Page 39 of Toxic

She’d been pretty quiet yesterday after her blow up. It was easy enough to see that she was struggling with giving up control of her property to me. It wasn’t like I was trying to snake it out from under her or anything like that. I already had one huge cattle operation. Didn’t need another. I just didn’t want her having to worry about shit while I was here. I was supposed tobe taking work off her plate, not watching her struggle to get everything done while I sat around on my ass.

The smile she shot my way was more a hit of adrenaline than the caffeine from the coffee. She handed the cup over. I was at the point where I was worried I’d be arrested for how often I was beating my fucking dick. The woman was in my head and I couldn’t get her out. I woke up hard. Went to bed hard. And every time throughout the day that her face popped into my mind my dick went off on a tangent. Riding a horse with a hard-on was the least comfortable thing on this planet.

“If you manage to fix this thing,” she said, motioning toward the machine, “I’m going to owe you big time. Had one of the cowboys who used to work here take a look and he couldn’t figure it out. Said I’d need a mechanic to come out to take a look.

I snorted and shook my head. “I’ll get it going. Only a matter of time.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. She didn’t say anything after that.

We were standing there in companionable silence, drinking coffee, and watching the sun rise and all I could think about doing was grabbing her and kissing her. Well, and maybe rolling her around in some of this hay. I shifted, trying to ease the sudden tightness of my jeans.

“Didn’t feel like sleeping in?” I asked.

“I did sleep in,” she told me with grin. “I could get used to being lazy like this.”

I chuckled and took another drink from the mug. She wasn’t lazy at all. The woman tried to take on too much in fact. I’d caught her yesterday hauling lumber over to repair one of the fences near the house. She hadn’t been happy when I’d refused to let her continue and told her to leave that to me.

She sighed and took something out of her back pocket, handing it to me with a grim expression.

Staring at her, I took the envelope. Looking down at it, I swore when I saw Fission Solutions on the return address.

“Guess Keely’s cease and desist didn’t work,” she said. She was putting on a brave face, but I could see she was worried.

“I didn’t really expect it to,” I replied, setting the cup on the wheel well of the tractor to open the envelope. I pulled the letter out and scanned it. “They always this aggressive?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Mostly, but this does seem worse.”

“Probably because you dared to push back with a lawyer,” I growled. “They have this idea that this property is going to be theirs for some reason. So any return move on your part is going to just rile them up more.”

“I don’t know why they’re doing this, Toxic,” she said, finally meeting my eyes. She lifted her free hand in a motion of confusion. “This is a cattle ranch. Not even the biggest in this area. What use is it to them?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “But there must be something here they want.” Stepping forward, I caught her chin, forcing her to keep looking at me when her eyes would have darted away. “I’ll fix this, Lightning.”

The worry written all over her face was killing me. I wanted to chase it away, if only for a few minutes. And honestly, I’d been trying to get her in a position to give her another kiss. There were too many fucking bikers all over this place. My brothers were here because I’d asked them to be. Didn’t mean they weren’t cock blocking me at every turn, too.

Lowering my head, I stopped just a breath away from her lips. She was gripping her coffee cup with both hands, as though she was afraid she’d drop it. I suspected it was so that she didn’t let them roam over me. But fuck did I want her to touch me. Didn’t matter. If her hands were occupied, then that meant I could touch where I wanted without interference.

I dragged the back of my knuckles over her cheek, then slid them down along the length of her throat. I watched as the shiver ran through her. God, I wanted her to make those sexy little noises she’d been making the last time I kissed her. I’d been dreaming of those fucking sounds.

When her head tilted up and I saw that look in her eyes, I moved in and pressed my mouth over hers, sinking my fingers into her soft hair and tugging it free from its ponytail. She groaned as my lips worked against hers and my fingers tightened in her hair, tilting her head back so that I could devour her mouth. I wanted to fuck her so hard right now, that I’d probably end up scaring her if I tried. The thought of bending her over the nearby wooden fence had my cock leaking in my jeans. I wanted to get inside her, feel that pussy wrap around me while I filled her.

When my tongue dove into her mouth, I growled low and deep in the back of my throat. Fuck. She tasted so damn good. I wanted more, so I grabbed her by those thick hips and lifted her onto the bale unroller. It wasn’t going to be super comfortable for her to perch on the length of metal that made up the side of the machine, but I didn’t give a shit.

Before she could close her legs, I stepped between them. I pried the coffee cup out of her hands and tossed it to the side, not caring where it landed.

“Toxic!” she gasped, eyes wide as they followed the trajectory of the cup. “That was-”

I took that opportunity to kiss her again. While her lips were parted. When I felt her tongue tentatively brush against mine, my hips bucked forward of their own volition, and my hands wrapped around her hips. Her hands fisted in the fabric of my t-shirt and she let out that whimper of sound I’d been longing to hear.

My mouth moved away from hers, and down over the soft skin of her neck. All of her was soft and I fucking loved it. My hands squeezed her hips, enjoying the feel of them. “Fuck,” I groaned against her skin as my hips pressed against the heat between her thighs. “So fucking hot.”

She trembled against me as her arms circled around my neck and pulled me in tighter against her. My mouth kept moving down, lower and lower until I reached her collarbones. Her shirt was draped off to the side and the delicate skin was begging for my mouth. My teeth. I scraped that bare spot and grinned when she sucked in a breath. Her skin was starting to pinken, thanks to my teeth and beard. I liked the idea that she’d be wearing my marks for a few hours at least.

My hands moved to the hem of her shirt and I started pushing it upward, groaning with gratitude as I started to bare her sexy body. When her hands clamped over my wrists, I sighed and looked up at her. She was shaking her head and despite the disappointment, I let her shirt drop. I was struggling with control as I pulled back. It felt like a piece of my heart had been ripped out and taken away, leaving a raw ache inside of my chest.

As much as I wanted to fuck her, she was right. This wasn’t the place to do it. I wanted to take her in a soft bed. Not on the hard ground outside. She deserved more than that. For that first time anyway. After that I’d be fucking her anywhere I could get her out of her clothes. I was a rancher, a biker, and basically a goddamn animal. Fucking outside didn’t bother me in the least. If someone walked up and got a show, then it would be up to them to turn around and walk away. Not my fucking problem.

She slid down off the unroller as I walked over to the tractor and grabbed the coffee cup there. I gave it to her since I’d basically wasted hers. “I need to go back to my clubhouse for an hour or so later tonight.”

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