Reading Online Novel

Gentling the Cowboy(64)



“So, Dean’s really your half brother?”

“Half, whole, it never mattered. We’re not close.”

“Did he want to be?”

“I don’t know what the hell he wanted, but after I found him I couldn’t shake him. He was always visiting, sometimes with the mother he got along so well with. All it ever did was set my father and me to fighting until we couldn’t be in the same room anymore. My father always told me that the fewer questions a man asked, the happier he tended to be. He was right in that case. I moved out at sixteen because my father and I couldn’t talk without coming to blows.”

Sarah hugged him as he went on. “I used to believe in what I was doing with horses. I had all the answers. I lost that and more when Kimberly died.” He shuddered against her, betraying how much it had cost him to relive both times.

Tipping her head back, Sarah said, “I wish I could guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to either one of us again. If they ever do invent a time machine, I’ll be the first one in line to go back and try to do most of it better. But until then, this is the only life I’m going to have and I don’t want to waste any more of it. You helped me see that. It took coming here to see that I was only half alive up North. I could blame my parents. I could blame my brother. But no one did that to me. I did it. I let my life become so much less than it was meant to be. I won’t make that mistake twice.”

His heart thudded in his chest as she continued to speak.

“Life is scary, but I think it’s supposed to be. If you’re living it right, that is.”

He hugged her tighter against him. “What do you want from me, Sarah?”

She met his eyes and dared the truth. “A chance.”

He nodded and ran a finger teasingly over the neckline of her dress. “And in return?”

Sarah raised herself onto her tiptoes and whispered, “A confession.”

He growled deep in his throat, “I like that. Tell me.”

Rubbing herself against him, Sarah said, “When you grabbed the back of my head and pulled me to you, I liked it.”

He reenacted his early move, burying his hand in the back of her hair and holding her helplessly immobile before him. “You mean this?”

She sighed through parted lips, “Yes.”

He claimed her lips with his, teasing, testing, while he boldly slid a hand beneath the back hem of her dress, cupping her ass roughly. “You like it rough?”

Sarah playfully struggled against his hold, loving how easily he restrained her. “I don’t know, but I’d like to try it out,” she admitted.

His mouth closed over hers again, his tongue deep within her mouth, demanding a submission she gladly gave. With one strong move he ripped her thong underwear off. There was a sting to the move. Sarah moaned into the kiss, loving how the slight pain flooded her with want.

He growled into her ear. “I told you earlier that there’d be a price to pay for inviting everyone to dinner.”

Sarah wasn’t sure if his anger was fake or real, and she didn’t know if she cared.

He set her away from him for a moment and took off his belt. Her eyes rounded as she realized she should have defined rough before the game started.

He laughed and dropped the belt, along with the rest of his clothing to the floor. “Don’t worry, I would never mark what is mine.”

She turned to flee, half in jest and half in response to what she was pretty sure he intended to do. He grabbed her around the waist, swung her up and sat on the edge of the bed, settling her face down across his lap. The sting of the first spank was softened by the material of her dress, but then he slid it up, exposing her bare ass to his reprimand. “Do you like soft?” He tapped one ass cheek lightly. “Or hard?” The crack of his hand echoed in the quiet of the room and Sarah gasped at the sudden pain, then marveled how it intensified her desire.

“Both,” she panted and squirmed in his hold.

He repeated the same pattern on her other cheek. Another gasp and more pleasure. A few more spanks and Sarah was writhing and moaning. Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, he bent and kissed the flesh he’d reddened. He ran his hand down the back of one of her thighs and pushed her legs apart wider.

With one hand, he held her head arched back by pulling on a fistful of hair while he slid one finger of his other hand inside her soaked pussy. His thumb sought and circled her excited nub. His erection jutted against her stomach. “You’re not in control here, Sarah. I am.” He thrust another finger inside her, pumping in and out, faster and faster. “You only come when I tell you to.”