Free Embraced by Carolyn Faulkner

rider, and, according to him, was practically born on a horse. Secretly, Meg thought his mother might have had some objection to that, but she kept quiet. He moved like a centaur, he and the horse thinking and moving alike.
    Well, Meg thought wryly, she could definitely see him thinking like a horse . . .

    He dismounted and walked toward her, disreputable Stetson crammed down on his head, jeans dirty and mucky, shirt ripped in several places, and caked with blood.

    Blood? Meg quickened her step toward him when she noticed the dried red splotches on his shirt. “Barrett, are you all

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    BacksideOfLove.com

    Embraced

    right?” she asked, turning a concerned face up to him while her hand touched his chest lightly. “Are you hurt?”

    “Right as rain, Sweetie. These little cuts are nothin’ to worry about,” he bent down and covered her lips with his, eliciting catcalls and howls from the men who were still working around him.

    She was far from convinced about the cuts, but let him corral her to his side with his right arm. She smelled clean of soap and perfume in the midst of horse and leather and cow. They walked to the truck, and she produced the food. His eyes bugged and his mouth watered at the same time. “I forgot my lunch.”

    “I know. I remembered.”

    Their lunch was peaceful, Barrett eating three sandwiches to her half, and devouring the entire piece of coffeecake with lots of lip smacking and groans of delight. “You could sell this, Honey, and beat the pants off Sarah Lee,” he complimented, and she blushed. When he was done and she’d packed everything away, he leaned against the truck and pulled her between his legs to lean her back to his front. They fit together perfectly that way, both sighing contentedly at exactly the same moment, laughing together at their synchronicity.

    “Well, much as I don’t want to,” he made as if to get up, but Meg’s hand on his stomach stopped him.

    “Aren’t you going to see to those cuts, Barrett? What if they get infected?”

    He was pleasantly surprised at her concern. “Well, I doubt they will . . .”

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    BacksideOfLove.com

    Carolyn Faulkner

    She was already tugging him toward the cab of the truck.
    “You come back to the house with me and I’ll clean them up.”

    Barrett gave in more out of curiosity than necessity. “We’ll have to take Blue – I don’t want to drive the truck back onto the range.” He swung easily up into the saddle and hauled her up in front of him, yelling to his foreman that he’d be back shortly. The trip back to the house was conducted at an enforced, leisurely walk, because Barrett wouldn’t allow the horse to go any faster. He was enjoying the feel of her in his arms too much to rush it. Blue didn’t need any directions on how to get back to the barn, so he gave the horse his head and concentrated on how wonderful her breasts felt as the bobbed gently against his forearm. His mouth wandered from the line of her jaw down her bare neck, tongue drawing a wet line to her collarbone where he stopped to suck. Meg arched her back and nearly fell off, and then Barrett nearly fell off laughing at her.

    The site of her 6’3” brother being lead docilely by hand through the kitchen door by her much smaller best friend left Mandy with her jaw on the floor. Barrett grinned broadly and put his finger over his lips so that she wouldn’t mention in passing to Meagan that her brother regularly worked with much more serious injuries, and allowed himself to be lead down the hall by someone who seemed to be a frustrated Florence Nightingale.

    She would have taken him into her bathroom, but he vetoed that. “My bathroom is more comfortable for two people,” he suggested. Meg had never seen his bedroom, as far as he knew.
    He opened the door for her, then showed her to the lavatory, where he sat at a chair that used to be his mother’s as a part of her vanity.
    All she got was a quick view of a huge king sized