“Hey.”
“Hey? That’s all you have to say to me.”
“I was going for effect,” I told her and closed the distance between us so I could hold her in my arms. “I missed you babe.” She sank into my arms, her body relaxing and softening against mine.
“I missed you too Keane, but what are you doing here?” She blinked up at me with questions in her eyes. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. Seamus and Rosie are somewhere in the South Pacific.” Not that she cared, they hadn’t spoken since Seamus left and I didn’t blame her even if it would make things awkward when he returned. “I couldn’t wait another moment to see you. To hold you. To taste you.” I’d dreamed about it the whole flight over, how it would feel to have her again.
“Mmm, I’m glad because I had a surprise all planned for tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah?”
She nodded. “Hell yeah.” She slipped from my arms and disappeared down the hall. Five minutes later she came back looking like every forbidden fantasy I’d ever had about her. “What do you think?”
What did I think? I thought she looked like the perfect wet dream in her white see thru lingerie that gave me the perfect view of her rosy pink nipples along with the dark strip of hair between her legs. “I think you are everything I ever wanted.”
She sighed and leapt into my arms, wrapping her legs around me. “Perfect. That’s just what I was going for.” And her lips were on mine, attacking them hungrily while my hands roamed her lace covered body. She gasped when I squeezed her ass and one finger slid into her opening.
“You should never wear panties again,” I growled and she laughed
“Maybe you should give me a reason to toss them out,” she teased, licking my neck and nibbling my ear. Pretty much driving me out of my fucking mind.
I laid her on the sofa and quickly got rid of my pants and boxers, my cock jerked at her hungry gaze and the way she licked her lips as she reached out to me. “You can suck me off later, right now I just need to be inside you.” She opened her legs wider in response, giving me a perfect view of that wet pink pussy, lips glistening deliciously. “Just one,” I told her and knelt between her legs so I could get a taste of her sweet pussy before I slid deep into her.
“Keane,” she cried out, hips jerking so enticingly I just had to have another taste. And another until her arousal dripped between us.
“So fucking good,” I told her and thrust all the way in. “Love you,” I told her and proceeded to fuck her until we were both sweaty and panting. You ready to come?”
“Always,” she answered breathlessly and reached between us. Instead of reaching for her clit she grabbed my balls. “I love you Keane. So much. And I love your cock,” she said and gave a gentle squeeze.
Suddenly my control snapped and I pounded hard into her, sinking deeper when she wrapped those shapely legs around me, digging her feet into my ass. Hard and deep I went, keeping a furious pace that hurtled us both straight into satisfaction. Pleasure. Blind fucking pleasure that I swear had me seeing stars. My name fell from her lips like a prayer as she came. “ I roared my own pleasure into the mostly empty apartment and fell on top of her.
“That’s how a boyfriend is supposed to greet you.”
Boyfriend. I hated that term. I was too old to be anybody’s boyfriend. “And how does a fiancé greet his woman?”
Confusion flashed in her eyes but it quickly turned to naughtiness. “My guess is with more oral.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped at her unexpected comment. I used the moment to roll over and reach for my jeans, pulling out a velvet box and opening it.
“Then I guess you’d better give me the right answer.” I wasn’t a traditional kind of guy, but I was already kneeling beside her, so I grabbed one of her hands and held it to my chest. “Fiona O’Malley you have been torturing me in one way or another for your whole life. I’ve loved you for much longer than I should have, but now that I have you, I can’t see ever letting you go. Wherever we go, whatever we do, I just want us to be together. Will you marry me?”
Tears swam in her blue eyes but she gave me a toothy smile as she nodded. “Hell yeah I can’t wait to be your wife!” She tackled me to the ground and kissed me until I was breathless and hard all over again. “You really want to marry me?”
“More than anything, Fi.” She ground against me and I groaned, wondering if I would always feel so hungry, so wild when it came to her. “In fact, I thought maybe you wanted to drive over to Vegas and then spend the week driving back to Boston. Just the two of us.”
Her gaze softened. She nestled against me, bringing my cock to a rest right at her opening, but she had that soft-love look and I knew she was about to get mushy. “I guess I got lucky when I fell in love with you Keane. I knew you were a good man and now I know you’re also a romantic.”
I frowned. “No one said anything about romance, Fi.”
She laughed at me. “Oh yeah what do you call the road trip I always wanted as our first honeymoon?”
“I love you Fi and I just want you to be happy, that has nothing to do with romance.”
She laughed and then kissed me, slow and sweetly. “Fine but what about the food warming in the oven?”
“That’s just to keep you fueled up for the night ahead,” I told her as I grasped her hips and slipped inside her body.
“Speaking of head,” she purred as her hips rolled in a figure eight that drove me wild. “How do you feel about road head? I hear all the kids are doing it.”
“Right now Fiona, I’ll give you anything you want.”
Her gaze turned serious and her movement became quick and shallow. “It’s a good thing that you’re the only thing I want Keane. Forever.”
“Come closer and let me love you then.” I pulled her close and kissed her, knowing our life together would be filled with love and passion. Just as it always had been, only now it would be better. Deeper.
Lasting.
The End
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Seal’d To The Cowboy
Lance
“Ready to go, Starling?”
I turned my head, locating the voice coming from the grizzled old man with the huge cowboy hat. It was good old Hank! He was here to take me back to the ranch. I should have known.
It had been a long, long journey, in more ways than one. Five years of service with the SEALs, and now it was almost over. The final leg was driving back to the ranch, which would take about half a day from the airport.
I ran a hand over my chin. Stubble had formed, I hadn’t had time to shave. Once the decision had been made, I just legged it. From Iraq to New York, and then another plane to Wyoming.
I held out my hand. “Hank, you’re gold,” I said to the man. His face split with a smile from ear to ear.
Hank was the head ranch hand at my ranch, the Starling Ridge. He had taken the reigns while I was on service, and since the old man had died. I hadn’t been back to the ranch in over two years.
“You look like shit,” Hank grinned, then enveloped me in a bear hug. Damn, it felt good. I had been through things lately that had made me miss home so bad, it almost twitched like the nerve endings from an absent limb.
Lance Starling. Special Forces SEAL. Hero. The names and labels that were once me. They felt like the drooping ribbons pinned to the chest of a child after winning a second-grade sprint.
“Hell, some things never change, Hank,” I told the old ranch hand. “Still full of compliments, you old son of a bitch.”
Hank laughed. It felt like old times. We made our way to the parking lot.
I stopped when we got to the car. “Old Betsy is still running?” I couldn’t believe it. The 1970’s Chevy pick-up was here in all her glory. I thought she would have been relegated to the scrap heap years ago.
“Still purrs
like a woman under my hands,” Hank grinned. We climbed into the old girl. I smiled to myself. Travelling in Betsy, we’d be lucky to make it home before dusk. The old girl didn’t clock anything over fifty on the speedometer.
We got out onto the Interstate. Hank turned the dial to his favorite country station. The sound of Waylon Jennings crackled through the speakers, warbling about lost love.
I stared out the window. My eyes saw the mountains of my home state, but in my mind’s eye I could still see that arid desert in Iraq, where everything had gone to shit…
“Sorry about Jack.” Hank’s voice broke into my reverie. His voice was gruff.
“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” I replied. What was there to say, when your best friend since elementary school had just been killed?
“Want to talk about it?”
“You know I can’t, Hank.” I flicked a small spider that was crawling on the dash. “Classified.”
“Hell, Lance, I’m not asking for details,” Hank responded. His eyes were still on the road. “I know that you can’t talk about that. But how did he die, at least? His parents have been told nothing. I think they deserve to know a little. Gemma, too.”
Gemma.
The letters of her name hung in the air. Hank had brought her to life; it was almost like the scent of her perfume seemed to fill the old Chevy. And now I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Gemma Fox. Fox by name, and fox by nature.
Back at Clear Creek High, it had always been the three of us. Jack, Gemma, and I. She had been the one girl who had always done it for me; no one else even came close. There had been a time when I was almost there with her. But Jack had stepped in, and then it was all over. Done, dusted. They had gone steady since senior year, and written each other for a long time after Jack and I joined the SEALS.
But they had broken up by long distance two years ago. Jack had been tight lipped about it, I never knew what had gone wrong. I knew that Jack had played around, bedding quite a few of the women who hung around where we drank on our time off. I had always said how fucked up it was, with a woman like Gemma at home. How could you play around on that?
The thought of Gemma – luscious breasts, ample curves, lips like bee stung pillows – filled my mind, but I could never go there. There was just too much history between her and Jack.
“Lance?”
The spider started to crawl back up the dash from where I had flicked it. Crystal Gayle was crooning from the radio about not making her brown eyes blue.
“Things went wrong,” I said eventually. “The mission was supposed to be straight forward, but we were duped. Jack was caught in the crossfire.” I felt my hands ball into fists. It still rubbed, badly, that I couldn’t save him.
“Gemma will ask you when we get to the ranch,” Hank said.
“She’s at the ranch?” That got my attention.
Hank turned to look at me, taking his eyes off the road momentarily. “She’s been working as the ranch cook for a year now,” he drawled. “Ever since her bakery in Clear Creek went belly up. Your Pa took pity on her. She needed a job. And she’s the best damn cook in Wyoming. Her barbeque ribs are so sweet they make a grown man cry.”
I laughed, despite myself. Old Hank sure did have a neat turn of phrase.
But I was unsettled.
I wanted to see her. Oh God, I wanted to see her so badly I could feel my cock tighten at the thought. But as much as I wanted to, I didn’t want to.
Gemma brought memories to the surface, that a man wanted to forget.
And then there was the laptop.
I could almost feel it on the back seat of Betsy; it was burning through the canvas of the bag like some artefact out of an Indiana Jones flick.
Jack’s laptop. Along with some of his other stuff, which I had taken after it had happened, intending to give it to his parents.
I wasn’t searching for anything personal, I had just been looking for something that might lead to what had gone wrong on that mission.
But when I saw her email address, I just couldn’t resist.
I had read it all. The disintegration of their relationship, how she suspected he was cheating on her, and how lonely she was. How she was trying to stay true to him, but he was so distant.
And then there were other things…
I felt the tightening in my loins again. Gemma. A real, hot blooded woman. She liked to talk dirty, saying in detail the things she would like Jack to do to her.
Which Jack never did, apparently.
I stared out the window, watching those mountain ranges whizz past.
Every mile bringing me closer to her.
Gemma
“Woo hoo Gemma girl, you sure look good in that dress.”
I felt the hand on my ass and turned quickly to swat it away. Old Forbes again, of course. That man had stickier fingers than the icing on a cinnamon bun.
“Now, Forbes, what have I told you about keeping your hands to yourself?” I stood there, hands on hips, looking down at him. He was seated at the long wooden table, wolfing down his second bowl of my chilli. Or had been, before seeing me.
Forbes grinned sheepishly. “Ah, Miss Gemma, you know I don’t mean no harm.”
I kept frowning, but I couldn’t help it. A smile broke through. These old timers really didn’t mean harm, they had just been brought up in a different time, and their habits were hard to break. I wouldn’t tolerate the same from the younger ones.
“Okay.” I pretended to cuff him. “Know better for next time.”
I walked back to the kitchen, ready to check on the apple pies in the oven.
It had certainly been a learning curve working at the ranch. I had had to dust off all the old favorite recipes that the ranch hands demanded. Mostly variations on steak…chicken fried steak, bison steak, beef steak, Rocky Mountain oysters. I didn’t mind, I loved all the old stuff just as much as they did. It was Mumma’s home cooking, pure and simple.
I had been trying to do something different at my bakery, though.
Maybe too different. The good folk of Clear Creek hadn’t appreciated my chouquettes and Portuguese tarts so much. They just liked their regular bakery fare. I had good business for a while when they were checking me out and because they were a loyal bunch, but it had bottomed out after only a year. I had to close a few days before Christmas. Not even the holiday rush could get me through.
It had been depressing. I had sulked for a while, then dusted myself off and started looking for other work. I had to look to the future. Old Mr Starling had heard I was looking, and offered me the chance to be head cook on his ranch.
It was a good job, great pay, nice lifestyle. But I hesitated.
I knew in my heart it was because of Lance.
I hadn’t seen him in years, not since Jack and I had broken up. And I hadn’t seen much of him prior, either. It was like he wanted to keep his distance, which hurt. It hurt like hell. Shoot, we had once been so close, we had almost…
I shook my head, trying not to burn myself on the pies as I got them out of the oven. I couldn’t afford to get distracted in the kitchen – I could lose a finger, scald myself, anything. You had to concentrate all the time when you were head cook.
“Jessie, could you start cutting these up?” I instructed to my assistant. The girl smiled, grabbing a knife and attacking the pies like they were about to leap up and bite her.
Pies out, I leaned against the kitchen bench, staring out at the three long wooden tables where the ranch hands were wolfing down their lunch. I liked it here, I really did. But Lance was coming home today, and I was nervous. I had managed to keep busy all morning, but the thought kept pushing its way to the top of my mind.
What would he be like? And would he tell me anything about what had happened to Jack?
I was over Jack, I really was. But I was still shocked and sad when I heard he had been killed. We had a long history. We were high school sweethearts. He had taken me to the prom. I had thought then that it w
as forever. You know, the white dress, the picket fence, two kids in the back of the pick-up. Sitting beside each other in the retirement home.
But Jack had changed. He started to get short with me, and irritated with my emails. When he was on his missions, it was the way we mostly communicated.
Then I heard the rumors, whispers at first, then stronger. Of how he would play around when he was on shore leave. Sometimes I only knew after the fact that he had been home at all.
I put two and two together. I mightn’t have been top of the class in math, but I could figure that out.
“Gemma?”
I swung around. Jessie was standing there, awaiting orders.
“Start bringing them out. I’ll get the other bowls.”
I walked out to the tables with my trolley, stacking the dirty dishes onto it and sharing a smile and a laugh with the men. But I did it with half a mind. The other half was thinking about him. Lance.
Butterflies started rearing up in my stomach. You are being stupid, I told myself. Lance doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. He has made that clear. Just do your job, keep your head down, and keep out of his way.
Wheeling the trolley back into the kitchen, I started stacking the dishwashers. It was Jessie’s job, really, but I never wanted to play Big Boss.
Lunch over, I grabbed a bowl of chilli for myself and a cup of coffee, heading to the lookout over the mountains.
It was my favorite spot. White tipped mountains and eagles hovering high in the distance. I had to admit I loved being out here, on the vast land. The bakery in Clear Creek, nestled amongst the town gossips, had never felt as good.
I sipped my coffee, cursing slightly as the scalding liquid hit my lips.
He would be here in a couple of hours. I had to finish my lunch quickly, finish the cleaning and prep for tonight’s dinner, then vamoose. If I wanted to keep my job here, I knew I would run into him. But every fibre of my being was telling me to play it safe and run while I still could.
Stranded: A Mountain Man Romance Page 20
