Marly's Choice (Men of August 1)

He dragged his hat from his head, thrusting his fingers through his hair in growing frustration. He couldn’t take her. He knew that. The things he wanted to do to Marly would terrify her. Hell, they terrified him.

He wasn’t an easy man. His sexuality was hard driven, and sometimes rougher than even he liked. He was intensely dominant, in all ways, especially sexually. He never hurt his partners, but he knew the acts he wanted to perform with Marly would leave her shaking in fear. The ways he wanted her would shock her. And she had done the one thing guaranteed to destroy his will. She had waxed the flesh between her thighs. She tempted him with fresh, damp silk and the sweet heat of her body.

It was smooth and silky, coated with the desire growing from whatever dream tempted her. Who was her dream lover? His teeth clenched in jealousy. Who was the man who had left her slick and hot, her inner body preparing for her penetration?

Fury was like a bitter acid eating at his stomach now. His erection was like a snarling beast beneath his jeans, demanding release, demanding Marly. Not just any woman, Marly. Sweet and hot, her innocent eyes dark and adoring as she gazed up at him. He wanted them dark and needy, her moist lips opened for his, or wrapped around his hard flesh.

He wanted to hear her cries, echoing around him as he pushed into her, thrusting into the hot little portal that haunted his dreams. He wanted to fuck her until she screamed, begging for more. He wanted what he knew he couldn’t have from her. His sexual demands would terrify her, and he knew it. He wanted to scream with the loss of his own decency, taken from him, stripped from his soul long before she had come to his home.

A groan was wrenched from his chest at the thought of taking her. Perspiration dotted his brow, and his erection was a torturous demon pulsing between his thighs.

“I need to get laid,” he muttered, knowing he wouldn’t, knowing there would be no true satisfaction in another woman’s body.

“Cade, you in here?” Brock called out as he entered the barn.

Shaking his head, Cade forced the need back, praying the hardness between his thighs would lessen, at least enough to finish his work for the morning.

“Back here.” Cade picked up his saddle from the bench at the back of the stall and headed back into the main part of the barn. “Get saddled. Fences need repaired.”

He ignored Brock’s grimace.

“Fences,” his brother muttered. “Hell, I was hoping for an easy day.”

So was he, Cade thought, but it didn’t look like one was forthcoming. He wanted to get finished before lunch. He had to be finished, because he didn’t know if he could wait until evening to see Marly again.

“You finally decide to open the back pasture?” Brock surprised him with his question as they saddled the horses.

“Not yet.” Cade patted his horse fondly after tightening the cinch. “Why?”

“Curious. Thought I saw someone up on the rise this morning. Must have been one of the hands wandering around.” Brock shrugged. “I was hoping to get some of the mommas out there before they calve.”

“That’s my intention.” Cade nodded. “I haven’t sent any of the boys out yet, but they have just been checking it early. Did you see who it was?”

“Naw just saw the horse.” Brock led his horse into the ranch yard, glancing back at Cade as they left the barn. “I’ll find out who it was later. Make certain they checked that old den that wolf was using last winter. I don’t want to lose any more calves to that wily ole bitch.”

Cade nodded, glancing up at the small hill that rose behind the ranch house. With its slope, it covered the better part of the back pasture, and on the far side, wolves were prone to use the natural cavern there for a den. They tried to keep it cleared of the animals, yet they always managed to find a way in.

“Let me know what they find.” Cade nodded, then turned his horse and set it into a quick canter along the fence line. Several miles away the barbed wire and wood fence was wearing.

Cade enjoyed keeping the white painted planked fence in place near to the ranch house. Marly had loved it when she was just a child, proclaiming that it made it look more like a home. That made it worth all the aggravation in the world.

Thinking of Marly again only made his dick throb. He shook his head, trying to push the sight of her in her bed, out of his mind. The feel of her, slick and hot, the taste of her sweet and tangy. He gritted his teeth. Dammit, it was going to be a long day.

Chapter Four

It was good to be home. Marly stood at her bedroom balcony, overlooking the swimming pool and the flower gardens out back and inhaled the sweet scents of spring. The soft peace of the late afternoon shimmered around her, easing the restless yearning in her body only slightly.

Below, the heated pool shimmered with a glimmer of mist from the rising warmth, and the flower gardens were showing bursts of green. The renewal of the Earth. She loved spring. The days were cool, the nights crisp and clear, and all around, it seemed the air pulsed with energy.

She could hear the muted sounds of the ranch yard out front. The cowboys working out at the barn to the side of the house, the call of the horses in the pasture. The sounds that had comforted her in the years since her mother had left her with Grandpa Joe and Cade. She hadn’t seen her mother since. Not a phone call, a card or a letter. There were Christmas presents under the tree each year from her, but Marly suspected that was Cade’s doing. He had always done everything he could to ease the pain of that desertion.

She loved him. Marly closed her eyes on the bittersweet thought. From the first day she had seen him, his eyes swirling with emotions, his harsh face softening at the sight of her filthy appearance, she had loved him. At first, it had been the simple, sweet love of a child who knew that if there was one person on Earth who would protect her, it was Cade.

But somewhere, the feeling had changed. Over the years, it had deepened, grown, and no matter the arguments against it, she loved him. She wanted him. It wasn’t even the desire she had as a teenager, filled with visions of kisses and warm touches. It was a need that throbbed in her, filled her, made the nights she spent beneath his roof intolerable.

He slept in the room adjoining hers. He always had, in case she had nightmares. Sometimes, she could hear him moving around in his room, late at night, restless. She would listen, and imagine him coming to her, sliding into the bed beside her, his hard body moving against her, over her. But he never did. He never seemed to see her as anything more than the little child he had raised.

She was abnormal, Marly thought. She was as sick as Grandpa Joe had always accused her of being. A woman marked with the sins of her mother, and forced to suffer the same unnatural needs. Marly had always wondered at those unnatural needs; until she realized what she felt for Cade wasn’t what she was supposed to feel. She wasn’t supposed to ache, to dream of him touching her, moving over her, inside her. She wasn’t supposed to hurt for him until the hurt was like a physical pain, driving her mad with its intensity.