Thief's Surrender

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Thief’s Surrender ISBN 9781419914584 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Thief’s Surrender Copyright © 2008 Alexis Canto Edited by Helen Woodall. Cover art by Syneca. Electronic book Publication May 2008 With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502. Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/) This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

THIEF’S SURRENDER

Alexis Canto

Dedication To my husband, whose horses I didn’t have to steal.

Thief’s Surrender

Chapter One The new stable hand was no slouch. Shepherd could see that from the state of the stalls she cleaned. His assistant had hired her while he was on vacation and Shepherd had yet to catch a glimpse of the woman herself. As he stepped into the tack room on this bright Monday afternoon, he found her with one leg propped on the ancient desk, scraping dirt off a hoof pick. Her lips parted as she gave him a startled look. The curls that spilled from under her baseball cap were dark gold. He knew immediately that if he’d been around he wouldn’t have hired her. She was too damned attractive. It wasn’t that she was some kind of fashion plate. Far from it. She was more real and hotter than that. She looked outdoorsy and tough, like one of those wild mares he’d just bought for the ranch. Her jeans fit perfectly. A spot of dust smudged her nose. She looked to be at least a good eight or ten years older than he was. His body reacted to the sight of her with an unmistakable surge of lust and he knew this was going to be a difficult working relationship. “I’m Mikaela,” she said. “The new stable hand.” Something about her face seemed unusual, something he couldn’t place. There was something in the set of her jaw or the look in her eye that didn’t add up. He couldn’t have put it into words but she seemed different from every other stable hand he’d ever worked with in the eight years since he inherited the ranch—and he’d worked with a lot. And it was more than the fact that none of the previous ones had been this hot. The thought made him grin. She must have interpreted this as a friendly greeting because her face relaxed into a smile. “My name’s Shepherd,” he said. “I’m the head wrangler around here.” “Oh, so you’re the owner,” she replied. “The quiet one.” 5

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“That’s what they say about me?” Shepherd wasn’t surprised, though he never had been able to figure out why people couldn’t just keep their mouths shut. Mikaela nodded, giving him a little conspiratorial wink. “I’d hate to hear what they’ll have to say about me once you’ve all had the chance to get to know me.” He reached over her head for one of the halters that hung on pegs on the wall. A sudden urge to feel bigger and more powerful than this woman prompted the movement. He needed a halter for Bear but he deliberately grabbed the one right above Mikaela’s head just to make it obvious that he was taller than she, with a longer reach. Whatever that look was that he saw in her eye, it made him want to challenge her. She shrank back for a moment when he reached over her but then she straightened, almost leaning toward him, as if to say she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. A combination of fear and defiance…that was it. This woman was afraid of something. Closing his fingers around the halter’s stiff, woven straps, he glanced down and caught a glimpse of the swell of her breasts above her T-shirt. He only looked for a moment but he saw a tan line just above the shirt’s seam and a set of perfectly shaped knockers, just big enough for his hands. If she didn’t get a lot less good-looking fast, she was going to have something to be afraid of—him. Yeah right. He could only dream of being a guy to watch out for. He hadn’t had sex in six months. When his employees called him quiet, they were right. It wasn’t that he was shy. Far from it. But he just wasn’t one to come up with the right words for things. That was just fine around horses but despite what books and movies might imply, being the strong silent type didn’t get him too many dates. Women liked a guy who could make conversation and Shepherd just wasn’t that guy. Chances were he would just keep looking at Mikaela from the corner of his eye when he ran into her around the barn, giving her orders about which horse needed grooming but never cornering her in the tack room and finding out just how those small, round breasts felt to touch or how that rough yet feminine voice of hers sounded when she cried out in pleasure.

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Mikaela studied her new boss’s face for signs that he could see through her. First of all, she hoped he couldn’t tell she’d been thinking naughty thoughts about him since the moment he walked through the door. She would have to learn not to pay attention to his wrangler’s body, strong jaw and deep brown, boyish eyes. He was too young for her and he was her boss besides. Then again, she wasn’t planning to stick around for long. It might not be such a bad thing if he found out her panties had been damp since the moment she looked up and saw him come into the tack room. Second, she hoped he wouldn’t look too closely at her hands. If he did, he wouldn’t see palms thickened and cracked by handling ropes and reins, even though she’d claimed a life of horse work on her falsified resumé. Instead he would see soft skin nourished by lanolin cream during coffee breaks while she thought about troubleshooting for somebody from the accounting department. As long as he kept his eyes off her hands, her deception would be easy. It helped that her face was weathered by the sun, her eyes permanently sun-lined from too many weekends spent hiking along the long, sunny, desperately rocky West Coast. No one had to know she’d spent the last twenty years behind a desk instead of riding the range. She let the trail of her vision wander down the lines of his body. She couldn’t have come up with a sexier horseman-god if she’d dreamed him up. As she allowed herself to appreciate him, a distinctly pleasant sensation of warmth spread throughout her lower body and something clicked inside her. Maybe it was the danger of pretending to be something she wasn’t. Maybe it was the thrill of her secret plans to break the law. Whatever it was, something made her bolder than usual. She was contemplating spending the rest of her life as a fugitive or, as an unthinkable alternative, serving a hefty prison sentence. Given that fact, the possibility of rejection by an attractive male didn’t look particularly frightening. “Shepherd,” she said, “you’re going to be hard to work for.” He raised his eyebrows at her questioningly. “That’s not exactly putting your best foot forward, insulting your boss on the first day.”

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Mikaela didn’t blink. “That was no insult. It was a compliment. I meant I’m already thinking all the wrong kinds of thoughts about you. That’s going to make it hard to focus on what I’m doing while I’m on the job.” That handsome, stoic face of his shifted. His eyes opened a fraction wider. “You mean…” He looked open. Boyish. Innocent. She nodded. “I mean you’re the hottest boss I’ve ever worked for.” She smiled, hoping her expression looked much sweeter and more innocent than she really was. “You’re not going to fire me for that, are you?” He swallowed once, quickly, and then his eyes narrowed and a slight smile molded his smooth-shaven cheeks. He leaned toward her and propped his elbow against the wall close to her face. “Let’s just say if your attention wanders a little while you’re working, I won’t get on your case about it.” He said the words slowly, savoring them, but at the same time a flush crept over his collarbone and Mikaela could hear his breath coming just a little more rapidly. She had the feeling he hadn’t had the chance to flirt like this too often. That could be a good thing. That could be a very good thing. As soon as her shift ended, she was going to be wandering the land this man owned and she would be doing it for her own nefarious purposes. The more he liked her, the better. It didn’t hurt that just looking at him made her want to feel his strong young body gripped between her legs…or pounding into her from behind. How easy it would be to bend forward over the desk in front of her, tilt her ass up toward him and let him slide into her slit. She would feel his hardness penetrating to the core of her belly, making her soft pussy melt and become even softer… She blinked and looked up at him, realizing that seconds had passed and she hadn’t responded to his remark. She smiled sheepishly. “Um…I think it’s wandering already. Sure you don’t mind?” “I don’t mind,” he said. His face was still just inches from hers. “Long as you don’t mind that mine’s wandering too.” 8

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God, he smelled like leather, a smell that took Mikaela back to the happiest horsefilled days of her childhood. If she wasn’t careful, she could end up falling for this guy. And that would make her life a lot more difficult over the next few days. She already knew she wasn’t going to have an easy time stealing horses from Shepherd. It was already a challenge to stay focused on her plans when she kept feeling her attention drawing back to the way her nipples had tightened and were rubbing against the fabric of her shirt. She would have to be very careful indeed. “Not on your life but my shift is over and I’m going home,” she told him. She dropped her boot off the desk and strode away through the barn. “But you know where to find me in the morning,” she added over her shoulder, hoping to soften the abruptness of her departure. He didn’t say anything but from that backward glance she got the distinct impression that he was staring after her. As soon as she escaped his line of vision, she picked up her pace and followed the small, bumpy dirt road that led to the tiny cabin that came with the stable hand position. Her heart raced. She needed to be alone to clear her head. How did a simple conversation and flirtation turn into a force of sexual gravity with enough traction to inspire guilt about her mission? When she reached the cabin, which stood in the shade of a few sparse, twiggy trees, she slammed the door behind her and went to the sink to splash the stable dust off her face and hands. The cabin was a dilapidated old miner’s shack that happened to adjoin the ranch, which was located a few miles from the small town of Cerrillos, New Mexico. The one-room building made for a dubious job perk but when she accepted the position Mikaela had acted grateful just to have a roof over her head. That attitude suited the role she was playing. She stared at her reflection in the dim, rippled mirror over the sink. “Hang tough,” she whispered to the ghostly image of herself. “It only gets harder from here.” Minutes later, she reemerged and started out across the desert on foot, cutting through the acres of Shepherd’s ranch toward distant miles of empty, state-owned land.

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She hoped that if anyone saw her they would think she was just out for a hike. She snaked her way between hills, making a long trek of her walk through a limited part of the terrain. Every so often, she took a swallow from a bottle of tepid water, always scanning the hills for the perfect place. By the time she found it, the soles of her feet protested each step with the telltale sting of blisters and her eyes ached from squinting against the sunlight. But the miles of walking were worth it. The ravine was perfect. In all the ways she’d fantasized about the moment when she freed her horses and her heart, in all the visions of how those moments might flow by when what was captive became wild again, she had never imagined that the land could be her ally so completely. Yet here it was, a narrow pass between two sharp crests, leading into what appeared to be a dry creek bed. The area beyond the pass was like a gentle basin, flanked by jutting flares of rock. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the harsh light and moved forward over the rocks and gravel of the yellow earth. Though close enough to the barn and paddock to serve her purposes, she was a good mile away from the nearest cow trail through the ranch land. Perhaps years had elapsed since another human being had approached this ravine from this angle or put a hand on the same bit of rough ochre stone. With the dry ground crunching under her boots, she stepped into the pass between the crests. The spot was a natural doorway. The tall, leaning rocks bent toward one another above her head, reminding her of those quaint arched openings to courtyards in centuries-old adobe buildings here in the Southwest. Beyond them, the land sloped gently, dipping and then rising to a field of tough grass tufts, chamiso and juniper. The horses would find food. And there would be streams. Usually just a trickle. But enough to keep these tough animals alive. The stone passage was so narrow and so completely surrounded by hills that the chances of even one horse wandering back through the passageway was one in a thousand. The animals would scatter on state land, gone from the P-Q Ranch forever. Even though Mikaela wouldn’t keep the animals herself, they would most definitely be stolen from the ranch when she was through with them.

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She walked into the basin beyond the natural doorway, imagining herself as one of the mustangs, free again under the wide expanse of sky. She could almost believe she was one of them. She had no guarantee that she would get all of them through the pass. If she tried to drive them en masse, they would scatter. She would have to lead them one by one and some of them would become skittish when they saw their fellows going. The whites of their eyes would show in the darkness. Their heads would toss in the wind. Their hooves would shuffle on the earth. Their hearts would pound. Much the same way Mikaela’s heart was pounding now. She couldn’t pretend that her venture didn’t frighten her. At the same time, it was more than fear that fueled the flutter inside her chest. It was exhilaration. She had led an ordinary life. A successful one by ordinary standards, to be sure. Until recently, she had a good job, a newish car that ran well, time to hike and kayak on the weekends and no major complaints in life. At forty, she was still single but she’d always told herself she liked it that way. Any time pangs of loneliness made her feel down, she got out her laptop and did some work or lost herself in the outdoors. Yes, an ordinary enough existence. Now she was about to do something extraordinary, something that would tear down everything she had built, forcing her to start anew. No longer would she be bound to a desk job that neither repulsed nor thrilled her but instead infected her with an insidious case of ennui. No longer would she feel tied down by a home full of inert objects, belongings that weighed on her soul. She would return her horses to their rightful home and then become a mustang herself, a tough, wild creature living off the land. She could be at the Mexican border within hours after freeing the horses. With any luck, she’d be on the other side of the Rio Grande before anyone got up and discovered that the animals were missing. By then, she would be impossible to find. Her disdain for resort facilities would stand her in good stead now, because the two Mexican vacations she took years earlier involved time off the beaten trail discovering small, simple towns. Places with minimal connection to big cities and the life she was leaving behind. Tabernas and taquerias where no one asked your name. Disappearing would be the easy part. 11

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The hard part? Lifting the latch on the paddock gate, alone, by moonlight. Crossing the line into lawlessness. She took in a long, deep lungful of dusty air. How many days had passed since she did something that terrified her? How many years? She couldn’t remember when. It was about time she not only stepped out of her comfort zone but sent the entire zone packing. The thought made everything around her look sharper, more real. Though no one was there to see, she smiled to herself and sat down cross-legged in the dirt. The sun burned high in the sky, dusk still hours away. But tonight the moon would be just past full. In another three or four days, the moon would have waned enough to diminish her chances of being seen should some wanderer happen by the ranch…but it would still give enough light for her to accomplish her task. She would wait a few more days then. A few more days of mucking stalls and currying horse flesh wouldn’t kill her. In fact, nothing would make her happier. A sudden crunching sound from behind jolted her from her reverie. She leapt up into a crouching position, whipping her gaze toward the natural doorway. For the second time that day, she found herself staring into the eyes of the owner of the P-Q Ranch. Every muscle in her body went taut, ready to run. Her throat tightened, preparing to squeeze out words of self-defense. She forced herself to take a deep breath and relax, giving herself an internal reminder that he couldn’t read her thoughts. He couldn’t see the plans unfolding against the landscape of her mind. All he saw was a woman who had wandered out in the desert and who sat alone, meditating in nature, lost in thought. She stood up. “Hey there. Hope I didn’t creep you out by following you,” he said. “Just saw you go off into the desert and noticed you veered off the trail.” He cleared his throat. “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost.” Mikaela didn’t answer right away. She’d had no idea anyone was following her. She swallowed hard. If her explorations were this obvious to the very man she needed

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to elude, she would have to be a great deal more careful when the fateful night of her crime arrived. Shepherd shifted his weight from one boot to the other. “You weren’t lost, were you?” She pulled out a smile from somewhere inside. “No. No, I was just exploring. Hope you don’t mind.” “Mind? No, no reason for me to mind. I don’t have any claim on this land. We’re way out past the property line.” He slid his hands into his pockets, looking too smooth and confident for a guy whose reputation held that he fell on the far side of shy. “Damn, you look scared stiff. I must really have startled you.” Mikaela let an easy sigh escape her lips. His laid-back air dissipated her nervousness. “Yeah, I was off in my own world,” she replied, letting relief penetrate her to the core as she accepted that he truly had no idea she was up to anything that would harm him or his ranch. “So you’re not telling me you’re scared of me, are you?” An impish glint sparked into his eye. “Not after what you said this afternoon?” She laughed aloud. If he’d questioned her presence out here, if he’d shown any hint of worry that she didn’t belong here in this remote basin of rock and sand under the sky, she wouldn’t have had any ground on which to stand in an argument. But if they were going to flirt, she could hold her own. Up until a few days earlier, she hadn’t possessed much of a criminal mind. But sexual energy? She had it in spades. “I can promise you,” she said, taking a step toward him, “that you don’t scare me.” That was true as far as it went. He didn’t scare her. But she couldn’t have said she didn’t scare herself. Her own plans coupled with her feelings were enough to make anybody tremble. She chose to ride the wave of emotion and let it carry her. After all, she had nothing to lose. She read his face, finding his features deeply alive, as if he was taken with her, intrigued with an older woman. The thought made her chuckle. She felt young but from 13

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his perspective she must seem seasoned, sculpted by time. Ordinarily, she would be all business with an employer. But this time around, she had no career future to cradle. Nothing could be shattered because there was nothing to work toward. So she took a few more steps up the gentle slope and placed a hand on his chest. He was all muscle and she indulged another mental image of what it would be like to have sex with him. She did a little too good a job of imagining the slick feel of his penis sliding inside her and the rippling thrill as he rode her, letting his weight rock her hips with each thrust. She barely heard her own sharp intake of breath but it didn’t escape him. He reached up and caught her wrist. Although he allowed her hand to remain on his shirt front, he kept a tight grip on her forearm and looked into her eyes. “If I don’t scare you what do I do to you?” he asked and his tone left no doubt that he already knew the answer. And from the bodily hunger she saw written on his face, he was in about the same condition she was. Aroused, resigned to it and not even close to being ready to turn around and walk home alone. His eyes were liquid fire. His jaw was set in the way a man’s is when he’s determined to have a woman. He let go of her hand and captured the small of her back against his broad palm. The warm, sure touch sent delicious heat between her legs. Her tongue found its way to her dry lips, edging them with moisture. She let her gaze travel down his body, appreciating a physique honed by a lifetime of tough riding and ranch work. She still felt pumped full of the adrenaline that coursed through her while she appraised the landscape for her unusual purposes. It made her giddy and bold. On impulse, she pressed her hand over his fly. Sure enough, what she found there was an erection hard enough to make her inner thighs tingle with the thought of letting him plunge into her. She let the fingers of her other hand wander to the hairs that curled above the top button of his shirt. She scraped her short nails lightly across his flesh, feeling his responding shiver of desire as if it were happening in her own body. “The same thing I do to you,” she said. She looked up into his eyes and saw him frozen, holding himself back. She decided to milk the moment for all it was worth.

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“This is dangerous, wouldn’t you say?” she asked him. She wanted to pretend to worry but she couldn’t hold back a slight smile. “Because of the working relationship.” The tension around his eyes relaxed and the warmth returned to his expression. He bent his head toward hers. “I won’t tell the boss if you don’t.” She laughed. “Well, unless you have multiple personalities, I’d say the boss is already in this pretty deep.” Right there in the open air, he slipped her shirt off her. The calluses on his palms raked her skin as he ran his hands down her torso. What had been a sweet ache in the deep pit of her belly became pure, wet need, a wanting that was pleasure in itself. Her folds instantly became slick and plump. Every move she made brought her new awareness of exquisite sensations below. He caught her lips with his and she moaned, knowing no one was there to hear them. He pressed his hand up against her mound, stroking her firmly. Even through layers of clothing his touch almost sent her over the edge. She became aware that this had gone beyond play. Desperate tension sparked between them and she knew they’d left flirtation far behind. “I know I’m your boss,” he said, “but you have the upper hand. You decide whether we take this any further.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, still letting his fingers press against her most intimate place through her jeans. “All I can do is wait for you to tell me yes or no.” “Anything you want,” she replied, “that doesn’t grind my ass into this rocky ground.”

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Chapter Two They took the shortest route back to her rundown cabin, where he backed her in through the door and shut it gently behind him. She stripped without preamble, watching him undress as he watched her. He wrapped her in his arms and pressed her body to the cot against the wall. The cot’s springs, which had been uncomfortable her first few nights in this cabin, now only served to make her more aware of the delicate curves of her own spine. He pressed his erection against the outside of her slit and her juices slicked the taut surface of his cock. He rubbed himself slowly up and down inside the wet folds, making her want to scream with the need to feel him inside her. “You promise you don’t think I’m taking advantage of you?” he breathed, his voice deep and throaty with desire. She gave a low, purring chuckle. “You? Taking advantage of me?” She slipped her fingers into his hair and gripped the brown locks between her fingers. “No, Shepherd, you have it backward. I’m the one taking advantage of you.” Tightening her fingers, she tilted his head back so that his eyes met hers. “And don’t you forget it.” Her pussy pulsed with arousal and despite her bravado, she knew she was as much at his mercy as he was at hers. He inched his way up her chest, grazing her skin with his lips, moving higher until he reached her breast. The touch of his mouth on the lower curve of her breast sent a chill through her that went all the way to her toes. He hesitated, letting her feel the warmth of his breath, and she decided that if he waited one more moment to take her nipple in his mouth she was going to smack him. His tongue found her areola. She shivered. “Good boy,” she whispered. “Don’t stop that if you know what’s good for you.”

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He must have known what was good for him because he continued to suck her so hard she felt her whole body shift into a state of warm glow. He slipped a hand between her legs, nudging the thighs apart with firm insistence. His fingers trailed the edges of her folds and she felt shivers of pleasure run through her, ribbons of pure bliss hinting at a climax she could almost touch. His fingers paused near her opening and the frustration was like salt on her lips. “For god’s sake,” she hissed, “get your fingers inside me.” He did. Maybe this guy was more experienced than she’d guessed, or maybe it was pure luck but either way he found that precise place inside her that turned her insides to liquid fire. She writhed against him, keeping pace with his movements. Too soon, he pulled his hand back. She sank into the mattress with a gasp. For an instant she was utterly lost. The withdrawal of his hand’s touch left her spiraling down through space, back to ordinary reality…until she saw him rise to his knees with a knowing smile on his face. She let her fingers slide over the smooth, huge hardness of his cock. She slipped her forefinger over the tip of him, finding slippery wetness there. Spreading the drop of lube, she worked him, her hand moving up and down. He groaned, shoved her onto her back and pinned her to the bed with his body weight. He bit her neck, not hard enough to leave bruises but hard enough to hurt, just a little. He pressed himself against her and let his cock pulse against the flesh of her lower belly. He was gloriously hard against her softness. Mikaela never traveled without condoms and her mission to free her mother’s horses was no exception. She pulled away from Shepherd just long enough to grab a small foil packet from the drawer of the cabin’s rickety nightstand. She handed it to him and he put it on without hesitation. He pressed himself on top of her once again and thrust into her. He filled her completely, stretching her and making her ache for more of him. He pulled back, almost to the point where she would have cried out to him not to withdraw—and then he

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shoved back in so swiftly and completely that the rush of pleasure tore a yell from her throat. But then he paused. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, smooth face pulled down into a frown. “No, this isn’t right,” he said. Hell of a time for him to grow a conscience. She gazed back at him in physical anguish. “You could have said so half an hour ago,” she growled. His eyes widened. “Not that! Get up.” Despite the command, he gave her no chance to get up on her own. He grasped both her hands and pulled her up to her knees, then wrapped his arms around her waist. His expression softened. “You just don’t seem like a flat on your back kind of woman,” he said, pressing the length of his torso against hers. He cupped her buttocks in his hands and buried himself in her once more. The new angle caused him to rub along her clit. His first thrust drew her along a knife edge of perfect, blinding, gorgeous sensation. His second thrust sent her tumbling over the edge into wave after shocking wave of orgasm. She shuddered, gripping his back, burying her face against the sparse, rough hairs of his chest. He continued to fill her, taking her beyond the aftermath of her release to something unbearably, achingly pleasurable. And then he pushed into her even more deeply, groaning in a low voice that told her that at least for that moment he had given his entire being over to her for safekeeping. He came inside her. The end of his cock found her G-spot and triggered off another shiver of orgasm in her, so that she trembled and her walls gripped him again and again. His body shook. He held himself deep inside her for one long moment before letting her go. He pulled out while using one hand to keep the condom securely in place. She fell to the bed like a rag doll and he flopped down beside her. “I don’t think I can move,” she said, hearing a hint of giggle crinkling the edges of her voice. “Neither can I,” he replied, sounding dead serious. “Can I stay here tonight?” When she didn’t reply right away, he added, “I don’t snore, I promise.” 18

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Mikaela stared up into the darkness. “I believe you.” She couldn’t tell him it wasn’t a concern about privacy that made her hesitate. It wasn’t the fact that they’d only just met. It wasn’t anything she could ever tell him. And yet it was something that defined who she was. Without sharing the truth about her mission with Shepherd, she couldn’t tell him anything real about herself. Rather than answer him in words, she reached for the sheet and pulled it over both of them. It was just a bargain store-brand sheet, plain and cheap. But it felt soft and nurturing. He reached for her and drew her to him, gently, protectively. She let herself nestle against him, her buttocks fitting into the crease of his thigh, his arms curling around her from behind. Just before drifting off to sleep, she caught herself thinking, I could sleep like this every night… Some hours later she jerked awake. All was still in the little house, as silent as death save for Shepherd’s soft breathing. No sound had awakened her. There was nothing around her to disturb her rest. The disturbance came from inside her. Feeling brutally wide awake, she lay there with eyes open, staring into darkness. Great. Exactly what she didn’t need in the middle of her mid-life crisis was to have the best sex ever with the guy she was about to screw in a completely different sense. The theft she was planning was completely justified in her mind but Shepherd wasn’t at fault. After what seemed like an hour, she dozed off again only to half-wake soon after, racked by guilt. She nudged the perfect vision of sleeping maleness beside her. “There’s something you don’t know about those new horses, Shepherd,” she whispered. He rolled over. “That they’re really a horde of Huns in disguise and they’re plotting to pillage Cerrillos?” Even with sleep clouding his voice, that guy didn’t miss a beat. “Not exactly,” Mikaela replied, suppressing the urge to giggle at his odd sense of humor. What she had to tell him wasn’t funny. “No. What you don’t know about them is that they’re mine.”

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“Well, I think of any horse I feed and curry as mine too. You kind of get attached to horses.” He spoke into the pillow, eyes drifting closed again. She watched his dim form in the darkness. His breathing slowed and became deep and even once again. She contemplated giving him a shove in the deltoid with her elbow and telling him the rest of the truth. But if she did that, she would be sabotaging her own chosen future. That one honest gesture of telling Shepherd who she was and why she was there would destroy any chance of her being able to decide her own horses’ fate. She let him sleep. Knowing he would never hear her, she whispered inaudibly to his dormant form, “No. I’m supposed to own them. All twenty-seven of them. They were my mother’s.” She sighed and continued mouthing the words, no longer making any sound at all. “I’m not an employee. I’m an infiltrator.” Having spoken the truth, she felt a sense of relief. Even though he hadn’t been able to hear her, at least she was being honest with herself. She reminded herself that she was doing the right thing, that her mother would have wanted her to have the horses. All twenty-seven of them. She let her mind drift back to that day a few weeks earlier, shortly after her mother’s death. That was the day when she made the decision that if she couldn’t lay claim to those horses she would turn them back out onto the wild desert land where they belonged, where they would be happiest.

***** Every event of that day was burned into her memory. She’d driven up the narrow road to her mother’s farm, every muscle in her body tense as if poised for a fight. Her compact car didn’t have what it took to negotiate the dirt road with any kind of ease. The ride knocked her teeth together and through the wild rain she had an intermittent view of the road for a split second after each swipe of the windshield wipers. She recognized the old wooden sign easily all the same. She knew its shape, its

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rough grain, its color. She turned in and the tires lost traction for a moment before gripping the road again. The car rumbled over the cattle guard. Ahead, parked in front of the barn, loomed a long, silver horse trailer. Mikaela’s heart pounded. The tires spun, so even though she was still yards and yards from the barn she stopped and cut the engine. She grabbed her baseball cap from the passenger seat, told herself there was no such thing as too late and got out into the downpour. A balding man in a red shirt stood next to the trailer, hands on hips. Instantly soaked to the skin, Mikaela ran up the drive. Mud sucked at her shoes, threatening to pull them off with every step. Her socks squished. The man in the red shirt called out toward the barn’s black mouth, “Move ’em all out, buddy. The P-Q Ranch bought every last one of them.” A wiry man wearing jeans and a raincoat appeared out of the dark doorway. He led a gray mare on a halter. “The trailer only holds four, Ed,” he said. “So we’ve got a lot of trips to make. Better keep moving.” The man in the coat, head down against the rain, led the gray toward the trailer. The short, wiry mare tossed her head, unused to walking on a lead. She was one of the mustangs that had roamed free on the desert land owned by Mikaela’s mother until her unexpected death just days earlier. Ed turned in Mikaela’s direction just as she came to a halt a few feet away from him. Her jeans and thin shirt clung to her skin, cold and heavy. Despite the baseball cap, her hair was soaked and darkened yellow strands streamed over her eyes. Speaking to a space somewhere just above the top of her head, Ed asked, “What do we have here?” When she spoke, her words came out sounding harder than she intended because she had to raise her voice to be heard over the rain. “These are my horses. And they’re staying here on this land.” Ed crossed his arms over his chest “Jamie!” he called out. “Come ‘n’ take a look at this.”

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The one called Jamie descended the metal ramp leading out of the trailer, each step clanging. In the distance, beyond the pastures, trees bent and waved under the weight of silvery rain. Jamie came to stand next to Ed, and Mikaela looked up into his eyes. “My mother died before she could make out a will,” she said. “She wanted these horses to belong to me.” Jamie only narrowed his eyes. “Who the hell are you?” Ed asked. She was about to give him her full name but something made her think better of it. “Who am I? I’m the rightful owner of these mustangs,” she answered. Ed laughed. “It’s the daughter,” Jamie said to him sideways. “I know. I know about her.” Ed flashed his teeth. “Lawyer told me she might come poking around making trouble. Ignore her. She has no legal claim to these horses.” Mikaela could see Jamie shivering under his raincoat in the fall downpour. Her own skin burned, even against her chilly clothing. Jamie didn’t look as callous as Ed. She made an appeal to him. “These are my horses. Just let me talk to your lawyer before you take them away. Give me just one day.” Ed looked straight into Mikaela’s eyes but spoke to Jamie. “Ain’t got all day. Let’s get a move on, Jamie,” he said. Jamie’s streaming face hardened and then he hunched his shoulders, turned away and went back into the barn. Ed grinned again coldly. “Your horses,” he snorted with sarcasm. He shifted, putting his back to her. “Hurry it up, Jamie!” he called toward the barn. The next day, Mikaela typed up a fabricated work history and applied for a job at the P-Q Ranch.

*****

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The next time she woke, it was to the feel of Shepherd’s warm lips tasting the back of her neck and his arms cuddling her close at dawn. She threw on an old sleep shirt, took him into her small, sparse kitchen and shared the morning with him. The biting heat of coffee. The pain of pale light through frayed curtains. His confident eyes, his innocent, cocky grin. She fed him toast, which he slathered with huge globs of jam. If only he knew he’d just fucked a horse thief.

Shepherd savored the sight of her. Rough, burnished gold curls gone wild with sleep. Thin T-shirt molding to small, firm breasts. And he knew the body under there was supple and soft in all the right places. Then there were the legs, strong and slender as a mare’s. The sun-warmed texture of her skin, the way her face crinkled at the corners of the eyes when she smiled, the ruddy peach color of her deeply tanned cheeks…it all added up to a woman who would keep drawing him back again and again. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to stay away from her. “I’m coming to see you again tonight,” he told her. “I’ll be here at seven. No. Six.” She bit her lip. “We shouldn’t. I work for you. Remember? I thought this was a onetime thing.” He stood up from the table. “I’m about to make it twice.” He stepped toward her, undoing the fly of the jeans he’d put on only a few minutes earlier. Her eyes strayed to his erection and in his imagination he could already feel her wet pussy clenching him with soft strength. The thought made his cock pulse with want. He slipped his hands under the thin, worn T-shirt she had on. His fingers found her cool skin. Her torso fit neatly into his hands. Until she ripped herself away from him. “I mean it, Shepherd,” she said, her tone a sharp warning. “I won’t lie and say I don’t want it to be more but…you’re my boss.” She dropped her eyes as she said those last three words. Somehow it irritated him that she couldn’t meet his gaze but at the same time it aroused him. Every time he turned 23

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around, this woman did something else to surprise him. First by flirting outrageously in the tack room. Then by taking off by herself into the desert. Then by blowing his mind in bed. Now by developing a conscience. With Mikaela around, he wouldn’t get bored, that was for sure. She pushed past him, yanked a shirt and a pair of jeans off their hangers and hurriedly began dressing. Once clothed, she ran her fingers through her tangled, enticing mass of curls and then jammed her baseball cap on her head. She opened the front door and stood on the threshold, smiling at him. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn that smile was sad. “See you at the barn,” she said and then disappeared.

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Chapter Three On her way to the barn, Mikaela passed the paddock. Not the training paddock where wranglers broke and trained new mounts on long leads. The paddock. The one where her horses were kept. The formerly wild creatures now lived in a large, grassy enclosure, awaiting their turns for training and resale. Their new home was pleasant enough. They had room to stretch their legs. They had plenty to eat. But wild no longer, these mustangs were trapped by a tall, split-rail fence. She tried not to look too closely at them as she passed, lest her heart’s kinship with them become painful enough to interfere with the day’s work. On top of feeling conflicted about Shepherd, she didn’t think she could handle thinking too much about the horses. All the same, she let herself steal a few sidelong glances at the animals’ rough coats, which were lit chestnut, burgundy and amber dun by the harsh, slanting rays of morning light. She managed to get through the day without seeing Shepherd but at the end of her shift he appeared, blocking her way into the tack room as she attempted to return a curry comb, hard brush and soft brush to their proper places. Adrenaline rushed through her veins. He was in the doorway and she needed to get through, get home and keep away from this seductively innocent, physically powerful man forever. But he was there, inches in front of her, his broad shoulders filling her field of vision and his deltoids filling out the sleeves of his shirt. He put a hand on the doorframe and smiled a slight, relaxed, confident smile. Damn. One rejection wasn’t enough for this guy? It would be torture to say no yet again to the chance to have that tall, powerful body entwined with hers and feel those perfectly defined back muscles flexing under her palms while he rode her. She looked into his eyes and felt her inner thighs grow slick at the memory of last night’s pleasure. The truth was that she wasn’t sure she could say no to him. Not a second time.

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“Everyone else has gone home,” he said. “And I just came to tell you I know what I did wrong to make you run off this morning.” She shook her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” “I did,” he persisted. “I came on too strong. So let’s back up. I like you, Mikaela. I like you a lot. So let’s do this the right way. Let me take you out this weekend. We can pretend we’re starting from scratch and take things slowly.” He looked her up and down. “Not that it’s going to be easy.” A grin spread across his youthful face. “But for you, I can do it.” He made a small X over his heart. “One step at a time. Cross my heart.” “No. No deal, Shepherd,” she said. “Why not?” He didn’t look hurt at all. Instead, she got the feeling that he wasn’t about to give up without a rock-solid reason to do so. She sighed. “Because,” she replied, “you don’t know enough about me to commit to going out with me.” “Then how am I supposed to find out more?” She tightened her grip on the bucket that contained the brushes and curry comb. “There are things about me that you don’t know.” His eyes darkened. “I know you’re older than I am. It doesn’t bother me.” She held up the bucket and tried to edge past him. “I need to put these brushes away.” She cautioned herself not to say too much to him. Something about him made her want to tell him the whole story and explain exactly why she was really here in his barn, studying the landscape around the ranch, living on the property and learning what hours of the night the place was most likely to be deserted. He took the bucket from her hand, put it on the floor and caught her waist with one broad palm. The sureness of his touch sent a flush of heat through her pussy. She ached to feel him inside her as she had the night before. Her throat tightened at the thought of having to shove him away and never feel him filling her, stretching her, riding her to

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waves of aching pleasure. The thought brought a fresh pulsation to her folds, along with a rush of moisture. She looked down, afraid that if she met his eyes she would throw herself into his arms. “Does it bother you that I’m only twenty-six?” he asked. “If it does, just tell me. I won’t be hurt.” Twenty-six? That was younger than she’d thought. But no, that wasn’t the problem. If anything, it was a bonus. The thought broke her stony mood and she grinned. “Look,” she said, “I can’t keep saying no to you. I’m running out of excuses.” Although she wasn’t about to tell him so, that wasn’t the half of it. She could see that he was hard, his thick cock straining outward against his jeans. She could just imagine taking that cock into her mouth and licking it from base to tip, lingering at the sensitive juncture where the base met the head. All her reasons for trying to push him away evaporated from her memory. All she wanted was to take Shepherd inside her again. Her thighs trembled and her pussy ached. He drew her in close to him, pressing her breasts against the firm muscles just under his ribs. Her heart rate increased. Feeling his hardness against her thigh made her lightheaded with desire. “Good,” he said. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her lightly, teasingly. The touch of his lips sent rivers of desire running down through her body, culminating in a throbbing heat between her thighs. God, she wanted him to plunge into her. She wanted to see him lose himself in her, turn from man into wordless wild creature. She would worry about stealing his horses later. Now, she didn’t want to wait another minute before squeezing his shaft with the tight muscles of her pussy. She nipped his jawline, loving the warmth of his taut cheek between her lips. His responding shiver sent a new wave of lust through her. He put his hand under her shirt and the roughness of his skin brought sharp pleasure wherever he touched. The scrape of his flesh seared the place where her upper belly made a hollow below her chest. His touch sent chills through the soft skin that clothed her rib cage.

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In her haste that morning, she hadn’t bothered with a bra. She wondered fleetingly whether its absence made Shepherd think her resistance all a coy game. If he did, he might even be right. Had her subconscious had a plan when she failed to put on the restrictive garment? Had she skipped that part of her outfit accidentally-on-purpose? Now his hand found her nipple and squeezed. An aching delight pulsed through her, making her pussy long to take him in. He pressed his hips against hers and the feel of his long, hard cock against her belly made her juices flow to life. She could hear his breath coming quicker, rasping with need. “What happened to starting from scratch? Doing things one step at a time?” she asked, her own voice surprising her with its breathiness. He stepped forward, causing her to back into the barn, their bodies still tight together. “You didn’t want to talk about it,” he answered in a loud whisper. “Remember?” They now stood in the middle of the broad, hay-strewn area in the middle of the stable. The doors on either end were shut but a skylight just above them filled the stable with brilliant yellow sunlight. His hands moved over her, stripping clothes away. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “We’re private. Nobody’s due to come back here again today.” Somehow it wasn’t until that moment that it sank in for Mikaela that she really was going to have sex a second time with the man who’d bought the horses that should have been hers. Not only was she going to, she couldn’t stand the thought of waiting. She scraped her short nails across his lean, delightfully muscled belly, taking pleasure in the frisson that shook him. She kicked off her boots, stepped out of her jeans and undid his belt. “You never had any intention of taking things slowly, did you?” she said, an impish lilt in her voice. Somehow she managed to pull off the tough-girl act despite being aroused to a high pitch and feeling ready to submit to his every whim. “Just had a hunch I should close the barn doors before I talked to you, is all,” he murmured before running his hands down the length of her smooth, naked thighs to the sensitive vulnerability of her ankles. He let go and stepped back, gazing at her with

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an unreadable glint in his eye. Even as she admired his spectacular nakedness, she felt the absence of his touch like a chill. “Close your eyes,” he commanded. His voice sounded heavy, clouded with desire. “Why?” she asked, suddenly feeling her nakedness. It was good to be free of the encumbrance of clothing but at the same time, illogically, it now seemed even more likely that he might read her secrets just by looking at her. “Just do it,” he said. “I promise if you don’t like this, all you have to do is say so.” A thrill of nervousness added to the mix of her emotions. There was little chance he could do anything to her she wouldn’t like. At this point, her excitement would make any touch, no matter how rough, into sweetness. She had nothing to lose by closing her eyes. As soon as she did so, she felt a rope loop around her left wrist and draw tight. The tension in her groin turned up a notch. He was making her his captive even as she was about to make herself free forever. Seconds later, the same sensation of thick rope wrapped her right wrist. He raised her arms over her head and looped the rope again, around both wrists together this time. Her wrists jerked together. Her hands, her arms, her whole self, all were at his mercy. She tried resisting just as an experiment. The ropes held and her effort couldn’t budge them. Sure, he’d said she could call this off any time but for the moment she was trapped. Her clit hummed, begging to be touched. She trembled as she thought about the fact that he could do anything at all to her. Whatever he chose to do, she hoped he would do it long, hard and mercilessly. She felt movement and a few tugs before he let her arms go slack. They hung above her head, slightly bent, gently suspended. Before she could think to ask whether she could open her eyes yet, the same sort of coarse, thick rope touched her ankles. “I guess tying me up was all part of the plan of taking it slowly too?” she asked, purely to tease him. If she had any complaint, it was that he didn’t get his hands to more sensitive places faster. “That plan never made it past the blueprint stage,” he said, his cheerful, matter-offact voice coming from somewhere near her knees. He drew the rope taut, bringing the 29

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burn of the rough rope just to the edge of pain. At this point, she didn’t mind a little pain. She was no masochist but right now a little hurting made her feel more alive, feeding her courage and making her feel strong enough to love this man just for this afternoon, even knowing what she would soon have to do. She ached for him to touch her at her center, to plunge his fingers inside her the way he had the night before and tease another orgasm out of her. Those fingers were definitely too far away, fiddling with her ankles. Intending to tell him so, she opened her eyes just in time to see him knot the bond, which proved to be one of the lead ropes more conventionally used to lead horses to the pasture. The rope had a frayed, sharp-furred texture that pricked her skin and heightened the tension in her body, adding to her need for release. If only he would touch her nerve center, even lightly, she would shatter into a thousand shards of pleasure. If her hands had been free, she’d have grabbed him and guided his fingers to her wet opening already. “Look up,” Shepherd told her. She looked up. He had her wrists bound together with another lead rope, which he’d attached to the latched hooks of the cross ties that extended from opposite walls to the center of the barn. She laughed lightly. “You’re not planning to give me a horse bath, are you?” she joked. Slowly, giving her time to study every inch of his tanned, thoroughly muscular body, he shifted onto his knees in front of her. “I’m going to give you a completely different kind of bath,” he said, “and it has nothing to do with horses.” Oh God. Now that she knew what he had in mind she went weak, supported by the lead ropes. He could bathe her and more. The ropes bit into her soft, bare flesh. She had never felt so vulnerable yet so free at the same time. Being bound like this with the air touching all of her body felt like flying, like being a kite soaring against the sky, anchored to earth only by the strings that tethered it. She believed just for that moment that by tying her, Shepherd had made her free. She watched as he coiled a loose end of rope in his fist. With the other hand he reached toward her and oh-so gently parted her

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folds. Her pussy throbbed, its secret heat meeting a cool breeze. His fingers felt good but she wanted more. She had to have him touching her on that swollen nub that ached for him. “Shepherd, touch me,” she whispered. “It’s killing me to wait for you,” he rasped. “But I want to see you desperate first.” She wanted to tell him she was already desperate but at that moment the prickly fur of the looped rope brushed lightly across her clit. She screamed, a short sound of shock and burning feeling that she couldn’t have named as either pleasure or pain. He brushed it over her again, just a light touch, not enough to scrape the delicate skin but enough to awaken every nerve ending to jangling, tortured pitch. Now if he gave her one firm, smooth touch she would come. She wanted the release more than anything. His hands curled around her outer thighs. The touch of his fingers’ rough skin anchored her, keeping her from flying apart. His hands brought her back to a sweet awareness of being human, female and bounded by flesh. She dripped for him, her lower body quivering and her arms straining against the ropes, not to get away but to keep her upright. His fingers were marked by the whiteness of calluses and windburn. She melted for him as he withdrew the rope from her pussy. She imagined the warm roughness of those calluses scraping her clit. They’d be gentle and easy compared with the harsh rope. The mere thought of his fingers there gave her needles of pure feeling in her clit. In that spot, pain and ecstasy met and were now one. She gazed down on him, too proud to beg aloud but pleading with him silently to touch her more, more, more. Every muscle in his forearms was delineated, a perfect living sculpture. The man was a masterpiece of nature. If he was a horse in human form, he’d be her ideal lover. His shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. He turned his face up to look at her. Those eyes…they were as dark as any she’d ever seen. A deep, rich brown that conveyed deep emotion without words, the exact nature of which she could only guess at. He stared at her for several seconds, as if learning something from her face that only he could read. She could read his face though. She could see the hard, dreamy look of utter, helpless desire. She knew he wanted her and that made her even more desperate for him to

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touch her and give her release and to untie her so she could do the same for him. He tilted his face toward her, bringing his mouth slowly, ever so slowly, to her pubic hair and then pressing against the flesh beneath. Not the tough calluses at all. The wet warmth of lips and tongue. He ran his tongue between her folds, first one side and then the other. The caress was light, incredibly wet and shot scalding bliss through all her most sensitive places. It brought a tingling rush to her fingers, her toes and her pussy. God, the perfect pureness of that slick sensation. He moved his lips against her in a onesided kiss. That small movement brought a new rush of moisture to the lips of her vagina. She was flying no more. Despite being above him, she felt grounded. He tightened his grip on her thighs and his touch turned her into an earth goddess. She fleetingly wondered how she could feel so strong while being tied up and helpless. Then his mouth went back to work on her and she abandoned all attempt at rational understanding. It would be whatever it would be and she could not and did not want to control it. His tongue, wet and hot, slipped over her hooded clit. She struggled against her bonds to open her legs to him, to rise to meet him. If he wouldn’t let his tongue delve under the hood to touch the bare flesh of her clit himself, she would bring it to him. But her bonds limited her movement. She was unable to move closer to him. She strained against the ropes, struggling for climax. She could almost find release but not quite. She needed it desperately. If only he would give it to her, if only he would lick right at her center… He slipped away from her an inch or so, far enough to be able to chuckle. “You want more, do you?” he taunted. Then he went back to eating her. He fitted his mouth perfectly over her clit and worked his tongue up and down lightly over the nerve center. Her pussy swelled even more, her folds blossoming to a greater fullness than she would have thought possible. She let her head fall back as a deep cry tore from her throat. A few more licks and she would come against his mouth. She prayed he wouldn’t stop.

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Shepherd knew Mikaela was on the verge of orgasm. He pulled back, making her wait just a little longer before she could let all that tension explode. The sight of her with her head thrown back and eyes half closed, bound by heavy ropes and yet still somehow looking so free, made Shepherd’s cock surge. Funny that he’d never noticed how useful cross ties could be until he met this woman. He stood, sliding his hands up the sides of her body, feeling her quake under his touch. He wanted her so badly his balls were starting to hurt. It felt so good making her ache for him, watching her eyes turn to cloud and mist. He wanted to make her wait for him just a little longer. Even though holding back was the last thing his body wanted to do, he was determined to make this last as long as possible for both of them. He pressed the full length of his body against hers, his hard-on throbbing against her small nest of hair. His heart pounded against his breastbone as he imagined her damp walls squeezing him. “Shepherd,” she said, her voice gorgeously raw, “untie me and fuck me already. I can’t hit you but so help me I’m going to bite your earlobe off if you don’t help me out here.” He crouched down and reached into the pocket of his jeans, which he’d discarded on the floor while Mikaela’s eyes were closed. He pulled out a condom, put it on and slid himself into her slowly, enjoying every slick inch of her cunt. He bent his head and put his lips against her ear. “Who said anything about untying?” he whispered. He ached to move faster but he chose to draw out his thrusts so he could tease her over the edge right along with him. She moved at the same pace he did, her hips rotating in perfect rhythm with his. As much as he wanted to drive into her harder and find his own release, he continued to force himself to keep the pace slow as he tucked a hand in between their two bodies and let his thumb find her wet, swollen nub. Was it possible she was even more turned on, more swollen than she was just a moment before? His thumb rode over her flesh lubed by a combination of his saliva and her juices. The hard, flat surface of his belly slapped against his hand, rubbing his thumb across her clit. He made sure to keep his touch ever

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so light so she would feel no pain, only the pure ecstasy of his skin caressing hers. She pressed her cheek against his and her body shook. She gave a deep, low cry of release. He’d raised her to a pitch that he hoped no man ever had before. As she shuddered violently he wrapped both hands around her behind, supporting her weight in his hands. With her practically sitting on a seat created by his strong palms, he was able to enter her deeply and freely. He quickened his pace. Her spasms squeezed him, raising the level of his arousal to a fevered height. He closed his eyes, smelling the musk of her. She had every inch of him inside her, pulsing along his length. She might be the one who was tied up but he was at her mercy now. He grunted, sinking his teeth into her shoulder. He couldn’t contain the sharp coil of tension anymore. He came as waves of heat flooded over his body. The tightness of his muscles washed away, leaving only a warm mist of pleasure that engulfed every part of him. He stood embracing her, their sweat mingling as their bodies cooled. When he’d untied her, she put a hand on his chest. “Thank you,” she said. “For last night and today.” Though her face was still damp with perspiration and her body still limp with the force of her orgasm, her voice was oddly heavy. It sounded final. That made no sense to him, since as far as he was concerned they were just getting started. He could see spending a lot of time with this woman. A lot of time…as in years. “No, thank you,” he said. “And the sooner we do it again, the better.” “We’ll see,” she said. Her voice sounded awfully distant for a woman who’d just surrendered to total intimacy with him. It left him with the distinct impression that he might be missing some crucial piece of information about his sexy stable hand.

***** That evening, clouds rolled in at sunset, confirming what Mikaela had known since dawn. She couldn’t last another day deceiving Shepherd. She would have to free her horses tonight. It was now or never. The clouds would block enough moonlight that she wouldn’t feel exposed under the autumn night sky. At midnight, she slipped back to the barn, saddled an obedient trail mare named Dusty and rode up the hill to the 34

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mustang paddock. She held the reins in her right hand and kept a lead rope coiled in her left. A halter dangled from the saddle horn. She judged that her task might take several hours and she might not finish by dawn at all. It depended how much difficulty she had in getting the horses to accept a halter. They were used to humans and each of them had worn a halter before but they were still wild at the core. She would simply free as many horses as she could in the time she had.

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Chapter Four At first, the task went smoothly. She approached the mustangs so gently that they didn’t fear her. The night air was filled with the pleasant musk of horse flesh and the rhythmic sound of hooves on sand and stone. When she released the first horse on the far side of the narrow natural doorway made of rock, the animal didn’t follow her when she and Dusty rode back. She knew she’d found the right place to take her mustangs, a place where they would travel far across the desert landscape and live free. And then, when she returned to the paddock, she saw him. At the crest of a hill in the distance, astride a long-legged mount, Shepherd was silhouetted against the mottled gray sky. She didn’t need light to know it was him. She knew the breadth of his shoulders and the angle of his torso all too intimately. A mix of emotions ran through her. To her surprise, she felt a thrill of pleasure at catching sight of her lover. But at the same time, as she would have expected she felt terror, a cold fear so still and deep that it seemed to stop her blood from running. Being caught meant the loss of the new, anonymous life she’d dreamed of. It meant the death of her soul. A feeling of cold emptiness spread through her chest. Her legs felt numb. Though she still gripped her mount between her thighs, she couldn’t feel the saddle or the blanket. Now that she’d already driven a horse through the passageway into the basin, no lie she could concoct would erase the evidence that proved she was in the middle of stealing horses. No, his very presence meant the end of her plan. Only one choice remained to her. Only one thing made sense. She rode up to the paddock gate, tugged on the latch with a flourish and flung the gate as wide as it would go.

***** By nightfall, Shepherd found that Mikaela’s odd tone was the least of his concerns. The fact that he was too consumed with lust to be able to sleep—that was a much bigger 36

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worry. He returned to the ranch, saddled Bear and rode the ranch trails in the dark but his thoughts of her merely became more insistent. He determined that he would only find the cure to his obsession in the arms of the woman herself, so he turned Bear in the direction of the old mining cabin. The sound of hoof beats and horses snorting drew Shepherd’s attention away from the dirt road that led to the cabin. He looked toward the big paddock on the hill behind the barn, the paddock where the new mustangs were kept. Something was scaring them. Shit. His mind was full of visions of Mikaela freshly woken, softened by sleep, eyes half open but soft folds already damp and ready for him. He didn’t like the thought of some trivial problem with the horses tearing him away, preventing him from finding her clad again in that threadbare T-shirt that would let him feel every nuance of her skin down to the texture of her nipples. But something was up and the horses might need him. Only a moment, he told himself. Only a moment’s aside to check on them and then he would go straight to the cabin. He rode to the top of the ridge next to the paddock. And then he saw her. It could be no one else. That was her compact, lovely body. Even in the dark, he could tell those were her curls flying in the night air with the rhythm of her horse’s pace. He reined in and stopped there for a moment, transfixed. She seemed ringed by an aura of electricity, as if her body heat had melded with the heavy static of the promised storm. And that looked like Dusty she was riding. What was she doing out here after midnight? Was she crazy? If she was, he liked her kind of craziness and it made him want her even more. If she wasn’t, if she had a good reason for riding to the paddock like a wild woman in the middle of the night, he wanted to know what that reason was. She looked up in his direction. She must have seen him. For two or three heartbeats, he watched her remain frozen across the dark expanse of scrub land. He imagined they were communing somehow, their aching, wanting bodies pulling toward each other as

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if by gravitational force. Then she gave a mighty kick to her mount and the horse surged to the paddock gate. The gate flew wide. Mikaela rode into the paddock. Shepherd gave his horse a tap in the flanks and edged down the hill. He watched in amazement as she looped behind a group of three of the mustangs, herding them toward the open gate. There was no mistaking it. She was bent on driving the mustangs free from their enclosure. And she was beautiful. The taut lines of her body spoke of pure passion. She was a Valkyrie, an Amazon, a crazed St. Teresa on a horse. She was a storm cloud unleashing the rain of her beauty into the night. Or so Shepherd saw her. He was no longer conscious of riding. He paid no attention to directing his horse. He paid no attention to the herd in the paddock below him. He gave no thought to the real droplets that lashed his face or the wind that stole his breath from his mouth. He only saw the woman he loved and lusted for. She was the storm. She was the herd. She was the entire night. His whole world lived in her. The creative force that spun the whole universe into existence was curled inside her chest like a snake trembling to strike. “Go! Go! Run!” Her voice traveled over the horses’ backs, sounding to Shepherd’s ears like music in some strange key. And the horses…the horses listened. They spilled through the paddock gate and they ran. Their rumps rose and fell like waves in a choppy sea. Their heads lifted and their noses tucked in as their necks curled. Some of them broke into a trot. Some of them cantered. The tight crowd of haunches dispersed and spread over the dusky landscape. A few free souls at the edges of the herd let loose into a gallop, sailing over the desert, hooves beating the rocky earth. In perfect harmony with the sound of the storm, a wild human cry went out over the horses’ backs, over the land, clear enough to touch the hills that ringed the ranch land. It was Mikaela’s voice but more than Mikaela. It was the sound of her soul. He shook himself from his reverie to take in the fact of what he was witnessing. Right in front of his eyes, his new stable hand was setting his mustangs free.

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As the horses spread out like a ripple traveling away with her at its center, Mikaela looked up and saw Shepherd come down from the ridge. He must have given Bear a savage kick, because the animal moved like a swift shadow coming toward her. It would be foolishness to try to outrun him in the dark over land he knew far better than she did. She turned Dusty to face the oncoming man and horse and waited. As he pulled up just feet away from her, she dismounted and stood calmly, watching him. He swung off Bear’s back in a single smooth movement. He strode toward her, grasped both her shoulders and pressed her to the ground. She let out a hiss of pain as small, sharp stones bruised her backside. He pinned her hands over her head. “Tell me what you’re doing.” Her breath came in short gasps. “Setting my horses free.” His face was a mask of dark emotion. Betrayal? Or a purer breed of fury? “Your horses?” “They should have been mine.” He shook her wrists. Rocks nicked her forearms and the backs of her hands. “Tell me the truth! Who’s paying you for them? Who put you up to it?” “No one!” she cried, her voice made sharp by the bite of the earth against her flesh. “I’m telling you the truth. Until just a few days before you bought those mustangs at auction, they belonged to my mother.” Shepherd’s hard expression relented, though he didn’t release his hold on her. Strengthened by this hint that he might actually believe her, Mikaela continued in a calmer tone. “My mother wanted to leave the horses to me. But she died without a will. She was only sixty-four and in good health. I never thought I’d lose her so soon. And then the accident happened and she was just gone. I talked to a bunch of lawyers but none of them would take my case. The horses had already been sold—to you—before I finished making funeral arrangements.” Tears stung her eyes. In her mind, losing the horses and losing her mother had all come together in one big mass of grief lodged in her chest. “I did everything I could to claim those horses. But even though they were on my mother’s land they weren’t domesticated. They were 39

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considered wild and they belonged to the state. And then the state auctioned them off like used cars. The horses couldn’t come to me without a will. It’s a technicality. They’re mine. They belong to me in every way except by law.” His grip hurt her wrists but his eyes searched her face as if he was puzzling over whether to accept her words as truth. Even if he believed her, she reminded herself, he didn’t have to sympathize. Legally, she was in the wrong. If he turned her in, she would plead guilty. God. No. What would be the sentence for her attempted crime? Down through the ages, horse thieves were known as the most contemptible of criminals. She could only pray that the punishment didn’t include imprisonment. All she wanted was freedom. The freedom to let the sun burn her naked body in the desert. The freedom to scream to the sky. The freedom to ride. Shepherd spoke slowly. “If I move my hands,” he said, “will you run away?” “Where would I go?” she answered. He released his hold on her hands and sat back on his heels, not taking his eyes off her for a moment. She sat up, flexing her wrists. The guy had a hell of a grip. She found herself trembling. He had the power to decide her fate. He could make one call to the cops and her life would crumble. The fact that she was terrified was most of the reason she was shaking but she had to admit somewhere in the back of her mind that it was also incited by his closeness to her. She’d been lying to herself when she tried to believe she was just using him for a few hours of passion. He looked like her soul’s reflection, the masculine version of her true inner self. He was her counterpart, her partner, her perfect male counterpart. And he would never know it. In a split second of horrible premonition, she saw in a flash what would most likely happen next. The scenes passed through her mind like a movie on fast forward. Soon, that scrutinizing look on his face would crack and open up into measured words that went something like, “Come with me and we’ll just wait 40

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back at the office in the stable.” She would go with him because, truly, there was nowhere else for her to go. She was alone, a naked soul in the rocky scrub desert. This ancient land, long empty of its peaceful native clans, was now filled with hundreds of miles of bald highway and not a single person who would take in a woman who had lost her good name when she scattered a herd of horses. The cops would come. They would lead her away, put her in orange jail scrubs and let her go on bail until a trial she would surely lose. It was her own fault the job was botched. She should never have slept with him. Instead of waiting for dreaded calm words to come from his mouth, she broke the silence first. “You were coming to see me, weren’t you?” The words were an accusation, as if the crime here was his, he crime of wanting her. “I was, Mikaela. Yeah, I wanted to see you.” Incredibly, his hand reached toward her. Hard fingers trailed her jawline. A thumb brushed her lip. “How could I not?” He moved closer to her, bringing his hands to her chest and touching her there as if she was made of blown glass too delicate and beautiful to handle with brute force. Arousal rushed through her. Her pussy came alive, swelling in anticipation when she felt the familiar jolt of Shepherd’s skin against hers. Anticipation of what? They wouldn’t be making love ever again. Until this moment, she’d thought that was what she wanted. Fuck him for the perfection of his hard young body. Take the horses that belonged to her and scatter them on the wind. Then disappear on the wind herself. But she’d been wrong. She wanted him. Again and again. He pulled her to her feet. She felt as if she’d fallen into a dream. He couldn’t be this close to her now, after what she’d done. “How could I not?” he repeated. “You think I could stay away? Not feel your little pussy clenched around my cock, getting me all wet and slick?” She gasped as her body responded to his words. She wanted to slap herself for letting him turn her on this way now. But she let the feeling sweep her along with it. 41

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The need was stronger than any logical sense that this was wrong. Her folds pulsed between her legs and she felt moisture spring there. He had her around the middle now, big hands on either side of her rib cage, holding her with gentle, urgent force. He leaned toward her, his face so close to hers their noses brushed. He spoke in a low voice and his arms shook as if he was trying to hold himself back either from crushing her or taking her right then, body and soul. “Since the first time I saw you, I’ve known I can’t sleep except by your side,” he said. “I can’t think of anything but the way you taste. You taste the way mesquite smells.” “I thought you were supposed to be a man of few words,” she told him, trying to call up the ghost of her usual, cheeky self. Despite the effort, her voice trembled with the knowledge that she was his captive. “I am,” he answered. “It’s you. You bring me out of myself. You make me say what I normally just think. And you do taste like mesquite. You taste like the air on a fall night.” “Stop!” she said, her heart pounding. “Just let me go.” The heat of arousal deep in her belly, combined with the fact that she couldn’t understand why he would torture her like this, threatened to make emotion spill from her eyes. Don’t cry, she told herself. “Let me go tonight and I swear on my mother’s fresh grave I’ll never bother you again. Just tell everyone I quit without notice. Or don’t tell them anything at all. Just let me go.” He pressed his cheek to hers. A rough hint of stubble scraped her face. He whispered in her ear, “Let you go? No way in hell, sister. We’re going to finish this.” In slow motion, he ground his hips into hers in a clothed version of a deep, powerful thrust. The thick, hard pressure of his vertical penis left no question as to whether he was as turned on as she was. Still, that harsh whisper left her believing that “finish this” had a dual meaning. They were lovers—there was no getting away from that now. But they were also enemies. He was the good guy and she was the bad guy. She couldn’t see it any other way. Fine then. She would show no mercy.

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She pressed the heel of her hand against his cock. Hard. He felt like bone through his jeans. God, could he get any harder? She gripped his shirt, pulled him down toward her and whispered in his ear, “You’d better learn to sleep without me, honey. I’ll fuck you ’til you’re dry and can’t come anymore but you’re sleeping alone tonight.” He undid her jeans, pushing them down to her ankles. He knelt before her. “The hell I am,” he said, just before she went limp at the touch of his hot tongue between her folds. She held onto his shoulders, supporting herself there, letting waves of pure bliss lap her thighs. The naked surface of her clit where his tongue touched her was unbelievably, blindingly sensitive and it made all the rest of her turn to fire. The level of her excitement rose with each slow circuit his tongue made around her nub. She writhed, wriggling her hips to get closer, to possess more of this man. Even though the soft wet heat of his mouth drove her to mindless ecstasy, it also made her want more. She wanted to be filled, to feel his cock filling her and stretching her pussy. He put a hand on either side of her hips, lowering her onto her back. He pinned her firmly to the ground. The pressure of his hands on her hipbones stopped just short of pain. She retaliated by grabbing the sides of his head and pulling him up toward her. He met her gaze with his eyes deep, swirling with the temporary madness of lust. “You want me to stop?” he asked. “God no,” she answered. She grasped his hips and guided him toward her, making what she wanted absolutely clear. He grabbed a condom out of his back pocket and as soon as he’d unrolled it over the length of his cock he plunged into her. Her whole body wrapped around him. Her eyes closed as if of their own accord and her lips parted. Random raindrops struck her flesh. Her body shivered in pure physical delight and all her muscles let go as if in one big sigh. She let waves of ecstasy rock her body as his thrusting came faster. She didn’t know where the pure pleasure of being fucked ended and orgasm began and it didn’t matter.

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Shepherd trembled, pressing himself even deeper within her. He came with a deep shudder and kept his face against her shoulder. Rain fell faster. They were getting wet now but Mikaela didn’t care. When Shepherd lifted his head, while still joined with her, he said in a low voice, “If you still think you’re taking off tonight, you’re dead wrong.”

She stiffened, her heart thudding. Could he really be planning to turn her in after all, even now? Before she could get her mind around the concept and come up with something sufficiently vile to say in reply, he continued, “I didn’t think I’d have to offer you twenty-seven horses to get you to stick around but then again I didn’t know they were rightfully yours until you told me just now.” The horses milled over the ranchland in a half-mile radius around the couple who lay entwined on the muddy ground. “You…believe me?” she whispered. “You’re not going to have me arrested?” “And not get to taste you again?” he asked with a touch of incredulity but also with his trademark innocent warmth. “Not on your life. I’ve got enough land. Those mustangs can roam free all they want. No reason to train them or ever sell them to anyone else. And I’d be honored if you’d stay with me. Forget that crappy little cabin. I’ve got a house in town that has more than enough room for two.” She remained below him in stunned silence, staring up at the shadowy features of his handsome face. He shifted off to the ground beside her, heedless of the mud, and snuggled in close. “If you don’t want to stay, Mikaela… I won’t hold it against you. If you want to go…consider the horses yours. I could never live with keeping your inheritance from you.” She pushed herself up on one elbow. “No. No, Shepherd, the horses can stay here.” She glanced around, seeing the horses’ dark forms moving in the distance as if they’d been born to graze this ranch. “And I take back what I said about you sleeping alone. I can picture sticking around for a while.” 44

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Maybe a lot more than a while. But she would keep that thought to herself until the time was right. For the moment, she lay back on wet ground, staring up at a few scattered stars peeking through a break in the heavy clouds, knowing her horses had found a home. Those twenty-seven mustangs now had two joint rightful owners. She sat up, turned toward him and straddled him. He was hard again. Grinning, he reached up to cup his hands around her breasts. “Good,” he said, rubbing her nipples between his fingers, making her moan with pleasure. “I hope you stick around a long, long time.”

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About the Author Alexis Canto has taken over her family’s dining room. She lives there and reigns as queen of a laptop keyboard at all hours of the night. She plays guitar occasionally, sings in the car a lot, and once cooked up her own batch of homemade deodorant. Alexis no longer gets to compete in board games that involve wordplay because she always wins and it’s no fun for anyone else. As a child she played Satan in a middle school stage production, but as a thirty-something author her only evil is a hardcore addiction to writing.

Alexis welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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Also by Alexis Canto Amethyst Tryst

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