Courting Her Rebel: (Taken by Cowboys: Part 2) A Billionaire Western Romance Read online

  She was struck by his self-awareness—something she hadn’t noticed in any of the men she’d dated. Behind his easy smile and jokes, Nate was a sensitive soul. “Did you figure out what it was after you left?” she asked.

  “I’m still figuring it out, frankly. But I will say I feel much more fulfilled now that I’m here. The simple life is sometimes the best one. I think I was distracting myself with work and dollar signs, like those were some shortcut to satisfaction. I know it’s not that easy now,” he said. “It was a slap in the face when we got booted out, but now I know it was a blessing in disguise. Sometimes you have to get away from the story you tell people.”

  Suddenly her arm jerked forward. There was a rough tug at the end of her line.

  “Hey, I think you hooked one!” he said. “Reel it in!”

  She let go of the bit of line she was holding and started to wind the reel towards her. “Like this?” she asked.

  “You got it!” he said.

  She started to wind up the reel. It was tougher than it looked. She felt a strong pull at the end of the line. “Little help here?” she panted.

  Nate reeled his line in quickly and dropped the rod onto the bank. He came up behind Jess and put his hand on hers. Together they wound back the reel, and after a minute a big silver fish popped out of the water.

  “That’s quite a trout you managed to snag!” Nate cried as they reeled the fish all the way to shore. He took the rod from her and examined the trout at the end of the line. It didn’t look so big to her.

  “I guess he knows how to pull,” she said.

  “Well, he was fighting for his life, after all,” Nate said. The trout’s clear eye was wide and gaping as it wriggled with all its might. Jess felt a pang of disgust, and then sadness.

  “What are you going to do with it?” she asked tentatively.

  “Gut it,” he said simply. “We can cook it up in some butter and garlic for dinner tonight. Noting like freshly caught fish after a long day outside!”

  “Ugh,” she said, grimacing. “Do we have to?”

  He threw his head back and laughed heartily. “No, we don’t have to,” he said. “Are you saying you want to throw it back?”

  “Can we?” she asked.

  Without a work, Nate unhooked the flopping trout and threw it back into the creek.

  “I’m sorry to make you do that,” she said sheepishly. “I know meat comes from animals and everything, but I guess I’m not ready to see it out of the package.”

  “It’s not easy to take the city out of the girl,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. “No matter. There’s plenty more where that came from. And anyway, you’re the biggest catch of all.”

  “Look at you, smooth talker!” she exclaimed. “What makes you think you’ve caught me, anyway?”

  As soon as the question left her mouth, she realized what she was doing: flirting. If Nate was testing the waters, she wasn’t exactly freezing him out. Cut that out right now, her rational side chastened. Her desire, though, was saying something completely different—it was telling her to follow the pull she felt towards this handsome, charming man. Now the question was which would win.

  “If I haven’t shown you a good time yet, have patience,” he said, beginning to pack the rods back into the duffel bag. “Come on, let’s get out of the sun. I think I have something that might be more your speed.”

  Chapter 4

  After a short walk they arrived at a small wooden cabin that was mostly hidden in a grove of pine trees. Jess had no concept of where she was on the sprawling grounds of the guest ranch at this point—she had simply been following Nate blindly as he led her down the trails he seemed to know like the back of his hand. She was curious about where he was taking her, sure it was another activity that she would be less than adept at.

  “Welcome to the Getaway spa,” he announced, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket. “We have it all to ourselves at the moment. Spa sessions are usually booked in the mornings.”

  All to ourselves? What exactly did Nate have planned for her? She followed him through the door and down a short hallway. He opened another door with another key, and they entered a small room with cedar walls. A massage table stood in the center. Gently, Nate shut the door behind them.

  “I’m known for my massages,” he said. He hadn’t turned on any lights, and his expression was hard to make out in the dark. “These hands may look rough, but they’re good for something besides wrangling horses and hooking trout.”

  A massage certainly sounded nice. She was probably holding untold amounts of tension after so many days hunched over a keyboard being yelled at by her boss. “Now you’re talking,” she said.

  He gestured towards the table at the center of the room. “Get on the table, girl,” he said.

  She hesitated. “Just like this?”

  “Whatever makes you comfortable,” he said, then busied himself lighting candles that were placed on ledges around the room.

  Feeling a little strange, she took off her shoes and lay facedown on the table. The candles lent the room a gentle glow.

  Nate stood next to her and rubbed his hands together. He started to massage her shoulders. At his touch, she felt herself begin to unknot, as if his deft, warm hands were simple melting it away. At first it was almost painful, but the pain quickly gave way to the pleasure of tension being released. “Oh, god,” she moaned. The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”

  “You’re holding a lot of tension. It’s going to take some force to work it out,” he said.

  “Let me know if I’m too rough.”

  She squeezed her eyes tight as he came to a particularly tough knot, digging into it with his knuckle. “No. This is how I like it,” she said. Her face burned. She was glad she was turned away from Nate. “My massages, I mean.”

  “Good to know,” he murmured.

  There were a few moments of silence in which she was only aware of the sensation of her muscles physically unknotting. How had she been living with so much tension? She felt her body grow more and more lax as Nate kneaded her shoulders like dough. He did seem to possess above-average massage skills. That made her wonder.

  “You said you were known for your massages,” she said. “Does this come with the usual guest package?”

  He chuckled. “I may have been bluffing a little bit,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to use my talents in quite some time. And certainly not on a woman as beautiful as you.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but only a low moan came out as Nate moved his hands from her shoulders down to her upper back and began working between and underneath her shoulder blades. She felt the tension she didn’t know was there release and melt away. She felt herself sink into the table. The heat of his hands was teasing her through the cotton fabric of her tee shirt. She felt the acute desire to experience those warm hands on her bare skin. But no—that would be taking things a step too far.

  “I feel like I could work this out better if I could feel your muscles,” he said, as if he had read her mind.

  The massage, the candles, the spa all to themselves. If she were to undress, that would definitely be taking an already romantic scenario into seduction territory. On one hand, it seemed like the natural end to the day they had spent together, like the crescendo of a beautiful song—but it would undoubtedly also count as a betrayal to Spencer. She hadn’t made him any promises, but that had been implied in the note they had left things on: Spencer’s promise to take his time, get to know her, and then make love to her right. What if he found out about her dalliance with Nate?

  Then again, it wasn’t much of a dalliance. They had spent the day together, sure, but that had been purely platonic. Not exactly professional, but—friendly. Yeah, okay, Jess, and letting him give you an intimate massage is also “friendly”?

  Her good side knew better. But that other voice was already speaking up, loud, clear, and impossible to
ignore. She wanted Nate’s hands on her. In fact, she’d wanted them on her since the moment they’d set out this morning. At this point, she felt powerless to resist. She raised her chest off the table, pulled her tee shirt over her head, and let it fall to the floor.

  She was too nervous to meet Nate’s eyes as she relaxed onto the table again, fearing that her own would betray her excitement. She hadn’t given him a chance to see much, but she could feel him looking at her, the atmosphere between them suddenly charged.

  “You’ll enjoy this much more,” he said. She closed her eyes as he ran a finger down her spine, sending a shiver through her abdomen. He gently dug his fingers into the muscles along her vertebrae. The feeling was a mixture of deep physical release and another, more acute feeling—her desire coming to life.

  “When we were talking about something missing,” he said, returning to her shoulders, “were you talking about a person, too?”

  Her heart skittered.

  “I’m sorry if that’s too personal,” he said, interpreting her silence as offense.

  “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s just a painful topic for me at the moment. I was hurt pretty badly by someone not long ago. A man I thought I loved, who I guess didn’t love me back.”

  “That’s terrible,” he said. “I can’t imagine why any man could do such a thing to you. He must have been a monster.”

  For a moment, she wondered if she was in a dream. The small, dim room, the aromatherapy candles, this stud giving her the best massage of her life and berating her ex. It couldn’t possibly be real. “That sounds an awful lot like flattery,” she said finally.

  “Not flattery,” he said. “It’s simply the truth. If a man wronged you, it was because he didn’t deserve you and he knew it. You’re the total package, Jess. Smart, funny, real, and sexy as all get out.”

  “Wow. Thanks,” was all she could say. No one had ever said anything like that to her before. The biggest compliment she’d gotten from her ex was a lame “you look nice.” “What about you?” she asked.

  She heard Nate sigh. “I haven’t had the best luck with women.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” she said.

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” he asked.

  She laughed. “Well, you aren’t so bad to look at yourself, for one thing. And you’re nice, funny, fun to be around . . .”

  The image of Spencer’s half-lit face when he’d come to her cabin the night before flitted over her consciousness. He had pleasured her and then held her all night—and now she was getting increasingly intimate, both emotionally and physically, with his best friend. She recognized these facts as clearly as if they were spelled out in front of her, but it made no difference. His words were having their way with her, sinking into her bare skin and coursing through her veins, heating her up from the inside out. This had to be wrong. Or did it?

  “You’re sweet,” he said. “It’s true that I never had much trouble attracting a woman’s interest. But it never progressed much further than that. After a while, they all figured out that I was more interested in money than in them. Plus, most of the New York girls who went after me just seemed so soulless. They wanted to go to fancy restaurants and cocktail bars, but never for a nice walk in Central Park. I didn’t really connect with any of them.”

  “I know what you mean,” Jess said, remembering the failed blind dates she’d been on since breaking up with Todd, her ex. The men seemed okay at first, but after a while, she realized they didn’t really care about her as a person.

  “Though I have to say, I wasn’t the best boyfriend, either, at the time,” he continued. “They were right—I was too caught up in my career, in myself.”

  “How about now?” she asked.

  “Now . . .” He trailed off. “Now I’m different. At least, I think I am. I’ve changed a lot since coming out here. I’ve really had to think about my values and what I want in life. I want a partner, someone to share things with. Sort of like the things I shared with you today.”

  Her heart stumbled a little in its regular rhythm. “I’m a pretty hopeless cowgirl, aren’t I?” she asked nervously.

  He laughed gently. “With a little practice, you’ll be as fine as any.” His hand snagged on her bra as he used the foot of his hand to work out a kink in her mid-back. “May I?” he asked softly.

  She was well aware that this was heading to dangerous territory—but she couldn’t tell him to stop. She was putty in his hands in more ways than one. “Okay,” she heard herself whisper.

  He unhooked her bra and left each side it where it fell, continuing to work out the kink. She moaned as she felt the strain melt away. Her whole back felt like it was made of butter.

  “You have such smooth skin,” he said, running his fingertips up her back. “Like velvet.” He dripped them down again, skirting the waist of her jeans and sending her insides aquiver.

  She could hear the desire deep inside her calling out for him, drowning out the voice that was saying, No, don’t do it, get up and walk out of here right now. That voice of reason was getting softer and softer. But what about Spencer? it asked, the proverbial angel perched on her shoulder. She felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. Spencer had said he wanted to be with her, and she had said she wanted the same—but he also said that he didn’t want to hold her back. And now she had spent the day with Nate, talking, flirting, and being touched by his seductive hands. Should she tell him that Spencer was her lover before this went any farther?

  “Nate,” she began. “I really need to tell you something—”

  “Shh,” he hushed her, pausing his massage. “Please. I’m enjoying this moment with you too much.”

  He went back to rubbing her muscles lightly with the tips of his fingers. He swept her long hair from her back and began making small circles with his fingers in her scalp. “You have such beautiful dark hair,” he said. “I’ve never seen a mane quite like it.”

  Jess’s hair had always been a point of personal pride. It was long and lustrous, with a wave that turned into loose curls at the ends. One of the girls in the office had once asked if it was fake.

  “Thanks,” she said faintly. “You sure know what you’re doing with your hands.”

  “I told you so,” he said. He ran a hand ever so lightly down her side, his fingers grazing the side of her breast. A moan escaped her lips. All of her defenses were lowering, like the walls of a city falling to an enemy with far superior strength, except she knew her surrender was willing. Her desire was on its knees, begging to be taken. Spencer had aroused her to the breaking point that morning, and she hadn’t quite calmed down since. With Nate teasing her the way he was now, she felt herself quickly losing all semblance of control.

  “Your whole body is amazing,” he said, running a finger down her spine and over the curve of her butt. “You look like you’ve walked right out of a classical painting.”

  “You’ve only seen the back of it,” she heard herself say. Her heart was pounding.

  His finger paused. There was a moment of fraught silence. “I’d like to see all of it.”

  Slowly, she turned onto her side, propping her head up on her hand so she was facing Nate where he stood at the side of the massage table. Her long dark hair tumbled over her bare shoulders.

  Nate took a few steps back. He drew in his breath, then let it out with a slow whistle. Something about his gaze—the way he didn’t try to hide his stare, or his admiration—had taken all of her usual shyness out of her. She stared boldly back.

  Out of the corner of her eye she took in the soft glow of the candles flickering on the windowsills. The next thing she was aware of was Nate closing the distance between them. He reached his hand out to her as if he was going to run it through her hair—then stepped an inch short and retracted it. She felt a frisson of excitement. “I told you I had a knack for human touch,” he said, his voice gravelly. “I’d like to give you a full-body massage and let you experience the extent of my talents—skin to sk
in.”

  “I hardly think that’s fair,” she said.

  He blinked in surprise—the first time all day she had seen him with anything but a roguish grin on his face. She felt a smile creep to her face. Two can play this game.

  “I believe you’re implying that I should take off the rest of my clothes,” she said, her voice clear as a bell in the small wooden room with its echoing acoustics.

  “Would it help even the score if I took some off too?” he said evenly.

  “It might,” she said. She flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder, exposing her left breast. She saw Nate’s chest rise as he drew a breath, his eyes fixed to her chest.

  “It’s a deal, then,” he said. He slowly began undoing the buttons on his shirt. It gave her a ripple of pleasure to see that her hands were trembling ever so slightly.

  He removed the shirt, revealing a tanned torso, with sinewy muscles and a flat stomach with the ghost of a six-pack. His physique was long and lithe, she noted, in comparison to Spencer’s more built, athletic frame—but why was Spencer coming into her head now? She had a sudden fleeting vision of Spencer approaching her from the other side, massaging her shoulders as Nate unzipped her jeans. She felt rattled. What was that about?

  Wanting to shake the image from her mind, she swung her legs over the edge of the table so she was sitting up. Her back muscles felt loose and pleasant, almost jellylike. She placed her feet on the floor and stood, then undid the button and zip of her shorts.

  “How about a little steam?” he said. “It’ll help loosen you up.”