How to Rope a Loyal Cowboy by Anya Summers

16

The following day, the house was silent for a change since Noah and the boys had gone out. Noah wanted to ensure Morgan had the morning off, which was super sweet of him. Over breakfast this morning, Wade and Zack had wanted her to read them more of the story they had been working on together as one of their projects.

She was pleased as punch that those two scamps had grown so comfortable with her. Zack had curled up in her lap while they ate breakfast, just wanting to cuddle. He was a lot like his father that way, because Noah always wanted to cuddle and hold her after he screwed her brains out.

But now that she had a moment to herself, with the laundry going and kitchen cleaned up, Morgan was curious about the ledgers she had seen on Noah’s desk last night.

She knew that she shouldn’t trespass and snoop. That the books were truly none of her business. But she couldn’t seem to stop her curiosity. Not when she had seen a page with the words missing funds written on it, and underlined.

Inside Noah’s office, she sat at his desk—the same one where he had taken her last night—and felt a twinge of pleasure in her nether region. He was such a fierce, passionate lover. The moment he touched her, she couldn’t resist him. It was like she was hardwired for him.

Tamping down the flash of desire, she focused and began going through the pages. There were two distinct sets of books. It looked like he was trying to rectify them together. Auditing the accounting and verifying the accuracy would disclose where the missing funds had gone. She loved accounting. Numbers had always made sense to her in a way people and their ulterior motives never had. Numbers, she got; people were crazy.

Morgan glanced at one of the pages. Her eyes boggled at the huge amount listed as missing.

Holy shit! No wonder the poor guy was stressed out. There were over two hundred thousand dollars missing from the account, it seemed.

From the moment she had arrived on his doorstep, all she had wanted to do was take care of him and the boys. Noah engendered this need inside her to take care of him in every way that she could. This was one of them: providing him with relief from the avalanche of stress she knew he was carrying. One of the ways she could do that was by helping him with the books.

She was wicked smart with accounting—had even begun thinking that, with the money she was earning with Noah, she could take some online classes to get her bachelors in accounting, to add to the associates degree in accounting she already had.

Morgan located a notepad in one of the desk drawers, and began going line by line from the beginning of the books. As she did, she became lost in the numbers. Moving from one page to the next, she discovered more discrepancies. Like, where was this payment for fifty-five hundred, or this other one for thirty-seven-fifty? She made notations, recording the payments she couldn’t find that were listed in one book but not the other.

“What the hell are you doing?” Noah snarled, marching into the office.

Her head shot up from what she shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. But she stood her ground, because she wanted to help him in the worst way. “I’m helping you. It’s clear that whoever is keeping your books is reporting different things on the account.”

“Kate wouldn’t do that,” Noah stated with a dark scowl.

“Oh really? Then what about these missing charges I found here?” She shoved the notebook his way, and then crossed her arms and glared, tossing down a gauntlet she knew he wouldn’t be able to refuse.

Noah lifted the notebook up. His frown deepened. “That can’t be right.”

“Dude, it’s right here in black and white.” She waved at the books on the desk.

“But this is another hundred thousand missing from the main ledgers,” Noah stated in disbelief.

She knew the look on his face well. It was a but I trusted them not to screw me over look. She had seen it on her own face in the days and weeks following her dad’s death as she’d uncovered the debt he had amassed because of his gambling.

“Numbers don’t lie. It’s one of the reasons I like them so much. I’m not saying that the person in charge of the books has been on the take, but you do have a thief in your midst.”

“And you thought it was all right for you to come into my office and review them? How do I know you’re not the one doing it?” Noah lashed out, anger delineating every harsh angle of his face.

His accusation got her back up. She knew he was upset that someone he knew at the stables was fleecing the ranch, but still, it wasn’t her fault. “Because whoever has been doing this, has been skimming funds for a lot longer than the month I’ve been here. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself.”

Morgan rose from the desk with her head held high, vibrating with anger over his accusation that she was the one behind the embezzlement. Because at those large quantities, it was exactly that, without a doubt.

Contrite, Noah sighed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to—”

“If you don’t trust me, then we have a much bigger problem than you finding me in your office,” she replied, needing some space before she boxed his ears. Morgan had a lot of failings. She knew that, and didn’t try to pretend that she didn’t. But she wasn’t a thief, nor was she a liar.

“You trespassed where you weren’t supposed to go.”

“That may be, but I did it out of my need to take care of things for you. Whereas you’re all broody and pissy because I found something you didn’t. And because I discovered something you don’t want to hear. I know numbers. It’s what I went to school for, and why I have an associate’s degree in accounting.”

“Morgan,” Noah said, when she stormed past him toward the door.

She shot him a glance riddled with fury. “It’s my day off. I’ll be in my room. You guys can figure out dinner on your own.”

Like hell she was going to cook for him after he had the audacity to accuse her of the theft. Morgan stomped to her room, slammed the door shut behind her, and ensured that she locked the damn thing. She wanted to send a clear message to Noah that he wasn’t welcome in her room at the moment.

Needing to relax, she indulged in a long hot soak in the tub and thoroughly pampered her skin. Afterward, feeling more level-headed, she finished up her laundry and worked up an activity plan for the boys for the upcoming week. As long as she kept them busy, they stayed out of trouble—for the most part, anyhow.

She made herself a grilled cheese for dinner after Noah and the boys ate whatever it was he had cooked for them. It smelled like hotdogs. She had almost caved and gone into the kitchen when she had heard them and smelled what he had been cooking. She liked grilled hotdogs. But she refrained out of principle. Noah commanded so much from her. Because whenever he was even just in a room with her, he saturated the place with his energy.

The space tonight was needed, for both of them.

Morgan staunchly refused to go to Noah’s room that night. Even though she missed him. Even though it would be harder to sleep tonight not feeling his strong body against hers while she slept. She wasn’t going to act like a puppy that had been kicked, and returned to its master hoping for a few crumbs of attention.

She was curled up in bed with pillows propped up against the headboard, watching a comedy on the flatscreen, when there was a knock on her door. She shivered.

There was only one person who would be at her door at nine at night.

Noah.

What did he want?

She padded over to the door and wrenched it open. Her breath hitched at spying him in nothing but his boxers. She had never had anyone look at her the way Noah did. Like she was the most gorgeous woman on the planet, and he needed her in the worst way. That he would die if he didn’t have her.

He didn’t say a word, just pushed his way inside her room with his big body, towering over her, backing her up as he entered. The man even flipped the lock on the door but never stopped moving. Prowling, he stalked her way with a determined, carnal gleam in his eyes.

When her legs hit the back of the mattress, she asked, “What are you doing, Noah?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” He slapped a small tube of lubricant on the nightstand, never looking away from her face.

He seemed like a wild animal tonight, about to strike its prey and feast. Only, she was the one on the menu.

She couldn’t cave and give in. Not after what happened this afternoon. She had to be firm. “You think you can accuse me of stealing and then come here tonight? You think I’m going to allow you to touch me after that?”

Noah crowded her until their torsos were aligned, letting her feel every hard inch of him. He had a lot of inches. He towered over her with a dark glower on his stern face. “Let’s get one thing straight, sweetheart. You belong to me. I’m your Dom. At night, your body belongs to me, no matter what type of snit you are in.”

Morgan shoved against his chest and snapped, “Snit. You think this is a snit?”

“Shoe fits, sweetheart.”

She opened her mouth to blast him but he swooped in and sealed his lips over hers. With a groan, she clutched at his nude chest. The way he kissed her, like she was his whole world and he would die if he didn’t, spun her head in circles. Everything else diminished but his mouth moving over hers. When Noah kissed her, she felt it from the top of her head all the way down to her toes.

And it made her know that even when miffed with him, she couldn’t say no and push him away. Not when she yearned for him like she needed air to breathe.

Their desire for one another was atavistic.

Morgan moaned as he tilted her head back and ravished her mouth. There was no other way to describe how he parted her lips near the point of pain, until it was almost too much, and plundered with his thrusting tongue. Until all she was doing was moaning into his mouth. Her panties were drenched merely from his kiss. Her nipples gathered into pebbled points, aching for his wicked caress.

His hands, those big, calloused hands of his, drew her flimsy nightgown up. When he reached her shoulders with the material, he tore his mouth from hers and removed it the rest of the way, tossing the ivory garment behind him, uncaring of where it landed.

Before she could touch him, run her fingers over his ripped, six pack abs, he lifted her up and tossed her on the bed. It was like he was possessed tonight. She shivered at the carnal lust shrouding his features. In a smooth move, he shoved out of his boxers, then followed her down onto the bed.

His mouth sought hers as his hand skimmed down her torso to her lace panties. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers delving into his hair to hold his mouth on her. Noah ripped off the flimsy lace covering her. Parting her thighs, his fingers dipped between her folds. Stroking, circling, he teased her clit. Need clamored inside her.

She writhed beneath him. Then he pushed two fingers inside her, pumping and stretching, rubbing against the bundle of nerves that had her clawing at his back.

“Mmm,” she whimpered as she rocked her hips, taking his plunging fingers again and again.

His cock dug against her hip. She wanted it inside her, pulsing away like his fingers were. She mewled into his hungry mouth. There were no words for how Noah made her body feel when he touched her. Beautiful. Out of control. Saturated with raving need.

The swath of pleasure dragged her under. Morgan undulated, needing more, needing everything from him. It was like this every time with him. Her need for him had not diminished one bit. If anything, it had increased to mammoth proportions.

She dug her nails in as she came around his plunging, thrusting fingers. She bucked beneath him as her pussy spasmed and quaked from the force of her climax.

Noah lifted his mouth and rose. He flipped her onto her stomach before she’d had a chance to come down from her orgasm. Her head spun from the dizzying movement.

He tapped her ass. “Up on your hands and knees, sweetheart.”

The command had her moving her sluggish limbs until she was on all fours. And he was behind her, pushing into her, making her gasp as he stretched her sheath. She loved the way he felt inside her. The way he filled her to the brim with overflowing pleasure. There could be fireworks going off all around them, and she wouldn’t notice. When they were this way, connected in the most primitive level, her world narrowed down to just him. He became the sole focus of her universe, her sun and moon, night and day.

“Noah,” she moaned as he grasped her hips and set a blistering pace.

The man was fucking her brains out. He gave no quarter as he brutally thrust, exerting his dominance over her body in the most primal way imaginable. Showing her by his actions that he was in charge. She rocked her hips back, meeting his thrusts as he rode her hard.

The orgasm surprised her as it crashed through her body, ripping through her system like a comet streaking across the heavens. She wailed, “Oh god!”

As she quaked and spasmed around his plunging cock, he drew her climax out until her eyes rolled back in her head.

And then he was withdrawing, but he wasn’t finished with her yet. She felt the cool dollop of lubricant over her anus, and shivered.

“I want you to take a few deep breaths for me,” he ordered, pressing a finger into her bottom to stretch her back channel.

Morgan focused on her breathing, forcing herself to relax as he added a second and then a third finger. She knew he was preparing her to take his dick there. She did like it when he thrust his fingers or inserted his thumb or even used a plug on her, but she wasn’t sure about having his cock there.

When he removed his fingers, he replaced it with the head of his big, fat cock. “Deep breaths for me. Use your safeword if it gets to be too much.”

She nodded and bit her lip as he pressed forward slowly, past the taut ring of muscle. He inched his way inside. Pain assailed her. It felt uncomfortable and wrong. But she kept breathing.

“That’s it. Give yourself over to me, and the sensations. There are a lot of nerves I will hit once I’m fully inside.”

She couldn’t speak from the pain slicing through her. He thrust deeper and deeper. It was beyond uncomfortable, but she dug her fingers into the mattress. When it grew to a point where the pain was too intense, she opened her mouth to say her safeword. But then the sensation shifted as he slid home, his balls brushing against her clit, and he issued a guttural groan.

And god, the pleasure that flooded her… it was deeper, and more intense than anything she had experienced before.

She moaned as he withdrew and pushed back in, keeping the pace slow as her body adjusted to the intrusion.

Noah growled, “I had a feeling you would like it, my dirty girl.”

“Yes, Noah, more,” she pleaded as her pleasure increased tenfold.

Noah quickened his pace, pumping his shaft in and out of her ass. It ignited a burn that turned into an inferno.

When he realized that she was thoroughly enjoying it, he cut the reins on his control and truly began to fuck her ass. She grunted and thrust her hips back, baring her teeth as they raced toward a glistening peak of profound bliss.

He yanked her torso up so that her back was flush against his chest, never losing his furious, brutal pace.

“You are mine, Morgan. You belong to me.”

He cupped her tits and squeezed as his hips slammed into her again and again.

“Yes,” she moaned.

“Say it.”

“I’m so fucking yours, Daddy!” she wailed.

He yanked her head back and took her mouth in a vicious kiss as his hand snaked down and strummed against her clit. The combination overloaded her system. Morgan came, screaming into Noah’s mouth as he hammered her ass.

Her climax caused a chain reaction. Noah tore his mouth from hers and groaned. “Fuck, yeah!”

He held her as aftershocks ripped through them until she felt her body begin to slide into a floaty, sleepy space. Noah finally withdrew and pulled her down beside him. His arms circled her as she rested her head on his broad chest.

“I’m sorry I snooped,” she murmured sleepily.

He pressed a kiss against her forehead. “I’m not mad. I know your intentions were good. It surprised me, is all.”

“I would never take from you and the boys that way. I hope you know that you can trust me.”

“I do. And while I can’t promise I won’t get pissy from time to time, I promise to give you the benefit of the doubt going forward. Get some sleep.”

“You’ll stay with me?”

“Yeah, there’s no place I would rather be.”

At his response, her lips curled, and she sighed as she closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep, safe in the knowledge that they were okay.