April, Dani - Raven's Ranch (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme) Read online

  “If you are the foreman at the Lazy L, why are you all the way up here in the city?”

  “I was up here at the stock market selling some cattle futures for the Lazy L. I come up here about three or four times a year. Mostly I come up here because your grandfather hated the city so much he wouldn’t ever come up here, and so he always had someone like me to do it for him.”

  Leroy’s voice came out from the back of the club “Raven, haul ass back here now, girl!”

  That brought Raven back to the moment. She quickly jumped out of the chair. “I’m sorry…” She fumbled for his name.

  “Connor,” he told her.

  “Connor,” she repeated. “I’ve got to get back to work. I hope we can talk more about my grandfather.”

  “I’ll wait for you here.”

  “The club will be closing in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll meet you outside then when you finish up.”

  Raven had to think about that one for a second. After all, she didn’t even know this guy. Did she really want him waiting around outside in the dark for her?

  “Well I may be late,” she told him. “I have cleanup tonight.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll wait.”

  “Hurry up, girl!” Leroy yelled at her again.

  “Okay, whatever,” she told Connor and ran back to the counter.

  Susan was at the counter when Raven got there. She realized Susan had probably seen the whole interaction with Connor and was obviously dying from curiosity.

  “You met the guy I was telling you about,” Susan said.

  “Yeah, he knew me.” Raven almost spilled two more beers as she hurried to make up for lost time.

  “I figured he knew you. He seems like a strange one. How’d he know you?”

  “He works for my grandfather in Montana. He told me my grandfather’s just died.”

  “Well, that sucks,” Susan said, helping Raven to wipe down the counter where the beer had spilled.

  “Yeah, it does,” Raven admitted. “I used to be really close to my grandfather when I was a kid. Now I feel like I should cry or something for him, but I’m just too tired right now. I’ve got too many problems of my own, and his dying just seems like one more. One I didn’t need. But I know that’s a bitchy way to feel about your own grandfather.”

  When Raven had a free minute, she opened her phone and looked through her messages. Sure enough, there it was a message from a Gerald Whitaker, her grandfather Spencer’s attorney. The message expressed regret that she was being informed by text message, and apologized for not being able to reach her at her number all day. It also told her to contact him as soon as possible because he had some urgent business to discuss with her.

  Okay, Raven thought to herself, Connor was telling her the truth about her grandfather, so she could at least believe his cover story.

  When Leroy announced they were officially closed, and the last customers had gone, the help was allowed to get themselves a drink or a bite of food from the kitchen. Raven poured herself a shot to steady her frayed nerves.

  The other serving staff left to go to Tony’s party, and Raven pitched in to sweep the floors and wipe down the counters and the tables along with a couple of young busboys of such a low rank at the club that they always got cleanup detail.

  As she worked, she wondered if Connor was outside waiting for her. Somehow she hoped that he was. She really wanted to see him again, mostly to talk about her grandfather, but she couldn’t deny also because of that soft, unspoiled beauty he had about him.

  Chapter Two

  Raven wore a black leather jacket out into the parking lot of the club. The : a.m. air was rather chilly. She also carried a motorcycle helmet. She owned a small Kawasaki. It wasn’t much, but for Raven it was her pride and joy and the way she got from point a to point b in the busy city.

  She approached her bike and looked around the almost-empty lot, wondering where Connor was. Maybe she should have given him her phone number, she thought, but hell, it was too late for that now, and he was probably long gone anyway.

  She climbed on top of her bike and kicked off the stand. She was about to pull the helmet over her head when a beat-up old pickup truck drove up in front of her in the parking lot.

  “That’s a cool bike,” Connor called to her from the open window of the truck.

  “Oh hey!” she yelled back at him, realizing she was actually happy to see him. “You did wait for me.”

  “One thing I’m always good for is keeping my word,” he assured her.

  “Sorry I made you wait,” she told him, feeling awkward. “You know, it’s kind of late. Maybe we should talk about this some other time.”

  “If you don’t mind a whole lot, Miss White, I think we should talk about the Lazy L as soon as possible.”

  Raven wanted to hit herself. Here she was happy to see him one second and the next, suggesting they do this some other time. This man was making her crazy and she still didn’t even know him.

  “There’s an all-night diner two blocks north of here,” she told him.

  He gave a half smile and motioned to his truck. “Hop in,” he told her.

  They were each having scrambled eggs and bacon with coffee. Raven took hers with lots and lots of cream and preferably a pinch or two of sugar, but Connor took his strong and black. The all-night diner was only half-full at this hour, and it was a nice place to sit and talk and watch the lights of traffic pass outside on the Chicago streets.

  “You see, Miss White,” Connor was explaining in between mouthfuls of scrambled eggs which he devoured with a ravenous appetite. “You and the Lazy L were about the only good things your grandfather had left in his life.”

  “I’m just Raven,” Raven told him, though she halfway enjoyed the way he deferred to her and called her by her surname.

  “Miss White…Raven…That’s going to be hard for me to remember,” Connor told her, a shy smile playing across his face. “I never called your grandfather anything except Mr. Spencer in all the time I worked for him, even though he was much more than just a boss to me.”

  “Well I’m not my grandfather,” Raven reminded him, and delicately chewed her food.

  “But you’re the boss now,” Connor said, and Raven came up to meet him with a startled gaze.

  “What do you mean I’m the boss now?” she asked.

  “Just that, you are the boss of the Lazy L now. Your grandfather left you everything he had, including the Lazy L. That means I’m working for you now.”

  Raven sat in the booth and digested her food and Connor’s words. She was the boss of the Lazy L, one of the biggest private ranches in the state of Montana? That sounded crazy. Yet she also realized it must be true. Her grandfather had no family, and neither did she. They were each other’s family. Now that he was gone, she had no family left.

  “Oh, my God,” she exclaimed. “I don’t even know what to do on a ranch. I haven’t been back there in almost ten years. Anyway I’ve got my life here in the city.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, I think you’ll do just fine, Raven.”

  “No I won’t,” she protested. “I got my degree in computers, not animal husbandry. I don’t know the first thing about running a ranch.”

  “You got a degree,” Connor told her. “So that tells me you know how to learn.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I don’t think I’m that good in computers. After all, I don’t even have a job.”

  “I’m not a man who likes to brag most of the time, but the Lazy L has the finest hands in ranching you’ll find any place. Mr. Spencer knew how to pick men, and they’ll all be willing to help you out any way they can.”

  Raven looked out at the traffic on the main thoroughfare outside the windows. The city looked cold and damp and dreary. The fresh air and the beauty of Montana did appeal to her. It had been so long since she had seen it, she felt she would barely remember what it was like.

  “That must be what grandfa
ther’s attorney texted me about,” Raven told him. “He said it was so important it couldn’t wait. It must be about the ranch.”

  “I expect so.” Connor drained his coffee in one huge swallow with a satisfied sigh. “Coffee sure tastes good at this time of night, even here in the city.”

  “Look, Connor,” Raven said. “I’m going to think seriously about coming out to Montana to live and letting you and the other guys help me with the ranch. But I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t scared.”

  “Of course,” Connor offered. “You don’t have to stay on and run the ranch.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s this big wholesale food corporation up here in the city that has been hounding Mr. Spencer to sell the ranch to them. I think they’re offering a real pretty penny. Way more than what she’s worth, even.”

  “Interesting.” Raven suddenly had visions of becoming rich dancing through her head. She realized at once these were pretty terrible thoughts to harbor only two hours after finding out her grandfather had died, but as far down as her life had fallen in the past few months, any news of a change, no matter what kind, was enough to give her cause for dreaming.

  “The other thing you should know if you decide to do this is that although Mr. Spencer truly did have the best ranch in Montana, he wasn’t much of a businessman. When you get there, you’re likely to find the financial affairs of the Lazy L pretty much up in the air.”

  “I guess they don’t use computers on the ranch?” Raven joked.

  “No, Miss White…I mean Raven,” Connor favored her with his beautiful but innocent smile once more. “Mr. Spencer was a good man, but he wasn’t very modern. Computers and the Internet and that sort of thing just sort of passed him by.”

  Raven sat back in her side of the booth and looked at Connor, really looked at him good for a minute. She realized that he was one of the most gorgeous guys she had ever seen, and so far, although she had just met him, he did not seem arrogant or like an a-hole, and not only did he not want to dominate her, but he deferred to her as the boss.

  “Connor?” she asked him. “How would you like having someone like me as a boss out there in Montana?”

  Connor smiled. “If you are anything like Mr. Spencer I think you’d work out just fine.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant.” She adjusted her position on the booth and tried again. “I mean a woman. How would that work out?”

  Connor chewed his toast and didn’t answer her for a long while. Raven was afraid that he didn’t have a positive reply to make to her.

  “In answer to your question,” Connor told her, “I’d like to have you as my boss. Fact is, I hope you decide to come out west and give life on the Lazy L a try.”

  “Is that an invitation?” she asked him.

  “Close as you’ll get to an invitation from one of your hands, ma’am.”

  This is crazy, Raven thought, as she opened the door to her studio apartment and ushered Connor inside with her.

  One thing had led to another on the way home. It had started to pour down rain outside and Connor had offered to drive her back to her place in his truck. She was surprised when he picked up her bike and lifted it into the bed of his truck in one fluid motion. He had strength that she wasn’t even aware of, and when the rain got his long hair wet, Raven could feel the butterflies starting deep in the pit of her stomach as she looked at his handsome face.

  Now this beautiful, strong, sensitive man who she had only known for two hours was in her apartment, and she knew she didn’t want him to leave.

  “Thanks for helping me back, Connor.”

  “You’ll be okay after you dry out some,” he told her and turned back for the door.

  Raven put her hand on the door in a self-conscious bid to keep him from leaving. “Why don’t you stay,” she told him.

  “Stay?”

  “Yes.” She took her hand off the door quickly and cleared her throat, feeling like a complete idiot. “I could make us some coffee.”

  “Do you make good coffee?”

  “No,” came her honest reply.

  He laughed, and she could not help but to laugh with him. His smile was so beautiful and perfect, she knew she wanted him right then and there, and it had been so long since she had felt this way about a man. In fact, she had never felt this way about a man before.

  He moved to her and touched her for the first time. He was almost a foot taller than she was and had to bend to kiss her. She let her hands rest against his chest and felt the tightly knotted muscles.

  “You’re the boss now, Raven,” he said, kissing down her neck and whispering in her ear. “If you want me to stay, then I’ll stay.”

  His hands were feeling down her long angular body, and she wrapped her arms around his back and held him to her. Her head was swimming and she couldn’t think. All she could do was take in the feel of Connor against her, the taste of his lips, and even his smell, which was a faint mix of tobacco and cologne, but arousing all the same.

  His hands were on her butt, and one of them slid underneath the back of her jeans. She opened her mouth and was sticking her tongue into his mouth, tasting his saliva and playing with his tongue.

  Then she felt the huge bulge from his jeans, and a shock of adrenaline ran through her. He was impressive. Even under the fabric of his jeans she could feel how hard and large he was. Her legs started to go weak. Her pussy became hot and wet and started to swell with desire.

  This was so crazy. She didn’t know this man. When she first met him two and a half hours ago, she thought he was a creep, and now here she was with him in her apartment and in his arms, and she was feeling him up under his jeans. She knew she must be losing it for sure.

  She looked up at him and was going to say no, but when she met his deep blue eyes she realized she could not. She wrapped her arms around him again, opened her mouth to his, and began tasting him anew.

  They fell on top of the bed together. The bed was a foldout couch, but she never had it made into a couch. She was very glad it was still made into a bed at that moment.

  She reached under his shirt and lifted it over his head, her desperate need forcing her to move fast and sure.

  Their hands left each other for just a minute as he rolled off the bed to kick off his boots. She used the time to remove her blouse, and from her position on the edge of the bed she shrugged out of her jeans.

  As she removed her bra and panties, she watched him as he took off his jeans. He had the most amazing behind she had ever seen. Fashion models could not have had better sculpted curves.

  She enjoyed being naked with a man again, enjoyed the heat between her legs. It had been so long since she’d been with anybody, she had almost forgotten the fierce urgency of passion and the way her breathing started becoming heavy and her heart fluttered.

  She lay back on her sheets and her nude body felt so delicious against them. She never realized how good her own bedsheets felt, as she felt their cool texture against her naked back and rear end.

  Her studio was dark, but she could see his huge erection clearly as he turned around to her and took it in his hand, pointing it toward her. She had huge red nipples that stood in contrast to her otherwise slender body and she had always been self-conscious of them when first making love with a man, although her other lovers had told her they were sexy. She was glad her studio was so dark that he probably could not see them.

  He moved to mount her on the bed. She kissed him down his muscle-hardened chest. Then she lay all the way back on the mattress and spread her legs wide for him.

  He gave her a long, lingering kiss on the mouth and took his erection and placed it between her outstretched legs at her opening. His tip played with her outer lips and swollen clit, sending a shudder of anticipation through her prone body. Fisting his cock in his hand he moved his swollen cock up and down her pussy mound and forced a moan from her parted lips and her breathing to come faster.

  Not able to wa
it for him any longer, she moved her hand down between her legs, staring down her naked body as she did so, and getting a wonderful view of their two bodies meeting each other skin-on-skin. She brushed his hand out of the way and took his erection in her grip. Her pussy was wet, and she gently slipped him inside her body.

  Oh, God, did that ever feel good. She felt an emptiness filling inside of her and fought back an urge to gasp out into the darkness of her studio because she never liked to make too much noise during sex, but with Connor riding above her, she knew she might have to make an exception.

  She moved her legs high into the air and he took them and placed them over his shoulders allowing deeper thrusts inside of her. She reached around him and ran her hands down his back, feeling his hard muscles and marveling at his curves, the feel of his flesh. Soon her hands dropped below his waist and found his rock-hard rear and cradled his cheeks, squeezing and pushing, controlling his rhythm as he pumped inside her body.

  Slowly they developed a steady pace, and it was not long before he was all the way inside her, his tip pressing against her cervix. The muscles in her pussy hugged him tightly as he rode her, and she met his moves with her thrusting hips.

  Then a torrent broke over her, and she was coming strong. First once, and then twice, and then a third prolonged muscle spasm that forced her to scream into the dark of her studio and took her completely over the edge.

  Later, they lay under the covers and watched the first rays of the sun peek inside her little window.

  “This is really dumb,” she told him, as she stroked his smooth chest, playfully biting at a nipple. “You know this is dumb, don’t you?”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, we don’t have anything in common. I’ve never been much for cowboys until now, and you, my friend, are a true cowboy.”

  “Hey, don’t do that,” he said, laughing as she caressed his chest. “You’re going to get me started again.”

  She felt down between his thighs and realized he was right, so she backed off a bit and just laid her head on top of his chest.