2. Colt
2
COLT
She’s just like I remember her.
How could I forget?
Even five years ago, Lena Kingsley was a loud, bratty menace, always sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. Mostly in my business. She’d follow me around like a little stray puppy, bombarding me with questions, tugging on my shirtsleeves, and doing her best to make me laugh with whatever totally lame dad-joke she’d found online that day.
She used to look up at me with those big brown eyes, just daring me to snap at her. And I always did.
For Christ’s sake, she was thirteen, and I worked for her father. I didn’t need some rumor going around that I had a thing for her–which definitely would have cracked her up to a massive degree.
I kept my head down and kept on with my work, doing my best to ignore her as she tried over and over to get a reaction out of me.
But now she’s back. And she’s not a little thirteen-year-old with pigtails and scraped knees anymore. She’s blossomed. She’s eighteen and all grown up. All curves and sass and trouble with a capital T. And every inch of that womanly physique has me clenching my fist and grinding my jaw while my cock aches beneath my pants.
She may be eighteen, but she’s still the boss’s daughter and a thousand social classes higher than me. I’ve got no goddamn right to look at her like this. Until yesterday, she was still a kid in my mind. But now her body says otherwise. And every time she opens her little smart mouth or bends over in those tiny shorts, something primal claws inside my gut.
Am I proud of it? No. In fact, I hate myself for wanting her this badly. For lusting over those curves, for dreaming about her legs wrapped around my waist or her thighs spread over my mouth.
But she’s too damn young and too off-limits. Hell, she’s too much of everything I shouldn’t touch. But my cock doesn’t care about any of that. Not when she bats those big brown eyes at me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. Like she wants it.
This is bad. Really bad.
I toss another hay bale off the truck and watch as she jumps like a little kitten spooked by the sound of a newspaper.
“Geez, how about a bit of a warning!” she shouts up through the dust. She has no idea what she’s doing–standing there with those big brown eyes glaring at me, hands on her womanly hips, her breasts going up and down beneath that tiny little tank top she has no business wearing around here.
My cock pulses, and I instantly look away. I have to.
If I don’t, I’ll make a mistake I can’t take back.
“You lay a finger on her and you’re gone.” That’s what her father said when he told me he was sending her up here. His voice was stern, and he wasn’t asking. He was telling. Take her for the summer, get her straightened out, show her what real work looks like. That’s it.
And at the time, I thought that would be easy–annoying but easy. Because in my mind, all I had was a picture of a little thirteen-year-old girl who used to bug the shit out of me. But when she stepped out of that town car, and I saw what the last five years of growth had done to her, I knew–that like the cows out in the paddock–I was in deep shit.
“She’ll listen to you, Colt,” her dad had said. “She respects you.”
Sure. That’s what he thinks.
Lena doesn’t respect me. She tests me. Tries to get under my skin. And now, she’s got me feeling things I’ve got no business feeling.
“Don’t worry, sir,” I told him. “I won’t let you down.”
Before I could hang up, he added, “Good. Because if you do, you won’t just be fired. I’ll bury you myself.”
Then the call went dead.
Lena’s dad was always a bit of a hard ass. I guess that’s a requirement of being a business mogul.
So, yeah, touching Lena is not an option. I like living, and I’m not dumb enough to go up against a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
So no. I won’t touch Lena.
I’ll punish her instead.
I hop down from the truck and don’t even turn in her direction. Then my eyes will land on her shorts, and then I’ll be checking out her ass, and I won’t be able to stop myself.
“Go muck out the last stall,” I bark.
“The one with the sick cow?”
I nod. “And don’t whine about it. It’s gotta get done, that’s all there is to it. Gloves are hanging by the door.”
She opens her mouth like she’s going to protest but closes it again. Smart girl, but not smart enough to stop strutting around this place like she owns it. Not smart enough to avoid being sent here in the first place.
She sticks out here like a sore thumb. She’s too clean, too soft, and too fucking tempting. I lay in bed for an hour last night just thinking about her out there in the barn and had to jerk off twice just to get to sleep.
As she turns away, my eyes move on their own to her. The sun catches on the golden skin of her thighs, just where they reach her plump, perfectly sculpted ass. The sweat on the back of her neck gleams as she bends down to pick up a bucket. I curse under my breath and turn away.
I can’t watch that. Not when my brain is already coming up with scenarios I have no business imagining.
My hands threaded through her hair…dragging my fingertips along the small of her back…gripping her tightly around the waist while I drill her from behind and watch that ass bounce–
“No!” I bark at myself, causing Lena to turn.
“What? Did you say something?”
I growl and wave in the direction of the barn. “No. Go get to work!”
Lena mutters something under her breath as she walks away, obviously not a fan of how I’ve been treating her. But it can’t be helped. She’s not a little girl anymore–not even close.
She’s a walking goddess with a body built for breeding and a mouth that never closes, lips that belong wrapped around my swollen hard-on, and eyes that I can imagine staring up at me while I make her orgasm over and over again.
She’s the definition of sinful thoughts, and I feel like I’m already faltering.
I go out to the field to fix the split rail on the north pasture, pounding my hammer harder than I need to be, trying to knock the ache out of my chest. I breathe hard, trying to focus on a calming rhythm, but nothing works. Because Lena is in the barn behind me, barely ten yards away, wearing cutoff shorts that ride up way too high.
By the time she’s finished with the stall and comes back outside, she’s got sweat dripping down her neck and glistening on her more-than-ample cleavage. Her tank top is sticking to her body, and her cheeks are flushed from the heat.
“Done already?” I grunt as she sets the bucket down. She wipes her hands on her shorts and looks defiantly back at me. “I said clean the stall. Not stand around looking pretty.”
Lena rolls her eyes and sets the shovel aside. “Yes, I am done, Colt. Did you expect me to throw a tantrum or something? Quit?”
Yes. I was actually hoping she would quit. Then I’d be off the hook.
I bite back a groan that nearly escapes my throat. She has no idea how close she is to getting thrown in the hay and stripped of her clothes with her legs over my shoulders.
She squares her shoulders at me, cocks her head to the side, and looks me right in the eyes. “I know how to work, Colt. I’m not a kid anymore.”
No, you’re fucking not .
My blood is boiling, surging straight to my cock, which is getting harder and harder by the second. She’s only eighteen. I bet she’s never been fucked before. She must have the tightest little pussy in the world, and her attitude just makes me want to pound the sass right out of her until she’s crying out my name in pleasure.
Christ, I have to stop. My dick is aching with desire now. I have to get myself under control.
“Not a kid, huh?” I snark back, looking away. “You could have fooled me, the way you showed up in ‘designer shoes,’ looking like you were here to film some TikTok videos.”
“TikTok?” She laughs. “What does a cowboy like you know about TikTok?”
I can see her lips moving out of the corner of my vision. Christ, that mouth. That goddamn mouth. Her eyes shift to the ground beside me.
“Can I have a sip of that?” She points to my water canteen. “Thirsty.”
I shouldn’t. It’s not touching her directly, but it’s close. Even just having my arm around her last night when I stopped her from falling was enough to get my heart pounding like a drum. But what excuse can I give for denying her water? I pick up the canteen and hold it out for her.
“Thanks, cowboy.” She winks before wrapping her lips around the spout and sucking long and hard–like she knows exactly what she’s doing. If only that spout was something else…something swelling between my thighs.
I force myself to look away–at anything other than the curve of her throat or the pursing of her lips or the way a drop spills onto her breasts, causing them to shine even more. When she hands it back, our fingers briefly touch, sending another jolt to my cock.
Without another word, I toss the canteen, grab her bucket, and brush past her. The only other alternative is snatching her by the waist and pinning her against the side of the barn and putting my lips on hers to get her to stop mouthing off.
My restraint is not because I’m a good man; it’s because I’m not a stupid man.
So I make space between us. I clean up some of the leftover mess that she should have handled, then go into the house and take the coldest shower a man can handle.
When I come back downstairs, Lena is standing in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water like she owns the place. Like she hasn’t been torturing me all morning with her sassy comebacks, her perfect thighs, and her plump, teenage tits that I am desperate to get my hands on. Even beneath her shirt, I can tell they’re perfectly shaped.
“You’re staring,” she says, lifting one eyebrow and looking back at me like she just caught me with one hand in the cookie jar. She smiles a wicked little smile and licks her bottom lip with a soft pink tongue like she just had something sweet. “If you’re going to stare, at least admit it. Like a man.”
My teeth clench together. “Watch it, Lena.”
“Why should I?” she purrs. “Afraid you’ll say something you shouldn’t?”
I turn away, counting the cracks in the floorboards to distract myself from grabbing her and doing something that will ruin both our lives. “You don’t want to play with me, little girl.”
I can see her smiling out of the corner of my vision. “Maybe I like to play with fire.”
My body goes tense. I bite the inside of my cheek and look back at her, trying to focus on seeing her as the boss’s daughter and nothing else. I watch as she goes to the fridge and takes out a yogurt. “Hope you don’t mind,” she says. “But I’m starving.”
Spoiled little gorgeous brat.
“I don’t know how it is at home,” I growl, stepping closer, “but around here , you ask before taking something that ain’t yours.”
Of course, Lena doesn’t back down.
“Geez, didn’t realize you’d be so protective over a little blueberry yogurt.”
“I’m protective over everything in this house.” Including you. “Don’t think you can push me too hard without consequences.”
Lena’s eyes flash with something like heat–like desire. Jesus, maybe she wants consequences. God help me. She likes it when I’m hard on her, and that makes things so much worse. Because now every one of my punishments feels like foreplay.
“I’m not afraid of you, Colt.” Her voice is quiet but firm as she tears the lid from her yogurt and grabs a spoon from the drawer.
Yeah, and that’s a problem. She needs to be afraid of me if this is going to work.
This job is all I have. I’ve worked for her father for five years now. I live a quiet life, I keep to myself, and I can’t afford to make a massive misstep and allow some mouthy rich girl to burn everything I’ve built to the ground.
But Lena?
She’s the kind of misstep that I’d gladly make, even if it took me to hell with a dumb smile on my face.
I can’t help myself. We’re so close now that I lean in and sniff at the base of her neck. The divinity of her scent nearly knocks me on my ass, and I have to fight to recover before I completely lose it.
“Go shower,” I growl. “You stink like the barn.”
Lena lifts her chin and scowls. “Oh, see I thought you were going to give me a compliment. Maybe tell me I was cute.”
“You thought wrong.”
You are cute, Lena. You’re way too fucking cute.
Her eyes study mine, like she can hear exactly what I’m thinking. I can see her coming up with new ways to push me, just like she used to do when she was a kid. A faint smile appears on her lips, and she turns and heads for the stairs, swaying her hips like she knows I’m watching.
Does she know how badly I want her? I wouldn’t put it past her. Lena’s always been sharp, and that’s what scares me the most.
She isn’t just beautiful. She isn’t just the daughter of my employer. She’s smart, stubborn, and a sneaky little brat.
She’s also the kind of girl who does not stop until she gets what she wants.
And if she wants me , that means I’m completely fucked.
I follow her with my eyes, even as I tell myself not to. Even as it feels like a sin just to watch her ass sway back and forth.
She’s fucking magnetic, and I’m a weak man being pulled closer every minute. I can’t stop thinking about how she’d feel beneath me, how my name would sound being moaned through her lips, how she’d beg for more as I finally gave her what she’s been teasing me for.
Any more flirty comebacks and bratty little quips and I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold out.
I’m going to ruin her, and the worst part? I’m going to like it.