Cowboy Love on Hold [Love: The Cowboy Way 1] Read online

  Her second orgasm spread through her body slowly, unlike the first. The heat in her groin intensified, winding her tighter and higher until releasing her climax in wave after wave of pleasure. Wade held still as she came, his gasps of torment telling her that he was trying to let her ride it out before taking what he wanted. Kimber decided he’d waited long enough. She pushed onto him again, knowing this time that wild horses wouldn’t make him stop. Wade let out a growl, pulling out and thrusting back in as deeply as he could, almost lifting Kimber off her feet. With both of his hands on her hips, he no longer let Kimber set the pace, so she concentrated on pushing back against him as he plunged into her over and over.

  “Oh, yeah! Fuck…that’s it.”

  Wade groaned in the back of his throat—a long, low sound that scared her the first time she ever heard it—a sure sign that he was about to come. His pelvis slammed against her ass only twice more before his orgasm hit, and he pressed his cock deep inside her, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps and his fingers grasping at her skin.

  He let her go and sunk to his knees on the floor, his head coming to rest on the nape of her spine, his harsh panting tickling across the skin of her back. Kimber turned around and urged him out of the way so she could sit beside him, her legs incapable of supporting her weight any longer. Wade turned to lean against the wall, dragging Kimber across his lap.

  Kimber gave him a nudge a few minutes later, not entirely convinced he wouldn’t try and fall asleep right there on the floor, but he was wide awake. He let out a husky laugh and looked up at her. “Are you sure I’m turning thirty-eight this year?”

  “Sure I’m sure. Why?”

  “Because we just fucked like a couple of teenagers on our first date.” Wade smiled and closed his eyes. “Maybe seeing Brandon after all this time made us feel like kids again?”

  Kimber scooted off his lap and straightened her clothes, almost annoyed at Wade for mentioning Brandon’s name. Why did she feel again like she was cheating on someone?

  Chapter 2

  Brandon looked up at their house, unable to make his feet carry him towards his worst nightmare—having to watch Kimber and Wade together and in love. He could see without needing to be told that they were crazy about each other. Well, it served him right. He’d deserted them both, and they were living the life that should have been his. It was no more punishment than he deserved.

  Wade appeared in the open doorway, two beers already in his hand, gesturing for Brandon to come in. “What’s keeping you?”

  “It’s like stepping back in time. I haven’t been inside this house since I was a kid.”

  “Hardly a kid. What age were you when you signed up?” Wade met him on the step and handed him a bottle.

  “I’d just turned twenty. Jesus! That was almost half my life ago.”

  “We’re getting old, Buddy, no need to remind me.” Wade raised his beer in silent salute.

  Brandon followed Wade into the house and found that not much had changed since he’d last seen it. The wooden floors still gleamed, faded by years of wear and tear, their golden tones enhanced by the traditional Navajo rug in the center of the hall. The old bench sat where it always had, on the wall between the bottom of the staircase leading up to the bedrooms and the entrance to the den. Walking past the stairs, Brandon looked ahead into the Great Room as it opened up before him. Besides a couple of leather chairs, a computer, and an entertainment center dominating a corner next to the huge timber and stone fireplace, everything was exactly the same as he remembered it. Except Kimber—she hadn’t been a part of his memories of the house.

  Finding her curled up in one of the leather chairs, engrossed in a book, Brandon couldn’t help wondering how she’d look in his home, the place she’d be right now if he hadn’t run away. He smiled to see she still did that thing—twisting a tendril of her wheat blonde hair around her finger over and over while she concentrated. He’d always loved her hair, although she wore it much shorter now in a shiny golden mass of waves that ended at her collarbones. He watched her silently, enjoying the rare moment to just look at her again after all this time, but then Wade came up behind him and slapped him on the shoulder, and Brandon tensed, reminded again of why he’d been forced to leave. Carefully stepping away from his friend, Brandon cast a glance at Wade’s face, unable to believe that he had forgiven and forgotten as completely as it seemed.

  “Hey, Brandon.” Kimber got to her feet and crossed the room to hug him again, her smile a little shaky at the edges and the expression in her cornflower blue eyes full of some emotion he couldn’t quite put a name to. He was slightly more prepared for her touch this time, but not much. The second her hands grazed over his shoulders, the years slipped away, and he knew without a doubt that almost two decades of self-imposed exile had done nothing to lessen his hunger for the woman in his arms. And unless he was very much mistaken by her reaction earlier, Kimber was no more immune to him.

  “How long ’til we eat?” Wade’s voice cut through Brandon’s thoughts, and Kimber pulled away at the sound of her lover’s voice.

  “Brandon, are you okay with having leftovers? I don’t want to spend all night cooking, and I think I have enough chili for the three of us.” She turned to Wade. “You don’t mind having it again tonight, do you?”

  “Hell no! I’d eat your chili every day for the rest of my life, you know that.” Kimber laughed and kissed Wade in thanks for the compliment. Brandon knew he was staring and forced himself to look away, turning to the window and gazing out over the landscape he knew like the back of his hand. The land bordered his on the northern side of the valley five miles away. Wade’s family ranch looked much the same as Brandon’s—high, dusty ridges dotted with Ponderosa pines, tall aspens, and mighty oaks, with a single track winding through the land and disappearing into the foothills of the mountain.

  “Okay, you boys make yourselves comfortable, and I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

  Kimber left the room, and Wade strolled over to sprawl out in one of the chairs, gesturing that Brandon should take the one opposite. He took a pull on his beer, grateful for a distraction as Wade stared at him silently, his gray eyes unreadable. The years had been kind to him. His dark hair had no gray in it at all, and his broad frame was larger and firmer than Brandon remembered. There was a small scar on his chin that Brandon didn’t remember ever seeing before, but he looked like the same old Wade, except that he seemed a lot more confident than he used to be.

  The seconds ticked on, and Brandon had no choice but to hold Wade’s gaze, so he raised his eyebrows, inviting his friend to say whatever it was he had on his mind.

  “You need any help…making arrangements for your mom, I mean?”

  Okay, so Wade’s no braver than I am. Brandon let out the breath he’d been holding, strangely relieved that they were only talking about his mom. Considering what he could have said, like—why did you ruin our friendship by trying to seduce me?—his mother’s death was safe ground.

  “There’s not much left to do now but lay her to rest. You’ll come won’t you…you and Kimber, I mean?”

  “Of course, Buddy. I’m just sorry there wasn’t more we could do to help. You should have let us know sooner.”

  “I didn’t know you were still living in the area. This is the first time I’ve been back since I left in ’93.”

  When he signed a second contract at the age of thirty, he promised his mother that he wouldn’t do more than the eight years. She died two months before he would have retired, while he was on his last ever assignment in Afghanistan, and his Detachment Commander had yanked him out of a reconnaissance mission to give him the news. With so little time left to serve and much needed to be done to sort out his mother’s affairs, the army had given him an early discharge, although he could be recalled to duty any time until his retirement date in May.

  Wade’s eyes turned a steely gray, and he dropped his gaze to focus on his thumb worrying at the label on his beer bottle. “So
what are you gonna do with your mom’s place? Are you moving back to Chelwood permanently?”

  “I thought I might.” Brandon watched as a nerve began to tick in Wade’s jaw. “I think it’s about time I settled down somewhere.”

  Wade met his gaze. “Settling down is overrated.”

  Brandon couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. The only people who felt that way were those who had so much going for them, they could afford to nitpick. Nobody except his mother knew that, two years after he signed up, he enrolled as Special Ops, eventually joining a Paramilitary Special Operations unit. From that day on, he’d been told to protect the ones he loved by staying away from them, so he stopped coming home to visit. On the rare occasions he got to see his mother, they would meet at a safe house and spend a day just catching up. She would save up every scrap of gossip and news she’d heard since the last time she saw him and damn near talk his leg off. But he loved her and didn’t mind hearing about what was going on at home—until the day his mom told him that his best friend and ex-girlfriend were living together and said what a scandal it was because they weren’t married and all. Brandon had snapped at her, saying he never understood why some wanted to stick their noses into other people’s business. He apologized straight away, and she said she’d forgiven him, but his mother never mentioned either Kimber or Wade again.

  The cruel irony of staying away from her so she would be safe, just to have her die of a heart condition he might have known about had he been home with her, haunted Brandon daily. Wade had no reason to complain about his life.

  “Aren’t you happy? I gotta tell you, there are many who would die for what you have.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m a lucky guy—I mean, I have this place and Kimber. But there’s so much I wanted to do that I didn’t.” His gaze dropped again. “But the decisions about how my life would turn out were taken out of my hands, you know? I never really had a choice. Everyone else had it all mapped out for me.”

  Maybe Wade had problems Brandon didn’t know about, but he was sure as hell having a hard time feeling sorry for him. “Hey, it’s never too late. Take me, for example. I’m about to embark on another life. Sure, I grew up on a ranch, but I have no idea how to run it, day to day. I’m not letting that stop me though.”

  “You’re doing it alone? You’ve got nobody to help you?”

  Brandon knew what Wade was really asking, but if he wanted to play it safe, Brandon wasn’t going to be the one to stir up the hornet’s nest. “Most of the workers stayed on after mom died, and the old foreman still lives in that cottage on the back forty. His wife comes over to do a bit of housekeeping and cook me a meal, so it’s not so bad. You remember Seth Miller, don’t you?”

  Wade laughed. “That old buzzard is still alive? Damn, he must be almost a hundred years old by now!”

  Relieved to see Wade smile again, Brandon strove to keep the tone light, reminding his friend of the times they’d driven Seth half mad with their tricks. “He damned near skinned me alive because of you. He thought it was me who put that skunk in his bed.”

  By the time Kimber walked back into the room a few minutes later, there was no sign of the earlier tension. She looked bemused to find the pair of them roaring with laughter, but then she smiled and shook her head. “I’m not sure if I should ask what you two are talking about in here.”

  Wade reached for her, grabbing her hand and pulling her forward to sit on the arm of his chair. “Just reminiscing about old times. I forgot what a pain in the ass we were as kids.”

  Kimber kissed him on the forehead. “I’ve got news for you—you still are a pain in the ass.” She yelped and scooted out of his reach as Wade tried to pull her down on his lap. “Dinner’s ready. Brandon, if you want to wash up, there’s a bathroom in the den.”

  He watched her leave and turned to Wade, worried that his friend would catch him staring at her, only to find that Wade seemed as bewitched by her as he was. Wade got up and followed Kimber, checking that Brandon remembered where the den was as he left the room.

  But Brandon couldn’t move, not straight away, not with envy eating at his insides and their love for each other taunting him. The only thing that hurt as much as seeing how much Kimber adored Wade was seeing how much Wade worshipped her.

  Chapter 3

  The guys cleared their plates, practically wolfing down the food. If they were trying to make her feel good, it worked. Brandon had lost none of the appetite she remembered. In fact, the only man she knew who ate more than he did was Wade.

  “That was great. Thanks so much.”

  Brandon’s easy smile told her he was a little more relaxed than when they’d all sat down to eat. He’d walked into the dining room with such a haunted expression on his face that she wondered if he was about to have a breakdown over the loss of his mother. But the moment had passed quickly, and now, no sign of his earlier torment showed, on the outside at least. His hawkish eyes were no less intense, but now they glittered with warmth beneath the dark, straight slashes of his eyebrows. Brandon had been blessed with a shock of unruly blond hair, moss green eyes, and long, dark eyelashes—a mesmerizing combination that could have been a little too pretty if not for the hard set of his jaw and his strong, wide face.

  “Kimber? Honey?” She dragged her gaze away from Brandon, mortified that Wade had caught her staring at the man for the second time that day. “I asked if you want me to get you a glass of wine. I’m gonna grab a couple more beers from the cooler.”

  She got to her feet, scraping the chair across the wooden floor in her haste. A couple of minutes in the kitchen to gather her thoughts was just what she needed right now. “I’ll get it. You guys want to head into the den?”

  Kimber loitered in the kitchen until she heard them leave the dining room, wiping the granite countertops over and over again and refusing to think about why she might be hiding in her own home. When the dishwasher was loaded and there wasn’t a scrap of dirt anywhere left to distract her, she grabbed a six-pack of beer and went to find Brandon and Wade. Crossing the hall, she heard the blare of the TV and realized, with a sigh of relief, that Wade had found a game to watch. She hated football, so it wouldn’t distract her at all, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry about Wade noticing her acting all weird around Brandon. But when she joined them in the den, Wade was the one acting weird.

  Pointing the remote at the TV, he turned off the sound. “I just told old Brandon here to ask you why you won’t marry me.”

  “Whoa…give a girl a chance to catch her breath, won’t ya?” Kimber tried to laugh the question off, but both Wade and Brandon were staring at her, waiting for an answer. “I don’t know. I just never felt we needed it, I guess.”

  Wade turned back to the TV, his jaw rigid. “She always says that.”

  Kimber handed him a beer, ruffling his silky brown hair in a gesture of apology. The issue of whether they should get married was an old and contentious one, and she had no intention of revisiting it in front of their guest. “What about you Brandon. Are you married? Any kids?”

  “No, he never got married either,” Wade said, answering for his friend. Kimber stared at him in amazement, but his gaze stayed glued to the screen. She looked over at Brandon to find him raising his shoulders in a confused shrug and shaking his head as if telling her not to push Wade on it.

  “You seen the Wildcats game yet?” Wade said to Brandon, changing the subject and raising the volume on the TV again.

  Lucky for Brandon, he was football mad, too, but she guessed Wade knew that already. Watching the game was a great idea, although Kimber thought her head might split if the TV or the guys got any louder. Sitting beside Wade on the sofa was a mistake she never usually made, given as he was to alternate between shouting at the screen and raising his voice to make himself heard over it, but with Brandon in the only other chair, she had no choice. When Wade erupted in celebration of an impossible field goal, Kimber actually had to put her fingers in her ears. Laughing a
t the delight on his face, she turned to find Brandon staring at her again, his smile slipping away to be replaced by an intensity she remembered all too well. When Brandon wanted something, it showed, and right at that very second, he wanted her.

  Kimber turned away, flustered and scared by her reaction, her face burning as she tried to ignore the insistent pulse in her groin. She bit her lip and dug her nails into her palm, desperate to focus her attention on something—anything—else but the way her body called out to Brandon. She sat frozen, afraid to move for fear of intensifying her arousal, and afraid to look up and find he might still be watching her. When another loud shout in protest at a decision told her his attention was back on the screen, she got up, grabbed the empty cans, and headed out into the kitchen for more beer.

  Two hours later, after a few more beers and a rerun of a Lobos game that she knew for sure Wade had watched the first time, Kimber cast a glance at Brandon to find him asleep in the chair. Gratified to know she wasn’t the only one exhausted by Wade’s enthusiasm for everything, Kimber nudged Wade and gestured silently towards their friend.

  “He’ll have to spend the night. I’m too wasted to drive him home,” Wade said in a stage whisper loud enough to wake the dead. Or at least, wake Brandon.

  “It’s okay, I can walk.” Brandon mumbled the words as he lurched to his feet, only to sit back down again with a silly smile on his face. “I think.”

  Kimber groaned under her breath. He couldn’t stay. He just couldn’t. The thought of him naked and laying in wait somewhere in her house would kill her, but she couldn’t say that out loud, so she said, “You can’t walk home in that condition. I’ll make you up a bed down here.”