Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 44297 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44297 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
His fingers press against my panties, testing. Then they tease at the edge of the fabric, meeting slick flesh, slipping inside where I’m warm and wet. Embarrassingly wet.
And he knows it.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, his tongue trailing the underside of my nipple. “All cream and honey.”
I grip his shoulder with one hand, the edge of the dresser with the other. He sucks harder. His fingers work deeper. The ache is unbearable. The pleasure is worse. I’m not just a body responding to his hands. I’m a woman craving what I haven’t had in too long, aching for attention, comfort and connection.
But this is wrong. He’s my stepbrother. This is a job I desperately need, and now I’m coming apart under the expert touch of a man who’s supposed to be giving me a second chance. I’m risking everything.
My body gives up before my mind does.
I don’t mean to come. Not like this with his mouth still drawing milk and his fingers stroking that deep spot that makes me cry out, but I do. It tears through me in a rush, making my hips jerk and my milk let down faster, thighs clenching around his wrist. I hear myself moan his name from a distant plain where harps play softly and stars flicker in a midnight sky.
Wade keeps feeding while I fall apart.
Only when I go soft against him, boneless and panting, does he finally pull back. Wipes his mouth. Straightens.
His eyes are dark and satisfied.
“You taste better than anything, Joelle, and I mean anything!”
I laugh, flushed and dizzy, flushing harder as he sucks the fingers one by one that were moments ago between my legs.
I’m trembling, my knees weak as I steady myself against the furniture, my pussy pulsing hard around nothing. The front of his jeans is tented but he gives no other indication that he’s seeking satisfaction of any kind, and I don’t understand why. Doesn’t he want me? Is this really about him helping me relieve my little problem? Wade never struck me as a man overflowing with altruism.
“You’re going to ruin me,” I whisper, my mouth running away with me, confessing a truth I should hold close to my heart rather than hang out in the midday sun.
But I mean it, because part of me already feels claimed by this cowboy, and I don’t know if I should stay or run.
There are other places I could go. Other ranches that might need a live-in cook and housekeeper. But I don’t have time to drive these mostly desert lands, anymore than I have money for gas.
Wade grins, and it crinkles his cloud-gray eyes to perfection.
He cups my cheek with his work-roughened palm. “That’s the idea, sweet little Joelle. That’s the idea.”
Chapter 8
Caleb
We’re resetting the fence line when I hear it. At first, it sounds like a startled breath, soft and quick. Then it rises; a long moan cutting across the pasture and hitting me right in the chest.
I stop cold. My hand stills on the post I was about to drive, and everything in me goes tense. Heat runs straight up my neck. I know that sound. That’s a woman reaching a very satisfying end, and there’s only one woman on this ranch, and one man missing from this work crew.
No. No way. It cannot be what it sounds like.
Joelle is our stepsister. The quiet, sharp-eyed girl from the worst months of my life. She lived here when my father was dying, stayed in that small bedroom down the hall, listening to the house fall apart around us. Her mother tried to pick the place clean after he passed, then left in a rush when the will locked her out.
Now Joelle is back, and five minutes after breakfast, Wade is up there making her cry out like that? I tell myself she could have dropped something, hit her knee, or slammed a drawer on her hand.
But that sound… no one moans like that from a bruise.
Eli looks up from the corner of the corral and grins. “Sounds like Boss is gettin’ his morning protein.”
Rick snorts. “Least she’ll be feelin’ better. Girl looked ready to pop this morning.”
I stare hard at the hammer in my hand, like the right amount of focus could drown out her voice. It does not work. Not when the crew is tossing the same thoughts around that I’m trying to bury.
“She get work done, you think?” I say before I can stop myself, curving my hands over my pecs.
Eli quirks an eyebrow. “Her tits?”
I nod. “They’re just… big. Swollen.”
Rick huffs. “That ain’t surgery, son. That’s biology. Girl’s lactatin’. You never seen that before?”
I shake my head, throat tight like something lodged in it.
Eli stretches his arms, lazy and smug. “Surprised her spine hasn’t given out.”
I should not picture her, but my mind serves her up anyway. Her shirt pulled tight. Her breasts heavy. Skin warm, maybe flushed. Nipples aching to the point of leaking. My body reacts before I can shut it down, and I hate how easy it is to imagine her needing someone to help with all that pressure.