Two Dude Ranchers for Dawn [Cowboy City 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (6 page)

He got hard as he saw Ben suck on his bottom lip when his gaze flicked over Dawn’s breasts.

“That’s it! Time out!” Dawn jerked back on the bed and rolled her legs away from Ben, struggling to right herself against the headboard.

“What’s wrong?” Garrett took a step forward as Ben got to his feet.

“I thought you two were a couple.”

Ben nodded. “We are.”

“Then why do I feel like you’re coming on to me?”

“Because we are.”

Dawn pressed her fingertips to her temples and rubbed, as if taking a moment to collect her thoughts. “And do I get a say in this, or have you already decided which of you is going to try and have me first?”

Ben opened his mouth as if to say something, but thought better of it and closed it again. Garrett didn’t have as much self-control.

“What in the hell makes you think that?”

“Then maybe I’ve got it wrong.” Dawn suddenly looked exhausted, and Garrett could see that the pain of her ankle was making her cranky. “I think you’d better spell it out for me before I kick the pair of you out of my room.”

He took his hat off and sat on the edge of the bed. Ben came to stand behind him, resting his hand on Garrett’s shoulder. Dawn didn’t try to pull away when Garrett picked up her hand from where it lay on the mattress, and he rubbed his thumb across her knuckles as he struggled to think of the best way to explain it all to her. He grimaced at the thought. How the hell could he explain it to someone else when he’d barely made sense of it himself?

“You’re right. We should just have been straight with you. We want you to go on a date with us.

Both of us.”

“At the same time?”

“Of course.”

“And if I said yes, you’d expect me to sleep with both of you?”

“No, we’d just like to spend some time with you, and whatever happens is up to you.”

“But if something does happen, it’s going to involve both of you, right?” Dawn barely whispered the question, as if she was scared of what his answer might be.

Garrett nodded. “Right.”

“Oh.”

A storm of emotions he didn’t know her well enough to name passed through her eyes in the moments that followed as she stared at him wordlessly. He suppressed the smile that itched at the corners of his mouth when he saw her bite her lip as she looked over at Ben and then back at him.

She’s trying to imagine what it would be like
.

“Think about it tonight, and we’ll talk tomorrow.” He got to his feet and crossed to the door, sensing that they should get the hell out of there before they gave her an excuse to say no. “All we’re asking you for is a date, nothing more.”

Ben leaned down to squeeze her hand and give her a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t look so worried, honey. If you decide to take us up on our offer, I guarantee you a night you won’t regret. And if you decide not to, no hard feelings, okay?”

Garrett stepped through the door after tipping his hat to her, and Ben went to follow him through it until Dawn’s question stopped them. “How have the other women reacted in the past when you made them the same offer?”

Ben shrugged. “Couldn’t tell ya. We’ve never asked anybody else.” He clicked the door closed after bidding her good night and turned to look at Garrett. “I think we just blew it.”

Garrett shrugged and threw his arm loosely around Ben’s shoulder as they began the short walk back to the truck. “I’m not so sure. For a moment there, I think she was actually considering it.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We wait for her to come to us. What other choice do we have?”

Garrett was starting to doubt the wisdom of his words during the following afternoon when he sat under the shade of a cluster of Palo Verdes, watching Dawn’s lips do sinful things to a piece of melon.

He stifled a groan and dropped his hat in his lap, just in case his arousal was obvious. He’d been hard at least ten times since he laid eyes on her earlier. Seeing her wearing a light straw Stetson for the first time had done crazy things to his body. Her T-shirt and jeans weren’t that amazing either, but the way she filled them out was something else.

The trek had been uneventful, and the guests pretty well behaved, so Garrett had nothing to distract him from staring at Dawn and trying to read her mind. She was giving nothing away. Her greeting when they’d first met up again that morning had been friendly and neutral. To be honest, it had kinda pissed him off. She was acting like nothing had happened. Hell, even her ankle seemed like it was back to normal. Dawn was a natural on a horse and seemed to be enjoying the ride out. Garrett wished he could say the same.

“Stop staring at her like that. You’re gonna freak her out.”

The hoarse whisper jarred him out of his stupor, and he forced himself to meet Ben’s amused gaze.

“Sorry.”

Garrett looked around the group, resolving to stop eyeballing Dawn and concentrate on the other guests for a while. But then she leaned over to get some more fruit from her friend, giving him and anyone else who cared to look an uninterrupted view of her pert, denim-clad ass. A hard spike of lust teased his already sensitized cock, but he forgot about it when he spotted one of the other hands letting his eyes roam over her freely, as if he had the right to do it. Anger replaced arousal, and Garrett was grateful for it, glaring at the guy in the hopes he would notice and stop what he was doing.

“Zeke, can you go see if Dottie and Bill are okay back there?”

Ben’s voice rang out across the clearing, and Garrett jerked around to look at him, guessing from the hard frown on Ben’s face that he’d spotted the ranch hand leering at Dawn, too. Sending him off to check on the elderly couple was a good idea.

Garrett took a long swallow of water from the bottle he’d been picking the label off for the last half hour and threw it into his saddle bag. “Let’s head back. We’re starting off a little earlier than usual, but we can go the long way, through the valley.”

“You sure? If we get this gang back before Rosa’s got everything ready for the cook out, she’s gonna pitch a fit.”

Ben was right. Garrett had forgotten about Rosa. She’d tear a strip off them if they disrupted her kitchen schedule, plus he’d have to answer to Eli and Jackson if they found out. If Rosa wasn’t happy, then nobody was, especially not her men. The guys were in their seventies and well past their prime, but Garrett didn’t relish the thought of riling them. They were hard as nails despite their ages and didn’t take kindly to anyone doing anything to upset their woman.

“Don’t worry. We can stop by in the valley and let the guests take some pictures. That’ll kill some time.”

An hour later, Garrett found himself standing at the edge of the creek that ran through a pretty valley surrounded by cottonwoods, holding Julie’s camera and waiting for her and her friends to get closer together so he could fit them all in the frame.

“Smile, ladies.” Garrett lifted the camera.

“Save a horse, ride a cowboy,” screamed Julie, just before the camera went off, sending her friends into peals of laughter. Garrett couldn’t suppress a grin, despite the fact he’d heard that joke about a million times before, but the girls were laughing so hard, it was pretty infectious. He looked down at the camera screen to check if the picture had come out okay and handed the device back to Julie.

“Now I want one of you with the girls.” She gave him a shove in the back, pushing him into the center of the group. “And where’s that cute blond cowboy I always see you with? I want him in there, too.”

Garrett slotted himself into the gap Julie had left, happy to find himself right next to Dawn. Ben appeared at her other side and slid into the space between her and Ruth. Sally and Jeanette crouched down at the front of the group.

Dawn’s demeanor changed the instant Garrett and Ben touched her. The happy smile she’d been wearing all day disappeared, and Garrett detected a mild tremble working its way through her body when he threw an arm around her shoulder as Ben wrapped his hand around her waist.

Garrett ducked his head, bringing his face level with hers, forcing her to at least glance at him.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“How’s the ankle?”

“Fine.”

Garrett couldn’t hold back a laugh. “So, I guess if I ask you about your horse or the weather, they’d both be fine, too?”

His gentle tease made her look at him, at last, and he felt a little of the tension drain out of her as she sent him a shy smile. “No, my horse is an absolute darling and the weather is gorgeous. Happy?”

“I’m getting there.”

Dawn blushed but held his gaze, and Garrett knew she’d latched onto his train of thought, but before he could push her on it a little, her friend yelled for them all to look at the camera.

Ten minutes had passed by the time Julie had finished dragging everyone on the trek, including a couple of the horses, into the frame. As soon as she could, Dawn slid away, leaving Garrett and Ben staring after her.

“She’s not gonna go for it, is she?”

Garrett shook his head. “Not if we wait for her to give us the go ahead.”

Ben laughed. “What do you propose, banging her over the head with a club and dragging her back to our cave?”

“Shut up, jackass. What I mean is, I just realized how skittish she is. That New York brashness she shows the world does a damn good job of hiding it, but she’s nowhere near as confident as she lets on.”

“Well, hell, I figured that much out myself. Didn’t you feel her trembling while we were having our photo taken? You sure she’s not just plain scared of us?”

Garrett scanned the group for her, finding her just about to mount her horse, and his cock gave a little jerk of appreciation at the sight of her long, lean thighs clamping around the saddle. “She’s scared all right, but not for the reason you think. She wants to say yes, but she can’t. We need to take the decision out of her hands.”

“It’s been a long time since I courted a woman, Garrett, but I’m pretty sure they don’t take kindly to that kind of thing. Just because that tactic worked with me doesn’t mean it’ll work on her.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“The critical difference is that I was already horny for you, that’s why I didn’t punch you out when you slammed me against the wall of your house and tried to thrust your hand inside my jeans.”

Ben’s hazel eyes turned a darker shade of brown, a clear sign he was turned on by the memory.

Garrett would have given damn near anything to have him somewhere alone at that moment, but there were too many people around to risk giving Ben a taste of what he craved.

Garrett stepped as close as he dared, his gaze fixed on Ben’s lips. The urge to yank him by the hair and force him to his knees so Garrett could ram his cock into Ben’s mouth was almost painful, but he would have to wait. They’d be back in their quarters in a couple of hours.

“Yeah, but once I kissed you for the first time, you were mine. She’s got no reason to say yes right now, ‘coz she don’t know what she’s missing. I’m fixing to make sure she knows what she’s passing up, that’s all.”

“Just take it easy with her, okay? Like I said, you gotta handle women different.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take it slow, but I know when someone wants me, Ben. I was right about you, and I’m right about her.”

“I sure as hell hope so.”

Garrett pulled a bandana out of his back pocket and yanked off his hat to let the breeze cool his head down a little as he wiped the sweat from his brow and neck. The heat was beginning to irritate him, but it was nothing to do with the weather. The urge to fuck Ben hard and fast, right there and then, just added to the torture that wanting Dawn so badly was inflicting on his body and mind, and he’d just about reached the limits of his self-control.

“Well, we’re gonna find out, one way or another, that’s for damned sure. I’m done playing games.”

Dawn stared at the guys standing across the yard later that evening, aware something had changed.

The tension was coming off Garrett in waves, and if she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn she could feel the intensity of his gaze.

After her close encounter with Garrett and Ben earlier in the day, when her carefully practiced façade of being unaffected by them had threatened to crumble as soon as they touched her, she’d kept out of their way. She only attended the cook out because of a sense of guilt at abandoning her friends the night before, but they’d started to flag hours ago, exhausted from two days of non-stop partying and fun.

Everyone in their group had gone home to bed besides her and Julie, leaving them sitting alone at a huge picnic table. Dawn had tried to talk her into heading back a couple of times but, as usual, Julie seemed to have designs on one of the guys and begged Dawn to stay a little longer. She cast another glance at Brett, Mike, and Cody, the three guys who always seemed to be buzzing around Julie, and wondered which one she had the hots for. Dawn dared a glance over at Garrett and Ben, only to find them looking at the three guys she’d just been staring at. She saw Ben gesture for them to come over and, after a few brief words, all five men turned to look at her and Julie.

“Oh, shit. They’re coming over.” Julie started to fidget next to Dawn as Brett, Mike, and Cody approached their table.

“Which one are you interested in?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Julie whispered, hiding her grin behind her hand. Dawn laughed out loud, shocked and amused by her friend’s antics, as usual.

The guys stopped a few feet away and Brett stepped forward, taking off his hat before he spoke.

“Hey, Julie. If you want to come see that foal I told you about earlier, we’re all heading back that way now.”