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  Exciting? He fought to restrain his ire. She thought that fight was exciting. She could have been seriously hurt. The image of Butch swinging that pool cue flashed before his eyes.

  “Dammit, Liv—”

  “Now don’t get so worked up, Rem. I told you that was the first time that had ever happened. Usually I manage to work off some of my aggressions by kneeing some biker who comes on too strong. After they peel the guy up off the floor, Stan kicks him out and I feel better.”

  “Did my father know about this anger management routine of yours?” he asked, struggling with the image of his overprotective father allowing Liv to put herself at such risk.

  “Dear God, no. He would’ve killed me.” Liv shuddered at the thought and he had to fight back the laughter bubbling within him. She never failed to make him laugh.

  “Promise you won’t go back without me,” he repeated.

  “No,” she said, her eyes taunting him. Oh yeah, she was itching for a punishment, but he wasn’t going to accommodate her this time. At least, not in the way she wanted.

  “Turn around,” he said firmly. “Bend over the side of the bed.”

  She smiled as if he’d offered her diamonds and quickly complied. She was a jewel, a treasure. One he always intended to keep close and safe and he didn’t care if it took him a lifetime to convince her of his love, his faithfulness. He was never letting her go again. Not without one hell of a fight.

  He gently placed his hand on her bare bottom and she flinched slightly, clearly expecting him to spank her.

  “I bought you a toy,” he said.

  “A toy?”

  He reached over to the bedside table and pulled open the drawer. He’d slipped his purchases in there earlier this morning after she’d gone down to the barn. He had planned to introduce her to this tonight but, as always, he couldn’t keep his hands off her for more than a few hours at a time.

  In the past month, he’d merely teased her with the idea of anal sex, tempting her with light touches, driving in a single finger to get her used to the idea and the feeling of being possessed there. Now he was ready to move things to the next level.

  “Spread your legs apart,” he demanded. He opened a tube of lubrication and worked a generous amount into her ass with his finger. She tensed up for only a second as the cold gel hit her then, as always, her innate trust for him kicked in and she relaxed. He reveled in her faith in him. It was the one thing that had kept him going when things on the ranch began to overwhelm him. She believed in him. Always.

  Once she’d accepted the first finger, he added a second and she hissed.

  “How does that feel?” he asked as he worked the fingers into her firmly, scissoring them to stretch her tight muscles.

  “It pinches…in a good way.”

  He grinned and removed his hand. She started to rise up and protest but he pushed her back down onto the bed. “Don’t move. This will pinch even more…in a better way.”

  He slowly worked the butt plug into her. “Don’t fight it. Relax and let it inside.”

  “What is it?” she whispered, trying to follow his directions.

  “A butt plug. This is going to stretch you so it won’t hurt when I claim your ass.”

  “It’s too big,” she said, and he chuckled.

  “Spitfire, this is the small one. There are two more after this and none of them are as big as my cock.”

  She sighed and he was taken aback by the impression that, rather than upsetting her, she liked that thought. Once the plug was fully seated, he placed his hand back on her bottom.

  “Are you riding any more today?” he asked.

  “No. I’m going to help Bridget do a bit of harvesting in the garden. We’re canning later this week.”

  “Good. I want you to leave this in all afternoon.”

  “Leave it in?” she asked. “I don’t think—”

  “You will leave it in. Now,” he said, bending over to lift her. “Stand up.”

  She rose and stood awkwardly, trying to adjust to the plug in her ass. “How am I supposed to hide the fact that this thing is stuck in there?” she asked, and he laughed.

  “We’ll practice. Walk to the closet and get me a necktie. Then come back here.”

  “Rem,” she started to protest, but he turned her away from him, swatting her twice on the ass.

  She hissed and shivered and he began to suspect she was more turned-on than he’d ever seen her. His woman was nothing if not adventurous.

  She moved to the closet more gracefully than he would have imagined and returned to hand him the necktie. “Planning a mid-week trip to church to pray forgiveness for your sins?” she asked.

  She was a feisty little thing.

  “Actually, I was planning to rack up a few more sins. Lie down in the middle of the bed on your back.”

  She crawled onto the high mattress on her hands and knees, treating him to a bird’s-eye view of her new toy, and he had to adjust his jeans as his hard-on strained against the tight material.

  As she lay down, he walked to the foot of the bed. “Open your legs,” he demanded and she quickly assumed the position she knew he desired. With her knees spread apart and level with her hips, she watched as he drank in the beauty of her body. “Show me,” he whispered and she reached down to hold herself open to him.

  “Play with your clit,” he said. “Pinch it. Get it nice and hard for me.”

  She toyed with the swollen nub as he shed his jeans and shirt. Moving onto the bed, he climbed over her, caging her beneath him with his hands, his knees between her outstretched legs. Taking her hands away from her pussy, he used the necktie to secure her hands together.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve got an idea of how you can work off some of your angry aggressions,” he said, pulling her bound hands above her and securing them to the headboard.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The next time you get pissed off and try to run to Stan’s, I’m going to stop you and drag you here. I’m going to tie you to this bed and we’re going to channel some of that pent-up, furious energy of yours.”

  Her hips lifted at his threat, clearly trying to find his cock. “You’ll have to catch me first,” she taunted.

  “Don’t you worry about that, spitfire. I will always catch you.”

  Moving his hands down to her hips, he lifted her pussy until it was lined up with his cock. She gasped at the feeling of his shaft claiming her cunt inch by inch, the small channel made tighter by the plug in her ass.

  “Do you like that?” he asked. “Do you like having both your tight holes filled up?”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “God, yes.”

  He moved at a painfully slow speed, anxious to make this good for her, not willing to hurt her even the slightest bit. When he was fully seated, he paused and leaned down to kiss her hungrily.

  “Untie me,” she said, breathlessly. “I have to touch you. Have to.”

  He reached up to loosen the tie, wanting her hands on him and well aware that, now that she’d sampled a taste of bondage, she’d be back for more. Her innocent curiosity and desire to try anything left him feeling as if sex were new for him as well.

  She attempted to lift her hips against him, willing him to take her the way she liked, hard and fast. Liv was a wildcat—and she was all his. He pulled back and moved in slowly again, dragging it out, touching all her hot spots as he returned.

  She cried out, dragging her fingernails along his back. He winced, aware that those claw marks would sting later, but he could see she was too out of her mind to realize what she was doing. On his third retreat and return, he moved faster, harder, and he felt the beginnings of her climax. Her legs tightened around his waist and as her orgasm claimed her, he held himself deep within her, letting her inner muscles caress his cock until he felt his balls draw up and he knew he had to fuck her or die. He gave himself up to the mindless bliss, thrusting in and out until she began to come again, this time taking him
with her.

  He bent down on his elbows, kissing her gently until she returned from the abyss. She smiled at him as he fell to the side, pulling her with him and careful to remain inside her, desperate for a few more connected moments.

  She ran her hand along his face and kissed his cheek.

  “Beats the hell out of Stan’s,” she whispered.

  Chapter Four

  Rem leaned back in the office chair and sighed heavily. He studied the top of the desk, finally empty of the clutter that had covered it when he’d first come home. As he sat in the chair, he was struck by the impression that he was trying to fill his father’s large shoes and for the millionth time, he wondered if his father would be proud of his efforts.

  Then his thoughts drifted to Liv. He knew she still questioned his commitment to her. He could feel her holding a large part of herself back, away from him, afraid to offer her heart, her love to the man who’d left her alone for so many years. Night after night he held her, loved her, whispered the words he prayed would reassure her, convince her, but each morning she left their bed quiet, reserved, uncertain.

  “I thought I heard you come in,” Liv said from the doorway to the office. He glanced up to see her standing in a short skirt and tank top. He’d been home nearly two months and the image of her still caused his heart to skip a beat or two whenever she walked into the room.

  “I just got in, I rode the property line with— Jesus, you look hot in that. Come in here and lock the door.”

  She giggled at his stern, demanding words but obeyed nonetheless. As independent and headstrong as she was out of the bedroom, Rem never ceased to be amazed by her willing submissiveness in the bedroom.

  “You know, I might have to start giving some serious thought to making you an honest-to-God housewife. Keep you in those pretty skirts all day long.”

  She shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re certainly welcome to try. So long as you don’t have some big hang-up about failing miserably. Besides, so much for your theory of locking me in the house to keep me safe.”

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I burned my finger while Bridget and I were baking pies.” She held her index finger out to him as she approached the desk and he chuckled.

  “Oh well, by all means, go back to breaking in the new horses and stay the hell out of the kitchen. I had no idea it was so treacherous in there.” He grasped her hand and kissed her sore finger before sucking the digit into his mouth seductively.

  She laughed and pulled her hand away. “Sex, sex, sex,” she said. “You are in serious danger of becoming terribly predictable, Mr. Bradley.”

  “Guess I’ll just have to start incorporating more variety into our bedroom play.”

  “Shit. You incorporate too much more variety and I swear I’ll spontaneously combust.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her naughty word, thinking her ready to do some of that combusting right now but she shook her head.

  “Down boy,” she teased. “What were you thinking about when I walked in?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that was a pretty heavy look on your face. Is something bothering you?”

  He shook his head. He hadn’t discussed his father since his first night home when Liv had confessed her guilt over driving him away. He hoped he’d convinced her that her feelings were unfounded and wrong. He and his father had been at odds since the first day he’d learned to talk back.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, trying to figure out a way to evade the conversation. His misery had taken root this morning as he rode out and looked at his family’s ranch and realized he’d let his father and Liv down in so many ways.

  “Tell me,” she pleaded, perching herself on the side of the desk.

  He sighed. “Being back here has brought up a lot of memories of my dad. A lot of regrets I thought I’d learned to deal with.”

  “Regrets?” she asked, her eyes worried.

  “Liv, I know you think you’re to blame for the rift between me and Dad, but you couldn’t be more wrong. For quite a few years, you eased the tension that was always between us. When you and Jeb moved in, things were quieter, easier.”

  “Until that summer,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t leave because of that kiss. I’d been to the Marine recruiting office the week before. And I didn’t leave because I was trying to get away from you. Well, not entirely for that reason. You were too young. After all we’ve done together in bed, I think you can understand why.”

  She blushed and he knew she’d caught his drift. His bedroom habits hadn’t evolved much over the years. He’d always been a dominating bastard in the sack. It was a part of his makeup he’d given up trying to hide or make excuses for.

  “Then why did you leave?” she asked.

  “Because I was trying to get away from my dad. Trying to escape the heavy feeling of always being such a big disappointment to him.”

  “Disappointment?”

  “Nothing I did was ever good enough for him. My grades in school were mediocre. He hated the whole idea of the rodeo as much as you do. Then I screwed things up with you and left for the Marines, leaving him to run the ranch alone, rather than working beside him the way a good son would have.”

  “A good son?”

  He stopped talking and looked up at her, frustrated by her continual questions. “Are you going to keep repeating everything I say back to me?”

  “I will until you start making some fucking sense,” she shot back.

  He narrowed his eyes but she poked him in the chest. “I don’t give a shit about my damn gutter mouth right now. You’ve lost your mind, Rem. You honestly think your father wasn’t proud of you every single day of your life?”

  “Liv, I appreciate your comments, but the truth of the matter is—”

  She exploded next to him and he reeled back to escape her wrath as she swung her fist toward him. “And all these years I thought Jeb was the dumbass! Wait here.”

  She disappeared out the office door and was gone for several minutes, leaving him to wonder what the hell he’d said to make her so angry. When she returned, she was carrying a large book.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked when she placed the dusty thing on the desk in front of him.

  “Your dad’s room.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “See for yourself,” she replied, flipping open the front cover.

  As Rem flipped the pages, he watched himself grow up again as he found every success in his life celebrated in the scrapbook his father had made for him. Pictures of his little league team holding the county trophy, all the ribbons and certificates he’d accumulated in too many damn years of 4-H and FFA, a picture of him at graduation, newspaper clippings of his results—good and bad—in the rodeos he’d participated in, a letter of merit from the Marines.

  “And then there are these.” Liv slapped a stack of letters in front of him, tied together neatly with string. “Every letter you ever wrote him. One letter, every two weeks, like clockwork. Joe waited for those letters like some folks wait for their next meal. He was hungry for them and when they arrived, he quoted from them chapter and verse to anyone who would listen to him. I’ve never seen a father more proud of his son.”

  “I didn’t know. He never said—”

  “Christ, Rem. You were never here more than a few days at a time and when you were, you went out and worked the ranch from morning to night like you had something to prove. Besides, it’s not like your dad was the most affectionate guy in the world. I mean, that man loved me like I was his own daughter and I felt that emotion all the way to the soles of my feet, but he never, ever said it. There are some things you just have to know, to feel, in here.” She tapped his chest, directly over his heart.

  Rem nodded, feeling as if he’d been run over by a train. His father had been proud of him, loved him. No one could look at this scrapbook and not feel that love.

  “And I’ll tell you something els
e,” Liv said smugly. He fought back a grin at her too-pleased face. The woman loved to be right. “Your father knew you loved him too.”

  He frowned as he considered that fact. He’d never said those words either. Hell, he’d been a distant prick most of the times they were together. It was that fact he’d regretted most when he’d learned of his father’s sudden death. “How did he know?”

  “You wrote him letters, Rem. Twice a month for ten years. What son does that if he doesn’t care for and respect his father? These letters were your way of showing him the things you couldn’t say to his face. This scrapbook was his way of showing you.”

  “He loved me,” he whispered, hearing the words and believing them for the first time in his life.

  “Wanna know something else?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure I can handle too many more of your amazing revelations today,” he joked, feeling happier than he had in years.

  “You can handle this one.” She bent down to kiss his lips before kneeling between his legs.

  “Liv?”

  “I love you—and I want you,” she whispered as she unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock. “Should I prove it to you? I mean, you seem to be big on visuals.”

  His brief spurt of laughter died the second she took him into her mouth, engulfing him to the back of her throat in two quick thrusts.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, his hands gripping her hair as she moved her lips, tongue and teeth against his hard flesh, working him to the brink of climax within moments.

  “Not this way,” he begged. “You. I have to be inside you.”

  She released him and grinned, rising to her feet. “Well, then hold on to your hat, cowboy, because we’re going on a trail ride.”

  She lifted her skirt to her waist and he quickly discovered she wasn’t wearing any panties. “Damn, baby. You are never getting your panties or jeans back.”

  She laughed as she straddled his lap, her legs hanging over the arms of the large office chair. He gripped her hips, pulling her into position, his head falling back as she slowly slid down on his erection.

  He was only halfway in when he realized she was far tighter than she should be. “Liv?” His eyes narrowed as he moved his hands from her hips to the crack of her ass. His fingers found the thick butt plug lodged there and he groaned.