Page 34 of Make Me Crazy (Loco, Texas 2)

Branson was either drunk or stupid. He tried a fake away before throwing his fist forward and catching Jake in the cheek. Jake stumbled back into Rand who fell against Red, and all hell broke loose. Jake jumped up and tackled Branson to the ground, sat on his chest, and started pounding him. Someone grabbed him and pulled him off, but he kept trying to shake them off until he heard Rick Johnson’s deep voice boom, “You want to fight, you take it out of my bar!”

Jake pulled away from the restraining hands and looked over to where Rand had been only moments before, but she was gone.

Rand really wasn’t drunk, she’d only had the one beer, but she was angry and frustrated. Red tried to insist on taking her home, but she had told him no. She hadn’t been mean about it, but she also wasn’t going to let any man control her. Not Red. And definitely not Jake.

How dare he start ordering her around like she was a child? She was a grown ass woman.

Angrily, she walked through the door of her house and Scout greeted her with a rapidly moving stump of a tail and a whiny meow.

“Yeah, I get it, you’re starving and I suck. Thank you so much.” Flipping on the light she grabbed up the water dish and food bowl, and filled both, muttering to herself.

The sound of flinging gravel and a slamming door outside told her Jake was out front. Putting the bowls back on the floor, she walked to the front door just as he started banging on it.

Opening it roughly, she looked up at him and noticed the side of his face was swelling. She reached up to touch his face before she remembered she was irritated with him. “Ouch. You okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. You were auctioning yourself off in a bar to the highest bidder. Whatever R.E. had planned for you with that stupid clause in his will, I doubt it was that you marry whoever paid the most,” he shouted at her.

“Stop yelling at me. You are not my grandfather, my father, or my husband. You have no right to act like I’m at your beck and call or that you’re my keeper!” She shouted back.

“Let me tell you, you need a keeper! You have caused me more grief in the last two weeks than any other woman has my whole life,” he countered.

“Well, you can just stop, because I’m fine! Just freaking dandy. You know, this is all your fault!” She stepped onto the porch, and pushed her finger into his chest.

“What’s my fault,” he asked, grabbing her hand to stop her poking.

“You had to go and kiss me! Now all I can think about is kissing and I want to keep doing it! Before I could just pretend I didn’t mind being alone and I could live with a man for a year without any hanky panky, no problem. But I like kissing! And that is all your fault!”

Taking the hand he had captured, he pulled her against his chest. “Do you like kissing?” He was no longer shouting, his voice had dropped to a soft, coaxing tone. “Or do you just like kissing me?”

Staring up at him in the porch light, she swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

“You don’t need to compare anything,” he said, two seconds before his mouth covered hers.

Rand was highly aware of everything involving Jake’s kiss. His spicy cologne, soft mouth, and the hard muscles under his t-shirt were high up there on her favorite-things-list now a days. She melted into his body, and kissed him back with abandon. His hands tangled in her long hair and she slid hers inside his open jacket, down over his chest, stomach and waist. She marveled at all the hard bumps and ridges under the thin cotton of his shirt and how badly she wanted to touch him with nothing between them.

She felt Jake’s hand slide up and over her breast and nearly jumped out of her skin. She knew men liked breasts, she couldn’t help but catch on being around her ranch hands and Jake and Red for most of her life, but what she’d never figured was how good it would feel to have a man touch her there. He ran his thumb over her nipple and it came to life under the layers of cotton. When his mouth left hers to leave soft kisses over her jaw, neck, and the top of her breasts, she realized the soft moans of pleasure were coming from her.

Her fingers reached up and ran through his hair. His second hand joined his first caressing her through her dress and she was panting with excitement.

Suddenly he pulled back, his hands dropping away from her. He was breathing hard and she protested the loss of his mouth on her skin and the touch of his hands. She still had her hands wrapped up in the short strands of his hair and he leaned over to kiss her hard, before pulling back far enough to say, “You should go back inside.”

Awash with disappointment she blurted, “You’re not coming in?”

He tucked her hair behind her ear and shook his head. “I’m not in the habit of taking advantage of drunk women, no matter how much I want to.”

“I’m not drunk,” Rand said, lust riding her hard and all she could think about was how badly she wanted to see exactly what was so hard and ripply under his shirt.

He stared down at her intently. “Rand, if I come inside, it’s going to get a lot heavier and I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

The rational side of her brain screamed to say good night and shut the door, but that wasn’t the part that reached out and dragged his mouth down to hers again, whispering against his lips, “Come inside, Jake.”

Chapter Nine

Rand kicked off her boots at the door and was greeted by Scout’s insistent meowing.

“Hey the world does not revolve around you, vermin.”

Scout disagreed with another high pitched meow and with her stub tail twitched back and forth quickly, marched toward her food bowl.

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