Unbreakable

by Alison Kent

  “About your money…”

  She shook her head and finger. “The first rule of my money is that we don’t talk about my money.”

  He’d let her think that for now as he reached for the envelope, but took hold of her hand instead, sliding the loop of the rope over her wrist. “I could torture it out of you.”

  “No, you couldn’t. No matter your opinion of my mouth—”

  “Your mouth’s one of my favorite things in the world—”

  “I can keep a secret. And what are you doing?”

  “Tying you up,” he said, lashing her wrist against the stall’s door and backing her into the corner. “Give me your other hand.”

  “After what you just did to this one,” she said, tugging at her bond, “I think the answer is no.”

  He reached for her hand anyway, held her gaze as he used a length of broken rein to secure her to the stall’s top slat. Then he stepped back, his hands at his hips as he took her in, bound in place, annoyed, wearing too many clothes.

  “Fun time’s over, cowboy. Let me go. I need to get home and get dinner and get out of these clothes—”

  “I can help with that,” he said, and walked toward her, his grin pulling at his mouth in direct proportion to the widening of her eyes.

  “You are not—”

  “Oh, but I am,” he said, pressing his body flush to hers and reaching behind her to unzip her skirt.

  He tugged it down just enough to free her blouse from her waist, then unbuttoned it before unhooking her bra. With her arms bound to the side, he had to make do with pushing the garments out of the way as he leaned down to tongue a nipple and suck her into his mouth.

  “Casper!”

  He lifted his head and offered her a “Yes, ma’am” before moving to the other nipple, tonguing, sucking, his hands at her skirt pulling it down.

  “Casper!”

  Her groan was a mix of arousal and desperation, and her head turned over her shoulder toward the barn door. He reached for his pocketknife and switched open the blade, pulling the elastic of her pantyhose from her body and slicing through the fabric.

  “You’re costing me a fortune in pantyhose,” she hissed. “And panties,” she added as he cut those away, too, breathing her in, drawing the back of his hand over her bared lips.

  When she groaned that time, he knelt in front of her, slid both thumbs into her folds to spread her open, exposing her clit that was full and begging to be sucked. The fact that she couldn’t move had his cock aching for the same, but first things first.

  He had uptight Faith Mitchell bare-assed and tied to a stall in the barn. Could life possibly get any better?

  He leaned forward, smelling her, his cock jumping. She was salty and ripe and warm. He licked from her tight little hole to her clit, getting her juice all over his chin as he dragged his tongue through her sex. She tasted like the best sort of cream, rich and thick and fresh, and his stomach rumbled. He caught her clit and pulled it between his lips, and she gasped. So he did it again, sucking harder this time, and she hissed some words he’d never have thought to hear come out of her mouth.

  “Casper, let me go. What if Boone comes in? What about Dax and Clay?”

  “Let me worry about Dax and Boone and Clay.” The other three were in the Braff pasture to mammy off some pairs and wouldn’t be back until sunset. He’d let Clay ride out on Remedy, staying behind to deal with hunting down some of Dave Dalton’s old gear. He was damn glad he had. “And let me make up to you what I owe.”

  He took her silence as surrender and put his mouth on her cunt, pulling at her lips with his, tonguing her clit, and circling it, teasing, lapping, making her wiggle and moan. He liked making her moan. Liked making her want him, making her come.

  Liked that bound against her wishes, she still shuddered when he pushed his tongue into her, fucking her, pulling out slowly and paying attention to the warm, wet flesh he’d exposed. His thumbs held her open, and his tongue did the rest. He pushed hard when she ground against him and used just the tip to tease her when she clenched and backed away.

  But he’d learned what she liked, what it took to send her over, and he put his mind to a task he loved. To one he was cocky enough to know he did well. He could read her, and he loved following her lead, loved that she could tell him to go slow, to push harder, to use his teeth, to stop being so goddamn gentle.

  He thought he loved that most of all, and it had his cock thickening. Then he groaned into her, and she shuddered and came in his mouth, fluttering, shivering, and tightening before letting go. Once she was done, he kissed her there, and on her belly, and on her thigh where he bit her and left a mark.

  Then he got to his feet, and on his way up her body he stopped to do the same to her tit. There was something about the reminder of where he’d been, what she’d allowed him to do—

  “Untie me,” she said. He murmured, “Yes, ma’am,” against her throat, reaching for both wrists at the same time, sliding his tongue into her mouth as he freed her, rubbing his thumbs over her wrists before bringing her hands to his crotch, cupping her fingers over his cock and surging into her palm.

  She broke away from his mouth to breathe, her gaze catching his, saying something it was too dark in the barn to see. But he stayed there, wondering, and he was still staring into her eyes, falling into her eyes, when the barn phone rang.

  He rested his forehead against hers and whispered, “Don’t move.”

  He wasn’t done with her, but when the phone rang again, he stepped out of the stall and hoofed it across the way to grab it. “Royce, hey,” he said, watching as Faith shook the straw from her skirt and stepped into it, moving when he’d told her not to, making him want to bend her over his knee and correct that.

  “I’ve got a new Arabian arriving this weekend. Think you could spare a few extra hours next week?”

  He was staring at Faith, her hair disheveled, her hands at her hips as she looked around for the envelope with Massey’s bill. She’d yet to fasten her bra or her blouse, and her breasts swung free, bouncing just enough as she turned this way and that. He thought of the taste of her tits, the tight nipples like tiny little grapes rolling against his tongue.

  “Jayne. You there?”

  “Sorry, Royce,” Casper said, closing his eyes and leaning against the workbench. “I’m in the barn. Hard to hear. What did you say?”

  “I could use all the hours you can spare next week. I’ve got a sweet little filly coming in on Sunday. I figure to let her settle in for a bit, then have you come out Monday. Was hoping you could spare at least half the day.”

  “I can probably swing it. I’ll need to check with the boys, but we’re not exactly a high-priority operation, so I doubt it’ll be an issue.” And then feeling Faith’s hands at his belt buckle and fly, his eyes opened and he stumbled over whatever he’d been going to say next.

  She opened his jeans, lifted his cock and his balls free, then shoved his shorts to his hips, stroking a finger the length of his jutting shaft, over the full head and along the underside. Then she continued using her knuckle against his sac to separate his balls.

  He squeezed his eyes closed, tried to pay attention to what Summerlin was saying as she knelt in front of him, teasing him, touching him. But the next thing he knew he heard scissors, and then he felt scissors, and his eyes popped open at that.

  She had him by the short and curlies, literally, her two fingers holding his hair straight while she cut her way through the thatch, trimming around his cock until he was bared to the root, a long, thick stalk she then took into her mouth.

  The fingers of her one hand ringed the base of his shaft, the fingers of her other cupped his nuts, rolling them, pushing up between them before slipping deeper between his legs and finding the bud of his ass.

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “What was that?” Royce said in his ear.

  “Nothing. Just sounds like a hell of a horse.”

  That seemed to satisfy the ol
der man, because he kept on yammering, something about lineage and coat coloration and stuff Casper couldn’t really make out because Faith’s finger was sliding deep into the unknown.

  He had the presence of mind to cover the mouthpiece before he groaned, biting off a low, “Goddammit, Faith,” as her tongue poked at the slit in the head of his cock. He was tied up by a call instead of by ropes and reins, but he was no less helpless and bound, and he didn’t give a fuck about the fucking horse.

  “I’ll check in with you on Monday, Royce. You have a good weekend.” Then he tossed the receiver toward the base before sliding his fingers into Faith’s hair, holding her while she sucked the chrome off his trailer hitch, watching her cheeks and her lips working, the heel of her hand pushing hard against his belly above the base of his cock, and that was it.

  “Hold on,” he told her, moving one hand to the back of her head, the other to the horn of the saddle on the nearby rack. She held the head of his cock in the cup of her tongue, giving him a target to aim for. He couldn’t aim. He could barely stand, fisting his fingers in her hair as he shot his load down the back of her throat.

  Once he’d finished and found his footing and his mind, he helped her to her feet. She dusted off her knees and the back of her skirt, a Cheshire cat grin on her mouth. He nodded toward the tiny john in the corner. “Scissors? And you call me dangerous?”

  Her laughter reached him above the sound of running water, then she returned and stepped close, trapping his hands between them before he got his business put away.

  She raked her nails through his extra-short hairs. “Come over tonight when you’re through here. We’ll shower, and I’ll finish that up with a razor.”

  Then she was gone. And not for a minute did he believe she’d come here to talk about Clay or the construction. But he really didn’t think she’d come here to blow him in the barn, either, and that left him to wonder if she’d got what she’d come for at all.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “IF THAT’S HOW you handled the bulls you rode, it’s a wonder you didn’t get hung up to more than you did, because that, my man, was an epic fail.”

  Casper lay on his back, his knees raised, hands at his side in the dirt, his eyes screwed shut. Who the hell knew where his hat was. Or the air he should be breathing. Or his spleen. Somewhere in the corral, the Arabian who’d just made him her bitch stomped and snorted.

  If he thought he could come back at Dax without throwing up, he would, but something told him he’d just mightily cracked a rib. Or else he’d landed on a chunk of earth hard-packed and sharp enough to leave a deep bruise. Why he’d thought it a good idea to bring the boys along to see him put Summerlin’s new Arabian through her paces…

  Squinting with the one eye he was able to pry open, he held up a finger and croaked out, “One sec.”

  A second pair of jeans appeared in his line of blurred vision. Then a third. Boone, he figured, and Summerlin, or one of his hands.

  “Just lay still now,” Royce said, putting a name to the set of bowed legs at his feet. “Doc Pope’s on his way.”

  He wasn’t going to move. He couldn’t move. He would die if he tried.

  And Faith was going to kill him.

  He’d told her he wouldn’t get hurt, that he wouldn’t do anything to put him out of commission so that more of the ranch chores landed on Boone. He’d told her all of those things, and yet here he was, hoping not to puncture a lung with the jagged end of a rib, and mourning the moratorium on getting her naked in his immediate future.

  He groaned. Just the thought of his cock getting hard had his balls crawling up into his body.

  Goddamn, he hurt.

  Beside him, Boone hunkered down, his body blocking the blinding light of the cruel, cruel sun. “Think maybe it’s time to give up this shit?”

  He tried to grunt but he still couldn’t breathe for the elephant suffocating him, and all he got out was a squeaky, “Need money.”

  Dax squatted on his other side. “Fuck the money and fuck that house. We need you alive, and in one piece, my friend.”

  “Need hat,” he said, and moments later Boone had the brim shadowing his eyes. Now if someone could do something about the dirt making mud in his nostrils and the fingernails-on-chalkboard grit in his teeth. And the railroad spike in the back of his head. And the ever-lovin’ fire in his chest. Goddamn, he hurt. “Thanks.”

  “Stop trying to talk and listen. The house has been there for a hundred years. It’s not going anywhere. The ranch is the problem.”

  “Boone’s right,” Dax said since it was obviously his turn to pile on. “The ranch was already eating us up, and now you’ve added the house and the horses and Clay.”

  “I asked.” He curled his fingers, drew up a palmful of earth. “You okayed.”

  “That was then. This is now.” Boone used a bandanna to wipe the corral floor out of Casper’s eyes. “Something’s gotta give.”

  “Clay helps,” he croaked out, wanting to tell them both to fuck off but in no shape to do so. Plus, they were right, and they didn’t even know about Faith. He’d taken on too much, giving up sleep to make time for it all, and paying the price.

  The Arabian had let him know what was coming, and he’d been too exhausted to decipher the signs until he was already airborne. He deserved having his partners kick his ass. As long as they steered clear of his ribs. Goddamn, he hurt.

  “And what happens when all this shit with Clay comes to a head and blows?” Boone asked. “Because you have no guarantee that won’t happen once the law and the courts get involved.”

  “They won’t,” he said, then thirty seconds later, the pain in his back like stabbing glass shards, added, “not yet.”

  “Only because you’ve got him squirreled away like an illegal working for slave wages.”

  “Gets allowance,” was all Casper could say, and those words were full of air and burned like a motherfucker.

  “Doc’s here,” Summerlin said as the sound of truck wheels eating up gravel reached Casper’s ears. And then things got worse with Dr. Pope touching him, poking and prodding and rolling him to one side then the other, poking more, prodding more, using his stethoscope before sitting back on his heels.

  He looked from Dax to Boone. “There’s a stretcher in the back of my Suburban. I need you two to help me get him loaded up.”

  “I’m on it,” Dax said while Casper tried to find his voice to object. Besides, what was he going to do? Spend the rest of the day flat on his back?

  “Drugs,” he finally said, and Mercer Pope laughed, a gravelly evil sound that Casper did not like.

  “Soon, my reckless friend. First, x-rays.”

  “WHERE IS HE?” Faith asked, yanking off her sunglasses as she entered the ranch house kitchen. She blinked, blinked again, looked around astounded, then met Clay’s gaze. “Is this you?”

  “Is what me?” he asked, standing at the stove, stirring the aromatic contents bubbling in a big stockpot.

  Chili powder, garlic, cumin, onions, peppers. Vegetable scraps and spice bottles sat on a cutting board along with the butcher paper from the meat. Her stomach growled. “I’ve never seen this kitchen this clean. I didn’t even know the floor tiles were veined. I just thought they were dirty.”

  “Yeah, that took a while,” he said, dipping into the pot with a second spoon and blowing across a bite of what was either chili or stew. He tasted it, tossed the used spoon into the sink, added salt, and kept stirring. “I had to use a toothbrush on a lot of it. And it’s pretty worn from all the foot traffic. But it looks okay.”

  Who was this kid? “And that smell? You’re cooking?”

  “Chili. Nothing fancy. Casper likes it.” He shrugged off his efforts as if fourteen-year-olds cooking chili from scratch was the norm. “Anyhow, he’s upstairs.”

  “I’m surprised he made it up there,” she said, heading toward the staircase.

  “The boys tried to get him to camp out on the couch, but he was saying something
about clean sheets. I didn’t hear all of it.”

  The boys. Hearing Clay use the words to refer to Boone and Dax made her smile almost more than seeing him so happily settled. Casper rambling on about clean sheets made her smile for much more personal reasons. “Sounds like the fall didn’t soften up his hard head.”

  “You want some chili when I bring it up?”

  “Sure,” she called back. “That would be great.”

  “Okay. I’ll bring some crackers, too. And some cheese.”

  Shaking her head, she climbed the stairs, remembering when she’d offered to hire the boys a maid. Clay had solved that problem nicely, and even he looked better for it, less gaunt, less hollow, as if he had a purpose instead of having nothing. As if Casper had been the very savior he’d crossed two states to find.

  God, she hoped this didn’t go south the way she feared it might. It had only been a few weeks, and yet both Casper and Clay had grown more comfortable together than some fathers and sons she’d seen. Clay had obviously been looking for the structure and safe haven, the sense of belonging and family Casper had provided.

  But it seemed that Casper had been needing someone, too. Someone he could care for. Someone he could be responsible for. Someone who wasn’t her. It shouldn’t bother her that she couldn’t give him whatever it was lacking in his life, and it didn’t. Except it did. And for a smart girl, she was being really stupid.

  This wasn’t about her. It was about the life Casper had known at Clay’s age. Making that connection wasn’t difficult. The difficult part was accepting that he might never need her for more than what they already shared—the companionship, the sex. Since she wasn’t looking for a relationship, she should be okay with that.

  But she wasn’t. The fact that she’d bolted out of work an hour early at hearing news of the accident was proof. She’d been as anxious to see him and worried about his injuries as if it had been her brother or one of her parents she’d heard two of the tellers gossiping about. Of course, it would’ve been nice if Boone had called to let her know what had happened…