Cowboy Heat Read online

  “In case I came back?” she asked, hope making her breathless.

  “Yes and you sure took your time doing it.” He trailed kisses down her throat. “So I guess the question is, after all these years, do you remember my name?”

  “I haven’t forgotten a thing about you either, Rowdy Reynolds, blacksmith apprentice who wanted to own his own ranch one day.” She pressed her lips against the stubble at the corner of his mouth.

  His eyes narrowed. “Hearing you say that makes me want you all over again. One time with you isn’t enough.”

  He wasn’t kidding. He was hard again. She felt it through the stiff denim of his jeans.

  “How about the whole night?” she asked.

  “It’s a start.” His voice came out low and full of promise.

  “Then we’ll start with tonight and see where we go from there.” Skye had a feeling they’d go directly to his bed, but that wasn’t such a bad place to begin.

  AT THE MERCY OF THE COWBOY

  Amber Lin

  Only when the squinty-eyed, scruff-jawed cowboy scowls do I feel guilty for my deception. I had signed my email Alex, which isn’t strictly a lie since that’s my name. But of course he assumed it was a man applying for his live-in farmhand job, which is why he sent back a terse email with his address and the line: Come ready to work.

  “You can’t have the job.” There’s no softness at all in his gruff voice, in the sloping lines of his body. His silhouette slices through the swath of sunset backdrop. An orange glow spills around his edges, leaving his face in shadows. Even dark and half-hidden, the answer is written plainly: No.

  “Why not?” I challenge. “I can work hard. You’ll see.”

  “I won’t, because you’re not staying. It’s physical labor. Back-breaking labor for a man in his prime, and you look like a stiff wind would knock you over.” As if to prove his point, his perfunctory glance slides over my threadbare clothes and now-thin body. Just as easily, he looks away in dismissal, painting his side profile with light, a straight nose and stubble-roughened jaw.

  “Let me try. What can it hurt? If I can’t cut it, I’ll leave all on my own.”

  “The room’s right next to mine. It’s more of a closet, really. Not fit for a…”

  “I’m not picky.”

  “No.”

  I would have just left then. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t even be anywhere near a ranch in the little town of Paloma, Kansas. But there are no jobs in Topeka. I’ve looked and looked, and now I’m desperate.

  “Please,” I say.

  As if just noticing it, he glances over to my twelve-year-old, forest-green station wagon. I flush hotly, but he doesn’t see, because he’s looking instead at the boxes in the backseat, piled high with clothes and old family photo albums I couldn’t bear to throw away.

  I’m a grown woman, but I had never realized how close I was to homelessness. Just a layoff, a fruitless job search and an eviction notice away from ruin. My parents had long since passed away, and I had no friends close enough to put me up indefinitely. In truth, I’d been too ashamed to ask. I want to work. I need this job.

  And now he knows it.

  Thick eyebrows lower beneath the brim of his mottled-beige cowboy hat. His eyes are nothing more than slits in the simmering sun. Beneath thick work jeans and a plaid button-down, he seems tense. Or maybe that’s just me. I brace myself for the feel of his cowboy boot as he kicks my ass out.

  “You can stay,” he says. “Start with shoveling out the stalls.”

  He expects me to balk, I can tell. He doesn’t elaborate on the task or show me where to get started. Just stands there, waiting for me to tell him that shit-shoveling is beneath me. But what’s really beneath me is charity. If this is what I’ve come to, then at least my meals will be honestly earned.

  I summon a smile. “Great.”

  With a snort, he strides to the stable, a large building set twenty feet from the house. After a few minutes of rustling and the click of a latch, he emerges leading a tall brown horse with white on its snout. Very tall. It matches the man, and they both tower above me as they pass—intimidating. Just another way to make a point against me, to show I don’t belong, another way to say no. But I won’t be discouraged. Desperation imbues me with strength, and I channel all my frustration and hope into the physical, backbreaking work.

  Colt—that’s the cowboy’s name—likes to think of himself as a hard-ass. And he is, but I figure out almost immediately that he has a soft spot for starving, out-of-work administrative assistants named Alexis Walker.

  On the very first night, he informs me in his take-no-prisoners tone that food is included in the job, even though I’m pretty sure the advertisement quite clearly stated room only, no board.

  I agree to eat his food if he allows me to cook dinner, and he doesn’t put up much of a fight about that one. I’ll be damned if I make him regret his decision to hire me.

  During the day, I work my tail off doing all the jobs a regular, male farmhand would have done—maybe even more. At night I cook us dinner, and on my days off, I clean up around the house, unasked. I gain back the weight I lost in those sad days before I came here, some of it in pure muscle mass, the rest filling out my old curves.

  For two months, Colt seems satisfied with my work, both outside the house and within. He even says so, with praise all the more sweet for its muttered reluctance, like, You did all right out there today, Alex, and, This meatloaf reminds me of the one my mom used to make.

  But in the past few weeks, if possible, he seems even more reserved. He keeps his head bent during dinner and spends more time outside.

  This worries me. I’m happy here, but I don’t want to run him out of his own home.

  Taking a brief break from my work refilling the feed troughs, I watch as he repairs the fence around the large corral, snipping and straightening the barbed wire.

  His hands are ensconced in thick gloves, but I’ve seen over the past few days that inevitably some part of his skin—on his chin or his arm—will get snagged and bleed. This is what he’s like, I realize. Wrapped in barbed wire to keep everyone out, but it must sting him, too.

  I see that small pain sometimes, the stillness after each sharp cut. The loneliness of a single coffee mug laid out to dry. The hard look in his eye when he checked out my newly rounded ass just now. He longs for something, and it’s the same thing I want, a little dirty and a lot rough.

  He’s a prime specimen of man, lean and large in all the right places. But the more I watch his impressive work ethic, his unassuming honor, the more I want the man inside. Only I don’t see how that can happen. There’s so much between us, layers of sharp and prickly metal wire, and I don’t know how to get past it without cutting us both.

  He returns to the house later and later each day, and though it’s really none of my business, curiosity consumes me. What is he doing out there as I keep the pot roast warm in the oven? It’s none of my business, but that doesn’t stop me from walking to the stable where a light glows amber through the slatted doors.

  I follow the sounds of gentle water in the side room that serves as both a tack room and a tool station. Standing in the doorway, I register only the sights I’ve seen before, albeit with furtive glances.

  Colt stands at the utility sink, a wet rag pressed against the back of his neck. Water runs in darkening rivulets over bronzed shoulders and down his furred chest.

  He’s washing up, that’s all. I should return to the house or call out so he’s aware of my presence. Instead, I let my gaze slide along his now-slippery body, to where the water would soak into the waistband of his jeans.

  But his waistband isn’t where I thought it would be, buttoned up. Instead, the two sides of his fly splay open, and the damp-darkened white of his underwear is pushed down, allowing his curved cock to jut from his body. It’s clearly quite hard, which he confirms by thrusting it into his fist.

  He moans, a low sort of grumble, and my body re
sponds with a strangled gasp. He looks up and—oh shit, he actually looks up at me, and I think I might melt onto the dusty floor, leaving nothing but a shameful wet spot where Alex used to be. That might be preferable to standing here, caught red-handed, having already made him so uncomfortable in his own home that he won’t wank off there.

  Though he doesn’t look disturbed, as his nostrils flare, and he murmurs my name. He doesn’t seem put off from the whole wanking business as his fist seems to tighten and—one, two—strokes his length.

  I blink, but I really can’t deny what is happening right now: he’s masturbating while watching me.

  He’s pleasuring himself to the sight of me.

  Lust is a strong current in my mind, but I force myself to still. I can turn around, away from the pretty muscles and the angry-aroused face of the most decent man I’ve ever met, and I would hate myself forever. Or I can go to him.

  So I do, walking toward him on the heaviest feet known to man. I’m literally shaking, and I can’t think why I’m so nervous. Except that I want this, badly. More than I had wanted a job and a place to live and food on the day I came here, I want this. To be connected to him with my body, my mind and whatever else there is knocking around inside us. Something meaningful, so that even if I had to drive away from Colt’s farm tomorrow, the ripples of our joining would gently rock me in my sleep.

  With my every step, his hand quickens, his lids lower. His lips part, and I’m sure he’s going to come. He must be almost hurting himself, so tightly and so quickly. He releases a sound on every upstroke, like something that would come in the middle of a word, just unhhhh, breath expelled and body taut. He can’t hold out anymore, I think. Any minute now, he’ll climax, and it will be over.

  I don’t want it to be over. I want to watch this sight every night, like the sunset from the porch. More than that, I want to join in.

  My knees hit the hard-packed dirt, bringing me eye to eye with the beautiful cock made blurry with motion and glistening with precum. I open my mouth, a little hesitantly. I want this, and I think he wants this, too. But I’m not sure. I need a sign. Just a hint that this is the right direction, that he doesn’t think I’m overstepping the boundaries here.

  “Your tits,” he says on a groan. “Show me your tits.”

  That will work.

  I look down at the slight swells of my breasts above the heather-gray camisole I’m wearing. When I’m working on the ranch, I wear a T-shirt or sometimes flannel, something sturdy to ward off the elements. But at night, I had recently begun stripping down before dinner. I’d felt more at home here, and so I began to dress more comfortably—more sparingly, too.

  I wonder if that’s why he’s out here, pulling out a quick orgasm before joining me for dinner. Have I been teasing him without knowing in my comfy camisoles and soft, stretchy pants? More disturbing, have I known all along? Either way, it seems to have turned out all right. I pull the thin fabric over my head. My nipples pucker in the sweet night air.

  I expect him to come at the sight of my tits, by request. Maybe he’ll even come on me, spraying warm and wet onto the pale flesh. Instead, he slows his hand. In fact, it stops entirely, but his hips take up motion then, pushing into his fist. More leisurely now. As slow as he might actually fuck someone.

  Dropping the wet rag into the sink behind him, he reaches out to touch my nipple. His finger is still cold and damp, and a shiver runs through me.

  “So lovely,” he says. “Do you want this? I don’t know if I can even stop now, but I need to know if you—”

  “Yes.” God, yes.

  “It wouldn’t be right, if you didn’t want to, if you thought you had to…”

  I know what he means. He’s worried I think I owe him sex in exchange for the housing and food and money he pays me. I’m not sure how to answer, because I do feel like I owe him. I want to owe him. My feelings of gratitude and relief are all tied up with other ones, tangled and roped with oh-so-ordinary things like lust and affection and maybe even love. They can’t be separated out into neat little compartments. They’re all how I feel for Colt, over full.

  But I can’t explain all this while I’m on my knees and he’s fucking his own fist right in front of me. So I do the next best thing; I reach for the head of his cock with my mouth. Though reach is too polite a word for what I really do. I lunge for it, but that’s how I’m feeling now—hungry for him.

  His taste is like a kaleidoscope on my tongue, salt and sweat and man, while my tongue swirls and swirls around him. I’m dizzy with lust, but he’s there to ground me. He clamps on to the back of my head and holds me still, as still as his fist a minute ago, and pumps into me. I hear him groaning, those same low trebled noises that bounce around the hollow room and fill me up inside.

  He moves faster and more roughly, exactly how I’d imagined it all those nights in the bedroom beside his. Except I had worried he’d be too careful, too gentle, but that was silly, I see now. He’s the same with sex as with everything—hard and a little bit mean, but endearingly so, at least to me. I’m just a little perverse like that. In fact, I’d prefer for him to be rougher, to hold my hair and call me names, but I’m hopeful those things will come later. Like a kinky courting ritual, this slightly cruel blow job is just a portal to sweeter things.

  I open my mouth and close my mind, letting myself become a vessel for him to use, trusting my body to him the way I’ve already entrusted my heart.

  He doesn’t disappoint, releasing thick cum into my mouth, which I swallow down eagerly. By the end, I’m panting and leaning my head against his leg while he pets my hair.

  “You were so good, sweetheart. Did you like that?”

  I murmur something unintelligible against the denim. I loved it, but I’m burning up inside, all fidgety and near to crying over it, and I don’t know if it’s finished now. There wasn’t a section in the employee handbook titled “Unexpected Stable Sex with Your Cowboy Boss,” or really a handbook at all, and with the receding of his lust, I’m suddenly self-conscious.

  He rustles a bit. I think he must be tucking himself away in his jeans when I hear the zipper, but I face the ground. My cheeks feel hot with arousal and embarrassment and why won’t he fuck me? Except I know the answer. I’ve already taken care of his fuck-urge, and now there’s just me, horny and shamefully clinging to his leg.

  He tugs me to standing and with careful but sure hands, takes off my jeans and my panties.

  The surety in his touch eases some of my tension. He seems to have a plan, and thank god, because I want to follow it. He leads me over to a table that’s strewn with tools and the bottom leather bits of a saddle. He clears it away and then pats the edge.

  “Jump up here.”

  I stare at it. “I don’t know. Will it break?” It’s wide enough for me, and it’s got all four legs, but I’m not sure how much trust I have in a random almost-outdoors table.

  “It’ll hold,” he says. “I built it.”

  I built it. Which raises all sorts of questions. Did he expect to fuck a woman on this table when he built it? Or does he just include that specification in all his furniture-making plans—must be fuck-sturdy?

  He gets impatient and lifts me by my waist.

  Right as the flesh of my ass touches the cool wood, a worrisome thought flashes through my mind: splinters. But I don’t even have to ask this time. I know the answer. He built it, and the surface feels smooth as butter against my ass.

  He parts my legs with large, insistent palms and stares at me. Just stares at the place between my legs. My gut clenches. I know I’ve groomed there, but it’s not the perfect smoothness I want for him. There aren’t any Brazilian waxing salons in Paloma, and even if there were, I wouldn’t really have spent the money. Stupid, stupid, why hadn’t I done that?

  “This is such a pretty pussy,” he said, running two blunt fingers from bottom to top.

  Ohhh, and without even knowing it, that’s why. But there’s more.

  “I love
how pink you are.” He touches my nipples, tweaks them, one then the other. All the while, his other hand runs gently over swollen, slippery lips. “I love how ready you are to take me. So slick I could just slide right in.”

  “Do it,” I breathe.

  He pauses, then. “We have to talk first.”

  I let out a shuddery breath. He’s the devil, the actual devil with horns on his head that I can’t see. He’s reduced me to this quivering mass of need and now he needs to handle it with all due haste. He needs to take out the renewed bulge I can see in his jeans and come inside me. If he doesn’t, I’ll just… I’ll just…

  My whole body trembles, on the cusp of a decision. Take or give. Leave or submit. Though I know what the answer will be; it’s already decided. Even as I mentally brace against his steely delay, a small part of me revels in it. I love his selfishness to take his pleasure first and his control as he withholds mine. Maybe it’s because I know with absolutely certainty that he’ll take care of me. Or maybe it’s because the glimmer in his eyes says he knows all of this is only making me hotter, bringing me higher. This is all for me as much as it’s for him.

  “What do we need to talk about?” I force myself to say.

  “What do we need to talk about…Sir,” he corrects.

  “No,” I say, although it’s not really a refusal; it’s surprise. Really? This is going to be an actual thing that we do? He’ll give me orders, and I’ll call him Sir? At the thought, a small bit of wetness tickles my opening, sliding onto his probing fingers. My face flushes.

  He pauses, raising his hand between us, turning it this way and that, letting the moonlight reflect off my arousal. Then he puts his forefinger into his mouth and sucks.

  My hips buck, so empty and cold without his touch. “Sir,” I whisper. “Sir, Sir, Sir…” And I have no idea what I’m supposed to say after that. It doesn’t even matter, because I’ve already said it all with the breathless litany. Yes, anything, please, so much.