by Em Petrova
“Only service you’ll get in some of these parts is a commune with God.” He glanced at the sky, still a foggy gray from the line of storms that had come in earlier in the week.
They were an hour into the three-hour drive and it was dragging. Maybe because he didn’t know if he should turn on the radio to pass the time the way he always did. Or it could be the fact his gaze kept straying to her crossed thighs.
Her skinny jeans accentuated the lines of muscle. He opened his mouth to ask if she was a runner but thought better of it. She’d know he was looking at her legs.
Suddenly his Wranglers were a little too tight. No denying she was a beautiful woman, but there was something that sucked him in and made him want to know more.
Like how breathy her voice got when he was moving inside her.
And when she was tied spread-eagle on his bed.
He wasn’t going to lie to himself that he didn’t want her that way—the dirtiest, darkest way possible. That he didn’t want to have her bound hand and foot, the complex knots creating the perfect lingerie against her pale body.
Sexually, he hadn’t played that way in a long time, and his cock was all too happy at the thought.
Aiden looked across the cab. Her head was bent, thick hair cascading over her shoulder and down to her breast. He knotted his fist on his thigh to keep from reaching over and seeing if her strawberry blonde locks were as silky as they appeared.
She abandoned her phone with a heavy sigh.
“Are you trying to text someone?” Maybe she had a boyfriend. He didn’t know much about her other than she was impulsive, had a smart mouth and a great ass.
“I was trying to get a list of the breeders going to auction today. I wanted to see the cattle brands. I may have to contact a friend of mine who’s a brand investigator down South.”
“Would he know the brands up this way? It’s a big country with a lot of ranchers. I have the local brands here in my notebook.” He removed it from his pocket.
She grabbed it from his hand. He watched her slender fingers move over the cover and then flip through pages.
“You’re meticulous, I’ll give you that, Roshannon.”
In all things. Wait till you see how I place the stripes of my whip on your ass.
He jerked straighter in his seat, resisting the urge to adjust his dick.
“What’s this?” She ran her fingertip down a page, over the heavy black ink of his writing.
“I can’t exactly read it from here.” Why were his balls aching just from watching her finger touch the pages of his notebook?
“Lime. Shovel.” She peered more closely at the scribbled text. “Does this say honey?”
He chuckled. “You’re reading my shopping list.”
She gaped at him. “Are you burying a body and then having honey on your toast?”
“Nah, that’s stuff for my ranch.”
She blinked at him. “You own a ranch?”
“My family does. My pa still runs things, but sometimes he calls up me or my twin brother to run some errands.” Wes was always on the road and too busy to run for supplies.
“And you needed honey for…?” Her brown eyes seemed to glow with mischief.
His cock hardened to full mast in that one look. “My momma asked for it.” It was damn wrong for a man to have to speak of his mother when he had a hard-on for a beautiful woman, but Amaryllis made him anything but comfortable. He didn’t imagine anything about her was easy.
“I knew it.” Amaryllis laughed, a low, sweet tone that sharpened the edge of his need. The next two hours of their drive were going to be damn difficult unless she sprouted hair all over her body and shriveled into an ugly old woman.
Hell, even then she’d still have that air of confidence that was sexy as fuck.
“And did you get your momma the honey she asked for? What was she making?”
“Cinnamon rolls, as I recall. My brother’s favorite.”
“But they’re not your favorite?”
“No. I like apple pie.” And the taste of a sweet, wet pussy. He ran his tongue over his lips and focused on a point on the horizon. This was going downhill in a hurry. If he didn’t get hold of his raging hormones, he’d have to pull over at the first rest stop and relieve himself of a load of sperm.
“Your twin and you have different favorites?” She directed a lock of hair behind her ear, which only made him harder. The shell inviting nibbles, licks and bites. Her lobe was pierced with a single silver horseshoe-shaped stud.
“Contrary to popular belief, twins don’t do everything the same.”
“But you’re identical. I saw a picture of you.”
So she’d stalked him.
“We are identical, but we’re still two people.”
“Name some of your differences.” The spark of intelligence in her eyes and the eagerness to learn something new, even if it was about him and his twin, lit up her face with a glow.
He had a hard time keeping his eyes on the road. She made a sober man feel drunk. “When we were babies, I loved taking baths and he screamed the whole time.” He swung a look her direction to find her smiling.
“What else?”
“I went to the military and he stayed back to help on the ranch.”
“Was that difficult to be separated from him?”
“No more than any other family member. Though, sometimes…” He broke off, wondering if she’d think he was nuts if he told her about his and Judd’s innate sense of each other. Their connection that felt like a live wire when the other was in trouble. It was how Judd had first known about Aiden’s trouble overseas. After Judd had gotten a whiff of that, he’d found out what flight he was on and met him on base. He’d been there for Aiden during the questioning, though he wasn’t allowed to be present.
There were times Aiden’s link with Judd didn’t end well. Like the time he rushed home to find his girlfriend with her arms around Judd, her lips superglued to his.
After that, they hadn’t spoken for three months. Aiden had been headed to the Marines anyway and Judd had sworn she’d kissed him. But Aiden had been glad he had someplace to go to gain some distance between him and his brother. Having his ass kicked at boot camp had been exactly what he needed to forget the whole event.
He also shared a connection of sorts with Wes. They might not be twins but they had the same tastes—in women and what they wanted from them. Which was how they’d ended up passing Lorna back and forth between them that summer before he’d left for boot camp. She had been more than willing, and Aiden found sharing the burden of a woman’s needs easier than dealing with her on his own. If he didn’t feel up to it, Wes took her out to dinner and pampered her.
He focused on Amaryllis. She was nothing like Lorna. Yet she had a ripe sexuality about her that made Aiden wonder…
She waited for him to say more on the topic of the link with his twin.
“Sometimes we just know when the other needs us. You probably think I’m crazy.”
She shook her head. “I’ve read about things like that. Tell me about one time.”
He pressed his lips together and thought on it. He wasn’t about to tell her about his time in the Marines.
The road stretched before them, and they had plenty of time to get to know each other. So why was he only thinking of finding out what her naked body looked like?
“When we were ten, Judd started hanging out with this kid from school. I never liked the punk, but Judd said he was a nice guy when other kids weren’t around. He went back to his friend’s place with him after school one day and I went on home. About seven o’clock I started getting this bad feeling.” He shifted his shoulders, that crawling sensation overcoming him all over again.
Amaryllis twisted in her seat, legs drawn up and to the side, listening to his story.
“I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I told my mother I didn’t feel well and she dosed me with Pepto Bismol. But it didn’t do any good. By eight o’clock I felt like my skin wo
uld burst. I just knew I had to go find Judd. I made the excuse I was checking on my new pony and ran straight to Judd’s friend’s house. When I got there, I don’t know what made me look up into the trees, but there he was, stuck high in the branches, too scared to come down.”
“Oh no.” Amaryllis’s whispered word tore through Aiden.
“The jerk friend of his had bet him who could climb higher and then Judd was on an unsteady branch and his buddy climbed down and left him there.”
“Oh my God.”
“He’d been sitting in the tree for hours, and when he saw me, he started crying.” Aiden’s voice was thick.
“What did you do?”
“Climbed the tree and guided him down.”
“And Judd’s friend?”
“Next day Wes and I cornered the kid outside school and let Judd rough him up. After that, we sort of stuck to ourselves. The three of us had some friends in school but we kept it tight. We all grew up on the ranch, lived under one roof.”
“Your cousin too?”
He nodded. “His dad was out of the picture and his mom ran off. Don’t know many mothers who leave their kids, but she must have had her reasons.”
“You never found them out?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Times were hard. Probably figured my parents would do a better job raising a baby, seein’ how they had a home and steady income.”
“That must have felt like growing up with two brothers.”
“Definitely. We’re close. Still meet up at least once a month on the ranch for dinner or to stay the weekend and put up hay.”
She smiled and sat back in her seat. “Sounds like my family. I’ve got two older brothers.” She looked like she wanted to say more but didn’t. After a long minute, she said, “I could use a drink. Is there someplace to stop?”
He threw a half-smile her way. “There’s water in a cooler in the back. I’ll pull over so we can get some out. Told ya there aren’t many stopping points around here.”
“I’m glad we ate when we did then.”
He pulled off the road and got out. The breeze whispered through the high grasses alongside the asphalt as he walked to the back and reached into the cooler. With two bottled waters in hand, he started back to the driver’s side.
Something made him circle to Amaryllis’s side.
His boots crunched gravel at the roadside as he opened her door. She looked up in surprise. He moved close, and she reached for a bottle. When he passed it to her, their fingers brushed. Electricity zapped up his arm, shooting with lightning speed through the rest of his body. Pressure built in his groin.
Their gazes met. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt that sensation when he touched her. Earlier, when he’d grabbed her arm, his knees had nearly buckled. He chalked it up to worry about her barging into that home. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
He uncapped his water and raised it to his lips, watching her from hooded eyes do the same. The way she pursed her lips against the bottle and the movement of her throat as she swallowed shouldn’t smack a man with lust this way.
When she lowered the drink, she gave him a long, appraising look. Her hair glinted red-gold, completely at odds with her dark brown eyes. Her plump lips, without a hint of lipstick, called for deep kisses and gasping cries of pleasure.
He found himself stepping closer. “We’ve got a couple more hours. You good?”
She nodded. Her gaze seemed to be fixed to his jaw. Then she flicked her eyes up and met his stare.
Fuck, it was there—that deep attraction that he needed from a woman to gain her complete trust. Which led them both down the slippery slope to his raw hungers, a dark room and a safe word.
Did she feel the stirring too? He had no way of knowing what was going on behind those beautiful baby browns. She bit down on her lower lip, spiking his need more.
“We’d best get on the road. I want to look at your notebook for those brands, too.” Her words cut into the moment, reminding him that he could not start this up right now.
“Yep. On the road.” He stepped back and closed her door, draining his water and tossing the empty bottle into the truck bed as he rounded to his door. Two hours to go.
Two hours he had to sit there with a woody thinking about binding Amaryllis’s pale white wrists together and kissing every inch of her sweet, curvy body.
* * * * *
If she’d seen one cattle auction, she’d seen them all. Amaryllis folded her arms over her chest and surveyed the sea of cowboy hats. Her mind worked at record pace, taking in the cowboys’ body language one at a time. She’d taken down enough rustlers that she knew what to look for.
Shadiness was number one in her book. The guys who didn’t speak to the others, who stood off on their own. She’d long ago learned that ranching was a solitary business and ranchers were accustomed to working alone. But when they got a chance to shoot the shit about cattle, they took it.
Second on her list was anybody who looked out of place. Jeans that were too nice or any jacket besides a Carhartt attracted her attention. Back in Texas, she’d seen plenty of city folk trying to pass themselves off as ranchers, but their designer clothing gave them away if their polished grooming didn’t.
Aiden appeared at her elbow, standing so close his body heat waved over her. It made her clothing seem thin and useless. Under her plaid top and jeans, her skin prickled.
She threw a glance at him. Damn, had his beard sprouted even more in the ten minutes he’d been away from her? His jaw was shadowed with stubble that seemed to be darkening by the second.
His attention was on the crowd as well, and she’d love to hear his thoughts. If he knew hers, he’d be grabbing her and slamming his mouth over hers, not scribbling in that notebook of his.
“Auction’ll start in a few minutes,” he said.
“Time enough for us to inspect brands. Let’s go.” Without waiting for his response, she turned and dived into the crowd. She had to nudge her way through all the broad shoulders, and more than a few men tipped their hats to her.
“Hey, sugar.”
A growl sounded behind her, and she tossed a look over her shoulder to see Roshannon pushing his way after her.
“What can I do for you, honey? Are you looking for the little girls’ room?” a cowboy asked as she moved by.
She narrowed her eyes at him. She wasn’t a little girl and she sure as hell wasn’t only here looking to find a toilet. Hot words lay on her tongue, but she gulped them down and kept walking.
When she reached the back where all the corrals were located, she fished in her back pocket for her ID. A brick wall of a man was obviously standing guard, and she flashed her badge at him.
“Special Ranger Amaryllis Long. I’d like to have a look at the cattle.”
The man blinked down at her, a befuddled smile on his face. Amaryllis’s pulse pounded in her temples. She didn’t want to bust this guy’s balls but she would if he didn’t stop looking at her like she was only good for looking pretty.
An arm, lightly furred, extended next to her face with another ID. “Roshannon.”
The guard swung his stare to Aiden standing behind her. “She with you?”
“No,” Amaryllis snapped. “He’s with me. Thank you very much.” She breezed by the guy, battling the urge to kick his shins with the sharp little toes of her boots. She mumbled under her breath.
“What was that?” Aiden’s tone said he knew exactly how ticked off she was to be treated lesser, to be put below him.
“Watch yourself, Roshannon.”
“Why? Do you know Kung Fu? Are you gonna take me and that guard back there out?”
She paused to give him a once-over. “The guard for sure. You’re pushing your luck, but I’ll give you another chance. I need your help. Get out your book.”
She’d memorized many of the brands, but he had several pages of them drawn in a careful hand.
He opened the notebook to the exact page as if he practiced it on a da
ily basis. Probably did. She huddled close to inspect the drawings.
“Got it?” he asked, his head bent close.
Pine and man. Dammit, why couldn’t she stop noticing these things about him?
“Yes.” She moved to the corral where a group of a dozen black angus crowded. She reached between the bars and smacked one on the rump to move it around to the side where she could see the brand.
“Two Forks,” Aiden said beside her.
“Not on the list of cattle we’re looking for.”
“Nope.”
On some level searching the auction for stolen cattle was like finding kidnapped persons. The animals were just as vulnerable, and the people who wanted them back just as desperate. Which was what made her job—and Aiden’s—so important.
The next group Aiden identified right away. They moved on to the next and the next. She kept her eye on the cattle in the pens and various chutes waiting to go on the auction block, but also on the men milling around the area.
One kept glancing at her, which wasn’t anything new. Weren’t many women that came to auctions. The occasional rancher’s wife. But Amaryllis stuck out like pink unicorn.
She’d tried wearing her hair in a ponytail and baggy tops to disguise her curves. But it hadn’t taken long to realize she was going to be recognized for what she did for ranchers and not what she looked like.
“Hey, sweetheart. You look mighty familiar,” one guy called out.
Aiden slowed his steps, his gaze trained on the man. Aiden’s arms might be swinging loosely at his sides, but they ended in fists. He adopted a slow, predatory roll to his walk, and she imagined he’d used it quite a bit during his years in the military.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” The guy ignored Aiden and tried to get her attention.
She kept walking, aware that Aiden wasn’t following. She did a mental eye-roll. She didn’t have time for chest-thumping males. She’d worked with enough of them to know men would be men. They claimed top spots as friends or work colleagues and they didn’t like to be pushed out.
She groaned and left them to sort their differences while she edged up to a trailer. It held just four beasts, some young bulls by the looks of them. Two of the Owens’ bulls and one other had gone missing in the past two weeks. In her experience, thieves usually waited a few weeks before turning the animals at auction.
