Spurred (Steele Ranch 1)

“Yes, lots of trees.” She looked at the seat, then me. Laughed. “How do I get up there?”

For me, the cab of Riley’s truck was just right. I just had to put a foot on the running board and I was in. But for Kady, in a pretty dress and heels and tiny, the double cab was a long way up. Especially with the lift Riley’d had installed. I put my hands on her waist—so fucking tiny the tips of my fingers touched at her spine—and lifted her right up and into the seat. She practically weighed nothing, but she was warm and soft through her thin dress.

Her gasp of surprise had her breasts rising and the soft swells of them over the V-neckline of her dress caught my attention. Slowly, I looked up into her face and realized I’d been caught. Between the rosy hue of her cheeks and the way her eyes darkened, she didn’t seem to mind.

My gaze dropped to her lips which were slightly parted, as if she were breathing through her mouth. Panting. All I had to do was lean in a few inches and we’d be kissing. I wanted it more than my next breath. She wanted it. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t looking away from me. But when Riley opened the driver’s door and climbed in, the spell was broken. Again.

Dammit. He wasn’t supposed to be a cock blocker.

Shaken from my thoughts of how she’d taste, I grabbed hold of the seatbelt, stretched it across her and clicked it into place.

I stepped back, closed the door.

While Riley’s truck was huge, having a full second row with enough room for a team of lumberjacks, or an ex-military security guy the size of a Sherman tank, I’d always refused to sit there. Until now. Now, I wanted to be able to look at Kady as we rode to the ranch as much as I wanted. I could study her profile, see the expressions on her face, the way her breasts swayed over every dip or rut in the road.

“Where are we headed?” she asked as Riley drove out of the lot and onto the highway headed west.

“Steele Ranch. Your new home.”

Not for long. If we had our way, she’d be in our beds, in our house instead. She might have inherited a sizeable chunk of Montana history, but she was still ours.

2

KADY

Oh. My. God.

This was insane! Where had my perfectly unexciting life gone? How had it become this crazy, in just a month? The list of changes was long.

Inherited a ranch from a father I’d never known existed. Check.

Inherited four half-sisters to add to the one I already had. Check.

Traveled halfway across the country. Never done that. Check.

When I’d first received a certified letter from a lawyer in Montana, I’d been stunned by what it revealed. When I spoke with him on the phone, I’d been reassured. And coming here, I’d been excited.

But now?

Sitting in a huge-ass pickup truck with two unbelievably handsome men, I was beyond freaked. They must have pheromone cologne or something because the second I laid eyes on Cord Connolly in baggage claim, my heart had stopped. Yeah, he’d scared me for a moment, but I’d never seen a guy so virile, so rugged. I’d heard about that feeling, the one where your heart lurches, your palms get sweaty and your brain literally stops functioning in front of a guy.

It had never happened to me. Ever. Until now.

Cord Connolly had made my brain go haywire, my nipples go hard and my panties get damp all between one breath and the next.

He was big. God, I’d blurted that out and made a fool of myself. As if Cord didn’t know he was super-sized. A football linebacker, but without the excess flab. An Australian rugby player. That was it. I’d seen a game on satellite TV once and those guys were big. Dense. Solid. Mouthwatering.

Those athletes hit every single one of my hot buttons, and so did Cord Connolly. Even some I’d never even known I had.

Cord was no Australian. No, he was all flipping Montana cowboy. From his big five-gallon hat to the tips of his tough leather boots. Yet he was a gentleman, too.

Except for the way he looked at me. That wasn’t gentlemanly at all. And for some strange reason, I was perfectly fine with that. I wanted him to look at me with dirty thoughts floating around in that gorgeous head of his.

Because I was having very dirty thoughts about him, too.

Gah!

I slid my damp palms over my thighs, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles from my dress. I was two-thousand miles away from home, riding off to god-knew-where with two gorgeous cowboys. “If my fellow teachers could see me now,” I murmured, reaching up to tuck my wild hair back behind my ear.