Drawn to a Cowboy (Brother Duet #1) Read online

  “Shit!” He rolled away from me and jumped off the bed, yelling, “Help me bring down the flaps before everything is soaked.”

  Joining him on my feet, we rolled down the sides we had put up an hour or so ago. “These are much easier to roll down.”

  “The bottom edges are weighted so they hang straight down and to block the wind from whipping them up and around.”

  “No wonder. I thought it was just that it was a heavy fabric, and so much of it.”

  Watching him zip the canvas shut, my heart fluttered. I looked like I had entered a wet t-shirt contest I realized as I followed his eyes down to my chest. Moving my eyes back up to his, we stared at each other, and I thought to myself, here goes nothing before I began to take action. Stepping back a short distance, I crossed my arms and pulled my top up and over my head then reached back and unhooked my bra. I was on a roll, I had his full attention—I only hoped that he’d take the bait. Thinking I needed to make it absolutely clear what I wanted, I unbuttoned my jeans, pushed them down with my panties and stood before him within reach. “Don’t stop this time,” I said softly—my heart just the opposite, beat loudly.

  His eyes took in every inch of me before resting just below my waist. He seemed quite fascinated with my minuscule patch of little red curls. “Your tiny carpet matches the drapery.” I couldn’t help but giggle, he was right I had always dyed my short curls below to match the bright red shade I tinted my long mane of hair. However, as his fingertips gently circled through my vibrant curls and then slipped lower, my laughter was replaced with a moan before his mouth engulfed mine.

  There was no way I was letting him break free from my body this time. I wanted to feel his skin against mine. I wanted to feel him inside of me. I moved my hands to help him with his shirt and jeans only to find him going commando beneath. Oh so hot! Oh so beautiful naked. His body was nicely muscular, no rippling, bulging abs, but completely firm with just a sprinkling of hair on his pecs and a trail leading to a stunning package that looked eager to make my acquaintance.

  Lifting me up, I wrapped my legs around his waist as he walked us to the empty bed that had taunted us the minute we hurried inside. I hoped something would happen between us—someway, somehow—when I first saw the outdoor room. How could you not hope for more when you were constantly teasing yourself with sexual thoughts of a hotter than hot cowboy?

  Settled on the soft bedding, I squirmed beneath him until he was perfectly lined up with my entrance. “I can’t wait any longer,” I whispered between lashing each other’s lips, tongues. Not making me wait another minute… second, he entered me swiftly. Yes! Snug, a perfect fit. No going back, he spurred on. Moving his hips in a motion that hit all the right spots, I matched his movements as best I could.

  “Oh God, Jade, you feel so good,” he groaned pushing deep into me.

  Delirious with pleasure, he took me to a point where I lost all control of my body and sense. Waves of ecstasy rolled from inside to outside and back, a whirlwind of turbulent blasts hit me. No one had ever brought me to such a thundering orgasm both literally and figuratively as the storm crashed on outside of the tent and between my thighs. Yee-Haw! Ride ’em cowboy! What is that saying, save a horse, ride a cowboy? Yes! Yes! Yes! Any day! Bring him on!

  Finished with round one, he rolled us to the side. Facing each other, I smiled like a loon or a love sick cowboy groupie. Finally! I had roped a cowboy. “You look pretty happy,” he smiled back sexy, not goofy at all—not one bit.

  “Giddy!” What a silly girl I was. Giddy up! I was drunk on cowboy dick! Thank God he couldn’t read my mind. He couldn’t, right? That wasn’t a cowboy super power, right? If he could, he seemed okay with it as he began to reinvigorate my body again, attacking my pert nipples with his lips. Yes! Round ’em up! I wanted to ride him rodeo style two… three… four more times. Start the clock, I was ready to go way beyond eight seconds on his saddle.

  “I love your body, your skin is so soft,” he whispered as his fingers played havoc on my exposed flesh while he nibbled and licked. He was rough and gentle all at once, pinching, plucking, then caressing. New sensations and emotions bombarded my body and mind. Though he was touching me in the usual places that had me climaxing, it felt so different. On the verge of a tempestuous release, like a violent storm, I panted loudly. It was good that we were out in the open, far from anyone, as voluminous groans and moans escaped from both of us as our bodies surged together. I’m not sure which one of us was louder by the time we reached maximum eruption.

  Exploding inside of me, flooding my womb each time that we christened the Columbine tent (as I was naming it), I loved the feeling. It was something that I had never experienced before. In the past, I had always insisted that my partners were sheathed. Riding bareback was prohibited even though I used oral contraception. The invasion of Sage’s salty glaze inside of me was welcomed as illogical as it probably should’ve been, I couldn’t explain it. Was it that he was a respectable cowboy? All cowboys were respectable, right? They always were in the movies. In my fantasies. In my dreams. I told myself that cowboys were a different breed… perfect… as I fell into a deep sated sleep until we were awakened at daylight by a couple cowboys shouting and horses neighing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sage

  A couple of days after getting back from our mountain trip I received more legal letters, requests from my brother, and questions from Norma. The last of which I ignored. I wasn’t sure how to answer her. What did she want to hear from me? Details from our excursion. Did she expect me to tell her that I professed my undying love to a woman I barely knew? Or did I tell her the truth? I imagined that hearing that I let my dick govern my actions, that I had made a mistake, an error in judgement, would not make her happy at all. Seeing the smile that accompanied her questioning, I knew what she wanted to hear, and those answers weren’t going to come from my lips.

  Avoiding her and Jade, I took off to the city to meet with a local attorney who I had been dealing with on my end. So many lawyers, I was thankful that I was only paying for one out of my pocket. I had no idea that inheriting the ranch would prove to be such a hassle. In all of the years that I knew Hank, never once did his sons come to visit him. He went to see them when they were little in New York where they lived with their mother. As they grew up, they had no desire to see what it was like to live the ranch lifestyle. They were only interested in the money that could line their pockets if they could get a hold of it and change it into some kind of tourist attraction that I couldn’t imagine Hank liking.

  Since the death of their father they were suddenly interested in getting their hands on the property. The most disturbing part was that they didn’t care what their father wanted done with the ranch. They were more interested in having an investment company run it, turn it into a large resort capitalizing on their father or if it was better, easier and more beneficial to them financially, selling it.

  In Hank’s last will and testament he named me as the sole heir to the ranch with a clause to include his daughter if she were to surface. He also stipulated that he wanted the ranch to remain as it was: cabins, open spaces. He included improvements he approved. We had spoken over the years about the potential for the property and where he thought and hoped it would go. The main changes and improvements, beside my living quarters, were under way or already implemented before he passed away.

  The clause in the will was what they were after this time around. Their legal team was trying to prove that the property only came to me because his family had not stepped forward. My team was pressing that it said “daughter” very clearly. I didn’t understand how they could still be trying to twist that clause. It wasn’t like they were left penniless. They had been given all other assets which equaled several million dollars.

  After my last meeting of the day I contacted a friend of mine, that had just arrived in town, to meet me for drinks. Sitting in a downtown Durango bar, we had several draft beers along with a couple thick, p
erfectly grilled, ribeye steaks and baked potatoes topped with all the trimmings. Shooting the shit, I got to unload the weight that was bearing down on me with my legal-shit-storm and he gave me the dirty lowdown on all that was going on in his world of divorce. His story, relationship hardship, won out over mine, so I left my Jade problem out of the conversation.

  He provided me with yet another reason to avoid marriage. I had only witnessed a couple of truly amazing connections between men and women at the ranch, the others all paled in comparison. There were two constant people in my life that shouldn’t be married but stayed miserably together. Even my own brother had not remained wed, probably should never have said “I do” in the first place. Then there was my friend, newly separated.

  A college professor during the regular school year, Gabe came into town for summer break almost every year to be a river rafting guide. We met years ago, we were both college students, when I accompanied fellow ranch hands on a river rafting trip down the Animas River. Since that time, we’ve kept in touch, and got together at least once or twice during the summer when he came to stay. Along the way, he married a slightly older professor that taught at the same college that he did, within his same field of study.

  In the beginning they spent a lot of time together working on projects. But when he received a grant to fund his research, he began to travel. Stuck behind teaching, she started accusing him of extracurricular activities with the different female students he took along to assist him on his trips. Turned out, he wasn’t the one cheating, she was playing around with one of her students. A sudden seminar cancellation opened his eye to the guilty party—a certain married academic bent over her desk panting “fuck me hard!” Needless to say, he packed up his suitcases for good and moved out of their shared home. He was relieved that the semester was over within a week of the revelation, and that he was able to get on the river rafting schedule to work the rapids all summer long. I was happy to see him, not happy to hear his news.

  After a couple nightcaps we called it a night, more inebriated than I realized, I left my truck in the parking lot and rented a room at the Strater Hotel for the night. My buddy offered his sofa in a condo he shared with his summer job roommate, but my back wasn’t young enough to withstand that torture. I could’ve stayed at Hank’s cottage in town too, but I wasn’t certain that I should stumble along the streets that far alone. I didn’t need the neighbors calling in a vagrant complaint and end up charged with being drunk in public. Safely passed out in a hotel room was the right thing to do.

  Up at the crack of dawn with a bit of a headache, I checked out and drove back to the ranch. I had to take care of my usual duties along with diving into Spencer’s kitchen requests. I should’ve paid more attention to his list since a few items on it had me back out on the road again, this time farther away. Part of me welcomed the time to think about my next move with a fiery redhead who might be hotter than ever, only not in a good way. There was no way around it, it was obvious I had been ignoring her since the morning we rode down from the mountain together on a horse.

  She felt so good up against me, her kickass breast pressing up against my back, with her arms tight around my waist. I could smell her fragrant scent on my clothes as I removed them to shower. I had the overwhelming urge to put the same shirt back on, regardless of its cleanliness. Pulling on a fresh t-shirt, I decided it was better to rid myself of every memory. What had happened between us was not going to happen again.

  Number one, she was more or less an employee.

  Number two, she was leaving, probably by the end of the summer.

  Number three, I lost my head when I was with her.

  What the hell was I thinking, or not thinking, fucking her without protection? Never in all my life had I done that. Not true, once, and that proved to be a disaster. Besides the possibility of fathering children, how did I know that she was clean? I didn’t imagine that she was carrying any tropical diseases, but she didn’t even ask if I was, which I wasn’t. We were definitely just too dangerous together.

  Back at the ranch, done with my travels, I hoped that things could be as they were before. For the most part they were, Jade seemed happy. Maybe I had made it more than it was. Maybe she didn’t want anything more from me, perhaps she was satisfied—the itch had been scratched. But she didn’t seem like the type to be tossed away as just a fling. However, she did say that she had a few fantasies involving cowboys. She didn’t say she wanted to marry a cowboy, run off into the sunset, and have little cowpokes.

  As the days passed, we had coffee a few mornings and dinners a couple times a week so she could show me her progress. Other than our business meetings, I saw her off in the distance sketching, photographing, painting, and taking an interest in making guests comfortable and happy.

  Watching her laughing and interacting with my guys, that was hard for me to take. She got along so well with them that they had started calling her by pet names. Sal called her Elma, instead of Elmo because of her hair color. He told her it reminded him of his favorite childhood character and that he even had a Tickle Me Elmo toy that he loved to cuddle. I didn’t like him thinking about her in his arms like his childhood stuffed animal. Of course, I couldn’t say anything and cringed when the rest of the guys joined in calling her Elma. The last few days that all changed, and they had nicknamed her Pudding after she walked in during one of their early evening meal conversations which I happened to overhear, unfortunately.

  “I can’t believe a woman came here to lose her virginity. I mean really that should be something that you do with someone you know. Not that I don’t like to fuck strange women. Fuck yeah, I do. Not a virgin though,” Grant said between shoveling food into his mouth.

  Jade walked over and sat down with them. “Why not? Women have cowboy fantasies. Why not live them out, even if it’s a first time?”

  “Well, I’m with Grant. I’m not popping a cherry,” Rance said, stabbing a small round tomato on his plate and putting it into his mouth with a snicker.

  All the guys were jumping in. Walker was next. “No thanks. Not into the new experience thingy. Who wants to play teacher?”

  Hoss agreed with a hearty laugh, “Give me a cougar that wants to teach me.”

  Jade was shaking her head, I loved how that flaming red ponytail swung from side to side. “Really. I can’t believe you guys. What a bunch of chickens we’ve got here.” That “chicken” word was rather loud and maybe directed my way. Could the word “guilty” be seen flashing or written across my forehead? “I would think you boys could mold them into your way of thinking. Tell them that blow jobs are a must. And to really get the feel of what men wanted, doggy style was essential. And of course there is always the forbid…”

  “Stop!” I couldn’t control my mouth. They all turned my way briefly then turned back to Jade when I put my head down. Then I was to endure the round table, loss of virginity stories. Hearing how she had lost hers made me want to run out of the lodge and punch something. It was utterly crazy that I was jealous.

  “So, Elma, do you have a cowboy fantasy?” Grant asked.

  She laughed. “We’re not talking about me and I’m not saying. But if I was going to go about giving up my pudding… Hell, why not a cowboy?” She shrugged and began eating her meal that was placed in front of her at their table. It looked like she wasn’t joining me for supper.

  “Pudding?” Rance questioned.

  “I’ve never heard it called that,” Wayne stated.

  “Well, everyone has their own analogy. Pudding to a woman is sacred. We have to be selective about who we let break our seal. You boys, on the other hand, will dip your spoon in just about any pudding cup. Most of us often look for the perfect person, stranger, boyfriend, husband or even a cowboy who we think is the one special utensil to share our sacred pudding. It’s pretty simple. We plan. We know when the time is right.”

  I wanted to look at her, but I didn’t dare. I was pretty sure she was making sure I knew that she did
n’t just give her pudding to anyone. Not that her pudding was virginal, but it was sacred and I couldn’t deny that I wanted another taste, whether or not I should.

  Hoss chimed in bringing me back from my own sweet thoughts. “I am never looking at pudding the same way in my life.” Me either!

  Jade defended herself. “We all have different names or words to explain our virtuous parts. I’m sure you all have names for your guys.”

  I nearly choked and Sal asked if I was okay. I nodded my head, taking a drink of the first of many beers I planned to drink. Why the hell did they talk to her about everything? Nothing was off limits with her. You’d think she was one of the boys. She had no problem giving her opinion, either.

  Really? Did they have to talk about losing their virginities? I couldn’t stop the jealousy that was raging on inside of me. I wanted to be the one that had given her a first wild ride on top of a lifeguard stand, not her surfing student. I was fuming illogically. However, what was really pissing me off the most was that they all called her Pudding from that moment on. And that they were right, damn her, I was never going to look at pudding again without thinking about pussy. Mainly, hers with its little matching red curls.

  I was so lost in my own perverse thoughts that I didn’t notice that they had all departed and my brother had plopped down across from me. “Who is she?”

  “Shit!” He startled me. “Who? And when did you get here? I thought you were coming in tomorrow, I would’ve picked you up.”

  “The woman who stole your man card. You have a dreamy, lovey-dovey look on your face mixed with… maybe some perversion.” He laughed and ordered a beer from a server. “I changed my flight so I could meet with a vendor in the morning. I wanted to have my own car.”

  Mid-explanation, Spencer let out a low, wolf whistle and my stomach clenched.

  “Holy shit! That neon red chick is hot as fuck! Is she part of the wedding party? Married? Please tell me she’s not the bride.” I didn’t need to look up to know who he was eyeing as she left the dining room.