His Ranch, His Rules Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Epilogue

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  His Ranch, His Rules

  By

  Shanna Handel

  Copyright © 2018 by Stormy Night Publications and Shanna Handel

  Copyright © 2018 by Stormy Night Publications and Shanna Handel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Stormy Night Publications and Design, LLC.

  www.StormyNightPublications.com

  Handel, Shanna

  His Ranch, His Rules

  Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson

  Images by iStock/4x6 and Shutterstock/Thonephoto

  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults.

  Prologue

  His dark hair fell over his eyes, trailing over the skin of my bare belly. A quiver of anticipation ran through me as his teeth nipped at my bare skin. As he ran the tip of his tongue around my navel, I shivered, a delicious mix of anticipation and desire.

  Ice blue eyes locked on mine as he grinned, clearly amused by my propensity for ticklishness. Whenever I was driving, Jake loved to raise his fingertips to me in a threat of an attack to my ribs just to watch me squeal and panic. And he loved the power he held over me in bed.

  There was a tug at the button of my high-waisted jeans, my core melting and becoming heavy as he peeled down the denim, revealing the bare shaved skin that hid beneath. Jake insisted on a smooth pussy—and no panties. When I was with Jake, nothing got between me and my Rag & Bones.

  Kneeling between my legs at the foot of the bed, Jake flashed me that devilish smile that would have melted my panties off—had I been wearing any—and threw my two-hundred-dollar jeans over his shoulder. Raising one dark brow at me, his fingertips trailed up my leg.

  I knew the next words he would ask. Goosebumps rose on my arms, my nipples tightening underneath my thin, silk bra, my body tensed, ready to hear the name of the little game he liked to play with me. A cocky smirk crossed his face as he watched my expression—I’m sure it was practically begging for him to ask the question.

  Finally, he said the words I longed to hear. “What’s it going to be, Gigi? Sweet or dirty?”

  “Sweet,” I whispered, my entire body humming with tension, begging for his expert touch.

  His fingertip made its way up my leg, stopping at the top of my thigh. He began tracing a lazy pattern of figure eights—inches from my sweet spot.

  My hips wiggled expectantly.

  “I don’t know. You seem a bit… impatient. I think someone deserves a little dirty tonight.”

  “But I picked sweet,” I protested, pouting and rubbing my foot against his thigh, my legs falling open. His gaze rest on my exposed pussy, his hand moving toward me. My hips arched in the air, longing for his touch.

  Uniting his middle finger and index finger, he brought them to the entrance of my pussy.

  I quivered in anticipation as he teased me, pressing his fingers in just a touch, then out again.

  “Say please,” he growled.

  “Please, please, pretty please,” I begged. My body no longer seemed under my control, my hips gyrated, trying to gain some purchase on his long, perfectly formed fingers.

  My breath caught in my throat in a gasp as he savagely pushed within me, the line between pain and pleasure completely blurred. His fingers curling around my sheath and doing that thrusting, hooking thing he did that made me scream.

  And scream I did as his dark hair fell over me, his mouth cupping around my sex. With his fingers fucking me, he sucked and licked, hard, around my clit, but never touched it.

  “God, please, Jake, please,” I whimpered, my hands twining in his hair, my thighs quivering.

  He paused. “You’re such a dirty girl, Gigi. Not a sweet bone in your sexy little body.” My eyes shut tight as his fingers reached up, pinching my nipple hard, until I gasped. He went back to work, whispering, “Let’s see if we can find this little peach’s G-G spot.”

  My core tightened as white stars formed behind my lids. My entire body exploded with the orgasm that had been building from within. A final shudder ran through my body.

  I opened my eyes.

  Alone. The fantasy of my ex-boyfriend’s games dissolved from my mind. Jake wasn’t there and I was alone in bed—as I had been every night for six months. Since the breakup.

  Luckily for me I had my pink and purple pearlescent Jackrabbit 2000 vibrator that I had bought to replace Jake. The top drawer of the nightstand gave its usual squeak as I returned the vibrator. I’m sure my roommate didn’t hear it squeak, but to me that tiny protest from the slides of the drawer were declaring to the world, Lonely loser dumped ex-girlfriend just finished a masturbation session with her dildo, everyone! And guess who the pathetic woman is still fantasizing about—that’s right—the man who dumped her in her favorite restaurant.

  I cleaned it, hiding it under a stack of magazines and closed the drawer. Tears were burning at the backs of my eyes as the loneliness settled in. My boyfriend, the love of my life—my everything—Jake’s last words to me were ringing in my ears, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

  Rolling over, I punched my pillow, pressing my tearstained face into the cool sheet.

  Jake might have been a terrible boyfriend in the end, but damn, that man knew how to fuck.

  Chapter One

  One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor…

  Those were the last words I remember hearing before blacking out.

  It had been just another night at Freddy’s Western Tavern. Me, having flung my head back, pouring the gold liquid down my burning throat one too many times. I had partaken in a clumsy game of pool, an hour of drunken line dancing, and flirted with my fair share of men who probably didn’t look as cute in the daylight as they did in that dimly lit, stale-smelling bar.

  Laughing and smiling and flirting the night away.

  Numbing the constant pain that pulsed within me like a heartbeat. Pushing down the feeling that had ruled the last half a year of my life—that I was dying inside.

  It hadn’t always been this way. But six months ago, my boyfriend of four years—Jake—had up and left me. I was sure that we were soulmates, destined to be together forever. Sure, he could be an arrogant jerk at times, but over the past four years I had built my entire life around him. And now that life I had so painstakingly built had come crashing down around me.

  The tequila couldn’t mend the pieces of my broken heart, but it could dull the pain. Letting me pretend—for a few hours every night at least—that I was whole. Giving me a tiny respite from the constant realization that we were over.

  But then the morning came.

  Between the pounding in my temples, the dry taste in my mouth, and the sudden terrifying realization that I could not remember anything past that last shot of alcohol, my stomach roiled. Springing from my disheveled bed, I flew to the bathroom.

  After emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet, I lay on the floor, pathetically groaning and pressing my face against the cool white tiles.

  “Knock, knock!” There was a loud banging on the door to accompany the angry yelling. I managed to scoo
t away from the bottom edge of the door just seconds before it came flying open, stopping right where my face had been lying on the floor.

  I groaned again. I couldn’t face her. Not after last night.

  “What the heck, Georgia? Why is Freddy calling me one more time to pick your drunk ass up from the Tavern? I told you last week it was the last time. What has gotten into you?”

  Peeking up from underneath the shield of dark hair that had fallen over my eyes, I took in Regina’s stormy face. Her cheeks were as red as her hair. She was furious—livid.

  Humiliation made the words impossible to form, but I had to know. “What happened last night?” I asked, my voice raspy.

  Rolling her eyes, she crossed her arms over her chest, exhaling huffily. “Same thing as always, Georgia. You promise me you are only going to have one drink, you go to the Tavern, get randoms to buy you shots, black out on the floor of the bar, and Freddy calls me—the only person in the state of Idaho who feels sorry enough for you—to come pick you up. It was disgusting, Georgia. And by the way, Freddy says you can’t come back. So, congratulations. You are officially the first person I’ve ever known to actually be banned from a bar.”

  I said the words that seemed to be coming out of my mouth the most frequently over the last few months. “I’m sorry.”

  Tears stung at the backs of my eyes and my throat burned.

  Her gray eyes darkened as she stared down at me. Her words came out in a whisper as she spoke. “It’s not enough, Georgia. I can’t be responsible for you anymore. I have my own life to live. Look—I hate to say this, and I’ve put a lot of thought into it, but you have to move out. You have until the end of next month.” Her face disappeared from my view on the floor as she stood to go.

  My eyes squeezed shut tightly as the door closed with a soft click. One tear rolled down my cheek, dripping onto the tile floor.

  * * *

  How can it possibly be Friday? Last night was too busy at Freddy’s to be a Thursday, wasn’t it? After throwing up my guts and receiving my verbal eviction notice, I thought I could flop back in bed for a lazy Saturday. Wanting to wallow in my sorrows, I lay on the bed, staring at my phone. And saw that the screen said it was Friday, not Saturday, and I had fifteen minutes before I had to be at work.

  “I’m never going to make it in time,” I mumbled to myself as I downed a glass of water with two headache pills. The cold water hit my empty stomach and the nausea returned. “Ugh—I’m disgusting.” I brushed my teeth ten times trying to get the taste of last night out of my mouth. I dug through piles of dirty clothes, hoping for a clean shirt. Holding up a dusty rose-colored one that wasn’t too wrinkled, I tugged it over my head. Pulling my long hair up into a high ponytail, I assessed my face in the mirror.

  The circles under my hazel eyes were dark, almost as dark as my hair and even darker from yesterday’s makeup that had run all around my eyes. I scrubbed at my face with a hot washcloth. Opening the medicine cabinet behind the mirror, I grabbed a tube of concealer and mascara. Focused on my reflection, I tried to brighten my eyes and paint away the traces of the night before.

  After four swipes of concealer under my eyes and three coats of mascara, I assessed the mirror. “Good, not great,” I murmured. Unable to achieve the wide-eyed—I remember crawling in bed and going to sleep last night—look, I finally sighed and gave up. “It is what it is,” I told my reflection. “Now you better get going. You don’t want to add jobless to the impressive list of titles you’ve managed to accrue in the last twenty-four hours—banned from a bar, and homeless.”

  Applying a generous dose of perfume, I grabbed my bag and tripped out the door.

  The five-block walk through downtown Boise was exactly what I needed to sober up. Thank goodness it was overcast this morning. If the sun had been beating down on me I probably would have had to stop and throw up in the bushes. Classy lady that I was.

  I reached the pink and white awnings of the Vet and Pet Day Spa. My place of employment and Boise, Idaho’s premier pet care facility. We offered any and every service your furry friend may need. Except vacation boarding. My boss, Darlene insisted on being closed over the weekends.

  “Not too bad,” I mumbled, looking up at the poufy tail of the poodle clock to see I was only twenty minutes late. In the past months I had come rolling in much later—on several occasions.

  Grabbing a clean set of blue scrubs in a size medium, I ducked into the bathroom to change. For once I was glad about Darlene’s type A personality and the fact she kept the scrubs at work to be professionally cleaned.

  I desperately needed to hit a laundromat. Suds ‘n Duds was my favorite. You could have a beer—or three—while your clothes tumbled around in fluffy white bubbles.

  As I changed clothes, Regina’s words rang in my mind, I can’t be responsible for you anymore. Remembering the disappointed look on her face, and the fact that I had nowhere to live in six short weeks, my stomach tied up in knots.

  Shoving the thought from my mind, I made my way to check in with our perfect and perky receptionist, Janice.

  “You’re late, again, Georgia,” she hissed through her blindingly white teeth while clicking a long pink manicured nail against the screen of her phone. “Your first appointment is waiting for you in room one.” Shooting me a look of utter disdain, she handed me a green file marked, ‘Fluffy Barker.’

  “Thanks for covering, Janice. I promise it won’t happen again,” I muttered, taking the file and hurrying away from her desk.

  “Doubtful,” she said with a roll of her eyes. Janice could be kind of a pain, but she hadn’t yet ratted me out to Darlene over my many tardy arrivals.

  I think she felt sorry for me—she had met Jake and was crushed when he broke it off. She had called him eye candy and perked up whenever he came in to work to see me, which I think was a total of two times. Once to borrow a twenty and the other to get my house keys.

  Reaching room one, my hand rested on the doorknob. The world still a little dizzy, I took a deep breath, steadying myself. Pasting a bright Vet and Pet Spa smile on my face, I opened the door.

  “Welcome, Mrs. Barker and Fluffy,” I said as brightly as I could muster. “I’m Georgia, the vet tech who will be working with you today.”

  A woman with freshly done highlights and a round pregnant belly looked up at me, her eyes roving over me suspiciously. In her lap she held a white, long-haired Persian with bright blue eyes that must be Fluffy. Her arms were wound so protectively around the cat I couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to be one of those moms that would let people look at her newborn, but never hold it.

  Her own matching azure eyes widened at my words. “A vet tech? No offense, but I thought I was going to see a real veterinarian. Like a doctor.”

  “Well, as a vet tech I have a bachelor’s degree in the program. I assure you, Boise State’s pre-veterinary medicine—”

  “But pre-veterinarian means you aren’t a vet, right?”

  “Um, no, not a veterinarian. A vet tech. I haven’t enrolled in that program—yet. It’s more intensive, takes up to an additional four years, there are board exams to pass. But I assure you between my own four years of college, many summer internships, and past year working for the Vet and Pet Day Spa, I am more than qualified to care for Fluffy here. May I hold her? Such beautiful fur.” I moved in closer, hoping to earn her trust.

  As I neared, her perfect nose abruptly scrunched up in distaste. With a look of disgust, she turned her head away from me, muttering, “I want to talk to the owner.”

  My face burned from the shock of her obvious revulsion to me. Willing the blush to leave my cheeks, I smiled tightly. “Of course. I’ll get Darlene right away.”

  Giving me a dismissive grimace, she turned her attention to Fluffy, cooing at and petting her cat.

  I hurried from the room, forgetting to close the door. I bumped into Darlene in the hall as she was on her way into surgery for Dolly—a Dalmatian who had swallowed a sock. I whisper
ed, “A high maintenance in room one for you. Can you settle her down before you go in there with Dolly?”

  “Let me guess, the whole ‘a vet tech is not a real vet’ song and dance?” Darlene asked, her words muffled by the medical mask she wore in preparation for the surgery.

  “Yes.”

  Pulling down her mask, she said, “I’m on it.” Darlene left me, moving down the hall toward Fluffy.

  I leaned against the wall, catching my breath and trying to calm my nerves, my head still sore. I could overhear Darlene as she chatted with Mrs. Barker.

  Entering the exam room, Darlene said, “Hello, Mrs. Barker, love the last name. You must be a real fan of dogs.”

  “I’m actually more of a cat person. In fact, I adore cats, especially my Fluffy here, which is why I insist on receiving the very best of care for her. She is a Persian after all.”

  “I assure you, Mrs. Barker, Georgia may not have completed the program to become a certified veterinarian, but her combined degree and years of experience make her more than qualified—”

  Darlene’s vouching for me was cut short by Mrs. Barker’s nasal tone.

  “Look—it’s probably just my crazy pregnancy nose, but your employee reeks of booze. I’m sorry but it’s making me nauseous. Could I get someone else in here to help me with Fluffy? It’s just such a small room and I’m so sensitive to smells right now. I’m already struggling through the stinky dog funk in here. I really can’t handle getting a constant whiff of last night’s binge drinking too.”

  My face burned hotter than the time Regina and I had laid out all day slathered in coconut oil instead of sunscreen and had ended up like lobsters on the beach.

  “Yes, right away, ma’am. I’m so sorry about this,” I heard Darlene say. The hall was quiet with the exceptions of the click of the exam room doorknob shutting and the soft thud of my boss’ clogs heading out of the exam room.