Bridgewater County Series Boxed Set: Books 1-6

Chapter 3-1

3

JACK

“How was your trip?” Sam asked, tossing his pen onto his desk.

I never could understand how a man could work at a desk all day. But that was my cousin, and it made him happy. I thought of Catherine from the plane and realized she and Sam probably had a lot in common.

“Uneventful.” I hung my hat on the coat rack by the door, then settled into one of the chairs in front of his desk. I'd gone to Denver to sell one of the quarter horses. While it hadn't been necessary to meet the buyer in person, sometimes it took a face-to-face to close the deal. The arrangements for transfer from my ranch to the one in Colorado could be handled by phone. “The return flight, though, was anything but.”

Sam leaned back in his chair and put his boots up on the antique desk. You can take the boy off the ranch, but can’t take the ranch out of the boy. “Did the plane hit another bird?”

“What?” I realized he was referring to a flight a few years ago when, on takeoff, a bird had hit the windshield of the plane and the pilots had aborted the flight. Not fun. I could laugh about it now, but I'd been stuck at a hotel by the Denver airport overnight because of a damn bird. “s**t, no. Thunderstorm this time, long delay, but that's not it. I met someone.”

Sam's fair brows drew together and I could practically feel the judgment oozing from his skin. “Oh, yeah? Who's going to be in your bed this time?”

“Don’t give me your bullshit, Sam, about having no-strings s*x. She’s just in town for a few days and looking for a good time. She’s from New York. I sat beside her on the plane. Talked with her for awhile. Practically the whole time we were delayed a friend of hers was messaging her, telling her to find a hot cowboy and have some fun.”

Was that a grin teasing at the edges of Sam’s mouth? “I don’t know how you find them, Jack.”

“She needs me. Her p***y needs me. I can’t just walk away.” I sat down in the chair opposite my cousin in his big, fancy lawyer’s office and couldn’t keep the happy grin off my face. “One, she’s sexy as hell. Curvy, blond, and strung up so tight she’ll probably pass out the first time I make her come.”

“I don’t need to know.” Sam was shaking his head now, but there was laughter in his eyes. Which was good to see. He hadn’t quite forgiven me for costing us the woman he wanted us to marry all those years ago, before he left town. Sweet Samantha Connor. She’d been eighteen at the time and everything Sam wanted. What he wanted, I hated: innocent, sweet, dependent. Needy. I’d felt myself suffocating the closer Sam got to proposing. Hell, I'd only been f*****g eighteen myself. I’d refused to marry her, she’d cried a river and married the MacPhersons six months later. Sam left town two weeks after the wedding and stayed gone for more than a decade.

“Hell, cousin. If anyone needs to get laid, it's her.”

I grinned, thinking of her computer and cell and instant messaging and her full inbox and… hell, the seventeen other things she probably had going through that pretty head of hers. It was amusing to see her so intense and serious. On the plane, I'd had a semi since I first sat down and had to pull out my book to try and cover it. When she'd gotten up to use the lavatory, I'd enjoyed the view of her curvy ass as she walked down the aisle, which had only made me hard as a rock. I'd had to sit there, eyes closed and think about mucking out stalls and root canals to will it away. But when she'd surprised the s**t out of me and tried to climb over my lap, I instantly imagined her riding my c**k up and down, shifting her hips to get herself off as she f****d me. There was no question she'd felt how hard I was for her as I savored her warm curves beneath my hands, the soft feel of the underside of her breasts, her thighs pressing into mine the instant before she leapt off.

My c**k stirred at the memory alone. Her body… lush and round. Perfect.

Now Sam’s brows winged up. “Haven't seen that look on your face in awhile. That good, huh?”

I nodded and grinned, envisioning Catherine's blouse as it strained from her full breasts, her blond curls, the soft weight of her thighs on mine, her surprise at being caught straddling me. “Hell, yeah. That good.”

Sam leaned forward and picked up a softball he had on his desk and started tossing it up in the air. We were on a summer league through the recreation center, and Sam liked to keep his hands busy. “If she's that good, then she's better than a quick fuck.”

I shook my head. “I'd be game for more, but she just wants s*x. Lots of s*x. Needs it, in fact.”

Sam caught the ball and looked at me, wide eyed. “How the hell did you learn that from the plane? And don’t tell me she actually said that to you.”

She’d been about to, that's for damn sure, but she’d changed her mind. I’d watched the battle rage behind her expressive blue eyes, and nearly groaned with disappointment when I saw the cool, logical mask she wore drop down to hide her desire. “I peeked at her instant messaging conversation with a girlfriend. She was practically ordered to have a fling. She’s divorced and looking for a good time.”