Bucking the Rules(33)

“I don’t do the cuddle thing,” she warned.

“Then don’t cuddle. Just be a prop.” His words were fading, like he was almost asleep.

She thought about arguing. Cuddling was too touchy-feely for her taste. It fostered ideas that they didn’t have any business thinking about. But the warmth his body gave off lulled her, calmed her still-fizzing nerves, made her want to stretch and curl into him like a kitten with a basket of dryer-fresh laundry.

“I can be a prop,” she said quietly. “Just this once.”

“Just this once,” he agreed, though she couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.





Chaper Eight


Trace was basking. The completely foreign concept had him smiling. He’d never basked after sex in his life. He’d gotten in, gotten them both off, and gotten out. And he wasn’t ashamed of it, either. No woman who was willing to roll around in a horse trailer or in the back of his truck cab should be expecting much else.

But this? He sighed a little as Jo’s small hand brushed up and down his back. This was something he could get used to very easily. The comfort of lying still after a good ride. The feel of his woman’s soft skin against him. Her hands roaming his body, as if memorizing the lines and hollows. And maybe, after a little recovery time, another turn around the sheets …

“Oh, my God!”

His head snapped up at her exclamation. What, was she a mind reader now? He didn’t think it was that bad an idea….

“What happened to you?” Jo crawled away from him, and the movement made him face plant in the mattress. She maneuvered and rolled. Trace bit back a groan of pain, but then she was straddling his thighs. It would have been a sexy position, if he’d been facing up. But with him positioned on his stomach, it wasn’t doing much for him.

“I told you. I fell off a horse.”

Her fingers traced over one of the more tender areas, and he imagined she was following the lines of a large bruise with her fingertips. “You didn’t say the horse nearly killed you.”

“Because he didn’t. Horses throw riders every day. It’s a hazard of the job. I fixed it.”

“By shooting the horse?”

He laughed, then realized she wasn’t kidding. “Hell, no. I got back up there and finished my job.”

“You got back on the same animal that did this to you?” Her voice conveyed something … either awe or shock. He couldn’t see her face to tell which.

“Well, yeah. Animal goes too long after bucking someone off and they start thinking they’re running the show. If you get right back on ’em, show ’em who’s boss, they learn bucking isn’t going to answer any of their problems. That you won’t let it keep happening, and that that’s not the way to behave.”

“I’ll just stick to driving a car and walking.”

“Never ridden a horse?”

“Does a carousel count?”

“Uh, no.” He couldn’t believe it. He’d never met someone who hadn’t been on a horse at least once. Even a simple pony ride at a local fair. “Maybe I could take you sometime.”

“That’s a big pass. I don’t do the horse thing.” Her hands started to massage. “Now, the cowboy thing? That’s a hobby I could definitely dedicate myself to.”

He smiled into the pillow as her hands started working out some of the kinks in his lower back. Slow and sure, those fingers massaged deep into his muscles, getting to the root of the soreness. “God, woman, you’ve got good hands.”

“Years and years of opening bottles and carrying trays. They’re small, but strong.”

He couldn’t disagree. If she kept this up, he might be almost back to normal by morning. But soon enough her hands weren’t massaging so much as caressing his back, fingertips trailing over him so lightly they brought chill bumps to his skin.

“Cold?”

“Opposite.” He ignored the pain in his back and did a quick roll, grabbing her before she could fall off the bed and depositing her on his thighs. “I’m a little hot, to be honest.”

She started the same finger-trailing thing over his chest, scratching lightly beneath his chest hair and massaging when she went over his biceps.

“Hot, huh?” She rolled her hips until her exposed center nudged against his erection. “I’ll accept that.”

Jo flexed and rolled her hips until he felt her moisture spread over his hardening cock. But she focused her attention on the massage, rubbing his shoulders, arms, and chest. Every so often, she would discover another bruise and trace the perimeter with one soft finger, a frown marring her brow.