Rocky Mountain Freedom (14 page)

He was a bastard, but he didn’t leave. Not for a moment. He had to stay for long enough to watch her slide her hands over her curves, blues and reds mixing together and turning the swirling water at her feet purple.

She twisted, reaching around her torso and scrubbing her shoulder blades and back the best she could. Cassidy stared at the line of paint that remained between her shoulders, extending down her back where she couldn’t reach.

Maybe the shower nozzle would scrub it from her skin. Maybe she’d use a towel.

Maybe he should put his feet to good use and run as fast as he could before he stepped back into her personal space and proceeded to clean every inch of her body with his hands and fingers then followed up all over again with his tongue.

Ashley ignored him as she twisted her long, sleek back and curvy ass toward him. He clutched the edge of the shower stall to keep vertical as she bent to scrub her calves and feet.

Dammit
, he was going to hell for what he wanted to do. For watching the trickle of brilliant orange paint shimmer over her ass cheeks and between them.

He stumbled back to his shower, grabbed hold of the showerhead and flipped the temperature down as low as possible.

The fact he still had a towel around his waist only registered when the thing got soaked enough to fall to the ground. His cock sprang free, barely affected by the shockingly cold water pouring over him.

“Cassidy? Can I get your help again for a minute?”

He breathed out slowly and hoped his vocal cords would work. “What?”

“I should have thought about this sooner, but…”

She was outside his stall. His head snapped up, and he stared at the wall intently, as if keeping his backside toward her would hide anything.

“I can’t reach my back. Can you wash it for me?”

He was a grown man. A naked woman wanted him to wash her back? Surely he had the balls to handle that without giving in to the urge to press her to the wall and drive his cock into her body.

She picked up the towel from the ground and thrust her hand past his waist. “Use this. I’ll find you a dry one. Please?”

It was the only answer he could give her. “Sure.”

He stepped aside and she paced forward, shrieking to a stop as the cold water hit her skin.

“You trying to save on the heating bill?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Sure—cold, not modesty got her to cover herself. That’s when he noticed her gaze had dropped. “How can you have a hard-on with the water like ice?” she asked.

He was going to die. “Turn around,” he ordered gruffly.

He twisted the temperature gauge, grabbed the soap and put the towel to her skin. He could be done in under a minute.

She rocked on her feet. “You’re going to push me over,” she complained before grabbing the top of the stall, bracing her legs open. “There. Do your worst.”

Naked.

Spread-eagle in his shower.

So close his hip grazed hers as he tried to soften his touch and still scrub the paint off.

While he worked, his brain went in dangerous directions. Went instead to wrapping one arm around her torso, fingers sliding up to clasp a breast in his hand. The other hand trailing between her ass cheeks and delving between her thighs to cup her pussy. He could drag a fingertip through her soft folds and make sure she was clean there as well.

Paint.

Scrub. Off. Paint.

Cassidy damn near held his breath until there were spots floating in front of his eyes, but he got her back clean without succumbing to temptation.

“Done.” The word rasped over vocal cords gone tight.

She let go of the wall and twisted, naked breasts with taut nipples skimming the back of his knuckles where he clutched the towel in both hands. “Thanks, Cassidy.”

She leaned in and kissed him—quick, like a rush of wind—then stepped away, ass cheeks swaying as he leaned out the stall door and watched her go.

A happy hum rose as she picked up her towel and rubbed herself dry, and he rocked back on his heels. His shoulders slammed into the shower stall as he reeled from the overdose of lust roaring through him.

When he’d spotted Travis’s name in the email, he’d known he was in for a rough ride. No way had he imagined that he’d be just as tortured by an artsy blonde who didn’t seem to have any sexual boundaries.

He wasn’t sure he’d survive the summer.

Chapter Ten

For days Travis had ignored his building need, though the irritable sensation kept him on edge. Pretending it wasn’t there seemed his only option until it morphed into a constant rub against his nerve endings.

“Get off the railing,” he snapped at Ashley when she accidentally leaned on the post he was trying to attach more firmly. “Go take pictures somewhere else. You need to be underfoot the entire fucking time? I can’t wipe my ass without you there.”

She stood and adjusted her camera bag over her shoulder, chin rising. “That’s it. That’s the third time you’ve been a jerk in the last fifteen minutes, so fuck you. When Vicki gets back, I’ll tell her to order you some prune juice to help get that stick out of your ass.”

She gave him the finger, which made him laugh until he realized she had listened to his bitching and was walking away. The soft sound of her singing vanished as she disappeared behind the cookhouse, no doubt headed to her van to turn some of the photos she’d taken of him into twisted freak-show monsters.

He clutched his hammer harder and fought the urge to hurl it into the distance.

The past twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind as the first set of customers arrived for their May long-weekend excursion. Travis had worked with the crew to greet the party of ten. The hands stowed gear into saddlebags as each camper got paired with a horse before finally heading up the hill to get established at Second Camp. Ted and Vicki were already there preparing a “cowpoke lunch”.

The season had officially begun.

Travis had elected to stay behind. There was enough work to do at Base Camp, and there was no reason to babysit James and Dani. Ashley said she needed electricity to work on some projects, so she wasn’t interested in accompanying the first group.

And Cassidy…

Travis stared across the paddock at the man currying down the couple horses left behind. Like him, Cassidy had offered confidence in the guides’ abilities and insisted he was needed at base.

Indecision rocked Travis. Did he ask? If he asked, what did he say?

For the two weeks since he and Ashley had arrived, there’d been nothing but tension between him and Cassidy—a lot of it caused by Travis’s own stupidity. Even with all the teasing on his part, Cassidy had remained steadfastly silent.

Maybe Ashley saw something different, but as far as Travis was concerned, Cassidy thought he was trouble and nothing more.

Trouble or not, Travis needed help.

He laid the tools in the shed and calmed himself best he could. He’d ask it simple-like. Straight up. Find out what Cassidy thought would help. He’d avoid begging or pushing for anything but help with his one urgent, and getting more urgent, need.

It took a bit of time to gather his courage—and how fucked up was that considering he used to step into the boxing ring with little thought for anything but meeting the pain? Finally ready, he headed to the barn.

Cassidy walked out the door the moment Travis stepped in, and they collided, Cassidy clutching his shoulders to stay balanced.

A wave of something other than desire for pain broke in momentarily, and Travis fisted the front of Cassidy’s shirt.

“Travis, what the—?”

Like a wild beast, Travis moved. He pressed Cassidy to the wall and took his lips. Aggressive and hot. Rough and dirty. Thrust his tongue into Cassidy’s mouth as he pulsed his hips forward and ground their groins together.

For one second Cassidy had his hands on Travis’s shoulders. For one second it felt as if Cassidy held him tight, groaning in pleasure through the wildness of the assault.

Then he smashed his hands against Travis’s chest and shoved him away.

“Goddamn it,
no
.” Cassidy shouted the words, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.

Travis reeled, dragging a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry. I wanted to ask you—”

“No.” Another shout. Cassidy lifted his fists. “Keep. Away. From me. You got it? I don’t want you, and I don’t want this.”

He stormed from the barn, slamming the door behind him.

Travis stood for a moment in shock. He’d damn near attacked Cassidy. Disgust filled him—he would never have treated a woman like that. That wasn’t him, no matter what urges he had inside.

Loathing and nausea joined the frustration.

Then fury rose, and Travis lost it. He roared in anger and rushed the stack of bales in the corner, crashing his body into them in the hopes of knocking some sense into himself.

All he got was a side full of itchy, sharp pokes and a sore shoulder.

He hunted frantically for something,
anything
that would help, searching his memory for what he’d tried in the past. Something that would allow him to let off a little steam.

A chain? Too dangerous with the mood he was in. A rope? Possibly. His irritation grew by the moment, and he slammed his fist into the wall. Pain blasted through him as he screamed curses into the air.

He felt ready to break, and there was no one to help hold him together.

The office door slammed against the wall. Cassidy was already on his feet as Ashley bolted through, her hair wild around her.

“You’ve got to come now. Before he seriously hurts himself.”

All the frustration, all the anger he’d been nursing since tearing himself from Travis flipped to fear. “Where is he?”

“In the barn.” She grabbed him by the arm and would have dragged him after her, but he hesitated.

Ashley exploded. The calm woman he’d seen floating around the camp vanished as she turned on him with eyes filled with fiery rage. She jerked him forward by the shirtfront. “I don’t care what your issue is, or how you think you’re saving him from some fate worse than death. There
is
nothing worse than death, so if I have to kick your ass all the way to the barn, you’re going to help.”

Cassidy caught her wrists and jerked himself free. “I care about him too. You’re not the only one who—”

“Then stop wasting time and get your goddamn ass down there,” Ashley shouted.

She wasn’t listening to reason. He wasn’t trying to get out of anything, not now, but he understood. She was as scared as he was. Just as powerless. More powerless in a way.

They sprinted all the way to the barn. Cassidy outpaced Ashley, bursting through the doors he’d run from less than thirty minutes ago.

Travis stood at the far end of the barn, pained grunts escaping him as he swung a rope, smacking the knotted end into his back again and again.

“Travis, stop,” Cassidy ordered. “Stop, and I’ll help you.”

“Nobody can help,” Travis snapped. “You don’t understand.”

Cassidy didn’t understand, not completely, but this was his friend standing before him, tears of frustration marking his cheeks. Bloody knuckles. A torn shirt. A wildness in his eyes that needed taming. “I’m going to help, so shut up.”

Travis laughed, a bitter, broken sound. “You’ll help. Right, bullshit. You’re part of the problem. If I could give it all up. Give it up—”

He grimaced and swung the rope.

Cassidy caught the cord in midair before it could land again. Instead, the knotted end walloped into his own forearm hard enough to bruise. “Fuck. I said
stop it
.”

Travis swung his fist.

Cassidy ducked the blow and jabbed with his right. He made contact with Travis’s diaphragm, catching him by surprise, and Travis folded in two as all his air rushed out.

Cassidy wrapped a hand around the rope and took advantage of the moment to jerk the other end free. He caught Travis by the shoulders and spun him, confining the other man’s hands behind his back and pinning him against the wall. Travis struggled, but Cassidy had the size advantage to lock him in place.

He pressed his chest to Travis’s back and put his head by his ear. “I promise I’ll help you. Give me a chance.”

Travis dragged in a ragged breath. Another. His upper body shook as he fought for control. But he stopped trying to escape, instead shivering in Cassidy’s grip as if he’d been stripped bare.

Cassidy didn’t move, only leaned in harder and hoped like hell his next brilliant idea would arrive soon.

Travis’s voice trembled. “Give me your belt.”

The words whispered out. Begging. Needy.

Oh fuck.

Bloody, aching pain wrapped around Cassidy’s brain. With four words Travis all but destroyed him. Physical, mental and emotional agony.

As if he’d sensed Cassidy’s alarm, Travis spoke again. “You promised,” Travis insisted, his voice down to a whisper. “Please. I can’t… I need it. And you promised.”