Taken, Not Spurred (Lone Star Burn) (17 page)

He didn’t wait for their response to his announcement as he had much more pressing matters on his mind. Like how to get his little blonde angel’s pink-and-green checkered luggage out of the guest room and back where it belonged.

Sarah was still fuming ten minutes later when she heard the sound of Tony’s heavy boots on the main stairs. She peered out the small window in the guest room and saw Melanie and the men gathering up the plates and clearing the table.

The door behind her opened and shut.

Without looking away from the window, Sarah said quietly, “If you’re here to say anything except you’re sorry, do yourself a favor and leave now.”

After a pause, Tony replied, “And if I am?”

Sarah turned slowly toward him, clasping her hands in front of her to stop them from shaking. She was angry, hopeful, scared. Maybe this was one day that should end the same way it started, with them not talking to each other. She looked up at him and waited.

He stood there, frowning at her for a painfully long time.

When she couldn’t take it anymore some of her frustration burst out. “Do you know what the worst part about the whole thing was? You didn’t even introduce me.”

Tony looked a bit cornered when he admitted, “I didn’t know all of their names.”

Sarah’s mouth fell open. “Are you joking?”

“No.”

She shook her head in wonder. “You honestly didn’t know their names? So, David was serious when he said you didn’t notice he rehired men you’d fired?”

Tony’s steady look was as much of an affirmative as she was going get.

“How does that happen?”

Tony shrugged. “I don’t want to know them. David deals with them. All I do is train the horses.”

Sarah sat on the edge of the bed, absorbing the enormity of what he’d shared. “I knew you distanced yourself from everyone, but I didn’t realize the extent of it.”

He leaned on the doorjamb without responding.

In a near whisper, Sarah asked, “What are you afraid of?”

Tony straightened from the door. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

Sarah stood and moved to stand directly in front of him, searching his face for signs of what she suspected. “Are you sure? You can’t be happy with your life the way it is.”

He glared down at her. “I was happy before you came.”

His comment hit Sarah like a punch, knocking her momentarily off balance. Then a thought occurred to her, and she set her mouth determinedly.
He wants me angry. That’s how he keeps everyone at a distance.
She countered his jab with a smack of reality. “No, you weren’t.”
You were hiding, numb. Too afraid to even get to know the names of the people who work here.

He pushed a hand through the back of her hair and dragged her closer to him, tipping her head up toward him. “You’re not the first woman to think she can change me.” When she gasped and struggled to pull away, he held her there, with her chest heaving against his own. He ran the finger of his free hand down the exposed arch of her neck and traced the round neckline of her dress. “But I do enjoy letting you try.”

Despite how her body pulsed and yearned, Sarah stood rigid in his hold. Strangle him or kiss him? Both sounded equally pleasurable. “Do you want me to hate you?”

His hands dropped away, his face tight with torment as he glared down at her. “No.”

There it is, just the slightest ray of hope—the reason I can’t give up on him.

Sarah took in a steadying breath and said, “Then stop pushing me away.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it mussed in a sexy way that Sarah cautioned her libido to ignore. He met her eyes with an openness she hadn’t seen since the cabin and said, “I’m sorry about dinner.”

Sarah touched his tense jaw with one soft hand. “It’s okay. Part of it was my fault. I knew you didn’t want it, but I thought that once we were all together, you would see how it could be. I didn’t mean to make things worse.”

“You didn’t.”

Really? Then why do you look so miserable? What is holding you back from being happy?
“When we were at the cabin you laughed. You smiled and joked. Why can’t you do that here?”

At first, she didn’t think Tony would answer, but then he took her hand from his cheek and held it in his. “The cabin was different. It wasn’t real, so I didn’t care.” Sarah tensed and pulled at her hand, but he gripped it and said, “That came out wrong.”

It better have.

Tony tipped her face up again with a finger beneath her chin. “When I start thinking I know what I’m doing, really know—that’s when things fall apart. It’s never as good as you think it is, and if you let yourself believe it is, you’re setting yourself up for a bad fall.”

Sarah looked up into his beautiful green eyes and prompted, “Please tell me. Let me in.”

Tony pulled her to his chest, unwilling or unable to look her in the eye as he opened up to her. “My mother left when I was real young. I don’t remember her, but I do remember wanting to find her. I used to ask about her all the time. Didn’t matter who I met, I interrogated them. I was sure that if I asked enough people, I’d find her. You know what I found? Dean. Seems my mother left soon after I was born because she found out my father had been married before and never told her. Neither woman wanted anything to do with my father until Dean’s mother decided it was important for brothers to know each other.”

“So, Dean’s really your half brother?”

“Half, whole, it never mattered. We’re not close.”

“Did he want to be?”

“I don’t know what the hell he wanted, but after I found him I couldn’t shake him. He was always visiting, sometimes with the mother he got along so well with. All it ever did was set my father and me to fighting until we couldn’t be in the same room anymore. My father always told me that the fewer questions a man asked, the happier he tended to be. He was right about that. I moved out at sixteen because my father and I couldn’t talk without coming to blows.”

Sarah hugged him as he went on. “I used to believe in what I was doing with horses. I had all the answers. I lost that and more when Kimberly died.” He shuddered against her, betraying how much it had cost him to relive both heartaches.

Gazing up at him, Sarah said, “I wish I could guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to either one of us again. If they ever do invent a time machine, I’ll be the first one in line to go back and try to do most of it better. But until then, this is the only life I’m going to have and I don’t want to waste any more of it. You helped me see that. It took coming here to see that I was only half alive up North. I could blame my parents. I could blame my brother. I could even blame Doug. But no one did that to me. I did it. I let my life become so much less than it was meant to be. I won’t make that mistake twice.”

His heart thudded in his chest as she continued.

“Life is scary, but I think it’s supposed to be. If you’re living it right, that is.”

He hugged her tighter against him. “What do you want from me, Sarah?”

She met his eyes and dared the truth. “A chance.”

He nodded and ran a finger teasingly over the neckline of her dress. “And in return?”

Sarah raised herself onto her tiptoes and whispered, “A confession.”

He growled deep in his throat, “I like that. Tell me.”

Rubbing herself against him, Sarah said, “When you grabbed the back of my head and pulled me to you, I liked it.”

He reenacted his early move, burying his hand in the back of her hair and holding her helplessly immobile before him. “You mean this?”

She sighed through parted lips, “Yes.”

He claimed her lips with his, teasing, testing, while he boldly slid a hand beneath the back hem of her dress, cupping her ass roughly. “You like it rough?”

Sarah playfully struggled against his hold, loving how easily he restrained her. “I don’t know, but I’d like to try it out,” she admitted.

His mouth closed over hers again, his tongue deep within her mouth, demanding a submission she gladly gave. With one strong move, he ripped her thong off. There was a sting to the move. Sarah moaned into the kiss, loving how the slight pain flooded her with want.

He growled into her ear. “I told you earlier that there’d be a price to pay for inviting everyone to dinner.”

Sarah wasn’t sure if his anger was fake or real, and she didn’t know if she cared.

He pulled away from her and took off his belt. Her eyes rounded as she realized she should have defined rough before the game started.

He laughed and dropped the belt, along with the rest of his clothing, to the floor. “Don’t worry, I would never mark what is mine.”

She turned to flee, half in jest and half in response to what she was pretty sure he intended to do. He grabbed her around the waist, swung her up, and sat on the edge of the bed, settling her face down across his lap. The material of her dress softened the sting of the first spank, but then he slid it up, exposing her bare ass to his reprimand. “Do you like soft?” He tapped one ass cheek lightly. “Or hard?” The crack of his hand echoed in the quiet of the room, and Sarah gasped at the sudden pain, then marveled at how it intensified her desire.

“Both,” she panted, and squirmed in his hold.

He repeated the same pattern on her other cheek. Another gasp and more pleasure. A few more spanks, and Sarah was writhing and moaning. Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, he bent and kissed the flesh he’d reddened. He ran his hand down the back of one of her thighs and pushed her legs apart wider.

With one hand, he held her head arched back by pulling on a fistful of hair while he slid one finger of his other hand inside her soaked pussy. His thumb sought and circled her excited nub. His erection jutted against her stomach. “You’re not in control here, Sarah. I am.” He thrust another finger inside her, pumping in and out, faster and faster. “You only come when I tell you to.”

He kissed her waist, bit her lightly on the curve of her ass, and kept a steady rhythm within her. He’d stop, twirl a finger, rub her clit with increased speed, then stop again. She felt orgasms build, then retreat, only to come back stronger and fiercer in their promise.

“Oh, God”—she gripped his leg—“don’t stop again. Please.”

“I like it when you beg.”

“Don’t make me kick your ass,” she threatened in a haze of frustrated desire.

He chuckled, but his hand started moving again, faster than before, while his thumb lavishly rewarded her most sensitive spot. “Now, Sarah. Come for me.”

“Yes,” she groaned as she wept, moving her hips against the fingers he’d paused within her.

He released her hair, removed his hand, and rolled her over in his arms, kissing her lightly as the last waves of orgasm shook through her. She laid her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, and said, “Apology accepted.”

He chuckled again, then stood, still holding her in his arms as he carried her to his bedroom. Later, spent and wrapped in each other’s arms, Tony was just about to fall asleep when Sarah asked, “Would you be upset if I quickly write a few things in my notebook before I forget them?”

He opened one eye and said, “I don’t know which I should worry about more—that you have enough energy to write, or that you’re afraid you’ll forget what we did.”

Sarah laughed and stood naked beside the bed. “Would it help if I told you that I want to capture the wonder of it all?”

He smiled and closed his eyes with a groan. “Go get your notebook. You can read it to me tomorrow, and if you forgot any details, we can repeat tonight again and again. Purely to help you with your research.”

Sarah lifted his shirt off the floor and threw it at him. He caught it a few inches above his head, smiled, and dropped it to the floor.

Pulling her notebook and a pen out of her bag, Sarah headed back to the bed.
I hope he doesn’t really believe I’m doing this for my book. What we have is about so much more than sex.

Isn’t it?

Chapter Nineteen

T
hree weeks later, Sarah was sitting on the porch in a cotton summer dress and the new cowboy boots Tony had surprised her with, hugging her notebook to her chest. Time had flown by in a happy haze of notebook-worthy lovemaking. Being with a lover who was both demanding and respectful of her preferences gave Sarah a confidence she had never imagined possible. It wasn’t about what she would or wouldn’t do; it was about what they enjoyed doing together and how the trust between them was growing.

She woke in his arms each morning, loving the warm kiss he gave her and how reluctant he always was to leave her. He’d returned to his training schedule and Sarah had found a comfortable rhythm to the ranch days. She helped Melanie with the morning cleanup, read books with Jace, and dragged them both to town to shop for Tony’s house. At first their conversations were strained, but as trust began to build, a friendship was born.

Sarah took photos of the people who worked on the ranch and framed them, placing them on the walls and around the house on tables. With Tony’s permission, she replaced his old furniture with simple but comfortable pieces that made a person want to stay for a while. The quiet of the house was replaced with soft music on most days, and Sarah had even convinced Tony that he needed not only a television but also a computer and Internet access. Slowly, Tony’s house was becoming a home.

A home she felt comfortable enough to spend her afternoons writing in. Her once-empty notebook was overflowing with answered questions, drafts of chapters, revisions, characters based on people she’d met through the ranch, and steamy scenes she couldn’t believe she’d been able to write. Sarah had never felt more alive or at peace.

This is where I belong.

Thursdays had become days she looked forward to. She’d been apprehensive when Tony had suggested she invite everyone to dinner again, but he’d reassured her things would be different, and he’d been right. Everyone, including Dean, had been on their best behavior, and real conversations had replaced the previous ribbing and uneasiness.

Tony would never be a man of many words, but when he’d patiently answered questions from the young men around the table regarding his training philosophy—and even praised one of them for his work with a horse—Sarah’s heart had soared. Like rain coming to the desert, the change in Tony brought his ranch alive. After dinner, she and Tony often walked, hand in hand, through the barn and paddocks. Tony greeted the men he came across, and she even caught him smiling more than once.

Everything was perfect.

So perfect that Sarah accepted that Tony didn’t talk about his feelings or the future. She told herself that she didn’t need the words because his actions showed the world he cared about her.

Maybe even loves.

Sarah hugged her notebook more tightly.

Definitely loves.

In the main barn, Tony absently brushed down the horse he’d just exercised and fought to empty his mind of the images from his latest nightmare. Sarah didn’t know he was still having them, and he wasn’t about to tell her they were getting worse rather than better.

Images of the girl who had died tormented him long after he awoke. The happier he was during the day, the more pleasure he found with Sarah in his bed, the uglier and more graphic his nightmares became, until the message in them began to overshadow what should have been a good time in his life.

Kimberly Staten.

Are you haunting me or am I torturing myself?

Which one of us is convinced that I don’t deserve to be happy?

His hand paused as an image of Sarah, smiling sweetly up at him during one of their evening walks, mocked him.
How can she be the best and the worst thing that has ever happened to me? Is that the hell I earned for myself? To have everything offered to me and not be able to enjoy it? To watch a good woman fall in love with me and know that ultimately I’ll disappoint her?

And Sarah was a good woman. Everything she touched was better for the attention she gave it. His house finally looked lived-in, his employees were happier than he’d ever seen them, and David said their clients appreciated the sparkly hoof polish she applied to each horse they sold. Dean dropped by the ranch a few times a week, and each time he did he mentioned how good everything and everyone looked.

So I smile and lie.

I let everyone believe that Sarah’s magic has worked on me as well.

Because the truth is as ugly as my nightmares. No matter how much I want to, I’ll never be the man she needs me to be.