Saddled and Spurred

  With her legs spread so wide, her pussy felt fuller. With Bran’s dick buried deep, the tickling brush of his balls teased the pucker of her ass. She moaned at the surprising eroticism.

  He’d managed to tear his gaze from where their sexes joined to watch the bounce of her breasts with his every hard thrust.

  The sucking sound of the plunge and retreat of his cock, the squeak of the bed as he rocked into her, his harsh breathing, the blood whooshing in her ears, all mixed together, created a sensual, sexual stupor.

  Harper never would’ve believed she’d come again on the heels of such an outstanding orgasm against the wall. But with Bran’s every plunge into her slick channel, coupled with the masterful caresses on her clit, the climax caught her completely off guard. She arched higher and moaned louder as the blood pulsed in her clit, pulling her pussy muscles tight around his cock.

  As the tail end of her orgasm washed over her, Bran swore and rammed into her, grunting as once again hot bursts of semen bathed her still spasming vaginal walls.

  Neither moved until the sound of the heater kicking on broke the silence.

  Finally, Bran whispered, “Harper.”

  She opened her eyes to see his smirking mouth lower to hers for one of those drugging kisses he excelled at.

  He pulled back and stared into her eyes. “You okay?”

  “I’m great. Better than great. Kind of sticky, though.”

  Comprehension dawned on both their faces simultaneously.

  “Goddammit. I forgot a condom. Shit, I forgot a condom both times. I never forget—”

  She put her fingers over his lips. “It’s okay. I’m on the pill.”

  “You are? Even when you’re not ...”

  “I prefer to have a regular cycle. Plus, my mother had not one, not two, but three unintended pregnancies. I won’t make the same mistakes.” Harper didn’t admit she’d put Bailey on birth control pills at sixteen, just like Liberty had done for her when she’d turned sixteen. Some families threw a Sweet Sixteen party to mark the rite of passage. The Masterson girls were thrown a packet of birth control pills.

  “I hardly think you’re a mistake, gorgeous, but I do understand what you meant.” Bran kissed her again. “I’m glad, damn glad we’re covered. I ain’t anywhere close to ready to start a family.” He eased out of her and grabbed tissues to clean up. Then he tugged the covers over them and wrapped his arms around her.

  She lay her head on his chest, lulled by a feeling of contentment. “So, since you’re not ready to have a family of your own, tell me about your family, Bran Turner.”

  Chapter Eleven

  His family story would be short, if he had his way. He caressed the curve of her spine. “What would you like to know?”

  “The sign above the entrance says ‘Turner Ranch—Established 1907,’ which is a long time to be in the ranching business.”

  “We’re one of the oldest ranches in the county still in existence. Though according to my grandparents, it was touch and go there for a few years for my great-grandparents during the dirty thirties when their neighbors lost their places.”

  “Did they buy up more land?”

  “Couldn’t afford to. When things started to look up, they bought a couple of sections that’d been foreclosed on and the government wanted to recoup their losses. But it’s been the same size since the start of World War II.”

  “So you’ve always known what you’d end up doing with your life?”

  That was tricky to answer. As a teen he’d lashed out at his grandparents, threatening to sell the whole shooting match after they died. A pang of sadness punched him in the gut when he recalled the shock on his grandmother’s face after he’d issued that selfish statement. Pearl Turner had just looked at him and said quietly, “Land is the only thing that’s forever.”

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”

  Bran swept his hand down Harper’s back and absentmindedly kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay. I was just thinking that like most ranch kids, part of me wanted to rebel. Do something—anything—other than be tied to this land until the day I died. But the bigger part of me couldn’t imagine doin’ anything else.”

  “Did your parents feel the same way?”

  His body stiffened.

  Harper felt it and lifted her head to look at him. “What?”

  Normally he breezed over this part of his family backstory, because it wasn’t exactly a secret. But the scandal about his birth had happened so long ago, and his grandparents had been so well respected in the community, that the only part of his lineage that mattered now was his last name.

  “You think I’m snoopy, don’t you?”

  “Yep.” He kissed her nose. “But it’s okay. The truth is, I don’t have a fuckin’ clue who my dad was. My mom ran away from here the week after she turned eighteen. My grandparents never heard from her until she returned to Wyoming five years later carting a six-month-old baby with her. She told them my father was out of the picture and she’d named me Branford after her favorite bar in San Francisco.”

  “Your real name is Branford?”

  “Weird as it is, at least it could be shortened into something more normal, like Bran. I tell myself it could’ve been much worse, given that my mother had turned into a total hippie.”

  “I hearya. My mom claims she came up with our names because of where we were conceived. But I suspect we were all named after the booze she was drinking when she got knocked up.”

  Bran laughed softly. “I doubt my grandparents were happy that she’d given her out-of-wedlock child their last name.”

  “But you grew on them, didn’t you?”

  “It wasn’t like they had a choice. Evidently my mother stuck around for two weeks before she told her parents they were animal murderers, since she’d become a vegetarian. So she dumped me with them. My mother was an only child, and I suspect she’d been breaking my grandparents’ hearts since the day she was born.”

  Harper squeezed his arm in a show of sympathy. “Did she ever come back?”

  “Once. When I was about four, I guess. Didn’t stay more than two days. She died of a drug overdose a couple of years later. And without sounding crass, I can say my grandparents were relieved. There was always the fear that she’d try to take me away from them. I don’t remember her at all.”

  “Did your grandparents adopt you?”

  “No need to after she died. In fact, it would’ve put the ranch in some kind of weird legal limbo, as far as estate taxes. So as the sole heir, I inherited everything.”

  “How old were you when they died?”

  “Grandpa died when I was eighteen. Grandma didn’t last quite a year after he passed on. I know she died of a broken heart.”

  Harper kissed his chest. “I’m sorry. Although it’s sad, it is sort of beautiful too. To love someone that much that you’d rather die than be without them.”

  “Worst year of my life when they both passed. I couldn’t stand to be in their house without them in it. So I did the mature thing. Boarded it up and bought a trailer.”

  Again Harper sweetly kissed the area above his heart, and it warmed something inside him he’d suspected was long dead.

  “Do you have any intention of ever living there again? Or would it cost too much money to fix up?”

  Money. That was one thing Bran had plenty of.

  After the lawyer had read the will, he’d spent the next week in a stupor. He’d had no idea his grandparents had squirreled away that much cash. He’d had no clue what the ranch he’d inherited was worth. It’d boggled his mind. He was rich.

  At first he’d been tempted to buy buy buy. A brand-new truck with all the bells and whistles. A fast foreign sports car. Fancy new duds. He’d imagined how differently all the women in Muddy Gap would look at him. The pretty ones who’d never given him the time of day, preferring to flirt with Hank, Kyle, Fletch, Devin, Ike, or Braxton. Hell, even bashful Eli had more chicks hitting on him than Bran Turner did. As a
guy aware of his level of attractiveness to the opposite sex, Bran knew he wasn’t butt ugly, yet he also knew he hadn’t been blessed with the same head-turning good looks as his buddies. So his way of thinking upon learning about his cash windfall? Money was the great equalizer in the dating arena and everywhere else.

  But a funny thing happened with his intent to become a rich braggart flashing a wad of bills—he’d realized he’d done nothing to earn the money. His inheritance had been entrusted to him; he would be a fool to blow the legacy on unimportant stuff like custom-made boots and attempts to buy a girlfriend.

  Not even Bran’s closest friends knew what he was worth. He’d taken a chunk of the money and invested it in the stock market and bought more livestock. Even now he spent only the money he paid to himself as a salary and he lived way below his means.

  Way below. And if his low-key lifestyle didn’t scare the ladies off, the fact that he resided in a cheap, cramped trailer usually did the trick. The assumptions made about him were amusing and he hadn’t bothered to try to change them.

  In five years, he’d doubled his profit from his expanded cattle operation—despite Les’s continual arguments that Bran was always doing something wrong. Now Bran was once again at a crossroads, wondering if he should increase the size of the herd or let it ride another couple of years.

  “Are you okay?”

  Bran snapped back to the present with the beautiful Harper draped across his chest. Naked. “I don’t know why we’re talkin’ when you ain’t wearing any clothes.” He rolled, pinning her beneath him, grinning at her surprised “Eep!”

  She snaked her arms around his lower back and squeezed his butt as they kissed. And kissed. His libido, which had dropped to idle, roared back to life.

  His cock slapped his belly when he retreated to sit in the middle of the bed, legs outstretched, facing the headboard. He held out his hand. “C’mere.”

  Harper crawled toward him like a jungle cat.

  “Sit on my lap.”

  A curious expression appeared on her face as she placed a knee on each side of his hips. “Like this?”

  “Perfect. Now offer me those beautiful tits, Harper.”

  Her cheeks flushed a deep shade of pink. She slid her hands up her torso and cupped the pale flesh, pushing the mounds together before selecting the right one.

  Bran groaned, leaning forward to lick the proffered tip. The nipple wasn’t completely hard and he lapped a wide circle around it. With each swipe of his wet tongue, the circle became smaller and smaller until his tongue constantly flickered across the tight peak.

  He glanced up to see Harper peering at him, her teeth digging into her bottom lip.

  “You like that?”

  She nodded.

  “Then offer me the other one.”

  The little vixen turned it into a tease, dropping her hands to drag her fingers sensuously back up her flat belly. She rubbed the centers of her palms over her nipples. Then she cupped her left breast, angling her shoulders to offer it to him.

  Two could tease. Bran licked, sucked, and bit every inch of her tits until she whimpered. Until he felt her thighs clenching against his. Until he smelled the sweet cream drifting from between her trembling legs.

  Enough.

  Bran rolled and Harper was on her back. Then he rolled her again and she was on her belly. He hiked her hips up, primal need beating in his chest as he held her, spread her, and impaled her.

  Harper gasped into the mattress, turned her head and said, “Do it again.”

  He plowed into her, so insanely hot by the sight of her gorgeous ass clutched in his hands and his cock disappearing into her pussy that he might actually lose his mind with lust.

  Her arms were stretched out above her head. She pushed her hips back, meeting his rhythm, emitting a soft groan every time he filled her. So he filled her as fast as he could, as many times as he could, over and over, pulling out completely but never pausing between thrusts.

  Shit. He was gonna blow. On his next withdrawal, he grabbed the base of his shaft and slid it along her slit, letting the rim of the cock head glide over her clit.

  “Bran!”

  “I’ve gotcha, baby. Can you come for me like this?”

  “If you go faster, but with shorter strokes right—omigod! Right there. Just like that. Don’t stop—oh, please, don’t stop.”

  He gritted his teeth and kept rubbing the tip of his dick up the rise of her pubic mound, over that pulsing hot spot. When Harper wailed, he felt the contraction against his cock head like little sucking kisses.

  Hold on. Sweet fucking Jesus. Don’t stop before she’s done.

  When Harper’s pelvis sagged, he slid back to the mouth of her sex and unleashed his need for release.

  Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. By the tenth stroke, he was balls deep, coming inside her—body rigid, head spinning, eyes crossed and toes curled kind of coming. When the last pulse blasted out of his dick, he felt so fucking exhilarated that he laughed. Then he layered his sweat-covered chest over her sweat-covered back and scattered kisses across her shoulders, tasting the salt on her skin. “You all right?”

  She mumbled, “Mmm-hmm. Never done it that way before.”

  He flexed his hips and his dick moved. “Did you like it?”

  “What do you think?” Harper clenched her cunt muscles around his cock and he hissed.

  After a few more openmouthed kisses up the side of her neck and down her spine, Bran eased out of her.

  Her lower body sank to the mattress and she sighed.

  Bran lay beside her, letting his fingers roam.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. Smiled. “That. Was. Awesome.”

  “For me too, sweetheart. For me too.”

  Harper turned her head toward the dresser and squinted at the clock. “Is that the time?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Crap!” She shot up from the bed. “I’m gonna be late for work!”

  Bran bit back his automatic “So?” response.

  When she ran from the room, he followed her, leaning against the wall to watch her dress. Because damn, she jiggled in all the right places as she put on her clothes. Seemed a shame she had to wear clothing at all.

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “I know that look, Bran.”

  He blinked with total innocence. “What look?”

  “The one that’s questioning why I’m still putting in hours at Get Nailed when I’m making more money working for you.”

  Whew, he’d dodged a bullet there. He’d totally been eyeballing her ass. “The thought did cross my mind. But I’m guessing you like painting fingernails and all that girly sh—stuff?”

  Harper gave an annoyed huff. “I like my customers. But the reason I won’t leave Bernice high and dry is because she is the only one who would hire me after my mom ran off. Everyone else in this town pointed and whispered, acting like Bailey and I were a personal affront to them. Wanting us to pay for our mother’s sins. So my loyalty to Bernice doesn’t have any bearing on me liking to do ‘girly’ fingernail stuff—getting covered in cow poop, horse poop, goat poop, and mud on a daily basis should be proof enough for you.”

  Man, he’d really stepped in it. He crossed to her as she slipped on her coat. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Bran smiled, wanting so badly to lay a big, wet kiss on her, but he held back. “Drive safe.”

  “See you tomorrow, boss.”

  He really was starting to hate that word.

  Chapter Twelve

  One week later . . .

  Bran was out in the big barn when he heard a vehicle pull in. Too big an engine to be Harper’s ranch truck.

  Huh. Les had driven that old ranch truck for the last five years. When had he stopped thinking of it as Les’s and started thinking of it as Harper’s?

  Since you’re thinking of Harper all the goddamn time, dumb ass.

  He shoveled horseshit into the wheelbarrow and waited to see who
’d shown up.