squeeze her bottom. Her hands twisted in his hair, pulling his head tight against her breast, silently begging for more of the same.

  “Oh, Grant, oh, Grant, oh, Grant.”

  Exultation filled him at the need he heard in her voice. He lifted his mouth and she protested. He smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I’m not done yet, but you still have too many clothes on.”

  He levered himself off of her and immediately set about unbuttoning her jeans. He unzipped them and then put his hands on her waistband, ready to tug them off. She lifted her hips for him. She wiggled until he got the denim past her derriere. He stopped. He could not help it. The scrap of turquoise silk covering her most intimate place paralyzed him.

  She looked at him with a question in her eyes.

  He licked lips suddenly gone dry. “Do you realize what a privilege this is? How honored I feel that you chose me to be your first lover, querida?”

  “That’s nice—but could you get on with it?” She wasn’t smiling, because he knew she wasn’t trying to tease him. She meant it, and that did things to him. Her eyes were filled with heated desire. “I feel like I’m going to die waiting for you,” she moaned.

  He smiled and felt things inside him shift. Where he had been mindless with his desire to couple with her, he now had an overwhelming need to cherish her first. To show her how much he appreciated the gift of being able to touch her and be with her.

  Of being her first lover.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “GRANT?”

  He slid her pants an inch down her thighs. “Yes?”

  “Um, are you going to take off my jeans, or what?”

  He loved the sound of impatience in her voice, loved knowing he was doing this to her. “Oh, I’m going to take off your jeans, all right. Relax, Zoe. I want to cherish you.”

  She put her hands over his and pushed on her jeans. “Cherish me naked, okay?”

  He laughed, the sound strangling in his throat. “I guess I can do that.”

  Moving back to the edge of the bed by her feet, he pulled her pants off and stood back to appreciate the sight of her in nothing but the little scrap of fabric covering her most feminine place. She was so beautiful and, at least for right now, she was his. Totally and completely.

  He leaned forward and kissed her stomach, letting his tongue explore the indentation of her belly button, reveling in the way she writhed below him. She was so responsive and still a virgin. Somehow he knew, even if she didn’t, that she had been waiting for him.

  Kissing a trail over her smooth skin, he stopped when he reached the top of her panties. Taking them in his teeth and hooking his fingers on the waistband at either side, he pulled them off.

  Slowly. Very, very slowly.

  She groaned and squirmed, trying to get her legs free, but he kept her captive with the panties as he continued down the naked flesh of her legs centimeter by centimeter.

  She shouted his name and he felt a sense of primitive male power surge through him. She wanted him. Damn, it felt good. He finally brought the scrap of silk over her ankles and then her feet. Standing up, he dropped them on the floor.

  The sight of her naked body on the rumpled bedding once again paralyzed him. He had sublimated the feelings rushing through him for so long, it was almost impossible to believe he was here, in Zoe’s old bedroom, with Zoe lying on the bed wearing nothing but a dusky red blush.

  He’d had other women, but he could never remember feeling like this. This was more than physical. Hell, it was more than mere emotion. There was something spiritual about making love to this woman.

  He met her eyes and smiled. “You’re blushing.”

  Her lips twisted in a shy frown. “You�
�re staring at me.”

  “I can’t help it. You’re so perfect.” Didn’t she realize that?

  “I’m not perfect.”

  He gave her a considering look. “Yes, you are. Let me show you.” He picked up her foot and started giving nibbling kisses to each tiny digit. “Your feet are so sexy that just the sight of this little toe—” he wiggled her pinky toe “—gets me so hot my jeans get uncomfortable.”

  She stared at him, her mouth opened slightly, her brown eyes dark with emotion.

  He gave her instep an open-mouth kiss, letting his tongue tickle it before pulling back. “You’ve got a really erotic arch, niña. You could do feet commercials.”

  “Feet commercials?” Her voice broke in the middle of the word commercials.

  “Uh-huh.” His lips moved their way up her calves to the inside of her knee. Her breathing became ragged. So did his. He knew where he was going and, by the tensing of her thighs, he figured she did too.

  “Grant?”

  “Sweetheart, you’ve got legs that could stop traffic. I have never appreciated your particular style of dress as much as I do at this moment. If you wore short skirts, I wouldn’t get any work done. I’d spend all my time staring at your sexy knees.” He punctuated each word with a kiss on one of her legs.

  “Sexy knees? I didn’t know anyone had sexy knees.”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, you’re perfect.”

  Then he zeroed in on his target, gently parting her swollen flesh with his tongue and licking the slick little bud at the apex of her femininity. Zoe’s hips strained up off the bed and she screamed. He flicked her with his tongue while inserting a finger slowly into her hot, moist, very tight passage. He wanted this to be perfect for her.

  He wanted her to remember this night as the most wonderful experience of her life.

  “Grant!” His name sounded like both a demand and a plea.

  He gave in to both and pulled her swollen button of love into his mouth, suckling it like he had her nipple earlier. Her scream reverberated through his body like an electric charge.

  “Please, please, please…”

  Did she even know what she was begging for? What he planned to give her? She bucked against him and he continued kissing her intimately, until he could taste her sweet honey flow and she shuddered with release against his mouth. She cried out again, a high-pitched scream that went on for several seconds. He didn’t stop his ministrations and she thrashed against the bed, trying to dislodge him and press herself more firmly against him all at the same time.