Three Months Later
Peyton rode up on a horse no one on the ranch ever dared to touch except Braden Cartwell. Her legs hugged the English saddle and her hair tumbled over her shoulders and back.
“Whoa! Damn you!” She cursed the animal and tugged on the leather reins. The stallion reared high and then discarded her at Kane’s feet.
“I’m not hurt,” she immediately barked out.
“I never said anything to the contrary.” A very amused Kane stared down at her with one arm extended as a gentleman’s gesture. “He’s gonna kill ya.”
“What the hell do you know?” she snapped.
Peyton reluctantly reached for Kane’s hand and stood up. She turned to see Braden pulling up the driveway in his new silver Ford truck. “Oh shit.”
“Yeah. It might be a good time to take your pretty little ass up to the house and make out with some school books, get some sort of education on personality disorders or something.”
“Bite me.” She started for the opposite end of the barn and fortunately ran into Evan and Braden’s horse. Evan shook his head. “Don’t thank me yet.” He nodded toward Braden as he pulled up in front of the barn.
“Cover me, and I’ll blow you both when I turn eighteen.” She didn’t smile directly at them but pasted one on quick enough for Braden.
“Hey there,” she said with a forced grin. “We weren’t expected you so soon.”
She stuffed her hands in her back pockets and twisted her waist from side to side. She wanted to look cute enough for him to forget all about the ornery animal behind her.
Braden’s eyes narrowed, and he picked up his pace as he headed straight for his stallion. A proud and beautiful creature, the black beast stamped his hoof into the sawdust, agitated, and downright angry. Over and over again, he pounded at the ground. The damn horse wanted her to get in trouble. She felt it in the air.
Braden looked at his brothers and their expressions. He summed up everything and didn’t need their help doing it.
“Peyton.” He remained too calm for her liking, far too removed from the situation. ”Peyton, answer a question for me.”
She popped a hip and rested her hand on it. “Shoot.”
“Forget it. I have a good mind to just turn you over my knee.”
“Can’t do it, can you?” She smirked. “I’m not eighteen and spankings are considered sexual in nature.”
“Three days,” he held up his fingers. “Three more days, and I’ll whip your bottom if you ever ride my horse again. I swear it.”
Oh this was bad, worse than anticipated. Braden rarely raised his voice, seldom issued a threat and barely spoke to her without kindness. She swallowed back fear as she studied him. He left only one impression. He meant what he said, and he wouldn’t think twice.
She pursed her lips and tried to read through his sexy green eyes. His dark bangs hung over his brows, and she really couldn’t gauge the totality of his anger.
“But…” She tried to think, clear the cobwebs from her brain. Nothing came to mind immediately which only gave him the upper hand.
“Don’t but me. Go on up to the house and see if you can’t do something useful like start dinner.”
She hated it when he treated her like a child but when he treated her like a woman, it really pissed her off. She stared at Kane and Evan. “You two aren’t any help.”
They didn’t say anything. Evan did hold up three fingers.
Screw him for siding with Braden.
She decided if they didn’t have anything to say at all, they wouldn’t tattle to Braden so she took her chances. “For the record, I wasn’t on the blasted horse.”
“Peyton,” Kane warned.
He said one word, her name and nothing else. Damn, she underestimated her impact on the younger Cartwells.
“Kane…”she emphasized his name with stark sarcasm. She even made an ugly face to showcase her immaturity.
“My ass did not sit on that stupid horse.” She twisted her blonde mane into a ponytail holder and started toward the house.
“The hell it didn’t.” Braden grabbed her by the arm and started for the truck. “My brothers ride Western. You’re the only one around here who rides in an English saddle. Period.”
“Ow! Let me go.”
She forgot about the saddle thing. If she planned to wiggle her way out of trouble here and there, she needed to practice up and become educated on their school of thought. Who would’ve thought to check out a damn saddle anyway?
Evan immediately jogged over to the side of the truck. “What do you think you’re doing?”
She squirmed. “Let…me go! You’re hurting me.” Not really, he barely had a hold of her but the squealing provided great sound effects.
“Move, Evan.” Braden stood firm.
“Hell, no. Let her go. She’s right anyway. You can’t spank her. You’ll never spank her. She’s too old for any man to spank her.”
“That’s debatable,” Kane muttered.
Braden and Evan stood nose to nose. Toe to toe.
Kane peered at Peyton and she continued to watch Braden and Evan. Let him look, she thought. He didn’t have to tattle. All he had to do was agree with her, tell a small white lie, and she might have been on her way to the kitchen to stir up some dinner.
“Fine, take her to the house.” Braden handed the keys to Evan and turned as Peyton skipped to the passenger’s side. She quickly reclaimed her earlier good mood-the one that encouraged her to devil Braden’s horse in the first place.
“Peyton?”
“Yep?” She turned around and he motioned for her. Rolling her eyes she walked back toward him and stopped right in front of him.
“So you didn’t ride him?”
“Nope.”
“Not even from one end of the barn to the next?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.”
She turned around and started for the truck. At the same time, Braden took off his cowboy hat and swatted her ass a few times.
Wheeling around on her boots, she glared at him. “Don’t you dare touch my ass!”
Kane and Evan laughed.
“I have a feeling it’s only the first of many,” Kane said.
“I only swatted it a few times for lying to me. Besides, I don’t want barn shavings in my truck, you little runt.” His mouth finally twitched, and she turned around before he saw her smile too. Evan slid behind the wheel and turned the key.
Immediately, she hit the button on the side of the door, and the window fell automatically. Leaning out of the truck window, she screamed behind them as they pulled away from the barn. “Touch my ass again and I’m going to squeal like a pig and call you Big Papa!”
“Peyton! Get back in here now.” Evan grabbed her left arm and tugged her across the bench seat.
“Watch it. You boys are getting touchy-touchy the closer I get to eighteen. If you’re not careful, I might just ask to ride more than Braden’s stallion in three days. I might want three rough and ready cowboys.”
“And, darlin’, you can bet on one thing. You’d have more man than you’ll ever handle. Any one of us would make Braden’s horse look like a gentle lamb.”
Evan didn’t sleep a wink. All he thought about, all he dreamed about when he closed his eyes was one tough-talking teenager. He should’ve been shot in his own bed for thinking about her in the first place. At best, someone should’ve tied him there and left him until the hot little blond a few doors down turned eighteen.
He rolled on his side and looked out the window into the darkness. A full moon lit up the southern skies. All he saw, all he thought about led him back to Peyton. So help him God, thoughts of what might happen in three more days, kept him tossing and turning. He tried to shake it off, think of someone else, like the cute little redhead he’d been screwing for the last several months.
He stared harder into the darkness. Come to think of it, he hadn’t visited Norma Jean in a month of Sundays so it might be high time. Yeah, maybe he’d give her a call in a couple of days. He reached for his cock and made a decision. No, the redheaded hairdresser would get a call first thing in the morning, and he might call early.
He blinked as he stared outside. Now, as luck would have it, he was seeing things too. He rolled over and glared at the blank wall. Immediately, he turned back. “Shit!”
He jumped up and tugged on his jeans and practically fell into the hallway. He pushed the door open to Kane’s room and shook him. “Get up. It’s Peyton.”
“Huh?” He rubbed his eyes and moaned. “What do you mean it’s Peyton?”
“I saw her creeping out to the barn.”
Kane swallowed tightly, released a frustrated sigh, and glared at the alarm clock before throwing back the blankets covering him. “I’ve had about all I want of one stacked little blond. I swear I have.”
“Liar. You can’t get enough of her, and she knows it.” He tossed a shirt at his brother. “She’s going for Braden’s horse again, and she’ll end up dead if she takes off in the middle of the night.”
A few minutes later, Kane and Evan rounded the corner of the corral. They stopped only long enough to squint, stare off in the distance, and take off in an all-out sprint.
In the back of a pick-up truck, somebody’s truck, Peyton reached behind her torso. She just about let all of them see the innocence of youth, what little she apparently had left.
“Peyton Storm! Put your shirt back on, damn you!” Braden stepped out from behind a big oak and headed toward the truck before they reached her.
Mortified, the boy below her scrambled to his feet and covered her. At least he had the good sense to do right by her. Maybe Evan wouldn’t kill him. Kane might still try, if Braden didn’t beat them to it. He looked like he’d considered it.
By the time they reached the pick-up truck, Braden held Frank Sanders by the collar.
“Boy, does your daddy know you’re out here at our place tonight?”
Kane’s neck pulsed with anger, his bright red face showed the color of fury even in the dark night. “Of course he doesn’t. You think old man Sanders would want him out here fucking around with a minor?”
“Two days,” she reminded him as she wiggled her head back into a T-shirt. “Two days, and if I’d only had a lick of sense, I would’ve been free as a bird in two freakin’ days.”
“Well, too bad, Peyton. You signed up for a year of Cartwell supervision and you’re going to get your money’s worth. Now hop out of the truck now,” Braden demanded.
Braden’s patience wore thin tonight and Evan tried to imagine the why behind it. What he’d seen and what he’d heard coming from the truck might provide plenty of cause and reason for it. When it came to Peyton, he usually found a way to remain calm at all costs. Evan and Kane liked to rib him about it too.
Peyton kissed Frank on the cheek. “Tell your daddy I’m sorry.” She winked at him before she added, “And tell him when I’m eighteen, I might even make it up to him if he won’t throw the book at ‘cha.”
“Damn it, girl.” Kane yanked her from the pick-up. No one typically interrupted Kane’s beauty sleep for this very reason. He liked a little shut-eye and he proved a man knew how to bitch when he didn’t get it.
Two more days and all bets are off. It’s legal to flirt then, Evan reminded himself as he watched Kane drag Peyton back up to the house. Two more days with a stunt like this and he’d spank her bare bottom.
Braden looked at Frank Sanders like he wanted to kill him. Evan realized Braden would stick him with taking the boy home. He really didn’t want to face old man Sanders at two or three in the morning.
“I got a right mind to kick your ass,” Braden said in a stern voice.
“Mr. Cartwell, you don’t understand,” the teenager began.
“You a minor too?”
“Yes…uh, no, uh…no sir. I’m nineteen.”
“What are you doing in high school then?”
“Parents held me back for sports,” he told them.
“Think they want you out here knocking up some gal and ruining their plans for you?” Braden glared at him.
“Uh, no, sir, not at all.” He groveled for words as he grabbed his shirt from an old tire propped against the tailgate.
“You know she’s under eighteen then?”
“Yes, sir. I knew it when I came out here.”
“Realize I could go see the right people in town and get your dreams shot to hell then?”
“I reckon so,” he choked out.
Evan and Braden exchanged a glance, and Evan leaned over the truck to peer inside.
Braden let the kid off the hook. “From what I hear, boy, you’re kind of like Peyton, got a real bright future ahead of you, scholarships waiting on you when you graduate.”
“Yes, sir, I hope so.”
“So does Peyton, you know,” Braden told the young man with a gleam of pride Evan didn’t miss. “She’s got the world by its throat.”
“Mr. Cartwell, Peyton is the best athlete to come out of these parts. I’m not going to mess things up for her,” he told him.
“Good, good. I’m glad to hear it.”
Again, he looked at his younger brother and shook his head. “Well, kid. I guess you can go on home then. I’m only in my twenties myself and I can understand where you and Peyton might think this is something you want to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
Both men stared at him harder then.
“I mean, no, sir, no, sirs.” Frank didn’t know if he jumped three steps forward or twenty steps back apparently but Evan didn’t mind to show him the way and help him find the right path-away from Peyton.
“Suspect we won’t see you around here for a bit then?”
His mouth twitched. “Would you consider letting me date her?”
“Hell, no,” Evan answered for all of them and Braden’s gaze narrowed on his youngest brother.
“Well, it all depends,” Braden said thoughtfully. “See, I promised her mother a long time ago I’d look after her. I can’t do it if I’m letting some boy grope her in the middle of the night.”
Frank climbed out of the truck and stood between the men. “I understand. Would you let me take her on a proper date then?”
Braden crossed his arms and rubbed his chin. “Then what would I have to worry about? Finding you at the new drive-in with her shirt shoved above her head?” He smiled easy and Evan saw where this was headed. Poor Frank didn’t have a chance.
“Mr. Cartwell…”
“Call me Braden. This here is Evan.”
“Okay, sure. Braden, can I shoot straight with you?”
“Sure, boy. We’d like that a lot. Wouldn’t we, Evan?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’d like to date Peyton.”
“Yup, I got that part,” Braden said.
“Like to fuck her too, wouldn’t you?” Evan questioned.
“You screwing her, boy?” Braden inquired.
“No.”
“Came out here for it though, didn’t you?” Evan asked as he inched closer.
Frank turned his back to Evan-not a smart move-and asked Braden again. “Would it be all right if I took her to the homecoming dance coming up?”
Braden smirked. “On one condition.”
“Okay.”
“Empty your pockets.”
“Do what?” His mouth twisted and turned then. “I don’t keep a lot of money in my pockets.”
“We don’t want your money. We only want to see what you’ve got in them. Hell, look around, we’re not hurting for cash, kid.”
He blinked a few times and slowly turned his front pockets inside out. There in his hand, two foil packets fell into plain sight.
Evan felt like the kid hauled off and hit him in the gut. “You are fucking her, you little prick!”
“No, no…” His hands went up in front of his chest. “Honest to God, I haven’t. I…wanted to sure, but I…”
Evan threw a punch and caught the kid in his right jaw. Braden stopped him from throwing another. Frank stared off in true bewilderment.
“Well, Frank, it’s like this,” Braden explained as he placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder and gave the kid an evil eye. “If you wanted to screw Peyton tonight, you’re going to want the same thing at Homecoming. The answer is no, you may not date Peyton. Come back here again, and I’ll let Kane deal with you. He throws a harder hit than Evan.”
Peyton wiggled and squirmed all the way to the house. If she was a few days older, Kane might have considered the unthinkable. The way she blushed when he touched her made her all too kissable. Then he saw the skin pellets. Tiny little chill bumps ran up and down her arms whenever he gripped her tighter. It told him a lot about her. She wasn’t all too opposed to feeling his hands on her.
“Go ahead, drag me off, throw me in my room! See if I care!”
“I have better ideas for you,” he snapped. And he had them. He conjured up more notions right now than a man in his marriage bed on a honeymoon night.
“I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do. You three can’t stop me!”
“Nope, Peyton, we can’t,” he agreed the second she said it.
They reached the barn then, and he pinned her against the wood pile and stared into her eyes. Don’t do it, he told himself as her lips parted and his dried. A couple of days, and I can sip on those sweet lips. Today, it’s against the law.
He returned his focus to the conversation at hand. “But we can make it damn hard on you when you try to do something like this.”
She sat down on the ground. “I’m not going anywhere until you kiss me.”
“Until I…huh?”
“Kane, I did not stutter. I missed out on a lot tonight so I’m willing to compromise. I want a kiss, and I want it from you. I want to know what those girls down at the tanning salon mean when they say you can kiss a woman into a screaming orgasm. Make me holler, Kane. I know you can. Show me.”
He bent down and yanked her up. She flew against his chest. “Oh, now, I see how it is. You like it rough.” She puckered her lips. “Kiss me?”
“Peyton, if I kiss you, there’s one thing you can guarandamtee. You’ll get your orgasm because I won’t stop with my lips on yours. I’ll move south, baby, and I’ll stay there until I taste every sip your little body will willingly give. For the record, ‘cause I know you’re young and all, I’m not talking about your lips.” He dropped his arms and grabbed her wrist. “Now, come on, get your ass up to the house.”
He stunned her quiet. She didn’t say a word from the time he made his promise. It wasn’t just a threat, and the girl apparently realized it because he made sure he said it as an oath, one he’d take before anyone.
He planned to take Peyton Storm to his bed. He’d see her there stark naked and reaching for him. He might tie her up, maybe not. It didn’t really matter. The end result guaranteed the same-pleasurable.
He’d like nothing more than to sling her pretty little behind over his shoulder right there and stroke those perfectly shaped globes as he carried her. Instead, he’d pulled her kicking and screaming all the way to the upper barn only to shut her up with a few selective words. Now, as he tugged her up the front stairs of the main hall, she looked quite different. She appeared ready for bed-his bed.
A minute later, he tossed her on her mattress and stared into knowing eyes. After the hike uphill, he doubled over and panted trying to get his breath.
He pursed his lips and dared to look up. Damn it. She stared at his cock. Right now, it demanded notice. Damn it. He wanted to spank her ass for the wrong reasons, and he wanted to do it when she turned eighteen.
If she pressed him much more, if she challenged him further, he might. But he would wait forty-eight hours to do it. God help him, if he could get away from her right then, he’d stay away until she turned legal.
“What’s wrong, Kane? Can’t keep up with a little thing like me?” She crossed one leg over the other and smiled sweetly.
“Damn if I’m not right about you.” He took a deep breath, slowly let it out and rolled his shoulders back as he tried to stand again. His erection still throbbed against his dirty jeans, the pants he left at his bed when he climbed between the sheets only hours before the latest Peyton-episode.
She acted uninterested as she studied her fingernails. “You know, I’m not as innocent as you boys want to believe.”
“Peyton, go to bed.” He walked out and shut the door behind him letting out a sigh of relief when he made it out of her room without touching her. He chewed the inside of his jaw and leaned his head against the door.
“I’m turning eighteen in two days!” she screamed.
Braden and Evan topped the stairs then. Braden narrowed his eyes on his brother. “Tell me, please God in heaven tell me, you didn’t lay a hand on her.”
He clenched his fist and stomped down the hall. “Hell, no. In case you haven’t heard, she’s going to be eighteen in two days. I’ve waited for three months. Two more days won’t kill me.”
Peyton smiled to herself as she overheard the most beautiful words she’d ever heard leave a man’s lips. She flattened her palm against the door and stared at it. She knew it. She pegged Evan for an easy mark but Kane haunted her. The way he watched her made her uneasy, and the way he told on her for things, made her think he did it for her own good, because he cared.
Maybe he cared too much.
Peyton fell on the bed and snapped her fingers. Yes, two more days and she’d give new meaning to sexual harassment. She’d chase these boys from one side of the ranch to the other.
Less than forty-eight hours, and she didn’t give a damn if they played their games or not. They weren’t going to call age-restrictions as their reasoning. Fuck them. Oh yes, her day was coming and soon. With any luck, she’d see one or two cowboys coming too.