King's Ransom (Oil Kings Book 2) Read online

  Next was her underwear and she was bare before me. I leaned in to land a kiss on her navel and work my way down.

  “Holy shit!” Xander’s voice cut through my passion. “Did Dawson bake again?”

  Eva recoiled and shoved her shirt down. I spun around to make sure she hadn’t been exposed to my brother yet again. Standing, I stayed in front of her and listened for him.

  “He’s in the kitchen,” I whispered over my shoulder.

  “I hope he stays there,” she hissed. She was moving behind me, covering up those pretty tits and that part of her I wanted to taste so badly.

  Once she was covered, I went to the door and peeked out. No Xander. “All clear.”

  “I’m going to the office.” Her face was flaming, but I caught her around the waist before she left.

  “I plan to pick up where we left off as soon as possible.”

  “Make sure none of your brothers are around.” She scowled at me, then broke into a smile. She stepped into the hallway and peered down toward the kitchen. Then she snuck across the hall to the office.

  Smiling, I went nowhere. It was going to be a few minutes before I was presentable.

  Chapter 15

  Eva

  My body hated me. Beckett had promised to pick up where he’d left off, but we hadn’t had a chance. Kendall had insisted on helping ready Dawson’s old room and when she’d found out—thanks to Xander and his not-so-subtle comments—she was all about passing around scrapbooks.

  It was late in the evening and Gentry refused to go to bed. He was regaling his new wife with tales of his rowdy boys instead.

  Kate had arrived a few hours ago and I’d instantly liked her. She wasn’t as outgoing as Kendall—okay, Kate was a wallflower. Kendall was comfortable with herself, happy to visit with everyone. If she needed to command a room, she could. Kate, however, was content to observe, though she had an air of familiarity about her that made everyone comfortable around her. And the way she’d looked deliriously happy to see Aiden made my heart melt until I noticed that he’d barely looked up from where he’d parked himself with his laptop at the kitchen table. I’d dislike him, but fatigue hovered around him like a fog. Had he been this exhausted before Gentry’s heart attack?

  Kate and Aiden had retired to bed an hour ago—after Dawson had coerced him into helping with cattle a day early since it was supposed to rain midweek.

  “Still taking pictures, Xander?” Gentry asked. Beckett’s dad didn’t look like he’d been in the hospital for three days. He was dressed in plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt that made me doubt he had to start a workout routine from scratch. Were fifty-year-olds naturally that cut?

  “Here and there.” Xander tossed a book with horse cutouts on it to Beckett. “Here’s your I Love Me book.”

  Beckett opened it. The first thing was a blinged-out birth announcement. Sarah King had done one for each boy. From the number of scrapbooks she’d made, each kid would’ve had fifty apiece by now if she hadn’t died.

  I leaned closer to see, the side of my body pressed up against his. He shot me a discreet, but searing look from the corner of his eye. I wasn’t the only one with finishing what we’d started on my mind.

  “What are you doing other than kicking around the globe?” Gentry’s voice held a note of censure. Even Kendall pinned her husband with a hard stare.

  “Traveling, Dad,” Xander answered. “It’s hard to learn about the world from a private jet.”

  “Learning about it’s one thing, but are you ever going to do anything about it?”

  Xander rolled a shoulder like maybe he’d consider it one day. Beckett scowled at his brother.

  “Didn’t you do some relief work in Eastern Europe?” Beckett asked, a vexed edge to his voice like he wondered why Xander didn’t mention it himself and get Gentry off his back. I wanted to hug him for sticking up for his brother. Maybe he’d understand when he found out about mine and what I had planned to do for him.

  Xander rolled his eyes. “Now Beck, that doesn’t fit the middle-kid-syndrome stereotype. I just fuck around on beaches and party all over the world.”

  Gentry frowned. “Language, Xander. And that’s for the youngest. Dawson runs the ranch, which is a family business going back decades.”

  Xander laughed. “Right. Sorry, Kendall and Eva. I’m sure your ears are going to bleed, you poor little women.” He slapped his knees and stood. He wasn’t dressed quite like Beckett and Dawson. Cowboy boots and jeans maybe, but his hemp-woven eco-friendly hoodie was one I saw around Denver all the time. “I’m still fighting jet lag. Night, y’all.”

  Beckett draped his arm around my shoulders and his thumb rubbed a steady circle on my upper arm. The move was through my shirt, but he might as well have cupped my sex in the middle of the room. My body was humming.

  With Gentry and Kendall here, we were going to have to share a room. I looked forward to it, but at the same time I was terrified. On a normal date, I’d never want my guy’s family overhearing me being intimate. But only Gentry, and probably Kendall, had to think we were real. If I moaned too loudly, the others would know this wasn’t fake.

  What would they think? Would they think I was sleeping with Beckett just for the money and hold it against me? Or be relieved that Beckett and I would most likely cross the one-year mark if we were intimate?

  None of that seemed to matter when his thumb stroked its steady circle.

  Or wait…was he pretending? Was this a show?

  I was in over my head if he was only acting.

  “Way to go, Dad,” Dawson said dryly as he paged through his own I Love Me scrapbook.

  “The kid has got to learn to earn his own way through life.” Gentry sounded unrepentant and all dad. I’d missed out on this. Sorrow fought to the surface, but no, this night wasn’t about me. “You have the ranch. Aiden has the oil company. And Beckett made his own empire. Xander has a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Why worry when he’s going to get a windfall when he’s thirty?” Dawson sounded exactly like the youngest, egging his dad on.

  Gentry scowled. “The way you boys have been cutting it close, I don’t think I’m done with Grams.”

  Dawson snorted. “She’s not done with us.”

  Kendall stroked Gentry’s arm. “I think Xander’s doing just fine, but I know you can’t quit being a dad and not worry about him. It sounds like he’s been doing good wherever he goes.”

  Gentry’s expression went from disapproving parent to besotted fool in a second. “You’re right. You’re always right. I’m worrying too much.”

  She giggled. “Then on that note, you won’t argue when I tell you it’s time for bed.” She got up and collected scrapbooks. I reluctantly pulled myself away from Beckett’s side and helped her, and Beckett joined in.

  Dawson rose and gathered a couple of boxes in his arms. “Beck, why don’t you show your fiancée the Montana stars? It’s as clear as a horse’s ass out there.”

  I chuckled. “I can’t imagine what level of clarity that is.”

  Dawson’s grin was mischievous. “If I said cow’s ass, you’d know you could barely see the sky for the shit-covered clouds.”

  Gentry was halfway up the stairs, but he stopped. “For God’s sake, Dawson. Language. I didn’t raise wildebeests.”

  Dawson laughed and he ran up the stairs past Kendall and his dad. I looked at Beckett.

  He shrugged. “If we drive out far enough, there won’t be a ton of light pollution.”

  Stargazing and a chance to have Beckett to myself? “I’ll grab my coat.”

  “Nope. Blankets.” He disappeared into the laundry and the thrum that started between my legs reminded me exactly where we’d left off.

  He came out with an armload of blankets. When he got outside by his pickup, he wrapped one around me and kissed the tip of my nose before loading me inside. We were alone. This wasn’t acting.

  He shoved the key in the ignition, but before he turned it over, he said, “It
serves Dawson right if I keep him up.” With that he started the engine.

  It roared and he pulled away, but instead of taking the road, he aimed for a pasture. I watched as he stopped, got out, opened a gate I didn’t realize could open, then got back in. He drove through and stopped again, then went out and shut the gate.

  “We’re driving through the pasture?” I asked.

  “The middle of nowhere is the best place to look at stars.”

  The drive was dark. All I could see was what the headlights lit up. But he was right. As I looked out the window, the stars were clearer and more brilliant than I’d ever seen.

  “Wow.” My breath puffed across the glass.

  “Wait until I kill the lights.” It was a few more minutes before he stopped on the rise of a hill. Air bordering on frigid wafted across my cheeks when I got out.

  Beckett opened the box and spread two of the blankets out, then helped me up. We stretched out on them side by side, and I covered us both with the blanket that had been around me, then he draped another blanket over that one. It wasn’t the most comfortable. The padding under us did little to soften the hard metal ridges running down the pickup bed under my back. I positioned my head so it was between ridges.

  His heat radiated into me, encouraging the ache that’d been frustrating me all day. The stars were brilliant. We could see the thicker belt of stars that was the Milky Way. It was astounding.

  “It’s so quiet.” I never left the city. Had I heard this level of silence before?

  “No traffic. Sometimes the cows get vocal but they’re on the other side right now.”

  The moon was waning; otherwise we’d be draped in utter darkness. But I wasn’t afraid. All that was out here were cows.

  “And once in a while, you’ll hear the coyotes howling.”

  I swatted him. “Don’t scare me.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not trying to. They won’t bother us. Even though Dawson’s dog died last year, and he hasn’t had time to train a new herding dog, the coyotes won’t bother us.”

  “Herding dogs are still a thing?”

  “Get between a mama cow and her calf and they can save your life.” We fell quiet, listening to the crickets when he rolled toward me. This whole night had been like all the shows I’d grown up watching on TV. Idyllic family life. Food on the table. Laughter, and maybe just a touch of conflict. Gentry loved his kids. That much was clear.

  Adam and I had missed out on all of this.

  “Eva, I want to finish what we started.”

  I turned my head toward him. “I do too. But out here?”

  “I can keep you warm.”

  I didn’t doubt it. Just thinking about how he’d knelt in front of me earlier was enough to stoke my inner furnace. But I wasn’t naïve. If we did that, it’d lead to the rest. “Earlier, in the living room, were you just pretending?”

  I felt him tip his head toward me more than I saw it. “I don’t have to pretend.”

  “Me either.”

  He hugged me tighter. “And that bothers you?”

  “It’s…confusing.” I didn’t want to turn into a flirt just because Gentry walked into the room. I didn’t want to question whether Beckett meant it when he kissed me. The money issue wasn’t one-sided. Fifty million was riding on the line for him too. He might already be rich, but that was a lot of money.

  I could lay here and debate it for hours, until we both froze. Or I could find out how real our chemistry was.

  I rolled into him. “Do you have protection?”

  “In my wallet.” He leaned close. “A King’s always prepared.”

  He gave me a long kiss, then disappeared under the blanket, leaving me breathless. A cold draft followed him, but I was quickly warmed once his hands landed on my hips.

  He was starting right where he’d left off. Staying under the covers, he rolled my pants and underwear down and gently wedged himself between my legs. I stared up at the stars but slipped my arms under the blanket. I had to touch him.

  He kissed a path up one thigh and down the other, killing me slowly. Beckett King was between my legs and we were going to have sex tonight—out in the middle of a pasture at his family home. There was no way he was the horrible man that had destroyed my brother. He had a scrapbook.

  Those thoughts were obliterated when he parted me and stroked his hot tongue across my clit. My hips lifted. I could come in no time.

  He was a master. He licked and when I was about to explode, he backed off pressure until I was grinding against him for more.

  “Beckett.” I sounded whiny. I was close to begging. If it weren’t so chilly, I’d throw the blankets off and ride his face until I exploded.

  His voice was muffled. “I’ve wanted to do this for too long. I’m not rushing it.” Another lick. I twisted my fingers in his hair and it wasn’t easy. The short strands slipped through my fingers.

  When he slid a finger through my wetness and pushed inside, he turned ruthless. His tongue showed no mercy and he plunged in and out of me.

  My back bowed and I cried out, long and loud. I came so hard I couldn’t see a single star with my eyes wide open. He continued to play me, to string it out until I didn’t think I could take it anymore.

  I wiggled away from him and reared up. He emerged from the blanket and wiped his face off. “That was amazing, Eva.” He settled over me, but kept his weight off me. His expression was shadowed, but the awe was clear in his voice.

  Still trying to catch my breath, I only smiled and stroked my hands along his chest. That was amazing. Chemistry like that couldn’t be faked. It was a base, something we could build on.

  Starting now. It was too cold to unbutton his shirt, but I tugged it out. “I hate to say…that was an eleven-out-of-ten scream.”

  His laugh rumbled through his chest. “I never lie.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. I could taste myself on him. He was over me, I was getting his body heat, but I wanted him in me.

  I undid his belt, then his pants, all while keeping our kiss going. How could I get worked up again so soon?

  He shifted to the side and reached behind him. Getting the condom out, he ripped it open and rolled it on.

  “I wanted to do that.” I couldn’t see a thing, but I’d get to touch him. To see if he was as big as he’d felt earlier. To see how he felt in my hand.

  “I don’t want you getting cold.” When he moved back over me, he tried placing his arms in a couple of places. It’d either slip off a ridge, or he’d grunt as his elbow got caught between them. “Are you really uncomfortable?”

  “I mean, it’s not every day there’s a metal ridge running up my ass.”

  Keeping me covered, he maneuvered to his back and dragged me on top. My sweater was twisted around me and I had no idea where my pants were, but this would work. I shifted until my knees had purchase, then centered myself over him. Reaching between us, I palmed him.

  He was as hot and hard as I imagined. The latex did nothing to detract from the feel of him, like petting a velvet-covered metal rod.

  Like him, I took my time. As each inch filled me, his hands gripped my hips like a life raft.

  “Fuck, Eva.”

  I rolled my hips and he groaned. Another inch.

  “Take me. All of me.”

  “I want to take my time,” I said, partly teasing him for earlier and partly wanting to draw this out, to relish it. To remember it. Because I could lose more moments like this in a heartbeat.

  Those long hours looking at his picture, swearing I hated him, were revealed for what they were: as close to obsession as I’d ever been. I’d thought I was better than that. But he was hard and under me and I wasn’t better.

  I pushed down and he was buried completely. We were connected and all I knew was him and this pickup box. Anchoring my hands on his chest, I started riding him. At first it was for his pleasure, but then my own built, and we were moving in synch. I pushed down as he thrust up. We moved as one. Our breathing and our bodies sla
pping mingled together with the crickets.

  At some point, the blankets fell off my shoulders, but I didn’t care. The peak was close and I wanted to find it. Beckett was holding back.

  “Touch yourself,” he growled. I obeyed him. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do at this moment if he asked me. “Touch yourself with the hand wearing my ring.”

  My breath caught, but I did it, my index finger landing on my clit. A long moan left me. “Beckett.”

  “You’re coming with me.” He covered my hand with his. “We’re coming together.”

  My hips rolled and bucked. It didn’t take much pressure and I was flying apart, shattering into as many pieces as there were stars in the sky. I shouted his name over and over.

  He cried out mine and went rigid. A flood of heat filled my body.

  Collapsing on top of him, I buried my head against his chest. He was coming to mean so much to me. It scared me as much as the thought that he’d ditch me in a hot second if he knew my past.

  Beckett stood next to me, a proprietary hand around my waist. We were in a back room at a restaurant called Hogan’s. I was nursing a long neck, the same kind he had. I wasn’t a big drinker, but the bottle helped me blend better. I’d rather be back in the middle of a pasture than here.

  The party Beckett had warned me about was in full swing. We were putting on a show for his dad’s sake, and the whole family was putting on one for the community. We’d been tasked with proving the rumors of Gentry’s heart attack were false, even though they were true.

  Beckett chatted with Dawson. Both were dressed in crisp white shirts and black jeans. Xander listened on, probably more interested than I was in the ranch discussion. His khakis and white shirt weren’t nearly as crisp. But he wore cowboy boots. When all four brothers had gone out to move cattle, I’d witnessed a mirage so hot it’d seared my retinas. All four brothers in boots, worn jeans, cowboy hats, and weathered, plaid, button-up shirts, sauntering out the door, laughing at some stupid joke Dawson had made. I’d thought about taking up scrapbooking just to have an excuse to take a million photos.