Claiming The Cowboy (Meier Ranch Brothers 3)

Barely-there words laced with homage to the curse gods, to Chase, and to the deity above, punctuated her breathless cries, rained louder than the tin roof within arm’s reach. She groveled for him to keep going, railed against her loss of control, which only drove him deeper and harder and faster.

Fresh needles of pleasure buzzed through him, his need for release scrambling to higher and higher planes, toward that uncivilized place that unleashed everything within. She clawed at the bed covers and came at him in reverse, a collision of lust, both of them chasing the edge. He couldn’t hold off much longer, so he reached beneath her and seized her nipples with both hands, pinching and flicking and torturing her until the walls surrounding his dick seized like a vice.

He counted…one…two…

Her insides quaked and squeezed and tugged at him to follow her into orgasm.

Three…four…five…

He wanted to last the ride, give her as much as he could before he had no more left, before he ceased to exist for that span of time. Conditioned to go eight, he swelled. His body stiffened.

Six…seven…

His release boiled over.

At eight, he came, long and monumentally hard. And in the moment his out-of-body darkness took hold, he spooned her back and hugged her, unable to turn her loose for fear he would be lost. He knew what he wanted. His future came as surely in that bliss-filled moment as any life decision he had made thus far. It all fell into place. Every bit. He could move from his past because he had a direction.

And that direction was twisting in his arms, nudging him, kissing him, healing every broken thing inside him. He was a world champion risk-taker, and, thanks to her, he had it in him to risk everything for love.

11

The moment Chase pulled his truck onto Gretchen’s street at dawn, a sinkhole opened up in her stomach large enough to suck her town inside. Two Marin County Sheriff’s Department patrol cars sat in her driveway. Every light in the house blazed at the unnatural time of morning, something that hadn’t happened since…

Oh, God.

“Dad.”

Neighbors in slippers and bathrobes clung to their morning papers and clustered together like gnats pulled toward the house’s glow.

Gretchen barked out orders—“Hurry, hurry, oh please!”—something Chase did without question, even before her abrasive request. As soon as his truck slowed by the mailbox, she popped her door, dome light blinding, door chimes—bong-bong-bong—crowding her head, making it hard to breathe.

Chase said something. Wait, maybe. But she was not prone to patience, and if there was bad news to topple the memories of the best night of her life, she needed to meet it head-on and break it before it broke her. The moment her feet hit chilled grass, she broke into a run, his voice still behind her, not registering.

“Dad!”

Oh, God. It was that morning all over again—men in brown uniforms, a swarm of onlookers who spouted vacant words that landed like shrapnel, everyone gaunt and pale, their eyes downcast, drawn. She charged past the porch her mother still haunted, through the front door. Somewhere, Lincoln’s collar tags clinked together, him coming to comfort her. Chase’s voice streaked behind her like a comet, sound and light but no meaning.

In her living room: her father sat hunched over.

Oh, God.

He glanced up at her, face sheeted as if she were the ghost. Said her name as if he was in a place where he had

only just remembered it.

“Gretchen! Oh, thank heavens.”

Every meddler’s head that crowded them turned a glance toward her. Her father wobbled to his feet, as slow as ever, but this time it was through a curtain of unshed tears.

Her chest felt like she’d run into a brick wall. Chase’s formidable body filled the space behind her. He would keep her from falling. She was sure of it now.

“Dad?”

“We thought…”

Her father didn’t finish. More he implied something out of reach, out of comprehension. Eyes around the room tightened, harsh and judgmental.

“You thought what?”