Catch Me by Lorelie Brown Read Free Book Online

It’d be too much to hope that such actions boded well for the rest of the trip. Indeed, she was still shooting him dead with her eyes.
    Grabbing his knife again, he raised an eyebrow at her. “Better keep still, wildcat. I wouldn’t want to slice you up.”
    Her mouth worked behind the gag, but she didn’t try to kick him when he went to bended knee before her. The big knife sliced easily through her ankle ties. He quickly sheathed it again, and grabbed her up by the waist. After tossing her up on her own horse, he looped rawhide from the ties at her wrists to the saddle horn. He cinched them tight. If her hands turned blue, it’d be her own damn fault for fighting.
    Grabbing her reins, he swung up into his own saddle. Next to him, she grunted and squealed behind the gag. She jerked her chin at the reins.
    “What, these?” he asked, twitching the reins. “I promise I won’t hurt your mare’s mouth, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    She rolled her eyes and jerked her chin again, this time from the reins he held to her own hands.
    “You’ve lost the last ounce of your sense if you think I’m handing them over.” He didn’t sit around waiting for her death look. Picking up his own leather leads, he clucked to the gelding who’d been his closest friend for nigh on four years.
    The sooner he could get them back to Fresh Springs, the better.

Chapter Five
    Hours down the road, he led them through a grove of pines until he found a clearing. He hauled Maggie off her horse, but when the hem of her skirt caught on the stirrup, he almost lost his balance. He staggered back a step, with her plastered against him.
    Her curves fit too perfectly to his body and his jaw barely brushed the crown of her head. She’d be exactly the right height to fuck standing up, while she braced her hands against a wall and angled her hips back into his thrusts.
    How in the name of God did she smell good after hours on a horse? No identifiable perfume or flowery scent overwhelmed him, just the scent of warm clean female.
    He led her to a fallen log. “Sit.”
    She obeyed, but she didn’t look happy about it.
    “Now look,” he said as he crouched down next to her. “I’m about to take the gag out of your mouth. I’m sure you must be parched.”
    She nodded, her hair still loose about her shoulders. It was a dark, rich brown and in the sunlight there was an occasional glint of red he hadn’t noticed before.
    “You can scream all you like, but there’s no one around for miles. All you’re going to do is dry your mouth out even more.”
    Her eyes narrowed in calculation. But she must have worked the logic through, because she only nodded calmly. He slipped the knot free behind her head and offered her a canteen of water. She gulped it down greedily, a stream dribbling down her chin. He moved toward her with the bandana, but she flinched and glared at him. She wiped her mouth with her forearm.
    Dean shrugged and stuck the cloth in his back pocket.
    Finally, she lowered the canteen. He held out a strip of dried beef.
    Her lips tilted up on one side and she waggled her fingers. “I can’t take both unless you untie me.”
    He took the water from her hands and replaced it with a strip of jerky. “I’m not quite fool enough to fall for that one.”
    “No? I’m shocked.” Her straight white teeth stripped off a piece of the jerky with an unsurprising viciousness.
    Dean took a swig from the canteen, placing his lips against the same spot her smooth mouth had been. She hadn’t left him much, but at least it was still cool. He also had more attached to his saddlebags, of course. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar?”
    She chuckled as she worried at the jerky. “While I’m perfectly willing to believe you’re as nasty as a fly, by no stretch of the imagination am I trying to catch you.”
    Dean tossed the last bite of his jerky over his shoulder into the woods. “This is