Cowboy Casanova: Rough Riders, Book 12

by Lorelei James

  “You respond so well to me,” he murmured.

  “Yes, you’re definitely a master at what you do.”

  A harsh look darkened Bennett’s face. “I don’t have a playbook. I’m not thinking, if I stroke her pussy fourteen more times she’ll cream on my hand.”

  Ainsley knew he’d intentionally used crude language to drive home his point. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I meant you should have that designated Master title because…well, you are a master at this stuff. It’s a compliment.”

  When she looked at him, Bennett was gone. Seemed strange to think of him as two separate personalities, but he really did have a switch that turned Ben, the easygoing rancher, into Bennett, the intense Dom.

  “I ain’t gonna lie. I want more of that with you. I’ve been kicking this idea around all day.”

  “What idea?”

  “I want you as my submissive.”

  He wasn’t joking. She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll never be a lifestyle submissive like Layla.”

  “And I’d never demand that of you.”

  “What would you demand?”

  “Time alone with you. Conditioning you to learn to let go. Showing you how satisfying it is to entrust me to give you what you need. Proving this is what you’ve always wanted and who you are.”

  “I don’t know enough about this lifestyle to commit to anything long-term, Ben.”

  He gave her a considering look. “How about if you commit to it—to me—for one month?”

  That was a workable timeframe.

  “A month of you turning all control and decisions over to me.”

  Her heart rate spiked. “I need to clarify that you mean all control and decisions…aside from my job.”

  “I have no intent of controlling your career, Ainsley. That’s yours. Everything else would be mine. If you agree to this, we’ll skip the club scene for the month. Especially since I know you’ve no interest in adding exhibitionism or other players into the mix. No need to drive to Gillette when we both live in the same town, is there?”

  “I suppose not.” Ainsley twisted her fingers together. “Can you give me a for instance on your ‘all control and decisions’ comment?”

  Ben shook his head. “I set all the parameters when we’re alone together. I’m not looking to turn you into a slave to perform household chores, if that’s what’s put the wrinkle in your brow. I’m only interested in your submissiveness on a sexual level.”

  “So I’d get no say in anything?”

  “Sexually? No. If you can’t agree to that, well, there’s nothin’ else to discuss. Because that’s the basis of a Dom/sub agreement.”

  No surprise he’d taken a firm stance. But was he offering her what she needed? Or taking what he wanted?

  “I don’t expect you to make a decision on the spot tonight. I’ll give you a day to think it over.”

  “A day is all?”

  Ben smirked. “I can see if you agree to this you’re gonna try and argue with me. And the key word in that sentence is try.”

  “You do that big, bad wolf bit very well.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice, but I guarantee I ain’t all bark and no bite. I’m lots of bite.”

  She wondered if it was too late for a drink.

  He held out his hands to help her up from the couch. “I know you’ve had a long day and I figure you’ll replay this discussion in that pretty head of yours long after you leave here.”

  “You sending me home?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” He pushed her hair back from her face. Then the ragged pad of his thumb traced her bottom lip. “I like seeing your mouth swollen from mine.”

  Talk about a punch of lust. At that moment Ainsley wanted to drag him to the floor and ride him until she was sweaty, sore and gasping for air.

  Ben growled, “Goddamn I love that fuck me now look in your eyes.”

  “But you aren’t going to act on it?”

  “Nope. You need to make the decision about what’ll happen between us, from your head, not your cunt. Because if I take you to my bed, I know which answer will win.”

  She laughed. “I’d say you were overly confident, but I know you’ve got the juice to back up that claim.”

  He held her arm to steady her as she slipped her heels on. He helped her put her coat on. He gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek after he walked her out to her car.

  Ainsley buckled her seatbelt. When she turned, Ben was peering in her window. She rolled it down. “Did you change your mind about trying to sway my decision?”

  “Huh-uh. I just wanted to say I had a great time with you tonight.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’ll hear from you tomorrow? Either way?”

  “Yes.”

  “Drive safe, angel.” He tapped the side of the car twice and stepped away.

  On the way home she considered all that’d been said. A couple of phrases kept tripping her up.

  I’m not a master. I’m just a simple rancher.

  Right. Bennett McKay was the most complex man she’d ever met.

  Chapter Eleven

  What were the odds the first time Ben had lunch in town in months, he’d run into Ainsley?

  Pretty high, given a town the size of Sundance.

  Since she was having lunch with the mayor, he didn’t approach her. He took the first empty booth in Dewey’s Delish Dish and positioned himself to observe her. She laughed more than he’d expected. Whatever she’d said cracked the mayor up several times.

  He tore his gaze from her as Dalton and Tell slid into the opposite bench seat. “If it ain’t Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.”

  “Fuck off. Didja order for us? We’re starved.”

  “I should’ve since you guys are always dragging ass.”

  “Not our fault this time,” Dalton said. “Brandt showed up late this mornin’.”

  “Again,” Tell inserted. “It puts us behind every damn day. Them two are gonna have to do something different than splitting their time between Jessie’s place and Brandt’s place. Every time they stay at Jessie’s, he’s late.”

  “I’d bet Jessie is late the mornings she’s gotta drive from Brandt’s to her job at Sky Blue.” Ben slid his menu to the edge of the table. “What’s the holdup on them getting one place together?”

  “Money, probably. And Dad hasn’t exactly been helpful.”

  Like that was news. His uncle was an asshole most days. “What’s Uncle Casper been doin’ in his retirement? My Dad never says much about him.”

  “He drinks until he passes out. We stop by to check on him.”

  “To make sure he ain’t dead,” Dalton said.

  The muscle in Tell’s jaw flexed. “Mom would have a conniption fit if she saw the state of the house. It’s nasty. Dad’s been livin’ like a drunken hermit since their divorce was finalized.”

  Dalton scowled. “Even after all the shit Dad did to Jessie over the years, she still tried to help him. Cleaned the place top to bottom. Washed his clothes. Cooked for him. He’s such an ungrateful bastard that Brandt won’t let Jess go over there anymore.”

  “Too bad you can’t just move your dad’s stuff to Brandt’s trailer and then he and Jessie could have the house. It’s at least fifteen minutes closer to her job.”

  Tell and Dalton exchanged a pained look. “We think that’s what they’re waitin’ for.”

  “Waiting for Uncle Casper to die?” Ben said sharply.

  “He’s killin’ himself, Ben. He won’t listen to any of us. Believe it or not, Mom had some influence over him, but that’s gone. They haven’t spoken since the day she left. There ain’t a lot we can do.”

  Ben hated the huge rift his uncle had caused in the family, but it seemed wrong to write him off and let him drink himself to death.

  A highly rude waitress took their order and as soon as she stomped away, Tell set his forehead on the table. “Fuck me.”

  “What the hell did you do to her, bro?”

  Tell rai
sed his head. “This is why I don’t date women from around here. She’ll probably spit in my damn food.”

  “Who is she?” Ben asked.

  “Her name tag said Tara if you don’t remember,” Dalton offered.

  “Fuck off, Dalton. It ain’t like you don’t have sex amnesia every so often.”

  Ben lifted a brow at Tell. “Sex amnesia?”

  “You know. Where you have sex with a woman, good sex, memorable sex, but then you can’t seem to recall her name.”

  His cousins stared at him when he didn’t immediately respond. “What?”

  “Fuck you, gentleman Ben. You remember the name of every woman you’ve banged?”

  They had him there. “Not the ones from way back. But the ones from last month? Hell yeah.” His gaze momentarily strayed to the back of Ainsley’s head.

  Tell gloated. “See, Dalton, I told you he wasn’t a fuckin’ monk.”

  “But that don’t mean he’s a fuckin’ man-whore like you are,” Dalton shot back.

  “Boys. Play nice. So what’s so all-fired important you asked me to come to town?” He frowned. “Since it was your idea, I ain’t buying your lunch.”

  “Cheapskate.”

  “Is this about Uncle Casper?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “We heard you took Rielle to the bank yesterday.”

  “Yeah, so?” Then he remembered the conversation on Sunday about Rielle. “Christ. I’m not interested in her, okay? I was just bein’ neighborly.”

  “We don’t care about that,” Tell said. “We wanna know why she was at the new bank?”

  “Why does anyone go to the bank? She needs a loan.”

  “Bet they didn’t give it to her, did they?” Dalton said.

  “She didn’t say and I didn’t ask. Why?”

  “Well, we’ve heard she’s seriously financially fucked.”

  Ben’s gaze turned sharp. “From who?”

  Dalton shrugged. “Evidently she put up her land as collateral when she borrowed the money to build that bed and breakfast.”

  “It’s not uncommon to borrow against equity.”

  “She borrowed the maximum amount of the equity and hasn’t made a single payment on it for over a year.”

  That shocked him. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Yeah. The bank has given her a lot of leeway, but unless she pays at least six months of the amount she’s in arrears, in the next forty-five days, Settler’s First will start foreclosure proceedings.”

  “Holy shit.” Ben wasn’t surprised Rielle hadn’t shared that information; the Wetzlers always had a serious distrust about “the man” and the McKay family. Plus, Rielle already felt guilty about not paying him for his handyman help. Or the new beds he’d handcrafted. “Her money troubles ain’t common knowledge?”

  Tell shook his head.

  “How’d you find this out?”

  An unspoken communication passed between them. Then Dalton said, “Rory.”

  “Rory just told you this?”

  Dalton pushed his hat up an inch. “Rory didn’t just blurt it out. I went to Laramie last weekend to hang out with my buddies and I saw Rory in the bar. She’d just finished her shift and was takin’ advantage of the employee discount by doin’ a shit ton of shots. Some assholes were bothering her so I kept ’em away.” He sighed. “Rory don’t drink, so the booze hit her like a cattle truck. Then she started cryin’ about how her mama used every penny they had to put her through college. And she’d wanted to get a job after she graduated, but Rielle told her it was more important she finish grad school since it was basically free.”

  “Christ.”

  “I don’t think Rory knew what the fuck she was even sayin’. I couldn’t leave her there, so her boss told me where Rory lived. I took her home.” He scowled. “She tossed her cookies in my truck and on me.”

  “Just like when you used to baby-sit her, huh?” Tell teased.

  “Go to hell. I never babysat her.”

  “I remember. You ran nekkid through the woods with her playing Tarzan and Jane. Or Adam and Eve. Or…doctor.”

  Dalton ignored him. “So when Rory called me the next day to apologize for barfing on me, I didn’t mention she’d been a freakin’ blabbermouth. And if she did remember, I doubt she’s gonna confess to Rielle that she told their financial sob story to a McKay.”

  “While I appreciate you tellin’ me this, I gotta ask…why?”

  Tell leaned forward. “The way we see it, Rielle would probably rather sell the land, or part of it, than lose it entirely when it gets foreclosed on. So we’re thinkin’ we should approach her with a business proposition. We’ll make the cash payments to catch her up on the bank loan to stave off the foreclosure—if she’ll divide up the back half of her land and sell it to us. That way it’d be McKay land, from your place to ours, as it should’ve been before my dad fucked it up all those years ago.”

  Ben gave them credit for quick thinking. “We’ve always wanted that creek front section. But they’ve always refused to sell.”

  “It don’t look like Rielle’s got an option now. The sale of that acreage will give her enough money to keep her bed and breakfast open if she wants.”

  “Who else have you talked to about this?”

  “No one,” Dalton said. “Not even Brandt.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because as much as we appreciate that Brandt’s a hard worker, he’s a damn do-gooder. He’ll see even talkin’ to Rielle as takin’ advantage of her. We don’t see it that way. We figured you wouldn’t either. So, we’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to Quinn.”

  It clicked. “Quinn would feel the same as Brandt.”

  Tell nodded. “You’re practical, Ben. And to some extent, unsentimental, like us. It’s just business.”

  “Good business,” Dalton inserted. “It has to be just the three of us, if we can swing it.”

  “Because you don’t want Uncle Carson or Uncle Cal to get wind of this either.”

  “And buy it right out from under us? Fuck no. But it ain’t like the purchase wouldn’t benefit the entire McKay ranching operation. It’d just give both our families a little more land, a little more pull, and maybe a little more respect. I mean, yeah, they’re treating us better than they ever have, askin’ for our input, increasing our shares, but sometimes we still feel like the poor relatives.”

  Again, Ben couldn’t argue with their logic. “Do you guys have the capital?” Not wanting to admit he fell into the poor relative category, he added sharply, “Because I sure as hell ain’t funding the whole thing.” He wasn’t sure he could fund even a portion of it. He’d have to hope like hell some of his furniture payments came through.

  A fierce look entered Dalton’s eyes. “I know you didn’t mean that to be insulting, cuz. Yeah, me’n Tell are the youngest, but that don’t make us the dumbest. We put up the lion’s share of the down payment for that section we bought, more than Brandt. Dad don’t even know that.”

  He whistled. “Impressive. You saved all that?”

  They exchanged another look. “Not exactly.”

  “What have you boys been up to?”

  “Poker.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Tell offered a shit-eating grin. “We’ve become damn good poker players. We hit Deadwood for weekend tournaments. Blackhawk, Colorado, has decent-sized pots once a month. We made a shit ton of money playin’ online before most them sites closed down.”

  “When I was in Vegas with you last December for the NFR?”

  “I rocked it at the poker tables. Played a little blackjack. I ended up fifteen grand ahead.”

  Seemed he wasn’t the only one with a secret life. “Does Brandt know about any of this?”

  “No. He thinks we’re man-whores, hittin’ strip clubs all over hell when we’re really playing poker.”

  “Except for the weekends I’m working as a rodeo judge,” Tell clarified. “So you see why we do
n’t want him to know about this. Alls we want is a bigger piece of the pie and not to have to borrow money from one of the uncles to make improvements on our land.”

  “Dad didn’t have a problem with that, but the rest of us did,” Dalton said sourly.

  “I don’t blame you. I would’ve had a problem with that too.”

  “But we can’t just show up on Rielle’s doorstep and ask if what Rory said was true. It’d be easier if someone Rielle knows and trusts, someone she owes neighborly favors to, would get the real scoop.”

  “Seriously? I’m supposed to pop over and say, ‘Hey, Ree, thanks for watching my dogs and for the zucchini bread and by the way, how much are you behind on your bank payments?’”

  “We hoped you’d use your no bullshit reputation to get the facts, and not act the part of an ass-kissing suck-up like the rest of our relatives.”

  Ben scrubbed his hand over his jaw. This had caught him off guard. “Look. I appreciate your trust in me. I ain’t gonna say nothin’ to nobody, but I need time to chew it over. Okay?”

  “Okay. But don’t forget the ticking clock.”

  Tara delivered the food. She dropped Tell’s hot beef sandwich almost from eye level. The cheeky bastard just grinned at her and said, “Thanks, darlin’.”

  Conversation ceased as they ate.

  Ben made a point not to stare at Ainsley, because his cousins would notice his distraction.

  Then again, Tell and Dalton shoveled food like they’d never seen it. “What’s the rush?”

  “No need to sit around and bullshit when there’s work to finish.” Dalton dropped a twenty on the table. “Let us know if you find anything out.”

  As his cousins exited the restaurant, Ainsley and the mayor headed toward him. Ainsley kept her expression blank.

  The mayor, Mark Gilbert, was effusive. “Ben McKay! I haven’t seen you in town for a while. Did we tick you off or something?” He thrust out his hand.

  Ben shook it. “No, sir, Mr. Mayor. Just keeping myself busy on the ranch. Snuck into town to have lunch with my cousins.”

  Mark leaned in. “What’s with this Mr. Mayor bullshit? We’ve known each other since elementary school.”

  Ben held Ainsley’s gaze. “Just wanted to show you the proper respect when you’re havin’ lunch with the president of Sundance’s newest bank.”