by Mia Madison
“Hi Baby.” I hitch onto the stool beside the asshole. “How was the rest of your day?”
“Okay. I'm glad you're here though.”
“Yeah, I missed you too.”
Let him look askance at the intimacy between us. He looks even more discomfited when I set the iron bar down on the bar, keeping one fist wrapped around the handle, the other free for the beer Edie sets in front of me.
“Must be nice to roll into a place where a bartender this good-looking knows what you want before you order.”
“Yeah Edie knows what I like.”
“What's that,” Edie asks, indicating the sculpted bar.
“Just something I fired up this afternoon after you left. Something to keep you safe from whoever was taking pot shots at us.”
“That was you?” the dude says in deep shock.
No one ever said gangsters were smart. I see Edie's eyes get wide with shock and hatred.
“Yeah that was me,” she snaps at him.
“A bar against a gun?” he says with a smug grin, not an ounce of shame at being caught out. That makes me want to hurt him even more
“Yeah, don't worry I know who's got it coming and I ain't afraid to use it. Might be best you hitch on out of town and stop making wolf eyes at my girl,” I snarl.
“I haven't yet completed my business in town,” he resists in that accent of his.
“Your business is complete,” I inform him. “You go back to the city and tell your boss he better not send any more thugs looking for me.”
The stare down between us looks like turning nasty and my fist tightens on the pole, ready to knock his head off if necessary.
“You aren't planning to threaten me with that little blacksmith's rod are you?” He snarls with a venomous smile. Then our eyes jolt at the sound of a cartridge being cocked. Across the bar Edie's pulled out a shotgun from somewhere and is pointing it directly at the dude.
“Baron, I think it's time you got the hell outta my bar. This gun big enough for you?”
“I got this, Babe,” I tell her, putting my hand on the barrel and tipping it down. Last thing we need is Edie in the injustice system.
“You tell her, keep the little girl in line,” Baron snipes, then he notices the gathering of cowboys from all sides of the bar, guys from Foxworth as well as the other ranch we traditionally compete with. They all saunter over to surround my back and stare down the stranger.
“You only had to say,” he says to Edie.
“I did say and now I'm making it plain,” she says, her hand still on the shotgun.
He heads for the door and kicks it open with those shiny new boots that weren't fooling anyone.
Chapter Nineteen
Edie
Quint leans across the bar and takes the gun from me, putting the safety back on.
“I don't need my woman protecting me,” he says.
“Your woman?” I say, in mock surprise, but I can't stop grinning so hard it hurts.
“Yeah mine. You got a problem with that?” he gruffs.
“No problem,” I say, still smiling at his scowl.
“Good, because Baby you are coming dangerously close to another spanking and I doubt your cheeks have lost the pink tinge from this morning yet.”
“You've turned into a wild man,” I tell him. And I love it.
“You've turned me into a wild man. I feel like a beast when I'm with you and no animal allows any other dog to come sniffing around his mate.”
“Is that what I am, Quint? Your mate.”
I notice how my voice drops low and kind of girlish sometimes when I'm talking to Quint. It's funny because that never happened when we used to talk as friends and I've never been like this with my ex, or any other guy for that matter. It's just a thing Quint brings out in me.
“Shea said something weird to me as I was heading down here tonight. That only thing that was a surprise about you and me getting together was that it took so long.”
“Dallyce said the same thing to me when she gave me a ride out to the ranch, that they've all been waiting for you to come to the realization that -”
I can't say the word. It's too soon and too huge. Quint's holding my gaze trapped though, waiting for me to finish. His mouth turns up in that sexy grin of his.
“Say it, baby. You always want open honesty.”
I can't force myself to do it. It's too presumptuous and cheeky to tell a man that everyone knows he's in love with you but him.
“Okay, allow me. They've all been waiting for me to come to the realization that I'm in love with you. Is that what you meant?”
My cheeks fill with blood, no doubt as bright pink as my bottom still was last time I checked in the washroom. The tingly heat has been driving me insane all evening. All I wanted was for Quint to get here as soon as possible and take me upstairs to relieve me.
“Look at me, Baby,” he insists.
I lift my eyes up from where I've lowered them and find him grinning with a satisfied smile.
“A man should love his mate, right? You and I are clearly made for reach other. Just let me take care of the threats and protection from now on though.”
“I'm not used to a man doing all that for me. I've had to take care and protect myself for so long.”
“Yeah, well get used to it cuz you've got me now.”
Shea and the boys arrive and come right over to where Quint is sitting to clap him on the back, which is a first in all the time he's been coming to McDools.
“So it's official at long last?” Shea says, more of a statement than a question. “Dallyce said she told you to be Edie's date for the wedding.”
“Yeah she did although I'd have got around to that myself.”
“We can see how long it takes you to get around to something though and the wedding's in four moths so we don't have that long.”
“She asked me to be maid of honor as well,” I say, although I guess she knows that. I'm just surprised she didn't ask Chloe now that they're working together on the new business venture at Foxworth. Maybe it would be too weird having your boss as bridesmaid.
“Yeah she's real pleased to have a girlfriend to talk to instead of just burly old me.”
“Where is the young bride?”
“She got called over to talk to Chloe so she said I should come down to McDools for a quick beer.”
“I haven't seen you in here for ages it seems.”
“I got all I need at home now.”
He picks up his beer and joins the other guys at the dartboard.
“If Dallyce is inviting you to be her maid of honor and partner me at her wedding, that makes us mates in the eyes of everyone that matters. Foxworth is my family now.”
“So you won't be running away,” I ask, needing to be sure he won't vanish on me if we get into this.
“I ain't going anywhere and definitely not without you at my side.”
Quint doesn't leave like he normally would and that feels new and strange but so good. To have a man lock up and haul out the heavy garbage is a blessing.
I'll be able to get the clean up done double quick with Quint helping me although he's already done his own work, it seems wrong he should have to do more.
“Why don't you sit and relax,” I offer. “You've had a long day.”
“Why don't you come over here and kiss me?” he replies.
“I've got to get this done. If I kiss you, you know I won't finish the -”
I don't get to finish because Quint's behind me and his hands slide up from my hips to cup the undersides of my breasts.
“When I tell my mate to kiss em, she better do it,” he grits in the back of my ear.
“Okay, I'll remember from now on.”
I turn around and he crushes me to him, taking my mouth like he wants to devour me. His hand moves down my back to squeeze my cheek and when I gasp from the tender pinch of the spanked skin he moves back up to mound my breast. It's like he wants all of my body at once but I want his
too. So bad, I've been half crazed all night, snapping at customers especially that mobster character I'm sure took the shot at us.
I slide down Quint's solid body, dropping to my knees. I tug his belt loose then his zipper and dip into his jeans, finding no briefs to deal with. It shouldn't surprise me that Quint goes commando nor that he lets out a chuckle at my squeak of surprise.
I guess he's proud of his strapping huge cock, the girth of which is pressing at the skin, growing wider with every pulsation. I take the tip in my mouth and lick along the top until Quint groans with need. His hands wrap around my head, edging me down and I don't need any encouragement. Relaxing my lips to stretch as wide as possible I slide down his length until he hits the back of my throat with another deep groan.
“Oh Baby,” he rasps out.
I absolutely adore having Quint in my mouth and focus on moving smoothly back and forth, rubbing with the flat of my tongue, even working from side to side with the point along the rough underside to change up the pressure and direction. When I hold him deep inside my throat he cups hos palms around my head with so much affection it almost brings tears to my eyes. When I let out a moan of a sigh Quint can't restrain himself any longer.
After he lifts me in his arms, still strong despite the depletion he's just been through, and carries me up to the bedroom.
“I guess I'm not ever going to walk up the stairs to bed ever again,” I say stroking the side of his head and rough stubbled cheek.
I can't stop looking at him and feeling amazed that this man is mine at last. At last because he's the one I was waiting for all along and he was right under my nose.
“Not as long as I have arms to carry you with,” he says.
He sets me down on the bed then lowers his massive wide chest to cover me.
Epilogue
Six months Later
Quint
I've somehow become one of the guys. Since Edie. Don't ask me how that happens, that people suddenly pull you into their circle and make you a part of their group. I never would have thought I'd be anything more than a gruff, somewhat surly, hermit, but Edie changed everything.
“So Quint what's it like being an old married dude?” Jessop asks one night they've drawn me into sitting at the fire with them.
I'd just gotten back from the bar with Edie. I drive into town every night and sit at the bar, same as before, only know I'm making sure no one so much as looks at her the wrong way. Some nights I help her clean up, even though she insists I should relax and let her take care of it, then we go up to sleep in her little apartment above the bar.
I say sleep but very little sleeping is getting done. Like I said maybe a dozen times, I can't get enough of her body, I'm in love with the shape of her, her aroma, how impossibly silky her skin is.
While she sleeps I often trail a finger along her lines and then all day, I hammer out the burning hot steel with only those in my head. My metal work has taken on the curves of the feminine. Even banging out a horseshoe, I have Edie's hot pink buttock in my head.
Most nights she wants to come back to my house at the ranch.
“It's not any bigger than your apartment when you get down the meat and bones of it,” I tell her.
“It's not about size,” she says with a dirty little smile. “I like feeling like we have a home. I like your work all around and the fireplace we can cuddle up in front of.”
“Babe, you don''t need a fire lit in Texas.”
“It can get chilly here. Anyway it's not about need, it's about romance. Plus I don't want you to have to drive all the way out to the ranch at five in the morning.”
“I get it,” I tell her, hands up in surrender. “Whatever you want. But I think truth is you want to come to my forge when you wake up and watch me hammer some hot metal.”
“You know I love a soot-smeared sweat-glistening bicep.”
“Yeah,” I gruff out at her in a throaty growl and pull her to me so she goes crashing into that solid chest she's got such a thing for. “I do.”
Age difference? What's that?
Jessop and the younger cowboys josh at me in a way they wouldn't dare do with Shea. He and I are both older guys with younger girls permanently in our lives. They seem to find it amusing that we can manage to keep our girls happy.
“Watch and learn,” Shea tells them.
“Yeah,” I add. “You single guys could take a few lessons on how to please a woman form your elders.”
“Boo,” they chuckle, but they have to admit defeat.
“Not for me, I ain't ever getting' hitched,” Rafe says.
“You ain't even young,” Jessop says and gets a joking fist on the underside of his chin.
“What do they have to talk about in the middle of the night?” I ask Shea.
We'd piled out of the truck when Dallyce came barreling out of the main ranch house.
“Whoa, where's the fire,” I said.
“I need Edie. Chloe and I can't decide on which – well never mind, it's a girl thing, Quint.”
She takes my girl by the arm and drags Edie off to Foxworth where they clearly huddle together in the bridal war room, plotting their next move to bring down the world at the ceremony.
“You planning on a big wedding, Shea?” I ask, wondering what the hell they're up to.
“Nope,” he says. “But seems like it's getting that way all by itself.”
“You're next, Quint.” Jessop says.
“Whoa, not me. Edie's happy the way we are. No need for officialdom.”
“Yeah, you have to get a license so then the FBI gonna figure out where you're hiding.”
It somehow became a thing that I'm on the run of in witness protection, after that shot was fired at us and the strange gangster type was hanging around asking questions. I think we're safe from that now but I keep a couple of my specially crafted iron bars under the bed and in the cab of the truck just in case.
The girls finally come from the house, both bursting with secrets.
“What are you up to,” Shea asks Dallyce, pulling her under his huge wing where she snuggles in against his chest.
I get up from the log I'm perched on to pull Edie into my chest, my hands gripping both her hips hard. I've missed her something bad in the hour she's been gone.
Dallyce is whispering something to Shea, her little hand cupped at his huge head to hide her secret from us. But her eyes keep flicking over toward us and I notice Edie throw her a light glare. She disentangles from me and wraps both hands around my thick forearm to drag me off to our house.
“Night, Shea, Dallyce,” I say and receive a hand lifted in response form the big guy.
“Come on,” Edie says, tugging on my arm to get me to move faster.
“Where's the five alarm now?” I joke. “There's plenty of time for what I've got planned for you Baby and it's gonna start with you going over my knee.”
“No,” she blurts out. So sharply I know she's serious.
“Well then I'm going to bend my beautiful little woman over and take her so hard she won't walk straight.”
“No, Quint,” she says, her eyes flashing at me.
She drags me up the two steps to the cabin porch and I take her hips, shoving her up against the door. She goes flying back into it and I palm both hands to the wood so she's caged between my biceps.
I lean in, intending to plunge into her mouth until she's writhing between my arms, clawing at my abs and begging me to take her inside. This time she squirms away from me. I hook one hard finger around her jaw and turn her back to face me, my lips an inch from hers.
Her eyes are wild with what looks like fear. Fear” Why is my girl terrified of me all of a sudden? Usually she wants me coming at her hard and rough.
“Quint, I'm pregnant,” she blurts out, so breathy and soft I have to stop and make sure I heard her right.
“Pregnant?”
“I am. I'm sorry. I was yakking with Dallyce and Chloe about how my breasts seem to be filling out. I thoug
ht it was from, you know, all the man-handling.”
She looks down for a second and her cheeks take on a blush I'd love to see on her ass cheeks.
“Chloe asked had I missed a period and when I thought about it, I realized I didn't bleed when I should have last time. I didn't think anything of it because, well never mind. The thing is, Dallyce went to get her pregnancy kit and -”
“Dallyce has a pregnancy kit in the house?” I ask wondering what Shea thinks about that.
“Yes, they're trying to get pregnant but don't tell anyone.”
“Okay I'll try to keep my gossip quiet.”
I'm joking because I'm stunned. Me a father. I can't believe it. Me a father. Wow, that's so incredible.
“Quint, I'm sorry. Are you mad? Quint say something.”
Me a father. I really cannot believe it but -
“Quint?”
“Baby, Oh my Baby.”
I drop to my knees on the porch and hug her to me, my ear against her stomach. I plant a slew of kisses across her belly and down over the mound of her pubis to her entrance where my baby's growing happily inside her.
“Quint,” she laughs, her fingers daggering through my hair to wrap my head and pull my face between her thighs.
“That's the best news I've ever heard. Now I have two babies to love and take care of.”
I power my thighs to rise back to my feet then I pick Edie up in my arms, kick the door open and carry her across the threshold. I heel the door shut behind me and head for the bedroom.
“Now you really won't ever walk up the stairs or to your bed on your own legs,” I tell her.
She cups my stubble chin on both small hands and pulls my face down. Our lips come crashing together and I cover her mouth and claim her.
*
I hope you enjoyed this second installment of the Foxworth Stud Ranch series. All the books are steamy standalone stories of older rougher men and the younger women that fall head over toe for them. The first is Shea and Dallyce's story, My Cocky Cowboy. The next is...coming soon.
Have you read the books in the Bossy series?
Bossy Daddy
Bossy Billionaire
Bossy Valentine
Bossy Christmas Party
