Seducing the Sheriff Read online

  He ignored her. She watched him stride to his horse then stop and stare puzzled at his mount. The stallion’s cock was hanging low and long. Dang it. Her mare was in season. “You see that you keep him away from my Dolly!”

  He turned and glared. The stallion nickered, reared and jerked the reins from Cord’s grasp as he tried to mount him. “Shee-it.” He stomped the dry Texas dirt then chased after the horse.

  Star ran after them. Her mare was in a small corral behind the ranch house, but the fence didn’t stop the stallion. With a great bunching of his haunches, he leapt over the fence. The mare nickered and pranced around, lifting her tail. Silly beast didn’t know what was about to happen.

  She grabbed Cord’s sleeve. “Stop him! He’s gonna hurt her. She’s never…”

  “Gotta be a first time sometime…for everyone.” He stopped at the corral fence and shook his head. His warm gaze drifted up and down her body in as lazy a manner as she’d ever seen then dragged back to watch the horses.

  “Ain’t no way I’m getting in there and trying to stop anything. She’ll be all right. Traveler knows what he’s doing.”

  Dang it. She couldn’t keep her eyes off the stallion and his long member. The stallion neighed and scrambled on her mare’s hindquarters. The mare nickered and whinnied with a screech when the stallion entered her and started pumping. Her head whipped from side to side as the stallion kept her in his grasp and hunched over her with mighty thrusts.

  Cord chuckled, sidled up behind her and pulled her close to his chest then set his hands at her waist. “I told you he knew what he was doing.”

  She cocked her head around to face him. “Like his rider—huh?”

  His voice was soft and soothing. His breath warm as he exhaled a puff of air on her neck. He ran a thumbnail across her nape, and her knees grew weak, her head arching back against his chest. As much as she wanted to give into the feelings, the questions remained.

  She took a deep breath, pulled away from his grasp and spun to face him. “Married? A wife and baby? Lost in childbirth? Must’ve been awful.”

  His jaw clenched. “It was. I should’ve said something sooner. She was shot in a bank robbery, went into labor. They both died. Two years ago, this spring.”

  “N-not by my brother?” She waited for his answer while her heart pounded as if it would rip clear of her chest. “Please tell me he wasn’t the one who killed your wife and baby.”

  “No, your brother didn’t do it himself.” The muscles in his face tightened until she thought with one touch he’d fracture and fly into a thousand pieces. “But it was one of his gang. Tommy—he was there, Star, and the lily-livered coward left her lying there, bleeding and dying.” He choked out the words then said, “Anyways, just heard talk he was back in the valley. Thought I’d check out the spread before I headed out to his gang’s old hideout.”

  She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and felt the muscles bunch under her touch. “I’m real sorry, Cord. I had no idea. Honestly, he’s not here. I’d tell you if he was.”

  “Hope you would. But could you really? Turn in a brother to be hanged—don’t know if I could in your place.”

  Hanged? She sucked in a breath and drew back. “But wouldn’t he just go to prison?”

  “This isn’t the namby-pamby East, hon. Out here justice is swift. An eye for an eye.”

  Could she turn in her brother, actually her half-brother, if it meant his swinging from a tree? “Now that you mention it, I’m not sure I could,” she murmured. More likely she’d beg him to leave the country. Mexico or Canada. Still, the thought of a young woman and her unborn child bleeding to death on the bank’s pine floors sent a shiver up her spine.

  “You really think you can bring in my brother by yourself?”

  He shrugged and slapped the dust from his pants. “Just looking for any sign he’s been around. I find something then I’ll assemble a posse.”

  “I don’t blame you for being angry and hurt.” Truthfully she didn’t, but detouring a man from his plans of revenge to thinking about wedding bells instead just made the execution of her plan even more difficult.

  Still she had to try. She began tentatively, “I wish I could’ve been here for you in your time of loss.” Damnation—she sounded like a simpering fool of a Boston debutante.

  “Bad time.” He shook his shaggy head. “Don’t want to talk about it. Just need to see your brother and his no-good band of killers brought to justice. Owe that to Annie.”

  “Annie Miller? Is that who you married after I left?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I remember her, the doc’s daughter. She was a nice girl, a bit younger than me.” Quiet, shy and a little on the plain side. Good grief, how could she think such a thing of a poor woman who’d never done any harm and certainly didn’t deserve to die that way…or any other way for that matter.

  She reached up and stroked Cord’s suntanned cheek. “Careful. Revenge will eat you up from the inside. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  He jerked away from her touch. “I’m not a kid with a scraped shin. I’m a lawman and it’s my job to bring him in.” In spite of his harsh tone, he gently brushed a curl from her forehead. “And your big, green eyes and soft words won’t keep me from it.”

  She blinked. Somehow she had to get his mind to switch gears. “I would never try to keep you from doing your duty to the town, but…”

  “But nothing.” He shook his head and stomped away to the other side of the corral. He leaned on the corral fence patiently waiting for his stallion to finish his business with the mare. Once the stallion was approachable, Cord vaulted over the fence, grabbed the bridle, and led the animal around to the front and tied him to the hitching post.

  No way was Cord getting away from her. She raced behind him and yanked on his shirt sleeve. “There has to be more to Cordero Tate than the job and seeking revenge. You need a woman’s touch…a woman in your life.”

  “A woman’s touch? That’s what you think I need?” His eyes darkened with passion, his voice was more of a growl as he whipped around to face her.

  Her touch was exactly what he needed, and she meant to have her way with him.

  “You’re the one needs a man’s touch.” He picked her up as easily as if she were a babe in arms and carried her around the house and inside and set her on her feet.

  “My bedroom’s upstairs.”

  “Your bedroom? I’m not taking you to bed. I—”

  “I thought—”

  “You’re not thinking. I could get you with child, and then where would you be?”

  Exactly where I want. She jutted her chin and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “You’d marry me, of course.”

  “Like hell I will.” He shook his head and set his hands on his hips.

  Undaunted, she stood on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around his neck and nodded toward the stairs. “First door on the right.”

  He placed his hands at her waist and walked her backward to the wall and held her there. “I’m not going to make love to you today—or any other.” His voice came out raspy and gravelly, full of emotion.

  “But you kissed me.” She chewed her bottom lip then said, “Your Johnson is—”

  He stepped back and held his hands in the air. “For God’s sake, stop talking about my prick! No decent woman talks like that.”

  “But you’re still in love with me. I know you are.”

  “You’ve been gone a long time, Star.”

  “I can see it in your eyes.” She closed the distance between them. “You want me. That’s all I need.” Besides a husband, that is.

  He gave a slow shake of his head. “I don’t deny you’ve troubled my dreams for too many nights. But you need a man who can love you…really love you. Not one like me.”

  She rubbed her mound against him and whimpered from the burst of heat that shot to her cleft.

  He groaned and shoved her against the wall. “You’re killing me, woman.” His hands shaking
, he unbuttoned her shirt and tugged it from her pants. “Beautiful.” The word escaped his lips as soft as a sigh.

  She arched her back and thrust her breasts closer to his beautiful mouth. His lips went first to her neck. Warm kisses, gentle ones, while he ran his fingers inside the top of the bustier and pulled her breasts free. He laved one nipple until it beaded then turned his attention to the other. Pressing against him, she moaned her pleasure.

  He unbuttoned the top button of her pants and slid his hand inside and down there, slipping his fingers up and down her slick wet cleft. She squirmed and arched against the warm touch of his caressing fingers.

  “So wet and ready.” The words were a rasp of heated breath against her neck as he started massaging her pleasure nub, groaning as he did.

  Waves of sensation grew and centered inside her until they exploded in an eddying swirl. Her thighs trembling, she sagged weakly against the wall. “Oh, my stars. Was that supposed to happen?” So this is what being pleasured by a man felt like. What would having his Johnson inside her do?

  He stopped and turned his head toward the door. “What—?”

  Chapter Two

  Then, just barely, Cord heard a sound. Repeated. Knocking snapped him from his brief descent into madness right back to reality. Reluctantly he eased his hand from Stars pants, cocked his head at the door. “Hear that?”

  She gazed up at him, her lids drooping with passion. “Hear what?”

  He adjusted his prick, willing his urges to subside. “Someone’s outside. You expecting company?”

  “No.” Her eyes widened as what he’d really meant hit her. “Oh, you mean like Tom?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Told you I haven’t seen him since I came home. And Pa, he’s on the trail drive to Abilene.”

  “I’ll get the door. You—” Barely able to speak, he motioned to her tits. “Do something with them.”

  “I guess I should. I trust you can hold off the intruder until I pull myself together?” She arched an eyebrow at him and shrugged her freckled ivory shoulders.

  A shot of lust kicked his balls. Damn, if his dick got any harder he’d have to take matters in hand. He sure couldn’t slide it up her tight little cunny.

  No matter how he hankered to do that very thing.

  He crossed the main room. Star’s quick puffs of breath told him she was right behind him. Hell, if he couldn’t almost feel her breathing down his neck.

  “Mr. Tyler, you to home?” The voice was older, definitely not Tom Tyler’s.

  Cord made out the figure of a man in a derby hat on the other side of the screen door as he moseyed to the door and opened it. “Buck isn’t here. What’s your business, with him?” God-amighty, of all the folks to catch them in the middle of the day—the Reverend Moore. With a gathering measure of dread, Cord opened the door.

  “Well, Sheriff. I see you must’ve…” The reverend stopped midsentence, his gaze directed over Cord’s shoulder.

  He whipped around. Holy hell, the silly woman hadn’t buttoned her shirt at all. And her tits were all but popping outta the unmentionable she was barely wearing.

  Just like the reverend’s eyes were popping outta his head.

  Cord blinked and nearly choked on the lump in his throat while the preacher removed his formerly dashing, now somewhat dusty, hat and cleared his throat. “Appears I interrupted something. At least I hope I did. Miss Tyler, I heard you were back and came to invite you to prayer meeting. Not a moment too soon, if I’m to hazard a guess.”

  “Why thank you so much, Reverend Moore,” she said with a wide smile. “Seems like the sheriff thought to welcome me home, too.”

  What a sassy smart mouth she had. Cord swallowed, his throat dry as the hard-packed yellow dirt outside. How could she stand there half-naked, jawing with the preacher? Shameless hussy.

  His shameless hussy.

  “Uh, yes…” The reverend sucked his teeth until a little whistle emitted. “Yes, ’twould appear so.”

  Still smiling, she fastened her denim breeches. “Would you like a nice drink of cold water? You must be mighty thirsty after your long ride out here.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.” The preacher kept sucking his teeth, and Cord felt the sweat slide between his shoulder blades. Lord, how could she carry on like she was acting hostess at a party when dressed in a pair of men’s breeches and her tits ready to jump outta her underwear?

  He chewed his bottom lip. Even out here in Texas, a woman’s reputation could be ruined forever. And make no mistake about it that was exactly what he’d done. He’d ruined her.

  “Miss Star and I are in need of your services, Reverend. I heard she was back, too,” he lied, “and we’re of a mind to get hitched.”

  Star pulled on her most innocent expression and smiled. “Get hitched?” she protested, merely for the sake of it. Could things have turned out any better? Some of those beneficent stars she was named for must be aligned just right. “Cord Tate, you ought to ask a woman first before you go and tell the reverend it’s a fait accompli.”

  The reverend stopped sucking his teeth and pulled his thin lips into a tight smile. “Well, this certainly shines a different light on things.” He reseated his wire-rimmed spectacles higher on his nose. “When would you be desirous for these nuptials to take place?” He dipped his head and eyeballed first Star then Cord. “Sooner, rather than later, would be my guess?”

  “Yes, sir.” Cord’s voice was a croak and sounded dryer than a river bed in a midsummer drought.

  The reverend fiddled with his narrow-brimmed hat, turning it in circles through his hands. “Then I’ll see you both in church on Sunday morning? Nuptials afterwards?”

  “If the Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise.” All right, she couldn’t resist sassing the reverend. After all, he’d interrupted her education…of a sort. She smiled to hide her insincerity and batted her lashes at her new fiancé. “Guess I’d better fetch that pitcher of water.”

  Cord cleared his throat, but his gaze cut directly to her chest. “Oh, right.” She breezed by the two men, the reverend all smug and righteous as befitted his station. And dear Cord, as uncomfortable as a man in a room full of rattlers. She slipped into the kitchen, her hands shaking as she readjusted her bosoms and buttoned her shirt.

  “I’ll draw the water,” Cord offered from the doorway and headed outside without another word.

  Suddenly ashamed to have been caught, and by the reverend at that, she fanned her burning cheeks. Still, it suited her purpose. As much as she’d wanted more from Cord, now she’d have it sooner than she’d ever planned. They’d be man and wife and all his protests about not being a husband to her would vanish like a mirage in the desert.

  And added to all the loving ahead, and no small benefit, either, no matter how many men her mother or old Teddy Darwin sent after her, they couldn’t touch the sheriff’s wife without a whole passel of folks getting up in arms. Her mama and her proposed son-in-law could just go whistle up a rope. Pretending to one and all she was a widow—well, mama could just marry that old goat herself. Probably her intention all along, but once the lawyer laid his leering gaze on Star, he couldn’t see her mother as anything other than a deal broker.

  Star rummaged through the cupboards with one hand while the other fanned her burning cheeks. Good thing she’d set things to right on coming home, after not finding a clean dish or cup in the whole house. At least now, she could carry Cord and the reverend a drink of water in a clean tin cup each without having to worry about what they’d think of her housewifely skills.

  “Here.” His tone gruff and purely pissed off, Cord set the water bucket on the scarred pine table.

  Her face heated when she met his stony gaze. “Sorry, it happened in such a manner.” Even if she wasn’t sorry one little bit, she didn’t want him thinking she’d trapped him into marriage on purpose, even if she had. He wouldn’t be sorry.

  She would make him a good wife. She damn well would.
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  “Couldn’t be helped. My own fault I—we— Like I told the reverend, I’ll do right by you.”

  Her temper flared and she spit out the words without thinking. “You don’t have to. Nothing really happened.”

  He backed her against the wall. “What do you mean, nothing happened?” His voice was hoarse and gravelly, and his muscled chest rose and fell rapidly in tune with hers. “I lost my head. Dammit, I was about to lose myself. I had my hands in your bloomers, and I was a heartbeat from slipping my cock in your sweet little pussy. And we got caught. Your reputation is all you have, and I’ve compromised you. I’ll marry you. But understand this, Starlight Tyler, I won’t ever be a real husband to you.”

  She opened her mouth to argue. “But—”

  “But nothing. The reverend is waiting for his cool drink of water. Best see he gets it and moves along.” His ran his hands through his longish hair, tempting her to do the same. “Hell, now I got to get a shave and a haircut, instead of chasing down your no-account half-brother.”

  “So sorry to interfere with your plans, Sheriff.” She set her hands on her hips and glared up at him. Her heart hammered and her breathing turned ragged. “You will be a husband to me. Real or otherwise makes no difference.”

  “How’s that?” His reply came through clenched teeth, the muscle in his jaw visibly jittering.

  Oh, yes. He’d be her husband, real and true. See to it, she would. She splayed her hands against his chest then shoved him back just enough to shoulder past him and grab the water bucket. “Like you said, the Reverend’s waiting.”

  Setting the cups on a tray, formerly her mama’s biscuit tin, she took the chipped blue enamel dipper and filled the two other cups, one for the reverend and one for Cord. She sure hoped he was set up proper for housekeeping because after four years in Boston she was used to better. Maybe not the finest, but better than battered tin.

  In Boston a guest would be offered a cup of tea and tiny sandwiches without the crust. Here in Texas Hill Country, a drink of cool water was the best she could do on short notice.