by Em Petrova
“Is the data protected with encrypted passcodes?”
“From what I’ve seen so far.”
“Were you provided with a passcode, or do you get to choose your own?”
“They let me choose.”
“I wish there was a way for you to get me in there to look at that system.”
He eyed her. “What would you do?”
“I’d shut down a few cameras at a time, so nobody noticed. Duplicate the views and run them on loop so it looks as if they haven’t been disabled.”
“Sounds more complicated than I’m capable of.”
“Maybe we should switch roles—I’m much better with the tech, and you can strongarm your way to Black’s wife.”
He laughed, liking her more. The sun slowly chased down the horizon, lighting up the ground in patches of shadow and light and falling through the trees to dapple Lauralee’s face too.
She asked a few more pointed questions, which he managed to answer without sounding like he was clueless when it came to the technology. When he spotted the perfect location he’d been searching for—flat, with a cushion of short ground cover and good grazing for the horses—he reined up.
Shooting a look over her shoulder, she said, “What are you doing?”
“Let’s stop here.”
The part of his brain he still had a grip on shouted that stopping was a bad idea. But the part that kept hearing Lauralee’s little moans when he plundered her mouth made him dismount.
She did the same, reins wrapped around one hand, looking off at the sky glowing gold and orange.
“Pretty, ain’t it?” He didn’t look away from her face. He got a firm grip on his desire. “Let’s sit and talk a spell.”
The twist of her lips told him she didn’t trust him as far as she could toss him.
He unbuckled the saddlebag and withdrew a blanket.
“Did you know that was in there?”
“No, but it’s not uncommon. A good horseman’s always prepared.” He set his mare free to graze and spread the blanket on the ground.
She eyed the blanket with a sneer of distrust.
He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, lamenting the fact he didn’t have a hat. “We’ve had a long day, Lauralee. Just sit down and look at the sunset for a few minutes, okay?”
He sought to put her at ease, but he could benefit from a bit of peace too, dammit.
When he sank to the blanket, knees bent and one arm slung around them, she sat too, keeping a foot of space between them. She fixed her stare on the horizon and finally released a deep sigh.
“Better?” he asked.
She dropped her cheek to her bent knees, head canted his way. He did the same, resting his head on his cocked knee and staring at her. “A lot happened today,” she whispered.
“I’d like to tell you it’ll get easier, but truth is, everything could blow up tomorrow.”
“I was so scared of slipping today and telling people my real name. I’m not sure if I’m quick-witted enough to get myself out of trouble if that happens.”
“If you start to slip, fake a coughing fit.”
She arched a brow. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, like this… I’m Boonechahhhahaha—excuse me. Brodie.”
When she smiled, the corner of her mouth curved against her knee.
His gut hollowed out and then flared with the same fire he’d experienced back in their room—only hotter, higher, brighter and deadlier.
He unfolded himself and reached for her. When he rolled her onto the blanket, arms braced around her to support his weight, he stared into her eyes.
“Boone…”
“I don’t know what’s making me act like this.”
“I do—the stupid fake marriage is addling your brain.”
He shook his head. “I thought my buddy might have bewitched the rings.”
“Then we should hunt him down after this and make him pay.”
His smile flashed and then vanished as he stared at her sweet, delectable mouth.
“I want to kiss you, Lauralee.”
“Why?” She searched his eyes but made no move to push him off her. In fact, she lay there calm and content, discussing kisses as if they were talking about what to eat for dinner.
“Someone could be following us. We have to make it look good.”
She darted her eyes around but didn’t turn her head. “Do you think someone could be?”
“Possible.”
She narrowed her eyes. “All eyes will be on us, because we’re new to the ranch. But you’re trained as a bodyguard. If you thought someone was watching, you would have said so a while back.”
He searched her face. “Maybe I wanna kiss you because you’re beautiful.”
She lowered her stare from his. “I bet you kiss lots of pretty girls.”
“None with a brain behind their eyes.”
That brought a soft smile to her lips.
“Plus”—he lowered his mouth, drawing closer to her—“we only have each other here.”
“That isn’t a reas—”
He cut off her words when he crushed his mouth over hers.
The instant her flavor flooded his brain, a groan rumbled through him. He could blame it on magic rings and close proximity, but truth was, this attraction had gone on a lot longer. Picking on Lauralee every chance he got, teasing her just to see her rise to his bait, had been a sort of flirting he’d never used before. Maybe he wanted to find out if she’d react to him before ever making a move.
And boy, was she reacting to him now. Arching into his kiss, pushing her tongue into his mouth and wiggling under him with a restless heat that had his cock blazing to fully hard.
He tangled his fingers in the hair over her ear and plunged his tongue inside her mouth over and over, drawing squeaks from her. When she emitted a nervous giggle, he withdrew.
Searching her eyes, he noted the sparkle of humor in the depths.
“What’s funny?” His voice took on a rough timbre.
“This is just…crazy?”
“And feels so good.”
“But you’re technically my boss.”
“Then we both deserve a reprimand.”
“I’m sure Ross will be happy to dole out punishment.”
“What Ross doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” He swept in and claimed her mouth again, forging his way inside and capturing her tongue with a flip. All amusement fled, replaced by her clutching fingers on his shoulders, angling him closer, taking what she wanted from the moment.
And damn if her passion wasn’t igniting a wildfire in him.
She dragged her hands down his shoulders and dug into his flanks, and he couldn’t stop the instinct to grind his hips into hers.
She gasped. “Boone, we can’t do this. It will only complicate things, and we need to keep our heads clear.”
Her words threw a wall of cold water over him. He froze, mouth a breath away from hers and his hips halted mid-grind.
Leave it to Lauralee to out-think him in a situation.
But she was right. They needed to retain control.
He rolled off her, face up to the sky. Tree branches cut across the darkening blue that probably matched his damn balls right now. It’d been a long time since he wanted a woman this bad.
When he turned his head and fixed his stare on her, he found her looking back at him. Lips plumped, swollen from his ravishing kisses, her eyes hazy with lust.
To hell with having a clear head.
He rolled toward her again, pinning a hand over her breast. She cried out as he located the hard pucker and plucked at it through the cloth of her blouse.
“Boone!”
Her tone begged for more. What the hell was he supposed to do—ignore it?
He flicked the buttons of her top, exposing pale, freckled skin after each button left its hole. When he reached the bottom of them, a shudder ran through her, and he was staring at a simple cotton bra in a flesh tone that shouldn’t be se
xy, but hell if he’d ever seen anything like it.
The tops of her breasts plumped from the cups, inviting his tongue to learn each curve. Lowering his head, he held her gaze. “You’re so damn beautiful.”
Her breath hitched at his compliment and then hitched again when he popped the clasp on her spine and tugged her bra down to expose her fully to him.
Seeing her spread out on the blanket like she was his personal picnic pulled at something deep inside him. The sensation of this being his first time, even though it was far from it.
He raked his stare over her bare breasts, the centers pink and shrunken to beads that begged for his lips and tongue.
Her chest heaved upward, and he captured one bud between his lips. She swallowed back a cry. The rustle of the horses reached him along with the wind whistling through the trees. His surroundings faded sharply as he pinpointed every iota of his attention on Lauralee.
As he closed his lips around her nipple and sucked, his eyes slipped shut on a rumble of bliss.
* * * * *
His hard lips weren’t so hard. But the scrape of his five o’clock shadow made up for it.
Boone tugged her nipple with soft pulls of his mouth that threw her mind into a tumult she could only think of as a hurricane, a tornado and a volcano happening all at the same time.
And there was no warning system for such a thing.
His muscled body trapping her in place only added to the burning need scorching through her. She wiggled, and he moaned, sucking harder on her nipple until she might have turned inside out.
The sucking pulls were unlike any foreplay she’d experienced. Men fiddled with her nipples, squeezed them a few times and then got down to business.
Boone? He was making love to them with his mouth.
He eased the suction and slicked the flat of his tongue around the crest, riding the tight edge and inspiring more lust with that tiny, almost feathery flick than any man ever had.
Harsh breaths escaped her with each tiny lap of his tongue devoted to driving her mad.
Too late for sanity. The minute he kissed her back in their bedroom, all her grip on reality had skewed, toppling her straight into Boone’s arms.
The fear and anxiety of this whirlwind ride vanished under his tender ministrations.
But when he shifted his attention to her other nipple, she forgot what she was thinking about altogether.
Sucking it into his mouth, he let out a rumble of pleasure against her skin that vibrated straight to her core. As if he understood the call of her body, he trailed his hand down her stomach, dug his fingers into the waist of her jeans and in seconds slipped his work-roughened fingers into her panties.
When he found her soaking wet for him, his groan transformed to a growl, and her body jolted with the electrical shocks of his fingertips burying in her folds.
“Lift your hips, honey,” he urged in a low voice that added to the whole package that was Boone.
Without thought, she obeyed, and he dragged her jeans down enough to access her pussy completely.
Starting at her mound, he trailed a finger over the bump of her clit to her slippery seam and down to feed his finger into her.
Stars burned behind her eyes, and she thrashed at his touch, arching into his mouth still latched onto her breast while he totally, completely owned the rest of her.
With one long digit buried inside her, he thumbed her clit. Her juices flooded out for him to coat her bundle of nerves. He curled his finger inside her, stroking her inner wall with the same precision the man did everything with.
Boone didn’t do anything without putting his all into it, and she knew being his lover would leave her thoroughly, completely, totally, perfectly satisfied.
Her insides trembled with each pass of his finger through her walls, and his tongue dancing from nipple to nipple was spiking her sky-high.
She opened her eyes, following a passing cloud as he yet again fucked his finger deep. Her insides clamped down on his finger, and on the withdrawal, he added a second.
Stretching her wide open for him.
He lifted his head and stared at her coming apart for him without any hope of holding back the screams pushing at her lips.
He scissored his fingers inside her. Ground his thumb on her nubbin.
Heat slammed her with a rippling wave. She was falling and needed to clutch something or she’d be lost.
She wrapped herself around Boone as he pumped her orgasm out of her with long, deep strokes. Each wave stole more of her mind and yanked a scream from her. Her harsh breathing filled her ears, mingled with his rough groan.
When she came down from her high, she opened her eyes to meet his warm stare.
Somehow, she found her voice, though it wobbled. “What will we do after this is all over and we’re just coworkers again?”
In answer, he eased his slick fingers into her once more. Her hips launched off the blanket in response.
“Fuck. I have to stop before…” He cut off and drew his fingers free of her. She lay there for a moment, body humming from her release and feeling as if he controlled all her nerve endings.
He sat up and nudged the bulge in his jeans while she shimmied her clothing into place.
As she managed her bra clasp much better than she could navigate the zipper of her uniform, Boone got to his feet and walked over to the horses.
She watched him. The set of his shoulders was stiff. Was he angry with himself or her for letting him take things too far?
He pressed his fist to his lips and then dropped his hand and stretched out his fingers.
After she dressed, she had to battle her way through a cloud of gnats to reach Boone. Though her nerves kicked in, she’d worked with enough men to know that she needed to take control of communicating with him and discuss what just happened.
What exactly was it?
A loss of judgment due to extreme stress after the day’s events. Yeah, she’d stick with that.
“Boone,” she said softly.
He pivoted to pierce her with his stare. She didn’t know what she expected when he looked at her, but it wasn’t the total burning desire in his amber-gold eyes.
She sucked in sharply and fell back a step before she got a grip on her emotions.
“What we just did…”
“I’d do again. And again and again. Hell, I want to do it now. I want to finish what I started.”
Her jaw dropped at his scorching-hot tone and the words that rippled over her the same way her orgasm had minutes ago.
She slid her fingers through her hair, feeling his touch even though he didn’t lay a finger on her. “I…don’t know what to say to that.”
“I’m not looking for a response, Lauralee.” He snagged the mare’s reins and held them out to her.
Seeing he wasn’t in the mood for talk, she took the reins. When she stepped into the stirrup, Boone placed his hand on her side to boost her up, which only confused her more.
He didn’t have to watch over her so much. Maybe it was in the Wyntons’ genes. The rest of the family had manners, and she’d always believed Boone was that know-it-all who made his parents groan and question where they’d gone wrong with him. But he wasn’t that way at all.
As he took the lead and turned them around on the trail heading back to the Black Ranch, her mind wandered. She loved a puzzle…but typically it involved passwords or smashing firewalls, not decoding men.
She’d had a few boyfriends, but she’d found men were either intimidated by her brain or went for the prettier girls with polished nails and short skirts. Being forced into a maid’s uniform was insult enough without it being a dress. At least she didn’t have to don some lacy contraption for her wedding.
Fake wedding, she reminded herself.
The jingle of harnesses and the wind soughing through the pines were the only sound, but she was far from soothed by nature’s music. She wished Boone would say something—anything—about them getting…intimate.
Why hadn’t he taken things further with her?
It wasn’t lack of wanting her—the lust in his eyes yelled that loud and clear—so it must be something else holding him back.
Crossing lines between work and pleasure and reality and pretend could be the main reason why he hadn’t stripped off his jeans and slid his cock into her.
She shivered.
He raised his head immediately and centered his attention on her. “You’re cold.”
How could he have seen such a small move as her shiver unless he’d been watching her from the corner of his eye?
“It’s just a little cool. Nothing I can’t handle.”
In fact, she still had enough heat in her veins to carry her through a blizzard with nothing more than a light jacket.
“When we get back, we need to talk.”
She nodded in agreement, even though his tone gave her another case of nerves.
Even the fact the mountain view was beautiful, with the glorious white-capped peak visible from here, didn’t stop her from lamenting that she was also being eaten alive. Slapping at a mosquito that landed on her forearm, she was almost glad not to still be rolling nude on the blanket. She’d have mosquito bites in places where the sun never shone.
“Next time we ride, we need some bug repellant.” Boone’s rough, brooding tone shouldn’t send fresh need spiking in her core. She despised broody types—the bad boys who wore scowls like a second skin and had the attitude to go along with it.
Her fingers tightened on the reins.
What if he was really a broody dick?
Any relationship with the man, other than what they were pretending, was impossible.
He didn’t make promises about a relationship. He only talked about sex.
Heat spread over her cheeks.
Thankfully, the darkness took over the countryside, and he probably couldn’t see her blush. Shadows draped over Boone’s shoulders and spine as he rode slightly ahead of her, only dropping back if the trail widened.
Her long day—had she really been single just this morning?—hit her full force, and by the time they reached the stable, she could pick out each and every muscle she’d used to clean and scrub and organize today.
