Page 223 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

Neither Thom nor any of the rest of them was in a position to hold her accountable, much less give her any kind of disciplinary consequences, for her risky side job. Why would they? She wasn’t in that kind of relationship with any of them. Well, except Noah. Noah wouldn’t care what kind of relationship they had. Not only would he take a dim view of her bullfighting activities if he knew about them, but he was just the kind of guy to say something about it. And then he’ddosomething—sternly and repeatedly, all over her backside, first with his hand and then with his belt until she was howling and so sore that she couldn’t even sit afterward.

She missed that.

Because she was crazy.

Fortunately, Noah had his hands full with Zara and was living in London. And he was still too dominant for her tastes, even if she was prone to forgetting that fact whenever she got horny. Like she was now. Her body still wet from her shower; her nerves all deliciously humming from the way ‘Thom’ so expertly and forcefully took her; her crazy submissive tendencies trying so hard to convince her that she ought to feel sorry for herself because no one was standing here with his sleeves rolled all the way up to his tribal tattoo, ready to take her across his knee and paddle her backside until… what? She felt loved and cared for?

That was crazy. She didn’t need a spanking to feel that. She was better than that. Stronger. She was the most capable now that she had ever been and she was proud as hell knowing that none of her team would ever need to worry about whether or not she could do her job. With or without a certain muscular bronc rider giving her that stern look that clearly said he was all done putting up with her shenanigans. With or without all his chiseled good looks, perfect hair, and soulful brown eyes that were just too urbane for her motorcycles and rock and roll background. He was Mozart; she was ZZ Top. He was a computer geek; she was a pilot. He wasn’t dominant; she was absolutely submissive and she desperately needed to stop fantasizing about how it would feel to have him rolling up his sleeves as he stalked toward her, dark eyes flashing, handsome mouth soundly scolding her before grabbing her arm and toppling her face down over his hard thigh for a bare-bottom spanking.

Her nipples tightened, peaking all over again. Trickles of moisture spilled through her folds, tickling her nether lips.

Cursing under her breath, Avery dropped the towel. Climbing back into the shower, she reached for the showerhead and turned the water back on.

Thom unloaded his horse, grateful that his part-time ranch hand had all the other horses taken care of and the stall he used for the horse he’d taken to the rodeo ready to go. He made sure Patrick had made the trip in good health. Five hours wasn’t all that long for a horse used to being hauled, but Thom liked to hang out in the barn until he was sure of that.

As he brushed the horse down, he thought over and over again how he wished he’d been able to see past Casey theClown’s disguise sooner. Not that he was the only one who’d been fooled. As far as he knew, until today no one on the pro rodeo circuit had known that Casey wasn’t a man. After all, Thom didn’t know anyone who, having looked up to see almost a ton of angry, snorting bull bearing down on him, would give two fucks over something as little as the gender of the clown currently trying to save his life. Thom shook his head, trying to drive away the image of Avery’s luscious body, hidden in her bulky bullfighter’s disguise as she flipped over the goring horns of bulls every bit as big and mean as Cowboy Crusher, before delivering her signature smack on the rump with her floppy clown hat.

Someone needed a smack on the rump, all right. The problem was how to move them from friends and co-workers to lovers with a daddy dom/power exchange component that would justify his taking her, naked and quivering, across his knee for the kind of spanking his hand right now itched to deliver. As quickly as that image came to mind, so did one involving his parting those same rosy butt cheeks to mount her from behind. His cock swelled at the thought of plundering either her pussy or her bottom hole, whatever she needed to remind her of his dominance and commitment to her.

It had been a while since he’d enjoyed the intimacy and physical release that a man could only get from a woman he loved. And there it was… at some point, Thom had fallen in love with Avery. Giving it a name was liberating and empowering; it was also terrifying. It was if he’d been living enveloped by gloomy, dark clouds, only to have them parted by the bright Arizona sun, casting a light that illuminated a path to his new life. Thom smiled. He meant to follow that path, but he didn’t mean to travel it alone; Avery would be at his side.

He thought fleetingly about the information Noah had shared—that both Christian Reid and Fariq Abdal had raisedtheir ugly heads from the ashes of Fariq’s international arms business. Thom had been working for a couple of months trying to unravel what had happened. Why it had happened and who was behind it all. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together had been difficult as both Fariq and Christian seemed inclined to stay off the grid, but one thing was certain—to stop them, the team would need to tackle this storm head-on. Danger and conflict were coming, and Thom would bet every dime he had that it would involve not just the team itself, but Croft’s and Noah’s girls, Finn and Zara.

He was going to have to move fast if he wanted to make sure it didn’t involve Avery, too. Not that Fariq or Christian would care about her the way they did the other women, but Wild Mustang’s intrepid pilot would not appreciate being treated as if she were too fragile to battle it out with the rest of them. It was past time that a certain daddy dom made his intentions known to his very special, very stubborn little girl.

Chapter

Three

Avery woke and stretched as she sat up. A typical, beautiful Arizona sunrise streamed through the French doors leading from her back garden into her bedroom. The entire back of the house was glass—either French doors, folding glass doors, or floor-to-ceiling windows. Avery loved the light; she supposed it was part of the reason she loved to fly. There was something so perfect and peaceful about being up above the clouds where it was only her, the blue sky, the blazing sun, and the hum of a well-tuned engine.

She showered, grabbed a Diet Coke, and headed out to her garage. In addition to her Indian Roadmaster Dark Horse, she was working on restoring a 1947 Indian Melbourne Chief. Restoring vintage Indian motorcycles had become not only a passionate hobby, but a lucrative one as well. Avery had developed an ardent following among collectors of vintage Indians. Whenever she found a new project bike, and often before she’d really begun work on it, she had people clamoring to purchase it once she had it fully restored. As soon as she had a projected completion date, she would allow up to five collectors to ante up a ten-thousand-dollar deposit along with proof of funds to cover the estimated sales price. With the deposits safein an escrow fund, she would then auction off the motorcycle. Anyone who wasn’t successful had their deposit plus interest returned to them, and off she’d go in search of another project.

This current one had been found in a barn under a tarp, where it had probably been for at least forty years. Mice had chewed through all the electrical decades ago, but there was no point rewiring that until after she’d rebuilt the engine, so that was what she was doing. She was consumed by that detail-oriented work when the crunch of footsteps coming up the gravel driveway to her open garage door caught her ear.

Avery snapped her head up to look at the security monitor on the wall, and sure enough, there he was, a male figure heading for the garage as if he owned the place. That he hadn’t also set off the alarm at the mouth of her driveway surprised her. Hers was a state-of-the-art security system that Thom had installed years ago. He was constantly checking and upgrading her system, so for someone to have bypassed it meant they were absolutely up to no good.

Avery reached into her toolbox and withdrew a Sig Sauer P238 handgun. It was a small handgun with only six rounds, but for close work, it was more than adequate. She turned to face her intruder, moving quickly toward the door to get the wall to her back.

His shadow entered before he did, which gave her a huge advantage. He was carrying something. That it didn’t look like a gun from the shadow it cast was the only reason she didn’t pull the trigger the instant he stepped into the garage and came into sight.

Thom caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye and immediately jumped back. “Whoa!” he barked, then laughed. “I come in peace.”

A red and white box from her favorite bakery extended back into view around the side of the garage door.

“Uh oh,” she only half joked, lowering the gun. “What’s in the box?”

“Hazelnut-dipped French crullers.” Stepping back into view, he propped his shoulder against the wall, smiling as he added, “Your favorite, if I remember right.”

“Yeah, they are. So, the fact that you’re bringing them must mean you’re bearing the kind of bad news that only pastries can soften. How bad a trouble are we in?” When she turned to head back to her work bench, he pushed off the wall to follow her.

“As far as I know, we aren’t in any trouble, but I do think we need to talk about yesterday.”

Yesterday? Her stomach clenched. Afraid her face might give away the nervous direction her brain was now racing in, Avery turned away. “What about it?” she asked, walking back to her work bench to put the gun down. She immediately whipped back around again before it was even out of her hand. “Back up just a minute, buster. How the hell did you get in here? I know for a fact I set my alarm.”

His grin widened and her stomach clenched again. When exactly had she become such a huge fan of that wicked little smirk?

“You did, but I’m the guy who installed your system. I left myself a back door in the code in case of emergencies, just like I did with everybody else.”

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