Rough Riders Bundle 1(books 1, 2, 3) (94 page)

“Oh, I’d beg to disagree, baby doll.”

AJ looked up and saw him staring at her. “You know what I meant.”

“And you know what
I
meant. You’re beautiful, AJ. Wild and free on the back of that horse. The wind in your hair, the sun glowing on your face, miles of blue sky behind you. Wish I had a camera.” To show her how stunning she looked because he didn’t need tangible proof. The image of her would be burned into his brain forever.

Those sharp gray eyes narrowed. “Did you hit your head in the last couple days?”

“What do ya mean?”

“First an apology? Then a horseback ride? Now you’re tossing me compliments like poetry? You gonna whip out a guitar and serenade me with cowboy love songs next?”

“No. Next, I’m gonna…” He spurred Jester in the sides and yelled over his shoulder, “Race you to the butte.”

He heard her laughing and knew his playful side surprised her, hell it surprised him too, but he didn’t let the reckless feeling deter him from winning for a change.

“I deserved that.” She urged Nickel to the left to skirt the base of the butte as she shaded her eyes and looked up. “You ever climbed to the top of this?”

“Long time ago. Why?”

“How far can you see?”

“Pretty far. Not like on that plateau by Devil’s Tower where everything is spread out for two hundred miles.”

“There’s a butte on our place—well, your place now—that I used to climb. Never imagined when I climbed it two years ago it’d be the last time.”

They rode in silence until Cord realized it was an unnatural silence.

“I’m really gonna miss all this like crazy.”

I’m really gonna miss you like crazy.

Cord checked his watch. “We should be getting back. I’ve gotta call Ky pretty soon.”

“He ready to come home yet?”

“I have a sneaking suspicion he ain’t completely unpacked.”

AJ smiled. “Last year when I watched him he showed me his ring bearer outfit for Macie and Carter’s wedding, complete with ‘packin’ leather shoes. At first I didn’t know what he was saying. When I figured out
patent
leather, I’ll admit I asked him to repeat it a couple of times because it was so damn funny. I didn’t laugh at him, but that kid cracks me up.”

He grinned. “Me too.”

“Channing said she wasn’t picking out girl’s names because she knows she’ll have a boy.”

“Sometimes I wonder how many brothers I’d have after Carter if Ma hadn’t broken the hundred year drought and birthed a girl McKay.”

“Lots of girls in my mother’s family. When I loaded up boxes today I found a whole bunch of pictures and letters. Was weird to think of them as relatives. Even weirder to think there’s a whole bunch of family history I wasn’t aware of. It’s gonna be fun going through that stuff later, but packing has been a lot harder than I thought.”

“Physically?”

“No. Emotionally.”

They’d reached the backside of the fence. Cord dismounted and led Jester to the side closest to the barn. He didn’t offer to help AJ; she knew her way around.

After she’d hung up her borrowed tack in the barn, she carried out two buckets of oats as he brushed the horses down. Once Nickel finished his portion, she gave Jester his bucket. She rested her butt on the fence and gazed across the horizon.

Cord wrapped his arms around her from behind and set his chin on her shoulder.

AJ snuggled into him. “Mmm.”

“Whatcha looking at?”

“The sunset.”

“Gonna be a pretty one tonight.”

“It’s pretty every night. I love the sky as it starts to fade from light blue to indigo to purple to black. You’d think I’d get tired of it, but I never do.”

How many times had he sat out here, content to watch the sunset? He never tired of it either.

Tonight he’d forego Mother Nature’s display because he wanted,
needed
to be with her.

“AJ. Come inside. I’m dyin’ to put my hands on you.”

“Don’t you have to call Ky?”

“Yeah. It can wait a bit.” Cord buried his lips in the slope of her shoulder. “Please.”

“Well…since you asked so nice.”

He hopped over the fence. They kissed all the way into the house. All the way up the stairs. All the way down the hall to his bedroom. Sneaking kisses as they undressed each other. Cord laid her on the comforter and lowered his body over hers.

“Baby doll, what’s wrong? You’re trembling.”

“You always make me tremble.” AJ’s eyes were bright with something resembling…lust. Had to be lust because he couldn’t fathom what that look on her face really meant.

Rather than dwell on it, he focused on mutual slaking of need. He groaned softly when the head of his cock brushed the wetness coating her sex. Sometimes he forgot she wasn’t as experienced as her body indicated. Cord eased into her on a slow glide. Once he was fully seated he looked at her.

“Go slow like that again.”

He’d never shown her the sweeter, slower side of making love after the first time?

Not really.

What a selfish prick. He’d make it up to her starting now.

“As slow as you want.” He kissed her mouth. That sassy mole. The curve of her cheek. Her temple and her eyelids. Her mouth again. All while leisurely rocking in and out of her body.

Her strong hands drifted up and down his back to his ass in a teasing caress.

Cord nibbled the line of her jaw. Her delicate earlobes. The muscles straining along the side of her neck. His tongue flicked across the pulse point at the base of her throat before dipping into the hollow. It took effort, but he managed to hold off on his climax when her first one ripped through her like wildfire.

Still, he didn’t speed up. He dragged his goatee across the tops of her breasts, offering the tip of each hardened nipple a swirling lick, then he returned to her mouth to toy with her well-kissed lips. Through half-closed lids he studied her face, lost in the pleasure he was bringing her.

He couldn’t hold off forever—everything was too perfect, the tender way she touched him, the glove tight feeling of her pussy sucking him to the root.

“Don’t stop. I’m so close again.”

“I’m right with you, baby doll,” he panted against her throat, lost in the scent of her, the everything of her.

AJ canted her pelvis, curling her thighs around his hips to bring him deeper. “Cord.”

“I’m here.”

“Love me like this, slow and easy and for a long time. Make it last forever.” AJ’s fingers dug for purchase on his sweat-covered butt as her spine bowed off the bed.

“Been about as long as I can take.” Cord sealed his mouth to hers as his balls drew up. The climax rolled over him, not a singular explosion, but in drawn out bursts, intensified by the rhythmic squeezing of her interior muscles around his cock.

He broke the kiss to press his lips to her temple, tasting sweat and sunshine and AJ.

When they’d recovered some, she nuzzled the side of his head. “Mmm. Slow is good.”

Cord smiled. “Definitely.”

She yawned. “Sorry.”

“Why don’t you crawl under the covers and rest while I call Ky?”

Once he’d gotten her settled she sighed. “Comfy as I am, don’t let me fall asleep here for the whole night.”

“Deal.”

“That’s assuming I can move. God. You’re an exhausting lover, Cord McKay.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“You should. I’m so glad I waited.”

“Waited for what?”

No answer.

“AJ?”

“Waited for you to be ready for me.”

Confused by her cryptic statement, Cord pecked her on the forehead, tucked the quilt under her chin and tried not to think about how natural it was to have her in his bed.

‡

“H
ow many inches
long you think his dick is?”

“Liza!” AJ nearly choked on her punch.

“Come on. Don’t pretend you haven’t been looking at him.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t measuring him for condom sizes.”

“Extra, extra large. Super magnum. That bad boy’s gotta be at least ten inches.”

AJ eyed the stripper, whose junk was peeping out of the top of a metallic snakeskin G-string. The man looked little more than a boy. With his hands fluffing his shaggy rock star hair and the seductive way his slender hips gyrated, she knew no mere boy could move like that.

Four women from Liza’s church whooped, elbowing each other to line up first to shove money in the string circling the guy’s tattooed pelvis. In the corner by the food, seventy-something Bebe was winning the deep-throat-a-bratwurst contest. Marijane Jackson Goodhue, the president of their graduating class and extremely pregnant, showed how well she could roll meatballs in her mouth.

Liza’s wish had come true. This was one wild-ass party. Packed to the rafters with women from all over the county—including Cord’s mother, Carolyn, and his Aunt Kimi. There were four six-foot tall inflatable penises making the rounds. Any woman who played the bratwurst game won a headband decorated with bobbing light-up penises. AJ turned her head to the left and the spring on her headband caught in her hair again.

“Where’s the bride-to-be?” someone shouted from the stage.

AJ lifted Liza’s arm above her head and waved it madly. A horde of women descended on Liza, dragging her to a chair up front, which left AJ free to sneak to the punchbowl.

As she refilled her cup, Carolyn McKay sidled up. “Fancy meeting you here, Amy Jo.”

“Likewise.” AJ tried not to stare at the headpiece Cord’s mom wore and wondered if Carolyn was trying not to stare at hers.

“Keely is gonna be so mad she missed this party. I think we oughta rub it in real good, don’t you?”

AJ grinned and clinked her mug against Carolyn’s. “I’ll drink to that.”

“How’s Flo?”

“Better. She’s anxious to get on with her life. We’re going to Billings in a couple days to find a place for her to live.”

“Why Billings?”

“The company Jenn works for had an opening. She can start in the next couple weeks, which will give the kids time to adjust before school starts.”

Carolyn placed her hand on AJ’s arm. “How are you adjusting, sweetheart?”

AJ shrugged. “We’ll see. I haven’t officially left here yet.”

“I know you’ve probably heard it from Keely, but you are welcome at our home anytime.”

“I appreciate that. And I know that Macie and Carter are looking forward to being around here more often. Exciting news about the baby, huh?”

“Very. Can you believe I’m gonna be a grandma again? Times three? I love my little Ky, but I’m beside myself about Channing and now Macie. Lord. Doesn’t seem that long ago I was about to pledge my life to a wild McKay.” A wistful look crossed her face.

“Lots of people told me not to bother trying to love a man like Carson McKay. I knew he was gruff from the get-go. He holds a grudge. He’s set in his ways. Carson is a cowboy rancher to his very core. Not big on public displays of affection. But I never listened to what any of them said. In my heart I knew what kind of man he was and still is. It isn’t the public displays that matter. The important affection in a relationship is given in private anyway.”

Was that a hint that Carolyn knew the type of affection her son Cord was giving her in private?

“Good Lord
that’s
not very private, is it?”

AJ’s head swiveled to see what Carolyn was gawking at. Oh man. The stripper spread his legs wide and was doing the bump and grind—in Liza’s face. His butt was completely exposed and seemed to be covered in a sheen of oil. To discourage women from grabbing onto him?

“Hang in there, sweetie, it’s worth it in the long run,” Carolyn said, the penises on her head bobbed merrily as she returned to her seat up near the action.

Was that a warning her son was a chip off the old block? Or an encouragement AJ should follow her instincts as far as Cord was concerned?

Problem was, AJ didn’t trust her instincts anymore. She’d started the quest to win Cord’s love weeks ago. Now she wasn’t sure what she’d do with it if she ever got it.

Not that Cord gave off any signals he was falling in love with her. In lust? Definitely. They’d curl up to watch a movie or eat a meal together and rush to get naked together. Not that she was complaining—hello, world’s hottest cowboy rancher had it bad for her—where was the downside in as much nasty, raunchy sex as she could take?

Near, as she could figure, no downside. Except she still loved him. Not with the hero worship of a five-year-old girl, but with the eyes of a woman who knew a good man. With the eyes of a woman who knew she’d need years to capture the heart of Cord McKay…and she had two weeks.

Tonight was the third night in a row she hadn’t been with him. Not to be churlish or to punish him. She spent her day fulfilling the needs of one person, only to race over to Cord’s place to fulfill his needs. What about her needs? The ones that didn’t have a blasted thing to do with family love or sexual gratification?

To cement the idea her personal needs and goals mattered, she’d driven by the Sandstone building in Sundance a couple of times. It was the perfect size for a start-up massage studio. Too bad she didn’t have the capital to remodel—not even after the sale of seven horses. With her young age and no land ties to the community, she’d have a devil of a time convincing the local banker to give her a loan.