a long braid down her back, with loose tendrils around her face. No makeup colored her dark, expressive eyes or pink, full lips.
There was no pretense or concern with her looks or societal standards. No coyness or games. She was comfortable in her own skin, easy to smile, with an infectious laugh that the other men seemed accustomed to, but that damn near knocked me to my knees. There were no words for the effect Miss Josephine “Just Call Me Josie” Bancroft had on me.
And she was the boss’s daughter.
I knew I was doomed.
When she started to come around more often and I knew it was for me, there was no turning back, and when I finally got the nerve to kiss her . . . God help me.
Nothing in this world was better than kissing Josie. Tasting her. Feeling her respond to me as her breathing quickened and she wanted more. It was all I could do to keep my hands to myself and not take what her body kept offering with every close press and embrace. I had no intention of taking advantage or doing anything her father could shoot me over, but then she said those words, and—
Damn it, the second she said them, I knew. I knew it was more than just physical attraction with Josie Bancroft. I knew as the embarrassment took second place to the boldness in her eyes that all the conversations and banter and laughter and getting to know her had shoved me right over the edge. So the cursed words fell out of my mouth, too, and then it was on. Right there under the bridge on that slab of rock, in the most undignified way she could lose her virginity, she gave it to me, heart and soul.
I should have stopped it. I should have been the gentleman who saved her purity for her future husband, but it was out of both of our control. She was all fire, gasping with little moans at every new touch, and it lit me up inside like a volcano. Every taste of her skin as I exposed it was like a sweet dessert. Her body was perfect, soft and tight at the same time. Her muscles were toned from riding, making her movements glorious to watch. Beautiful pink nipples begged to be sucked, and I obliged, nearly losing my own control when she’d arched into me and fisted her fingers in my hair.
This inexperienced girl knew instinctively what she wanted, and wasn’t afraid to ask for it. And I was done for.
The next three times—yes, three, over the last two weeks—had only gotten better. Just thinking of her face, now. Her smile, her beautiful body under my hands, her way of giving and receiving with complete abandon . . . unlike other women I’d bedded who remained stiff and compliant, like they were doing me some obligatory service. Like they all attended the same schooling for how to appropriately not enjoy sex. Even Winifred, who was going to be my wife, had just lay there sweetly, not daring to like it.
Josie, on the other hand . . . Josie loved to be touched, and to touch me. She was all liquid warmth and breathless moans, shaking violently when she came undone around me. Alive, and exquisite.
Any man would love that. But it was what followed, what came before and every in-between moment. The way she looked at me, touched my hand or my face or my arm, the way her whole face lit up when she’d see me. There was so much love there. So much raw emotion. We’d play a silly lovers’ game about who loved who the most, and it was all in fun, but at night when I lay in bed alone, the realization would hit me. It was so much more than just fun. And as that hard reality would wrap around my chest with a mixture of elation and fear, I’d be hit with a dark wall. We’d have the deepest conversations about life and love and the world, talks that shattered all our defenses and boundaries. Except for one.
I was lying to her.
Doubly lying. Not only did she not know that I was Travis Mason’s nephew, but being paid by him and her father to spy at the Lucky B. I hadn’t found anything, or heard one negative comment from any of the other hands, but that wasn’t the point.
I knew enough about her to know she