Page 176 of Sin With Me

Chapter19

Eric

When the firstmorning light hit my face, I squirmed. My muscles ached, and my neck felt strained. I wasn’t sure what I had been thinking last night when I wanted to be romantic and sleep with Emma in front of the dying fireplace. Shifting, the soft skin against me momentarily surprised me as I remembered every single detail from last night. Emma’s slick folds, her silky skin, and her long legs wrapped around my hips as she rode me all the way to a mutual climax.

Fuck!This girl had me in the palm of her hand, and she didn’t even knowit.

My morning need pulsed against Emma’s lower back as I realized how easily I could take her again. One shift and I’d be inside her. But the ranch chores had waited for me long enough. I tried to pull my entwined body away without waking her – unsuccessfully.

“Don’t go.” The hum of her plea spread through me, but I knew if I neglected my horses for much longer, they’d make me regret it. I could almost guarantee they were smarter than many humans, and if I didn’t give them enough attention, I’d pay for it later.

“Sleep, Emma. I have to go to town and do some work around the ranch.”

I lowered my mouth to hers to taste her swollen lips in remorse. How could I walk away from her? She opened up so willingly, letting me dip my tongue inside her, tangling her fingers into my hair and moaning softly.

Shit! Why couldn’t I had asked George to help out for an extraday?

She murmured against my skin, forcing me to lean further into her, wrapping her into my arms. A few more seconds of this and I was sure I’d lose myself inside her again. I shook away the thought and lifted her off the floor, carrying her into my bedroom. As I lowered her to my bed, kissing her once more on her lips, I said, “I promise we can continue this later. If you need anything, my cell number’s on the fridge.”

There was only so much a man could take before losing control with a naked vixen in his bed. But knowing that the sooner I got done with work, the more time I’d get to spend with Emma. With the last ounce of free will I had, I finally pulledaway.

“Okay,” she said, and closed hereyes.

I quickly showered, got dressed, and not bothering to have breakfast, left for the stables. The loud neighs greeting me vibrated through the long corridor as I opened each stall to let the dozen out, leaving Hansen behind.

“Feel like going for a ride, buddy?”

His head bopped up and down as if agreeing to my offer. I saddled him up and before I knew it, we were cantering through the fields of grass, right by the forest. There was nothing better than the feel of Hansen’s strength, speed, power, and control. It felt as if he were running for his life with his best friend and he never wanted the joy ride to end. Passing the forest I slowed Hanson down to a trot. Soon the rest of the herd caught up to us, following Hansen as their leader, the way they normallydid.

“So what are we going to do with Emma?” I asked, smoothing my hand over his velvety neck as if I were talking to a best friend. Hanson stopped for a bite of grass, completely ignoring my question. Why was I so confused about this? I knew deep down inside what I wanted – her, for much longer than she was expecting to stay. Yet my childhood memories tugged at my every instinct, preventing me from completely committing to a woman of whom I knew I wasn’t worthy. I’d eventually fail her the same way I’d failed every woman in my life: Annabelle, my mother, and Claudia – yeah, I’d skipped the part where I told Emma about the scouts’ camp being co-ed. I’d skipped the part where I didn’t tell her how many girls the bastard had raped right in front of us before we escaped into the woods. How he’d raped each new girl every hour that we were gone, yelling out that he’d keep going until we showed. It wasn’t until he threatened to start shooting that Derek, Reeve and I decided to make our move. Our move that was too late for every single victim of his, male and female. But it was too late for Claudia as well, my then-girlfriend.

Sometimes I was certain I’d been cursed. I was meant to fail every single woman in my life. The girls at camp, my sister Annabelle, my mother whom I couldn’t even look in the eye when I thought about how I was supposed to be the older brother who protected his sister. How could I give Emma what she needed if I couldn’t protect her? And here I’d agreed for her to find a fucking kidnapper forme.

Fucking douchebag!

I shook my head and got off Hansen, tying his reins to a tree, and removed a brush from the saddlebags.

Sweat dripped off my forehead as I pulled the bristles along the shimmering brown coat, which shone in the sun as if it were cleaned every day. Maybe that’s why he appealed to so many buyers. But Hansen was one of the two horses I could never sell. We had a bond I couldn’t explain. The male horse let out a neigh of appreciation.

“I know, buddy. I’m sorry, I’ve been a bitbusy.”

George wouldn’t be here until this afternoon to clean them off. He was the one who had taken care of my horses until now, feeding them, attending to their exercise, and keeping the stables clean, but I still loved to spend time with my dozen best friends who didn’t mind hearing every complaint and story of a failed man. And George had asked for this day off quite a whileago.

I let the reins loose and slapped Hansen’s behind, letting him join the others to roam around the fields. The beauty of owning so much land was that you could pretty much do whatever you wanted with it, especially since my bank account wasn’t exactly dying of hunger. My grandfather had been smart enough to secretly sell part of the crude under my farm, pumping the oil out in the forest, where no one other than the buyer knew it even existed. The binding clauses would ruin the investor’s corporation if word ever leakedout.

Sweat dripped off my back. I pushed past the green shrubs that hid the private lake beyond, needing to take a dip. I removed my clothes and plunged into the crystal clear water, trying to sift through my head the number of lies I’d told Emma that could ruin us. Lies about the camp, about Annabelle and my cowardly ways, about the millions of dollars my family had because of the oil underneath my ranch. I guess she knew part of that secret, at least. And she’d eventually find out about Claire as well – the girl who’d fixated on me since high school. And since we were going to the summer fest together, I couldn’t avoid her for long. Fuck! That could definitely be a problem. I was beginning to lose track of all thelies.

And if that didn’t do it, I was sure that when Emma found out about her brothers hiring me to take their spoiled little sister out of the city, she’d order a supersonic flight back to NewYork.

An hour passed before I heard the thumping of horse hooves in the distance and wondered whether Hansen had come back already. Riding here was our ritual, but he usually gave me more time than this. But when I saw Emma saddled on one of my horses, trotting toward the shore, right between the bushes, I froze. Did she have a death wish or something?

“What are you doing?” I asked, hastening my strokes toward the shore. She was wearing another plaid shirt tied around her waist with the top three buttons open, and her voluptuous cleavage spilled out. Emma not only looked hot and enticing, but more beautiful and real than many of the country girls around here often pretended to be. And the way she wore that cowboy hat was as if she was born to do so. It didn’t matter that the water was cold, I was getting hard for her already. I jumped out and pulled my jeans on without bothering to dry myself.

“We skipped supper last night and you didn’t eat breakfast.” She pointed to the basket sitting in herlap.

“You rode Moose with that?” I asked. He was one of the few horses that no one rode – simply because he wouldn’t let them. Emma stilled for a moment, looking at me in a funny way as if I’d said something I shouldn’thave.

“Yup. I whistled, he came over, and so I saddled himup.”

---