“It’s not out of the realm of possibilities.” Mitch shrugged and raked a hand through his hair. “You know the hell she went through. You know how devious that son of a bitch she was with tried to be. He was a swing away from putting her in the hospital when we stepped in that day. She got a restraining order, and he stayed away physically, but…”
“But he still could’ve gotten to her car,” Jacob finished.
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“I would.”
Both men turned to find Angel stepping through the wide-open doors of the barn. Seeing her once again wearing his shirt reminded Jacob he had neglected to get her overnight bag from the trunk like he had told her he would. Then again, he decided as he let his gaze roam her delectable body, maybe he subconsciously forgot on purpose.
Her feet were bare, as were her legs right up to the fringes of denim hanging from her cutoff shorts. She had tied the bottom of the shirt into a knot at her waist, and her hair fell in long, mussed waves over her shoulders. She looked sleepy, rumpled, and sexy as hell, and damn he wanted her.
“Good morning. Sleep well?” He knew she did. He had lain beside her for hours after she passed out, watching her, unable to believe he finally had her in his bed. Mitch slept well, too, he’d noted, probably for the first time in fifteen months. As for himself, Jacob eventually gave in to his own exhaustion only to wake every hour with the simple, clawing need to be sure Angel still lay beside him.
“Like a baby.” She smiled, and that tilt to her lips held every ounce of sensuality and promise he had felt from her last night. “I gotta say it sucked waking up alone, though.”
It sucked leaving her alone. If Jacob allowed himself to spend the day as he really wanted, he would have stayed there with her all day. Responsibility, questions, and a dread he couldn’t quite shake had pushed his ass out of bed and brought him to this barn.
“I had some things to see to around the ranch, and I told you I would have a look at your car first thing.”
“Were you right? I mean, about the whole rod-and-engine thing?”
“Yeah. The engine is gonna have to be replaced.”
Angel squeezed her eyes shut and sighed. “But you can fix it, right?”
“I’ll start calling around for another engine as soon as I get back to the house.” He paused, watching her as her eyes slowly opened, as her attention focused on him. “It’ll take a few days at least.”
“I’m in no hurry.” She held his gaze, heat and a brazen satisfaction swirling in her eyes. Hell, if he didn’t know better, he would almost swear she rigged her own rod to sling off the piston so she would be stranded here.
The look put to rest any lingering doubts and dread he woke with that morning. She didn’t intend to leave any time soon. If he got his way, she would never leave the Shelton ranch again.
“When was the last time the oil was changed in this car, darlin’?” Mitch moved around to the front of the car and slammed the hood.
Angel folded her arms beneath her breasts and drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “As far as I know, three thousand miles ago. It always got changed every three thousand miles.” She hesitated and then muttered, “Or so Mack claimed.”
“As far as you know,” Jacob prompted, thinking back to the things Mitch had shared with him, details he had learned about Angel in the months he’d kept tabs on her. They knew her ex had taken the car when she left him, knew it had taken her over a year to get it back because it had been jointly owned.
“Actually”—she winced—“It’s about a thousand miles overdue. When I finally got the car back I didn’t drive it much. I didn’t need to. Then I took a few trips, started going out more and knew it was getting time to change it. I kept reminding myself, but…”
“A thousand miles isn’t going to do enough damage to the oil to cause this,” Mitch assured her, walking around to lean his ass against the side fender. He crossed his feet at the ankles and regarded her carefully. “The way that oil looks, we’re talking several thousand miles overdue, or contaminated.”
“I wouldn’t put it past Mack to do something that devious out of spite,” Angel admitted. “But I think it’s more likely that he just let it go. He always took care of getting oil changes and stuff done.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he simply told me he got it done and never did.”
Mitch regarded her for several heartbeats before he slowly nodded. “All right, guess I’m letting my cop side get the best of me this mornin’.”
Angel lifted a perfect brow. “Well, at least that’s one side of you that you aren’t holding back from me.”
Jacob covered a laugh with a cough, even though he knew damned well he didn’t have a right to find her accusation funny. He held back on her last night, too. They both did. And apparently she realized it.
“You want to explain that, darlin’?” Mitch’s tone stayed even, conversational, but Jacob saw the danger darkening his eyes.
“Are you afraid you’re going to scare me or something?” Angel countered his question with one of her own.
More than you know, sweetheart, Jacob thought. She hit the proverbial nail on the head with that one. Scare her, damage her, break her, all were possibilities neither he nor Mitch had wanted to chance before. Not that they were willing to chance them now. It started that way last night, but then they had settled into an unspoken agreement, rather quickly, that holding back would be the better option. It was either that or send her walking, and they had come too far to do that.
“If you were going to scare me, the way you’re looking at me right now would do the job just fine,” she told Mitch. “For a cop, you suck at keeping your thoughts concealed.”
Jacob bit back a smile when Mitch’s gaze slid his way. Though he hadn’t said as much, he had noticed his buddy’s inability to hide his emotions from Angel, too.
“What am I thinking now?” Mitch asked as he turned his focus back to Angel.
“Specifically? I’m not precisely sure,” she admitted. “I’m pretty certain it falls somewhere along the fence of wanting to bend me over that hood you’re leaning against and fuck me until I scream, but you won’t.”
“What makes you think I won’t?”
“Jacob didn’t, and I saw the same expression on his face yesterday.”
“I’m not Jacob.”
“Then I suppose I have to chalk it up to the fact that anyone on this ranch could walk in here at any given time. Or maybe you’re showing some kind of messed-up gentlemanly weakness or something.”
Mitch pushed himself off the car and advanced on her. Jacob saw her take a half step back before stopping herself to face off with him. Control snapped with an almost audible pop, and Jacob knew the time for holding back had reached its end.
Chapter Five
“Darlin’, there are two things I’ve never been accused of.”
The dangerously deep inflection in Mitch’s voice sent icy shards of wicked fear racing down Angel’s spine. She’d apparently crossed some invisible line with him. Finally.
“Oh?” she asked innocently and dared to take a step toward him. His own step faltered at that. She had surprised him with her boldness. Good, he needed it. “What might those two things be?”
“I’ve never been called a gentleman, and I’ve never been told I’m weak in any way, shape, or form.”
He stopped so close to her that she felt the heat pumping off his body, warming the chill that facing off with him created in her system. She nearly purred from the sensation, wanting to close those last few inches between them and curl against him like a kitten.
“Then why are you holding back?” The question left her before her brain realized the stupidity of asking it. She was no doubt asking for trouble, engaging him in a showdown she knew damned well he would likely win. The man always won, didn’t he, because he was bigger, stronger, harder.
Mitch might be bigger, stronger, and definitely harder, but she was through letting
a man win. He wanted control. She would eagerly give that to him. But if he thought she would gallop away with her tail between her legs in fear, he had another think coming.
“Strip.”
Okay, that coolly delivered command made her eyes widen. “Now?”
“Now.”
She shot a quick glance left, then right, before locking gazes with him again. “Here?”
“Here.”
“But—” What if someone saw her? The barn doors stood wide open. Anyone could walk by at any given time and get an unobstructed view of her. She didn’t know how many people Jacob had working for him, but she knew enough about ranches to guess it would be several and most probably all men.
“Don’t make me tell you again.”
Angel gulped. What would he do to her? He sounded angry, full of authority and not leaving her one iota of space to argue. She dared to cast a cursory look toward Jacob. The expression on his face made her doubt she would find any help from him. Did she really want help? The vibrations drumming through her body were creating such chaos she couldn’t make heads or tails out of them.
As she watched him, Jacob took a few steps closer. His movement attracted Mitch’s attention.
“Got something to say?” Mitch’s tone all but dared Jacob to comment.
“Naw, just moving in for a better view.”
Mitch nodded once at that, and then his hard-edged stare returned to her. A devious thrill cut through all the chaos and ratcheted through her core. “I’m not a patient man, Angel.”
She’d asked for this. No matter how raunchy the idea of getting naked in an open barn where anyone could come upon her might be, she wanted this. Dominance thickened the air, making it difficult to breathe, making it almost impossible to think. Her flesh heated from arousal or embarrassment, she didn’t quite know, as she slipped the knot free on her shirt. The temptation to tease as she removed her clothes was nearly too strong to ignore. She managed, though, deciding she’d likely pushed Mitch as far as she dared this morning. She’d save the games for another time.
The cold authority mixed with unadulterated heat in Mitch’s gaze as it raked over her naked flesh felt like sandpaper hugged by satin, rough yet tantalizingly smooth. His hands moved in opposite directions at once, making it impossible to follow the paths of both. She caught the blur of his right hand headed south a nanosecond before his left fisted in the back of her hair. An involuntary gasp of surprise left her lips as he yanked her head back.
“Next time I give you an order, you follow it without hesitation. Got that?”
She tried to nod, but his grip on her hair wouldn’t let her. “Got it,” she managed in a breathy whisper.
“That mouth of yours is gonna get you in trouble, darlin’.” His warning didn’t add to the sliver of fear zigzagging through her. Instead, it heightened so many wicked needs she couldn’t keep them straight. “You’ve gotten pretty good at smart comebacks and snide remarks. I’m thinking it’s time we see what else that mouth can do. Get on your knees.” Even as he issued the order, he used his grip on her hair to see she obeyed.
Angel didn’t consider resisting. This was one order she would definitely follow without hesitation. Already her mouth was watering in anticipation of Mitch’s thick cock between her lips, his long length down her throat. She licked her lips, readying them, and sucked a quick breath through gritted teeth as her knees came in contact with the rough gravel of the barn floor.
Mitch fisted a hand around the base of his cock, locking gazes with her as she looked up at him through her lashes. His eyes gave him away, the desperation and lust swirling in them defying every ounce of authority she’d heard in his voice. She wanted to watch him as she took his cock in her mouth, wanted him to see her hunger, to know how badly she longed for this, longed for him. She parted her lips, letting her tongue peek out for a taste, but his grip tightened in her hair, preventing her from closing that last fraction of an inch that would bring his cockhead in reach of her tongue.
“I’m going to fuck your mouth, darlin’. I’m gonna fuck it until you’re begging for me to come, until every hole in that sexy body of yours is burning to be fucked.”
Oh, God. Angel knew such threats shouldn’t turn her on. They should make her feel slutty, nasty, used. They shouldn’t make her horny enough to drip pussy juice all over the barn floor, but they did. Her pussy felt blistered with need, slick and pulsing. The gentle breeze drifting into the barn through the open doors only added to her torment, sliding between her legs to stroke her bare lips, adding a chill to the flaming heat.
“Do it,” she whispered and watched the demand spark an all-new concoction of emotions in his stare.
He growled, the sound more animalistic this time than any she’d heard from him, and pulled her head toward his cock. She opened her lips over the bulging crest, groaning in the pleasure of that first taste. Hot and male, his iron hardness covered by warm, silky flesh. Lust stabbed through her. Hunger controlled her as effectively as his grip on her hair. He pulled at her head, but she resisted, her effort giving her just enough play to run her tongue beneath the crest, to lick her way along the vein that ran down the underside of his shaft. She felt that vein pulsing wildly beneath her tongue and would’ve smiled if her mouth hadn’t been so full of delicious cock.
Her moment of control didn’t last. He thrust his hips forward, spearing her mouth and throat with the full length of his erection, fucking her mouth like he’d warned her he would.
“Suck it, Angel.” Wild, hot desperation turned his voice dark, deep. Everything got swept away in it. Rational thoughts, sanity, even the need for survival disappeared in the hunger as lust ruled the beasts they became.
Angel sucked his cock with a fervor that drove her to the brink of her own release, losing herself in his taste, in the incredible feel of his cock in her mouth, down her throat. She squirmed, repositioning her knees in an effort to both ease the intensely mounting need to come and to allow herself better leverage to suck him deeper still. Her own orgasm teetered on the edge, but she ignored it in favor of partaking on the scrumptious treat of his dick.
“That’s it. God, Angel, keep it up,” he snarled.
She felt it when his grip loosened and took immediate advantage, licking her way back to his bulbous cockhead and tucking her tongue against the underside. She created a suction with her lips around his shaft and sucked harder, pulling at his cock with her lips and delighting in the raspy sounds it drew from his chest.
“Christ, I’m going to come.” The words barely reached her ears before she felt the first spurt of hot, thick juice inside her mouth. She moaned, her clit exploding in a tormented cry for a release of her own that she couldn’t yet find. The second spurt slid straight down her throat as she angled her head to suck his length down again, drinking from him until his seed coated her throat and his cock started to soften between her lips.
A curse that sounded wrenched from his balls made her smile in victorious satisfaction. His hand fell away from her hair, and she sat back on her heels, tipping her head back to look at him. He stood with his head bowed, eyes closed and chest rising and falling with each quickened breath. The grim set to his lips gave her pause. That was not the look she expected from a recently wellsated man.
Suddenly unsure about everything beyond how badly her body burned to be touched, to be skin to skin with him, she dared to put her hand on his thigh. She sucked in a startled breath when his eyes flew open at the contact. The breath stayed lodged in her throat as he stared down at her through eyes gone dark with what she could only deem to be anger.
“Get up.” The order came as barely more than a whisper but held every ounce of authority she’d come to expect from him.
Angel pushed herself to her feet on legs that quivered. She licked her lips, allowing her eyes to close briefly as the lingering taste of his ejaculation treated her taste buds. He stared at her for so long she wondered if he was waiting for her to say something. She started t
o, not knowing exactly the words that would come out, but a lightning bolt of pain shot through his expression, silencing her on the spot.
“Damn you,” he whispered.
Angel blinked in shock. Damn her? What had she done?
“I knew you would do it,” he said, his movements jerky as he zipped his cock back in his pants. “I knew if I didn’t stay away from you I would lose it. Dammit, Angel.” He raked an obviously frustrated hand through his hair then grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her toward Jacob. “Fuck her.”
Stunned and completely perplexed, Angel watched through blurry eyes as he stepped around her and walked straight out of the barn.
“What just happened?” Angel turned a tear-filled gaze on Jacob that tore at his soul.
He reached for her, needing to hold her, wanting to do anything he could to erase the sadness from her beautiful face. “Give him some time. He’s struggling with his own demons right now.”
“He’s running from me.” It wasn’t a question. Jacob never doubted for an instant that Angel was smart, yet her ability to read Mitch and himself continued to surprise him.
Jacob nodded. “He is. You scare him.” More than any woman ever came close to scaring Mitch Dalton in all the years he and Jacob had been friends. Jacob couldn’t help but think it would do his friend good to be frightened of something for a change, maybe take him down a notch from the always-in-control, always-supremely-confident mindset he possessed.
“Hell, you scare me, too.” He could admit that without shame or regret. The woman terrified him clean to his toes. The way he’d fallen for her, Stetson over cowboy boots, almost the moment he laid eyes on her worried him more than anything he had ever faced in his life.
“Funny, I thought I should be the one scared of you guys.”
“Are you?” He had to ask, needed to know.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Good. That was never our intention.”
Ramagos, Tonya - Running from Angel [Sunset Cowboys 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 6
