Reined In: Lone Star Lovers, Book 7

  Dedication

  To those fans who begged for another Lone Star Lovers book—you know who you are!

  Chapter One

  The little red Miata ground to a halt, kicking up caliche to pepper the porch’s underskirting like shrapnel.

  Joe Halloran suppressed a grin and tipped up the cowboy hat riding low over his brow with a lazy finger. Minutes ago, when the sound of an engine had screamed down the long private drive, he’d groaned because this was his first break of the day and he really wasn’t up for company. But as soon as he’d seen who it was, he settled deeper into his rocking chair.

  Trouble had arrived. And about damn time.

  Without moving from his chair, he slid his boots inches to the left on the porch railing to get a better view as the driver ground the gearshift into park. Joe glanced to the side. “What the hell do you suppose she’s doin’ here, Cam?”

  Seated beside him, his buddy grunted from beneath the hat he had dipped low enough to shade his entire face. “Not a clue. Suppose her old man let somethin’ slip?”

  Joe gave a snort, lowered his brim again and settled deeper into his chair, ready to play. What had been the end of a hellacious day of work had suddenly taken a mighty interesting turn.

  A car door slammed. Between the porch slats, he watched a pair of long legs scissor with brisk precision. High heels tapped on the steps.

  Still, he didn’t give a single indication he’d heard her. Instead, he took a deep breath and scratched his bare chest.

  A fingernail dug into his forearm. “Hey, cowboy.”

  He muttered but didn’t move a muscle. She knew his damn name.

  She poked him again with her nail. “Cowboy, wake up.”

  The hint of irritation in her silky voice gratified him in a way that didn’t bear too much introspection. He leaned back his head and squinted at her. “Peaches,” he exclaimed, a grin stretching his mouth. “Long time, no see.”

  Stormy Jordan narrowed her gaze into a mean glare. Yeah, she hated the nickname because she knew he’d given it to her based on the shape of her little ass. To make matters worse, the name had stuck like glue when her daddy had begun calling her it too. Funny, she’d never told him why she detested it so much.

  “Cowboy,” she said, her voice dripping with syrup. “How ’bout you move your butt and go get my bags?”

  Again, he tipped his hat up to stare into a pair of silvery-blue eyes that cut him like a Ginsu knife. “You talkin’ to me, ma’am?” he asked, being deliberately slow because he knew it irked the hell out of her.

  She lowered her pale brows over that cold stare. “Well, who the hell else would I be talkin’ to? My bags? I’d like to take a shower. I’ve been on the road since dawn.”

  Still, he didn’t move. He let his gaze slide over her curves, taking a detour downward then back up. When his gaze reached her reddening face again, one side of his mouth twitched. He could almost hear the steam hissing.

  She tapped a toe impatiently. “Since you don’t have anything better to do…”

  Joe cut a glance at his buddy.

  Cam’s lips tightened, but he settled deeper in his seat, resetting his hat to shade his eyes—giving Joe his silent approval to do his thing.

  Hiding a grin, Joe bolted forward in his chair, rising so swiftly she didn’t have a chance to move back. “Sure thing, ma’am,” he said, crowding her against the rail. “I’ll get on it right away, ma’am.” Only he made another slow perusal of her body to make sure she knew he was talking about more than her damn suitcases.

  She cleared her throat and sidestepped him. “Cowboy, don’t get ’em dirty.”

  “Now, sweetheart, that would be a cryin’ damn shame.”

  Cameron Mitchell hid a smile as Stormy stomped to the far side of the porch and Joe ambled down the steps to her car. Those two had always been at each other’s throats. Watching them spar was more exciting than any UFC fight and far bloodier.

  Still, as much as they poked and prodded at each other, he’d never seen either of them back away. And Stormy always came back for more, so he assumed she liked it.

  Cam and Stormy’s interactions were quieter, but no less intense. The woman had a way of setting a man’s libido on fire even while she did her best to make him feel two feet tall or like he had two left feet. It was a talent. One that had kept the boys flocking all over this very porch when she’d been in high school. Which had kept Joe mean and edgy, because he’d wanted her even back then when she was still jailbait.

  The years hadn’t dulled the edges of her attraction. Sun-streaked blonde hair was held up in a clip, exposing her delicate neck and ears. Her black, button-down blouse was two sizes too small, emphasizing the swell of her B-cup breasts and revealing the sliver of bare skin between the shirt and the top of her short, fanny-hugging black skirt. That hint of firm belly was enough to make Cam hard enough to hammer a nail.

  He recrossed his legs and interlaced his fingers to let them rest above the swell of his cock. If she looked close enough, she’d know how she affected him. Even after all this time.

  Maybe it was wrong, but he’d lusted after Stormy Jordan since she’d sprouted breasts and learned to wag her bottom like a siren. He and Joe had come to the Jordan family ranch when they were in high school, looking for part-time work as wranglers, thinking cowboy work couldn’t be that hard. Hell, girls dug a man in chaps and a hat. They’d stayed long after graduation because of their love for the ranch…and maybe, their enduring attraction to a certain wild filly.

  Both he and Joe had been objects of her youthful attempts at flirting, and out of respect for her daddy, they’d deflected her. But seven years ago, he’d had enough of dreaming about her and made the mistake of surprising Stormy with a kiss. He could still remember the softness of her lush mouth, the way her curves had fit against him. Something he’d never told Joe about and never would.

  The kiss hadn’t meant a thing to Stormy. She’d probably only been experimenting and forgotten about it long ago. But he hadn’t. And sometimes late at night, he pulled out that memory when he needed release. Her face, that mouth, had inspired many a late-night fantasy. However, he knew she wasn’t for him. Stormy Jordan was destined to be some rich man’s trophy, not some cowboy’s girl.

  Joe popped the trunk and walked around to the rear of her car. Two cases, both leather and with a designer logo stamped all over the hide, lay inside. He picked up the first and set it on the ground beside him, then hefted the second, larger case. Footsteps clicked down the steps, but he didn’t glance around the open trunk. He placed the large case on the gravel road and slammed down the trunk.

  He bent to pick it up, but it slid to the side, landing hard. Dust billowed up and laid a fine powder over the burnished leather. He wrapped his fingers around the handle, but before he lifted the case to stand it up, a foot landed on the back of his hand, the heel grinding.

  Joe pursed his lips and aimed a glare at the woman whose features were set, her eyes alert. “Better lift that shoe, sweetheart, or more than your suitcase is gonna be sittin’ in the dirt.”

  “I told you to be careful,” she said softly.

  “Darlin’, sometimes I can be,” he murmured slyly. “But I think this thing needs a firmer hand.” Without thinking of any consequences, only of his need to test her resolve, he let go of the case and twisted his wrist to grab her ankle. Then he slowly slid his hand up her calf and over her knee.

  Her soft skin felt like silk. The temptation was too strong to resist. She didn’t pull away. Didn’t gasp or flinch. Joe kept on going, his hand rising up her inner thigh. When he was inches from feminine heat, she called him on his bluff and reached down to shove
his hand away. “Think you can handle it from here, cowboy?” she said, her voice sounding strained.

  Joe drew in a long slow breath, inhaling her spicy scent. “Why don’t you just wait and see?” He lifted the bag, reached for the smaller one and turned on his heel.

  Behind him, he heard the crunch of her heels. He lifted his gaze to Cam’s and arched a brow. What the hell had just happened? He’d almost felt her up right there with an audience.

  Cam’s expression was neutral, and he glanced away.

  Joe’s cheeks warmed as he trudged up the steps, Stormy right behind him.

  They had Stormy to themselves. Was she aware they’d be the only ones in the house for the weekend? His mind spun with the possibilities. Possibilities that didn’t have to leave Cam in the dust—if he was willing to play along. But mostly Joe thought about how soft her skin had felt beneath the scrape of his callused palm, and the little quiver he’d detected right before she’d snatched away the prize.

  He had years of Stormy fantasies stored away. A whole damn menu of acts he wanted to perform—some not legal in most southern states. If she gave him even the slightest hint she was interested, he wasn’t going to let a little thing like the fact she was daddy’s little girl get in the way. Not this time. Not when Stormy’s daddy had all but given him his approval to do whatever it took to make sure Stormy figured out what she really wanted…or who.

  Chapter Two

  If sin were personified, it would wear Joe Halloran’s wicked smile.

  Stormy was just tired enough not to care where her thoughts had headed. Despite her fatigue, her heart beat a steady, heavy tattoo inside her chest as she followed him inside to her bedroom.

  She’d misbehaved. A deliberate, calibrated taunt. And he hadn’t hesitated to rise to the bait. Had he finally gotten past the fact she was Reese Jordan’s little girl?

  Lord, she’d been a rotten bitch and had no doubt left a bruise on the back of his hand. But it wasn’t anything more ornery than a dozen other acts she’d committed over the years, trying to get him to respond to her as something other than a bratty kid.

  Her skin still itched where he’d rasped his palm up the inside of her leg. He’d been this close to sliding his hand over her pussy, and even though Cam would have had a bird’s eye view, she regretted the fact she’d lost her nerve at the last moment.

  Fact was, she wouldn’t have minded Cam watching. She’d wanted both men for a very long time—ever since she’d been in middle school and the men had first hired on as wranglers at her daddy’s ranch. They’d come together looking for jobs, two high school buddies looking for an adventure. And they’d stayed, despite the backbreaking work, despite the way she’d tormented them, always underfoot, always sassing them until they’d crack and do something that would satisfy her need for their attention for the moment. Back then, she hadn’t understood why she’d invited their attention, their touch. Why a heated look or a tap on the ass excited her so much.

  The time Joe had finally had enough of her constant mouthy remarks and little insurrections and turned her over his knee had been a moment she’d relived hundreds of times in her dreams.

  She’d been fifteen, but by the time Cam had caught Joe’s hand to stop him, her panties had been as wet as her eyes.

  From day one, when the previous ranch foreman had lined the boys up to begin teaching them how to wrangle and rope, she’d liked how strong they both were, how muscled. That they were both easy on the eyes, in completely different ways, only made them all the more tempting.

  Cam was large framed and the taller of the two with thick brown hair, square masculine features and soft moss-green eyes.

  Joe was prettier, dark haired and lean, with blue eyes that glinted like sunlight on water.

  In her daydreams over the years, they’d vied for the position of her favorite crush. Both had other qualities that attracted her. Cam had limitless patience and an easy smile that made her warm all the way to her toes. Joe never gave her an inch. Something that made her wild and kept her up at night imagining all the wicked things he might do with a girl.

  But other than that one sweet kiss from Cam and Joe’s vigorous spanking, neither man had ever made a move on her. And she was pretty sure Cam’s kiss had happened by accident. She’d ridden her horse into the barn, and he’d helped her from the saddle. She’d stumbled as soon as he set her on the ground. He’d closed his arms around her and they’d both stopped, suspended in the moment. He’d probably been shocked. She’d stood stock-still because she didn’t want to make an ass out of herself. If it was an accident, their standing so closely, she didn’t want to know. When he’d bent ever so slowly and kissed her mouth, she’d sighed into his, clutching his upper arms and melting. Footsteps had interrupted, and they’d broken apart. Afterward, she’d waited outside the barn for twenty minutes, pretending to watch a horse circle inside a corral, but he hadn’t sought her out. She’d had her answer.

  Okay, so she’d been seventeen. Just maybe he’d had some scruples about messing around with her when she’d been so young. She hoped that was the case, because she was ready to get busy making up for lost time. If she was ever going to get them out of her system for good, it had to be now. And she had to have them both. One at a time, two at a time, she really didn’t care. This weekend was it. Her last chance to explore her forbidden fantasies.

  Joe strode into her bedroom and started to lift the first case onto her bed.

  “Uh-uh,” she said quickly. “They need to be wiped down before you put them on my duvet.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Then I guess you better get busy.”

  She raised her chin. “You dirtied ’em. You clean ’em.”

  Joe narrowed his eyes.

  Her breath held for a long moment, hoping he wouldn’t notice her breaths were coming faster. But he set the cases on the floor and turned to walk into the bathroom.

  A sigh pulled her gaze toward the door. Cam stood there, his arms braced on both sides of the doorframe, his steady gaze studying her. “Do you know what you’re doin’, little girl?”

  The little girl rankled. “What do you mean?”

  “You know dang well what I’m talkin’ about.”

  Joe walked back into the room, his glance going from Cam to her. “I interrupt somethin’?”

  Cam straightened. “’Course not, bro. Just seein’ if Peaches here needed any more help.”

  Stormy narrowed her eyes and turned to Joe. “When you’re done, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave the cases on the mattress. They’re heavy and I’d like to unpack.”

  Joe muttered a curse and curled his fingers around the cloth in his hand. But he knelt beside her suitcases and washed away the dust.

  Her grin stretched.

  Cam shook his head. “Playin’ with fire there,” he whispered.

  She cocked her head and her hands went to her blouse. She undid the first button, then the second while his gaze followed her motions. “Guess I’ll see you both later. Unless one of you wants to scrub my back.” Then she sauntered into the bathroom, leaving the door cracked a couple of inches, her ears straining to hear the men in the other room. But silence followed.

  Staring into the glass at her own reflection, she hoped the seed she’d planted took root because she was tired of playing games.

  Later, the men settled on the porch again, as they often did in the evening, listening to the crickets chirp as the sky darkened.

  “She didn’t ask once about her daddy,” Cam mused. His mind was still stuck on the image of Stormy unbuttoning her blouse. “Think she already knew he wouldn’t be here?”

  Joe took a long pull on his beer. “Why come if Daddy isn’t here to spoil her?” he asked, swinging his gaze to Cam, blue eyes twinkling. “Maybe she didn’t need a new car. Maybe she just missed the place.”

  Ever since she’d arrived, Cam had felt uneasy, like the winds were changing. “She seem different to you?”

  “Different how?”
>
  Joe may have sounded uninterested, but Cam didn’t believe for a second that his buddy was indifferent. “Meaner, maybe.”

  “She’s always been a handful,” Joe said, a slight smile curving his mouth.

  “But didn’t it seem like she was askin’ for it?”

  Joe shot him a sharp glance. “Askin’ for what?”

  Cam grunted. “For one of us to break.” And maybe that was only wishful thinking on his part.

  Joe played with a button on the clean chambray shirt he’d donned after he’d stopped perspiring. “I think about it, you know. That day.”

  Cam didn’t need any more prompting to know precisely which day Joe was referring to. “Me too. We were all worked up. She shouldn’t have climbed into the pen with that horse when it wasn’t broke.”

  “She didn’t do it until she was sure we’d both see. That’s what made me so damn mad. But I’m not sorry for turnin’ her over my knee.”

  “She cried.”

  “But she was hot for it.” The men shared a glance, and Joe looked away first, his lips twitching. “You thinkin’ she wanted some more of that today?”

  Cam rubbed the back of his neck. “It was the way she said it. About one of us scrubbin’ her back. Like she knows we’d both be there in a heartbeat.”

  “She’s yankin’ our chain. She wants us to pant after her, but if we did, she’d slam that door in our faces so quick she’d break both our noses.”

  “I don’t know,” Cam said slowly. “Like I said, somethin’s different. She had this look on her face when she sent you off for a washcloth, like she was wound tight, waitin’ for somethin’ to happen.”

  “No one’s around but us. If she wants somethin’, she’s gonna have to be a helluva lot more specific. Her dad’s been good to us. I wouldn’t wanna spoil things just ’cause my dick’s happy she might want some.”

  Cam sighed. “Guess she is out of our league.”

  “Last thing she’d want on a full-time basis is some dusty cowboy. And even as pretty as she is, I don’t want a one-night stand. Not with her.”