ShotgunRelations

Shotgun Relations

Ann Jacobs

Book two in the Caden Kink series.

A modern-day
Liberty Valance meets The Big Valley.

Jack Duval,
country lawyer and bastard son of the Caden patriarch, first discovers rancher
Liz Wolfe when he goes after her to spite his father. Soon, though, he learns
she’s the submissive partner of his wildest fantasies.

But rustlers and
murderers interrupt their hot BDSM play, and Jack must reveal secrets that may
tear the two apart before he and Liz can move on to the next step toward
happily ever after.

Shotgun Relations

Ann Jacobs

Chapter One

The only time he’d been here before, Jack
Duval hadn’t fully noticed the unabashed opulence of the huge Bar C ranch house
with its Grecian columns and manicured grounds, but then he’d come for a
burial, not a wedding. His asshole father had obviously pulled out all the
stops today to celebrate his legitimate heir’s marriage. This shindig was
likely costing Byron Caden the Fourth more than the paltry trust fund the jerk
had settled on Jack’s mother and him when he’d kissed them both off not long
ago.

Jack would bet it had burned the elder
Caden’s balls to invite him here today, but after all he did share a law office
in town with his half-brother’s not-so-blushing bride. Of course he’d have been
here as Liz Wolfe’s date for the affair anyway, whether or not he’d had his own
invitation. He made a point of taking Liz’s hand and squeezing it, and when he
did she looked over at him and smiled. That smile was a shy but unmistakable
invitation, and he could hardly wait to accept it.

Tempering his impatience, he reminded
himself that she wasn’t one of his BDSM playmates and they’d only had a few
dinner dates and seen a couple of movies together over the past few months.
Jack did enjoy being with her though—a lot. She had a way of making him forget
the reason he’d initially put the moves on her.

Liz was a girl who looked best in jeans and
a cowboy hat, with her thick, light-brown hair put up in a ponytail. Or in the
black embroidered skirt and low-cut matching top she’d worn with black cowboy
boots last night, when they’d danced and drunk some beer at The Corral. Today
she seemed out of place, dressed up in her wedding-guest finery. He didn’t much
like her turned-under pageboy hairdo or the floppy pink wide-brimmed hat that
shadowed her face, and the best thing he could think of doing with her insipid
silky pink dress was ripping it off her tall, slender frame.

What turned Jack on the most about Liz was
the needy, longing look in her big brown eyes. Jack was eager to cash in on
that need and make her focus it on him.

Bye was kissing his bride now. Jack
couldn’t help remembering the night when he’d played with the two of them at
the Neon Lasso, or getting an instant hard-on at the memory of fucking Karen’s
tight ass while Bye had claimed her cunt with his oversize dick. Good thing
Jack wasn’t quite as well-endowed as the guy he’d learned not long after that
scene was his younger, bigger and tougher half sibling, only from the right
side of the blanket. If he were, he’d be pretty much out of luck finding
partners to butt-fuck, and that was one of his favorite ways to pleasure a sub
of either sex.

Discovering their blood relationship had
ended the possibility of him and Bye having more pleasurable threesomes—not
that Jack thought Bye would have shared Karen again once they’d begun to see
each other as more than favorite playmates at the club. The two seemed
positively, sickeningly attached at the hip, no longer interested in watching,
much less playing sex games at the club.

“Look, Jack. Karen looks so pretty, and I
don’t think I’ve ever seen Bye looking quite this happy.”

Karen was a beauty whether she had on white
lace or nothing. Part of Jack wished Liz was the kind of woman strangers turned
and stared at when she was at his side, but then he’d figured out years ago
that most truly hot women weren’t as submissive as he needed a partner to be.

Bye had a sappy grin on his face as he and
Karen moved from the altar toward the porch, where Jack assumed they’d greet
their guests. He didn’t intend to let any woman tie him up in knots, although
he could be persuaded to hook up with one if she brought him not only pleasure
in the sack but also an easy friendship outside the bedroom. Since he didn’t
have the prospect of inheriting a fortune from his old man, a big pot of money
would be icing on the cake.

He smiled down at Liz. It just might be
that she’d fill the bill. “Yeah. Karen and Bye look good together. Shall we
make our way over to where they’ve set up for the reception?”

“We probably should. They may not have
places assigned at the tables.”

If Karen had assigned places to all the
guests, Jack figured they would probably be seated next to Liz’s mother and whoever
she was paired up with, unless his old man had snagged Mavis Wolfe to be his
partner at the head table. Jack herded Liz along the white-carpeted aisle.

Tonight will be the night she’ll submit
to me,
he thought, taking into consideration the
emotions weddings seemed to bring out in most women. “We’ll skip the receiving
line if you don’t mind.”

Her eyes widened. “We can’t do that. I have
to say hello to Bye. We went to school together, from kindergarten through high
school.”

“All right.” It was a wonder Bye hadn’t
latched on to Liz. Jack’s research into the Caden family’s history had revealed
that Bye was the first Caden male to marry any woman who hadn’t brought with
her a nice chunk of adjacent land to the Bar C. Of course Karen might
eventually contribute a little acreage once her crazy, drunk old man kicked
off, but that was no sure thing considering the way Slade Oakley hated
everybody named Caden.

Slade seemed docile enough now, but Jack
figured the rehab center attendants who’d come with him were keeping him zonked
out of his gourd, or else he’d be shooting guns instead of shuffling along
meekly between two burly guys wearing institutional-looking gray slacks and
navy blazers. A nicely dressed woman—a shrink, probably—tailed them almost
closer than was polite.

Forcing a neutral smile, Jack put his hand
at the back of Liz’s waist and they took spots behind Slade and his entourage
in the long line waiting to shake Bye’s hand and kiss the latest Bar C bride.

* * * * *

Seeing Bye look at Karen as though she’d
hung the moon made Liz yearn for Jack to look at her that way, but she doubted
that would happen. She’d settle for the good companionship and mutual respect
she’d found with him.

The hell she would. She wanted him to look
at her with passion the way her good friend was gazing down on his bride.
Sometimes Liz had thought for a fleeting moment that she saw desire in Jack’s
dark eyes, but it hadn’t materialized into anything concrete.

She loved the way he held her when they
danced, with total self-confidence. He had a way of making her feel possessed,
cared for, his touch not tentative yet not overtly sexual either. Jack Duval
acted the perfect gentleman—the conservative lawyer whose outer façade she
wanted to strip away.

Once it was gone she sensed he’d become a
different man—a lover neither conservative nor gentlemanly. She was anxious for
that time to come when he’d show her the mastery that so far he’d revealed only
in occasional hints.

“Let’s go home now,” Jack suggested after
they’d eaten and danced a few times—almost the moment after Bye and Karen had
sneaked away to the Bar C’s airstrip to begin their honeymoon.

Liz didn’t mind. She didn’t know whether it
had been the effect of the wedding itself or the equivalent of a bottle or so
of French champagne she’d drunk in toast after toast to Bye and Karen, but her
skin tingled everywhere Jack had touched her and even where he’d just brushed
up against her when they’d danced.

She wanted him, and she wanted him to know
it. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t at all sure his feelings for her went
beyond mild affection—and possibly a desire to tap into the wealth of the
Laughing Wolf, as her ranch foreman had suggested earlier, before Jack had
picked her up for the wedding. She wanted him to take care of her needy pussy.
She was tired of acting prim and proper, the way her mother expected her to,
and she was sick that her social life for the past few years had been confined
to sharing a beer with the cowboys after long days herding cattle and riding
fences.

Jack’s body heat called out to her, so she
answered by scrunching up as close to him as she could get. The center console
of his Toyota Camry dug into her hip. So he couldn’t mistake her intentions,
she rested her hand dangerously close to his crotch, wishing she had the nerve
to come right out and ask him to fuck her.

Apparently she didn’t need to say the
words, because Jack reached over and stroked her inner thigh as he turned
toward town instead of heading straight for the Laughing Wolf. “How about us
stopping by my place for a nightcap?”

“I’d love to. Mmm. That feels good.”
Feeling daring, she moved her hand up to his crotch.

When her fingers grazed his balls through
the tropical-weight wool of his gray pinstriped suit pants, he chuckled.
“You’re playing with fire, honey.”

She wanted to get burned, so she found his
erection and wrapped her fingers around it. “I’m tired of being good. I can
take the heat.”

“You sure? If you play with me, you’re
gonna get fucked six ways from Sunday. I’m not one of your vanilla boyfriends
who’ll let you lead him around by the nose.” He paused, a thoughtful look on
his handsome face. “If we’re going to play, you’ve got to change the limits. I
want everything, not just the few kisses and hugs you’ve let me have so far.
And not just a quick roll between the sheets either.”

Liz wanted it all, even though she wasn’t
sure what “all” might entail. “Believe me. I want to be as happy as Karen
looked tonight. All the limits are off, for you.”

Jack pulled into the driveway of the small,
contemporary house he’d bought shortly after setting up his practice here in
Caden, Texas. “All of them? Do you know what you’re saying?”

“I know.” She might not know exactly what
he meant, but she knew she wanted to break out of the safe, boring life she’d
been leading for most of her twenty-eight years.

“What if I take a notion to tie you up and
tickle you or spank you until your butt turns red?” The light from his porch
was pretty dim but she saw the gleam in his eyes and the hard set of his jaw.

The idea of some light BDSM play made her
pussy clench with anticipation. “I trust you, Jack.” When he slid his hand up
and cupped her mound, she spread her legs to give him better access.

“Then let’s go inside and play. But we have
to talk first. You have to understand what I need from my lover. I’m not an
easy sort of guy.”

* * * * *

Liz didn’t understand why Jack had sat her
down on the black leather sectional sofa that dominated his living room and
immediately excused himself to fix snacks she doubted either of them could eat.
She was stuffed from the sumptuous three-course meal they’d eaten at the
wedding reception and her head was still buzzing. No doubt she’d had too much
of the free-flowing Moët champagne while repeatedly toasting Bye and his bride.

Like Jack himself, his living room seemed
conventional and scholarly, much like his law office above The Corral.
Off-white walls and golden oak floors contrasted with the black sofa and
black-and-chrome furniture. The few splashes of blood red on a predominantly
black abstract painting on one wall seemed out of character with the rest of
the décor. The only other color was in a multicolored afghan draped over a
lone, very old-looking straight chair against the wall.

Damn it to hell. She didn’t want Jack to be
the dutiful host. She wanted him to take her to his bed and fuck her brains
out.

It may have taken her a few dates to figure
it out, but she knew now. She wanted the hot young lawyer who supposedly got
his rocks off at the sex club called the Neon Lasso. She’d enjoy him as long as
she could, even knowing he was more than she could expect to hold on to for
more than a brief affair.

When she looked in the large mirror on the
far wall, she confirmed the likelihood that was true. A woman who wasn’t ugly
but was certainly no beauty stared back at her, reinforcing what she’d first
realized when she was twelve years old. At five-eight then, she’d towered over
everybody in their middle school class except her friend, Bye Caden, who’d
already been over six feet tall. Since then she’d stopped growing up, but she’d
never really lost her lanky, colt-like body and was still too tall to wear
stilettos around ninety percent of the men she knew.

Including Jack. From a distance he’d looked
tall as well as hot as hell with his arresting almost black eyes, strong nose
and stubborn jaw. She’d first singled him out at The Corral a year or so ago
because he wore his dark-brown hair in what she thought was called a
high-and-tight. Shaved down to nothing but a dark shadow except for the horseshoe-shaped
ring of crisp, slightly darker stubble around the crown of his perfectly shaped
skull, it was as military-short as that of any Marine she’d ever seen on
recruiting posters. She liked the no-nonsense, take-charge look of that
haircut, which looked out of place with his conventional suit and tie and the
businesslike black briefcase he carried. Tell the truth, she’d been itching
ever since that day to feel that intriguing, dark stubble against her skin so
she could learn if it felt smooth or scratchy.

Jack obviously hadn’t noticed her at all
back then. He hadn’t paid her an ounce of attention until a few months ago,
when he’d surprisingly come on to her at the local watering hole and barbecue
joint that was the only place to get a beer or something to eat in tiny Caden.

When he’d come up and stood beside her at
the bar, she’d realized he wasn’t nearly as big as he’d looked from a distance.
He stood maybe half an inch below six feet, only the height of a pair of modest
heels taller than she was. That hadn’t mattered though. He was still the
hottest man she’d ever laid eyes on and he’d made it clear that when he was
with her he’d be the one in charge. She needed a man to take charge in a
relationship, since she was the one who’d had to call the shots at the Laughing
Wolf since coming back from college six years ago.