Bound, Branded, & Brazen by Jaci Burton Page B

her neck, licking his way down her throat. She shivered and he groaned, lifted up and drove deep, and that was all it took for her to crumble. She let out a soft cry and shattered around his cock, rocking against him with wild abandon. He moved back to her mouth and kissed her, tightening against her as he came in several hard thrusts.
    They stayed glued together like that for a long while. Valerie smoothed her hands over Mason’s sweat-soaked back, her legs locked around him like she never wanted to let him go.
    But she would let him go. This had been a onetime thing, never to be repeated.
    “I’m hungry,” he said against her neck.
    She laughed. “What time is it anyway?”
    “No clue. But I’ll bet we missed supper. Let’s go check the kitchen for leftovers.” He swung his legs over the bed and went into the bathroom for a minute, then came out and grabbed his jeans. She took a look at his leg as he got dressed. The wound wasn’t bleeding, so their sex session hadn’t affected his injury.
    He zipped his jeans and grabbed his shirt. Valerie made no move to climb out of bed or get dressed.
    “You coming?”
    She drew her knees up to her chest. “I don’t think us being seen together is a good idea.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t want people to know.”
    He sat on the bed, slid his hand up her thigh. “Val. We’ve spent the past few hours up here in your room. I think folks will make the connection.”
    She laid her head on her knees. “Damn.”
    “Hey, maybe I’m not a movie star, but I’m hardly ugly enough to have to put a bag over my head when you fuck me.”
    She laughed and raised her head to look at him. “That’s not at all what I meant. It’s just that people will assume we’re back together.”
    “And we’re not.”
    She knew it would come to this—she was going to hurt him again. “No, Mason, we’re not.”
    “So you just want to meet me in dark corners and fuck me?”
    She snorted. “Uh . . .”
    His hand drifted up her thigh, and her body flushed with heat and desire.
    “I think you worry way too much about what people think. But if you want to use me like a sex toy, then that’s just between us and nobody else’s business.”
    That wasn’t at all the Mason she used to know. “So that’s what we’re down to? Just sex?”
    He shrugged. “You’re the one setting the ground rules, darlin’. I like a good fuck just as well as anyone else. And we’re damn good in bed together.”
    She blew out a breath. He was right about that. “And you’d be all right with that? With it just being about the sex?”
    “If you are.”
    Could she be? If Mason was, she supposed she could be, too. God knows there wasn’t enough sex in her life, and when she got back to Dallas there’d be no time for it. Why not enjoy it with a man she had such incredible chemistry with, while she had the chance? “You’re on.”
    “Okay, then.” He stood, pulled off his shirt and unzipped his jeans, letting them fall to the floor.
    “What are you doing?” she asked as he climbed onto the bed and pulled her on top of him.
    “Getting started.”
    “I thought you were hungry.”
    He drew her body up so her nipple teased his bottom lip. He grinned up at her. “I am. We have two years of lost sex to catch up on. We can have food later.”

eight
    according to jolene, mason’s injury was the big news around the neighboring ranches for the next several days. Though Valerie had no idea why it was such a big deal. Mason seemed to heal fast; in fact, the next day he had been back to work riding his horse and herding cattle, as if nothing had happened to him.
    Truth be told, she probably had overreacted. So had Jolene, who admitted being freaked out by seeing the shock of crimson spreading from his jeans. But Valerie assured her sister she’d done the right thing by coming to get her. There was no way to know how bad Mason had been hurt, and like a lot of ranching men, Mason would have tried to brush her