by April, Dani
“That isn’t how it’s going to go down, guys,” Raven told them, and again all of them set back to listen to her. “I’ve never been into the group thing. We’re pushing enough of an unconventional thing here without breaking any more new ground than we have to.”
“There’s five of us, Raven,” Connor reminded her. He had been quiet but had been surprisingly accepting of everything she had proposed. Evidently he really did care for the other guys as much as he’d told her, and didn’t have any problems sharing. “None of us are jealous, but we are going to have some complicated sleeping arrangements to work out.”
“I’ve already worked it all out,” Raven returned. “I was just coming to that part. Here’s how it’s going to work. Remember I’m still the boss. No group sex. We do it one-on-one. You guys are going to start working six days a week. When you get your day off you’ll get to spend it with me.”
“Did you say six days a week?” Roy asked.
“You’re getting a raise, cowboy.” Raven said and laughed at him. “So quit your complaining.”
“Raven?” Tyler interrupted her from his position at the end.
“Yes, Tyler?”
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” he asked, not sounding at all sure. “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into? There are five men out here, each one hornier than the next, and you’re just one young, inexperienced woman”
Raven smiled, her smile seductive and lustful. She laughed and bent her head back and realized she hadn’t felt so good or so free at any other moment in her life.
“I know exactly what I’m getting myself into. Do you guys realize what you’re getting yourselves into?”
Roy and Bran laughed with her.
“If you talked to my ex back in Chicago, you’d probably all haul ass out of here and never look back.” She told them and laughed.
Connor reached across the table and took her hand in his. He smiled up at her. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known, Raven.”
“I’m just a girl who knows what she wants.” She raised her voice and spoke to them all again. “Now those are the ground rules, guys. Take ’em or leave ’em. They’re non-negotiable.”
There was a quick rush of assent from the collective guys gathered at the table.
“Say, who had today off?” Bran looked around the table, trying to figure who the first lucky man would be. They all shook their heads and laughed.
“We all worked today,” Connor told her.
“So who are you sleeping with tonight, Raven?” Roy asked.
“God, you guys are terrible,” Raven teased them. “After the day we’ve all just had, how can you even think about sex?”
“Ever since you entered our lives I think we’ve all just had one thing on the brain,” Connor told her, his shy smile returning.
“Well, I’m too tired for any of you guys tonight,” Raven said, brushing back her long hair behind an ear. “And since none of you had the day off I guess I’ll be sleeping alone tonight.”
“That’s not fair!” Roy yelled, but he wasn’t serious. The other guys all laughed.
“Now go get some sleep, guys,” Raven ordered, and knew she sounded like the ranch boss. “Tomorrow you’re all up before dawn. Tomorrow is the first day. We have exactly three months to put this ranch back on its feet.”
“So the games begin tomorrow?” Connor asked.
Raven smiled. “That’s one way of putting it.”
She walked back to her trailer, surprised at the direction the night had taken her in, but not in the least sorry. She was convinced she had made the right call for herself, for the Lazy L, and for her five guys.
Already she knew she had more control over these guys than even her grandfather probably had, and she had more determination than she had ever known was possible. Suddenly she had a goal in life, was in complete control, and had a family backing her up, and it felt good.
“I have to work tomorrow,” she heard Roy tell the other guys. “Who has tomorrow off?”
“I do,” Chip said quietly.
Raven couldn’t sleep that night. The day she had just lived through had been the longest of her life and in some ways her worst, but she had pulled herself out of it and found a potential solution to her problems.
Her solution to take on all the men as lovers would not have been her first choice, not even her second or third choice. However, the moment she came up with the idea a great weight seemed to leave her shoulders. The dark clouds had begun to clear from the horizon of her future, and hope had returned to her life.
She lay in bed and listened to the wind buffet her trailer. What was she going to do with five boyfriends? Could she handle them all? What sorts of things would they want to do with her? These questions and a hundred others flooded her mind, the adrenaline pumped through her brain, and she knew she would not catch a wink of sleep.
She lay in bed wearing only her panties and smiled to herself, thinking about the possibilities. She had never been a sexually adventurous person, but she had always loved men, and now she was about to get her fill of them. She let a small laugh escape her mouth when she thought of the looks on the guys’ faces when she had told them.
The summer night was hot, and she reached up to open the window next to her bunk bed. Lying back on the sheets, she wondered for a brief moment if she had gotten herself in over her head. Could she please them all, and how would she feel after she had spent a few nights in their bed?
There was no turning back now, and as she searched her soul for how she really felt deep down, she realized that at the moment she was okay in having a physical relationship with each of the five guys working on her ranch. If they had been just any five guys she would have taken the offer to sell the ranch and headed back to the city to take her chances, but she really believed there was something special about each and every one of her five guys, and she found that she could hardly wait to get to know them better.
She realized that she was about to get to know them all…a lot better. Reaching down between her legs, she found she was wet just thinking of what lay before her. After about four in the morning she finally drifted off to a peaceful sleep, a smile on her face and her dreams very naughty.
Tomorrow was going to be a very unusual day.
Chapter Ten
Light streamed in through the window next to the bed. Raven’s alarm went off on the table next to her bunk bed, beckoning her to the new day. Despite having had little sleep the night before, she didn’t feel tired. Instead she felt a nervous anticipation and was anxious to start her day.
After her debacle with the shower a couple days before, she had learned to dress, take plenty of towels with her, and wait for the guys to leave for work before heading down to the showers.
She walked out into the morning sunlight and found another beautiful day had dawned over the range. Giving a long stretch to work out the kinks in her muscles from the night in the tiny bunk bed, she took a deep lungful of fresh mountain air and realized that she didn’t have a clue as to how to start the big day before her.
Well, a shower and a cup of coffee would be the best way to start, and it was still early, just an hour after sunrise, so she had all day and all night before her. Where were her guys, she wondered as she looked around the trailer yard. Their trucks were gone, so they had already headed off to the prairie to start their jobs.
She took a long shower. It was cold, but she had gotten used to the cold water already, and she even sort of liked it, as it served to wake her up. She found that she lingered longer over her body with the bar of soap than she usually did and used a bottle of sweetly scented body lotion, covering every inch of her body with the deliciously thick liquid.
After she stepped out of the shower she combed her long, black hair over her shoulders and down her back and watched herself in the mirror, assessing her face and the curves of her body. Her hair wasn’t cooperating, falling wild down her back and shoulders and flowing every wa
y across her body that it pleased. Finding way too many imperfections to suit herself, she gave up on the mirror and headed back to her trailer to get dressed for the day.
She dressed in her best jeans. They were slightly too tight and showed off her butt very well, and she chose to wear a T-shirt she had gotten at a concert last year that said “Get Down To It” on the front. The shirt was too short on her to even tuck into her jeans, and if she moved just right her belly button was exposed under the shirt and just above the line of her jeans. Having no appropriate footwear yet for the ranch she choose a pair of open-toed flip-flops for her feet, but then looked down at her toenails and realized she hadn’t had time to paint them in two weeks.
What the hell was she doing, she asked herself. Preparing for a date with one of her ranch hands was the answer. She wanted to look nice. Maybe nice wasn’t exactly the right word. Appropriate for the occasion would have been a better phrase. The word sexy summed up how she wanted to look even better. However, Raven realized she wasn’t one of those women who had an easy time looking sexy.
Normally Raven didn’t care all that much whether she looked sexy or not, but today she found that she wanted to look attractive. Her appearance was important to her today, and the mirror captivated her minutes longer than it should have as she applied the tiniest hint of makeup and then dabbed a finger of perfume behind each ear and reached down her shirt to spread the scent across her chest.
As she prepared herself in front of the mirror she drank her morning coffee and turned on a morning show on the flat-screen TV. My God, this almost felt like just any other day, coffee, morning talk show, long shower and wild, flyaway hair.
She finished her coffee and set the mug down in the sink for later cleanup, turned off the TV, unable to concentrate on the talk show anyway. Slipping into her flip-flops, she headed out the door, the caffeine from the coffee giving her an adrenaline rush and a confident start to the day.
Back outside in the trailer yard she got the feeling of utter emptiness and aloneness she had gotten on her first morning there. No vehicles were around, no signs of human life, off in the distance the mountains, taking on a blue haze in the morning light towered over everything and seemed to march off to the end of the world, and a bird cawed somewhere out on the prairie.
Where was Chip’s trailer from here? She recalled that it was only a few hundred yards to the north down the gravel road. She could have walked the distance, but decided to take control and get on her bike. She threw her bag with her wallet, iPad, makeup and breath mints over her shoulder and hopped on top of her bike. Kicking off its stand, she revved the little engine, clutched the handles, and let the dust fly behind her as she headed for Chip’s.
This was Chip’s day off. When she got to his trailer, she saw his truck still parked out in front. Her heart did a bunny hop in her chest, and she took a deep swallow to steady her nerves. This was just a date with a guy she really liked, and who she thought was movie-star gorgeous. No big deal, she tried to lie to herself, just a normal date. Oh, but it was so far from normal.
Chip opened the door of his trailer as she approached. He could hardly meet her eyes. If she was feeling nervous about the whole wild setup, taking one look at him she realized he was terrified.
He was dressed as he always was, in old jeans, a tight T-shirt over tighter abs, and tall cowboy boots.
“Hey, stranger,” Raven called to him.
“Good morning.” She saw his eyes briefly roam the length of her body, and then, as if afraid to explore anymore for fear of getting into trouble, he returned his gaze back to the weeds on the ground.
Raven came up to him. She had to rise up on her toes to reach him as he was almost a foot taller than she was. She put her arms around his shoulders and gave him a kiss on the lips. The kiss was sudden and brief and promised things to come. He smelled so fresh and clean. He had just shaved and his perfectly featured face was smooth and, to Raven, very inviting. She smelled cologne on him and wondered if he ever wore it before.
She pulled away from their embrace and looked up into his beautiful eyes. He could still barely face her, and she noticed his breathing was already heavy.
“You ready for our day together, cowboy?”
“I don’t know.” He still couldn’t meet her eyes.
“What do you want to do first?”
“Raven…I…” He struggled for words.
“Because I’m open to suggestions.” She put her hands on his shoulders and felt the muscle beneath his shirt. “I’m new to all of this, too, but don’t worry, we’ll work it out together.”
When she touched him, he was able to look down and meet her stare, his beautiful emerald-green eyes finding hers. “Raven, you don’t have to do this,” he told her, and for the first time she heard his voice fill with self-confidence.
“I know I don’t have to do anything.” She smiled up at him. “No one’s making me do anything. I’m doing this because it’s what I want. You still want me?”
“Oh, God.” He gasped. “More than anything I’ve ever wanted in all my life.”
“Good,” she told him and turned from him, looking over at his truck. “I’d like to go into Masterson and do some shopping.”
“You want to go shopping?” he asked, and she thought he may have been slightly disappointed.
She nodded and laughed at him “There are a few things I want to buy, and as I remember Masterson had a pretty decent mall outside of town. Is it still there?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He was confused. That’s okay. She’d have all day to un-confuse him.
She looked over her shoulder to him, her hair blowing across her face. “Take me in for a day of shopping, Chip?”
“Yeah, sure…absolutely…Just let me get my keys and we can start.” He ran back inside his trailer.
She couldn’t help but laugh again. A guy like him in the city would have had a hundred girls trying to get into his pants and would have developed the ego of a rock star. But out here on the prairie he was so pure and unspoiled, untouched even. She smiled to herself and laughed at the image of him running for his truck keys.
“You ready?” she asked him ten seconds later when he came running back out of his trailer firmly clutching his keys and now wearing a big, white cowboy hat that seemed to go perfectly with his boots.
“Yes, ma’am,” he told her as he ran to open the passenger side door for her.
When she climbed up past him to get inside his truck, she got another whiff of his cologne. He had put it on too strong, but she decided she liked the scent and would just have to teach him to apply it more conservatively next time.
He climbed in next to her and started up his truck. She was not seated close to him, not wanting to frighten him any more than he already seemed to be. There would be time to sit close to each other later once they had gotten better acquainted.
“You don’t know what you are in for today,” she teased him.
“Ma’am?” He was still confused.
There was no air-conditioning in Chip’s truck, or if there was it did not work. His truck was old and from the loud noise of the engine, badly in need of repair.
Raven rolled down the passenger window next to her, no automatic windows in this old truck, and let the wind from the prairie whip inside against her face. It felt good, and she had to play with her long hair to keep it out of her eyes.
“I’m a shopaholic,” she told him. “I just have this problem whenever I get around a mall or any store. I can’t pull myself out of it. I just wanted to warn you before we start. My shopping problem has brought many a good man to their knees.”
“I’m real happy to go shopping with you.”
“You don’t mind spending your only day off running all over the mall with a chick?”
He smiled at her, his eyes barely meeting hers and then flirting with her curves under her short T-shirt for the barest fraction of a second before he lost his courage and turned back to look at the dirt thrown
up on the gravel road in front of them.
“I don’t care what we do together, Raven,” he told her, his voice quiet and sure. “I just want to spend my time off with you.”
“Thank you, Chip, that’s sweet.” Raven loved it when his voice became confident, chasing away his fear, and hoped she could get him to be like this all the time. A man like Chip didn’t deserve to be timid. He had far too much to offer. “You don’t mind if we make a day of it at the mall then?”
“That sounds nice. I’d like to.”
“Masterson mall, here we come!” Raven squealed and decided Chip was definitely going to be fun to shop with.
They had a forty-five-minute drive into Masterson and a ten-minute drive beyond that to get to the mall. Once they parked in the big lot outside and climbed out onto the blacktop Raven took Chip’s hand in hers and led him inside,
“You’ve never been shopping with me,” she warned him again. “You’re going to have to be real patient with me.”
“I don’t mind, Raven,” he said, and she felt his hand trembling just slightly inside her grasp. The poor guy was really nervous.
“I’ll make it up to you later. I promise.” She gave him a big kiss, briefly wrapping him in her arms. Then she tugged him on into the mall with her. He was in a daze. Did he know what she had just promised him with that kiss, she wondered?
Raven purchased herself a powerful, late-model, portable PC and all the software she needed to run the ranch from it. Chip didn’t like computers too well, but he tested some of the new PC games while Raven discussed deals with the salesman. It was amazing what a just-under-the-limit credit card could buy.
When she finally checked out with a cart full of boxes at the PC store, Chip took them to his truck for her. When he returned, she gave him another kiss and let her hands run across his chest, giving him more promises of what was to come by her touch.
