Chapter 12
I f there was ever a way to successfully blast a cold-water hose on myself and douse the embers flaring between me and my sort-of-unavailable-but-maybe-actually-is-single boss , seeing Beau’s wife appear on his phone screen certainly did so.
I booked myself a one-way ticket out of that clusterfuck. Pronto.
Whatever happened between Beau and I that night in the kitchen after burning myself, well, that spark was stomped out just as quickly as it dared to flicker in the darkness.
I’m busy.
He’s busy.
And therefore, we have been remarkably skilled at keeping to ourselves and our respective corners of this ranch.
Besides, I truly am spinning a lot of plates, between the work I’m doing here, the proposal I’ve been putting together for The Loaded Hog, and my design work for Devil’s Peak Ranch. There isn’t much time for anything except shoving my headphones on and descending into my creative cave.
Summer adventures, care of Crimson Ridge, and a chance to finally let my hair down, will be long overdue by the time my boots land on the top of Devil’s Peak for the bonfire they’re hosting this weekend.
As for Beau? He’s gone all day, and long into the evening, too, it would seem. After answering the call from his wife that night and stalking off into the darkness, the sight of his retreating shoulders was my last proper glimpse of the man. Since then, it might as well be only myself here on the property. Tessa checks in on me via email daily, so at least I’m able to ping back and forth with her. We collaborate virtually on ideas I’ve come up with and directions I’m going with their marketing.
It’s fine. This is absolutely for the best.
My arm is all but healed, unlike the awful little affliction residing inside my chest.
This morning, even before the sun has dragged its ass above the mountaintop, hugging the horizon, the heat is stifling. Cicadas are thrumming, birds are chirping their shrill melodic tunes high amongst the trees, and it’s far too fucking hot to go for a run. But I absolutely need to move my body before I resume my curled-shrimp position in front of my laptop for the remainder of the day.
I decide to wander over to the workout room at the main house in search of shade and a fan while getting my daily dose of endorphins. As per Tessa’s instructions, I should really take an opportunity to explore this facet of the ranch accommodation as if I were one of their prospective guests. While head down, scrolling through my phone to find my go-to playlist, my hearing pricks and I slow to a pause only a few feet from the open entrance. A wild assortment of grunting noises come from within, and I scrunch my eyes, because I already know what I’m going to discover if I poke my head to take a glance inside.
It would undoubtedly be the worst idea to look.
I’d be an absolute fool to step closer to that doorway.
Yet, my feet carry me forward, and with a rapid-fire, bouncing gaze, I take in the sight that leaves my hormones all but audibly moaning.
Beau was obviously in the mood to work out this morning too, it would seem, and only one glance is required—only one sinful peek is necessary—to discover just how much time this man still dedicates to being an athlete close to his prime.
He has his back to the door, with headphones settled over his ears, and is mid-workout, pumping iron. He’s lifting a pair of dumbbells in fly raises, hefting the weights with a rhythmic pulse out to the side, extending his arms from hip to shoulder height, and lowering down again in rapid succession, and oh my fucking god. The man’s back is a glistening sheen, a cascade of defined muscles. Every indent and sculpted ripple from his shoulder blades down to the hint of the curve—that spot giving a glimpse and a tease—where his ass disappears below his low-slung waistband. Seeing him from this angle is mouthwatering in the extreme.
My greedy eyes bounce everywhere, gobbling up the sight of bulging biceps, flexing shoulder blades, those impressive goddamn lines of muscle running straight down his spine. Beau Heartford is every inch a specimen of cowboy who hasn’t allowed his retirement to get in the way of intense training. He’s in there showing off the sort of focus to make it seem as though he’d fling himself on the back of a bull and lunge back in the rodeo arena at the first invitation.
He looks cut, powerful as a weapon, and holy fuck, I am going to have to brave stepping outside to take myself for a long, long jog. Immediately. Backing up, I blow out an unsteady breath and rapidly make my exit. Screw the summer heat, I’ll just have to handle that bitch. Being confined within the four walls of a workout room with him and all his glistening muscular pheromones would be an atrocious idea.
In my current state? I’d be a complete liability.
According to my period tracker, I’m going to be ovulating any minute, and in that case, I probably need to consider how to chain myself to a tree like a werewolf on a full moon.
* * *
Unfortunately, no matter how far I jogged earlier today, my footsteps have been unable to carry me beyond the reach of Beau’s ever-present appeal.
A text arrives, interrupting my rhythm. I’d been lost in a long stretch of photo editing and gallery creation to showcase the ranch’s cabin accommodation.
Tessa Diaz:
Beau has a couple of guys coming to the ranch to help out with unloading a hay delivery. I won’t volunteer you for the task, but it’ll be the perfect opportunity to grab some photos and video content while they’re hard at work.
You did mention you wanted some more images of the working side of the ranch, so I figured I would let you know in case you need to plan around other clients you’ve got scheduled in.
I know it’s late in the day, but they thought the evening might be best. I heard it’s been hot as all hell up there today.
The guys will be working for a couple of hours, I would say, so head over whenever suits you.
Oh, good.
Today, it would seem I’ve been cursed with an overabundance of Beau Heartford looking like a sweaty cowboy dream.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I tip my head back to the ceiling. Am I seriously being punished for misdemeanors in a previous life? Was I some kind of vicious homewrecker, who is being given a swift kick in the vagina as penance for coveting someone else’s beloved?
I tap out a brief reply, letting Tessa know just how thrilled I am to venture outdoors in search of the sight of her brother and his glistening muscles hard at work. Then grumble to myself the entire way as I wander toward the barn, with a fairy floss-pink sky and wispy clouds scattered overhead. A truck and large flatbed trailer are immediately visible, parked up on the side closest to the arena for the horses.
Just as promised, when I reach the front of the vehicle, I’m greeted by the sight of not just Beau, but two other cowboys. All three are exactly what I need for promotional material for the ranch, complete with cowboy hats, jeans, and not a single shirt between them.
One, in particular, is entirely responsible for causing heat to pool low in my stomach.
“Sergeant.” The familiar sight of Kayce Wilder’s golden boy grin beams down at me from where he stands on the trailer in amongst hay bales. He drags the back of one hand over his brow.
“Does everyone feel the need to call me that? Layla really did a number on me in my absence, didn’t she?”
“Absolutely. So, you came to your senses and decided Crimson Ridge was the best place to be, after all?” He grins.
His cheeky attitude receives a withering look from me in return.
The guy is my best friend’s ex. Also, the son of the man who is very much the true love of Layla’s life. Sure, it’s complicated, but no one in their right mind could deny that Layla and Colton Wilder are a match made in cattle-ranch-heaven for each other.
“Here for the summer, to brighten all your lives as promised, Wilder.” I prop my hands on my hips, trying my damndest not to glance over at the place where Beau occupies himself, hefting bales onto a growing stack along the side of the barn.
“Gonna hop up here and give us a hand, or have you come out to boss us around?” Kayce shoots me a toothy smile, all pearly whites set against his bronzed skin and cream color hat.
“Something much worse. I’m here to objectify you.” I wave my phone in the air.
The other cowboy working on the flatbed doesn’t stop what he’s doing, but chimes in with a smirk to his voice. “Make sure to crop out old man Heartford over there if it’s marketing goods you’re on the hunt for. No one needs to get an eyeful of his builder’s crack and ugly fucking ‘stache.”
“Sage Maloney… you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Hayes here yet. Watch him. He’s chaos.”
As Kayce introduces me to the other cowboy who is currently putting on an ab show to die for, I swear I hear a gritty noise coming from the direction of the third man.
“Always a delight to meet a fellow menace. Are you mad enough to be a rodeo superstar, too?” My grin grows wide.
“Broncs for me, just like Wilder.” He nods. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
Oh, dear. Another charming cowboy to add to the catalog? What potion do they infuse the water with up here?
“You’re working with my brother on the spit and polish of The Loaded Hog.” Chaos Hayes observes as he straightens up and lifts his hat, ruffling strong fingers through his sandy brown hair. Sun-bleached strands that he shakes out where they hang long and wild around his ears, before fixing his hat back in place again. One glance and it’s clear, this looks to be the type of creature capable of devouring his meal whole, with green eyes that sparkle in the setting sun.
Snapping my fingers in his direction, I shake my head and chuckle. “That’s right, I forgot that everyone is related in these mountains.”
He gives me a lopsided smile that I’m fairly certain has left a trail of broken hearts in its wake. “Folks might love to refer to us as the ‘Chaos Twins’ around these parts, but ignore my brother if he’s a grouchy asshole when you catch up with him at the bar. Fuck face barely knows how to string more than two words together on a good day. He’s the kind of destruction you don’t hear coming.”
“I’m sure I’ll wrangle him just fine.” With one hand, I shield my eyes against the golden ball currently dipping behind the bronzed ridgeline climbing into the sky. “Carry on boys. This will be a quick and painless procedure, I promise.”
Kayce snorts, and fists the twine on the closest bale to his boots. “Sounds like Sergeant Maloney here is about to go for our nuts and make steers out of all of us.”
“Only if you use your manners and ask me very politely.” Batting my eyelashes, I continue taking photos of them bending and lifting and twisting, and it really is an impressive sight. Objectively, of course. I can appreciate a premium specimen of cowboy. Kayce and Hayes are rodeo bucks through and through, and well, then there’s Beau .
Whereas the other two are extremely camera-friendly, a pair of golden boys with a playfulness to them, Beau is something else entirely. He’s wild and rugged and alluring in his silence. Not to mention, has that stern, older, let me show you a trick or two thing going on that leaves my knees a little weak.
Damn, the quiet ones really do get you.
Through the camera lens on my phone, I see exactly how that muscled v disappears below the waistband of his jeans. The ridges along his stomach are even more prominent thanks to the dust and smears of dirt coating his skin, and he’s once again coated with a sheen of sweat.
To make it worse, he’s got a stone-gray cowboy hat on. When added to the whole package with that sexy-as-hell mustache, I’m fighting a battle not to sigh wistfully out loud.
Couldn’t this man be unattached and not my boss?
On my phone screen, the video highlights all his best angles, and that ache I thought I’d managed to get rid of after the night in the kitchen rapidly and determinedly blooms back into life.
There is a situation between my thighs I can no longer ignore. I’ve been oh, so very good today, and this scene right before me is pure torture, the kind that I have no interest in continuing to edge myself with or hang around any longer.
“Great, that’s perfect.” I do a quick scan of the camera roll and make sure everything is saved where I need it, then prepare to make my hasty exit. “Thanks, guys. Nice to see you, Kayce. Good to meet you, Hayes, might see you at the Hog sometime.”
“Old man gonna pay out royalties when our pretty faces are front and center, plastered all over your website?” Kayce teases Beau, who hasn’t looked my way this entire time.
“Fuck off, Wilder. You’ll probably drive away any prospective business.” He heaves a bale and grunts through a firmly locked jaw.
“Hardly. Sarge here seems to think otherwise. Did you get my good side? All my best assets?” Kayce has a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Would do perfectly fine without you two fucking peacocks.” Beau scowls.
Hayes simply shakes his head and keeps working, but I see his ghost of a smile.
“I’m sorry, but three rodeo stars with their eight packs out? I’ll have this ranch fully booked, with a waitlist queued past state lines, quicker than you can flip your cap backward.” I call over my shoulder and wave a peace sign in the air above my head. Yep, I definitely need to extract myself right away. “Wait ‘til I make you all famous, boys.”
Behind me, I hear their gruff banter carry on, but I don’t dare stop. I’m on a direct course to reunite with my cabin, that beautiful outdoor tub, and my trusty bullet vibe.
It takes me next to no time to shed the tank and cut-offs I’m wearing, then slip into my yellow bikini that has seen me through many a summer adventure. Every inch of my skin prickles not just with the rolling heat shimmering off the ground as I exit the rear of my cabin, but with the intensity of my lingering obsession with the man I should not, and cannot for the sake of my job, keep looking at.
Yet, it’s all I seem capable of doing.
On repeat, like a sailor intent on tumbling overboard following the allure of a siren calling to them from the deep, I’m drawn to Beau and his quiet intensity… it’s a massive fucking problem.
Sweet relief coats my limbs as I slip into the cool, still water. The setting sun is putting on a pastel-painted sky above the blue haze of mountaintops, and the entire scene before me is reminiscent of a daydream. A moment I should, in all practicality, be documenting, recording… someway and somehow taking advantage of. Considering how stunning this vista stretching out before me is right this second, setting up my phone to create content with marketing in mind is where my attention should be.
However, I’m not doing any of that. Instead, I’m focused entirely on the slickness between my thighs. My brain is unable to concentrate, rendered a useless lump of gray matter by the swirling ache and throbbing sensation occupying my pussy.
Is this lust of the worst kind? A mortal affliction I’ve succumbed to? Here lies Sage Maloney—daughter, sister, friend. Cut down in her prime by a perfect mustache, low-slung jeans concealing all manner of cowboy virility, and an adonis belt coated in a dusting of dark hair.
As I dip my vibe beneath the water’s surface, I can already feel the sigh of long-anticipated relief flutter through my veins. For someone who owns a wearable, and could easily have myself on edge all day long under the rippling command of the connected app on my phone, I am undeniably a mess. The irony being that all of this is the responsibility of my mind and my strange addiction. A longing I have developed for the man less than a hundred yards away hauling hay bales with ease.
Well, shit. One glance at how effortlessly he tossed them around, confirms he could very much manhandle a woman like me without so much as breaking a sweat. Curves and thick thighs and all.
Dragging the vibration over my nipples, I float and watch the sky, losing myself in this hidden moment. It’s private back here, but not fully enclosed. There’s a wide-open expanse of pasture and grazing land extending up into rolling hills, giving a picturesque scene for my much-needed interlude.
Already, I feel it curl up, wicked and insistent, from my toes. The appeal of being like this, where anyone could see? It plays perfectly into my exhibitionist side, and I stifle a moan as the awareness lands of just how easy it would be for someone—one particular cowboy—to discover what I’m doing back here.
That pulsing heartbeat in my clit doubles down. Throbbing need builds and demands to be given the attention I’ve been denying myself until now.
I give in, plunging my hand beneath my bikini bottoms, seeking out my slickness. The evidence of my arousal is there, slippery and coating my swollen clit, ready to be toyed with immediately.
This isn’t shameful. It isn’t in any way embarrassing that I needed this escape. However, it is a profound and prominent reminder that I’m going to have to be even more careful. I’m far too easily swept up in this man’s appeal, and that recognition glows hot and bright in my bloodstream as I work over my clit in small circles.
My body feels delicious, almost weightless, thanks to the water and the pretty scene, while rippling pleasure carves a heated path through every limb.
As I inch ever-closer to the point where the building wave will inevitably crash, I’m trying to imagine someone else in my dirty little fantasy this evening. That girl with the septum piercing that I hooked up with a couple of times over winter? The gamer boy with the gritty, hot voice I exchanged a few naughty videos with long-distance?
Unfortunately, none of them hold my attention for long. My pussy has fixated upon one much-coveted object of my affections and desires, and the second I allow him to sweep to the front of my awareness, those sparks shoot around my body like fireworks.
My body tenses, heat pooling low, my climax already furled up tight, ready to explode.
Oh, god.
That all-consuming wave approaches fast, demanding, and I swear there’s a ringing in my ears. The thought that does me in, the final detail that pushes me over the edge, is an imaginary sound of boots scuffing across gravel. As my hand flutters beneath the sodden material of my bikini bottoms and my rock-hard nipples rub inside the thin material of my top, I hitch in a breath.
Dream-Beau appears. He leans one broad shoulder against the wooden exterior of my cabin, and simply watches.
He likes what he sees, with hooded eyes flitting over my damp skin, taking in the sight of where my arm disappears into the crystal-clear water.
The corner of his lip tips up, and he drags a thumb over his jaw as he silently urges me to keep going. A challenge to get myself off right here, in the open, all for him.
My mouth hangs open, and my eyes squeeze tight. It’s too much, oh so good, yet oh so wrong. As I clench up and tumble over the edge, there’s no suppressing it.
I have Beau Heartford on my lips, gasping his name as an offering to the pastel-colored night sky, and his blue-gray eyes affixed in my mind.