Kickin' Up Dust: Operation Cowboy, Book 1 (13 page)

Body racking with shudders of release, she couldn’t support her weight. He held her as she flew. Only after juices had flooded his fingers and her gasps slowed did he locate one of several condoms he’d been carrying daily and slid it on.

Her eyes were bright with ecstasy and a light that made him feel like a better man. With her, he no longer dwelled on his number of kills or friends he’d lost. He just lived.

In one smooth glide, he filled her. She wrapped her leg around his hip and towed him closer even as he kept his promise to pin her to the wall. He trapped her hands overhead, their fingers meshed. Her sweet breath rushed over his lips as he pushed in all the way.

“So fucking tight. Squeeze me, darlin’.”

Her inner walls flexed, and he issued a harsh noise. She closed the gap and kissed him, her mouth wild and her body wilder. She bucked against him, bringing him so…damn…deep.

Passion flowed. He stopped thinking about the broken town and her broken parents. About how his friends were so stressed they weren’t their normal joking selves. With each push into Danica’s tight body, he found the happiness she claimed he gave her.

Reaching between them, he pressed her clit. Her pussy clenched around him. “Fuck, you’re soaking wet for me.”

“All for you,” she rasped.

That was all it took. His orgasm tore up from his balls and he jerked his hips with each jet of come. She stiffened. Cried out. He held her through the deluge of sensations inside him. Only when he broke the kiss and nuzzled her did he realize what she was giving him.

Something new to hope for.

* * * * *

Wydell plopped a frosty six-pack onto the center of the table they had set up in Brodie’s barn for poker. “I brought the beer. Hope someone else brought the honeys.”

Brodie gave him a crooked grin as his other two buddies dropped into their seats. “Lots of honeys in here.” He twitched his chin toward the stalls on the right. “Over there you’ve got a couple good palominos. And that stall to the left is a horse about to foal.”

“Asshole. At least tell me you brought the peanuts.”

Reaching to the floor beside him, Brodie grabbed a metal pail filled with peanuts. As soon as they all set eyes on the contents, silence descended. The last time they’d all gathered around a poker table, Matt had come bearing a big bag of peanuts he’d bribed someone in one of the cook tents to get.

What’d you offer for them—your sister?
Wydell had teased.

Scuffing a hand over his jaw, Brodie tried to dispel the ghost of a man who’d taken offense to the remark.
Let’s get something straight. You don’t even talk about my baby sister unless you gargle with mouthwash first. She’s too good for you dickheads.

Grabbing a peanut, Brodie cracked it in two and dumped the little rounds into his palm. He tossed them into his mouth and chewed as he reached for a beer. The other guys dug into the drinks and snacks.

Nobody spoke for a minute, and then Boyd said, “So Garrett, how’s your mom?”

Laughter erupted, breaking the tension, as Garrett turned his black gaze on them. “Lay off my mother.”

“What was she wearing when you left?” Boyd pushed.

“You son of a bitch.” Garrett launched to his feet and Boyd took off. Wydell and Brodie watched them lap the barn, laughing.

“Oh God, my sides ache. I haven’t laughed in forever,” Brodie said, hunching around the cramping in his gut.

Boyd grabbed a pitchfork and wielded it at Garrett like a man holding off a werewolf. Garrett did look a little demented. His hat had fallen off somewhere, and his hair was a disheveled mop. All of them had gotten a little too long around the ears since taking their walking papers.

Brodie wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye and picked up the cards. When he started to shuffle, the chase was forgotten, and the guys returned to their seats. When Boyd sat on the overturned barrel, he took a whole handful of nuts and started cracking them rapid-fire.

“Slow down. The bucket’s not going anywhere,” Brodie said.

“Gotta keep up my energy in case Garrett gets sensitive about his mom again.” He flashed a grin. “Besides, I worked my ass off all day pulling down beams of the Gatesman house.”

As Brodie tapped the card deck into order, he scanned his buddies. While they were all just as big and badass as they always had been, he saw the strain the past weeks had put on their faces. Hollows beneath eyes, lines around mouths. Maybe they weren’t eating or sleeping well either.

The first card hit the table.

“Where’s Danica?” Wydell drawled.

Brodie stilled and looked at his friend. “Up at her house, I guess.”

“You guess? I thought you’d know since you’re banging her.”

He almost choked on a nut. He sputtered and said, “What would give you that idea?”

“Couldn’t be the way you can’t keep your eyes off her.” Garrett looked up with a crooked smile.

“Maybe we’d better shift our fantasies from Garrett’s mom to Danica, boys.” The joking light in Boyd’s eyes was doused when he got a look at Brodie. He had no idea what his expression must look like, but if the building fury in his chest was any indication, Boyd had a good reason to cringe.

“I told you before to have some respect for Matt’s sister.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Wydell gave him a sharp salute, and after that things calmed down. The guys ate and drank. Another six-pack was produced and a hand was played. But Brodie couldn’t shake the idea that he was so transparent when it came to Danica. He’d been trained to mask his emotions and never, ever give away the position of someone by staring at them.

Apparently when it came to Danica, his training flew out the window like a chicken chased by a fox. He cracked another beer and swigged, thinking of his last brush with alcohol. He wasn’t about to make a similar mistake.

Talk turned to work around the town. Boyd related a story about finding a locked box in the debris of one house they’d demo’d last week. How he’d worked for twenty minutes to bust the lock, thinking he’d find birth certificates and savings bonds inside.

“What was it?” Garrett asked.

“Handcuffs.”

They blinked at him. “You mean the homeowner was a cop?” Brodie asked.

“No,” he said slowly. “I mean the people were into some kinky shit. Handcuffs, crops, a pair of nipple clamps.”

“Well what’d you’d do with all of it?” Garrett asked.

“Put it away in a safe place.”

“For what? You planning to go Dom/sub on us?”

Boyd shook off his friend’s joke. “Not on your ass, no. You’re not my type.”

Garrett blew him a kiss, and Brodie sniggered. This was what he needed tonight. With their lives so far from what they’d imagined, they needed a ray of light.

“So what
are
you going to do with what was in the box, Boyd? Use it on Garrett’s mom?” Wydell drawled.

“Oh you’re asking for it.” Garrett dropped his cards and lunged for Wydell. They hit the floor and rolled in a half-hearted wrestling match while Brodie and Boyd laughed at them.

“Good thing we’re not playing for money,” Boyd said with a shake of his head.

“None of us have any.”

“True. Enough to live on for a little while until something big changes in this town.”

They all exchanged glances. Each of them knew unless the tornado came through and put everything it had destroyed back in order, that wasn’t likely to happen. But Brodie wasn’t willing to discuss the matter right now—or even think about it. He just wanted to kick back with his friends and have a beer and some poker.

Once the guys were seated again and they’d played another hand—Brodie folded first—Boyd opened the topic of the mysterious box of sex toys again. “Any of you ever dominated a woman?”

Brodie kept his face perfectly even. He hadn’t had time to consider why he needed to control Danica in the bedroom—and in the barn, in the field, and against the tractor tire. But it definitely fulfilled something inside him.

“Only once,” Garrett said with a far-off expression.

They all looked to him.

“Pretty little thing the summer before we left for boot. She asked for it.”

“Wait—what? Asked for it?” Boyd slid to the front of the barrel he was sitting on.

“Yeah, she asked me to tie her up and spank her.”

“Whooeee.”

“Jesus. Did you?” Wydell asked.

“What do you think, Hard-Ass?”

“I think your pecker curled up and hid, that’s what.”

Garrett was only half-joking when he growled, “Them’s fighting words.”

“So did ya tie her up and spank her?” Boyd asked.

“Fuck yeah. It was hot as hell.” A private smile broke over Garrett’s face. “A good memory to take to boot with me.”

“Especially since you haven’t had any action since.” Wydell ducked Garrett’s swing.

“You’re one to talk. Been in love with your hand since seventh grade.”

They all chuckled at that and settled back into the game.

“Speaking of secrets…” They all looked up at Garrett.

Brodie arched a brow. “What are you talking about?”

“Rumor has it a cattle truck drove into town and unloaded on the Pope Ranch.”

Brodie pushed a breath through his nostrils. “There’re rumors? There’s only a dozen people in town. How are rumors being spread?”

“Twenty-eight people in town including us. And it’s easy enough to hear talk when a lot of the residents come to chat while we work,” Garrett said.

“So is it true?” Wydell drawled.

Brodie nodded. “Yeah. Growing the herd.”

“Growing hard for Danica, you mean.”

Brodie let the rib go this time and instead focused on telling his buddies what his plans were. Somehow it felt a little like betrayal when he hadn’t discussed it with Danica earlier. She’d only found out after he’d written her into the story.

Unfair of me.
He wouldn’t do that again and would apologize next time he saw her. The fact she hadn’t said anything about the slight only endeared her more to him. As if he needed it—the moon and stars already hung on her.

“Danica thinks we need to discuss plans soon. I think we need to come up with some ideas between us before we present them to the town. We can’t have so many people tossing out ideas or we’ll never get anything settled. But we do need to include everyone, and I know Pastor Kent’s got some good ideas for bringing people back to Los Vista.”

Wydell sat back. “When do you want to do this? Tomorrow night?”

A vision of laying Danica out on a soft mattress and making love to her flitted through his mind. “Soon. I’ll get in touch with y’all and we’ll discuss ideas.” He set his cards in a neat pile. “I’m heading to bed. Getting up at zero dark thirty. Thanks for the game, though. It was like old times.”

Almost.

He didn’t need to say it. They all heard.

“Go sack out. You need to keep up your energy for that pretty little cowgirl of yours.” Garrett’s tease followed him out the door, and he flashed them the finger as he went. What they didn’t see was his smile.

Chapter Nine

“Fucking hell!” Brodie tossed his pliers into the dirt and stood back to glare at the baler he was working on. One of the parts had bent badly when he’d attempted to pull it from the shed.

“Is there anything I can do?” Danica asked. He looked like a frustrated kid, arms folded, fuming.

“Nothing worse than a broke dick.”

Her eyebrows shot upward at that, and he threw her a glance. “Not me. The machine. It’s a military term, I guess.”

Seeing an opportunity to soothe him, she sidled up to him, an extra sway in her hips. “So you’re not having any…trouble?” She covered his fly with her hand and felt it leap beneath her touch.

His eyelids drooped. “Not remotely, darlin’. Not with you around. Where’d you get these shorts?” He ran a fingertip beneath the frayed hem, dipping under the curve of her ass. Liquid heat spread through her core.

Wiggling closer, she knuckled his hat up to see his eyes. “You like my shorts?”

“I love everything about you.”

Grinning, she stood on tiptoe for his kiss. The minute their mouths brushed, she felt some of his tension flow away. His crafty fingers continued down and around until he’d reached the point of no return.

She gasped, and he crushed her to him, probing her pussy through the narrow barrier of denim shorts and cotton panties. “Get these shorts off before I tear them off. Then get up on the tractor seat.”

Surprise zipped through her. “On the seat?”

“Every rancher’s fantasy. Walking in to find a gorgeous woman nekkid on his tractor. Now obey me.”

“Or what?”

His dark gaze sent sharp pangs of desire through her system. “Or I’ll spank your ass.”

Oh God.
Now she was never going to obey. She danced backward out of his reach.

When he saw she had no intention of heeding his command, he stalked toward her. With each stride, her need ratcheted higher. He lunged, fingers just grazing her wrist before she jumped out of the way.

“Danica.” His solemn tone was a match to dry kindling. She went up in flames.

“No, don’t spank me.”

“That’s exactly what you need, you little wench. Now get your round ass over here and drop your shorts.” Before she could think, he moved like a shot. Snatching her around the waist, delivering a hard slap to her backside that resounded with promise.

She panted and her knees threatened to buckle.

“Get these shorts down. Now.”

There was no denying him this time. She stripped them down her hips and they fell to her boots.

“Step out of them.”

She did, quivering in delight and a measure of apprehension.

His gaze dipped over her pussy and legs. The bulge in his jeans was evident. He sat on a nearby bale and shifted his cock with some effort. Then he patted his knee. “Right here, darlin’.”

She gasped. “Bend over your lap?”

“Lay across my knees.”

“I-I thought you wanted me on the tractor.”

“Changed my mind. You know you want this. If you’re good I’ll finger your pussy between swats.”

Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Ghost.

She had no recollection of moving until her body was supported on warm, strong thighs. A tenderness washed through her heart at the contact she craved. Somehow being in this position wasn’t remotely embarrassing or degrading—it was hot as hell. And she felt closer to him than ever.

“Do you trust me, Danica?” He smoothed his hand over her ass cheek, sounding strangled.

“Y-yes.”

“Good. You should.” He slapped her. She cried out at the skin-on-skin contact and twisted to see his face. She hardly glimpsed the fever in his eyes before he pressed her down again and spanked her other cheek.

Two more times on each side had her writhing and slightly pissed off.

Then he eased two fingers into her wet pussy. Her
soaking-wet
pussy. A deep need sliced through her. She pushed back, aching and too hot. He pulsed his fingers into her pussy until she was whimpering and hung limply over his lap.

When he withdrew his fingers and delivered several more sound smacks, she welcomed the sting. He groaned. “Jesus, you like this. I can smell how aroused you are.”

His words only heightened the experience. She mewled, and he smacked her right cheek. The skin was already swollen from the kinky touch, and she gritted her teeth. She trusted him to know when to stop. To know how much she could take.

She wasn’t disappointed—he thrust his fingers into her pussy. She cried out at the invasion. How many fingers did he have inside her? Visions of his fat cock gliding in and out had her panting.

Just as she got into the rhythm of his finger-fucking, he stopped. A long heartbeat passed while she waited for the next blow on her ass.

None came.

She nuzzled his shin where her face hung.

“Fucking hell, Danica.” He flipped her to face upward and caught her in his arms, cradling her as if she were gunpowder. As his mouth crashed over hers, she scrabbled at his clothing. Why was the man always wearing too many garments? She couldn’t get his shirt off fast enough. Her nipples hardened as her fingers skimmed warm, steely flesh.

He cupped her ass and in seconds she realized he was lifting her to stand on the bale between his thighs. She pressed her palms on the barn wall behind his head to steady herself. Her folds grew wetter as she discovered his intention.

The instant his scalding tongue met her needy flesh, she cried out. Pressure built inside her as he tongued her clit, painting a zigzagging pattern over it. In the back of her mind she was aware he was doing something with his hands, but his mouth was too good to think long.

Then he closed his lips around her swollen clit and batted it with his tongue. She peaked. Came apart. Shaking against his assault, finding he was holding her again so she didn’t topple over.

She’d barely stopped convulsing before he was dragging her down to sit on his cock. She splintered a second time as he sank into her. Juices flooded. She kissed his still-wet lips and gave herself up to her cowboy.

Dragging his fingers through Danica’s hair brought him back to reality. All that thick hair belonged to the woman he shouldn’t be touching. As if he cared when he was balls-deep in her.

She rode him like a champion cowgirl, her top abandoned, bouncing on his cock in the throes of ecstasy. He couldn’t last. Between her ass, glowing red and hot from his spanking, cradled on his groin and her sweet, breathless cries, he didn’t last.

With a roar he came. Jerking upward to bury his shaft to the hilt. She held his gaze, and some inner switch seemed to flip between them. Intimacy bound them.

“Brodie!” His mother’s call came too shrill, too close.

“Fuck!” Panic crossed Danica’s face as she crawled off his cock and started grabbing for their clothes strewn around the barn.

“Brodie, it’s lunchtime.”

He wanted to laugh but having his mother interfere at the moment he’d been about to speak soft, reassuring words to the woman he’d just fucked silly made him clench his jaw.
Maybe I’m not supposed to say those things.

He tossed Danica her top, which she pulled on in a blink. She’d just shimmied into her shorts when he tossed the condom and yanked up his jeans. His belt wasn’t buckled when his mother entered the barn.

“Oh. Hello, Danica.” His mother’s voice took on a world of meaning. Or understanding. His mind was too jostled to think clearly.

“I could hear you, Mom.”

She gave him that “don’t take that tone with me” look that had made him wither as a child. Now he was just annoyed. He hadn’t gotten his after-moments with Danica, and dammit she needed them.

He needed them.

Danica was looking at anything but Brodie or his mother. Her cheeks were bright red, which only reminded him of her other set of red cheeks.

“I figured you were ignoring me. You haven’t been coming in for lunch,” his mother said.

Shit, he felt guilty enough about letting his mother down since he’d come home. She wanted her old son back, but he was gone. As dead as Matt Pope.

“I’m coming in. We’re coming in, right, Danica?”

She nodded but didn’t meet his eyes.

He looked at his mother. “Be right there, okay?”

“Five minutes and it will be cold.” Her tone softened, probably from the prospect of having another body at the table that might actually eat.

“Give us two.” Without waiting for his mother’s reply, he turned to Danica. As Ma’s footsteps retreated, he wrapped his fingers around Danica’s forearm and reeled her close.

When a snort left her, he had to draw away to see if she was crying.

Relief coursed through him. No—laughing.

“How horrible,” she murmured, burying her face against his chest.

Tenderness spilled over him. He cocooned her in his hold and kissed her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids. “Are you all right?”

“I’m pretty sure she knew what we were doing.”

“I don’t mean that.” He cradled her ass in one palm, and she winced.

“It won’t be nice to sit and eat, but I’ll do it. For you.” Her eyes were bright with that light he couldn’t get enough of. He’d run through flames and dodge bullets to see it.

“I don’t relish the thought of sitting down with my parents for lunch either. But let’s go.”

She took a moment to run her hands over her body as if checking to see if she’d missed an article of clothing. She hadn’t. She looked as pretty as a cowgirl boot model.

“You’re beautiful. We’d better hurry.”

Halfway to the house, she asked the question he hadn’t been prepared for. And still didn’t know the answer to.

“Brodie, why don’t you have an appetite?”

They crossed the threshold. His parents were seated at the small table, soup and sandwiches before them. The rich scents of his favorite, cream of chicken with potatoes, made his mouth water. With any luck he could get a few spoonfuls of the wholesome food in before his stomach cramped.

“Sit down, dear,” his mother said. Danica did, shooting him a weary smile. The change in atmosphere was quite apparent between barn and house. What was it about being in here with his parents that unsettled him? They didn’t deserve to be treated this way, which only filled him with more guilt.

As if he needed more.

“How’s the haying, son?” His father seemed to see too deeply. Brodie felt like a teenager again. He felt like opening his wallet and displaying his stash of condoms so his parents knew he was being responsible.

“Go better if the damn hay rake wasn’t bent.”

His father pursed his lips. “Try a crowbar yet?”

“No, I was about to.”
Before I got distracted.

Beneath the table, Danica’s thigh pressed against his. Having her there warmed him as much as his first bite of soup. She moaned at the delicious flavors and gobbled half her bowl. His mother beamed, and he and his father talked about ways to fix the hay rake and how to avoid trouble in future. Before he knew it, Brodie’s spoon scraped the bottom of his bowl.

His mother’s eyes swam with tears, and Danica’s soft smile melted him. He gave her a wink and picked up his sandwich.

* * * * *

Brodie whistled as he forked fresh hay into the horse stalls. His back was to Danica but she kept throwing glances his way, drinking in the lines of his body as he performed physical labor. His Western shirt tightened across his broad shoulders with every move, giving her yummy shivers of lust.

When he turned and met her gaze, his eyebrows crinkled. “You okay, darlin’?”

Yes. No.
She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again, having no idea what she was feeling today. Despite a burning love inside her, she was restless. Edgy. For the past hour since waking she’d been trying to figure it out, but she was coming up blank.

He dropped the shovel where he stood and crossed the barn to her. As her gaze latched onto his concerned expression, a bit of her hard outer shell cracked. She tucked her arms around her middle.

“Whoa. You’re not all right. What’s eating at you? Is it something I did?” He enveloped her in his arms, drawing her head down on his shoulder.

She shook her head. “It’s not you.” Saying so aloud only solidified the idea in her mind. After sharing a meal with his family there was a new camaraderie between them. It made her feel good—better than good. As if she belonged with him.

“You aren’t wearing that expression for nothing, so what is it?” His gloved fingers worked over her hair.

“I think it was seeing your parents yesterday,” she said slowly.

He pulled back to search her eyes. “Did they say something to upset you?”

“Not at all. But they were…parents. And mine…” Without warning, tears burst from her.

“Oh darlin’.” He crushed her against him while she cried for everything she’d lost in the past few months—her town, Matt, and now her parents.

“I think…” she gulped between words, “…they need a change of scenery. I think they should move away from the land because all it does now is haunt them with Matt’s…memory.”

He made sweet shushing noises while she emptied her heart of the burden she hadn’t realized she was carrying.

“Have you mentioned this to them?”

She shook her head, taking comfort in the soft cotton of his shirt beneath her cheek and the smell of hard work and the man she loved.

“Do you want me to come and talk to them with you?”

It was her turn to draw away. Backhanding her streaming eyes, she said, “I might think this is right for them, but I could be wrong. Their grief’s so fresh.”

“That’s true.” His dark eyes glistened with sadness she knew was reflected in her own.

“I can’t help but think if that stupid storm hadn’t ripped their world out from under them, they’d be holding up better. They might not have lost their ranch, but they lost all their friends and their lives as they knew them.”

“I know the feeling. I have my old bedroom but I can’t say this doesn’t wear on me too.”

She studied his face. She hadn’t given it much thought how coming home from a war-torn world to one that wasn’t in much better shape would affect him and his friends. Not to mention Matt was gone from his life. From all of theirs.