Curvy Girls: Claimed By The Cowboy (The BBW and the Billionaire Rancher) (8 page)

“Hey,” she said suddenly. “You weren’t wearing a condom?”

“So what?” He hugged her up against him, kissing her shoulder. “You’re my wife.”

“But I –that’s-“ she protested.

He kissed her shoulder again and then nipped at it. “I loved being bare inside you. It felt so good,” he said. “I know I’m clean. I had a very thorough checkup recently and haven’t been with anybody since.”

“Me too.  But…We…This isn’t a real…”

“Don’t say it.”

“Well, it’s true. What if I got pregnant?”

“We’d have a beautiful little boy or girl or maybe even twins, and they’d grow up on a ranch with a mommy and daddy that loved them.”

As he said it, she knew he was telling the truth.  Good lord, he really meant it. He really wanted to be in this marriage. To be married to
her
. And he’d be delighted, not horrified, if she were pregnant with his child.

It was hard to wrap her head around, and she still only half believed it, but it didn’t matter right then, because he was rolling her onto her back with a look of deep, carnal hunger in his eyes, and the world melted away and only the two of them existed.

“I was going to take a shower before I headed back out. Join me.” There was a rough air of command in his voice, and instantly she was wet and throbbing with desire again.  What kind of weakling was she, to crave her husband’s domination like this? Outside of the bedroom, she was a thoroughly independent, opinionated, take-charge woman, but when he took charge in the bedroom, she melted into a quivering puddle of lust.  There was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

A tremor of alarm ran through her as she realized that she’d just thought of him as “her husband.”  Careful, Abigail, she thought. This marriage was never meant to last.

In the shower, he turned on a blast of warm water, squeezed some shampoo into his hands, and then began massaging it into her scalp.  His fingers were strong and firm, and the feeling of his hands on her scalp was so sensual that she leaned her head back and moaned.

Then he was pressing up against her, his hard cock pressing into the small of her back, and his wet fingers spreading her open and sliding inside her, moving right to that spot again. Up and down, up and down…with every stroke, a white hot streak of pleasure shot throughout her whole body, and she sagged back against him, helpless.

“Ohhhh….ohhhh….ohhhh…” she moaned with each stroke.

“My god, do you know what it does to me when you moan like that?” She could feel his cock swelling even bigger against her wet skin, and then he slid his fingers out and his cock was inside her again, forcing his way into her tight tunnel.

“Touch yourself while I fuck you,” he ordered her, and cupped her breasts in his hands, squeezing and kneading her sensitive flesh.

With trembling fingers, she began to stroke her hard, swollen bud, leaning back and pressing against him. He was like a wall holding her up, supporting her with his strength.

“You like this?” He hissed, pistoning into her.

“I love it,” she moaned.

“Keep touching yourself. Do it faster. Harder.”

“Ohhhh, my God….”She moved her fingers faster, jerking hard at her clitoris as the thickness of his shaft stretched her, swelling inside her and filling her with red hot pleasure with each thrust.  She was helpless, completely under his control.

Hot flames of ecstasy licked at her heated sex, and then spread throughout her body in a crackling inferno, until she exploded, muscles convulsively squeezing his cock, and she sobbed his name, tears of relief trickling down her cheeks. His arms tightened around her and he crooned in her ear, “Baby, baby, I love you. You make feel so good.”

His words stole her breath. He loved her? Did he really, or was it the heat of the moment fogging his brain?

At the moment, she didn’t care. He held her in his arms and she was safe and warm and she felt like she was home and everything was right with the world.

Chapter Nine

Abigail served up a dinner of beef stew and garlic mashed potatoes. Clayton and Ludmilla sat at the mahogany dining table across from them, with plates of food which Ludmilla had picked up at a restaurant in town; Ludmilla was picking at an arugula salad and Clayton ate a steak and fries. Winston, Abigail and Ty dug into their beef stew with gusto.

Ty glanced across the table at Clayton. “I can’t think of anything much ruder than bringing your own meal when somebody’s cooked dinner for you. I see your wife wasn’t brought up any better than you were.”

Ludmilla’s green eyes glazed over with fury, and Clayton’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his fork.

“If I eat her food, then I will look like her,” Ludmilla smiled poisonously, speaking in her heavy Eastern European accent. “Like the cows that graze on these mountains.”

The temperature in the air abruptly dropped fifty degrees and Ty pushed his chair back, rising slowly to his feet, with murder in his eyes. Ludmilla scooted her chair closer to Clayton’s, sudden fear flashing across her face.

Lilly shrugged, picking up another forkful of mashed potatoes. “That’s right, I enjoy what I eat, and I’m perfectly happy with what I look like,” she said calmly. “And so is my husband, whose opinion is the only one that I care about.  You have to starve yourself all day, every day, to look like you do, and I see you staring at food all the time like a chained up dog ready to pounce.  That can’t be a lot of fun.”

And she put the buttery mashed potatoes in her mouth and smiled blissfully.

Heaven.

She was a damned good cook, and she knew it.

Ludmilla watched with hungry eyes, and swallowed hard.

Slowly, Ty sat down again, but his expression was like thunder. “Watch how you talk to my wife, or I’ll physically pick you up and throw you off our property on your bony ass,” he gritted out at Ludmilla, who glowered down at her salad, not meeting his eyes.

“This is
my
property, not yours.” Clayton leaped to his feet, hands clenched into fists, and Ty followed suit.

“You haven’t won a fight with me since you were sixteen, and now you’ve gotten soft, city boy. Let’s go,” Ty snapped.

Winston leaped to his feet, throwing down his napkin.

“Enough!” He barked.

They all turned to look at him.

“Ty, your brother contacted me with some serious accusations. He claims that you have entered into a fake marriage, a marriage of convenience, because you wanted to inherit the ranch. After your marriage, he hired a private investigator, who uncovered this.”

Winston had brought his briefcase to dinner with him, resting it on the floor against the table leg. Now he opened up his briefcase and pulled out a piece of paper, which he handed to Ty, who looked at it, expressionless.

Abigail leaned over to see, carefully keeping a neutral expression on her face as nausea swelled up inside her and threatened to choke her.

It was a printout of a society paper article from a Madison, Wisconsin, newspaper. It showed Ty standing next to a beautiful woman in a red gown, with her hair swept up into an elegant blonde updo, at a rancher’s charity auction to raise money for a children’s summer camp. The caption underneath the article identified her as Jeannette Little, his girlfriend.

It was dated a week before Ty had arrived in Cross Creek.

Abigail felt her heart drop into the bottom of her stomach. Was Ty’s girlfriend waiting for him back in Wisconsin, riding out this silly fake marriage until Ty had secured his ownership of the ranch?  She looked so perfect next to him. The Ken and Barbie couple.  

Abigail forced a smile on her face, but her heart hammered so hard against her ribcage that she was afraid that it was visible to everyone in the room.

Ty shrugged, and handed the clipping back to Winston. “I dated Jeannette off and on for a few months. Our relationship was over a month before this picture was taken, but she’d already signed us both up to appear at this charity auction, and she begged me to go, said she’d be humiliated if I didn’t attend after she’d told everyone that I would.”

“She told me that you were still a couple when you landed here in Colorado,” Clayton said, his smile gloating, triumphant.

“I’m not surprised she’d make up something like that. She wanted more from me, and she’s a girl who’s used to getting her own way. It didn’t end well when she figured out that I meant what I said all along, that I wasn’t looking for anything serious with her.”

“She said you called her every day up until you got married,” Clayton plowed on, sneering.

“Really? I’d love to see the cell phone records that back that up,” Ty smiled coldly.

Clayton faltered for a minute. He’d gone too far. “You could have gotten a disposable phone…” he muttered.

“Right. Like that makes any sense.  You’re not going to be able to dig up any calls between the two of us after the day of that charity ball, because there were none. And there were no calls from me to her the month before that charity event, either, although there were five or ten calls a day from her to me at the ranch.”

When Clayton’s eyes lit up, Ty added coolly “She left me voicemails begging me to call her back and give her another chance.  Asking me why I couldn’t see that we were meant for each other.  I still have the voicemails,” and Clayton’s face fell.

Winston turned to Ty, brow wrinkling. “You’ve got to admit that this marriage to Abigail pretty much came out of the blue. You arrived in town and married her, what? A week and a half later?”

“I’ve known Abigail my whole life. I’ve always had feelings for her. When I came back to town, yes, I moved quickly.  I knew that I belonged here in Crooked Creek, on this ranch, and she belonged by my side as my wife.”

Ty turned to Clayton. “While we’re on the subject, how long have you known Ludmilla?”

“A year,” Ludmilla sneered. Clayton winced;  he clearly hadn’t worked on his story with Ludmilla before coming out here.

“Really?” Ty smiled like a man about to lay down his winning hand at poker.  He turned from Clayton to Ludmilla with a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Because my private investigators say you only arrived in America three months ago, and I’ve got plenty of pictures of Clayton with other women over that time period, and even after you arrived in America. It appears that you two only met about a month ago.”

Clayton shot a look of dull fury at Ludmilla, and Ludmilla actually flinched, and then abruptly hurried from the room. It looked as if she were blinking back tears.

A shiver of alarm rippled through Abigail. Was Ludmilla actually afraid of her husband? She was a bitch and a gold-digger, but no woman should live in fear of an abusive spouse.

Unfortunately, she doubted that Ludmilla would take very kindly to Abigail offering a helping hand or a sympathetic ear.

Winston sighed loudly, bringing her attention back to the three men in the room with her.

“Both of you men have brought up some pretty convincing evidence that the other’s marriage could be fake. So far, Ty, you did indeed get married first, so the trust and the law would appear to favor you. But I just don’t know what to do at this point.”

“Stick around the ranch for as long as you like.  You’ll see that what Abigail and I have is real. I can’t think of what more to do other than that; I’m sure as hell not going to invite you into our bedroom to watch the marital act.”

Winston’s face flushed. “I’m not asking for that, Ty. That was uncalled for.”

“So are accusations that my marriage is fake. And I’d like Clayton and the gold-digger off my property, tonight.”

“I can’t do that until the trust is finalized, Ty.  Until then, you both have the right to live on this property. I’m going to stay in the guest house; my suitcases are already there. I’ll make my recommendations to the board of trustees in a couple of weeks.” Winston, face puckered and unhappy, turned and left the room.

Clayton flashed his brother a look of triumph. “I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few weeks. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go spend some time with my wife.” And he also turned and left.

Ty turned to Abigail, who backed away from him, hurt flashing in her eyes.

“Ty, I’m headed in to town to visit my mother for a few hours.  I’ll be back later.”

“Abigail, come on. You’re going to believe the lies of Clayton and my bitter ex-girlfriend? Clayton would say anything to get his hands on this ranch. He doesn’t care who he hurts.”

But Abigail just shrugged and turned away, without meeting his gaze.

He grabbed her arm and turned her back to face him. “This is your insecurities messing with your head, and you’re smarter than this. Yeah, I gave you grief in high school, and I screwed around with a lot of bimbos.  I was a teenaged boy. I’m a different person now, and so are you. The way you stayed perfectly calm when Ludmilla jabbed at you at dinner? You’d never have done that in high school.”

“I need to go now, Ty.”

His stomach twisted itself in a knot. He released her arm.

Just when he’d thought things were turning around for them. Why couldn’t she have more faith in herself? And in him?

As she drove away, he groaned in frustration.  He wished Clayton would come back in and say just one more thing to him; he needed an excuse to punch someone. Blow off some steam.  He was boiling over with frustration, with nowhere to turn.

He’d roped Abigail into this marriage of convenience to save the ranch, but he was coming to realize, the ranch wasn’t the only thing that he was fighting for.

Chapter Ten

The next afternoon
…

Edna Vale was sitting at the bar, deep in conversation with Cheyenne, who was working the lunch shift at the Dry Gulch saloon when Becky, Abigail, and Carlotta walked in. Becky had just spent the morning covering the story of a stray elk who’d wandered into town and tied up traffic for two hours, Abigail had written a historical column on ranch life in the late 1800s, and Carlotta had spent the morning sewing curtains for the twins’ room.