Page 19 of Wrangled Up (Menage a Trouble #2)

He rested back on his heels, gazing at her with an intensity that made her squirm. Wetness pooled between her thighs and her need to be touched chased over her skin.

He yanked his jeans to his knees and then stood to kick out of boots and fabric. She stared up at him, memorizing the ripples of his upper body and the hard bulk of his hips.

She let her thighs fall apart.

Christian groaned. Very slowly, he stooped to collect the abandoned rope from the ground. She shivered when he doubled it and created a loose loop. “Give me your wrist.”

Her stomach pitched sharply with excitement. She extended her hand, and he slipped the rope around her wrist. With a few tugs, he tightened the coarse hemp. Prickles of awareness broke over her.

“Other wrist.” His gravely tone made her pussy squeeze hard. She did his bidding, and he bound her hands together but about a foot apart. She waited helplessly, gagging for what would come next, as he located one of the rubbers in his wallet and slid it into place .

His eyes darkened. Easing over her body, he guided the rope loop around his neck and poised at her apex. “Hold on, cowgirl. This is gonna be a bumpy ride.”

He buried himself to the root. His cock stretched her perfectly, and she cried out. Juices pooled around his invasion. Using the rope, she tugged his head down and kissed him.

With a jerk of his hips, he pulled out. Gazed at her until her skin pebbled. Then slammed into her once more. Every inch of his cock set her ablaze. A throb the same tempo as her heart took up residence in her belly.

She yanked him down using the rope again.

He hissed as the fibers obviously abraded his skin, just as it was chafing hers. She didn’t care. If he wore her marks and she his, she’d go to bed happy tonight.

Christian licked her lips, her tongue, the inner walls of her mouth. He rolled his tongue down to her cleavage, which he worshiped for long minutes while the sun started its descent in the sky .

When he sucked her bud into his mouth, she felt the first spasms of her release washing over her.

“Hell,” he ground out and bit her nipple.

She eased the rope down his spine and locked him to her, bucking against his hips, taking him as deep as possible. “More. I’m so close.”

“You can’t come until I tell you it’s time, cowgirl. Now ride me harder.” He snapped his hips with a groan. “Yeah, just like thaaaat.”

His cock provided a fullness she couldn’t get enough of. She wanted him deeper and on the verge, so filled with lust that he distended her. Just when she thought she’d surely die, he reached under her, ran a fingertip around her rim and drove a finger into her ass.

The breach sent her flying over the edge.

“Now, baby.”

She couldn’t have held back if she tried. Juices soaked him as each spasm stole more of her breath.

And her heart.

He thrust his finger in and out in time to her pulsations. He splayed her open on his cock. Their eyes met briefly. In that look, a thousand silent words were exchanged.

Christian threw his head back and roared his release. Liquid heat filled her pussy, driving two more mind-stealing throbs from her.

Several moments passed. When he shifted over her, she realized she had the rope pulled so tightly over his back, it was likely cutting into him.

He raised his head and smiled at her. Eased his finger from her body, which clutched at the air, wanting him inside her again. Gently, he removed his cock and toppled into the grass, shoulder first.

She giggled and rolled with him, the rope still connecting them. But the sound was removed from the turmoil she knew in her heart. Somehow, Christian had grown on her. Too much. This wasn’t only a man who could give her toe-curling orgasms or acted as a friend when she longed for Tucker the most.

No, Christian possessed his own corner of that body part thumping under her breast. He searched her gaze, and God help her, she thought she saw the same emotion pooling in the depths of his pale green eyes .

She purposely tightened the rope on his back.

* * * * *

Tucker picked out Jake Mickelson the instant he walked into the bar. The man leaned against the counter, beefy arms crossed, casually talking to Jones.

Goddammit. Jones had mentioned Mickelson stopped here every time he passed through, but did it have to be during Tucker’s extended stay?

Tucker hated everything about Claire’s father.

From the way he wore his 49ers cap low over eyes that looked too much like Claire’s, to the arrogant set of his shoulders.

This was a man who knew who he was, or at least thought he did.

He probably considered himself to be a good dad, on the road providing for his little girl all these years, when in actuality he had taken so much away from her.

Claire didn’t talk about her father except in passing, but Tucker was good at reading between the lines .

While he looked on, Jones said something to Jake that made the man look up. Directly at Tucker.

Every muscle all the way down his spine tightened. His heart rate slowed as they took each other’s measure.

The jukebox rolled over to a whiney tune by an artist whose voice had always gotten stuck in Tucker’s craw.

Jake pulled away from the bar and started for him. Tucker steeled himself, legs braced wide, crouching low enough to hit the bigger man’s midsection and tip him off balance if necessary. And it might be. Claire’s father looked like a bull ready to charge.

He wore cowboy boots with gleaming silver tips and a pair of jeans that rode low under his trucker’s paunch. The closer he got, the more Tucker found that the wide-spaced, almond eyes were the only feature this man shared with Claire.

But damn, seeing those eyes tore Tucker up.

“Langley. ”

Jones hadn’t been given his real name. He snapped his hands into fists and gave a sharp nod. “Yeah.”

Jake stopped a few paces from him. His cheeks and jaw were darkened by a shadow of a beard and mustache. Tucker stared at him for a full minute before he realized that the facial hair reminded him of Christian.

He scuffed a hand over his own clean-shaven face.

“I talked to Claire this morning.”

Tucker jerked. The last thing he’d expected to hear was that.

“She’s told me a lot about you. Say…what are ya drinkin’?”

Drawing a deep breath through his nostrils, Tucker analyzed the emotions ping-ponging through his body. Punch the man square in the teeth or sink to a barstool next to him?

“Beer.” His throat constricted around the word, making him sound as if he really needed that drink.

Tucker shot a glare at Jones on his way to the stool, but his bartender friend tried to make peace by sliding a longneck of Tucker’s favorite brew across the wooden bar top.

Damn the man for knowing too much, but most bartenders did.

Of course he would know. Tucker had been holding down this barstool long enough.

Mickelson hitched himself onto the stool beside Tucker. Too close for Tucker’s comfort, but there was nothing to do but wait to see if the man challenged him.

Tucker took three long swallows of the earthy liquid before Claire’s father spoke.

“Heard you was on the run from my little girl.”

The cords in Tucker’s neck grew taut. He slowly turned his head to pierce the man in his gaze. “You heard that, huh?” Hurting Claire made Tucker’s stomach burn.

“Letty told me.” Mickelson raised a brow as if in challenge then sipped from his foamy glass.

For a moment, Tucker couldn’t make sense of the name. Then it filtered in, along with the wail of the woman on the jukebox. Claire’s aunt. Sweet woman, who also saw too goddamn much.

“Ah. ”

Mickelson shifted on the stool. “A lot of guys are clamoring for my girl’s attention, you know. She’s a beauty, and men want her. Letty acts as a sort of buffer between them, and in my stead.”

In your absence.

“So my mother’s sister tells me everything about the goings-on with Claire. Says she’s living in your house.”

Tucker dug his boot into the wrung of the stool to keep from falling off. “What?”

Mickelson’s eyes were dark, too much like Claire’s when she got angry. “Yeah, Claire moved in to take care of your cattle—”

With Christian. Fuck.

“—and she brought Letty along.”

So they were all living there, cozy as three bugs, while Tucker camped out in a shitty motel room with nothing but beer and afternoon game shows for company. But whose fault was that?

“Seems that you had something serious with my little girl.” The accusation was clear in Mickelson’s tone as well as the set of his jaw.

Tucker looked away. That dark shadow of hair on her father’s face brought a dizzying need for Christian. He brought the mouth of the bottle to his lips and drank the rest down.

“Drowning yourself in beer won’t make that guilt go away.”

Tucker swung around in a flash. “What do you know of my guilt?”

“I know you were fooling with my Claire, and you left her. Anyone with a brain would feel guilty about that. Hurting her is like hurting Mother Theresa.”

Fuck, the man was right. Maybe he did know his daughter—at least well enough to know she was soft and pure as new snow.

Tucker nudged the brim of his hat lower. “Your daughter is an amazing woman.” And she deserves better than me. “And I wish her the best.” Tucker climbed off the stool and made it two steps before Mickelson’s low voice reached him over the dying remnants of the song.

“What if the best was you?”

Swallowing convulsively, Tucker stared at the door.

Move toward it. Don’t look back. With supreme willpower, he moved one boot ahead of the other.

Outside, he controlled the urge to break into a run.

To run long and hard across the land until grasses swished around his knees and his lungs burned for air.

Instead, he calmly strode to the motel. Inside his room, the maids had tidied the bed and even piled his discarded clothes on top of the cheap laminate dresser. He glared around the space, hating the lumpy wallpaper and the striped bedspread. He wanted his ranch, the smell of horses.

He wanted Claire.

“Fuck.” He ripped off his cowboy hat and threw it to the floor, then jammed his fingers through the long strands of his hair. Since Heather had died, everything in his life had been on a downward spiral.

Hell, even his ranch was jeopardized by his own family and the coal mining greed. And Christian and Claire were there, unaware of the trouble.

He snatched up his cell and jabbed a number to connect with Christian. Usually a touch of that button summoned the man to his house to play cocks, and even as the phone trilled in his ear, he grew hard.

It rang four times. Five. Went to voicemail .

“Dammit!” He tossed the phone to the bed hard enough to bounce.

His cock was aching, straining for release. In a violent motion, he ripped open his belt and popped the button and zipper of his jeans. He slid the mass partway down his hips before freeing his shaft.

The ridges pulsed in his hand. He lashed his sac to his body and started pumping his erection with his other hand. A quiver of sensation tore through him as he rolled the swollen head through his grip. Pressing open the tight slit that glistened with cream.

Imagining that it was Christian’s cock he stared at, he ran a finger between his balls, low, just as his friend love to see. A moan echoed in the room at the memory of him doing exactly this thing and watching Christian’s eyes roll back in his head.

Jerking his hips, Tucker slid his thick length through his palm, squeezing, releasing. Hot whips in his groin spurred him to move faster. A golden glow of ease was on the horizon, close but so far away.

Juices gathered on the tip as he stroked himself faster. More. More. Fuck, yes, Christian .

In a violent spasm, he came. He tightened his hold on the head, letting the pressure build. When he released it, a spurt shot into the air.

He hissed with pleasure, letting come flow over his fingers, down his shaft, to pool around his cupped balls.

Stars sparked behind his eyes, along with a vision of Christian’s cock in Claire’s sweet mouth.

No Heather within a country mile of this moment.

Guilt flooded his veins, replacing every ounce of ecstasy. With a growl, he snagged a handful of tissue from the box on the dresser and cleaned himself up. Then he hurled himself into the mattress, tears burning his throat.

Heather, Claire, Christian. All wrapped up in his mind and tied with a tough little string that was Jake Mickelson’s words. What if the best was you?

What if Claire really did need him and his staying away wasn’t actually going to help her in the long run, but carve more of her heart out ?

She hid her pain behind smiles. When she talked about her father, she always wore a serene smile, but a burning in her eyes told more of the story.

Anger erupted in Tucker’s chest. Where did that son of a bitch Jake Mickelson get off talking to him about guilt and hurt?

Every day he stayed away from his daughter planted one more seed of pain in her.

Soon she’d sprout nothing but tangled vines of hurt, and they would obliterate the sunny disposition Tucker and so many others loved about her.

Rolling to his feet, Tucker looked for the wastepaper basket. He tossed the used tissue into it and went into the bathroom to clean up. He had a mind to go back to the bar and say his piece to that man.

In fact, that’s exactly what he’d do. Fighting for Claire right now seemed the only course.

By the time he strode across the parking lots, past the diner that boasted a special of the day sign for fresh cod—in a landlocked state—he was ready to do battle.

He shoved through the door of the bar, squinting at the dimness. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but it only took seconds for him to find that Mickelson wasn’t here.

From behind the bar, Jones opened his mouth to say something, but Tucker spun and left before the words were uttered.

Outside the door, Tucker jabbed a few buttons on his phone and in minutes had a cashier’s check wired to Christian.

If he couldn’t be there to help out on the ranch, the least he could do was ease the monetary strain.

Christian probably wasn’t even working right now and Claire couldn’t bring home much on a waitress’s salary.

Across the parking lots again, back to the room, where he found that he’d missed a call from Christian.

With a harsh noise in his throat, Tucker cradled the phone. He stared at the display with Christian’s number, hollow-bellied and aching but without any ability to give it voice.