Bridled and Branded (4 page)

Rhett snarled. “A woman in love with one man won’t fuck two men like your woman gave it up to us.”

“Shut up, Rhett,” Lynlee said like she’d known him longer than ten minutes.

Blaine shot her a quick glare and then he said, more to Lynlee than the man looking for retribution, “I didn’t know I’d been with someone married and neither did Rhett. He’s running his mouth.”

Then he addressed the stranger. “We’ve never participated in adultery, and if your wife made us do just that, then maybe you should take it up with her and not a girl who looks like she’s young enough to be your daughter.”

The fellow snickered. “Ah, yeah, you’re good, aren’t ya, McCain? Pretending to care about her comes easy until you fuck her. You must know this girl’s a virgin. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be hell-bent on making her all doe-eyed about you.”

Poor Lynlee looked like she might faint. “I never said—”

“Sure you did,” Rhett pointed out. “We heard you.”

She turned to the madman, the one who could’ve just as easily been a dead man if he’d hurt her. “I only said that because I thought he wanted to rape me!”

“Liar,” Blaine said, smiling. “Besides, what difference does it make right now? This man can’t go around scaring women.”

The odd fellow, who had started to look more like a broken man rather than a lunatic, turned to Lynlee. “I wasn’t going to bring you any harm.” He tossed the knife toward Rhett. “It’s not even real. Hell, it was all an act so I could get their attention.” He pointed to Blaine and Rhett, who knelt down and studied the toy knife with a metallic shine.

“A phone call would’ve worked,” Blaine said.

“Or a text,” Rhett suggested. “I’m not much for talking to a woman’s husband, you understand.”

“Rhett,” Blaine warned.

“What?” he asked, eyeing Lynlee this time. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t hurt her,” the man stated flatly.
 

“You wanted our attention,” Rhett began. “You got it. What do you want?”

Blaine released him. “Yeah, what’s so damn important that you’d go to this extreme?”

His eyes watered. “My Sarah Beth passed away last week.”

“She what?” Rhett asked, compassion settling in his eyes, which Blaine had rarely seen.

“She passed away.”

“What happened?” Blaine asked, feeling a little odd since he had been one of the participants in the ménage experience with Rhett and Sarah Beth.

“She jumped off a bridge,” Sarah Beth’s husband explained.

“She did what?”

“Told you she was touched in the head,” Rhett reminded Blaine.

“You’re the one who brought her home,” Blaine said, jumping to his feet and backing away before her husband took an opportunity to deck him. “She wasn’t even that pretty, best I remember.”

“Blaine McCain, I ought to kick your ass right here,” Lynlee said, studying her captor. “Sir, I’m sorry for your loss. I really am. It’s a shame these two didn’t have a gentleman’s sense of values to keep their cocks in their pants, if not their hands, but you see here, you can’t blame your wife’s actions on two men who barely knew her.”

“Lynlee, so help me God, I don’t need your eloquent way of taking up for me,” Blaine said.

“No, you don’t. What you need are some manners and maybe even a conscience, but I doubt you’ll find either tonight.”

Rhett snickered. “You got that right.”

Lynlee extended her hand. “I’m Lynlee Lewis, by the way. We met at the party, and you said your name is Scott Sanders, but I take it that’s not your real name?”

“Yes,” he said, taking her hand. “The name is Scott Sanders. Sarah Beth was my lovely wife.”

“Well, I’m sure she knew how much you loved her,” Lynlee said, backing away from the situation and making it evident in the finality of her tone. “Gentleman, I’ve had a long night. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Blaine looked at Rhett and then Scott. Rhett nodded and Blaine said, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll say your peace and leave.”

Scott shifted his weight. “I wanted to look directly at the two men responsible for Sarah Beth’s downfall and see if I found even a smidgen of remorse. I blame you for what happened, and I can’t understand what she ever saw in either one of you.”

“Good thing,” Rhett said. “I don’t buck that way.”

Blaine ignored his friend and addressed his enemy. “I’m walking Lynlee back to her camper. If you go near her again,” he paused, set his jaw, and then grated out, “I will harm you in a way you’ll never forget.”

“I don’t want an escort, Blaine,” Lynlee snipped. “And I sure don’t need you to hold my hand.”

“Well, ain’t that a blessed shame? Besides, I need you to hold mine.”

Chapter Five

Thirty minutes later, Blaine and Lynlee sat on a small burgundy sofa in her camper. They’d been trapped in an uncomfortable silence, each bound and determined to make the other one speak first, or so that’s the way Lynlee interpreted the lack of noise between them.

She shifted her weight, crossed her arms, and then settled against the cushions. Deciding she looked like one mad, wet hen, she moved again and this time rested her palms on her knees. If that wasn’t a nervous pose, she didn’t own one, so she stood abruptly and made her way across the floor.

“I’m not leaving,” he said, crossing his right leg over his left, which made her divert her attention to the bulge in between his thighs.

As if he noticed where her gaze settled, he leaned back and made himself comfortable. He looked arrogant, as cocky as she’d ever seen him. And so damn sexy that she couldn’t help herself.

She looked at his denim-clad cock all over again.

“I’ll show you this if you show me tits,” he teased, patting the obvious tent in his pants.

“I’m not interested.”

“Why, because you’re a virgin?”

“I’m not, and if I am, it’s none of your business.”

He stood, grinned, and then took a deep breath. “See, that’s what I thought you were going to say, and since you seem hell-bent on believing such a farce, I’m going to spend the night and make sure you never get such a misguided impression again.”

“You’re what?” She almost squawked out the question.

His soft green eyes met hers. “I’m staying,” he said roughly, moving his fingers over the buttons of his shirt until the matted curls on his chest were visible.

“And you think because you asked so nice, I should what? Strip off and get naked with you?”

“You can, or I can undress you. Either way, the clothes come off. Either way, the games we’ve played for years stop tonight.”

“Are you insane, Blaine?”

“Not yet, but I’ll know what it means to have a woman drive me nuts. You’ll do the honors.”

She swallowed hard. What was she supposed to do? What would her mother want her to do?

Her mother, God rest her soul, had always loved the McCain boys. When she was alive, she used to watch them in the roping classes and often attended their barrel races. She never tired of trying to convert them. She wanted them entering the English-style events instead of Western. The McCain boys often reminded her that roping a calf was nearly impossible for a cowboy seated in an English saddle.

Her mother once said Lynlee and Blaine would eventually find their way together. Lynlee wondered if she’d condemn or condone the way they were moving toward their start.

“Mother would roll over in her grave,” she said quietly.

Blaine’s eyes watered. He pursed his lips and ran his long, knobby fingers through the thick brown curls topping his head, compliments of too much styling mousse, no doubt.

“I miss her, too, Lynlee.”

He probably did. They spent a lot of time together when Blaine was much younger.

Blaine’s parents ran with the party crowd on the circuit, and her mom and dad, even though they had the money to keep up, chose to spend their time with Lynlee, Blaine, and all the friends they made from one horse show to the next.

There wasn’t a boy Lynlee ever liked in high school that gained her mother’s approval, and since she’d started taking college courses over at the local university, she hadn’t dated. Her father probably didn’t notice. He’d grieved the loss of her mother for three years and would likely mourn another three more. On occasion, he would ask her if she’d talked to Blaine, but outside of one or two inquiries, he seemed uninterested.

Revisiting the past, no matter how brief, brought tears to her eyes. She swiped them away and turned toward the kitchen area. “I’d like it very much if you’d leave.”

The floor creaked when he took a step forward and then another. Soon, his arms bracketed around her waist and his hot breath was like a lick of heat against her ear. “I’m not leaving you alone tonight, Lynlee.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You almost got yourself raped.” He gripped her sides and whirled her around. “You had no business taunting him like that. He had a knife, for crying out loud.”

“And he didn’t use it because, in case you forgot, it wasn’t real!”

“You didn’t know that!” he blurted out, his neck bulging with tight veins that resembled thick cords. Right then, blood wasn’t the only thing rushing through them, anger existed there as well. The proof painted his cheeks with bright red patches.

“Are we huffing and puffing yet?”

“Damn close,” he said, biting back a grin.

“Give it up,” she said. “Go home.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he stated flatly, stalking back to the small sitting area.

Once there, he kicked off his boots and stretched out on the tiny, hard sofa. He pulled the cowboy hat over his eyes and said, “Hit that light switch when you go to bed, will ya?”

There he was again, doing what he did best. He’d been this way since she’d first met him. Even as a kid, he’d known what buttons to push.

Years later, he’d made a sport out of driving her crazy. He showed her what it meant to long for a man in her bed. Several times, right when she’d thought about giving in, he’d turned his back and acted like he couldn’t care less.

Well, she thought, stomping over to stand beside the couch, not this time. Oh, no, not at this point in the game.

“I’ve had about enough of you, Blaine McCain.”

Something had to give. It might as well be him.

* * * *

Blaine wanted to peek. But if he acted uninterested in her tantrum, he might find himself lying in her arms later that evening. He snuggled up to the notion a lot more than he liked the idea of sleeping with his legs hanging off the furniture.

“I don’t get you,” she began. “You don’t want me, but you don’t want any other man to have me. That’s just wrong.”

“Darlin’, don’t I know it. I never claimed to be a fair man.” He didn’t dare tell her that her suspicions were stupid, never mind inaccurate. Why bother correcting a woman when she was hell-bent on being right about everything? Instead, he’d toy with her. Teasing held more advantages than fighting.

She knocked his hat off his head, and he stared into the prettiest misty-blue eyes he’d ever seen. For some reason, the color then looked a shade lighter, and the contrast beamed with a devastating brilliance. He’d never noticed a blue-hot fire burning quite so bright.

“I’m not playing here, Blaine.”

Apparently, they were going to duke it out all the same.

“All right,” he said, sitting. “You’re having a mental-woman moment—kind of like the one you had earlier when you were provoking that man out there—so how about you and I have a little chat. What do you say?”

She narrowed her gaze. “Where’s your friend?”

“You want to talk about Rhett?”

“Yeah. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Maybe you should go keep him company,” she suggested. “Why is he here at Carolina Showplace?”

Blaine shrugged. “Same reason we all are. He loves horses.”

“Bullshit. He’s hardly glanced at the animals.”

He arched a brow. “Beats me. Maybe he’s here for another reason.”

She giggled. “Well, he sure knows how to serve a purpose.”

“You’d better believe it,” Blaine deadpanned. “His.”

‘What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You think I’m difficult? Try dealing with him.”

She walked over to the door, unlatched the lock, pushed back the screen, and pointed. “I’m not dealing with either one of you.”

Blaine smiled and winked, but he didn’t budge. “Whatever you say.”

“I wouldn’t count on that if I were you, little lady,” Rhett said, strolling inside like he’d been invited. Addressing Blaine, he added, “Sanders left, but Lynlee shouldn’t stay all alone tonight.” He waggled his brows.

“How come every time I open a door, I find you there?”

“Contrary to popular belief, opportunity seldom knocks, darlin’. Life-changing events often sneak up on you when you aren’t looking.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lynlee mumbled.