Saddled and Spurred: A Blacktop Cowboys Novel (32 page)

“Getting my nails done is a luxury and I’d hate to give it up.”

“After working your fingers to the bone on the ranch the last fifty years, I don’t know anyone who deserves pampering more than you, Rose.”

“You’re such a sweet girl.”

Harper braced herself for Rose’s gentle chiding. “Why aren’t you married?” But for once Rose didn’t voice her concern for Harper’s lack of marital happiness. She went off on another tangent about the perils of loving the wrong man.

For some reason Harper thought of Bran.

Which should serve as a warning—if Bran’s name was the first one that popped up when she thought of the perils of love. If she wasn’t careful, if she looked too deeply or read too much into his change in demeanor around her since the branding, she might believe he’d started to have feelings for her too.

Too.

“. . . such a shame, really.”

Harper refocused on her client. “Sorry, Rose, I missed what you said. Such a shame about what?”

Rose went into a long-winded explanation about the marital woes of the youngest Benton girl, who’d recently turned forty. When Harper heard stories of infidelity and heartbreak, she wondered why anyone was so hot to get married. Especially when most unions ended in divorce. Not that she advocated her mother’s lifestyle or her screwed-up view of the world, but at least Dawn Masterson hadn’t compounded her mistakes by marrying any of the men who’d impregnated her.

After Rose left and Harper was cleaning up her station she looked up when the doorbell chimed. Her heart did that swoopflip-roll thing at seeing Bran just inside the door.

He seemed ill at ease amid all the “girly” stuff, so she met him halfway. “Hey. What brings you by? Need a manicure?”

He snorted with disdain. “Like that’ll ever happen. I was on my way to get some stuff in Rawlins and wondered if you wanted to ride along.”

“Stuff?” she repeated. “What kind of stuff?”

“Ah, the usual . . . ranch stuff.”

Silence.

She couldn’t figure out if this impromptu trip was business or a personal errand. Part of her didn’t want to press him to define it, because she was happy to see him. Might make her a lovesick fool, but she missed the rugged cowboy during the hours she wasn’t working with him on the ranch. If his expression was any indication, questioning his motives would put him on the defensive. She smiled. “Sure. I could use a change of pace. You’ve got great timing—I just finished up and was about to close down.”

“Need any help?”

“No. But I do have to lock the back door.” Harper cut through the salon, first checking to make sure all the appliances were shut off in the back room. She slid the dead bolt and clicked the lock on the heavy steel door. When she turned around, Bran was right there.

“I didn’t want to do this in full view of the windows, in case someone was peeking in.”

“Do what?” she breathed.

“This.” Bran sealed his mouth to hers.

The kiss was warm and sweet. Thoroughly mind-blowing in a way that belied its tenderness. He didn’t touch her anywhere besides where their lips met, but Harper felt the kiss from head to toe, as if they were body to body, soul to soul, and completely naked. Lord have mercy—she’d fallen hard for this man.

He eased back, gifting her with his devilish grin. “If we don’t go now, I’ll be mighty tempted to lock the front door and test out one of them spinning chairs.”

Harper reached up and caressed his smooth face, ridiculously pleased that he’d shaved. Like this was a real date. “Your kisses make me dizzy enough that I don’t need a spinning chair.”

“You tryin’ to charm me so you can get into my pants later?”

“A girl can hope.” She smooched his smirking mouth. “Let’s go. I expect you’ll feed me in Rawlins so I can keep up my strength to seduce you.”

“I’ll buy you the biggest steak in town.”

Despite wearing a skirt, Harper slid next to Bran in his truck when he’d patted the empty middle space. Since she hadn’t dated much, and rarely cowboys even then, she’d never been the girl who’d scooted close to her honey in his big ol’ pickup truck and straddled the gearshift. At first she’d felt silly, but the hard muscle of Bran’s right leg pressing into hers and his strong arm across the back of the seat changed her mind. Everything about being with him, being this close to him, felt right.

As soon as they hit the outskirts of Rawlins, Bran said, “We’ve got to stop at Runnings.”

“What for?”

“I need some new gloves.”

So this
had
been an excuse to spend time with her off the ranch. She knew the man didn’t need gloves; he owned, like, twenty pairs. But she nodded and said, “I could use a new pair myself.”

The ranch supply store’s parking lot was empty. Harper turned to ask Bran if it was closed, and again, he was right in her face, lips on lips, his mouth controlling hers. His hand slid up her leg beneath her skirt and he teased her sex through her satin panties. He kept kissing her, kept stroking her, until she forgot about everything but the taste, the touch, and the scent of this man.

Bran pulled away. The look in his eyes was serious and seriously hot. “Harper, do you trust me?”

“Umm. Why are you asking me that now?”

“Just answer the question. Yes or no.”

“Yes. I guess.”

His answering grin was decidedly wicked. “Good. Let’s go shoppin’.”

The inside of the store was as deserted as the parking lot. An oblivious teenage girl leaned against the register partition, texting.

Bran approached her. “Excuse me. Is anyone around tonight to load corrals if I buy some?”

She shook her head. “We close in an hour. Just me and Reggie here and he’s in the back.”

“Thanks. Next time I’ll have to come earlier in the day.” Bran placed his hand in the small of Harper’s back and directed her to the glove aisle.

She snagged the first pair she saw, while Bran debated on styles, thickness, and new brands until she couldn’t stand it. She wandered over to the clothing section.

Ranch-supply stores had everything from baby chickens and corrals to industrial tools and livestock feed to food and clothing. Harper had a serious thing for Western clothes.

At first she’d worn the traditional floral patterns and flannel to make herself feel more like a Wyoming native, but along the way she’d fallen in love with Western styles. The slim cut of the women’s dress and casual shirts. The rhinestones on everything. The sheer variety of jeans that fit every shape and size of woman under the sun. And the boots. If she had the money, she could spend every last dime on cowgirl boots. She loved to browse, trying to figure out funky ways to put together cool outfits with limited cash. She let her fingers follow the ruffled pattern on the bottom of a denim miniskirt.

“You should try that on,” Bran said behind her. “I bet it makes your ass look fantastic.”

What a flatterer. But she wasn’t immune to it. “Really?”

“No foolin’. Go on. Try it. The dressing rooms are straight back there.” He pointed.

Harper peered over his shoulder at the girl employee still engrossed in poking buttons on her cell phone. “Do you think I should ask her first?”

“No need. We’re the only ones in here.”

Okay, then. Harper picked the biggest dressing room, in the corner. She slipped off her skirt, leaving on her knee-high heeled boots. Just as she was about to shimmy the skirt up her legs, two brisk knocks sounded on the door.

Crap. She knew she should’ve checked with that girl first. Holding the skirt across her lower half, she cracked open the door. “Yes?”

Not the employee standing on the other side, but Bran.

He bulled his way inside and locked the door.

“What are you doing?”

He snatched the skirt out of her hands and tossed it on the bench. He stalked her until her spine hit the mirror. His fingers pinched the fabric of her shirt beneath her collar, and the metal snap buttons went
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop
until her shirt hung open. Then Bran’s mouth was hungry on hers, his fingers twisting the front clasp of her bra. The little chunk of plastic was no match for his determination, and her breasts tumbled free.

She considered protesting for five seconds until Bran’s wonderfully rough hands were on her breasts, rasping across her nipples. Her heart kicked into double time when he shoved his thigh between hers and began to slide it up and down, creating delicious friction across her damp slit.

He kissed a line from her mouth straight down her neck to gift her cleavage with sucking kisses. “I want to fuck you. Right now. Facing the mirror.”

“But—”

Then he was nose to nose with her again, all hot, hard, single-minded male. “You drive me wild. I can’t get enough of you.” He nuzzled her cheeks with his, rubbing back and forth as if he was marking her. “You’re a drug,” he whispered huskily. “Feed my addiction, Harper. Right now. No one will know what we’re doin’ in here besides us.”

She lost control of her will when he blew in her ear. His magical hands spanned her hips, and his thumbs hooked the edges of her panties as he whispered hot, sweet, sexy words against her throat.

“Be adventurous, darlin’. Say yes.”

Harper wanted this. To be wanton. To be fun. To be sexually spontaneous. To have a man want her so desperately that he’d take her hard and fast in a dressing room of a Western store on a Monday night. “Yes.”

Bran smashed his mouth to hers and roughly pulled her to him. He tore at her clothes. Her shirt hit the floor. Then her bra. He tugged her panties until they pooled between her feet. He broke the kiss and turned her around. “Bend over and put your hands on the mirror,” he said while unbuckling his belt.

She watched the play of emotions on his face in the mirror as she placed her palms at waist level. Lust. Eagerness. Mostly she sensed his impatience as he threw off his duster and shucked his jeans down to his knees.

He inserted his booted foot between hers, gently kicking her feet apart. “Wider.” He kept his focus on her sex as he fed just the tip of his cock into her wet channel. Then he ran his rough-skinned hands up her naked back, curling one hand over her shoulder and twining her long tresses around the thick fingers of his other hand. He pulled her hair hard enough to get her attention. “Keep your head up. I wanna see your face while I’m fucking you.” He snapped his hips and filled her in one endless stroke.

Yes. He knew just how she liked it. Hard. Fast. Deep. Harper arched her neck and let her eyes flutter closed.

Another sharp tug on her hair and her eyes flew open. “Watch,” he demanded.

His next couple of thrusts were powerful enough that Harper was thankful she’d braced herself against the mirror. The warm friction of his cock was familiar and yet foreign as he drove into her without pause.

Bran’s eyes were no longer on her face but on her breasts, which swayed and bounced with his every jackhammering thrust. He licked his lips and growled before catching her gaze in the mirror. Then he stopped moving. Keeping their gazes locked, he angled forward and placed a surprisingly tender kiss on her left shoulder. “Sweet Jesus, look at you. So goddamn lush and sexy and beautiful.” He kissed the hollow below her shoulder blade. “I love takin’ you from behind, but this is so much better because I can look at you. I can watch your eyes. I can see how you react to what I’m doin’ to you.”

The fact that he’d practically snarled the words only increased their impact. Harper felt like the sexiest woman on the planet, with Bran’s possessive touch on her body, his fiery eyes locked to hers, his hard cock impaling her. She tilted her hips, bringing him deeper inside her. “See my reaction, Bran, when you make me come.”

A smug expression of satisfaction entered his eyes, and he returned to fucking her with absolute gusto. He kept one hand tangled in her hair, forcing her head up, while the other smoothed the outside curve of her body, over her swaying breast and the slope of her belly, stopping at the rise of her mound.

Keeping the base of his hand anchored on her pubic bone, his middle finger followed her slit to where his cock joined their bodies. He dragged his finger back up, separating the pussy lips hiding her clitoris. After a few teasing circles, he began to stroke that pouting bit of flesh in a counter-motion to his pumping hips. But since his strokes were getting faster, his attention to her clit was constant. And accurate. Holy cow, was it accurate. The man knew—had memorized—all her hot buttons.

That drone of need began to build. Harper’s fingers slid on the mirror as she tried to squeeze the glass. She looked at herself, bent over, spread wide, sex drunk, seeking that point of pleasure that only Bran could provide her.

He slightly changed the angle of her head. Without missing a single stroke, he opened his mouth over the vulnerable slice of skin next to her nape and sank his teeth in.

The sexy love bite sent Harper sailing into the chasm of bliss. She gasped loudly, forgetting they were in public, as each orgasmic wave throbbed through her body. She gasped again when the clenching pull of her interior muscles clasped Bran’s cock, bringing it to that magical spot inside her that caused another set of strong ripples.

Then Bran swore and started to come.

How much time passed, Harper didn’t know. Her world had been pared down to this small space filled with heat, the scents of sweat and sex and Bran. Just Bran. Nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered.

Whoa. Talk about a random thought to take the shine off the afterglow.

Bran was slumped across her back, pressing his sweaty forehead between her shoulder blades, his breath stuttering and his body shuddering from his climax. His cock was still buried inside her when three insistent raps sounded on the door.