Page 14 of My Cowboy Temptation

Chapter 5

We drivethe rest of the way in silence, her invitation still out there. My rejection, which should have been uttered the moment she made her proposition, still unspoken.

I want this woman. I don’t know for how long I’ve wanted her, but I can admit that on some level, after that night she ambushed me in the barn when she was seventeen and took that kiss, that something changed for me.

It was the first time I saw her as something other than a little girl. The first time my body—okay, my dick—felt that twitch of sexual attraction, an attraction that I fought off until she left town a year later.

Never in a million years would I have entertained the possibility that I would fuck that girl. Sure, it might have crossed my mind over the years, what might have happened if I’d been less of a man and taken what she was offering. But I held tight to my convictions that no matter the allure, she was Lucas’s little girl. A girl I treated like a niece over the years and who I owed a lot to her daddy, and his daddy before that, for their giving me this life and this livelihood.

Do you go fuck the guy’s daughter you owe almost everything to?

She starts to sing softly to the next song, her voice not perfect but somehow still appealing in its deep-throated sexuality.

Hell. Why had I said deep throat? I close my eyes for the barest second as I imagine that mouth taking in my cock, her eyes staring playfully up at me.

No. It’s so fucking wrong, on so many levels. And yet I’m still not saying no.

Well, not entirely.

For tonight, my answer is going to have to be no. I can’t in my right mind do anything with the brat when she’s been drinking. Maybe not outright slurring her words or falling down drunk, but her eyes are bright, and her energy is high from the drinks I watched her throw back, one by one.

She’s maybe not drunk, but she’s definitely not sober.

Which makes it easier when I turn on the road to the ranch and get to the fork that leads to my place or the main house. I take the right.

“Where are we going?” she asks in surprise. She’s taken my silence for agreement with her plan, which might have been what I wanted, having needed the quiet space to get my thoughts together without her taking me to a place that would be harder to say no.

“Back to the ranch,” I say, glancing over to her. “I told your dad I’d see you looked after and brought home safely. That’s what I’m doing.”

“I don’t want to go to my home. I want to go home with you,” she says, almost pleading.

“Sorry, Cal. You’re in no shape to do anything of the sort. The best thing for you to do is go home and sleep this off.”

“Sleep what off? I’m fine,” she insists.

We pull up to the house, both of us looking up at the massive structure of logs and stone and glass, a house that’s dark now as everyone inside seems to have gone to bed.

“I’m not going in there, Brody. I-I can’t. I can’t just go back to my childhood bedroom right now and see how my life has brought me full circle. With nothing to show for it. Take me anywhere else but here.”

There’s sincerity in her voice, and even though I was ready for her excuses, I relent. Especially when I catch the look of determination in her eyes that tells me she’ll probably walk back to town or crash in the barn if she has to.

“Fine.” I put the truck in gear again and pull away from the house. I take a right to head down the road and then take another right just before I reach the barn and bunkhouse to reach the old cabin.

It was one of the first properties built here on the ranch, a temporary home while the main house was constructed that, over the years, became an extra space for unexpected guests or a little girl who treated it like an extra playhouse for her and her friend, and later, an art studio when she got more serious about her drawings and paintings in high school.

After parking the truck, I come around to her door, catching her smile as I offer her my hand, as she thinks she’s getting her way. She eases down from the seat, her body sliding against mine, and holy fuck, it takes all my restraint not to let my cock twitch as her tits push against me. Then she sashays in those cowboy boots up the path and to the door.

With my set of keys in hand, a set that has a key to probably just about every door on this property, I reach the door and unlock it. The cabin has a small but cozy studio set-up with a fireplace and couch on one end, a four-post queen-sized bed on the other, and a small kitchenette along the back wall with a bathroom next to it. Nothing fancy, but it provides the minimum of comfort. “This should do you until tomorrow. There’s even a few bottled waters in the fridge,” I say and back up toward the door for a quick exit.

“Wait,” she calls out, her voice more desperate, and as I turn to look at her and confirm it, I see her face is filled with fear.

This beautiful, often intrepid, and headstrong girl is afraid.

Of course she is. Her place was ripped apart, her things destroyed, along with her sense of personal space and privacy just two nights ago. That asshat Cody Palmer took what should have been a safe space, a sanctuary, and violated it—and her, by extension.

Fuck. I can’t just leave her here alone, no matter how much I should, for my own self-preservation. “Fine. I’ll take the couch until morning.”

I can see the relief in her eyes as she nods, and her shoulders release their tension. But there will not be any hanky-panky, no matter what she tries. Setting the pace of what’s going to be a business-as-normal night, I stride to the fridge and grab a water, twist off the cap, and hand it to her. “Drink this.”

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