Sarah's Surrender (Ranchers of Chatum County 2)

“Did you bring any platform sandals with you?” Jaime asked.

“Yes,” Sarah answered.

“With your legs? That’ll work.”

****

John leaned against the wall in a darkened corner of the rowdy dancehall and studied the cluster-fuck of bodies turning on the dance floor. He watched with an arrow of both amusement and envy as his friend and neighbor, Raul Vega, danced his petite, dark-haired wife around the sawdust-sprinkled floor. It wasn’t that John wanted Elaina in any way, or that he begrudged Raul what he had found with her.

But he couldn’t stop the thought that if he himself had made a better choice of wife, maybe things would be different now. Maybe he wouldn’t be so cynical about life and women in particular. Maybe if Monica hadn’t slept with his best friend and business partner, attempted to take everything he had after he’d filed for divorce, maybe he could continue to see the good in life. And the fact that she’d done it with his best goddamn friend. He knew the experience had changed him irrevocably; he was harshly critical and judgmental. He’d built up a figurative fence around himself and a literal fence around his ranch. He liked complete isolation. It was easier that way. He doubted that would ever change.

He continued to watch the other couple. Raul didn’t seem to be much of a dancer, but you couldn’t tell it from the way Elaina’s eyes looked up into his face while she broke out in laughter as he spun her away from him and then tugged her back close again.

The song ended and he watched as the newly wedded couple began to exit the dance floor. Elaina walked in front, and Raul walked behind her with his hands on her shoulders in a territorial stance that not a single man in the building could fail to recognize. Yeah, there was no question, his neighbor had definitely staked his claim on that girl. Wedded, bedded, the ring and the whole nine yards.

John watched in absolute amazement as a drunken cowboy made the mistake of looking at Elaina and was no doubt so mesmerized by her face that he didn’t see the man behind her. The inebriated man stopped directly in her path and made a slow, drunken move to put his hand on her arm. John almost choked on his beer because the look on Raul’s face was so amusing. It probably wasn’t funny to Raul, but for John, watching from the sidelines, the moment held a different quality. Like a lightning strike, Raul’s hand snapped out and grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it behind his back.

John was too far away to hear what was said, but Raul was in the guy’s face in a split second. John was just about to make his move to try to keep his neighbor from being thrown out of the bar, when Elaina reached out a gentle hand to her husband and with a shake of her head, she turned and walked away, probably anticipating full well that Raul would have no choice but to follow her. And follow her, he did.

It never failed; every six weeks or so, Elaina would talk Raul into taking her dancing, and every time it was a pure miracle that Raul didn’t get thrown out for fighting. John watched as his neighbors left the dance floor and blended into the crowd.

He took a sip of his beer as his gaze continued to move around the bar as he cataloged one woman after the next. Cataloged and dismissed them, one at a time. Usually he wasn’t quite so picky, just wanting a quick lay. But tonight, for reasons he didn’t care to analyze, not one single woman looked to be fuck-worthy.

As a whole slew of women and a few brave men congregated to begin a line dance, he nursed his beer and tried to find someone who would get his unusually quiet libido to come to attention.

But it wasn’t happening.

As the women began moving in a dance of blended bodies that seemed almost rehearsed, his eyes ran over them. There were tall women, short women, big tits, little tits, and everything in between. He couldn’t get his brain to focus on any one woman, but he watched in amazement as he always did as they moved in such synchronized actions that it looked to be almost choreographed.

The dance floor was crowded because the song was popular, and he saw only bits and pieces of different women before they turned in unison and began gliding in the opposite direction. The faces that were in the middle of the group, he couldn’t see at all.

He had already dismissed every woman on the outside parameter of the dance floor and was trying his best to scrutinize the hoard of women in the middle when he focused on one girl in particular. He almost grimaced because she sucked so badly at what she was doing.

He watched her awkward movements among a sea of women who had done this many times before, and he was momentarily floored that he felt a touch of sympathy for her.

He wasn’t a sympathetic man in general and, in fact, many of the finer emotions were lost on him completely.

But his eyes kept landing on her again and again in pained compassion. He finally gave up trying to look away from her all together and studied her exclusively. As he continued to watch her, he slowly began to notice other things about her other than her uncoordinated dance moves.

What he could see of her body was amazing.

He still couldn’t see her face, but suddenly, he was struck by how awesome her legs were. She wore a pair of cream-colored shorts with an edging of lace around the hem that accentuated her thighs in a way that had his guts tightening in reaction. In comparison to many of the other women, her shorts were modest, covering a few more inches of her thighs than that of the woman around her who mostly wore tiny skirts or the shortest shorts imaginable. But most of the other women wore boots, and she didn’t, so the overall effect was much more visible leg.

And John admitted to himself that he had always been a leg man.

Those killer legs were further accentuated by high-heeled sandals in a light tan color. They were the kind of sandals a lot of women were wearing these days, the kind on a platform that gave them an added inch or two, and they were no doubt one of the reasons she couldn’t dance as well as the women who wore boots.

The shoes might not be good for dancing, but what they did to her legs was utterly stupendous. Her calves were so cut that her muscle tone and definition was impossible not to see, her knees were actually sexy and her thighs were smooth and silky.

As he focused on those awesome legs, arousal slammed through his body and his brain went on full alert as incendiary heat slithered down his spine.

That was the one. That was the woman.

If her face possessed only a tenth of the beauty he could see so far, he’d have those legs wrapped around him within a few hours. Already he knew a blowjob would have to come later. Much later. All he could think about was ramming his cock between her spread legs and pounding her between those silky thighs.

Yeah, he would need that several times before his guts could decompress enough to allow him to lie still and let her take him into her mouth.

He swelled in his jeans even more at the arousing thought.

As the dance ended, he didn’t let her out of his sight, and when the crowd of people began to disperse he saw another woman with a laughing smile walk up to her and grab her around the waist as they exited the dance floor together.

They turned in unison, walked toward the bar and the general direction he was standing, and he got a good look at her face for the first time.

A short, sharp feeling of surprise hit him, quickly followed by such an incredible anger, he gritted his teeth so hard he felt pain radiate through his jaw. He turned and slammed his beer bottle on the counter behind him.

Frustration and rage jerked through his bloodstream. He couldn’t believe she was sexually thwarting him for a second time.

His eyes stayed focused on her as a blinding wave of resentment and ill temper burned through him. As she and her friend walked to the bar to order drinks some twenty feet away from him, her eyes skittered to his and quickly looked away again in shock, panic or pure rejection. He didn’t know which emotion he saw in her eyes and he didn’t much care.

Irritation at the restraint it was costing him not to get what he wanted that instant, made him seethe. He wanted to take it out on her,

and badly.

At that moment, from his peripheral vision, he watched as a redheaded woman he’d slept with before and who was always after him, slinked up to his side. He wasted no time, and in a fit of pique, reached out and snagged her by the arm and brought her into his body. What he was trying to prove, he had no fucking idea. He didn’t try to analyze it. As their chests clashed, the woman looked into his eyes, but he looked past her into the eyes of the woman who had been fucking with his brain for the last five days and who was now blatantly watching him with open contempt.

With the last vision in his head that of Sarah McAlister looking away from him in disgust, he lowered his head and plastered a kiss on the lips of the redheaded woman, whose name eluded him for the time being.

She tasted of stale bourbon and reeked of strong perfume, and as he kissed her he felt his erection dwindle and die. The angry knowledge that the redhead had once been able to get his motor running caused a strong grievance at Sarah, and he notched up another reason to be pissed at her.

He pushed away from the redhead, told the bartender to put her tab on his bill, and he turned and walked away from her without a word, only wanting to get the hell away from this place.

He made his way to the men’s room, paced the floor a couple of times, stopped and pissed in a urinal and as he was washing his hands the irritating idea of leaving and going home alone was replaced with the sudden urge to confront her.

Why the fuck was she out on the town if she had a fiancé? Did she not realize she was in the biggest fucking meatmarket in this part of the state? Had she lied to him to get away from him more quickly? Because it had damn sure worked. After she told him she was engaged, he’d turned away, gotten in his truck, and driven off without a word.

He didn’t fuck with other men’s women.

But goddamnit, engaged wasn’t married. It wasn’t adultery. Not that he was religious; he wasn’t a religious man. But he did have a moral code. And that was all a moot point because she’d probably lied anyway.