Chapter 4 #2
Jace and Toby eye Cassia, gazes full of curiosity.
She keeps her head down, trying like hell to hide her face behind her hair.
It's a wild tangle at this point, full of grass and bits of leaves.
She's still beautiful, lush and ripe in all the right places.
Judging by the way these two fuckers are looking at her, they agree.
Too bad for them. She's off limits. If anyone even thinks of touching her, they'll be answering to me.
"Keep your eyes to yourselves," I bark, sending hard glares in their direction.
They both jump.
"If I find out any of you have been anything less than respectful toward her while she's here, you won't be setting foot on another ranch this side of the Sierra Nevadas, are we clear?"
"Yes, sir," they say at the same time, sharing a grin I choose to ignore.
I know damn well what it means, and they aren't wrong.
Women come and go on the ranch all the time.
They chase cowboys as much as cowboys chase pussy.
But they leave me the fuck alone and vice versa.
Cassia isn't just any woman though. Might as well make that shit clear now so there isn't any confusion.
I jerk my chin in a nod. "Take care of the bull. He's riled, so be careful."
"Yes, sir," they say again.
I turn on my heel and head toward the house with Cassia in my arms.
"Um, do you expect it to take long for the police to get here?" she whispers.
"Long enough," I mutter. "There's a storm coming. It might be a day or two before the Sheriff can make it out here." I don't mention that I have no intention of calling him at all. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
"A d-day or t-t-two?" she splutters, making me want to kiss the shit out of her and laugh at the same time.
"Maybe longer," I lie. "Until then, you're stuck here, little cattle thief."
"You can't just keep me here."
"Yeah?" I grin at her, a slow, devilish grin. "Says who?"
"The law."
"This is my ranch, pretty baby. I'm the only law around here."
She gulps audibly. "Fine," she huffs eventually. "But I intend on being a difficult prisoner, just so you know."
"You do that then, princess," I say, not sure if I'm more impressed, frustrated, or amused that she doesn't immediately give up her charade as a cattle rustler.
Whatever she's up to, she's not giving up the truth easily.
She's going with a theme today, tempting bulls.
And the harder she runs, the more I want to chase.
* * *
"What kind of ranch is this?" Cassia demands fifteen minutes later, gawking all around us as we cut across the ranch toward the house.
Everyone is busting ass, trying to batten down the hatches before bad weather hits.
I should be helping, but I've got something more important to tend to for the time being.
She seems to have recovered some of her composure. Enough of it to be driving me insane by wiggling all around in my arms. My dick is hard enough to pound steel.
"You mean you didn't scope us out before you picked us to knock over?"
"I…did," she lies. "But only from a distance."
"We're a seedstock ranch," I murmur, skirting around one of the barns.
"Which means what?"
"Which means we breed cattle to sell."
"For what?"
"Money."
She narrows her eyes at me.
"I'm only partially kidding," I say, smirking as we circle around the side of the corral.
It's empty, the last of the yearlings being led to the barn.
Aside from the heifers still grazing and Hamburger, the rest of the herd has been taken to shelter.
"We sell them for a lot of money. You picked an expensive herd to rustle, little thief.
Every cow born here has a pedigree and a high dollar value. We're a genetic supplier."
"Oh. So you raise purebred cattle?"
"We do."
"I thought Hamburger looked like a Red Angus."
"Good eye," I say, impressed. Most people can't tell one breed from another, but Cassia is far from stupid.
She's wild as hell but there isn't an ignorant bone in her body.
She's quirky and sassy and incredibly intelligent.
Her intelligence shines through in her writing.
It's the first thing I noticed when I started reading.
"I thought they were docile."
I snort. "That bull is about as docile as a rattlesnake."
"You don't say," she says, eyes wide. "I thought he was going to eat me."
"Nah. You aren't his flavor." She's becoming more my flavor by the minute, though. "He mostly slashes up cattle thieves and trespassers, tramples them real good. Once they recover, they don't usually come back a second time."
She pales, the color sliding from her face like a bedsheet falling over her.
I chuckle, carrying her up the steps to the back porch of the house.
We enter through the kitchen. Cassia gawks all around, trying like hell not to let her curiosity show.
She reads like a book though. Everything she thinks is right there on her face, blazing from her eyes like words on a page.
Even with her glasses smudged and dirt on her cheek, there's no hiding it her rampant curiosity.
"You live here?" she asks as I carry her up the stairs.
"Yep."
"W-with your wife?"
"Don't have a wife," I grunt.
"Girlfriend?"
"Nope."
"Boyfriend?"
I narrow my eyes on her, which makes her lips twitch.
She's fucking with me now, trying to get a rise out of me.
I get it. This isn't a bachelor pad. It's a family home.
There are photos on the walls and knickknacks on the shelves.
My dad built this place for my mom. I was born and raised in this house. So were Cam and Cleary.
"Harem?" Cassia asks. "Captives? Sex slaves? Submissives? Brats? Littles? Pets?"
"I don't know what half of what you just said means," I mutter, not sure I even want to know.
I've seen the shit she reads. She likes to share her book haul on her Instagram feed.
"But if you're asking if I've got women tied up in the basement, the answer is no, princess.
" When relief steals across her adorable face, I can't help but tease her.
Making her squirm is appealing to me on levels I didn't even know existed until this very moment.
"At least not until we get you cleaned up and get your ankle wrapped. "
She blanches, her mouth popping open. "You are not tying me up in your basement."
She's right, I'm not. I don't even have a fucking basement.
"No?" I cock a brow, carrying her into my bedroom.
She's too busy gaping at me as we cross the room to notice my spare boots by the bed and my shit scattered across the top of the dresser.
She doesn't see the slate gray sheets twisted up on the bed from yet another restless night of dreaming about her either.
I carry her into the en-suite bathroom and deposit her on the vanity.
"No," she growls, scowling daggers at me. "I'll scream this house down around you, Cord Decker."
"Tell you what," I say, crouching to grab a towel from beneath the sink. "You tell me who you really are and what you were doing in my pasture, and I'll think about reconsidering."
"I…" She opens and closes her mouth a few times. "I already told you, I'm a horse thief."
"Cattle thief."
"Right, that." She nods empathically.
"And you chose my ranch from a distance."
"Yes."
"Where's your trailer?"
"Hmm?"
"Your trailer to transport the cattle."
"I'm a PETA people."
"You're a what?" I laugh.
"I came to liberate the cattle, not take them with me," she says, looking smug about it. It's cute, I'll give her that. But she's a shit liar.
"And you just picked my ranch at random?"
"Yes, from a distance."
"Then tell me one thing." I get up in her personal space and crook a finger beneath her chin, forcing her head back until those wide brown eyes meet mine.
As soon as they do, her expression glosses over and her lips part.
I want to taste them so badly it's a physical ache in my stomach, an instinct older than time.
I move toward her, so goddamn close I smell the cinnamon on her breath and the sugar on her skin. Not even the dirt and mud and muck mask the scent of her arousal or what it does to me. I'm so fucking hard up it's a full-blown tragedy.
She's been haunting me for six weeks, consuming every thought in my head, every moment of the day.
I eat, sleep, and breathe this girl, and I don't know why.
At least I didn't. I do now. I feel that truth—that inevitability—screaming at me.
This wild, curvy little goddess is the biggest piece of my soul. The one meant to complete me.
"W-what?" she whispers, her breath washing across my face, pulling me further under her spell.
I lean in until our lips damn near touch. We're so close, I see the flecks of gold in her eyes, hear the soft hitch of her breath. "How'd you know my name, pretty baby?"
She goes completely still, even the breath freezing in her lungs.
I give her a second to stew on the question and then carefully close the distance between us. My lips touch hers in a soft kiss that isn't nearly enough to satisfy me. "Get a shower, Cassia. I'll find you something to wear."