The Cowboy Way

Bigger hands.

Stronger hands.

Clay Madison’s hands.

She pictured them in her mind’s eye, tanned and calloused, with broad palms and long square-tipped fingers. His nails were clipped and clean, which wasn’t always the case with a cowboy. There was a thin, jagged scar across the back of his left hand, the kind a man got from handling barbed wire. Last night at the rehearsal dinner, she’d noted that his right palm bore the dull red marks of a recent rope burn. Hands like that—big, tough, hardworking—would be exquisitely rough against her tender skin. They would envelope her breasts, kneading them, the palms completely encompassing and covering her, making her feel delicate and sexy at the same time. His calloused thumb would rasp against her nipple, moving in slow, maddening circles, around and around, until she was aching and needy, until she couldn’t stand it anymore, until she had to have his mouth on her or go crazy.

She arched her back, moaning softly, and let one hand drift down her body to touch the soft, curling hair at the apex of her thighs, while the other stayed where it was, caressing her breasts, plucking at her turgid nipples.

CLAY’S HANDS WERE GRASPING the binoculars so tightly, his fingers very nearly left grooves in the plastic casing. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. Sweet Jesus God! She had her hand between her legs now, touching herself. He couldn’t see it beneath the surface of the water because of the sun’s glare, but it was obvious what she was doing, obvious how it was making her feel. Her head was pressed back against the edge of the water tank. Her eyes were closed. Her lips were parted. She was panting lightly.

Clay’s own breathing increased and his heart started to pound against the wall of his chest, echoing the throbbing behind the fly of his jeans. He could almost taste her…her mouth hot and avid against his…her throat cool and smooth against his tongue…her tight nipples berry-sweet between his lips. He could almost feel her…the strong, slender body arching beneath the weight of his…the slippery softness of her labia against his fingers…the clinging heat and wetness as he pushed them inside her to caress the swollen, weeping walls of her vagina…the hard little nubbin of her clitoris as he circled it with his thumb…her body taut and straining toward his, reaching for fulfillment.

“Oh, baby,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble in his throat. “You are so hot.”

JO BETH FLATTENED HER FINGERS against her mons, applying a firm, kneading pressure, seeing in her mind’s eye his hand doing the same thing, his hand sliding lower, his hand slipping gently into the soft folds between her legs, circling her clitoris with a deft, knowing fingertip. The fantasy was so real now, she could almost feel him next to her, almost feel his mouth on hers, almost feel the brush of his lips against her throat, almost feel his tongue circling her nipples, almost feel his thick, blunt-tipped fingers delving into the slick, swollen passage between her legs, slipping in and out, pressing deep.

She could almost hear his voice in her ear, gravel-rough and whiskey-hot, praising her passion and her firm, slim body, telling her what he wanted from her…telling her what he was going to do to her…telling her how it would feel when he did it.

“Yes.” She quickened the movement of her fingers against her clitoris, increasing the pressure, driving herself higher, until she was panting heavily with the need to come, until her body was vibrating with suppressed passion, until every nerve and muscle was taut and tensed, hovering on the maddening edge of release. “Oh, yes,” she moaned again and opened her legs wide as if accepting a lover between them. “Yes.”

THROUGH THE BINOCULARS, Clay saw her lips move.

“Yes,” she said, so clearly he would have sworn he heard the words being whispered in his ear. “Yes. Yes. Oh, yes.”

She was almost there. He could feel it as keenly, as sharply, as if he were actually between her wide-open thighs, thrusting into her hot, tight, hungry little pussy. He could feel her body clamping around him, holding on, her legs locked around his waist, her nails digging into his butt, demanding he give it to her.

Harder.

Faster.

Deeper.

In his mind, he was right there beside her…on top of her…inside of her. His heart was slamming against the wall of his chest, his breath was sloughing in and out of his lungs, his whole body was rock-hard and throbbing, aching to give her what she wanted. What they both wanted. He struggled to hold on, to hold back, until she reached her peak. A gentleman always let a lady go first, even if only by proxy.

HIS IMAGE FLICKERED behind her closed eyelids, his big hard body moving over her, covering her, his lean horseman’s hips settling between her thighs, pushing them wider, his rock-hard cock thrusting into her. She thrust her own hips upward—pistoning, frantic, demanding—but the man of her imagination took over, slowing the pace, deepening the sensation, drawing it out. His movements were measured and deliberate, exactly the way she liked it best, plunging deep into her secret core, withdrawing slowly, plunging again, until she was nearly mad with passion and lust.

Her body arched up out of the water, every sinew stretched tight as she reached for the final crest. Her head rolled against the concrete rim of the water tank. Her fingers worked frantically between her legs. The image in her mind’s eye quickened his movements in unison with her mounting need. His hips were pistoning wildly now, too, slamming into hers. His breath was hot against her neck. His big hard hands cupped the cheeks of her ass, lifting her into each hard, driving thrust.

“COME ON, JO BETH,” Clay murmured, his voice low and rasping with need. His breathing was in sync with hers. His cock was ready to burst, straining to release the full force of his lust. He held it back by sheer will, waiting for her, coaxing her to the finish with fevered words, wanting it to be as good for her as it was for him. “Come on. Let it go, baby. Let me have it. Give it to me.”

“OH, YES. YES,” she moaned, and pushed herself over the precipice into the abyss of pure physical sensation. Her whole body clenched tight. “Oh. Clay. Yes!”

2

CLAY LOWERED THE BINOCULARS and sagged against the side of his horse, as wrung out and replete as if he’d actually had sex. He’d definitely come, that was for sure. Hands-free and in his jeans, which hadn’t happened since he was a hormone-ridden sixteen-year-old making out with Tish Bradley in the front seat of his daddy’s pickup. And, incredibly, this hands-free orgasm had been hotter and more satisfying than the last time he’d actually come inside a woman.

Of course, the last time he’d come inside a woman, he’d been flat on his back in a hospital bed and buzzed on painkillers, so he hadn’t exactly been at his best. Not that the woman in question had voiced any complaints. Quite the contrary. Feeling everything through a haze of pharmaceuticals had muted his physical sensations and slowed his reaction time to the extent that his partner had been limp with blissful exhaustion before he’d joined her at the finish line. She’d been very vocal in her appreciation. So vocal, in fact, that the night nurse had left her desk to see what all the commotion was about. The resulting confrontation, like the amorous encounter that had gone on before it, was kind of fuzzy in his mind. A lot of things had been fuzzy in his mind around that time, starting with the incident that had put him in the hospital bed in the first place.

He’d been stomped by a bull. He knew that because he’d seen the ESPN highlight tape of ol’ Boomer dancing on his carcass. Clay didn’t actually remember the wreck itself, though, which everybody said was a damned good thing. His last memory of that day—his only memory of the day, really—was walking toward the rodeo office with Rooster to get their competition numbers. Everything else, up to and including his go-round with Boomer, was a complete blank. He knew he’d spent the following three days in intensive care after the doctors finished putting him back together because Rooster had told him he had, but all he recalled of his stay there was a series of shadowy disjointed dreams, the echo of half-heard voices, and vague impressions of worried faces drifting in and out of his field of vision.

By the time he was well enough to be transferred to a regular room, the sequence of his days had gotten clearer and more coherent but they were still kind of fuzzy around the edges, especially in those fog-shrouded minutes just before and after the morphine kicked in.

In the two months since the wreck, the pain had subsided and the pain medication had been changed and decreased, and then changed and decreased again, but his reality had stubbornly remained just the tiniest bit out of focus. He chalked it up to the abrupt and unwelcome modification to his lifestyle. He was used to living fast and hard, traveling from one go-round to the next, always on the move, always on the lookout for the next ride, the next good time, or the next willing woman. Being forced to slow down, even if it was only temporary—and it was only temporary—dulled the intensity and blurred the edges, making him, as Rooster was wont to say, a “mite moody.”

And then, suddenly, out taking a solitary ride to improve his mood before the bachelor party tonight, everything snapped into sharp focus through the lenses of a pair of borrowed binoculars. For the first time since the wreck, every cell and nerve ending in his body was on red alert, alive and humming and ready to go. And all because he’d watched a woman he barely knew masturbate to climax. A woman, moreover, for whom he hadn’t previously spared a second thought—or a second look—beyond what had been required for civility’s sake.

Shaking his head at the sheer absurdity of the situation, he tucked the binoculars back into the saddlebag, and mounted up.

He didn’t know if it was the surprisingly luscious Miz Jo Beth Jensen herself, or the surprise of coming upon her out of the blue the way he had, or simply the fact that playing the voyeur was something he’d never done before that provided the spark. Whatever it was, he wanted more.

It stood to reason that she wanted more, too. She’d cried out his name when she’d come—he was almost sure of it—which meant she had to have been fantasizing about him during that close encounter with her own hand. Clay had been the focus of a good many female fantasies over the years, and he’d found that most women were more than happy to have the chance to make those fantasies real. And, usually, if the circumstances and the woman were right—and sometimes even if they weren’t—he’d always been more than happy to oblige.

Completely forgetting that he’d been going to ride away like the gentleman his mama had raised him to be, he clucked softly to his horse and, laying his reins against the side of the pinto’s neck, guided the animal out of the trees and down the slope into the gully below, absolutely certain he was about to get lucky.

He kept the horse to a walk and his gaze on the recumbent form of the woman in the water tank. She was leaning back against the concrete edge with her face turned up to the sun and her eyes closed. Her slender, well-toned arms were stretched out to either side of her, resting along the rim of the tank. The position bared her upper body nearly to midtorso, leaving her pretty little breasts resting lightly on the surface of the water. Her whole being reflected complete and utter relaxation.

Clay grinned wickedly. It was a shame, really, to disturb her autoerotic afterglow. But, after all, the woman had called out his name in the throes of passion. Hadn’t she? And if she hadn’t…well, she was obviously in need of what he could do for her. No woman should have to resort to self-manipulation to fulfill hr sexual needs, especially not when he was ready, willing and more than able to fulfill them for her.

Watching her as closely as he was, he knew the exact instant she became aware that her solitude was no longer absolute. Her shoulders tensed and she straightened away from the edge of the tank slightly, at the same time sinking down so her breasts disappeared beneath the water just as her rounded knees broke the surface. Surprisingly, she didn’t fumble around or scramble to cover herself. She didn’t get all fluttery or flustered, either, the way he’d expected her to; the way most other women would have if caught in similar circumstances. She didn’t even blush. Instead, she calmly curled one arm around her bent knees and lifted the other, tenting her hand above her eyes in an effort to see who was approaching.

“That’s far enough,” she said, the unmistakable snap of authority in her voice.

Clay reined in, halting the pinto a good six feet from the edge of the tank, and stared down at her, waiting for what she would do next. It wasn’t often a woman managed to surprise him, and she’d done it twice already: first with her heated abandon, then with her complete lack of embarrassment at being caught naked. He couldn’t help but wonder what other surprises she had in store for him.

Jo Beth squinted up at him from underneath her raised hand, but all she could see was the silhouetted figure of a man on a horse. His shoulders were impossibly broad against the expanse of blue sky behind him. His face was completely hidden in the shadow of his hat. Except for the sun glinting off the blunted rowels of his spurs and the silver conchas on his chaps, he was shrouded in darkness.

An instinctive quiver of apprehension snaked its way up Jo Beth’s spine. She very deliberately brushed it aside. This was, after all, Diamond J land. She was the jefe of the Diamond J. And he was a Diamond J cowhand.

Whatever reason he might have for trailing her out to this remote corner of the ranch, it sure as hell wasn’t because he had any nefarious designs on her body. None of her cowhands would dare. Especially given the mood she’d been in when she left the stable yard.

Which meant there was some problem that demanded her immediate attention back at the main house. Her squint deepened into a frown. Good Lord, couldn’t she have one measly hour to herself? Just one measly little hour without the whole operation falling apart?

“This had better be damned important,” she said irritably, scowling up at him from under her tented hand.

“Ma’am?”

“Whatever you trailed me out here for. It had better be damned important, or you and whoever sent you out here after me are going to be damned sorry.”

“No one sent me after you,” Clay said, thinking delightedly that she’d already managed to surprise him again. Whatever he’d expected her to say, however he might have expected her to say it, he certainly hadn’t anticipated anything so prosaic as a simple expression of annoyance at his presence and the possible reason for it, especially not with her still sitting there neck deep in water and as naked as the day she was born.

“Then why the hell did you follow me out here?” she demanded.

“I didn’t follow you.” His easy, affable tone was in direct contrast to the snapping impatience of hers. “I was out taking a ride all by my lonesome and saw someone moving around down here by the water tank.” He eased up on the reins as he spoke, letting the pinto amble closer to the concrete tank. “I thought I’d better take a closer look in case that someone was up to no good. So…” Leather creaked as he leaned forward and casually draped a forearm across the saddle horn. The reins dangled loosely from his gloved fingers. The pinto dropped his head and began sucking up water. “Are you up to no good, darlin’?”

Jo Beth opened her mouth to lambaste him for the dual offenses of dereliction of duty and being overly familiar when it occurred to her that not only was he a good deal closer than he’d been a moment before, but—Diamond J cowhand or not—she had absolutely no idea who he was.

Nothing about him was familiar. Not the tilt of his hat. Not the sound of his voice. Not even the way he sat his horse. And she prided herself on being able to put a name to every hand on the Diamond J just by watching him ride.