The Curvy Vet and the Billionaire Cowboy (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) (5 page)

It hit me that, if there was anyone in the world who would do exactly that, it was Russ. Too rich to follow the rules, too easygoing to care what people thought. And it fitted with his love of the simple life. It was cute, in a way. And sort of….

…hot.

I mean, obviously he hadn’t been talking about me. Probably he hadn’t been talking about women at all, just horses, and I was reading far too much into it. But theoretically, if he had been talking about me, then…the idea of it did something unexpected to me. It started a slow, spiral of energy down in my core, like a whirlpool of black oil.
Bred.
Not
oh, darling, do you think it’s time we started a family?
Not
what color shall we paint the nursery? Bred.

Just like a mare in heat, he’d know I was ready. He’d see all the little signs: my chest, rising and falling as I panted; my nipples hard—as they were right then, making little peaks under my t-shirt; my body aching and waiting for his touch.

One of my hands rose to cup my breast. He’d caress me there, big hands squeezing, making me feel small. Then his palms would slide down to my belly. Maybe he’d tell me how he was going to change me. How he’d make the body I hated so much change and swell with his child—no, his
children.
How he was going to breed me again and again.

It shouldn’t have turned me on. But it did.

I was wearing just the old t-shirt and my panties. While one hand continued to massage my breast, the other slid down to the waistband of my panties and then lower, smoothing over the outside of my thigh. Then it crept up, pushing my legs a little way apart. The skin was so much warmer, on the inside. And when my fingers reached the cotton covering my mound, it was hot.

I knew what most of him looked like. My mind filled in the blanks, his cock in his fist as he pushed my thighs apart, his mouth laying a trail of kisses down my body, making me moan. Then he pulled my panties to the side—

I did the same, hooking the cotton out of the way and forming two fingers into a stiff length. I didn’t enter myself right away, though, even though I was more than wet enough. I just nuzzled my fingertips against my slickened opening, imagining it was his cock, imagining his head was down beside mine, stubble scratching my cheek as he kissed me—

Knowing he was right there in the flesh, outside the tent, gave the fantasy a raw edge.
What if he sees?

He can’t see. It’s dark in here.

What if he hears? What if he guesses that I’m thinking about him? What if that turns him on so much that he comes in here and—

I let my breath hiss out through my teeth as I plunged my fingers into myself and began to stroke, while my thumb worked at my clit. I was already so worked up that it wasn’t going to take long. Already, I could feel the tingling along my spine, like clouds charging up for a lightning strike.

Behind my closed eyelids, I could see him gazing down at me, those chocolate brown eyes locked on mine as he drove into me again and again. He was completely naked, the broad curve of his chest hulking over me, his strong forearms rising like pillars either side of me. I drove my fingers deeper, feeling the pleasure rise and build, threatening to explode. He would stretch me, with his size. Stretch me just the right amount. Thrusting into me faster and faster…

I imagined him lowering himself atop me, so that his nipples scraped against me, the hardness of his muscles against the softness of my breasts. I let my thighs open even wider inside the sleeping bag, drawing my knees up as much as the fabric allowed. I was so wet I could hear my fingers moving. I lifted my head, eyes still closed, and the fantasy was so vivid that I could look down his muscled back and see his ass rising and falling between my thighs, hammering his cock into me. Knowing that at any second he would—

The orgasm overtook me, taking me by surprise.
He wouldn’t wear a condom and he’d shoot inside me…oh God right inside me, getting me pregnant pregnant pregnant—

The soles of my bare feet clutched and pulled at the satiny fabric of the sleeping bag as I silently screamed my climax.

Chapter 6

I should have slept badly. I should have been wracked with guilt over having some stupid, teenage fantasy about a virtual stranger, or at least embarrassed that I’d strained and trembled and had to stop myself moaning his name while the real Russ sat right outside, oblivious. But you know what? I slept like a baby.

Russ had to call me and I emerged into the daylight bleary-eyed, my auburn hair hanging in tangles around my face. He thrust something into my hand and my half-awake brain recognized the shape of a mug. I knelt there on the grass, just outside my tent, and drank. Coffee. Rich and smoky and with a pleasant edge to it that helped to kick-start my brain. I slowly opened my eyes and took a deep breath of cool air, gazing at the snowcaps on the mountains. The outdoors was starting to grow on me. There isn’t a better view in the world to wake up to.

“Morning.” Russ was grinning, already loading gear onto the horses. His shirt pulled tight across his muscles as he lifted a bundle, his eyes twinkling.

Okay. Maybe there’s one better view in the world. Something about the night before—maybe the conversation about breeding, maybe playing with myself afterwards—had me on cloud nine. I knew, in the cold light of day, that I must have been reading too much into the conversation. I knew he couldn’t want me…but I could at least enjoy the fantasy. I took another deep lungful of air. “Morning,” I said lazily, and sipped more coffee, luxuriating in the cool breeze coming down off the mountain. It caressed my cheek, making my hair stream out to the side. It played with the little dusting of hairs on the back of my arm. It whistled across my bare legs—

Wait.
My bare legs?

I looked down. I was still in the t-shirt and panties I’d worn for bed. My top half was decent enough, although without a bra my breasts were pretty obvious beneath the tight green fabric. But because I was kneeling, the hem of the t-shirt only hung to my waist. The entire length of my bare legs were on show, together with my panties. Pink panties, with little flowers on them.

Russ was turned away for a second. I lifted myself up on my knees, grabbed the hem of my t-shirt and stretched it down to mid-thigh, yanking so hard I thought the fabric was going to tear. I sat back down, trapping the t-shirt at a demure level, and shook spilt coffee off my hand—I’d forgotten I was holding the mug.

Russ turned back and looked at me strangely. “You okay?” he asked.

“Fine! Drinking my coffee.” And I drank my coffee to demonstrate.

He turned away again and I tried to remember what his expression had been. I’d been so embarrassed I hadn’t had time to take it in. Had he been amused that I’d finally noticed and covered myself, or….

Or had he looked disappointed?

***

Soon, we were coaxing our horses along steep mountain paths. Russ knew the area well and said he was taking me to where he’d last seen the horse. “I’ll get us up high,” he said, “and maybe we can catch a glimpse of her.”

I nodded. Then, “Why is it that you want this one so much? I mean, there are lots of feral horses out there.”

He didn’t answer for a long time. “Sometimes you just see one that’s special,” he said at last. And, even when I prodded him, he wouldn’t give me a better answer than that.

***

We broke for lunch and then, not long afterward, we crested a rise and looked out over the landscape. We weren’t even close to the top, but we were high enough to get a good view of the valleys below. “We’re close,” Russ said. “Right down there is where I saw her.” We both stood there gazing down for long minutes. I saw a couple of horses, but none that looked sick.

What I did see was beauty. I’d seen it the day before, riding through the grassland, but up there in the mountains, looking down into serene lakes and silent forests, I had to admit that maybe the country had more to offer than I’d thought. And I hadn’t been eaten in the night by a wolf or a coyote, and no poisonous spiders had made nests in my ears. Why was it, then, that I’d always been so attached to the city?

Because it’s easier to disappear in a city,
I thought bitterly. Just like the horse we were searching for, out here I was exposed, silhouetted against a huge sky. In the city people hunched behind newspapers, ears blocked with headphones. They didn’t want to see you or know you and most of the time that was exactly what I wanted. I wanted not to be noticed. Except, if you go through life trying not to get noticed…can you blame anyone but yourself if you wind up alone?

I looked sideways at Russ. His easy smile was gone, his jaw set as he searched the countryside below. It was a rare opportunity to really study him, knowing that he was far too preoccupied to notice. I drank in the deep brown eyes, the hard lines of his cheekbones, the slight frown as he concentrated. I’d never seen him so intently focused on something. Except when—

No, that’s ridiculous.

--except when he’d stared at me at the ranch with that
I want you
look. And then again, with added lust, right after I’d come my brains out in the saddle.

“There!” Russ yelled. “By the lake!”

He pointed and I followed his finger. Far below us, down by the shining silver of a sun-kissed lake, I saw her. A beautiful mustang with a glossy red-brown coat. She was
beautiful,
and I understood immediately why Russ had wanted to go after her. And then I saw her legs tremble and twitch and my stomach clenched tight. She was definitely ill, just as Russ had said. We needed to get down to her—
fast.

Russ coaxed his horse into as fast a trot as he dared on the narrow path, and I fell in behind him. Adrenaline slammed through my veins, making me focus, all thoughts of my stupid crush forgotten.

Russ took the fastest—which meant the steepest—route. The horses had to skitter down loose stones, snorting their disapproval. We had to coax them around narrow paths that wound along cliff tops, too close to the edge for me to comfortably think about. Instead, I convinced myself that there was ground running beside the cliff—nice, soft, grass-covered ground, maybe three feet down. With daisies. I tried not to think about how many seconds it would take to hit the bottom, if I got thrown out of my saddle or if Constantine went over with me still in my stirrups. I tried not to think about cold, jagged rocks far beneath. I just focused on Russ ahead of me and followed, wishing I had my own set of blinkers to wear.

After two hours of nerve-jangling, heart-stopping descent, we made it to the lake. And the horse was nowhere to be seen.

We’d lost sight of it almost as soon as we’d started to descend, but we’d been hoping that the illness would slow it down and keep it in the same area. We’d been wrong.

“Damnit!” yelled Russ, sliding from his saddle. He turned a full circle, taking in the shining lake and the wooded valley. We could see a good distance in all directions, but there was no sign of the horse. He swept his hat off his head and ran his hand through his hair. “She can’t have gone far!” It was the angriest I’d ever seen him.

I looked up and down the valley. “But which way? If we pick the wrong one, we could trek for hours without finding her, then come back here and not know if we went far enough.”

“We have to do something!” I could see the frustration in his eyes and I could understand it because I felt it too. But right then, he needed me to do what he’d hired me to do. He needed me to think like a vet.

I looked around again. “We should wait here.”

“What?!” He looked at me, aghast. “Damnit, Amanda, we can’t just wait here! She’s sick!”

I forced my voice level. “If it is Triple-E, she’s running a fever. She’ll keep coming back to drink, probably this evening. Staying here is our best shot.”

He looked once more around him, eyes searching every break in the foliage, every opening in the rocks. “You sure?” he asked at last, his voice tight with frustration.

“Yeah.” I was fighting the same instinct he was—the need to run around and
do
something in an emergency. ”That’s my official opinion, as your vet. Wait here, rest the horses, stay out of sight and wait for her to come back.”

He gave me a long, long look…and then nodded, rubbing a hand across his face. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah, okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“You didn’t snap at me,” I said. “Relax.”

“This horse has just got me all….” He trailed off, looking at the ground, and then looked at me.

“What?”

“I’m going to go crazy if I can’t have her,” he said.

We stared at one another, his eyes burning into mine. I could feel every muscle in my body drawing tight, singing like a plucked string.

I quickly slid down off my horse and started leading him to the water so that he could drink. I could feel Russ’s eyes burning into my back the whole way.

Chapter 7

We tethered the horses behind some trees, out of sight, and settled down to wait. It was going to be hours before the horse got thirsty enough to come back…
if
she did. There was nothing to do except talk, and I was starting to feel all talked out. The tension between us—if it wasn’t just in my head—seemed to be building moment by moment. Something was going to happen, or I was going to explode.