Page 6 of Sovereign

She obeys at once. For all the wrong reasons, she’s well trained. But she has what it takes to be obedient and that interests me. I keep silent as she pours a shot of whiskey and brings it to me. I take it, ignoring the sharp scent.

“Come here,” I say.

She shifts closer, glancing at the stairs through the doorway.

“Open your mouth,” I murmur.

Her eyes widen. “What are you doing, sir?”

The way she calls me sir solidifies the question I’ve had in my mind. Do I want her enough to wreak havoc? Or do I just hate Clint Garrison so much that his pretty wife is a temptation?

“Trust me,” I say. “I won’t hurt you.”

She doesn’t seem to be afraid, but it’s hard to tell. She shifts closer and I reach out and bury my hands in her soft curtain of hair. Right at the nape of her neck. My fingers fist and I gently pull her head back. Her breasts heave and—lucky for me—the top button of her dress unfastens under the strain. I get a glimpse of the prettiest cleavage I’ve ever seen.

Soft, full. Freckled and perfect.

I’m fully hard, but she can’t look down, so who the fuck cares. Slowly, I bend her head back until she’s looking up into my face. She’s breathing hard and both her hands are wrapped around my wrist. Holding on for dear life.

“Open your mouth, sweetheart,” I tell her.

She hesitates, but then she does as she’s told. Her lips part and reveal a pink tongue and white teeth. My cock is so fucking hard it’s going to have a zipper print on it.

Slowly, I drizzle the shot into her mouth. Her throat bobs until it’s gone. We both freeze, the glass still tilted over her face. Her eyes dart to mine, so wide the whites flash. Before she can fight me, I release her and take a step back to give her space.

She claps her hands over her mouth, like we’ve done something terrible. I turn the shot glass upside down and set it on the counter.

“I’d better get upstairs,” I say.

I leave her there, standing in the kitchen as dazed as if I spun her around and let her go. My boots carry me up the stairs and back into Clint’s office, but my mind couldn’t be further from the dim room where he sits at his desk. He's so smug that I agreed to discuss a deal with him because we both know ten years ago, I wouldn’t have given him the time of day.

I lean back in my chair, crossing an ankle over my knee. Clint and Jay are both still reading over the contract. I know he’s expecting me to rip him off, I see his eyes move over the words again and again.

The contract doesn’t matter to me anymore.

Not after meeting Keira Garrison.

I came here tonight in what I thought was a lapse of judgment. Westin, my right hand, said I was hurting the business by refusing to work with the Garrisons. He understood why, but facts were facts. So I agreed to sell cattle directly to them for a higher cut per head than what I’d get ordinarily. Westin wrote up the contract and I brought it here under a brief white flag.

I hadn’t expected her.

Vaguely, I knew Clint was married to the daughter of a local rancher who passed away a few years back. But my path nevercrossed with the Garrisons by design—the Garrison family and mine are our own brand of Hatfield and McCoy—so I never laid eyes on her before tonight.

Fuck me, she’s everything I’ve ever wanted.

Those bright blue eyes are enough to make me forget I have any morals left. It’s the leftover bits of my conscience that stop me from just taking her. I’m an ice cold motherfucker, but I’m not the kind who fucks another man’s wife while he still has a heartbeat. As I watch Clint, it dawns on me where I know that scared look on her face.

A long time ago, a different Garrison man broke someone I loved. And I saw the pain on her face then, just as I saw it on Keira’s face tonight.

She looks like a bird in a cage. A redbird with clipped wings.

I can feel how tight my jaw is as Clint hands back the signed papers. He’s gloating, but I ignore the glitter in his eye. Pocketing the contract, I shake Jay’s hand and we walk outside to my truck. Clint hangs back for a second, as if he doesn’t know how to send me off.

I put my hat on and give him a quick nod. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the sale.”

I leave him standing on the porch and drive out into the night. My knuckles are white on the wheel and I head home. All I can think about is the redhead back in that house and what she’s doing right now. Maybe she’s curling up to sleep, her hair loose over her pillow. Or maybe that son of a bitch is fucking her right now.

My fists tighten. The leather steering wheel is going to have indents.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com