Cowgirls Don't Cry(62)

She murmured, “No worries.”


“Mmm.” He nuzzled her hair, breathing her in. Filling his lungs, his heart, his soul with everything this woman freely gave him, no matter how much he asked of her. “Thank you.”


“Anytime.”


“Jessie, I—”


She pressed her lips to his. “You don’t have to explain.”


“Even if I want to explain why, after I just f*cked you like a madman, I have this overwhelming urge to spin you around and f*ck you face to face against the wall?” He nipped the section of skin below her earlobe just to feel her entire body shiver while he was still inside her. Just to hear that sexy little moan she made. “And then I want to take you to my bed and keep you there all goddamn night?”


“You afraid I’ll say no?”


“No. I’m afraid you’ll say yes.”


Her purring laugh vibrated against his throat.

Then Brandt heard Landon rattling the bars on his crib.

They both froze.

He sighed. “Duty calls. At least he had good timing and didn’t interrupt us again like he did last night.”


The way Jessie’s whole body stiffened, he realized Landon hadn’t crossed her mind at all. But rather than laugh it off, chalking their oversight up to head-exploding orgasmic intensity, he knew she felt guilty.

She wiggled and demanded, “Let me down. I’ll get him.”


Later, when they were snuggled together on the couch, watching TV, Jessie reached for his hand and he winced.

“What’s wrong?”


“Ah, nothin’. Just a little sore.”


“From what?”


From beating the shit out of my barn today. “From workin’. No big deal.”


“Let me see.”


“Jess—”


“If it’s no big deal then let me see it.”


Brandt held out his right hand and turned the palm side up. The glove had rubbed his skin raw. Where the glove had holes, he had slivers. Even his fingertips were scraped up.

“Oh, your poor hand. Are those wood slivers?”


“Yeah.”


“Stay put. I’ll be right back.” She returned with tweezers, a needle, a washcloth, and a tube of anti-bacterial ointment.

“Here I was hopin’ that was a bottle of lube.”


“Maybe later. Right now, I’m gonna get those slivers out.”


“You don’t have to bother because I hardly even noticed them.”


But Jessie wasn’t deterred. “I noticed them and I happen to excel at sliver removal, so you’re in luck.”


She bent her head close to his palm and started poking his skin with the needle.

As much as he didn’t want to ask if she’d done this for Luke, his mouth had other ideas. “How’s it that you’re so good with tweezers?”


“When me’n Josie were kids, there was this really cool abandoned tree fort in the woods behind our house. We weren’t supposed to go there, but we couldn’t resist. Problem was, it had an old rope to climb to reach the wooden platform and we both ended up with a lot of splinters. Since the tree fort had been expressly forbidden, we couldn’t tell Mom about the slivers, so me’n my little sister both got really good at picking them out.”


“Where was your mom when you were sneakin’ off to the woods?”