Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I’ve always known what my future had in store: inheriting the family ranch and having myself a wife and kids to carry on the Sullivan name. Porter Dixon never factored into those plans. We may have spent our teenage years sneaking away to lose ourselves in each other, but he always held me at arm’s length…until the day he up and left without so much as a goodbye.
PORTER DIXON
After everything I’ve lost in my life, it’s important that I keep myself tightly guarded. Especially around Bishop Sullivan. Dad would be rolling in his grave if he found out I was shacking up with a Sullivan, given the bad blood between our families. But eleven years after leaving, I’m back in Laurel Springs with something to prove: I don’t need the Sullivans, nor their land.
Except, damn it all, Bishop has this way of burrowing under my armor. The magnetic draw between us is still too hard to ignore, and what starts out as boss and ranch hand quickly turns into stolen moments and simmering encounters that make it hard to stay angry.
I want to think that love can conquer all and tame my wild heart…but the past isn’t so easy to forget.
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Prologue
Porter
Eighteen years old
One way or another, Bishop Sullivan is gonna be the death of me.
I lean against the wood fencing around the paddock, watching him try to break Midnight, the new stock horse his dad had just brought back.
The wild boy completely ignores him, while I fight to bite back my smile. Bishop is the only one who can make me smile like this, which is going to get me into trouble one day, hence the whole he’s-gonna-be-the-death-of-me.
At least I know how to play the part no matter what goes on in secret between us. I can touch him, kiss him, make him come so hard, his eyes roll back, but he doesn’t realize it’s more to me than fucking and friendship because I don’t want him to know.
“You need some help, Bishop?” I yell at him, wishing I could call him Sully, the nickname I use when it’s just us. He’s never been as good with the horses as I am, and it’s something I never fail to tease him about.
“Fuck off,” he replies, and I chuckle quietly.
There’s just something about him that gets to me. There has been since the first time I set foot on Sullivan Ranch when I was thirteen years old. Being a cowboy is all I’ve ever wanted. It’s what my dad had wanted before he passed away five years ago, but working on the Sullivan Ranch? That’s not something I ever thought I’d do and I still feel guilty about it. How can I not, with the family history between us?
On day one, Sully had come up to me, all wide green eyes, with dirt smudged on his face. “My dad says I need to show you the ropes.”
“I don’t care what your dad says,” I’d replied, Sully’s mouth dropping open before I’d walked away. I’d always been a bit of a hothead.
It had taken Sully a week to convince me to let him show me how to do the things I’d always wanted to do anyway, and whether he knew it or not, he’d had me wrapped around his finger ever since.
When the Sullivan Ranch truck pulls down the long gravel driveway, kicking up dust as it leaves, Sully’s gaze catches mine. His dad’s truck. I still hate Sully’s father, but unlike all those years ago, whenever Mr. Sullivan leaves is when I sneak away with Sully.
Sully leaves Midnight where he is, then walks over to Wade, the ranch foreman. “I’ll be back to work with him later. I have something I gotta do.”
“Yes, sir.” Wade might be older than Sully, and he might have more experience, but he’s not Bishop Sullivan Jr., which means that to everyone except me, he’s sir or boss.
Sully heads in my direction. Without waiting for him, I turn and go to the stables, where we saddle the horses without a word, climb on, and get on our way. We know exactly where we’re going. There are a hundred different excuses we can use—working on the fence, checking on the cattle and so on—and we pretty much exhaust them all.
The ride to our freshwater stream is a good twenty minutes. We didn’t want to be alone somewhere too close to the house and risk getting caught. It’s not the only place we’ve found, but it’s our favorite—gives us a spot to rinse off the sweat a little, and sometimes, when Sully catches me on a good day, I even play around in the water with him, pretending I hate it.
We don’t talk most of the ride out. I’m not sure why. Maybe because we both know this will have to come to an end soon. There aren’t a whole lotta queer cowboys around, and even if there were, even if it’s okay, I still wouldn’t be good enough for Sully, the man set to inherit such a well-known Colorado ranch.
Our stream is tucked back into the mountain, a wall of trees and brush helping hide it from prying eyes.
The second we dismount and tie up the horses, Sully starts working my shirt open. “You hungry for it?” I ask him.
“Fuck yes.” Sully is always hungry for it. I think my cock is one of his favorite things.
He kisses my neck while unbuttoning my shirt, licking my sweat. My skin pebbles with desire, my hairs standing on end and blood rushing to my groin.
I can’t wait to bury my dick inside him, show him how much I want him. You’re betraying your dad…your family…by doing this with him.
When Dad died and Mom came to work here as a cook, I thought I would never forgive her. How could we be so close to people Dad hated? How could she work for them, when she knew and believed the rumor about our family, and when I asked, she always said it was because she had to put food on the table. As for me, no matter how much I fought it, how much I tried to keep my distance because of the same reason I’d get upset with her about, things have morphed over the years, grown and changed, where there’s nothing I like more than losing myself in Sully’s body.