Page 11 of Taken, Not Spurred (Lone Star Burn 1)
It’s a house, not a home.
As cold as Sarah described it.
He stopped at the hallway mirror Melanie had hung before he’d forbidden her to leave her mark anywhere in his domain. He looked older than he should have, with deep lines etched from fatigue and sun. He forced a smile to his lips and hated how out of place it seemed on his face.
“What are you doing?” Melanie asked from the door of the kitchen.
“Nothing,” Tony muttered, then strode out the front door, angry with her for catching him and with himself for not being able to stamp out the feelings Sarah’s notebook had stirred within him.
Just losing my mind.
Chapter Six
Tony was already working with a dark sorrel gelding in one of the ranch’s large round pens by the time Sarah walked out of the barn with David. The horse was loose and walking in circles around him.
Sarah paused, and David stopped beside her. “It looks like he’s just exercising that horse in circles, but it is more than that, isn’t it?” she asked. David pushed his hat back a little from his forehead and rubbed his chin, also studying the scene before them instead of answering her. Tony stopped the horse with a shift of his body. He turned the horse on his haunches with a slight flick of his hand. The closer Sarah looked, the more communication she could see between the man and the horse. “He’s talking to him with his body, isn’t he?” she asked without realizing she had spoken aloud.
David nodded. “You could say that. Watch him here.”
Tony raised his arm above his head and the horse began to lope around him. He lowered his arm and the horse slowed to a jog.
“Amazing,” she whispered to herself.
“See how the horse never takes his eyes off Tony? Some call it joining up. Some call it becoming the alpha.”
“What does Tony call it?”
Rubbing his chin again, David answered in a slow Texan drawl, “He doesn’t talk about what he does.”
How sad.
“Will it bother him if we go closer so I can see better?”
A quick flash of a smile came and went on David’s face as if he might be enjoying a private joke. “Only one way to find out.”
They crossed the distance to the pen and stopped just a few feet shy of it. Tony turned briefly at the sound. Their eyes met in a clash of unexpected heat. The look he gave her burned with promises she couldn’t begin to interpret, so intense that she turned to see if it was meant for someone behind her.
Nope. Just me.
And David.
That look had better be meant for me and not him.
Sarah suppressed a nervous giggle.
Or it’ll seriously kill my cowboy fantasy.
When Tony turned back to the horse, his expression was angry. His movements were suddenly rigid and the horse turned fully toward him in confusion. He made some small hand motions, then used his voice to urge the horse on, but the horse began to back away as Tony’s temper soured. He raised his arm and issued a verbal command, which stopped the horse but didn’t seem to improve Tony’s mood. He lowered his arm and Sarah heard the echo of his swears.
She looked up at David, who was sporting a huge grin. Despite the growing heat of the day, Sarah’s hands turned cold from nerves and she tucked them into the front pockets of her jeans. “I should probably go.”
Adjusting his hat to shade his eyes more, David said, “No, ma’am, looks to me like you should accept his invitation and stay for a while.” With a nod of farewell, David left her standing there questioning his conclusion.
Really? What exactly gives you that idea?
Tony whipped off his hat and slapped it angrily against one leg as his eyes raked over her again, burning with a desire that sent an answering heat cascading through her.
Oh, that.
Horse forgotten, Tony never broke her gaze as he bent to exit between the metal rails of the pen. He held it until he was standing over her. Sarah looked up at him from beneath her lashes, not bold enough to meet the heat in his eyes head-on. She didn’t trust it to be real. Didn’t trust herself not to quash it somehow. Better to simply savor the idea of it before reality dashed it away.
His tone didn’t match the warmth of his gaze when he ground out, “I know why you’re here.”
Here? Like right here, mooning over you while you try to get some work done? Sarah licked her bottom lip nervously and kept her eyes fixed on his chin. “Because my friends are unreliable and I have no sense of direction?” she asked helpfully.
He shook his head slowly, both of his hands going to her hips and pulling her closer, close enough for her stomach to brush lightly against the physical evidence of his desire. “Look at me,” he commanded softly.
She did and shivered at the intensity of emotion in his eyes. Whatever was between them was sinfully primal and everything she’d wished for but never experienced.
One of his hands came up and cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing her lips with a tenderness that was in direct contrast to the harsh set of his jaw. “I thought you were a reporter.”
His words made no sense. Sarah shook her head silently, giving herself over to the wonder of his touch, the feel of his arousal pushing against her. She opened her mouth to defend her reason for being there, but fell silent when his thumb took advantage of her open lips and softly caressed them more fully. Unable to control herself, she snuck a lick at the tip, and they both froze from the shock of the connection.
“I’m glad you’re not, because I want to taste every inch of you. I want you to beg to take my cock in your mouth and taste me. I can teach you everything you want to learn.” His husky declaration was voiced as his mouth descended toward hers.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
How does he know what I want to learn?
Taking a fast, shaky breath, Sarah asked, “Did you read my notebook?”
His lips replaced his hand on her jaw, lightly caressing their way to her ear. “Oh yes.”
Sarah wanted to tell him that he’d violated her privacy when his tongue flicked at the spot just behind her ear, and she moaned in pleasure instead. His other hand shifted from her hip to cup her ass and lift her more fully against him. Her nipples hardened and pushed at the material that separated them from the rock-hard chest rubbing against her.
I’ll tell him later.
Once again he was whispering in her ear. “I want to teach you to come until you can’t think, until you can’t move, until nothing else matters but having me deep inside you again.”
Okay.
Adrenaline and desire swirled within Sarah. It’s one thing to fantasize about having that experience with a man you hardly know, and it’s another to receive the offer. And oh . . . what an offer.
His lips hovered over hers, his green eyes dark with conflict. He growled, “No promises. No expectations. You leave when you want.”
“This is crazy,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“No, this is what you came for,” he said, and his mouth closed over hers. His tongue pushed through her lips without invitation and swept hers into a heated dance. His hands pulled her tighter against him, shifting her ever so slightly back and forth against
his evident arousal. Then he nipped the shell of her ear and growled seductively, “I could fuck you right here, in full view of everyone, and not care what any of them thought. That’s what you do to me. What do I do to you?”
Feeling a bit like a fish gasping for air, Sarah opened and closed her mouth a few times as she sought the words to express this overwhelming rush of sensation. He smiled briefly down at her and claimed her lips in a kiss that erased the desire to speak. He trailed hot kisses across her jaw, down her neck, and back to the sensitive skin behind her ear. He murmured against her cheek, “My little blonde angel, don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. I’ll even show you what you could be doing with those shy hands of yours.”
Realizing they were still buried in her pockets, Sarah felt instantly self-conscious and went rigid with embarrassment. I have to be the least sexy . . .
He eased her back a step, but held her as she swayed a bit and shook her head. “If you want to go, I’ll help you find a room in town. Your horse can remain here until you’re ready. He’ll be safe here and you can visit him as much as you like. But if you stay tonight, you won’t sleep in the guest room.” A slow sexy smile stretched his lips. “You likely won’t sleep at all.” His hand slipped beneath her hair and cupped the back of her head, tipping it ever so slightly upward, raising her kiss-swollen mouth toward him again. “Your choice.”
A faint voice of reason attempted to be heard. He could be dangerous. He showed no remorse about reading my private writings. What else would he do without remorse?
I should leave.
And spend the rest of my life wondering what it would have been like?
She looked into those guarded cowboy eyes and weighed common sense against temptation.
Say yes.
He’d never been a man who had to ask, but he feared he might beg if she refused his offer. Nature had been kind to him in some ways. Female companionship had always been readily available to him. At the height of his career he’d made the “World’s Sexiest” lists in gossip magazines and had enjoyed the benefits of that title for a time. So many women, their names and faces blurred and faded in the years since.
