Corralled (13 page)

“Promise?”

Lainie made a threatening noise and pointed to the house.

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’.”

He cuffed Abe in the back of the head as he walked past him.

A shower helped loosen some of the kinks, but his thigh boasted a bruise the size of a hoof. He wrapped a towel around his waist and crossed the hallway to his bedroom.

Lainie was perched on the end of the bed waiting for him. “Oh, good. No clothes will make it much easier for me to examine you.

Towel off. Now.”

Cursing, Hank stood in front of her and released the towel.

For some stupid reason heat rose up his neck.

He heard her sharply inhaled breath. “Damn, Hank, talk about a serious contusion.” Her fingers trailed over the swelling. “The whole muscle is sore?”

“Yeah.” One muscle in particular wasn’t sore at all, but it was leaping for her attention.

“You should ice it down. Sit on the bed and I’ll be right back with an ice pack.”

Hank started to argue, but she’d already sailed out the door.

9 CORRALLED

9

Lainie cut through the living room to the arched doorway she assumed led to the kitchen.

Abe stood at a center island, chopping lettuce. The knife stopped midchop. “Something I can get you?”

“A plastic bag and a towel. Hank needs to ice down his injury if he expects to work tomorrow.”

“No problem.” He rooted in a drawer, passing her a gallon-sized Ziploc and a frayed hand towel. “Ice is over there.”

She scooped several handfuls into a makeshift ice pack. When she looked up, Abe was staring at her. His eyes were a steely gray, not a deep blue, but had the same intensity as Hank’s.

She stared back at him with equal curiosity. Definitely a family resemblance, which would be more pronounced if Abe shaved off his goatee. The brothers were roughly the same height, but Abe appeared rangy and compact, whereas Hank was bulkier and broader. Both men were total cowboy hunks in every sense of the word. She’d rubbed elbows with the best of the best in her line of work, so that was really saying something.

“Anything else?” Abe prompted.

“Umm. No. I’m just gonna get this to him.” Yikes. Abe and Hank both had that don’t- waste- my- time attitude down pat.

Lainie hesitated outside Hank’s door. Icing his injury wasn’t the only way she intended to soothe him. When he’d shuffled into his room in pain, his cock fully erect— both proud and begging—something inside her fragmented. The woman, not the med tech, had the urge to pacify her man.

Time to take the bull by the horn.

Lainie opened the door and locked it behind her.

Hank scowled at the ice bag in her hand. “You’re overreacting.”

“Quit being such a pain and let me do this for you.” She moved LORELEI JAMES 9

between his legs and gently kneed them apart. “Close your eyes.

Then you won’t tense the muscle until after I put the ice on it.”

He grunted.

As soon as Lainie was sure his eyes were closed, she placed the ice pack on his thigh and pressed her lips to his. When Hank’s hand lifted to her face, she replaced it by his side.

Kissing him let that sweet heat build until she abruptly ripped free from the kiss and dropped to her knees. She had his cock in her mouth before he’d figured out her intention.

“Sweet Jesus, Lainie. That’s . . . Ah, damn. You don’t have to . . . Fuck. That’s good.”

She hummed and sucked, briefly releasing him with a soft pop.

“This is a new therapy I’m trying.”

Hank laughed quietly, although it resembled a strangled groan.

She wrapped her fingers around the base, pleased that the gruff cowboy kept the pubic hair trimmed. She lost herself in the warm smoothness of his shaft sliding back and forth over her tongue.

With each sucking pass she brought him deeper until the cock head rubbed against her soft palate. Then she teased him by flicking her tongue over the sweet spot below the plump head. The clean taste of him flowed through her. Hank always came to her clean. Just once she’d like to taste him natural. No sweet- smelling soap. Nothing but the raw, salty, dark taste of Hank.

Lainie took her time, eking out every ounce of pleasure for him, every bit of power for herself.

Hank’s moans escalated. His hips twisted off the bed. Lainie knew he struggled not to grab her hair, forcing her to satisfy him the fast way he preferred. His fist stayed clenched at his right side, while his left hand maintained a death grip on the bag of ice on his leg.

She looked up at him when the entire length of his cock was

9 CORRALLED

lodged deep. He peered at her from beneath heavy- lidded eyes.

His nostrils flared. His full lips were parted, allowing his breath to escape in short, hot bursts.

“Lainie. Finish me. Please.”

With a slight nod, she reached between his legs and stroked his balls. She rubbed the section of skin in front of his anus and his shaft seemed to lengthen across her tongue. Using her hand in tandem with her mouth, Lainie sent him soaring.

She swallowed each creamy spurt as he came. His unintelligible mutterings were as musical to her ears as the sweet nothings he murmured on occasion.

After Hank’s softened dick slipped from her mouth, he flopped back on the bed.

Grinning, Lainie rolled to her toes and kissed his taut belly.

“I’m going to help Abe make lunch, whether he wants me to or not. Leave that ice pack on for at least ten minutes.”

She’d made it to the door when he rasped, “As far as therapy?

Darlin’, that’s my very favorite ever.”

$IBQUFS/JOF

9

*
n the kitchen, a long- legged blonde was stretched out on the bar stool at the center island.

Abe scowled at his cutting board.

“. . . not fair and you both know it,” the woman said.

Lainie accidentally tripped over a dog sprawled on the rug. At the dog’s yelp, both heads snapped in her direction.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She bent down to pet the black Labrador. “Sorry to you too.” The dog licked her palm.

“Murray is very forgiving, unlike
some
people I know,” the blonde huffed.

“I can’t forgive you until I have an inkling of what you’ve done wrong.” Abe gestured with the knife. “Lainie, this is our sister, Celia. Celia, this is Hank’s girlfriend, Lainie Capshaw.” His tone and posture said,
Be nice
.

Lainie braced herself for the inevitable
Are you related to Jason
Capshaw?

But Celia offered her hand. “Nice to meetcha. Whoa. You’re a lot . . . smaller than Hank’s other girlfriends. He usually goes for the tall and lanky type.”

“Celia Rose Lawson,” Abe scolded. “What is wrong with you?”

9 CORRALLED

“What? Just sayin’. She’s petite. And stacked. It’s a refreshing change.” Celia smiled coyly. “Welcome to the testosterone ranch.”

“Thanks. Anything I can help with, Abe?”

“Nah. This is for supper tonight. Got a few guys coming over to help us load the camper and I promised them food and beer. If you’re hungry now, there’s sandwiches in the fridge.”

“Thanks, but I’ll wait for Hank to wake up.”

“Wore him out good, didja?” Celia snickered.

“Dammit, Celia, knock it the hell off,” Abe growled.

Celia blew Abe a kiss before facing Lainie with determined eyes. “So, you and Hank, huh? He’s been pretty mum about you. I had no idea he was seeing anyone.”

“I knew.”

Lainie looked at Abe. “He told you about me?”

“Not specifics. Just that he’d met someone on the tour.”

“This is exactly what I meant by unfair, Abe. If I woulda brought a guy home and announced, ‘He’s staying with me in my room,’ both you and Hank would’ve trussed him up and dragged him off Lawson land.”

“Not the same thing, Celia.”

Her gray eyes narrowed. “Why? Because you both have dicks?

Or because you both
are
dicks?”

Abe’s knife thwacked into the cutting board. “Goddammit, Celia, drop it. Can you at least try to act civil when we have guests in the house? This is pointless and you know it.”

“We need another female opinion on whether it’s a pointless discussion.” Celia whirled around on the bar stool, giving Abe her back. “Lainie, help me out. Since Abe’s whiny ex- wife left, there’ve been no female views here but mine, which, naturally, they think is totally wrong. Isn’t it a double standard? They can have overnight houseguests of the opposite sex and I can’t?”

“I really don’t think I should—”

LORELEI JAMES 9

“Go ahead. I’m dyin’ to hear your opinion,” Abe encouraged.

Lainie examined Celia from bare toes to ponytail. “How old are you?”

“Twenty- one.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, what?” Celia demanded.

“You’re an adult. It seems the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ rule is in effect for you. I don’t see why you can’t have an overnight male guest if you want.”

Abe studied her coolly. “How long you sticking around, Lainie?”

“I’m hoping forever,” Celia retorted. “Of course, this is all hypothetical, because few cowboys around here arouse my interest.

Or if they do, they’re my brother’s buddies and treat me like a pigtailed third grader.”

Abe leaned over and playfully yanked on her ponytail. “If the hairdo fits, baby sis . . .”

“So, you teaching Celia to rebel?” Hank said behind her, right before his arms circled her waist and his chin grazed the top of her head.

Lainie wasn’t used to the demonstrative side of Hank in public, but it gave her a little thrill . . . which lasted until she saw the smiles his siblings beamed at them.

They’re happy for him. They think this is real.

“At least someone has taken Celia’s hell- raising education to task.”

All heads turned to Kyle leaning in the doorway.

“You’d know all about that, Gilly,” Celia said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why don’t you share a few hell- raising pointers with me?”

“Because I don’t have a death wish, girlie. Your brothers would

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kill me. And I need Hank to keep me alive in the ring, not let a bull trample me into a bag of meat.”

“I am not a girl,” Celia sniped.

Kyle purposely avoided meeting Lainie’s eyes. He’d forgotten her father had become a bag of meat at the horns and hooves of a bull.

Lainie wanted to reassure Kyle that offhand comments like that didn’t bother her. She’d gotten used to them in the last two years. But he wouldn’t look at her at all now.

“I’m outta here,” Celia announced, and hopped off the bar stool. She whistled and the dog followed.

“Maybe you can work on her surly attitude while you’re at it,”

Abe said to Lainie.

“I heard that,” Celia shouted just before the door slammed.

“I’ll talk to her,” Lainie said, trying to free herself from Hank’s embrace and Kyle’s too obvious indifference.

“She’s fine. Just hotheaded. It’ll blow over.” Hank kissed her crown. “Stay put, since I’ve got you right where I want you.”

9

Stay put, since I’ve got you right where I want you.

Kyle gritted his teeth. It ticked him off that Hank was acting so possessive with Lainie the first chance he got.

If you were standing in your mother’s kitchen, wouldn’t your arms be
around Lainie? Wouldn’t you bury your nose in the sweet scent of her
hair?

Hell, yeah.

So it pissed him off that he couldn’t fault Hank for his behavior, because Kyle would do the same damn thing.

Regardless, it’d be a long damn night if he had to watch the two of them playing grab- ass.

Kyle pushed off the doorjamb. “I’ll see if wannabe wild child is LORELEI JAMES 9

out loading her pistols, gunning for me, since I’m the one who set her off.”

“Thanks, man,” Hank said as Kyle passed by him.

He paused on the porch steps. Well, looky there.

Celia had already bent the ear of the first non–family member of the male persuasion who’d crossed her warpath. She stood on the running board of Bran Turner’s rig. And Bran was getting a huge chuckle out of whatever tale of woe Celia spun.

The instant Celia noticed Kyle, she scowled. She whistled for the grungy dog, which was never more than ten feet away from her, and sauntered off to the horse barn.

Bran’s head whipped around as he shamelessly watched her walk away.

“Fuckin’ perv,” Kyle said.

“And proud of it.” Bran craned his neck for one last look. “Jesus. That woman has the finest ass. Sometimes I wonder if she rides as good between the sheets as she does on a horse.”

“Probably. Wouldn’t be bad if you could keep a bit in her mouth. Or take a crop to her if she got too bossy.”

“Who’s the fuckin’ perv now?”

Kyle grinned. “And proud of it.”

“So, you ain’t all busted up, which is a good sign. The bull ridin’ biz went well?”

“Placed first in Lamar.”

“Gotta feel good to put a little jingle in your pocket after the run of bad luck you’ve had the last couple months.”

“That it does.”

Bran adjusted his hat, attempting to keep the sun out of his eyes. “Rumor is you and Hank are hitting the road as traveling partners.”

“Yep.”

“How long’s Hank planning on bein’ gone this time?”

9 CORRALLED

“About three weeks— give or take. Cowboy Christmas can stretch clear up until the Days of ’76 Rodeo in Deadwood the end of July.”

“Huh. Hank’s never gone off like this before in the summer, during this . . . what’d you call it? Cowboy Christmas? I wonder what the big deal is now. Why this year?”

Kyle’s ears burned. Hank had volunteered to drag him from rodeo to rodeo because he knew Kyle wouldn’t go alone.

“Don’t mind tellin’ ya, since they bought that new parcel out by Green Bluffs, it’s getting harder for Abe to handle the ranch when Hank ain’t here.”

“Does Hank know that?”

“Abe ain’t exactly the type to run off at the mouth about his feelin’s.”

“No kiddin’. So what’s Abe been doin’ about it instead of talking?”

“Workin’. More workin’. Hell, what else can he do? What can
any
of us do?”