They’d spent the morning turning the cattle out into another pasture, looking for five missing cow/calf pairs. Bran was concerned that the cattle had discovered a break in the fence line and escaped for greener pastures. Which was a better alternative than his fear that rustlers were showing up with a semi or a horse trailer to load the cattle in the dead of night. Cattle rustling hadn’t gone by the wayside the same time as frontier justice. Cattle theft still happened frequently in the modern-day Wild West—the thieves had just gotten more high-tech.
So right before noon Bran had become preoccupied. They’d finished the remaining chores quickly and in complete silence. Hadn’t been uncomfortable. Just there.
Bran told her to feed the goats and come back to the trailer before she called it a day. She’d dragged out the feeding because she got such a kick out of the critters. Mama Pox was both protective and proud of her new baby, nudging little Nina toward Harper so she could coo and pile on admiration and alternately kicking the crap out of the fence if Harper got too close. Daddy Hex just watched everything with a bored goat expression as he ate. Sometimes Harper scared him, just to see his angry air after he came to. Their little faces were so expressive that Harper was totally smitten.
She was half tempted just to climb in the truck and hit the road for home. But Bran hadn’t officially called it a day, and she needed to find out if he had something else for her to do. She bounded up the steps and slipped inside the trailer. After toeing off her muddy boots, she looked up and stilled.
Bran sat in the middle of the couch.
“Ah. Hey. I didn’t see you there.”
“You all finished with feeding?”
“Yeah. Why? Is there something else I need to do?”
“No. You’re officially off the clock.”
She stared at him because he wore the strangest expression. Almost ... dangerous. And he’d made it very clear she was done for the day. “Oh. Okay, I’ll just—”
“You’ll just stand there and tell me what the hell is goin’ on. Not that I didn’t love the way you sucked me off yesterday, but why’d you do it and then leave?”
“I thought maybe you’d chase me down.”
His eyebrows lifted with complete surprise. “You did, did you? And what, pray tell, would I’ve done when I caught you?”
Holy crap. Thinking about her fantasies was one thing. But admitting them out loud to Bran? Embarrassing.
Maybe she wasn’t as free-spirited as she imagined.
“Answer the question,” he said curtly.
“I thought you’d . . . discipline me. With sex. Which as we both know isn’t a punishment, but I thought you’d take sex to another level. A darker level. Less . . .”
“Vanilla,” he finished.
Harper nodded. She waited, resisting the urge to twist her fingers or bite her lip. Or look away. Bran’s stare was as mesmerizing as it was disconcerting.
Then his panty-soaking, I’m-the-big-bad-wolf grin appeared and she wondered why she’d baited the wild beast inside him.
“Well, it just so happens that I planned on changing our usual fuck-and-suck encounters to something a little . . .” He laughed. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you, sweetheart? Lock the door and strip.”
He hadn’t mentioned her performing a sexy striptease. By the time she’d stripped down to her birthday suit, her entire body shook and her nipples were pebble-hard.
“Cold?” he said with amusement.
“A little.”
“Come here. I’ll warm you.”
She sauntered forward and stood between his legs so her knees brushed the couch cushions. That was when she noticed the red fabric he held in his hand. Her heart took off at a full gallop.
Before she could ask his intentions, he said, “On your knees.” After she knelt before him, he dangled the red neckerchief in front of her face. “Close your eyes while I blindfold you.”
Harper felt his every exhalation on the top of her head as he wrapped the folded cloth over her eyes and secured it at the back of her head with a knot.
“Can you see anything?”
“No.”
“Good.” Rough hands cradled her face and Bran’s lips connected with hers. This wasn’t the no-holds-barred kiss she’d expected but a leisurely exploration of her mouth. It also served as a subtle warning; this would be the last gentleness she’d see from him for a while.
A tremor of impatience rolled through her. She couldn’t wait to find out what he would come up with.
Bran’s hands gripped her shoulders as he urged her to stand. More caresses. More distracting kisses. More disorientation as he pushed her backward into the kitchen.
“Bran?”
“Right here. I want you to hold on tight once I get you in place.”
In place? What place?
Her hips brushed a solid object and Bran’s hand guided her forward until she was lying flat on a cold surface. The cold jarred her body into a mass of goose bumps, from her cheek, to her nipples, to her belly.
“Stretch your arms above your head and grab the edge of the table.”
Harper complied, although now her feet were completely off the floor. Questions bounced around inside her brain, but she was having trouble giving voice to any of them.
“Do you have a good grip?” he asked.
“Uh-huh.” Her fingers tightened just in case she wasn’t prepared for whatever he had in store for her.
When the first crack landed across her buttocks, she knew. Spanking.
Two more sharp whacks brought her up off the table.
Bran’s hand in the middle of her back pushed her down. His lips were on her ear. “Stay still. Every time you rise up I’ll add to the punishment.”
“How many are you giving me?”
Whack. Whack.
“As many as it takes.”
Then Bran really went to work, peppering swats over every inch of her buttocks until both cheeks were sunburn hot. He wasn’t using his hand, but a flat object that made a loud crack every time it connected with her flesh.
He didn’t speak. He just spanked her. Repeatedly. In total silence.
A fluttery feeling had taken wing in her belly. She’d begun to anticipate each blow. And after every connection of the flat object against her skin, she experienced a momentary sense of relief. Then she’d tense up again, waiting for the next strike, until the expectation became a sort of sexual déjà vu.
“You like getting your ass smacked,” Bran murmured in her ear. “You should see how pretty it looks, red stripes across the white. Like flower petals.” Then Bran traced the crack of her butt down to the mouth of her sex and pushed a finger inside. “You’re wet.”
She tried to shake her head in denial. She was utterly shocked when Bran painted her lips with the slickness of her juices. “Now do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Taste yourself. Lick your lips like you were teasing me yesterday.”
Her tongue darted out and she brought her musky essence into her mouth and swallowed.
“Again,” he said gruffly, applying more proof of her arousal to her lips. When her mouth opened he snuck his finger inside. “Suck it clean. Suck it like it was my cock.”
She did. She even used her teeth.
He emitted the animalistic sound that turned her on beyond measure.
Harper lifted her head, switching to her other cheek. Her chest seemed glued to the table from her sweat. How she could be sweating when she was stark naked in the kitchen in the middle of March boggled her mind.
A rattling noise caught her attention. Again she raised her upper torso and again Bran pushed her back to her belly. The two hard swats that landed on her butt, courtesy of Bran’s strong hands, made her breath stall in her lungs. But her gasp became a scream when her flaming-hot ass was bathed in ice.
“Omigod! Bran! What are you doing?”
He laughed. “Cooling you down after heating you up. This sweet piece of ass is lookin’ a little tender. I’m afraid I might’ve gotten carried away with your punishment, ’cause I was havin’ such a damn good time.” He paused, drawing cold, wet circles on her swollen skin.
The fiery sensation gave way to numbness, except for the icy water dripping everywhere—down her hips, over the roundest section of her cheeks, into the creases of her thighs, down her butt crack, and straight to her pussy. The
drip drip drip
tickled, and she squirmed to get it to stop, which earned her another crack on the butt.
“Stay still. We ain’t done.”
A hum of excitement zipped through her body because this was what she wanted—Bran unleashed.
“Lift up.”
She pushed upright and he shoved a towel under her hips, which angled her lower body higher.
Bran’s cold hands spanned the top of her hips and he slowly moved the rough-skinned palms up, his thumbs digging into her spine. Warm kisses started from her left shoulder and arced across her upper back to her right shoulder.
He nuzzled her hair, kissing the skin below the blindfold, drugging her with his lips, soothing breath, and unintelligible mutters whispered behind the hollow of her ear.
So Harper was completely relaxed, floating in that sea of bliss, when a slick finger prodded her anus. She tensed a little, even though Bran had teased her with anal play before.
“Relax, sweetheart, and let me in.”
That thick finger slipped all the way inside her anal passage. The intrusive burning sensation increased and she was just about to tell him to get it out when he whispered, “Oh, don’t be getting all vanilla on me now, Harper. Soon as you’re used to this finger, I’m gonna add another.” He slipped the finger in and out as he spoke. “And as soon as you’re stretched with two fingers, I’m gonna shove my dick in here as far as it’ll go. It probably won’t be a long fuck, since this virgin channel will test my stamina.”
She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t believe she was turned on by Bran’s chest-thumping declaration. Any part of her feminist side bowed to the primitive part of her makeup that wanted to be taken by this man—in every way imaginable.
When Bran slipped the second finger in, she sucked in a surprised breath as he scissored the digits open and closed. He moved his slick fingers in and out of her passage, not gently, not harshly, but with firm authority.
Harper’s grip on the table ledge tightened when those fingers disappeared. Even over the thundering beat of her heart she heard the sounds of him slicking up his cock. He wiped lube on her anus and used the head of his cock to smear it in.
The man gave her no warning. He just pulled her butt cheeks wide apart and forced his way into her ass with a single unending thrust.
A stronger, deeper burning pain made her buck her hips, trying to get him out. “Oh. That hurts.”
“Stop clenching. Relax those muscles and it won’t hurt as bad.”
“You sure?”
“No.” He laughed. “But goddamn, it feels fine to me.” His hands landed beside her rib cage. “Really fine. You’re so fuckin’ tight. It makes me want to ream you, so you’ll remember I’m the first.”
While he’d been talking, his hips kept bumping her pelvis into the nubby towel bunched beneath her, abrading her clit. The prickly sensation rode the line between pleasure and pain. Her entire body throbbed.
Plop plop plop
hit the middle of her back and the droplets slithered down her spine. Given the angle of Bran looming above her, the liquid had to be his sweat. He was still holding back, even when he admitted he didn’t want to.
Harper clamped down hard on his cock with her anal muscles and he got the hint.
He started fucking her ass with the intensity she expected. Withdrawing fully, ramming in fully.
Every time the head of his cock forged through the rigid ring of muscle, she gasped at the sharp pain. But after a few thrusts, she anticipated the long glide, craving that pleasure/pain of his hardness buried in her bowels. She didn’t push back to meet his thrusts, leaving him in control.
And he took it as if it were his due. Relentlessly. Powerfully. Loudly. Bran enjoyed her body with gusto. In his carnal enjoyment, Harper let the power of his need consume her.
“Shit. I can’t hold back.” Two more fast strokes and he stilled. A drawn-out groan accompanied ejaculate that coated her anal passage in a blast of liquid heat.
His broken breaths filled the air.
She waited for him to regain his balance, even when she was ready to climb out of her skin.
Bran eased out of her and said, “Let go of the table.”
As soon as Harper released her death grip, Bran rolled her on her back, clamped his hands over her thighs, and yanked her to the opposite end of the table. “Bran? What are you—”
“Put your feet on my shoulders.”
Still blindfolded, she had no idea where his face was in position to her and she didn’t want to accidentally kick the man.
He made a disgruntled sound and his strong fingers circled her ankle. The instant her feet connected with his hot flesh she squeaked.
Then his mouth was on her sex, sucking and slurping and more sucking right on that little pearl. She’d become so dizzy from his unyielding attentions that her orgasm didn’t build. It blindsided her.
Ironic, given the fact that she was blindfolded.
Bran ate into her soft tissues as if looking for another climax hidden within her feminine folds. And he found one, driving her to the pinnacle again and pushing her over. After he’d brought her down to earth, he kissed a path over her damp mound, up her pelvis to rest his forehead on her belly.
She loved this intimacy. The way he smelled of sex and sweat and leather. She removed her blindfold and tossed it to the floor, needing to look in his eyes as she raked her fingers through his hair. They stayed locked together for the longest time. Finally she said, “That was . . .”
Stupendous
. She couldn’t even get the word out.
“First time I’ve seen you speechless,” he murmured.