“Listen,” Travis continued undeterred. “Those other men who tried to work with him, were you near?”
Goddamn if the man wasn’t pulling a Dot tactic with the track-jumping thing.
“What that hell does that have to do with anything?” Ray barked.
“Were you?”
“Of course!” Ray threw his free hand in the air.
“Well, there you go.” Travis nodded, looking quite pleased with himself. “Diablo thinks you’re part of his herd and saw those men as a threat. Damn horse has been protecting you.”
Ray opened his mouth and snapped it shut with a shake of his head. How did he get from frustrated and angry to dumbfounded and mute in the space of a breath?
“Do you have any idea how amazing this horse is? You know what you’ve got here, don’t you?”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I specifically told you to stay away from him.”
Travis regarded him for a long moment. The animated light in his green eyes dimmed as though just now realizing Ray was well and truly pissed. And Ray would not let the loss of that shining amazement derail him.
“Why are you so bent out of shape? You know this is what I do. It’s what you hired me on for. I’m the best there is. And the only way to test my theory on Diablo was without you present.”
The smooth, controlled tone of Travis’s deep voice only increased the sharp edge in Ray’s. “That’s beside the point.”
“Is it?”
“Dammit, Morgan. Diablo is unpredictable. Volatile.”
“In case you failed to notice,
Ford
”—Travis paused to take a breath before continuing—“I’m a grown man. I’ve spent my whole life with these animals. I know what I can and can’t handle. And I can handle this one just fine.”
Travis was right. Ray couldn’t discount that Travis knew exactly what he was doing. And obviously, the man was fine. Better than fine, actually. Diablo was completely under his control.
The anger he’d been riding began to ebb; the bitter taste of fear lingered in his mouth.
Ray’s voice was lower and a touch hoarse when he said, “You could’ve been hurt or worse. And there’s no one around to help if you were.”
A weighted silence fell between them. Lowing cattle and indistinguishable male voices echoed in the distance. Flies buzzed in the lazy midday heat. Diablo stamped a foot and snorted. Rebel swished his tail. The atmosphere shifted. Travis’s eyes darkened, his expression turning serious. The sun suddenly felt hotter on Ray’s back.
“Is that what you’re concerned about, Ray?” His voice was low, seductive. “Not mad that I went against your orders but worried I could’ve been hurt?”
Heat rushed up Ray’s neck, he clamped his jaw tight and pressed his lips into a flat line. What the fuck was he doing?
“Would serve you right if you were,” he snapped.
Travis flashed that captivating smile of his, and Ray’s whole body coiled tight. He didn’t want to feel the things Travis made him feel. Didn’t want to want what the man offered. The problem was he did, and it was getting harder to remember why he shouldn’t.
“I’m going to put Rebel away.” He reined the chestnut gelding for the barn. “Diablo had better be unsaddled and in his corral when I get back.”
Ray couldn’t release the tension that vibrated dangerously through his limbs. Not wisely anyway. One minute he wanted to hit Travis, and the next he wanted to strip him down, wrap himself around that long, powerful body, and sink in deep.
But he couldn’t. He had no doubt the sex would be amazing, maybe even worth the potential risk, but nothing would come of them. Nothing could. It wasn’t like the nomadic cowboy would stick around. Not that Ray wanted him to. Really.
Ray cursed as he dismounted Rebel and cross-tied him in the hall outside the tack room. He unbuckled the cinch and flank straps, and slid the saddle and sweaty blanket from Rebel’s back. He carried the saddle into the tack room and slammed it down on its assigned rack.
“Fuck.”
He went to the tack locker and grabbed a brush, curry comb, and hoof pick. He’d call Landon. Call him right after lunch, maybe before. Landon could work off this sharp edge and get Ray back on an even keel.
He turned around and crashed into a solid wall. Air whooshed out of his lungs; the hoof pick fell from his grasp and clattered loudly to the concrete floor. So completely focused inward, he hadn’t realized Travis had entered the tack room, let alone stood right behind him.
Ray staggered back a step, but Travis didn’t move, his eyes darkly intense.
“Sorry, Ray. Didn’t mean to spook you.” The trace of amusement underlining his words belied that sentiment.
“No, no. It’s…” Ray shook his head, looked to the door, and moved to step around Travis. The crowded room was growing smaller by the second. Walls were closing in, the air thick and stifling. He had to get out. He stepped to the left, and Travis mirrored his move, blocking his way. Ray shifted to the right, and again Travis followed.
Ray released a frustrated sigh. “I’m not doing this dance.”
Neither man moved. And Ray made the mistake of looking up into Travis’s gaze. The bronze fire in those mesmerizing eyes welded his feet to the ground—and then it was too late. All the worry and anger he’d felt washed away in a flood of desire that carried him helplessly downstream.
He wanted to fight the currents. He wanted to ride the waves.
Travis took a tentative half step forward, and Ray didn’t retreat, couldn’t move. Travis was the green-eyed cobra, and he was the fatally entranced prey.
Heat poured off Travis in dense, erotic waves. Scents he’d begun to associate with the cowboy—cedar leaf and ginger and wood smoke—mingled with leather, horseflesh, and witch hazel. The combination sent a depth charge of lust straight to Ray’s cock.
Travis took another half step, invading Ray’s space, filling his vision. Too close. Too far. The atmosphere crackled, the room disappeared, and Ray was wrapped inside Travis’s ethereal cocoon again. His skin tingled, pulse pounded heavily in his eardrums, heart stampeded in his chest like a herd of runaway cattle.
Travis placed his hand lightly on Ray’s hip. An electric jolt skittered up his spine. Still he couldn’t move, couldn’t break the trance, couldn’t stop the telling shudder he knew Travis wouldn’t have missed.
“Tell me what you want.” That deep, sonorous voice drawled pure sex.
Ray hadn’t noticed where Travis’s other hand was until the pad of a calloused fingertip lightly traced the line of his jaw. Ray ground his molars together, fighting the urge to moan, to lean into the man.
“Don’t.” His voice was husky, nearly inaudible.
“Don’t what?” Travis asked, so close now his breath ghosted warm and moist over Ray’s cheek. “Don’t stop? Is that what you’re saying?”
No. Yes. Oh, God
. Ray closed his eyes. Fear of repercussion fought a bloody battle with desire. And he was losing sight of which side he was fighting for.
Two warm, strong hands cupped Ray’s face, and his eyes snapped open. Travis leaned in, his gaze predatory, and slanted his head. Ray’s lips parted.
“Take what you want,” Travis whispered into Ray’s mouth with a featherlight brush against his lips. And all Ray could do was inhale. He sucked Travis’s intoxicating essence deep into his lungs and held his breath. He didn’t want to exhale, didn’t want to let go, just wanted to breathe Travis.
“Ray…” That one single drawn-out syllable, a raw plea heavy with need, snapped Ray’s resolve. Brushes clattered to the ground unnoticed as Ray fisted his hands in Travis’s shirt and shoved him hard against the lockers. Travis’s hat fell and joined the party of disregarded items at their feet. Ray reached a hand behind Travis’s neck, pulled his head down, and claimed his lips in an aggressive and desperate, openmouthed kiss.
And Lord, have mercy.
Lips firm and soft as silk, that had haunted his dreams since he’d first seen them in the rearview mirror of his pickup, tasted so…felt so…he didn’t know, didn’t care, just needed. Needed the feel of them under his own, moving with him, giving and taking in equal measure. Whiskered chins scraped together erotically, teeth clashed. Then Travis’s tongue slid boldly into Ray’s mouth—explored, tasted, teased. Travis moaned and sent Ray’s every nerve ending aflame. But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
Travis shifted, and Ray fell into the full length of that lean, strong body, each with a leg between the other. Travis’s hands gripped Ray’s ass and pulled him in tight. Thighs and hips and cocks and chests pressed hard against each other. Travis lifted his knee, and Ray groaned deep in his throat, the pressure under his balls nearly too intense. Ray rocked his hips into Travis, sliding over the rock-solid erection trapped behind restricting denim.
Ray reached for Travis’s jeans, yanked the top button open—
A metal pail hit concrete and clanged sharply in the barn hallway. Hollis’s gruff curse followed, and reality came crashing down with bruising force.
Ray wrenched himself from Travis’s embrace and stumbled backward. The corner of a saddle rack jabbed sharply into his shoulder blade, unnoticed. Ray stared at Travis, the dangerous cowboy whose dark expression was unreadable, breath coming in harsh, rapid huffs.
Ray’s heart pounded out of control for an entirely different reason now. He cursed under his breath and spun on his heel. He stormed from the tack room, barely avoiding colliding with a bewildered Hollis. Ray didn’t acknowledge his foreman, didn’t look, didn’t stop. From far away he heard the man’s voice, registered concern in the tone, but couldn’t decipher the words.
“And groom that goddamn horse!” Ray yelled without looking back.
Chapter Nine
Ray’s worn boot heels struck hard-packed earth with enough force to send shock waves reverberating up his legs as he stormed from the barn.
He’d been a heartbeat away from bending Travis over a saddle and had almost been caught with his pants down. Literally. He’d come far too close to destroying his reputation, the ranch’s reputation, everything his family had spent decades building. His life. Travis would be nothing more than a fling. Gone with the wind in a couple of months, a distant hollow memory.
And he’d thought the man was dangerous? What a joke. Travis Morgan was downright treacherous.
The terrifying thing was, a part of him didn’t care. He’d jumped that fence, and now he wanted to ride that wild horse into the sunset.
Ray clenched his hands into tight, bone-snapping fists.
There was no way he could go back out to the corrals and train alongside the too-goddamn-sexy cowboy today. Not without remembering how that solid body had felt against his. No way he could sit at the dinner table tonight and look into that sublime face and those magnetic green eyes that had controlled him. No way he could watch those entrancing lips move without wanting to feel them against his mouth again. Kiss and lick and taste every inch of the man they belonged to.
Oh God, he was in so much trouble.
He felt like a walking stick of dynamite. Had to get off the ranch before his wick burned to its base. Had to get to Billings and douse this bonfire.
And just because it pours when it rains, Dot was sitting in a chair on the porch as Ray approached the house, watching him intently. He sighed a silent curse. Too late to hide his anger now.
“You look mad as a peeled rattler, Raymond,” she said, concern and amusement dancing in her bright eyes. “What’s got in your craw?”
The dull thud of boot heels approaching from behind had Ray straightening his spine in automatic response. He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know who owned that long, sure stride.
Dot looked past him to the advancing man, then back to Ray with narrowed eyes, her shrewd gaze not missing a beat. Ray ground his molars hard enough to crack his jawbone. He strode past Dot without a word, yanked the front door open, and charged into the house straight to the phone in his den.
After arranging to meet Landon, Ray threw a change of clothes, lube, and a whole box of condoms into a duffel bag before making his way back through the house. He’d deliberately waited until Travis had returned to the corrals so he could make a clean break. No such luck. Travis was gone, but Dot had come inside and was now sitting in the living room on an oversize leather chair that almost swallowed her whole. He barely suppressed a groan as he put his head down and made a futile attempt at escaping the “Dot McCray Inquisition.”
“What’s going on, Raymond?” she asked in her soft, motherly tone. “You boys have some sort of spat?”
The implication grated. Ray stopped halfway across the room, eyes locked on the front door, and counted to ten when five wouldn’t do. “It’s nothing, Dot.”
“Really? So ‘nothing’ that you’re dashing for the door with a packed bag and won’t look me in the eye?”
He sighed and turned to face her. “Just a difference of opinion is all.” It was a struggle to keep his expression flat and voice level, even though he knew he could never truly fool her. “Like I said, nothing to worry about.”
“Where you running off to in such a hurry then?”
“Business in Billings.”
Dot studied him a moment, brilliant blue eyes dancing. “That so?”
Ray steeled himself under her scrutiny. He knew she wasn’t buying it, not for a second, but whatever he said right now would come out too hot. He was too riled to keep his words in check.
Dammit
, he needed to get out of there.
“Be home for dinner?”
“Don’t think so.”
Dot nodded. She picked up her glass of lemonade from the companion table and rose from the chair.
“It’ll get better when you boys accept what’s right in front of you.” She smiled and left the room, leaving Ray to stew in his warring desire and denial.
Chapter Ten
“About fucking time,” Ray snarled, crossing the room in three long strides.
He yanked the motel door open before the soft
rap-rap-rap
on the other side had stopped. A surprised Landon Graves stood outside in the dying light of an early spring day. Having come straight from work, he was dressed in an expensive-looking steel gray suit with a light gray shirt and deep plum-colored silk tie. His eyebrows shot up comically when Ray grabbed the tie and hauled him roughly inside like a roped steer. Ray might have laughed if he hadn’t already downed four glasses of whiskey while waiting for Landon to arrive. If he weren’t dead serious about killing the serrated knife-edge Travis had him riding.