Ryan rubbed the stubble on his chin and growled again. “You know we need a good stud to raise our revenue. Now Adam probably won’t talk to any of us. At. All,” he added to Bracken’s verbal beating. “You were the one with a long-standing relationship with him.”
Ouch.
Kate was impressed by how Dee held her ground. She didn’t buckle under the weight of their anger. Of course, it wasn’t quite the same level of anger Kate had seen from her grandfather. Phillip Quade tended to lose his cool often and get violent in addition to all the screaming.
These two were obviously disappointed and upset...maybe a little angry. But neither man had moved to lay a hand on Dee, and they weren’t really screaming at her either. Both of them were completely in control. It solidified her decision that the Trewitt pack was definitely where she wanted to end up.
She was going to get the job and her mate.
Chapter Five
Everything seemed to be falling apart and Ryan’s brain worked double-time to get his head around a strategy to fix the situation. He looked his cousin over. Her jean jacket hid the tattoos; it might be possible to send her to talk to Adam before too many others arrived.
The horse was a must, if Ryan’s plans for the pack were going to work. They’d heard a rumor that a rancher outside Dallas had made Adam an offer on the stud, Dee had suggested they buy Black Guardian out from under the other bidder. Dee had been their ace in the hole. Adam had always said yes to everything she’d ever asked of him.
Until now.
And then there was Kate to consider…
Ryan’s gaze wandered down to her, standing in front of him. Her hair was long, sweeping down her back. He hadn’t noticed that before.
Dammit. Focus.
He couldn’t afford to be derailed by her. By the perfectly proportioned body that her all-black clothing couldn’t hide from him. By the way her hips swayed back and forth when she was thinking. By the sweet scent of her hair.
Bracken was talking, and looking straight at him, and Ryan suddenly realized he hadn’t processed a single word his alpha had said to him. He had been too busy thinking about running his hands up her long torso and grabbing her breasts and burying his face in her neck. He snapped his attention to the conversation just in time to hear, “and then we’ll have to start from scratch with another line.”
Breeding. He was talking about breeding.
Right?
Ryan tried just nodding along, but he hadn’t heard enough of the first part of the discussion to offer an informed opinion, and his alpha was staring at him. Waiting.
“Do you mind if I interject here?” Kate asked, and Ryan let out a breath, fast. The air must have feathered the skin of her shoulder, because she shivered and looked back at him, and dammit if that didn’t make the blood start to rush south again.
“If you have an idea, spit it out, K-Quade,” Bracken said, crossing his arms.
“What if you sent me to talk to him?”
Ryan snorted and Kate glared back at him, her blue eyes flashing. He was momentarily pinned by her frustration. His disbelief seemed to have touched a nerve. Noted.
“He doesn’t know me from Adam,” she said, and then paused to snicker at the pun. It was damn adorable.
What the hell is wrong with you, man?
“Go on,” Bracken said, one of his thick brows arched.
“So if I approach him about it, he won’t necessarily associate me with Dee. The two of them can patch things up on their own, and I can work on convincing him to sell the horse.”
“But you don’t know anything about our business,” Ryan interjected, moving around to stand opposite her. The whole sentinel-behind-her-back thing was starting to feel a little coupley, which wasn’t good for him. “How are you going to convince Adam of the merits of the sale?”
“It’s not rocket surgery, Mr. Rodeo, okay? I’ve worked on my grandfather’s ranch for my whole life—”
“You raise cattle,” Ryan said, stepping toe-to-toe with her.
“Big hairy whoop.” Kate put her hands on her hips, somehow managing to stare him down even though he towered over her. “I know plenty about horses. Plus, you don’t approach this with logic, because the logic says he can sell to whoever he wants. You win this with heart. That’s the only way you’ll get him to overlook the slight and keep doing business with you.”
A reluctant, tight feeling stole through his chest. Win this with heart… “You mean you’re going to flirt with him until he agrees to sell us the horse.”
She shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.”
“No.” The word was out of him before he knew it, and he followed it up with a hard, dark look. “Absolutely not. No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m the alpha and I said so,” he said, grasping for words. He couldn’t say the real reason out loud because it sounded so stupid. He didn’t want another man’s hands on her. Didn’t want her even flirting with another man.
Idiot.
“You’re not the alpha yet,” Bracken said. The warning in his tone was downplayed by the slight smile on his lips.
“But, Brack…” Ryan began, unsure of where he would end.
“She’s on a job interview, isn’t she? I say it starts right now,” said the alpha. He turned to Kate. “I’ll make you a deal. You get this horse, you get the job. No questions asked.”
Her eyes went wide, and her lip quivered for a second. Ryan just about reached for her—wanting to steady her, to let her know he was there—but caught himself in time. Even he was being taken in by the flirting.
Dammit. This was fifty shades of fucked up.
Ryan stepped away from the little grouping, walking toward the cabin. He didn’t want to know what else was said. He’d been on his way to see his alpha to ask about segmenting Dee’s old job enough that Kate could work in the office on another ranch, where Ryan wouldn’t have to deal with her. But he hadn’t had that chance, and now it looked like Bracken was fixing to give her the job outright. If she got that horse.
Every damn day in that office would be nothing but torture. He wouldn’t get any work done. Hell, he could hardly focus on the next task in front of him with her around. Let alone running an entire ranch and a half-fractured pack to boot.
“Ryan,” his alpha called out. “Come over here.”
Reluctantly, he turned back and found Kate staring at him, smiling from ear-to-ear. Shit This was not going to be good.
“I want you to take Kate up to the house and introduce her to Adam,” said Bracken, putting his hand on her shoulder. The gesture was completely benign, but it set off something inside Ryan.
Another man’s hands on her.
Dammit. This is going to blow balls.
“Fine,” Ryan bit out. “Let’s go.”
“Just wait a second,” Bracken said, gesturing back toward the cabin. “Let me introduce Kate around to the rest of the pack.” He slid his arm over her shoulders, and Ryan just about lost his mind.
He stood watching, fists clenched and heart racing, as his alpha pulled Kate down the path toward the first cabin, explaining that there was one cabin for the men and one for the women, and telling her who was around at the moment. Ryan’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Damn the stupid testosterone. He’d never been the kind of guy to get jealous, but wow, it was rearing its head now. Ugly damn head.
“You have it bad, cuz,” came Dee’s voice, breaking into his turbulent thoughts. “Mate pull?”
Ryan waved his hand, hoping to stave off this conversation, but Dee had worked beside him in the office for the last three years, and she knew him better than most.
“She’s a flirt,” he said, trying to ignore the constriction in his throat.
“Right.” His cousin put a hand on her hip and came to stand beside him. They watched Bracken escort her up the steps, onto the porch, and then into the house. “Y’know, when I first met Will, I thought the same thing.”
“Dee…”
“No, I mean it.” She nudged his shoulder with hers. “I’m not sure if Bracken told you the details, but we met again at the stock sale down in San Antonio.”
“Last week?” Ryan raised a brow. “Like…last Saturday?”
She nodded, pressing harder against him. “It happens fast. That’s how it is for us.”
“There is no us.” This was not a mate pull. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t allow it to be.
“Will showed up with another woman, y’know,” she said, her tone quiet. She gnawed her lip for a moment, like she felt disloyal talking about it. “At the sale. He brought his girlfriend. And of course, if Adam had been around, I would have been with him. I hadn’t seen Will since we were kids, before our magick had fully matured, before our wolves had come out for the first time, and it just…it caught me off-guard.”
He didn’t respond.
“We passed each other in a crowd,” Dee said, speaking in that same reverent tone. She’d obviously cottoned to the fact that he wouldn’t, couldn’t have this conversation with her. “He was hanging on this cowgirl, and I was with Jace and Judson. But I could feel him, through all the people. Our eyes met, and something sparked. I just knew.”
Ryan had to fight hard not to roll his eyes. Those words. I just knew. A guy didn’t know anything about a girl at a glance, and vice versa, except that they had some kind of chemistry, and that would fade faster than a cool mist on a desert morning. The only thing that lasted was pack.
“I’m not telling you this to make you uncomfortable.” Dee slipped her arm through his, like she planned to escort him somewhere. “I just meant to say, I know what you’re going through. Having a mate pull is intense. It’s—”
“This is not a mate pull,” he said, a little more forcefully than he’d intended. “She’s a flirt, and she’s good at flirting. That’s all this is.”
Dee’s snort was unladylike and loud. It was one of the things he would miss about having her around. He’d come to feel easy around her, and come to enjoy her brash behavior. She was never afraid to speak up.
“You keep telling yourself that, cousin.” She released him and made her way up the path just as Bracken was leading Kate back outside.
He narrowed his eyes on the flirty blonde, trying to remember the moment he’d first seen her in the library. The attraction had been instantaneous. No doubt about it. But was it Fate? That, he didn’t know.
If there had been other people in the room, he might could have compared his story to Dee’s. But the circumstances were completely different; there was a chance Kate was just really flirty. He didn’t like the fact that she needed to get away from her pack. But maybe he could help her fix the problem some other way—with an arrangement that didn’t entail giving her a job on his ranch.
There had to be another way.
Even if this was a simple attraction, not a mate pull, he couldn’t ignore the fact that his blood started to pump harder at the sight of her. The closer she got to him, the more he wanted to take her up to his bedroom. Or just a spare patch of grass.
Hell, he would take her against the side of a building right now. She was so damn sexy.
Her stance on the porch, languid and relaxed, was like a little Siren song for his groin. He wanted to see her really relaxed. Like after an orgasm. In his arms. And that was the absolute worst thing he could be thinking about right now.
Nope. He had to get her far away from him.
Fix the issue with her pack. Find her somewhere else to be gorgeous and sexy and tempting. Because he had a job to do, and he couldn’t do it with Kate around.
Up on the porch, Beau slid a hand onto Kate’s shoulder and the bottom dropped out of Ryan’s stomach. Aw, hell no. He clipped past Dee, ran up the steps, and smacked his brother’s hand away.
“Get off her,” he said, grabbing Kate’s hand and pulling her away from his lecherous, horny brother. That was so not happening.
“Bro, what is your—”
“We’ve got work to do,” he said to Kate, pulling her down the steps.
“It…was…nice…to…” Kate’s voice called back, taking the steps hard as she tried to keep up with him.
Ryan was about two seconds from throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her to the truck himself. She was not coming along fast enough.
“Stay away from my brother,” Ryan hissed at her, finally getting her to Bracken’s truck and depositing her by the passenger’s side door. He glanced back at his alpha, who stood, stunned, on the porch. “Keys?” he asked in a gruff voice.
Bracken did a football throw and the keys came sailing down to him, landing almost perfectly in his outstretched hand. Dee had headed up onto the porch, and she stood there smirking at him. His damn brother and his alpha were staring at him, too. Everyone could just back the hell off on their judgment.
“That was rude,” Kate said, swiping at his shoulder. “He was just being nice.”
“Beau is never just being nice. His agenda is always to get in your pants.”
She laughed and crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her smallish breasts up so there was now fucking cleavage to stare at, too. Shit. This woman.
“Well, he can’t have my pants. I need them,” she said with a smirk.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Get in the damn car.”
“It’s a truck.”
He pointed one key at her. “No lip from you. We have work to do.”
Kate saluted him. “Yes, sir, Mr. Rodeo.” Then she leaned toward him, dropping her voice and her eyelashes suggestively. “I’m all yours.”
Shit.
This was going to be a long night.
Chapter Six
Kate tried to contain her grin as the truck bumped along the gravel road between the cabin and the main house. Ryan had nearly carried her to the truck. In fact, she was trying to remember if her feet had touched the ground at all. Her wolf had almost done a back flip in glee over the attention. The way he’d thwacked his brother’s hand off her shoulder.
Yep. He was a goner. And he knew it.
She leaned toward the center console of the truck and rested her elbow on the raised section. Her shoulder didn’t quite touch his arm, but it put her so much closer. His scent filled her lungs and her mind wandered back to her daydream about leisurely licking her way up his cock.
“Stop making that sound,” Ryan snapped.
“What sound?” She looked up at him and batted her eyelashes playfully. She wanted him to say it. Wanted to hear him admit that the pull between them was Fate. Wanted him to choose her.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he ground out between gritted teeth.
His jaw flexed and she wondered what it would feel like to have his scruffy five-o-clock shadow on her skin. Between her legs. Yep. She’d gone there. She wanted him all over her. She let another little moan slip between her lips and crossed her legs, squeezing her thighs. Her body was thrumming and needy, but this game required big-picture thinking. She not only wanted Ryan, she also needed the job with his pack.
Two missions. Totally doable for a good multi-tasker.
“Seriously, Kate. Stop.”
“Or what, Mr. Rodeo? Your alpha said if I get your pack the horse, I get the job. Won’t that be great? We’ll get to see each other every single day. It’s gonna be awesome.”
“You still have to get the horse,” he muttered.
“Adam’s single, which means he’s susceptible. Plus I look a little like Dee, so I already know I’m his type.”
“You’re not. I don’t want—”
“Ah, but that’s your problem, Mr. Rodeo. I am. And you do want.” The poor man was trying so hard to fight Fate. So hard to stay away and keep her away from others at the same time. Kate pushed up the console and slid into the folded down center seat, bumping her thigh against his and her breast against his arm. The leather wraps on the steering wheel squeaked under the pressure of Ryan’s hands, making Kate feel that much more sure of her impe
nding victory over his willpower. She didn’t miss the bulge in his jeans either. She licked her lips and leaned even closer, putting her mouth near his ear.
“I’m all yours. Right here. Right now. Wherever you want me.”
A growl rumbled in his chest, but he didn’t respond and he didn’t take his eyes off the road. Kate flicked out her tongue and licked the edge of his earlobe. The shudder that followed spanned the length of Ryan’s tightly wound body. She went a step further and bit the tip of his ear, leaning against him so that her left breast dragged across his arm. If she could just get him past this whole I have to be single shit, she would not only have the perfect way to escape her conniving grandparents, she’d also have a mate Fate had chosen for her. She couldn’t help but feel a bit of unadulterated glee at that prospect.
She moved her mouth down from his ear to his neck, licking and nibbling as she went. Damn. He tastes good. Like grass and salt and man. She was quite sure tasting him from head to foot needed to be on her immediate agenda. Her hand went to the top button of his shirt and she undid it, slipping her palm inside and rubbing against his rock-hard chest. She didn’t usually get this handsy this fast with anyone, but the whole mate-pull magick mojo just about had her coming out of her skin.
“We can’t do this,” Ryan growled.
“Sure we can. We’re doing it. And the world isn’t ending.” She kissed his cheek and then his chin, moving closer and closer to those tightly drawn lips of his.
“Kate. Stop.”
She drew back immediately, removing her body from its proximity with his. She slid back over into the passenger seat and sighed. “Fine. Your loss.”
Eventually he was going to lose control and take what was his and she was damned sure she’d enjoy the implosion. She resituated her aching breasts in their lace confines and couldn’t help but notice him sneaking a look. “It’s not your fault, girls,” she said patting her boobs back into place. “He’ll eventually realize what he’s missing.”
“Who are you…are you talking to—” He met her gaze for a moment, disbelief and desire warring in his pretty blue eyes. “Never mind.”
Rodeo Wolf: Fated Mates of Somewhere, Texas (#2) Page 4
