Читать книгу The Cowboy Way - Candace Schuler, Candace Schuler - Страница 8

CLAY LOWERED THE BINOCULARS and sagged against the side of his horse, as wrung out and replete as if he’d actually had sex. He’d definitely come, that was for sure. Hands-free and in his jeans, which hadn’t happened since he was a hormone-ridden sixteen-year-old making out with Tish Bradley in the front seat of his daddy’s pickup. And, incredibly, this hands-free orgasm had been hotter and more satisfying than the last time he’d actually come inside a woman.

Of course, the last time he’d come inside a woman, he’d been flat on his back in a hospital bed and buzzed on painkillers, so he hadn’t exactly been at his best. Not that the woman in question had voiced any complaints. Quite the contrary. Feeling everything through a haze of pharmaceuticals had muted his physical sensations and slowed his reaction time to the extent that his partner had been limp with blissful exhaustion before he’d joined her at the finish line. She’d been very vocal in her appreciation. So vocal, in fact, that the night nurse had left her desk to see what all the commotion was about. The resulting confrontation, like the amorous encounter that had gone on before it, was kind of fuzzy in his mind. A lot of things had been fuzzy in his mind around that time, starting with the incident that had put him in the hospital bed in the first place.

He’d been stomped by a bull. He knew that because he’d seen the ESPN highlight tape of ol’ Boomer dancing on his carcass. Clay didn’t actually remember the wreck itself, though, which everybody said was a damned good thing. His last memory of that day—his only memory of the day, really—was walking toward the rodeo office with Rooster to get their competition numbers. Everything else, up to and including his go-round with Boomer, was a complete blank. He knew he’d spent the following three days in intensive care after the doctors finished putting him back together because Rooster had told him he had, but all he recalled of his stay there was a series of shadowy disjointed dreams, the echo of half-heard voices, and vague impressions of worried faces drifting in and out of his field of vision.

By the time he was well enough to be transferred to a regular room, the sequence of his days had gotten clearer and more coherent but they were still kind of fuzzy around the edges, especially in those fog-shrouded minutes just before and after the morphine kicked in.

In the two months since the wreck, the pain had subsided and the pain medication had been changed and decreased, and then changed and decreased again, but his reality had stubbornly remained just the tiniest bit out of focus. He chalked it up to the abrupt and unwelcome modification to his lifestyle. He was used to living fast and hard, traveling from one go-round to the next, always on the move, always on the lookout for the next ride, the next good time, or the next willing woman. Being forced to slow down, even if it was only temporary—and it was only temporary—dulled the intensity and blurred the edges, making him, as Rooster was wont to say, a “mite moody.”

And then, suddenly, out taking a solitary ride to improve his mood before the bachelor party tonight, everything snapped into sharp focus through the lenses of a pair of borrowed binoculars. For the first time since the wreck, every cell and nerve ending in his body was on red alert, alive and humming and ready to go. And all because he’d watched a woman he barely knew masturbate to climax. A woman, moreover, for whom he hadn’t previously spared a second thought—or a second look—beyond what had been required for civility’s sake.

Shaking his head at the sheer absurdity of the situation, he tucked the binoculars back into the saddlebag, and mounted up.

He didn’t know if it was the surprisingly luscious Miz Jo Beth Jensen herself, or the surprise of coming upon her out of the blue the way he had, or simply the fact that playing the voyeur was something he’d never done before that provided the spark. Whatever it was, he wanted more.

It stood to reason that she wanted more, too. She’d cried out his name when she’d come—he was almost sure of it—which meant she had to have been fantasizing about him during that close encounter with her own hand. Clay had been the focus of a good many female fantasies over the years, and he’d found that most women were more than happy to have the chance to make those fantasies real. And, usually, if the circumstances and the woman were right—and sometimes even if they weren’t—he’d always been more than happy to oblige.

Completely forgetting that he’d been going to ride away like the gentleman his mama had raised him to be, he clucked softly to his horse and, laying his reins against the side of the pinto’s neck, guided the animal out of the trees and down the slope into the gully below, absolutely certain he was about to get lucky.

He kept the horse to a walk and his gaze on the recumbent form of the woman in the water tank. She was leaning back against the concrete edge with her face turned up to the sun and her eyes closed. Her slender, well-toned arms were stretched out to either side of her, resting along the rim of the tank. The position bared her upper body nearly to midtorso, leaving her pretty little breasts resting lightly on the surface of the water. Her whole being reflected complete and utter relaxation.

Clay grinned wickedly. It was a shame, really, to disturb her autoerotic afterglow. But, after all, the woman had called out his name in the throes of passion. Hadn’t she? And if she hadn’t…well, she was obviously in need of what he could do for her. No woman should have to resort to self-manipulation to fulfill hr sexual needs, especially not when he was ready, willing and more than able to fulfill them for her.

Watching her as closely as he was, he knew the exact instant she became aware that her solitude was no longer absolute. Her shoulders tensed and she straightened away from the edge of the tank slightly, at the same time sinking down so her breasts disappeared beneath the water just as her rounded knees broke the surface. Surprisingly, she didn’t fumble around or scramble to cover herself. She didn’t get all fluttery or flustered, either, the way he’d expected her to; the way most other women would have if caught in similar circumstances. She didn’t even blush. Instead, she calmly curled one arm around her bent knees and lifted the other, tenting her hand above her eyes in an effort to see who was approaching.

“That’s far enough,” she said, the unmistakable snap of authority in her voice.

Clay reined in, halting the pinto a good six feet from the edge of the tank, and stared down at her, waiting for what she would do next. It wasn’t often a woman managed to surprise him, and she’d done it twice already: first with her heated abandon, then with her complete lack of embarrassment at being caught naked. He couldn’t help but wonder what other surprises she had in store for him.

Jo Beth squinted up at him from underneath her raised hand, but all she could see was the silhouetted figure of a man on a horse. His shoulders were impossibly broad against the expanse of blue sky behind him. His face was completely hidden in the shadow of his hat. Except for the sun glinting off the blunted rowels of his spurs and the silver conchas on his chaps, he was shrouded in darkness.

An instinctive quiver of apprehension snaked its way up Jo Beth’s spine. She very deliberately brushed it aside. This was, after all, Diamond J land. She was the jefe of the Diamond J. And he was a Diamond J cowhand.

Whatever reason he might have for trailing her out to this remote corner of the ranch, it sure as hell wasn’t because he had any nefarious designs on her body. None of her cowhands would dare. Especially given the mood she’d been in when she left the stable yard.

Which meant there was some problem that demanded her immediate attention back at the main house. Her squint deepened into a frown. Good Lord, couldn’t she have one measly hour to herself? Just one measly little hour without the whole operation falling apart?

“This had better be damned important,” she said irritably, scowling up at him from under her tented hand.

“Ma’am?”

“Whatever you trailed me out here for. It had better be damned important, or you and whoever sent you out here after me are going to be damned sorry.”

“No one sent me after you,” Clay said, thinking delightedly that she’d already managed to surprise him again. Whatever he’d expected her to say, however he might have expected her to say it, he certainly hadn’t anticipated anything so prosaic as a simple expression of annoyance at his presence and the possible reason for it, especially not with her still sitting there neck deep in water and as naked as the day she was born.

“Then why the hell did you follow me out here?” she demanded.

“I didn’t follow you.” His easy, affable tone was in direct contrast to the snapping impatience of hers. “I was out taking a ride all by my lonesome and saw someone moving around down here by the water tank.” He eased up on the reins as he spoke, letting the pinto amble closer to the concrete tank. “I thought I’d better take a closer look in case that someone was up to no good. So…” Leather creaked as he leaned forward and casually draped a forearm across the saddle horn. The reins dangled loosely from his gloved fingers. The pinto dropped his head and began sucking up water. “Are you up to no good, darlin’?”

Jo Beth opened her mouth to lambaste him for the dual offenses of dereliction of duty and being overly familiar when it occurred to her that not only was he a good deal closer than he’d been a moment before, but—Diamond J cowhand or not—she had absolutely no idea who he was.

Nothing about him was familiar. Not the tilt of his hat. Not the sound of his voice. Not even the way he sat his horse. And she prided herself on being able to put a name to every hand on the Diamond J just by watching him ride.

The quiver of apprehension returned, a little stronger this time, a little more insistent as it snaked its way up her spine to lodge at the back of her neck. It wasn’t fear. Not yet. Not by a long shot, she assured herself. But it was close enough to it that she glanced toward Bella, mentally judging the distance to the shotgun holstered behind the saddle, hoping like hell she wasn’t going to have to sprint for it, buck naked and dripping wet. Her gaze darted back to the man who seemed, suddenly, to be much too close, much too big, much too…much.

She stiffened her spine against the nascent fear, refusing to give in to it. Her eyes took on a steely glint beneath the shade of her sheltering hand. “Just who the hell are you, cowboy?”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” he said, as polite as if she’d asked a civil question instead of snarling it at him like an angry bobcat. “I didn’t realize you didn’t recognize me or I’d’ve made myself known to you straight off.” He dipped his head, reaching up to touch two fingers to the brim of his hat. “I’m—”

In that instant, with that slight telling movement, Jo Beth suddenly knew who he was. “Oh, good Lord!” she burst out before she could stop herself. “You’re—” She dropped her upraised hand, covering her mouth before the name escaped.

“Clay Madison,” he said, and swept his hat off, giving her a theatrical little bow from the saddle. It was the same cocksure, conquering-hero bow he used in the ring to acknowledge the approving roar of the crowd. “In the flesh,” he added, with a wickedly charming cowboy grin.

Jo Beth stared up at him for a disbelieving few seconds, her eyes gone wide above her concealing hand, her body frozen like a wild woodland creature trying to escape the notice of a predator. Visions of her fantasies and what she’d done to fulfill them chased round and round in her head. She knew it was too much to hope that he hadn’t seen her solo performance. If he’d been watching long enough to see someone moving around by the water tank, he’d certainly been watching long enough to have seen what happened after that someone got in the water tank.

She closed her eyes briefly, trying to block out the awful reality of the situation, desperately wishing that one or both of them would just disappear into the hot, dry air. But when she opened them again, he was still there, sitting atop the pinto with the sun shining on his gleaming black hair, hat in hand, grinning at her like a feral cousin of the Cheshire cat.

And she was still bare-ass naked, sitting in a water tank in the middle of a sun-baked cow pasture with the guilty blush of self-indulgence heating her cheeks.

There was only one thing to do, one tack to take. She dropped her hand from her mouth, squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and glared up at him with the expression every hand on her ranch had learned to fear. “Just what the hell are you doing on Diamond J land?”

He shrugged elaborately, unintimidated by the ferocity of her question. “Like I said, I was out taking myself a little ride. Just following my nose, don’t ’cha know? Ended up taking the shade in that stand of cottonwoods on the hill, yonder.” He gestured with his hat, indicating the gentle swell of the land behind him. “No rhyme or reason to it.” His grin flashed again, his eyes raking over her with a warm, appreciative gleam meant to charm and flatter. “Just plain ol’ good luck, I’d call it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t,” she snapped, stubbornly refusing to be charmed or flattered. “What I’d call it is plain ol’ trespassing. You’re on Diamond J land, Mr. Madison, and I’d appreciate it if you’d turn that pinto around and ride back the way you came.”

“Well, now, that’s not very neighborly.” He took a moment to resettle his hat on his head, deliberately thumbing it back a bit so the brim wasn’t shadowing his face. “Downright unneighborly, I’d say. Especially considering as how I rode down here to see if I could offer you a helping hand.” He let his gaze drift downward, away from her face, and his seemingly ever-present grin warmed lasciviously. “So to speak.”

Jo Beth tightened her arms around her bent knees and tried not to squirm. “Really?” she said, injecting what she hoped was a credible amount of scorn into her voice.

It wasn’t easy.

The man was a living, breathing sexual fantasy. Her living, breathing sexual fantasy. She knew as well as she knew her own name that she could have him—right then, right there—just the way she’d imagined in those heated moments of self-induced rapture. All she had to do was say the word and he’d get down off that horse and climb into the water tank with her. She was absolutely sure of it. Just one word, and her frustrations of the last few weeks would come to what was sure to be a glorious end.

But damned if she’d say it.

Fantasy or not, the man was a cowboy. Worse, he was a four-time Pro Rodeo championship bull-riding cowboy. Which meant he was a true wild thing, more reckless, more feckless, more fancy-free and unreliable than the usual breed of cowboy. Trouble with a capital T, and she sure as hell didn’t need any more of that in her life.

She gave him her haughtiest glare, and tried to think of anything other than what he’d look like soaking wet and wearing nothing but his black Resistol hat. “I thought you rode down here because you saw someone nosing around the water tank and were concerned they were up to no good.”

“Yep,” he said amiably, wondering exactly what it would take to make her lose her cool and rattle that ironclad composure she wore like a shield. “I surely was. But then I saw you slide down into the water and start…ah…” He hesitated and his gaze dipped downward again, as if he could see beneath the sparkling surface of the water to the place where her hand had been so busily engaged just a few moments ago.

Jo Beth felt every sensitive female part of her body begin to tingle, tensing with anticipation under the promise of that heated look, but she merely smiled—a small, icy, cowboy-withering smile meant to cut a man’s ego to ribbons—and raised an imperious eyebrow, daring him to say it flat out.

“Thrashing around in the water like you were doing,” he finished smoothly, as if that’s what he’d intended to say all along. “Well, it got me to worrying. It surely did. As far away as I was, there was no telling what kind of trouble you were having.”

“Trouble? Is that what you call it?”

The look in his hot-coffee eyes heated to scorching. His wicked cowboy grin turned a shade more knowing and intimate. “Unless you’d like me to call it something else.”

Jo Beth ignored the wild leap of her pulse at the invitation implicit in his words and manner. “What I’d like is for you to turn around and ride away,” she said, knowing she was lying through her teeth. What she’d really like was for him to shuck down to his birthday suit and climb into the water tank with her so she could see if the reality of him lived up to her fantasies.

“And I’d like to oblige you, Miz Jensen,” he said genially, lying in his turn. He thumbed the brim of his hat another half inch farther back on his head. “I really would,” he said earnestly, as if he actually meant it. “But my dear sainted ma raised me up to be a gentleman like my pa—”

Jo Beth snorted inelegantly.

“—like my pa,” he reiterated, giving her a doleful look of mock censure, “an’ she’d roll over in her grave for sure if I was to just up and leave you out here by your lonesome, all unprotected and vulnerable-like. Some fella who ain’t nearly as well-mannered as me might come along an’ try to take advantage of the situation.”

The attitude, the words, the tone, the ridiculously thick aw-shucks-ma’am-I’m-just-a-dumb-cowboy accent were all calculated to make him sound as innocent as a wet-behind-the-ears farm boy. Even the way he was wearing his hat, well back on his head with the brim framing his face like a halo, contributed to the impression of a harmless good-natured hayseed bent on doing the right thing.

But the heated look in his eyes, his sly Cheshire-cat grin, even the casual loose-limbed way he sat his horse was a blatant, unabashed sexual come-on, a challenge of the most sexual sort.

I’ve got what you want, he said, without saying a word. All you have to do is ask.

And, oh, it was tempting.

He was tempting.

Too tempting.

And he knew it.

The arrogant jerk.

That’s what came of having legions of panting, dewy-eyed buckle bunnies throwing themselves at his feet every time he so much as flashed that lady-killer smile of his. It gave a man an exaggerated impression of his appeal and made him think every woman he met was just dying to get down and dirty with him.

There was only one surefire way to regain her dignity and show him he had absolutely no allure for her.

“Well, then, if you won’t leave, I will.”

She put her palms on the rim of the tank behind her and pushed herself up. The movement was swift but unhurried, as natural as if she were rising, unobserved, from her bath. And then, using every last bit of self-control she possessed, she stood there for a moment, knee deep in the trough, and calmly, efficiently sluiced water down her arms and torso with the flat of her hands, just as she would have done had she been alone.

That would show him how unimpressed she was with his cowboy charm.

He didn’t say a word, didn’t so much as move a muscle, but she could feel him watching her, could feel the heat of his gaze following her hands as she briskly skimmed them over her own body. Without looking at him she knew he was completely, absolutely, utterly focused on her. Handsome-as-sin, four-time Pro Rodeo bull-riding champion Clay Madison was looking at her. And practically drooling with lust. The sensation was as physical as a touch, as heady as brandy fumes, as irresistible as a soft, sweet kiss in the dark.

Almost without conscious volition, she raised her hands back to her chest, placing her palms flat against her skin, and moved them downward for a second time, outlining the sleek wet lines of her body as she brushed the water from her skin. Her palms slid over the gentle swell of her breasts…caressed the firm, flat plane of her midriff and stomach…brushed ever so lightly across the patch of dark silky hair covering her pubic mound…

He made a strangled sound, something between a moan and a growl.

Jo Beth looked up at him, square into his eyes. What she saw there caused her to cross her hands over her pubic mound, instinctively, as if to hide it from him. But her shoulders remained straight and square, and her chin was well up. “What?” she said belligerently, trying to pretend she wasn’t the least bit intimidated.

He didn’t move his gaze from her face. “Do you want me to climb down off this horse and get into that tank with you?”

For one brief, delicious, insane second, she actually thought about saying yes. What could it hurt, after all? One hot, fast bout of slap-and-tickle with the fantasy cowboy who’d been driving her crazy for the past week might do her some good. It would get him out of her system, relieve the itch, and settle her down for the wedding tomorrow so she could concentrate on her maid-of-honor duties. No one would know. No one would care. And he’d be gone in a couple of days, so it wasn’t like she’d be in danger of actually getting involved in any kind of messy public relationship that would need explaining somewhere down the line. She could screw him and forget him, and that would be that.

On the other hand, he had the look of a man who might not be all that easy to forget. And that could be plenty messy in its own way, even if nobody ever found out.

“Well?” he demanded, his glare both furious and fascinated.

She opened her mouth. “Ah…” The word stuck in her throat, and the horror of it was, she didn’t know if that word was yes or no. “Ah…”

Clay tightened his hand on the reins, pulling the pinto’s nose up and around with one quick twist of his wrist. “Let me know when you make up your mind,” he said, and touched his spurs to the horse’s sides so that it sprang into a gallop from a standing start.

Jo Beth stood in the water tank, her hands still shielding the dark hair at the top of her thighs, her shoulders still square, and watched him until he disappeared up and over the hill. And then she sank down onto the side of the concrete tank because her knees were trembling too hard to hold her up anymore, and wondered just what the hell she would have said if he’d waited for her answer.