ShotgunRelations (8 page)

“No. That’s my question for you. If I
report my suspicions and they’re wrong, will Williams have a case against me
for slandering him?” Four stood and paced the length of Jack’s small office,
stopping to peer out the window toward the street. “I’d ask Karen, but I don’t
want to interrupt her and Bye’s honeymoon.”

“Frank could sue you in civil court.
Anybody can sue anybody over anything if they feel like it. Whether or not he’d
win would be another story. I’d argue, if I were defending a case like you
describe, that the accusation was made to law enforcement with the intent of
helping to uncover a ring of rustlers. Most judges would dismiss a suit like
that, but if the plaintiff insisted on a jury trial anything could happen.”
Jack flipped on his computer and reviewed an abstract of the Texas statutes on
character defamation. “Here’s what the law says.

“‘To prove defamation of character in
Texas, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant made a false statement
to a third party about the plaintiff with the required degree of fault. The
amount of fault required differs depending on whether the statement is about a
public official, a public figure or a private individual.’”

Four turned around and looked at the
screen. “Stop quoting the law and tell me in plain English what this means.”

“You’d be accusing a private individual, so
Frank wouldn’t need to prove that you made the false derogatory statements with
malice, only that you accused him negligently. In other words, you accused him
based on nothing more than unfounded suspicion. If I were you, I’d share my
doubts about his innocence with the task force people but nobody else.”

“I see. How much do I owe you for this
fifteen minutes of your time?”

“Nothing. First visits are free, not just
for you but for everybody who comes in here. If you’re ready to go, I’m going
to lock up and drive out to the Laughing Wolf. I’ve got a feeling Liz is going
to need some moral support.”

Chapter Five

“You told Sheriff Atkins that I lied,”
Frank said, his face beet-red and his fists clenched by his sides as though he
wanted to use them on her.

Liz met his gaze. “No I didn’t. I told him
you must have forgotten about the three new men that came on and the two we
fired around the time the cows were taken. Don’t look at me that way.”

“They think I may have been involved now.
Me, after I’ve spent almost fifteen years babysittin’ you and your mama since
your daddy died.”

About to agree that she shouldn’t have told
Sheriff Atkins, Liz hesitated when Jack strode into the barn, stopped beside
her and put his arm around her waist. How had he known she needed his strength
at just this moment?

Frank stepped back as though he expected to
be attacked. “Stay out of this, lawyer. You don’t own this place just because
you’re fucking Liz.”

Moving with catlike grace, Jack strode
forward and grabbed Frank by the front of his shirt, lifting him until the toes
of his scuffed cowboy boots barely touched the ground. “Keep in mind that you
don’t own it either, and that you won’t be sticking around for long if you keep
talking about your boss like that.”

“She’s not my boss, her mama is. Take your
hands off me.”

Jack shoved him backward into a bale of
hay. “Gladly.”

Then he turned to Liz and took her in his
arms. “Did the son-of-a-bitch hurt you? If he did…”

“Jack, it’s okay. He didn’t lay a hand on
me.” She took a step toward the hay bale. “Frank, I’ve put up with you running
this place for a long time. At first Mom let you because she didn’t know enough
about ranching to step in after Daddy died and I was just a kid. I’m grown now.
I know all I need to know about running this place and it’s high time for you
to follow my orders for a change. If you don’t like it, you’re free to leave.”

“Big talk, Miss Liz. Let’s go up to the
house and see what Ms. Mavis has to say about that.” Frank spat out a wad of
tobacco, the look on his face one of pure hatred as he stomped out of the barn
and headed for the house.

When she started to follow him, Jack held
her back. “Let him go, honey. Give the man some rope and let him hang himself.”

“What do you mean?” Frank would fill her
mother with lies, make her hysterical again the way he’d done several times
before when she’d tried to assert control over him. “I need to stop him before
he upsets Mom.”

Jack shook his head. “Not now. Let him
upset Mavis. I’ve got a feeling the task force will be investigating old Frank.
You don’t want to force his hand right now.”

Had Jack heard something? “You don’t think
he had anything to do with the rustling, do you?”

“I don’t know. But it seems awfully
suspicious to me that he lied about cowhands leaving and starting around the
time you lost those cows that apparently disappeared through a locked gate.
Maybe I’m wrong, but there’s something about the man that I can’t stand. I’m
not the only one who feels that way.”

“Who else?”

“Four. I ran into him in town this morning.
From the way he talked, he’s had suspicions that Frank has been up to something
fishy for a long time. He said he shared his feelings about Frank with your
mother last night, so maybe she’ll back you up. I won’t have you groveling to
the man.” Jack reached up and stroked her cheek, a gesture more soothing than
sensual.

“What if he quits?”

“All the better. You can hire a foreman
who’ll do as you say. One who doesn’t lie to law enforcement and hopefully one
who nobody will suspect of being into rustling cattle.”

Liz saw the logic in what Jack said, but
she was still afraid to cross the man who had been foreman at the Laughing Wolf
for practically as long as she could remember. “I don’t know, Jack.”

“I do. I want you to go inside now, pack an
overnight bag and put on that black embroidered skirt and the low-cut blouse
you wore for our date the day before Bye’s wedding. No underwear. I want to be
able to play with your cunt all the way to Lubbock. I’m introducing you to my
mother since I have to go there and decipher some papers for her. If you still
want to be my 24/7 slave after you meet her, we’ll stop by the tattoo and
piercing shop and get you a little dagger like mine.” His sexy whisper near her
ear made her fantasize about his mastery, her absolute submission to his hot
desire. “We may even make a detour by the Neon Lasso on the way back to my
place.”

“Yes, Master.” When he put it that way she
had no choice but to do as he said. She wanted to squelch her worries about the
ranch in a haze of white-hot lust made hotter by her total devotion to the man
she’d accepted as her master.

* * * * *

“Why are we stopping?” Liz asked when Jack
pulled in at a deserted rest stop hardly more than halfway to Lubbock.

When he stopped the car and turned off the
engine, he got out and practically ran around to drag her out of the seat and
into his hard embrace. For the last ten miles he’d endured her bombarding his
senses. He might have been able to withstand the lure of her little whimpers
when he finger-fucked her cunt, the heady scent of her arousal and the look of
his woman fully primed and ready. It was the feel of her seeking hands on his
swollen dick and the gentle touch of her fingers as she played with his balls
that drove him to the edge.

“We’re stopping because I can’t fuck you
while I drive and I’ve got to fuck you now.” He walked her to the nearest tree
and sandwiched her between it and his aching body.

“Here?”

“Here. Now.” He punctuated the words with a
hard, almost brutal kiss, loving the taste of her as he ravaged her with his
tongue. “Unzip my pants.”

The rasp of teeth on the zipper heightened
his need. “But, Master, somebody might see us.”

“Let ’em.” He bunched her loose black skirt
up over her hips. “Wrap your legs around my waist and let me in.” Fuck the
condom, he’d take her bareback, nothing between them. The cock ring cutting
into his flesh might prevent him from coming. If it didn’t, that was okay too.
“God but you’re as hot and wet as a woman can be.”

She took his mouth again, her hands
stroking his scalp, holding him to her as she tangled her tongue with his.
Their labored breaths mingled, coming harder and harder as she neared her
climax. Her desperate need for release fed his own. His balls tightened against
the ring and his cock swelled even larger as he moved in and out of her slick
cunt, going deeper and harder with every thrust.

“Come for me.” There was no way he could
hold it in. No way he could pull out of her now. A voice in his head told him
to do it. To come into her womb and damn the consequences.

He couldn’t, not without giving her a
chance to say no, so he held on and whispered near her mouth. “I want to come
in your pussy. You might get pregnant. If you do or even if you don’t, I’ll
take care of you. Do you mind?”

“No, Master.”

Thank you, God.
Every muscle in his body protested as he strained to hold her
steady. Her inner muscles clenched his cock when she came. He was a goner. One
thrust, two. His balls tightened painfully. He was coming in long, hard spurts
against the mouth of her womb. Endlessly, it seemed. For the first time in his
life it didn’t terrify him to know he might be making a woman pregnant.

Amazingly, he was still half hard when he
lifted her and set her down. “Thank you, Master,” she said, her blue eyes
glowing when she met his gaze. Then she surprised him. She went onto her knees
and licked their mingled juices off his cock.

He was the one who owed her thanks, but he
was too moved for words, so he held her loose hair out of his line of vision,
using his fingers to massage her scalp. Feeling for her more deeply than he’d
ever allowed himself to feel for anyone before, he watched him take his balls
in her mouth and suck them clean. His cock twitched against her cheek and she
swallowed it, sucking and licking her way to its head, where she tongued a drop
of lubrication from the slit.

She was his sex slave, but she was more.
Jack realized as they risked discovery in a roadside rest area that Liz was the
woman he’d love for the rest of their lives.

* * * * *

“Sorry about Mother. I told you she’s
interested mostly in herself.”

Liz squeezed Jack’s hand as they waited for
the owner of this upscale tattoo and piercing salon to finish with another
customer. “I’m sorry, Master.”

Marianne Duval hadn’t been exactly rude
when Jack had taken Liz to meet her, but then she hadn’t been pleasant either.
Liz guessed Jack had drawn an even poorer mom than she had, only he hadn’t had
the benefit of having a great father like hers had been, until he’d died during
roundup the year she’d turned thirteen.

The house where Jack had spent his
childhood, though small compared with the ranch house where she’d grown up, was
in an upscale neighborhood that smacked of money and good taste. While the
traditional cherrywood tables and silk-upholstered chairs weren’t what Liz had
expected considering Jack’s contemporary taste in décor, they were well-made,
obviously expensive and apparently brand-new. She wondered if Marianne had
pitched all the furniture and replaced it after the breakup with her lover.

Jack cleared his throat. “There’s nothing
to be sorry for. The only reason Mother wanted me to come over was to help her
decipher some bills. Come on, Thad’s ready for us now.” He picked up a gym bag
and led the way to a workroom that looked almost as sterile as a hospital
operating room and helped her climb onto what looked like a stainless steel GYN
table centered below a huge overhead light.

Thad Hill, who Jack had told her owned the
Eye of the Needle, was a huge bald man with a diamond stud centered below his
lower lip, a small hoop hanging from his right eyebrow and a manner that put
Liz immediately at ease. That was a good thing, because Jack had excused
himself to change out of his suit. “Will this be your first tattoo?”

She smiled, hoping she didn’t look as
scared as she felt. “Yes. Jack will show you what we want.”

“A dagger, he said. If it’s small I should
be able to finish it tonight.”

Liz couldn’t help staring at the
full-sleeve tattoos on Thad’s arms. “How long did it take for you to get all
that done?”

“It’s been a work in progress for years
now. I started out with tribal bracelets and the artist I bought this shop from
just kept on going. Occupational hazard, I guess. He’s finished my chest and
back and is working on my legs, at his house, every time I have a few free
hours. Gives the old guy something to live for. Want to see?”

“Sure.” When he peeled off his T-shirt she
saw that his hairless chest and back were covered with intricate,
brilliant-colored designs, all the way from his neck to where they disappeared
beneath a pair of loose white karate pants. She also noticed the silver hoops
hanging from his nipples and a large silver circle covering his navel that was
apparently held in place by a small ball that protruded from the flesh just
above. “There’s more but I don’t think Jack would like it if I showed you,” he
said with a toothy grin.

“What’s this that I wouldn’t want you to
show Liz?” Jack stood framed in the doorway, wearing just a pair of tight black
jeans that rode low on his hips and hugged his muscular thighs. Dressed for
success he looked imposing, but now her master definitely looked like a man no
one should dare to cross.

“The rest of my artwork. Want her to see a
real man?”

“The hell you say. You’re a pussycat whose
mistress leads you around by your dick. Everybody says so.”

What did Jack mean by that? Liz looked at
him, confused by the tattoo artist’s laughter.

Jack let out a guffaw too. “Go ahead, strip
down and show her your hardware. That’s about all that’s worth looking at.
Honey, lift up your pretty ass and let me take off your skirt so Thad can get
to work.”

When Thad dropped his pants Liz had to
stifle a scream. A silver ring much larger and thicker than the ones in his
nipples dangled from the head of his penis, which had been tattooed to look
like a diamondback rattler ready to strike. “Oh. My. God.”

Thad chuckled and pulled his pants back up.
“It’s okay. I get that kind of reaction almost every time.”

“Serves you right for giving your mistress
your cock for a canvas, my friend.” Jack turned to Liz and took her skirt. “I
figured seeing that would discourage you from wanting to sample Thad. It did,
didn’t it? There’s no need for modesty in here. Thad has seen it all in the
course of his work.”

She couldn’t help shivering in the icy room
as Thad bent over her and felt her mound. “Good. If you weren’t already shaved,
I’d have to do it to ink the tattoo. This is where you want it, I guess,” he
said, tracing a spot in the center of her mound with his finger.

“Yes.” Jack cupped a hand over her mound,
using his little finger to tweak her clit. “The point should aim right here.”

“Okay.” Thad pulled out stirrups on either
side of the table. “Jack, go ahead and help her get situated so I can get to my
canvas.”

Liz felt exposed, vulnerable. When Jack
arranged her legs in the stirrups and removed the lower part of the table, she
almost backed out, but he sat in a chair beside her, bent and dropped a gentle
kiss on her lips. There was nothing she could deny her master, not when he
looked at her as though she’d hung the moon. She did her best to calm the
butterflies that were bouncing off the inside of her stomach.

“Since you want me to draw this freehand,
I’m gonna need to look at the tattoo on your arm while I work.” Liz realized
when he spoke that Thad had rolled his chair between her legs. When she glanced
his way she saw he’d adjusted its height so his shoulders were level with her
knees.