by Kat Catesby
Kat Catesby
Her Cowboy
First published by Kat Catesby Publications 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Kat Catesby
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Kat Catesby asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition
Cover art by The Book Brander
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Her Cowboy
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
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About the Author
Acknowledgments
It took a lot of people to help get this book into existence and words alone cannot convey my gratitude to the amazing people who helped me to turn my dream into a reality.
Firstly, to Mr. Catesby and our Mini Catesby’s; thank you for your love, patience, and support. I spent a lot of time locked behind a laptop instead of playing with the Mini’s, yet your belief and enthusiasm in my dream pushed me to reach my goals. Love you all more than you know.
To my family, who didn’t bat an eye when I told them the risqué content my books would have; thank you for being so cool and unembarrassed by my dirty-mindedness. You’ve taught me the valuable lessons of love and support and striving for your dreams. Without you, I wouldn’t be who I am…and I quite like that person, so thank you.
A massive thank you to my amazing beta readers, Sandi and Mandy; your feedback and love for my characters gave me the courage to carry on and put my books out into the world. In my moments of doubt, your kind words and sharp eyes for my typos made me feel that my dream was achievable.
Lastly, to you. Yes, you! The amazing reader who took a chance on my words. I sincerely hope you stay with me on this crazy author journey because I have so many amazing heroines and sexy heroes that I want to share with you.
Much Love, Kat
Her Cowboy
New town, new job, new boss.
An insanely hot boss I just witnessed getting down and all kinds of dirty…
Smoldering cowboy and ranch owner, Asher Scott, likes it rough in the bedroom. He’ll give you the ride of your life…but you’ll be tied up for it. Just the way he likes it.
New girl Katie Morgan is starting over after surviving a brutal ex. The last thing she wants is to fall for another dominant male.
Ash and Katie have different needs when it comes to love, but they can’t deny their attraction and when they collide, it’s fireworks. Can they build a relationship that doesn’t send Katie running for the hills? Or is Ash too much for her to handle?
Chapter One
Katie
I’m early.
Really early.
Pulling up to the ranch driveway, the heavy timber log sign looming over me, I realize I’ve made seriously – and uncharacteristically – good time.
It’s a revelation actually; I’m the ‘late’ girl. The one you tell to meet half an hour before an event starts to allow for my lateness. Being early is unheard of for me, which is hilarious because the job that I’m arriving early for requires me to be super organized and punctual.
I, Katie Morgan, am the new Diamond Peak Ranch administrator. While I am hard-working, enthusiastic and organized, punctuality is a bit of a weakness of mine. Maybe the whole ‘new town, new job, new me’ thing is actually working out? Don’t get me wrong, my timekeeping is reasonably good in the working world, but it’s like there’s a daily quota of punctuality and if I use it all at work, there’s nothing left for me in my personal life.
Either way, I’m super early for my new job – so early they’re not expecting me – but I have a good feeling that this super punctuality is sure to impress my new boss, ranch owner, Asher Scott.
I’d given him my usual list of positive life and work skills during my Skype interview (no lies needed; I really am an organized administrator who just wants a change of scenery). No need to mention my nervous, insecure streak and that my confidence is mostly just for show and that I’m running away from Colorado Springs because of an abusive ex.
No need to share that.
None. At. All.
We also won’t be mentioning that my new boss is an impressive hunk of alpha male sexiness…and that’s just his face and shoulders that I glimpsed over Skype.
Diamond Peak Ranch is a half-hour drive from Aspen and has diversified into one of those destination vacation ranches. Super luxurious, spectacular scenery and still a few cowboys left to maintain the small part of the business that’s a working ranch.
During my interview, Asher made it clear that he splits his time between dealing with his fancy lodge and its fancier guests, and being a true cowboy and getting his hands dirty with the working element of the ranch. My role is to deal with the paperwork for both elements; there is a ranch manager and a lodge manager and I will basically tidy up after them and do all the jobs they just don’t want. That’s normally how administration jobs go – your job description keeps changing to cover any and everything your immediate boss can’t be fucked to do themselves. Add to that any admin that Asher himself has and I basically have three people handing me work. But I am up to the challenge and the gig comes with food and board – a tiny but incredibly cute looking cottage – which will definitely help me save money for more interesting things. Heck, I’m to be living a stone’s throw from Aspen and I love to ski…might have to wait a while for that though, considering it’s the end of April and I’ve missed the season and the lodge is gearing up for its summer clientele.
As soon as I get myself settled in the cottage, I’m going to drive back into Aspen to catch up with my ultimate BFF, Maddie. She was one of the main reasons I chose Aspen when I was figuring out where to run so that I could escape David-the-Devil. My ex from hell.
Maddie and I met my freshman year at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, where we both suffered through business degrees. Sure, they were useful but neither of us felt a passion for it. I’d yet to find my passion but Maddie had found hers.
In the three years since our graduation where I had been working administration jobs and dating David, Maddie had taken instructor courses in pole fitness, aerial hoop and yoga and was desperate to open her own gym running these classes. But for that you need clients with money and when you combine that with her love of the mountains and all things outdoors, you find Maddie making the decision to move to Aspen. She wasn’t a fool and knew full well that it was going to take time to establish her business and, in the meantime, she would need to do paid work of some sort but Aspen was where she wanted to be.
It did
n’t take much arm-twisting on her part to get me to join her; I was desperate to put some distance between me and David so that he wouldn’t track me down and tie me up.
Literally.
That was his thing. He thought he was a Dominant and that I was his perfect little Submissive, but he was just a bully who wanted his own way and never listened if you safe-worded. Sex stopped being fun and fulfilling and the power play became a permanent power deficit on my part. Our relationship drifted across the line from kink to abuse but he couldn’t see the difference and that was the big-ass fucking problem with him.
He also didn’t take too kindly to me dumping him as in his mind there was nothing wrong with our relationship. The police were even involved after one particularly brutal encounter but a combination of a great lawyer and video evidence from our early relationship showing me thoroughly enjoying the kinky sex sessions, saw him walking away with no charges brought against him. The lawyer had successfully argued that because I had been into kink it was impossible to say that I wasn’t getting off on the punishments and that I was probably just trying to tarnish the reputation of his stand-up client after he ended the relationship.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
That bullshit had required some major therapy to come to terms with and my confidence and faith in the people who are supposed to protect you is completely fucking shot. I gave my complete trust to David; I gave him total power over my body and my heart and he broke both, badly. I’d then trusted the police and the judiciary system only to find myself labeled as the scorned deviant hussy out for attention or vengeance.
Fucking lawyers.
Two hours after walking out of the police station with a smug smile on his face he was attempting to access my hospital room (yes, he actually hospitalized me), demanding that I go back to his place where he could dispense my punishment for wasting his time at the station. But if I were a good girl and pleased him then I would be rewarded after.
The deluded prick really had no concept that he’d been dumped and that’s when I knew it was time to leave, time for a fresh start.
I act pretty blasé about the whole thing but the truth is it left me reeling and empty. I want to be in love with someone but I’d have to figure out how the hell to trust someone enough to let them in in the first place.
Fuck if I know how to do that?
So, dating and trust are issues I’ve been left with. In the year since I left the hospital and therefore David (yeah, it took that long for us to save enough to move to Aspen…it’s a pricey place after all), I’ve put myself out there precisely once. And I’m not in a rush to do it again. In that year, David hung around enough that Maddie and I could never truly relax and get to a place where we knew his bullshit was over. It kept us on edge; me because I worried that he was lurking around every dark corner, Maddie because she was terrified for me, though she tried to hide it, and because David had sort of made her his rage-fuelled scapegoat. He blamed her for ‘twisting the truth’ and ‘turning me against him’. Yeah, he really is a fucking idiot. One I’m glad to finally be rid of.
His abuse and psychological bullying also left me with nightmares about the things he did to me and sexually? I honestly don’t think I can cope with anything more adventurous than the missionary position in the bedroom now – and even that’s a push because it means I’m pinned underneath the weight of a man. Maybe riding a dick cowgirl style is as good as it’s going to get for me?
In the time between the incident and being able to move to Aspen, I moved in with Maddie so that we could save the serious money required to move but also because I wasn’t faring too well and living on my own wasn’t going to help that. Between the doctors who cared for me and Maddie, I never actually made it back to my own apartment as everyone was pretty anxious about David coming by unannounced and trying to beat my door down and drag me back to his like he tried to do when I was admitted to hospital.
It was my fear too if I were being completely honest.
Once I was well enough to be discharged, I was secretly bundled into a shiny SUV belonging to a doctor and he basically smuggled me to Maddie’s and then got his friends to pack up my place and move my stuff. I was never more grateful to a bunch of strangers than I was that day. It went a long way to restoring some of my faith in people.
I also underwent some intensive therapy with a therapist who specialized in victims of domestic abuse and she was able to deal with a fair number of my issues, like the frequency of my nightmares and my nervousness with nearly every aspect of my life. I was determined not to let fuck-head David rule the rest of my life through fear and with her help, my progress was surprisingly swift.
She got me to a good place, where although I still have some big trust issues with new people, my confidence is slowly coming back – and I can front the confidence I lack in most situations. I’m slowly starting to feel like the fun-loving, happy girl I was when I was in college. She helped me find the confidence I needed to put myself out there and to go on that one date and have sex – very safe, very vanilla sex – and I’d conquered the mountain of my first sexual experience since David-the-Deranged.
Once Maddie and I had lined up jobs and she secured a small apartment, we packed up and hauled our ass’s outta there. It was going to be strange to not be living with her but life had to get back to normal so in a way it was a good thing that the cottage came with my job as it forced me to live independently again; the cottage is too far a commute for Maddie, who would be working in the center of town while plugging away at building her business.
Maddie had driven out to Aspen a few days before me to get her apartment set up, but in a bid to save as much money for her business as possible, it was a studio apartment with not enough space for both us to stay in so I had no choice but to wait the last few days out in Colorado Springs without her until the Diamond Peak Ranch and my little cottage were ready for me.
I was more anxious than I cared to admit, being on my own in Colorado Springs for the past few days, but it was good for me to pull my big girl pants up and get on with it.
Before making the final turn into the ranch drive, I pull over onto the shoulder and text Maddie.
Katie: I’m here! Well almost.
Maddie: S’up sexy lady. How far is ‘almost’?
Katie: About to turn down their drive but I’m early.
Maddie: I’ll say. Abide by the speed limit much?!
Katie: HA. Traffic was light. How’s the apartment?
Maddie: Small. But I am the queen of apartment Tetris and managed to make everything fit. Txt me when you get settled. Love u xx
Katie: Will do, love u too xx
I put the car into drive and make my way down the last few miles that makes up the driveway to Diamond Peak Ranch, although driveway isn’t a particularly adequate word as it is in fact, a private road meandering through expanses of hilly grassland and trees, making its way gently uphill to the impressive chalet-style lodge with an intimidating backdrop of hulking great mountains. The midday sun shines brightly over the breath-taking scenery, the fresh mountain air fills my car through the open window and I feel peaceful.
Yes. This is definitely the place for me while I rebuild myself.
As I near the lodge I spot the little sign saying ‘Residences’ that indicates a small road that forks to the left and leads to the accommodation for the ranch staff and Asher Scott’s ranch house. That is where I’m supposed to report so that he can give me a run down and tour of the ranch, and help me unload my worldly possessions into the little cottage I can’t wait to call home.
I can spot a little cluster of cottages as I pull up to the main ranch house – although ‘house’ is a bit of an insult to the beautiful mini-mansion sprawling before me. Business must be good for a house as stunning as that. A beautiful log style house with giant glass windows overlooking the expanse of nature; a perfect blend of modern and rustic charm and somehow more beautiful than the stunning charm of the lodge. There is def
initely a rich wooden and rustic theme to this place.
Climbing out of my car, I stretch all of my achy muscles that were cramped into my overloaded car during the three-hour drive. I squint in the bright sunlight and strain my eyes to see if I can determine which little cottage is mine, half expecting Asher Scott to come out and greet me. After a few moments I realize that isn’t happening and go knock on his front door.
No answer.
Not surprising really, the place is massive and I doubt my knock carried that far. I spot what I assume is his truck parked to one side, but that doesn’t mean anything as he could be anywhere on his acreage if he’s on horseback. I try the door and find it unlocked so tentatively make my way inside. The inside is just as impressive as the outside – the entryway is double-height, flooded with light from the full height windows and just vast, but somehow still homey. I don’t want to snoop around too much but Asher isn’t anywhere that I can spot from my current vantage point.
I hear a thump from a hallway that leads away from the large living area to the left. I call out as I make my way towards the noise but still get no response. The banging rings out again and as I peer into an open doorway the moaning starts with a vengeance.
There before me is the impressive form of Asher Scott grunting and gasping as he fucks some lucky girl like a beast. The woman in question is spread-eagled on a bed as Asher’s huge cock drills its way into her with such force that her beautiful full breasts jiggle seductively. And her moaning…fuck me, the girl has a good sex voice and thankfully she is blissfully unaware of my uninvited presence.
But their raw hunger and carnal fucking have me pinned to the spot like some startled voyeur; shocked at the unexpectedly sexy display before me but mesmerized by the exquisite muscles of Asher’s back, ass and thighs as he works her body expertly with his skillful thrusts.
