BuckingHard by Darah Lace Page B

persuasion.
    He’d be a good mount. She’d heard enough over the years to
be sure of that. Hell, she knew just by watching him walk. The man did more
than walk. He sauntered and swaggered and strutted and… God, with every step
she could imagine that same strong, sure rhythm pounding into her.
    Her pussy clenched and she groaned.
    “What’s wrong?” His deep voice vibrated from inside his
chest, tingling her taut nipples.
    “Nothing.” She leaned into him under the pretext of getting
more comfortable. If she was going to seduce Mason, she couldn’t come at him
like a freight train. “I swear you always ride a bony-ass horse.”
    He shook his head, and Bradi let go of the back of the
saddle to reach for the chestnut waves below his hat. Her hand stopped short of
sampling the hair overlapping his collar. She curled her fingers into her palm.
    “What are you doing out here anyway?”
    Oh, just stalling. “I needed to talk to you about
something. And since you won’t return any of my calls, I was coming to see you.
That thing does work, doesn’t it?” She patted the cell phone holster on his hip
and laid her hand on his thigh as if it were the most natural place for her hand
to land and that touching him didn’t make her fingertips tingle.
    The hard, thick muscle covered in soft, faded denim tensed
beneath her fingers, and Rocky shifted off the trail. Mason corrected him with
a slight nudge with the opposite leg. “I’ve been busy.”
    Bradi frowned, but resisted the urge to thrum her fingers on
his thigh. Not exactly the reaction she needed to boost her courage. She hadn’t
actually set out to seduce him today. If she had, she wouldn’t have chosen this
lousy scenario. Finally telling him how she felt about him was the original
plan. But now that she’d thought about it, seducing him first might be easier. I
love you might sound better after hot and sweaty sex.
    Easier, my ass. She’d known him all her life and not
once had he ever looked at her as a woman. And maybe she wasn’t when she left
for college seven years ago. But she’d changed.
    Away from home, she didn’t have to constantly compete with
the men on the ranch or work twice as hard for their respect and approval. In
the city, and while focusing only on school—well, there were a few
parties—she’d been educated in other ways. She’d learned to embrace her
femininity. Hell, she’d reveled in it. Problem was, she couldn’t be a woman in
Grayson. Every time she came home, she fell right back into old habits and a
lifetime of insecurities.
    After a couple of semesters it became “more economical” to
get an apartment near the university instead of commuting. She’d made the
argument of how hard it was to drive back and forth and still find time to
study when in truth, it just got too hard to be one of the guys. Harder still
to watch the parade of women in Mason’s life. It seemed as if one woman slid
out of his bed as another slipped in. And each was like a burr under Bradi’s
saddle.
    She’d tried to move on, dated other guys, even pushed
herself to explore sex, hoping a physical connection with another man would
prove her longing for Mason was just a juvenile crush. She’d learned a thing or
two about who she was and what she wanted in a lover. But the ache never
subsided.
    So it was now or never. She had a decision to make about her
future, and Mason was the deciding factor. He’d either see her as a woman or he
wouldn’t, and she’d know once and for all that loving Mason Montgomery was a
lost cause.
    Resting her chin on his shoulder, she ached to strip away
his shirt and bite the smooth, tanned skin beneath, then oh so slowly lick away
the sting. “Busy, huh? I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “I don’t know. Ever since I got home, you seem busy .”
Laying her cheek against his back, she closed her eyes and inhaled. Sweat,
leather, soap and Mason—damn, she’d missed his