Wildcard by Cheyenne McCray Read Free Book Online

yanked open the freezer door, then dug out the ice cream carton.
    After grabbing a couple of clean spoons out of the dishwasher, Dee and Trace settled at the table in the breakfast nook, while Blue curled up at Dee’s feet. A peridot heart pendant sparkled at her throat, and Trace shook her head, remembering all those years ago when Dee had said she’d never wear it again.
    Incredible how things change. How people change.
    The carton made a sucking sound as Trace popped off the lid. “You bought this just because I was coming home, I’ll bet.”
    Dee stuck her spoon into the container and scooped out a spoonful. “Uh-huh.” Her gaze lighted on Trace’s left ear, and then she tilted her head and looked at Trace’s right. “Very cool. Definitely suits your sexy new image.”
    Trace shook her head and laughed. Thinking of herself as sexy was taking some getting used to.
    The sisters spent the next three hours bringing one another up to date on their lives. Dee told Trace how Jake had come back, determined to make up for lost time. “And have we ever ,” she said with a laugh.
    Trace shared with Dee all she’d done while living abroad, the places she’d been, the people she worked with, and even a little bit about Harold, the man she’d been dating for the past two years. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell Dee that she thought he was going to give her an engagement ring for Christmas.
    And she definitely couldn’t bring up the cowboy she’d met tonight. No, that was better left unsaid.
    One kiss, one night, end of story.
    But even after the sisters had hugged and said goodnight, and Trace had crawled into the four poster bed in her old bedroom, she couldn’t get Jess Lawless off her mind.
    Instead she stared up at the canopy looking at the patterns of colorful light on the white fabric that were reflected there from her tiffany lamp with the stained-glass shade. In place of the colors, she saw Jess, reliving every touch of his hands, his lips, his body.
    Trace pulled down her nightgown to free her breasts and slipped her fingers into her pussy. As she licked and sucked her own nipples, she imagined that he was watching her masturbate. Would he take his cock in hand and stroke himself as he watched her? Would it turn him on to see her fingering her own pussy and licking her nipples?
    Again she imagined that he was sliding his cock into her, filling her. It took only a few strokes of her fingers and she came. Another body wracking orgasm that she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out loud.
    She rolled over and switched off the tiffany lamp and relaxed on her pillow.
    Only a kiss, she told herself as she finally drifted off to sleep. It was only a kiss.
     

Chapter Four
    After the party, Jess headed back to the Flying M Ranch and to the foreman’s cabin behind the bunkhouse. Out of habit ingrained from years of training, he made sure the building was secure before he let himself into the small cabin. He’d installed his own security locks on the front and back doors, as well as pull-down shades at the windows, and he always chose a different means of identifying if anyone had been in his quarters in his absence. Today the almost invisible threads had still been intact at both the front and rear entrances, and he found nothing suspicious.
    Once he’d made a quick round of the living room, single bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, he slung his duster on the coat rack beside the door. He tossed his Stetson on the knobby top, where it rocked back and forth for a moment before going still.
    From out of his duster pocket he withdrew his PDA—a slim palm device. From the holster he pulled out his cell phone and switched it so that it would “hum” instead of vibrate, and then kicked back in the comfortable leather recliner in the cabin’s small living room. The room always smelled of mesquite wood from the pile stacked next to the old wood stove and of leather from the worn couch and armchairs.
    The