Gentling the Cowboy(20)

Tony burst out laughing at the line as he pictured Sarah saying it. A memory of finding her in the shower replaced his humor with gut-tightening need as he remembered what she’d looked like in just a towel. His mind flooded with images of what he would have done if she’d greeted him that way yesterday.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to read the scene she’d written with the improved version of him. He was already painfully aroused.



Holt’s eyes burn with passion for me. He says, “Then let me clean you off.”

Joining me in the shower, he soaps me down, careful to remove my nervous smell. He rinses the soap away before slowly drying me with a fluffy white towel.

His penis is erect.

I brace myself against the wall of the shower and prepare myself for when he enters me. I know how good it will feel in a few minutes.



Another arrow pointed to a comment in the margins: condom?

Sarah had skipped a couple of lines on the paper and then had rewritten the last paragraph.



I brace myself against the wall of the shower and prepare myself for when he enters me. I know how good it will feel in a few minutes. He pulls a foil wrapper out of his . . .



Notes in the margin read: Ass? Mouth? Where the hell do people keep condoms when they shower together?




Tony would have laughed again if he weren’t was so engrossed in her story.



I feel him shudder as he orgasms. The kiss he gives me before he withdraws and rinses himself off is every bit as tender as I had imagined it would be.




Tony read the last part again with a confusing mix of emotions. Why would an innocent fantasize about bad sex? Then he read the note in the margin and anger replaced confusion.



Notes: I’ll need more than my personal experience if this book is going to have sex scenes.

Is that really how it was? No wonder we broke up. Why did it take me this long to realize how bad it was?

Possible spin-off article title: In Search of the Elusive Orgasm.

Or: When to Stop the Blame Game and Take Matters Into Your Own Hands



Her humor didn’t distract Tony from the importance of her entry. Sarah wasn’t a virgin. Just as she had used Tony’s physical characteristics to describe her hero, she was using her past experiences to write the sexual content. He reread her story with this new information and found his fury growing with each word.

He’d enjoy slamming his fist into the face of whoever Sarah had been sleeping with. Anyone who is that bad in bed should come with a fucking label. What an ass.

Angry yet still aroused, Tony read on, and his blood pressure soared to new heights but for an entirely new reason.



First attempt at masturbation—fail.



Tony slammed the notebook closed and returned it to the nightstand.

There is a reason God didn’t give men the ability to read a woman’s mind.

Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing.

He closed the door behind him. As he walked down the stairs he saw his house through Sarah’s eyes. It was empty. He’d never noticed that before. He’d lived here for five years, and not one picture or painting graced the walls.

A house, not a home.

As cold as Sarah had described it.

He stopped at the hallway mirror Melanie had put up before he’d forbidden her to leave her mark anywhere in his domain. He looked older than he should, deep lines born from fatigue and sun. He forced a smile to his lips and hated how out of place it seemed on his face.

“What are you doing?” Melanie asked from the door of the kitchen.

“Nothing,” Tony muttered and strode out the front door, angry with her for catching him and with himself for not being able to stamp out the feelings Sarah’s notebook had stirred within him.

Just losing my mind.





Chapter Six




Tony was already working with a dark sorrel gelding in one of the ranch’s large wooden round pens by the time Sarah walked out of the barn with David. The horse was loose and walking in circles around him.

Sarah paused, and David stopped beside her. “It looks like he’s just exercising that horse in circles, but it is more than that, isn’t it?” she asked. David pushed his hat back a little from his forehead and rubbed his chin, also studying the scene before them instead of answering her. Tony stopped the horse with a shift of his body. He turned the horse on his haunches with a slight flick of his hand. The closer Sarah looked, the more communication she could see between the man and the horse. “He’s talking to him with his body, isn’t he?” she asked without realizing she had spoken aloud.

David nodded. “You could say that. Watch him here.”

Tony raised his arm above his head and the horse began to lope around him. He lowered his arm and the horse slowed to a jog.