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Wrangle Me, Cowboys_A Reverse Harem Forbidden Romance Page 8
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I wondered if the guys ever visited their dad in New York. I couldn’t imagine them hurrying around under all those lights, between so many tall buildings. As soon as I thought about them, my belly warmed at the memory of the night before. Were they thinking about it this morning, too?
A delicious shiver went through me when I remembered the way Waylon had just thrown me down on the table and devoured me. Picturing it made me wet, my body heating up in anticipation of it happening again. I couldn’t wait to feel his tongue inside me …Sawyer’s playful lips on my skin…Holden’s simple words that made me feel so very naughty.
If Charlie liked bad girls, well, he’d love me now.
I snuggled into my parka with a smug smile at the thought of him coming over to Haley’s after I caught him cheating. Begging for me to hear him out while I pelted his car with eggs. To my surprise, the memory no longer tore into my heart like barbed wire through skin. Maybe what they said was true. The best way to get over a guy was to get under another.
And I’d sure done that. Well, I still hadn’t technically had sex, but I was calling that a technicality. Waylon had all the way fucked me the night before. There was no other way to describe the way his tongue had plunged into me, opening me and claiming me. Picturing it had me squirming in the saddle, tightening my knees against the horse. Van Gogh must have taken that as an urge to go faster, because she began to canter smoothly along the trail.
The motion did not help my situation. As she rocked under me, I began to move with the rhythm. Okay, now I knew why women in the old days had to ride side-saddle. If I scooched forward just a little bit, the saddle horn rubbed right against my swollen, needy clit. Enjoying the sensation, I scooted forward a bit more, holding onto the saddle horn with one hand and rocking against it. I pictured Sawyer’s cock as he’d stroked it the night before. Instead of a saddle horn, I was grinding against Sawyer’s shaft.
I gripped the head of it, rocking faster, picturing his strong hands around my hips, helping me along.
Unfortunately, his strong hands were not there to steady me when Van Gogh veered as she slipped on the snow. My foot swung free of the stirrup, but Van Gogh quickly regained her stride. My foot flailed for the stirrup, but in my awkward position, too far forwards on the saddle, I couldn’t get it. Dropping the reigns, I threw my arms around her neck, clinging on for dear life. As I stretched my leg towards the stirrup, I suddenly slipped towards that side. I tried to throw my balance back to center, but it was too late. One second I was on her back, and the next I was on my back.
Fuck.
I’d just tried to masturbate while riding a horse. There was something seriously wrong with me.
Something called need-to-get-laid-itis.
Now I was a mile from the house, lying in a foot of snow, while Van Gogh was probably well on her way home. Or hell, she had probably done that on purpose and was now skipping about like the sassy wench she was, glad to be free.
At least the snow had cushioned my fall. I pushed myself up, only to see one of the side-by-sides puttering along the trail from the other direction. Well, this was just craptastic. One of the guys had yet again witnessed me looking like a complete idiot. But hey, it was their fault. If it was Sawyer, I might even tell him why I’d fallen.
As the cart drew closer, I stood and brushed snow off my butt with the thick gloves Holden had gotten me in town. When I turned back, the side-by-side was bumping along the trail, almost on me.
My heart sank. It wasn’t one of the guys. Mr. Grimes was coming to my rescue.
17
Amber
Suddenly, having one of my stepbrothers see my latest farm folly seemed like a wonderful option. Definitely preferable to creepy Mr. Grimes.
“That was some kind of acrobatics,” he said as the cart rocked to a halt.
“Yeah, I guess I’m not the best rider yet,” I said.
“You were awfully far forward in the saddle,” he said, studying my face with narrowed eyes.
“Was I?” I asked innocently, trying to keep the heat of my indignation from rising to my face.
Had the creep been watching me? Oh my God, did he know what I’d been doing? Had he seen me squirming around, rubbing against the saddle horn?
I wanted to die.
“I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Grimes said after a minute. “I’ll give you a ride home if you hop up in here and give me some of what you been giving those brothers of yours.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know what you city girls are like,” he said. “A different dick every night of the week. Now you come out here, probably got yourself a necklace with keys to each of your brother’s bedrooms. At least I’m not kin to you.”
My mouth dropped open as he unzipped his canvas coveralls.
“If that pussy’s not too good to share with your own brothers, it’s not too good to share with me,” he said. “What’s one more dick going to matter at this point?”
He pulled out his wrinkly old cock and gave it a good stroke. I tried not to gag as it flopped about, half erect.
“I know why you’re here,” Grimes said. “My wife says you got in trouble back in New York. Got knocked up, did you? Don’t worry, I’ve been snipped. You can ride this stallion bareback.”
Stallion? I might have laughed out loud if I wasn’t so horrified. I mean, I’d been flashed on the sidewalk in New York before, but it wasn’t like I stuck around to see those scrawny dicks struggling to get hard in twenty-degree weather.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I screeched, at last finding my voice. “You’re propositioning me in the same sentence as you’re talking about your wife?”
“Don’t pretend you got morals,” he said. “Not when you’re letting your brothers diddle you every night. Besides, the wife’s all worn out like an old sock. Now hop up in here and let me get my dick in that pussy while it’s still young and fresh.”
This was why I carried pepper spray in my purse.
But I didn’t carry it out here. There were exactly four men in a ten mile radius from me, and I wanted three of them. I didn’t figure I’d need it. But of course it would be that fourth guy who would remind me why I carried protection in the first place.
Since I didn’t have any, I bent over, grabbed a giant handful of snow, and hurled it into his lap, right on his scrawny little pencil dick.
“You can take your little golf cart and stick it up your side-by-side ass,” I said.
Good one, Amber. What does that even mean?
But apparently, it didn’t have to make sense. He got the message. He started beating snow off his dick and howling curses at me. “You’re going to regret this, you dirty whore,” he bellowed.
“I seriously doubt that,” I said. But because I was basically defenseless, I thought it might be wise to remind him that the Westling brothers had my back. “And if you try to make trouble, I’ll tell the guys what you said to me.”
“You’re nothing but a worthless cock-tease,” he said, shoving himself back into his coveralls. “I didn’t say anything you didn’t invite. You’re a cheap slut, spreading your legs for every man on the ranch, and then having the nerve to act surprised when a man gets in line for his turn.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I said, my hands balling into fists. For a horrible moment, I thought I might cry. What if that’s how it looked to everyone else? Haley’s words echoed in my mind. Everyone who found out would have this reaction. I’d be the filthy whore who let her stepbrothers pass her around to get their rocks off.
Then an even worse thought entered my mind. What if the guys saw it that way, too? That I was just something to share, a good fuck followed by high-fives all around?
“I know one thing about you,” Grimes said. “If you know what’s good for you and those brothers of yours, you’ll keep your mouth shut about this. I’d hate to see them lose the ranch over a lousy piece of ass. You’re probably so loose I’d be rattling around in there like a pencil in
a tin can.”
“You got the pencil part right,” I shot back.
“Enjoy your walk,” he said with a nasty smile, and he shifted into gear and drove off, leaving me fuming in the snow.
I was so pissed I thought my head would explode. I kicked savagely at the snow, sending sprays of it up into the sunlight, where it fell, glittering like…well, glitter. After a minute, my fury had receded, and I stopped kicking and took a breath, wiping snow off my pants and turning back towards the house. I couldn’t even see it from here.
Trying to keep the cold from seeping through my boots into my feet, I wiped off the toes of my riding boots. It didn’t matter much, though. I wasn’t wearing snow boots, or ski boots, or even Uggs. I was wearing leather riding boots, and my toes were like ice within a minute. Stomping towards the house, I began to fume all over again.
Stupid Grimes. Stupid Van Gogh. Stupid brothers for making me so sexually frustrated I’d tried to get off on a moving horse. Stupid Mom for sending me out here. Stupid Charlie for never wanting to have sex with me but letting some random ginger ride his face. Stupid Senator Westling for marrying my mother in Africa and thinking it was a good idea to tell me on the same night they told the rest of the political world.
By the time I made it back to the house, I was thoroughly frozen and twice as pissed as when I’d started walking.
I barged into the house and straight to the kitchen, where the wood stove was crackling. Sawyer was at the cook stove, frying bacon.
“Where you been?” he asked. “You look cold.”
“I am cold,” I growled, ripping off my gloves and tossing them on the table. “I just walked about a mile in the snow.”
“What’d you do that for?” he asked, barely glancing at me.
“Because your douche-nozzle farmhand wouldn’t give me a ride unless I agree to have sex with him.”
So much for not telling the guys. I was way too pissed to play that game.
That got Sawyer’s attention, though. He turned from the stove, a fork in one hand, his face weirdly devoid of emotion. “What did you say?”
I gulped. Maybe opening my mouth had been a huge mistake, like Grimes had warned. The guys were so loyal, and for all I knew, Grimes had been living there since their grandfather owned the ranch.
“Um, I didn’t, obviously,” I said.
“But he asked you to?”
“I’m not sure if he actually asked,” I said.
“Go ring the dinner bell for me,” he said, turning back to the stove.
My eyes stung. That was it? So as long as Grimes had politely asked me to hop on his shriveled old penis, it was okay?
Swallowing hard, I headed out back to ring the bell. What else could I do? It wasn’t like Grimes had hurt me. He hadn’t tried anything. He’d just showed me his dick, and it wasn’t like I’d never seen one of those before.
I rang the bell and trudged back inside, hung up my jacket, and started up the stairs.
“Can you come in here a minute, Amber?” Sawyer asked.
I readied myself for the worst and stepped back into the kitchen. “What’s up?” I asked, suddenly feeling awkward in the house I’d gotten so used to that I thought of it as home now.
“I want you to tell us exactly what happened,” he said. “When we’re all here.”
Holden came in, stomping off his boots by the door before entering the kitchen. My heart started hammering as we waited for Waylon. I never knew how he’d react.
When at last he showed up, my hands were thawed and I was warming my toes next to the wood stove. Sawyer had set four plates of BLTs on the table, and I slid into a chair, dreading this moment. On the walk back, I’d imagined telling them and then going out to tell off that pervert. But now that I had to say those things out loud, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want the guys to know that anyone saw me that way, even an old perv like Grimes.
“Grimes needs to go,” Sawyer said before I could speak.
“What?” I squeaked.
Waylon frowned and picked up his sandwich.
“What happened?” Holden asked.
“He crossed the line,” Sawyer said. “With Amber.”
Three sets of eyes fixed on me. Sawyer’s usually playful blue eyes were steady and fierce. Holden’s warm brown eyes were reassuring and concerned. Waylon’s dark eyes were stormy and…a bit frightening. I gulped and set down my sandwich without taking a bite.
“What did he do?” Waylon asked, his voice flat.
“He didn’t do anything,” I said. “Well, I mean, he didn’t do anything to me. He just whipped out his dick and kind of…told me to…you know. Sit on it. Or, I think the word he used was ride.”
Holden’s eyes bulged, and he reached out to take my hand. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “He told me not to tell you or we’d all be sorry, so I probably shouldn’t have, but—.”
“You should have,” Waylon said.
“I should have told you, or I should have…?”
“Told us,” he growled. “You’re one of us now. What happens to one of us, happens to all of us.”
“If that’s the case, then next time I’d appreciate it if I wasn’t the one who actually had to see the disgusting little grub.”
Waylon stood, his chair legs scraping the floor. “There won’t be a next time,” he said.
Without a word, the other two stood, picked up their hats, and followed him out. I ran out on the porch after them before I remembered I’d taken off my boots to warm my feet. “Don’t kill him,” I begged, grabbing Holden’s arm.
“Go back inside,” he said, his voice gentle but firm. “We’ll be back soon.”
What had they said about cowboy justice? I definitely should have kept my mouth shut. Probably. Surely they wouldn’t really kill him. I mean, this wasn’t the wild west. But the way they strode off towards the barn, not in a crazy way like they were going to beat the shit out of him but in a purposeful way, made me cold all the way to my toes.
Not that my poor toes needed another reason to be cold. The pain of standing on the frozen porch got the better of me, and I ran back inside. I started to put on my boots, but then I realized that whatever cowboy justice involved, I didn’t want to see it. I’d already been arrested once this year, and I didn’t want to be an accomplice in someone’s murder, or a witness in his castration, or have anything else to do with Grimes—ever. I’d seen more than enough of him to last a lifetime.
So I slumped down on the couch and called Haley.
18
Amber
“I saw my first real-life penis,” I told Haley a few minutes later, after she’d told me about the community service her mom was making her do.
“Oooh, which one?” she asked.
“Two, actually,” I said. “One was not impressive.”
“Aww,” she said, laughing. “Did one of the brothers get the short end of the dick? I mean, stick?”
“It’s not one of the brothers,” I said. And then for the second time that day, I recounted events with Grimes.
“Oh my God, that’s so gross,” she squealed, which made me feel totally validated. I started to relax.
“It really was,” I said. “I’m glad I saw Sawyer’s yesterday or that would have been my first mental dick pic.”
“No, there was that guy who flashed us outside the pizza place,” she said.
“Oh, and that one in Central Park when we were kids.”
“Oh, God, I forgot about him,” she agreed. “But then, I have a brother who ran around with no pants until he was, like, ten.”
“Eww,” I said. “Actually, I guess I saw Mark’s, too. Does it count if I don’t remember?”
“Definitely not,” she said decisively. “So, are you going to tell me all about Sawyer’s penis, or am I going to have to come out there and see it for myself?”
Before I could answer, Holden came back in, stomped the snow off his boots, and took off his hat. I told Haley I’d
call her later, since I didn’t really want to describe Sawyer’s cock with his brother in the room. I still wasn’t sure how much they were okay with sharing.
“What happened?” I asked Holden when I’d hung up.
Holden shrugged. “My brothers will take care of him.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, jumping up and going to the window. I couldn’t see anyone out there.
“He’ll be fine,” Holden said, taking my shoulder and turning me towards him.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” He looked me straight in the eye, and I relaxed a little. Holden wouldn’t lie to me. He towered over me, and yet, I felt nothing but safe with him there. When a car started outside, he pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me. I rested my head against his wide, strong chest. “What about you?” he murmured. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just grossed out,” I said. “And I really didn’t want anything to happen to him. I mean, I was pissed, but it wasn’t a big deal.”
“It is a big deal,” he said quietly. “No one disrespects our girl like that.”
I felt a swell of warmth inside, and I snuggled closer to his chest. I was their girl.
*
Holden stayed with me for an hour, holding me in front of the fire until the door swung open and the others stomped in. Sawyer hung up his coat and came to warm himself by the fire with us.
“Well?” I asked. “What happened?”
“He won’t be bothering you again,” Waylon said flatly.
“Did you…” I broke off and gulped, not sure I wanted to know the answer to the next question. “Is he still alive?”
“If he’d laid a finger on you, he wouldn’t be,” Waylon said. He shoved his hat lower on his head and glowered at the fire. “It’s going to be tough around here without him.”
“What are you saying?” I asked. “It’s not my fault you kicked his ass. I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“And no one is blaming you,” Holden assured me, squeezing my shoulders.
“He got what was coming to him,” Sawyer said. “I just don’t know how we’re going to replace him. Not this winter, that’s for sure.”