Chapter 4 Reed
reed
She beat me. I thought I’d get out to the pasture early enough, but she fucking beat me.
“Took you long enough,” she chided, her saddle creaking when she turned to look my way. “You cowboys eat four-course meals now or something?”
She was such a smart-ass. My mouth twitched, fighting a smile.
I pulled up on the reins, stopping Warrior, my gray roan stallion, beside her in the dark, overlooking the eastern fence line where we’d moved the herd.
Some of the cattle were still lumbering around while others were settling down for the night.
It was a clear evening, the full moon and stars casting silver light across the pasture.
“Does your dad know you’re out here?” I asked, my eyes dropping to her lap where a shotgun rested across her thighs. “Know how to shoot that thing?”
Lina huffed. “Any more questions, daddy? Who do you think I am? I don’t need anyone’s permission to be on my ranch, thank you very much.”
She turned away from me, the moonlight glowing off her profile. She looked like an angel with a halo, but there was nothing angelic about her. And fuck, her calling me daddy instantly made my zipper tight, even if she was being a smart-ass. Especially when she was being a smart-ass.
“But I told him anyway. He reminded me to bring the shotgun.”
I chuckled.
Her head whipped back to me, her features shadowed by her cowboy hat, but I could see the whites of her eyes, and she was looking at me weird.
“Did you just laugh?” she asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“I’ve never heard you laugh before. I didn’t think you even knew how.”
I scoffed and shook my head in disbelief. “I laugh.”
“No, you don’t,” she argued.
Of course she was fucking arguing with me about whether I laugh or not. I could say the grass was green, and she would say it was blue.
“All you do is grunt.” Lina flipped her long braid over her shoulder.
“I’m a man of few words. What can I say?”
“You could start by saying you’re fucking sorry.”
Oh, here we go again. I rolled my eyes. The last time I tried to apologize for what happened back in Joseph, it turned into an argument and then my hand went down her pants. We didn’t get very far because that was the night Frank Miller and Junior Matheus let the horses out.
“I’ve said I’m sorry. How many times do you want me to say it?”
“As many times as you need to until I believe you. Or you fucking leave.”
“Lina.” I reached over and gripped her reins above her hands, bringing her horse closer.
Close enough that she could see my eyes in the dark.
With the sun gone, the high desert night had chilled the air enough that our breaths mingled in puffs between us.
Our eyes locked, and I could see the flare of her nostrils as if it were painful to be this close to me.
“I’m so fucking sorry. You have to know that I never meant for any of that to go down the way it did. ”
“You fucked me in front of your wife, and then you fucked up my run.”
I heaved a deep sigh. She didn’t mince words.
How could I explain it all and hope she’d understand?
How could I explain that I set out to hurt Elise because she hurt me?
That in my twisted head—and inebriated judgment—I thought that if I could make my ex jealous enough, she wouldn’t leave and take Penn with her?
I hadn’t set out to find someone whom I was so attracted to …
someone who could flip my whole world upside down and make me grateful that my ex was leaving.
To end up kissing someone who caused my gut to twist and my heart to clench.
I’d lost my ever-fucking mind that night.
I hadn’t expected to feel anything. I thought I could win some cash to follow Elise wherever she went and prove to myself that the wild barrel racer had meant nothing.
That was the only reason I ended up making a bet against her run.
How could I explain any of that to her when I didn’t totally get it myself?
“Ex-wife,” I corrected. It was the only thing I thought I could say. Dumbass.
Lina’s eyes narrowed. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“I’ve been told that a time or two.”
Lina pulled on her reins, causing Mushu to shift away, and I let go.
“Tired of it yet?” she asked.
“Tired of what?”
“Me calling you on it. I don’t know why you’ve stuck around as long as you have. There are other ranches. Why can’t you go be an asshole somewhere else?”
“Maybe I like someone calling me on my shit.” In fact, I loved it. My cock was throbbing with every bratty word that spewed from her perfectly fuckable mouth.
Lina groaned in exasperation, but I wanted to make her moan for other reasons.
It didn’t help being out here arguing in the dark.
It only caused severe déjà vu. But at this point, I’d played that scene out so many times while fisting my cock in the shower, I should be used to it by now.
Shutting my eyes, it all came rushing back.
Her chest rose and fell in anger while I held my breath to keep from saying the one thing that was on the tip of my tongue.
“You can’t even apologize like a normal person without some ridiculous snide remark!” she yelled at me. “Why the hell do you care if I meet a guy at the bar anyway?”
I growled. I couldn’t help it. My blood was boiling. “You don’t fucking tell a girl to meet you at a bar for a date without expecting them to put out. That’s all he wants from you, Lina.”
“Again, why the hell do you care? And who’s to say I don’t want to put out. I don’t think it’s any of your goddamn business who I hook up with.”
Frustrated, I pushed her against the fence post, biting my tongue until I tasted copper. There was so much I wanted to say, but all it did was make my blood boil.
She twisted my shirt in her grasp, tugging me closer to her. Her sneer melted, her lips parting with her heaving breaths. Fuck, I wanted to kiss her. Her eyes bounced to my mouth before returning to my eyes. If I didn’t know better, her heated anger looked a whole lot like desire.
“Who’s to say I don’t want to put out?” she said again, her other hand wrapping around my forearm and tugging my hand away from where I pinned her shoulders against the post.
Her fingertips trailed down my arm, sending goose bumps down my flesh until she could take my hand and place it on her hip. My heart started to beat rapidly. My body went hot. And my breath was stolen right from my lungs. What the hell was she doing?
I hadn’t touched her since that first night, and now with my hands on her, I didn’t think I could ever let her go.
My grip on her tightened, my fingers digging into the denim at her hip when her own hands went to her pants, unfastening the button and lowering the zipper. “Do you not want me to go on this date?”
“No, I don’t want you to go on this fucking date,” I told her honestly. My chest heaved.
“You expect me to be a good girl and not hook up with guys in bars?” Fuck! Her eyebrows quirked in question, but her stare bore into me intensely.
“I should’ve been the last fucking guy you picked up at a bar.” I was getting too close to the truth, and my gut clenched.
“What if I wanted to get picked up? What should I do then?” she asked, taking my hand and bringing it to the bare skin between her shirt hem and waistband.
She was so soft.
I lowered my gaze, watching my rough, tan hands contrast against her soft, bronze skin. I didn’t fight her. My mouth fell open on a deep exhale while she held my hand against her, pressing it down below the elastic of her panties until I could feel her wet slit.
“Fuck,” I growled, lowering my forehead to hers.
Lina widened her stance, shoving my hand between her legs. “I want you to touch me.”
My middle finger slid through her cunt. The tightness of her jeans pressed the heel of my palm against her clit, and she rolled her hips forward, letting it brush against her.
She whined, her nails digging into my shirt to hold me tighter against her.
“Do you need to come? Is that all this is?” I asked her. If she was just going on a date because she needed to get fucked, I would gladly give her what she wanted.
“If you don’t want me to go on my date,” she panted through clenched teeth, “you’re going to have to make me come until I forget all about it.”
I plunged my middle finger into her soaked pussy, stroking in and out. She moaned, her hips bumping into mine while she ground against my hand. My cock was painfully hard, and I could feel the precum leaking from the tip. She was going to make me come in my pants like a fucking teenager.
“Fuck my hand, baby. This pussy is only going to come for me.”
“Oh my God,” she moaned, dropping her head to my shoulder. I could tell she was close as she quickened her pace, her hips rocking, letting her clit rub against me while my finger fucked her. The night was quiet, except for the sounds of her drenched pussy and our heavy breaths.
“That’s it. Take it. Take everything you need until you fall apart.”
Her forehead rocked back and forth on my shoulder, as if she couldn’t stand it. She smelled amazing, like vanilla and flowers. I wanted to bury my nose in her hair while I buried my fingers in her perfect little cunt.
“Two, cowboy. Two fingers,” she ordered, breathless.
“You’re not full enough?”
“I’m never full enough. Please.”
I loved hearing her beg. I don’t think Lina Larsen had begged for anything in her life. Except for this. Except for me. Or at least, I hoped so.
I thrust in a second finger, and she bit back a cry.
She pushed her hips down against my hand, begging for it to go deeper.
I could tell this would not be enough for her the way she was frantically grinding against me, chasing the orgasm she was desperate for.
I drove the heel of my hand harder against her clit.
“I’m so close, Reed,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.”
Her walls fluttered against my fingers, pulsing and squeezing. Just as soon as I thought she would let herself go, she froze. Then she pushed me away, her eyes staring past me. I turned, trying to make sense of the movement in the evening shadows.
“What the fuck?” she cursed in the darkness.
“Why are the horses out?” I asked, shocked and dazed.
“Fucking shit!” She frantically pushed against my shoulders. I took my hand away from her, feeling the shudder go through her body with the contact.
“Who let the horses out?”
The end of the memory snapped me back to reality, leaving me with just an echo of our raised voices. I looked around, scanning the fence line. It seemed quiet, but that night had seemed quiet, too.
Something didn’t feel right.
“Let’s ride down the line,” I told Lina, turning my horse and heading down the slope to the fence line.
I heard her follow behind me, and before I even reached the fence, I knew what I was about to see.
“Shit!” The wire was cut and curled back against the post. “Someone was already out here tonight. How did we not see this?” Or it happened while I was distracted by Lina and the memory of her …
I turned and surveyed our surroundings. The herd didn’t look disturbed. It must have happened before we got out here tonight.
“Do you think any of them got loose?” Lina asked.
“I brought some extra wire in my pack. We’ll patch it up and have a look.”
“You’re letting me stay out with you then?”
I huffed a laugh. “Don’t think I have a choice now, do I?”
She grinned, her pretty smile flashing in the dark, dazzling as bright as the stars. And it took my fucking breath away.