Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 144435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
"I thought they were docile."
I snort. "That bull is about as docile as a rattlesnake."
"You don't say," she says, eyes wide. "I thought he was going to eat me."
"Nah. You aren't his flavor." She's becoming more my flavor by the minute, though. "He mostly slashes up cattle thieves and trespassers, tramples them real good. Once they recover, they don't usually come back a second time."
She pales, the color sliding from her face like a bedsheet falling over her.
I chuckle, carrying her up the steps to the back porch of the house. We enter through the kitchen. Cassia gawks all around, trying like hell not to let her curiosity show. She reads like a book though. Everything she thinks is right there on her face, blazing from her eyes like words on a page. Even with her glasses smudged and dirt on her cheek, there's no hiding it her rampant curiosity.
"You live here?" she asks as I carry her up the stairs.
"Yep."
"W-with your wife?"
"Don't have a wife," I grunt.
"Girlfriend?"
"Nope."
"Boyfriend?"
I narrow my eyes on her, which makes her lips twitch. She's fucking with me now, trying to get a rise out of me. I get it. This isn't a bachelor pad. It's a family home. There are photos on the walls and knickknacks on the shelves. My dad built this place for my mom. I was born and raised in this house. So were Cam and Cleary.
"Harem?" Cassia asks. "Captives? Sex slaves? Submissives? Brats? Littles? Pets?"
"I don't know what half of what you just said means," I mutter, not sure I even want to know. I've seen the shit she reads. She likes to share her book haul on her Instagram feed. "But if you're asking if I've got women tied up in the basement, the answer is no, princess." When relief steals across her adorable face, I can't help but tease her. Making her squirm is appealing to me on levels I didn't even know existed until this very moment. "At least not until we get you cleaned up and get your ankle wrapped."
She blanches, her mouth popping open. "You are not tying me up in your basement."
She's right, I'm not. I don't even have a fucking basement.
"No?" I cock a brow, carrying her into my bedroom. She's too busy gaping at me as we cross the room to notice my spare boots by the bed and my shit scattered across the top of the dresser. She doesn't see the slate gray sheets twisted up on the bed from yet another restless night of dreaming about her either. I carry her into the en-suite bathroom and deposit her on the vanity.
"No," she growls, scowling daggers at me. "I'll scream this house down around you, Cord Decker."
"Tell you what," I say, crouching to grab a towel from beneath the sink. "You tell me who you really are and what you were doing in my pasture, and I'll think about reconsidering."
"I…" She opens and closes her mouth a few times. "I already told you, I'm a horse thief."
"Cattle thief."
"Right, that." She nods empathically.
"And you chose my ranch from a distance."
"Yes."
"Where's your trailer?"
"Hmm?"
"Your trailer to transport the cattle."
"I'm a PETA people."
"You're a what?" I laugh.
"I came to liberate the cattle, not take them with me," she says, looking smug about it. It's cute, I'll give her that. But she's a shit liar.
"And you just picked my ranch at random?"
"Yes, from a distance."
"Then tell me one thing." I get up in her personal space and crook a finger beneath her chin, forcing her head back until those wide brown eyes meet mine. As soon as they do, her expression glosses over and her lips part. I want to taste them so badly it's a physical ache in my stomach, an instinct older than time.
I move toward her, so goddamn close I smell the cinnamon on her breath and the sugar on her skin. Not even the dirt and mud and muck mask the scent of her arousal or what it does to me. I'm so fucking hard up it's a full-blown tragedy.
She's been haunting me for six weeks, consuming every thought in my head, every moment of the day. I eat, sleep, and breathe this girl, and I don't know why. At least I didn't. I do now. I feel that truth—that inevitability—screaming at me. This wild, curvy little goddess is the biggest piece of my soul. The one meant to complete me.
"W-what?" she whispers, her breath washing across my face, pulling me further under her spell.
I lean in until our lips damn near touch. We're so close, I see the flecks of gold in her eyes, hear the soft hitch of her breath. "How'd you know my name, pretty baby?"
She goes completely still, even the breath freezing in her lungs.
I give her a second to stew on the question and then carefully close the distance between us. My lips touch hers in a soft kiss that isn't nearly enough to satisfy me. "Get a shower, Cassia. I'll find you something to wear."