STORY EXCERPT

This was her home for the next few weeks. She took in every little detail. The small window could have been bigger to allow in natural lighting. She didn’t know who built the closet but it was tiny and without a doubt unable to hold all her stuff. Unpacking her things, she ended up hanging her designer clothes on the blue polyester floor to ceiling curtains. The ten pairs of shoes she’d brought with her sat at the bottom of the closet covering the dark hardwood with designer brands. She needed to get something more appropriate to hold Jimmy, Christian, and Manolo. She tried to picture the room once her real stuff came. She imagined the room would look like a hoarder’s episode: designer edition.

“Wow. Love the decorations.” Logan came in and plopped down on the bed. “Can you decorate my bedroom in fancy designer things too?”

She laughed. “This isn’t even ten percent of what I own. In my penthouse back in Atlanta, I’d converted two bedrooms to make a closet. I may have too many things for my new abode.”

“Two bedrooms?” He stared at her like she’d gone mad. “I have seven pairs of pants and seven shirts. Two pairs of boots and two hats. All that can fit in a regular closet.”

She shook her head. “Women need more stuff.” She glanced around. “Maybe not as much stuff as I have, but definitely more. Where do you five sleep?”

He shifted slightly on the bed. “We’re supposed to stay in the living quarters in the barn. It’s a really nice area big enough for all of us. It’s upstairs and we each have a room to ourselves with a nice bed. But since Janine passed, we’ve been sleeping at the house. We didn’t want it to be left unattended in case someone thought they could break in and steal things. Plus, the kitchen’s here and we like to eat.”

She nodded and lifted a pair of her shoes. “I brought two outfits and ten pairs of shoes. I told Cooper shoes were my obsession, my baby, if you will. I think I might need to go to rehab for my addiction.”

He gave her a sexy grin. “I definitely like the way you look in them. I’ll give you that.”

Damn all of them for making her hormones hitch up a notch. So much testosterone in one area and she was smitten like a teenager in love. She didn’t know what to think about it but she definitely thought she shouldn’t act on it. In some ways, she was their boss now. It would make things complicated.

After getting settled in, she went downstairs to her grandmother’s office. The room had been a former closet or part of a larger room that someone had converted to an office. She could see the messy drywall that covered the walls and the chipping paint. The place could definitely use some renovations. Cooper walked by and Harper called to him.

“I didn’t know you were back yet.”

“Yeah. Me and Gabe put the food in the fridge if you get hungry.”

She nodded. “Uh, can I ask you a question?”

He nodded. “Sure. Anything.”

“How does the ranch make money? I’m looking at the books and the expenses are minimal but so is the income. I would imagine that with five men working this ranch that you’d at least be making fifty thousand dollars for salaries a piece. I’m only finding roughly that much in salaries total.”

He came in and sat in the vacant seat next to her. “We don’t really earn a salary. Not much anyway. We get a stipend of a thousand dollars a month. Janine gave us a nice room and food to fill our bellies. We don’t really need much of anything else.”

She stared at him trying hard to comprehend what he had said. “You make twelve thousand dollars a year? As a salary?”

“Room and food make it more.”

She gaped at him. “I cannot even fathom making that much. That’s right at the poverty line. You definitely need a raise. Why didn’t she give you a raise?”

Cooper shrugged. “We don’t need much around here. Janine gave us just about everything we need.”

These men had a great sense of loyalty to live here and make so little money. Harper felt bad about her intentions of fixing the place up to sell it. Not only would they lose their home, but they’d lose their job too.

“Are there any other places to work in town?”

“Not really. Crawford is a small place. Mom-and-pop shops are generally the way of life around here.”

Harper sat back in her chair taking in everything that he had told her. “How does the ranch make money?”

“Cattle. We have four hundred acres and run a thousand or so cattle head. Janine switched out the herd every two years to avoid cross breeding. She also changed the bull every year to avoid the same. We raise the cattle and then sell them at auction for hopefully a profit.”

She stared at him. “And the horses?”

Cooper grinned, showing her perfect white teeth against the darkness of his tanned skin. “You ride those.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m not getting on the back of a beast and riding it anywhere.”

“So you’re a save the horse, ride a cowboy kind of girl, huh?” His eyes twinkled.

“Something like that.”

ADULT EXCERPT

“You’re thinking about it,” Logan commented.

She shook her head and tried to focus on unpacking. “Five men and one woman is impossible. Someone is going to get left out and get their feelings hurt.”

“We’re all grown men. We can handle it.” Logan tossed the dildo to the box. “Tell me what you want me to do. What were you just thinking about?”

When she didn’t respond, he lifted his hand and stroked her lower lip with his finger. “Do you want my lips here?”

She waited while his hand drifted down her body. The blouse she wore dipped low and he had no trouble caressing the soft swell of her breast. The heat from his touch burned against her flesh as he smoothed his finger over the curve of her breast.

“I could put my mouth here.” He circled the general area of her nipple. “I bet you taste sweeter than honey. You’re so soft. So tempting. I can’t wait to know what you feel like beneath me, surrounding me with your tight warmth. You’d be a fucking dream come true.”

Her temperature spiked a few degrees as he continued to lazily caress her. She wanted him to do it. To pull her shirt open and tear off her bra so he could suck her achingly hard nipples into his warm mouth. She panted as his finger continued down her body, stroking her abdomen until he reached the waistband of her pants. He paused and met her eyes.

“Or I could put my mouth here. Just skip the preamble and go right for what we both want.” His finger lingered at her waistband while he held eye contact with her. “What is it that you want?”

All of it. Harper couldn’t think straight with the ideas he proposed. They sounded like a great addition to her own ideas. Her pulse pounded as each second ticked by. Did she want them? No, that wasn’t really the question. How would she handle five lovers? That was more like it. She licked her lips and Logan let out a soft groan. She didn’t have to glance down to know he was hard. Painfully so. It was now or never because she wasn’t entirely sure he would forgive her for making him take a cold shower. Jacking off was a sore consolation for the real thing.

“I—” She stopped when the back door flew open. Gabe and Cooper stepped in chatting about something. She tried to pull away, but Logan caught her, pinning her between the wall and his body.

“Tell me what you want.” He leaned in to kiss her neck.

Harper closed her eyes as the soft pressure of his lips captured her again. She dropped her head back against the wall and gave herself up to the gentle pulls of his mouth along her neck. He cupped her breast while his soft lips worked along her pulse point, licking and sucking until she’d forgotten where she stood.

Logan moved back, momentarily, to undo the blouse. He shoved it off her shoulders before finding the clasp of her bra. Once that was torn away from her body, his mouth surrounded an aching nipple, sucking and teasing the hard tip. She didn’t know where Gabe and Cooper had gone, but she didn’t really care either. Harper clutched Logan’s head to her, sliding her fingers through his soft hair as she whimpered beneath the heat of his mouth. She needed this. He’d convinced her of that.

Before she could protest a tongue slid between her lips while another warm mouth circled her neglected nipple. God, she didn’t know who was doing what and she really didn’t care. She didn’t want them to stop. Her knees threatened to collapse and two strong hands gripped her hips to keep her upright.

No one said anything as they moved her to the downstairs bedroom. The large bed was big enough for all of them and Cooper laid her in the middle of it. His hands went to her jeans and undid the fly. He worked quickly to get them off her body while Gabe and Logan’s weight dipped the bed beside her. Logan leaned in to kiss her while Gabe pressed his lips to the underside of her breast. He tweaked her nipples, eliciting a fire deep within her belly.

Slowly, Cooper inched the denim down her legs, careful to remove her panties with it. She tore her mouth from Logan and met Cooper’s burning blue eyes as he watched her, seeing her for the first time. Desire burned hot in the dark depths of his eyes, something that matched the fire low in her belly. He was gorgeous. Tanned, lean muscles covered his chest and abdomen, undoubtedly the results of working on the ranch. His soft brown hair was spiked from running his fingers through it. Harper licked her lips, the anticipation building as he knelt between her legs. He reached for her pussy and parted her.

Gabe bit her nipple as Cooper gave her one long lick. She shuttered at the contact moaning into Logan’s mouth as he kissed her. Never in a million years would she have thought her illicit ideas would have become a reality.

Cooper circled his tongue around her clit. Her nipples ached from neglect. Gabe sucked one hard into his mouth as she pushed against Logan to break their kiss. She stared into his dark brown eyes. “Please.”

Logan didn’t say anything as he leaned down and lapped at her other nipple. Cooper’s tongue slipped inside her, working her as pleasure raced through her hot and bold. He licked around her clit while sliding two fingers into her greedy pussy. She arched at the contact, almost climaxing, as she clasped Gabe and Logan’s heads to her breasts.

“I think she needs more,” Logan commented. He stared at her hard nipple, wet with his saliva. “Where are the condoms?”