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Chapter Three

Was he really going to let her stay in her room and cry alone?

In all the years Brenna had lived on the Arrow S, he had never allowed her to cry alone. From the moment his father had brought the delicate, strawberry-blonde child and her quiet mother to the ranch, Jase had been unable to still the protective instinct that had grown inside him.

He had been eighteen at the time. He hadn’t wanted a mother or a sibling. His father had told him point-blank Brenna wasn’t his sister. She was the daughter of the woman his father had married, nothing more. All he needed Jase to do was make sure no one on the ranch or anywhere else ever harmed her. Man or woman.

That had made much more sense to him.

Now, staring up the stairs outside his office, he placed one foot on the bottom step and started up.

“Jase, those faxes you were waiting for have come in and that buyer in Dallas is on the phone if you still want to talk to him. I believe I may have convinced him that bull is well worth the additional thousands you’re asking for.”

There was an edge of triumph in Miriam’s voice, and Jase grimaced.

He’d asked an outrageous amount for that damn bull because he didn’t want to sell him. Neither, though, did he want to piss off the buyer. Let him think Jase didn’t want to sell, and he would move the moon and stars in his attempt to convince Jase to do just that.

Hell, he could have sworn Miriam had understood the situation.

He turned slowly and stared down at her silently for long moments.

Raven-hued, her short, silky hair was cut into an attractive “choppy” look. With wide blue eyes and creamy skin, she was a beautiful woman. She was also a friend, which made the situation that had developed between him and Brenna over the past two years that much harder to understand.

“Why didn’t you tell me Brenna was calling earlier?”

He didn’t ask if Brenna had called. He knew she had called.

As she said in the car, he had known her most of her life. He knew how she lied, how she evaded, and he knew how to catch her in the fine art of feminine wiles. She’d been flirting with him since she was ten, and for the past several years, every time he saw her, his dick got hard.

On the other hand, there was no desire for Miriam, and he knew for a fact she had never acted as though she thought any more of him than she did any of her other friends.

She stared back at him in affected surprise. And she didn’t fool him in the least.

“Let me warn you now, lying to me could cost you this job.” Looking for a new assistant wasn’t something he wanted to deal with at the moment and losing a friend was never a preferred option. But he wouldn’t tolerate lies either. This wasn’t the reason he had hired her and she knew it. She was here not to lie to him, but to effectively ensure he managed to keep his dick in his pants.

The lush, reddened lips thinned as he watched the calculated gleam that flashed in her gaze.

“We were busy, Jase,” she told him. “I was going to tell you, but when I came looking for you, you had already left.” She gave a delicate shrug of her slender shoulders beneath the sleeveless blouse she’d paired with an above-the-knee black skirt and four inch heels.

“I’ll no longer need you to monitor the calls coming to my cell phone during my meeting. I’ll simply let voice mail take the ones I believe can wait,” he told her. “And tell the buyer the bull has already been promised to a buyer who wishes to remain anonymous.”

A frown jerked between her brows. “Jase, I busted my ass to sell that bull for you.”

“No, you flirted and teased until you got the price, knowing full well the reason I had overpriced him was to hold on to him for a while. What I’d like to know is why you’re so damned determined to sell that bull for me.”

“Perhaps I wanted to do my job?” He could see her jaw flexing, the obvious control she was exerting over her tongue. “The only reason you’re holding on to it is because Brenna bought it for you, not because it holds any value.”

Brenna had bought the stubborn, mean-assed brute eight years before after Jase had admired it as a calf. She’d completely charmed the owner, a New Mexico rancher no one had charmed in decades, and bought the black calf for next to nothing. That bull had become the cornerstone of his herd, with his breeding prices rising by the year until Jase had retired him in the past year. He wasn’t just a profitable asset, he was also a gift from the girl Brenna had been. The girl who had been convinced Jase could do no wrong.

Hell no, he wasn’t selling him, and he would be damned if he would allow Miriam to manipulate him into it for whatever reason she had come up with. Like Brenna, her actions were beginning to confuse the hell out of him. “Go home for the day, Miriam,” he ordered her. “Better yet, for the next two days. Give careful thought to how you want to continue our business relationship. Because let me assure you, I will not tolerate anyone interfering in my relationship with Brenna in that manner. Not anyone. Not at any time.”

“I see.” Her lips pursed, though with anger or disapproval he wasn’t certain. “And what of the opinion that she’s out to use your sibling relationship to steal this ranch from you? Maybe I was simply trying to help you let go of that past, Jase, so you can get on with your future.”

A bark of mocking laughter left his lips. “Steal it? Son of a bitch, Dad gave her forty percent of it. She doesn’t have to steal shit, Miriam. And the next time you question my relationship with her or my decisions, then I promise you, you won’t be sticking around here to regret it.”

He didn’t give her a chance to retort.

Turning on his heel, he moved up the stairs, making his decision in that instant. He wasn’t leaving Brenna to cry alone, because she was right, he’d known her long enough to know her clear to the bone.

He’d thought he knew Miriam almost that well. He’d known her in college. She’d been married to one of his best friends who had managed to lose his life overseas.

Miriam he could live without, though. Brenna was another story. No matter how angry he was with her, there was no way he could live without her presence in his life. Moving toward the closed bedroom door across from his suite, he turned the knob and pushed it open, expecting to find a sobbing Brenna.

What he found brought him to a full, hard stop.

She had been crying. Her eyes were still swollen, her face cleaned of makeup and pale.

Until he pushed into her room.

She flushed.

From the edge of the towel wrapped around her breasts to her hair.

She sat on the bed, one slender foot propped on the mattress as she held a bottle of nail polish, obviously preparing to paint those delicate little toes as she sniffed back more tears.

The more Brenna was hurt inside, the more she primped on the outside. As though the very act of pampering herself with unusual attention comforted her. It was a damn good thing, because he and his father had often been at a loss as to how to comfort a young girl’s tears.

This wasn’t a young girl sitting on the bed though.

This was a woman. The woman who haunted his fantasies.

The woman who made his dick spike hard and confused the hell out of him.

And she was naked beneath the towel.

The edge fell away from her thigh, revealing the soft, creamy flesh. As she stared at him, her breasts began to move heavily beneath the material, and he knew her nipples were hard.

As they had been when he’d picked her up.

Dressed in cutoff denim shorts, one of those thin, skinny-strapped tops she wore and strappy sandals. Flesh tanned a golden brown, that mass of fiery, sunny blonde hair cascading around her shoulders in a riot of heavy waves. She had become instantly aroused when he got out of the vehicle.

Her nipples had gone hard immediately.

Her thighs had tightened.

She’d been wet. He’d known she was wet. Wet and wild and so very ready to fuck.

He pushed the bedroom door closed before locking it, almost without noticing, as she stared back at him, her chocolate-brown eyes wide and filled with arousal.

The sight of her feminine hunger had an effect on him that he had never quite known how to combat. For the past several years, since the day she had turned eighteen, it was as though a part of him had awakened that had been asleep before.

He moved toward her.

Dazed and so fucking hungry for the taste of her he could barely stand it.

All he could think about was the night of his birthday. Finding her stretched out on her bed in that evening gown, her eyes so dark and mysterious, her nipples as hard as little pebbles beneath the material.

And he’d wanted to taste them. He wanted them in his mouth, against his tongue, ready to devour as he sucked them.

What the hell was he doing?

Moving to her, he could feel that hunger surging through him, tearing aside the thin veil of his control as he let it have its way. Just for a moment, he swore to himself. Just a little taste of her, maybe then he could survive.

He took the nail polish from her hand and very carefully set it on the nightstand.

Then he came over her.

Watching her, his gaze locked with hers as she lay back against the pillows, her expression transforming with sensual drowsiness as he pulled the tucked edges of the towel apart.

The material fell away from her breasts.

Full, firm, her nipples a soft, sweet pink, tight and hard and lifting to him.

“Ah hell,” he groaned. “You’re going to make me crazy, Bren. My dick is so damned hard it’s all I can do to breathe. All I can think about is fucking you. Sinking so deep inside you that I don’t know where you end and I begin.”

“What’s stopping you?” she whispered.

What was stopping him?

He’d waited too long. He’d wanted her too much.

This was the reason why he tried to keep her away from the ranch and away from him, even before his father had died.

His head lowered, the hunger to taste her lips exploding through him with a force he didn’t want to resist. One he had no intentions of resisting.

Kissing her was like sinking into fire. Pleasure whipped through his senses as a muttered little moan slipped from her throat and she seemed to melt beneath him.

Delicate hands slid over his chest to the buttons of his shirt, a bit clumsy, slow enough to drive him crazy for the touch of her hands against his flesh. But the buttons gave way beneath her fingers. The material parted as she began pushing it from his shoulders.

He shrugged the material off, dropping it carelessly over the side of the bed. All the while, his lips were on hers, the erotic, sensual melding of lips and tongue infusing his blood with pure lust.

Reaching down, he jerked at the snap and zipper of his jeans, desperate to get out of the material, to release the stiff, heavy flesh of his cock.

It took too long to release the material, to toe his boots from his feet and work them off. As he pushed the jeans over his hips, his lips were moving down her neck, tasting her freshly showered flesh. The scent of peaches and cream filled his senses. Heated and fragrant, her skin was like silk, responsive and sensitive to each touch.

She moved beneath him, writhing, her hands on his shoulders, holding him to her as her neck arched and she moaned against him.