Free Donovan's Bed: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 1 by Debra Mullins

don’t take kindly to no Jezebel sniffin’ around my husband.”
    The insult stung. “Believe me, Bessie, I wouldn’t dare come between you and Donovan.” Beneath the desk, hard fingers pinched her calf. She kicked in retaliation, only to have her foot imprisoned in a strong palm.
    “See that you don’t,” Bessie huffed. “And don’t you be goin’ around callin’ him Donovan, you hear? His name is Mr . Donovan to you!”
    “Mr. Donovan,” Sarah muttered as she felt her shoe slide from her foot.
    “That’s right. And I’ll be Mrs. Donovan, soon as we find that…soon as we find my darling man.” Bessie smiled, revealing yellowed teeth in dire need of a scrubbing.
    “You’ll tell us if you see him, won’t ya, Miss Sarah?” Buford asked.
    Out of sight of the Beaumonts, one masculine finger slowly traced the sole of her stockinged foot from heel to toes. Heat streaked through her body and knocked every sensible thought from her head.
    “Yes-s-s-s-s-s,” Sarah all but moaned.
    “Thank you kindly, Miss Sarah,” Buford said as he and his brothers turned to leave.
    Bessie marched up to the desk just as the rascal underneath it slipped off Sarah’s other shoe and began to rub both her feet with warm, powerful fingers. His thumbs pressed into the arches, and his hands massaged and squeezed the tender flesh.
    “I got my eye on you,” Bessie announced dramatically. She leaned on the desk and shook a finger in Sarah’s face. “You see to it you keep your distance from my husband.”
    Lean hands slid up her calves and kneaded the muscles there. Sarah could only nod at Bessie’s warning, lest a moan of pleasure escape her lips instead of words.
    “Come on, Bessie.” Ben took his sister by the arm. “Maybe he went by the saloon. We’ll find him.”
    “You mind what I said,” Bessie warned just before her brothers pulled her out the door.
    The second they were gone, Sarah shoved back her chair and stood, anger simmering along with passion through her veins. “They’re gone. You can go now.”
    He clambered out from beneath the desk and got to his feet, watching her with smoldering dark eyes. “I figure I’m not in much of a hurry.”
    The low timbre of his voice made her pulse skip, but the Beaumonts’ crudeness had reminded her of her resolve to resist the untamed side of herself. “If you hurry, you can slip out before they see you.”
    “You trying to get rid of me, sassy girl?” He cocked his head to the side. “After the way you all but crawled up inside me before?”
    “Get out.” She pointed a finger at the door. “Get out now.”
    “You started this.” Anger tinged his voice and sent a warning that she rashly ignored.
    “No, you started this, you with your precious list. I told you that you can’t choose a wife the way you would a brood mare, but you didn’t listen.”
    “ You’re the one who wrote the article that has every woman in Wyoming tracking me like a horse thief,” he retorted. “I can’t turn around anymore without finding some woman mooning after me or fainting in my path or even trying to seduce me!”
    “You poor thing,” she sneered.
    “You got mad when I told you that you weren’t the sort of woman I intend to marry. You wrote that article because of a temper tantrum!”
    Sarah fisted her hands. “That’s right, you lowdown polecat. You told me straight to my face that I was good enough for you to take to bed, but not good enough to make your wife. I imagine the whole town told you about the scandal, and that made you think I was an easy mark.”
    “I never thought you were an easy mark, and I never listen to gossip,” he snapped back. “I told you, I can’t marry a woman with a job. I need to marry a woman who will give all her attention to being a wife and mother. We both know that’s not you, Sarah, no matter how hot we get each other.”
    “You said I’m not good enough to be your wife,” she repeated. “So I’ll thank you not to be putting