ShotgunRelations Read online

  Shotgun Relations

  Ann Jacobs

  Book two in the Caden Kink series.

  A modern-day Liberty Valance meets The Big Valley.

  Jack Duval, country lawyer and bastard son of the Caden patriarch, first discovers rancher Liz Wolfe when he goes after her to spite his father. Soon, though, he learns she’s the submissive partner of his wildest fantasies.

  But rustlers and murderers interrupt their hot BDSM play, and Jack must reveal secrets that may tear the two apart before he and Liz can move on to the next step toward happily ever after.

  SHOTGUN RELATIONS

  Ann Jacobs

  Chapter One

  The only time he’d been here before, Jack Duval hadn’t fully noticed the unabashed opulence of the huge Bar C ranch house with its Grecian columns and manicured grounds, but then he’d come for a burial, not a wedding. His asshole father had obviously pulled out all the stops today to celebrate his legitimate heir’s marriage. This shindig was likely costing Byron Caden the Fourth more than the paltry trust fund the jerk had settled on Jack’s mother and him when he’d kissed them both off not long ago.

  Jack would bet it had burned the elder Caden’s balls to invite him here today, but after all he did share a law office in town with his half-brother’s not-so-blushing bride. Of course he’d have been here as Liz Wolfe’s date for the affair anyway, whether or not he’d had his own invitation. He made a point of taking Liz’s hand and squeezing it, and when he did she looked over at him and smiled. That smile was a shy but unmistakable invitation, and he could hardly wait to accept it.

  Tempering his impatience, he reminded himself that she wasn’t one of his BDSM playmates and they’d only had a few dinner dates and seen a couple of movies together over the past few months. Jack did enjoy being with her though—a lot. She had a way of making him forget the reason he’d initially put the moves on her.

  Liz was a girl who looked best in jeans and a cowboy hat, with her thick, light-brown hair put up in a ponytail. Or in the black embroidered skirt and low-cut matching top she’d worn with black cowboy boots last night, when they’d danced and drunk some beer at The Corral. Today she seemed out of place, dressed up in her wedding-guest finery. He didn’t much like her turned-under pageboy hairdo or the floppy pink wide-brimmed hat that shadowed her face, and the best thing he could think of doing with her insipid silky pink dress was ripping it off her tall, slender frame.

  What turned Jack on the most about Liz was the needy, longing look in her big brown eyes. Jack was eager to cash in on that need and make her focus it on him.

  Bye was kissing his bride now. Jack couldn’t help remembering the night when he’d played with the two of them at the Neon Lasso, or getting an instant hard-on at the memory of fucking Karen’s tight ass while Bye had claimed her cunt with his oversize dick. Good thing Jack wasn’t quite as well-endowed as the guy he’d learned not long after that scene was his younger, bigger and tougher half sibling, only from the right side of the blanket. If he were, he’d be pretty much out of luck finding partners to butt-fuck, and that was one of his favorite ways to pleasure a sub of either sex.

  Discovering their blood relationship had ended the possibility of him and Bye having more pleasurable threesomes—not that Jack thought Bye would have shared Karen again once they’d begun to see each other as more than favorite playmates at the club. The two seemed positively, sickeningly attached at the hip, no longer interested in watching, much less playing sex games at the club.

  “Look, Jack. Karen looks so pretty, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bye looking quite this happy.”

  Karen was a beauty whether she had on white lace or nothing. Part of Jack wished Liz was the kind of woman strangers turned and stared at when she was at his side, but then he’d figured out years ago that most truly hot women weren’t as submissive as he needed a partner to be.

  Bye had a sappy grin on his face as he and Karen moved from the altar toward the porch, where Jack assumed they’d greet their guests. He didn’t intend to let any woman tie him up in knots, although he could be persuaded to hook up with one if she brought him not only pleasure in the sack but also an easy friendship outside the bedroom. Since he didn’t have the prospect of inheriting a fortune from his old man, a big pot of money would be icing on the cake.

  He smiled down at Liz. It just might be that she’d fill the bill. “Yeah. Karen and Bye look good together. Shall we make our way over to where they’ve set up for the reception?”

  “We probably should. They may not have places assigned at the tables.”

  If Karen had assigned places to all the guests, Jack figured they would probably be seated next to Liz’s mother and whoever she was paired up with, unless his old man had snagged Mavis Wolfe to be his partner at the head table. Jack herded Liz along the white-carpeted aisle.

  Tonight will be the night she’ll submit to me, he thought, taking into consideration the emotions weddings seemed to bring out in most women. “We’ll skip the receiving line if you don’t mind.”

  Her eyes widened. “We can’t do that. I have to say hello to Bye. We went to school together, from kindergarten through high school.”

  “All right.” It was a wonder Bye hadn’t latched on to Liz. Jack’s research into the Caden family’s history had revealed that Bye was the first Caden male to marry any woman who hadn’t brought with her a nice chunk of adjacent land to the Bar C. Of course Karen might eventually contribute a little acreage once her crazy, drunk old man kicked off, but that was no sure thing considering the way Slade Oakley hated everybody named Caden.

  Slade seemed docile enough now, but Jack figured the rehab center attendants who’d come with him were keeping him zonked out of his gourd, or else he’d be shooting guns instead of shuffling along meekly between two burly guys wearing institutional-looking gray slacks and navy blazers. A nicely dressed woman—a shrink, probably—tailed them almost closer than was polite.

  Forcing a neutral smile, Jack put his hand at the back of Liz’s waist and they took spots behind Slade and his entourage in the long line waiting to shake Bye’s hand and kiss the latest Bar C bride.

  * * * * *

  Seeing Bye look at Karen as though she’d hung the moon made Liz yearn for Jack to look at her that way, but she doubted that would happen. She’d settle for the good companionship and mutual respect she’d found with him.

  The hell she would. She wanted him to look at her with passion the way her good friend was gazing down on his bride. Sometimes Liz had thought for a fleeting moment that she saw desire in Jack’s dark eyes, but it hadn’t materialized into anything concrete.

  She loved the way he held her when they danced, with total self-confidence. He had a way of making her feel possessed, cared for, his touch not tentative yet not overtly sexual either. Jack Duval acted the perfect gentleman—the conservative lawyer whose outer façade she wanted to strip away.

  Once it was gone she sensed he’d become a different man—a lover neither conservative nor gentlemanly. She was anxious for that time to come when he’d show her the mastery that so far he’d revealed only in occasional hints.

  “Let’s go home now,” Jack suggested after they’d eaten and danced a few times—almost the moment after Bye and Karen had sneaked away to the Bar C’s airstrip to begin their honeymoon.

  Liz didn’t mind. She didn’t know whether it had been the effect of the wedding itself or the equivalent of a bottle or so of French champagne she’d drunk in toast after toast to Bye and Karen, but her skin tingled everywhere Jack had touched her and even where he’d just brushed up against her when they’d danced.

  She wanted him, and she wanted him to know it. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t at all sure his feelings for her
went beyond mild affection—and possibly a desire to tap into the wealth of the Laughing Wolf, as her ranch foreman had suggested earlier, before Jack had picked her up for the wedding. She wanted him to take care of her needy pussy. She was tired of acting prim and proper, the way her mother expected her to, and she was sick that her social life for the past few years had been confined to sharing a beer with the cowboys after long days herding cattle and riding fences.

  Jack’s body heat called out to her, so she answered by scrunching up as close to him as she could get. The center console of his Toyota Camry dug into her hip. So he couldn’t mistake her intentions, she rested her hand dangerously close to his crotch, wishing she had the nerve to come right out and ask him to fuck her.

  Apparently she didn’t need to say the words, because Jack reached over and stroked her inner thigh as he turned toward town instead of heading straight for the Laughing Wolf. “How about us stopping by my place for a nightcap?”

  “I’d love to. Mmm. That feels good.” Feeling daring, she moved her hand up to his crotch.

  When her fingers grazed his balls through the tropical-weight wool of his gray pinstriped suit pants, he chuckled. “You’re playing with fire, honey.”

  She wanted to get burned, so she found his erection and wrapped her fingers around it. “I’m tired of being good. I can take the heat.”

  “You sure? If you play with me, you’re gonna get fucked six ways from Sunday. I’m not one of your vanilla boyfriends who’ll let you lead him around by the nose.” He paused, a thoughtful look on his handsome face. “If we’re going to play, you’ve got to change the limits. I want everything, not just the few kisses and hugs you’ve let me have so far. And not just a quick roll between the sheets either.”

  Liz wanted it all, even though she wasn’t sure what “all” might entail. “Believe me. I want to be as happy as Karen looked tonight. All the limits are off, for you.”

  Jack pulled into the driveway of the small, contemporary house he’d bought shortly after setting up his practice here in Caden, Texas. “All of them? Do you know what you’re saying?”

  “I know.” She might not know exactly what he meant, but she knew she wanted to break out of the safe, boring life she’d been leading for most of her twenty-eight years.

  “What if I take a notion to tie you up and tickle you or spank you until your butt turns red?” The light from his porch was pretty dim but she saw the gleam in his eyes and the hard set of his jaw.

  The idea of some light BDSM play made her pussy clench with anticipation. “I trust you, Jack.” When he slid his hand up and cupped her mound, she spread her legs to give him better access.

  “Then let’s go inside and play. But we have to talk first. You have to understand what I need from my lover. I’m not an easy sort of guy.”

  * * * * *

  Liz didn’t understand why Jack had sat her down on the black leather sectional sofa that dominated his living room and immediately excused himself to fix snacks she doubted either of them could eat. She was stuffed from the sumptuous three-course meal they’d eaten at the wedding reception and her head was still buzzing. No doubt she’d had too much of the free-flowing Moët champagne while repeatedly toasting Bye and his bride.

  Like Jack himself, his living room seemed conventional and scholarly, much like his law office above The Corral. Off-white walls and golden oak floors contrasted with the black sofa and black-and-chrome furniture. The few splashes of blood red on a predominantly black abstract painting on one wall seemed out of character with the rest of the décor. The only other color was in a multicolored afghan draped over a lone, very old-looking straight chair against the wall.

  Damn it to hell. She didn’t want Jack to be the dutiful host. She wanted him to take her to his bed and fuck her brains out.

  It may have taken her a few dates to figure it out, but she knew now. She wanted the hot young lawyer who supposedly got his rocks off at the sex club called the Neon Lasso. She’d enjoy him as long as she could, even knowing he was more than she could expect to hold on to for more than a brief affair.

  When she looked in the large mirror on the far wall, she confirmed the likelihood that was true. A woman who wasn’t ugly but was certainly no beauty stared back at her, reinforcing what she’d first realized when she was twelve years old. At five-eight then, she’d towered over everybody in their middle school class except her friend, Bye Caden, who’d already been over six feet tall. Since then she’d stopped growing up, but she’d never really lost her lanky, colt-like body and was still too tall to wear stilettos around ninety percent of the men she knew.

  Including Jack. From a distance he’d looked tall as well as hot as hell with his arresting almost black eyes, strong nose and stubborn jaw. She’d first singled him out at The Corral a year or so ago because he wore his dark-brown hair in what she thought was called a high-and-tight. Shaved down to nothing but a dark shadow except for the horseshoe-shaped ring of crisp, slightly darker stubble around the crown of his perfectly shaped skull, it was as military-short as that of any Marine she’d ever seen on recruiting posters. She liked the no-nonsense, take-charge look of that haircut, which looked out of place with his conventional suit and tie and the businesslike black briefcase he carried. Tell the truth, she’d been itching ever since that day to feel that intriguing, dark stubble against her skin so she could learn if it felt smooth or scratchy.

  Jack obviously hadn’t noticed her at all back then. He hadn’t paid her an ounce of attention until a few months ago, when he’d surprisingly come on to her at the local watering hole and barbecue joint that was the only place to get a beer or something to eat in tiny Caden.

  When he’d come up and stood beside her at the bar, she’d realized he wasn’t nearly as big as he’d looked from a distance. He stood maybe half an inch below six feet, only the height of a pair of modest heels taller than she was. That hadn’t mattered though. He was still the hottest man she’d ever laid eyes on and he’d made it clear that when he was with her he’d be the one in charge. She needed a man to take charge in a relationship, since she was the one who’d had to call the shots at the Laughing Wolf since coming back from college six years ago.

  She stared down at her pink ballet slippers. They weren’t the least bit sexy. She’d chosen them so she could look up at Jack. Men were supposed to get turned on when they felt strong and protective. Of course they were also supposed to get hot over big boobs and hourglass shapes, and she didn’t have either. The nicest compliment she’d ever been given was that she should have become a runway model, and nobody in her right mind would think those bags of bones were sexy. Liz sighed, crossed and uncrossed her legs and wondered when the hell Jack was coming back in here to let her down.

  It was obvious to her that he’d had second thoughts about fucking her. Nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, she adjusted her pink chiffon skirt. It had looked so flirty on the model in the designer salon at Neiman Marcus when she’d bought it in Dallas last month, but had garnered her not one single compliment today.

  “How about getting more comfortable? There’s a robe like this one on the hook in the powder room over there.” Jack had changed from his suit into a black silk kimono that reached halfway down muscular thighs dusted with short, black hair. It had red and gold embroidery on the back—a dragon, she thought.

  She smiled when she noticed what looked like a raging hard-on tenting the thin material. Her mouth watered and she wondered if he was wearing anything at all underneath the kimono. So much for worrying that he’d decided he didn’t want to fuck her.

  She stood and started toward the door he’d indicated, then she noticed the tray he’d set on the cocktail table held not conventional snacks but a couple of feathers, four neckties, a handful of wrapped condoms and a miscellaneous collection of bottles in various shapes and colors. One of the bottles caught her eye. It was a full honey bear with a red cap and a grin on its sassy, painted face. “What?”

&nbsp
; “They’re flavor enhancers for the main course.” He sounded amused, as though he thought she might not have the vaguest idea what he meant by “main course”. She did, and her pussy tingled when she imagined him lapping the honey from it.

  Imagining how that honey might taste when she licked it off the head of Jack’s cock, she smiled as she opened the bathroom door and saw the kimono he’d mentioned. “I’ll be right back.”

  With trembling fingers, she unzipped her dress and let it drop to the floor. For a few seconds she hesitated, then she took off her bra and panties as well. I might as well live dangerously. It’s not as though I didn’t practically beg him to fuck me. Or as if I’ll be the only one of us who’s naked under skimpy black silk.

  She belted the kimono around her waist and looked in the mirror. It barely covered her pussy. If she moved at all Jack would get an eyeful of her pubes. Oh well, he’d see them soon enough anyway. And her barely-there breasts. Sighing, she headed out of the bathroom, back to him.

  Her fierce desire for sex with him trumped her fear that she wasn’t woman enough to grab him and hold on.

  * * * * *

  “Come here.” Jack patted the spot beside him on the sofa, not sure whether Liz would obey or make a beeline for the front door.

  The tentative smile she gave him when she sat down told him better than words that she wasn’t too sure about this. He’d heard that submission could help to overcome inferiority complexes and social phobias, and he hoped that would prove true with Liz. She reminded him of the black-eyed Susans that sprang up along Texas roadsides, sturdy on the surface yet with a stem that bent easily in the wind. He didn’t intend to snap that fragile foundation by going too fast.

  He took her hand and laid it on his bare thigh. “What do you know about BDSM play?”

  “Not a lot, other than what I’ve read in books.” She paused, as though considering whether to say more. “I’ve heard rumors that you play at the Neon Lasso.”