"I didn't want you to sell or buy me!"
"I've seen the way you look at me." I said. "You can deny it all you want. Whatever makes you happy. But you have been looking to get a piece of me ever since you first laid eyes on me."
I stepped forward to lift her up off the floor and onto the bed, but she slapped my hand away again.
"Stop."
"Quit your fighting! You won't win."
"And why won't I win?"
"Because you've thought about being fucked by me every day since you moved to Eden."
She shook her head. She was trying to deny everything her body wanted. She had stared after me, looked me up and down, undressed and fucked me with her eyes every day since she'd moved in down the street. There was no denying she wanted me. And there was no way I would ever let her go.
Not until she admitted it.
Not until she was screaming it from that pretty little mouth of hers.
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SAMPLE: Taken
Chapter 1
The open sky stretched for miles overhead. Dusk was starting to settle over the hundreds of acres that made up Gold Creek Ranch. The sinking sun turned the bright greens and warm ambers of the prairie to indigo as the shadows began to lengthen. The sun sank westward over the heart of Texas, streaming clouds of bright fuchsia and fiery red in its wake, as Elsie McLaurel rode her horse across the sea of grass.
A loose fitting old button-down shirt hung half untucked at her waist, and her blonde hair-usually worn long and wavy down her back-was pinned up underneath the wide brimmed hat that did its best to protect her fair skin from the harsh Texas sun. If you'd spotted her from the highway, you'd never have guessed that she was the heiress to a multi-million-dollar ranching business-one of the biggest in the entire state.
Her riding boots and sun-bleached jeans were covered in mud from riding across the recently rained-on ground, chasing after each head of cattle that slowly churned the once green grass into sucking muck under their trampling hooves.
Gold Creek was made up of several hundred thousand acres of open grassy fields that had long since fallen under hard times, until her father Mark McLaurel had started buying up every minor ranch in the area. In the matter of a few years, Gold Creek went from nothing more than a few acres and a title on a paper to one of the biggest corporate ranches in all of West Texas-land that would one day all belong to her.
Elsie shook her head at the stray thought. The last thing she wanted was to take over her father's corporation. She knew Mark McLaurel had a reputation as a ruthless, heartless corporate rancher and she wanted no part in it. Soon enough I'll be able to get out of here, Elsie mused to herself. Out of this small town, away from Daddy's reputation. Then, I'll be able to make my own life.
The sound of gentle mooing off to her right had her sliding down from the back of Goat, her chestnut gelding. Elsie patted Goat softly on the nose and he snorted in response. He'd been just a foal when Elsie had taken him in. His mother died birthing him and Elsie had felt an instant kinship. He didn't have a mother, and neither did she. Against her father's wishes, Elsie had taken him in and nursed him back to health.
It had been a long fight to bring the tiny foal back from the brink of death, but he'd held on and fought like hell. ‘Stubborn as a goat,' her father had said about him once, and the name had stuck.
That mooing rose up again and Elsie cast a look over her shoulder at the heifer standing a few yards behind her.
"Don't worry, Bluebell, I didn't forget about you." With a small chuckle, Elsie reached into the canvas saddlebag she had strung over the pommel and found a handful of apple slices, a favorite among the cattle.
Without an ounce of hesitation, Elsie walked up to the massive heifer and held out her hand. The cow dwarfed Elsie's own petite five-foot one frame, but she'd spent her entire life around them. She knew they could be dangerous if she got in the way of a panicked stampede, but she also saw the gentleness in them, the sweetness in the big, brown eyes that rolled towards the apple slices that were held just out of reach.
"Oh, here ya go, Bluebell," Elsie said as she brought her hand closer. Bluebell munched happily at the treat.
Elsie looked around as she petted the soft fuzz on the cow's muzzle, surveying the milling cattle nearby. None seemed disturbed by her presence, although occasionally some would roll their big, heavily lashed eyes in her direction in hope of the special treatment Bluebell was getting. She recognized most of the animals and took a deep breath, staring up a sky that had now turned to a darkling purple.
"It's time we got going, Bluebell," Elsie whispered softly. But she wasn't talking about the cattle. She was talking about herself. About her future and what she would do next. A sudden thrill shot through her at the thought of the envelopes she's snuck into the post just a week before. Her applications for Veterinary school.
For as long as she could remember, Elsie had loved animals, whether she was working with them or treating them. It was her passion, the one thing in her life that she'd always known she wanted to do. But when she had brought up going away to school to her father at the end of last summer, he had told her in no uncertain terms that she would be staying on at the ranch to learn the ins and outs of the business. He wanted her to take over the ranch one day and there was nothing that could change his mind.
But she just couldn't. She's heard the rumors. She'd heard what people said about how her daddy ran his business. With a hard fist and an even harder heart. She didn't know everything that he did, but she knew enough to know that she didn't agree with all of it. She also knew that she wasn't cut out to be a business person. She loved being outside, being with the animals. The thought of being trapped behind a desk for the rest of her life made her sick to her stomach.
She was still idly stroking Bluebell's cheek when she remembered the night the cow had been born. She'd been in the barn for hours, helping bring the little calf into the world. She was much younger then and the biggest problem in her life at the time had been figuring out a way to get out of wearing the old-timey dresses her daddy kept buying her. She'd lived in ripped jeans and hand-me-down buttoned shirts for as long as she'd known, and dresses weren't something that she ever felt comfortable in. Elsie looked down at herself with a smirk. Well, that at least hasn't changed.
"Els! Elsie!" a strong voice called out from over a ridge.
She grinned at the middle-aged man who trotted up on the back of an impressive black and white stallion.
"Hey, Lorenzo," Elsie greeted the familiar man with a wave. Lorenzo had been a farm hand at Gold Creek Ranch for years, since long before her father had taken over. He was one of the only employees who had been kept on after the McLaurel Corporation purchased the ranch from its owner.
He was deeply tanned from his time out in the sun, despite the cowboy hat tilted low over his dark, kind eyes. It made the wrinkles in his weathered face even more visible. The only other part of him that was exposed were the rough calloused hands that masterfully handled his horse's reins. The rest of him was covered head to toe in denim and worn-out leather boots.
"I've been looking everywhere for you, Elsie. I was startin' to get worried," he said, his deep tenor as warm as the sun that was just now starting to dip below the tree line.
"Sorry, Lorenzo. I just wanted to come out and check on Bluebell. I wanted to make sure she was still doing alright." Elsie patted the cow's neck and got a heartfelt moo in return. "You know she's been getting those infections over the past few weeks."
"Well, whatever you've been giving her has worked like a charm. Practically magic." Lorenzo took his hat off and brushed at the sweat dotting his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt before placing it back on his head. "Got a couple of other cattle you can take a look at when we get back to the barn. If we ever do get back that is. At this rate, we'll be out here chasing them around all night."
Elsie ignored Lorenzo's gruff tone. She was more than used to the straight-forward talk from the man and didn't take any offense at it. She knew he didn't mean any more or any less than just what he said, even if he did have a tendency to sound like a grouch while he was saying it.
"Alright," she sighed as she gave the last of the apple slices to Bluebell, chuckling as the fuzz around her mouth tickled her palm. "That's all I got, girl. You'll just have to wait until next time."
The heifer rolled her eyes in dissatisfaction, making Elsie laugh again and Lorenzo shake his head.
"You know they're not pets, right?"