The Cowboy Way. Candace Schuler
sensation. Her whole body clenched tight. “Oh. Clay. Yes!”
2
CLAY LOWERED THE BINOCULARS and sagged against the side of his horse, as wrung out and replete as if he’d actually had sex. He’d definitely come, that was for sure. Hands-free and in his jeans, which hadn’t happened since he was a hormone-ridden sixteen-year-old making out with Tish Bradley in the front seat of his daddy’s pickup. And, incredibly, this hands-free orgasm had been hotter and more satisfying than the last time he’d actually come inside a woman.
Of course, the last time he’d come inside a woman, he’d been flat on his back in a hospital bed and buzzed on painkillers, so he hadn’t exactly been at his best. Not that the woman in question had voiced any complaints. Quite the contrary. Feeling everything through a haze of pharmaceuticals had muted his physical sensations and slowed his reaction time to the extent that his partner had been limp with blissful exhaustion before he’d joined her at the finish line. She’d been very vocal in her appreciation. So vocal, in fact, that the night nurse had left her desk to see what all the commotion was about. The resulting confrontation, like the amorous encounter that had gone on before it, was kind of fuzzy in his mind. A lot of things had been fuzzy in his mind around that time, starting with the incident that had put him in the hospital bed in the first place.
He’d been stomped by a bull. He knew that because he’d seen the ESPN highlight tape of ol’ Boomer dancing on his carcass. Clay didn’t actually remember the wreck itself, though, which everybody said was a damned good thing. His last memory of that day—his only memory of the day, really—was walking toward the rodeo office with Rooster to get their competition numbers. Everything else, up to and including his go-round with Boomer, was a complete blank. He knew he’d spent the following three days in intensive care after the doctors finished putting him back together because Rooster had told him he had, but all he recalled of his stay there was a series of shadowy disjointed dreams, the echo of half-heard voices, and vague impressions of worried faces drifting in and out of his field of vision.
By the time he was well enough to be transferred to a regular room, the sequence of his days had gotten clearer and more coherent but they were still kind of fuzzy around the edges, especially in those fog-shrouded minutes just before and after the morphine kicked in.
In the two months since the wreck, the pain had subsided and the pain medication had been changed and decreased, and then changed and decreased again, but his reality had stubbornly remained just the tiniest bit out of focus. He chalked it up to the abrupt and unwelcome modification to his lifestyle. He was used to living fast and hard, traveling from one go-round to the next, always on the move, always on the lookout for the next ride, the next good time, or the next willing woman. Being forced to slow down, even if it was only temporary—and it was only temporary—dulled the intensity and blurred the edges, making him, as Rooster was wont to say, a “mite moody.”
And then, suddenly, out taking a solitary ride to improve his mood before the bachelor party tonight, everything snapped into sharp focus through the lenses of a pair of borrowed binoculars. For the first time since the wreck, every cell and nerve ending in his body was on red alert, alive and humming and ready to go. And all because he’d watched a woman he barely knew masturbate to climax. A woman, moreover, for whom he hadn’t previously spared a second thought—or a second look—beyond what had been required for civility’s sake.
Shaking his head at the sheer absurdity of the situation, he tucked the binoculars back into the saddlebag, and mounted up.
He didn’t know if it was the surprisingly luscious Miz Jo Beth Jensen herself, or the surprise of coming upon her out of the blue the way he had, or simply the fact that playing the voyeur was something he’d never done before that provided the spark. Whatever it was, he wanted more.
It stood to reason that she wanted more, too. She’d cried out his name when she’d come—he was almost sure of it—which meant she had to have been fantasizing about him during that close encounter with her own hand. Clay had been the focus of a good many female fantasies over the years, and he’d found that most women were more than happy to have the chance to make those fantasies real. And, usually, if the circumstances and the woman were right—and sometimes even if they weren’t—he’d always been more than happy to oblige.
Completely forgetting that he’d been going to ride away like the gentleman his mama had raised him to be, he clucked softly to his horse and, laying his reins against the side of the pinto’s neck, guided the animal out of the trees and down the slope into the gully below, absolutely certain he was about to get lucky.
He kept the horse to a walk and his gaze on the recumbent form of the woman in the water tank. She was leaning back against the concrete edge with her face turned up to the sun and her eyes closed. Her slender, well-toned arms were stretched out to either side of her, resting along the rim of the tank. The position bared her upper body nearly to midtorso, leaving her pretty little breasts resting lightly on the surface of the water. Her whole being reflected complete and utter relaxation.
Clay grinned wickedly. It was a shame, really, to disturb her autoerotic afterglow. But, after all, the woman had called out his name in the throes of passion. Hadn’t she? And if she hadn’t…well, she was obviously in need of what he could do for her. No woman should have to resort to self-manipulation to fulfill hr sexual needs, especially not when he was ready, willing and more than able to fulfill them for her.
Watching her as closely as he was, he knew the exact instant she became aware that her solitude was no longer absolute. Her shoulders tensed and she straightened away from the edge of the tank slightly, at the same time sinking down so her breasts disappeared beneath the water just as her rounded knees broke the surface. Surprisingly, she didn’t fumble around or scramble to cover herself. She didn’t get all fluttery or flustered, either, the way he’d expected her to; the way most other women would have if caught in similar circumstances. She didn’t even blush. Instead, she calmly curled one arm around her bent knees and lifted the other, tenting her hand above her eyes in an effort to see who was approaching.
“That’s far enough,” she said, the unmistakable snap of authority in her voice.
Clay reined in, halting the pinto a good six feet from the edge of the tank, and stared down at her, waiting for what she would do next. It wasn’t often a woman managed to surprise him, and she’d done it twice already: first with her heated abandon, then with her complete lack of embarrassment at being caught naked. He couldn’t help but wonder what other surprises she had in store for him.
Jo Beth squinted up at him from underneath her raised hand, but all she could see was the silhouetted figure of a man on a horse. His shoulders were impossibly broad against the expanse of blue sky behind him. His face was completely hidden in the shadow of his hat. Except for the sun glinting off the blunted rowels of his spurs and the silver conchas on his chaps, he was shrouded in darkness.
An instinctive quiver of apprehension snaked its way up Jo Beth’s spine. She very deliberately brushed it aside. This was, after all, Diamond J land. She was the jefe of the Diamond J. And he was a Diamond J cowhand.
Whatever reason he might have for trailing her out to this remote corner of the ranch, it sure as hell wasn’t because he had any nefarious designs on her body. None of her cowhands would dare. Especially given the mood she’d been in when she left the stable yard.
Which meant there was some problem that demanded her immediate attention back at the main house. Her squint deepened into a frown. Good Lord, couldn’t she have one measly hour to herself? Just one measly little hour without the whole operation falling apart?
“This had better be damned important,” she said irritably, scowling up at him from under her tented hand.
“Ma’am?”
“Whatever you trailed me out here for. It had better be damned important, or you and whoever sent you out here after me are going to be damned sorry.”
“No one sent me after you,” Clay said, thinking delightedly that she’d already managed to surprise him again. Whatever he’d