Bound, Branded, & Brazen Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

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  branded

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  brazen

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  Praise for the novels of

  Jaci Burton

  Wild, Wicked, & Wanton

  “Wild, Wicked, & Wanton starts off with a bang and never lets up!”

  —Just Erotic Reviews

  “This is the best erotic novel I have ever read! I absolutely loved it!”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Jaci Burton’s Wild, Wicked, & Wanton is an invitation to every woman’s wildest fantasies. And it’s an invitation that can’t be ignored.”

  —Romance Junkies

  Riding on Instinct

  “Burns up the pages.”

  —Romantic Times

  Riding Temptation

  “Full of intrigue, sexual tension and exhilarating release. Definitely a must-read.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Riding Temptation has it all—action, suspense, romance and sensuality all wrapped up in a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat and have you clamoring for the next story in the Wild Riders series!”

  —Wild on Books

  “A sexy, fast-action thrill ride!”

  —Romantic Times

  “Kudos to Ms. Burton for creating this exciting new series!”

  —Romance Junkies

  Riding Wild

  “Hot, sexy romantic suspense at its best.”

  —Lora Leigh, New York Times bestselling author

  “Forget about a cool glass of water; break out the ice! Each page will leave you panting for more.”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  “A wild ride is exactly what you will get with this steamy romantic caper. This sexy and sizzling-hot story will leave you breathless and wanting more.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A nonstop thrill ride from the first page to the last! Grab a copy of Riding Wild and take your own ride on the wild side of life!”

  —Romance Junkies

  “What an exciting and wonderful book!”

  —The Romance Studio

  “Riding Wild is a must-read for anyone who loves sexy romances filled with plenty of action and suspense.”

  —Kwips and Kritiques

  Further praise for the work of

  Jaci Burton

  “Burton delivers it all in this hot story—strong characters, an exhilarating plot and scorching sex—and it all moves at a breakneck pace . . . You’ll be drawn so fully into her characters’ world that you won’t want to return to your own.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Realistic dialogue, spicy bedroom scenes and a spitfire heroine make this one to pick up and savor.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Jaci Burton delivers.”

  —Cherry Adair, New York Times bestselling author

  “Lively and funny . . . The sex is both intense and loving; you can feel the connection that both the hero and heroine want to deny in every word and touch between them. I cannot say enough good things about this book.”

  —The Road to Romance

  “Exciting, intense. A ride you don’t want to miss. [It] will leave you breathless.”

  —Lora Leigh, New York Times bestselling author

  “A fabulous read. [Burton] delivers in every possible way.”

  —A Romance Review

  “Sizzling-hot sex that will have you panting. I highly recommend this story to anyone looking for a hot read.”

  —The Romance Studio

  “One hot novel that I could not put down until the last word. This story has it all: mind- boggling sex, unique and unforgettable characters and a wonderful plot that will grip your heart . . . Raw, dynamic, explosive. Wow!”

  —Just Erotic Romance Reviews

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  BOUND, BRANDED, & BRAZEN

  Copyright © 2010 by Jaci Burton.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Heat trade paperback edition / March 2010

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Burton, Jaci.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18593-3

  I. Sisters—Fiction. II. Women ranchers—Fiction. III. Ranchers—Fiction. IV. Title.

  PS3602.U776B68 2010

  813’.6—dc22

  2009041103

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my husband, Charlie,

  the roughest, toughest cowboy a woman

  ever had the luck to fall in love with.

  You are and always have been my hero.

  acknowledgments

  To my editor, Kate Seaver—thank you for the time you spent brainstorming this book. Your ideas and insights are so helpful and I always enjoy plotting books with you.

  To my agent, Kimberly Whalen—thank you for all that you do to keep me sane, even when I’m a giant pain in the butt. Which I know is often.

  To the Writeminded Readers—you are all heroines in so many ways. Thank you for always being there when I need a smile, a laugh and a pick-me-up.

  To some very amazing wome
n who have done some very special things for me: Fatin, Jamie and Azteclady—“thank you” just never seems like enough.

  To Maya Banks, who talks me down off the ledge more than anyone I know. You have no idea how much I appreciate your always being there to listen.

  bound

  one

  valerie mcmasters didn’t know if the old adage “you can’t go home again” was true or not, but as far as she was concerned, the thought of home made her want to turn tail and run like hell. Yet here she was, pulling into the Bar M Ranch, a place she swore she’d never come back to again.

  She parked her car under the giant blackjack oak tree, several steps back from the sprawling, two-story white frame house where she’d lived since she was born. It had been two long years since she’d last been here. She wanted to get a full-on view of the place, to take it in like a picture.

  The late afternoon sun rained down on the gray-shingled roof, highlighting the three gabled windows arranged in neat order along the second story. Her, Brea’s and Jolene’s bedrooms. When they were kids, all three of them had climbed out those windows at night and sat on the slanted roof to watch the stars and talk.

  Shaking off the memories, Valerie grabbed her suitcases out of the trunk, walked through the front door, set her bags down in the gleaming, polished hall and realized that it wouldn’t have mattered how long she’d been gone.

  Nothing would ever change at the Bar M Ranch. Not the layout of the house, the dusty ride up the long road, the mooing cows greeting her as she took the winding drive along the property line or the barking dogs that wound through her legs as she maneuvered her way to the front door.

  The only thing different today was that her uncle Ronald was dead. She wouldn’t have to deal with his disapproving looks and his condemnation, or hear his lectures about how she should have stayed on the ranch and how disappointed her parents would have been in her for leaving.

  Not that his opinion on things had ever mattered to her anyway. He’d always been full of shit and she’d been old enough to know better. Her parents had loved her. They would have wanted what was best for her, would have understood why she left. Uncle Ronald never knew her at all, never understood how hard it was for her to be here. No one understood.

  His funeral was tomorrow. Not that she’d shed a tear for the old bastard, even if he was her father’s brother. She’d cried enough when her parents had died, when she and her sisters had to have a double funeral and put both their mother and father in the ground on the same day.

  That was the last time she had cried. She hadn’t even shed a tear when she packed up and left her husband, left this ranch, left her sisters behind.

  She hadn’t looked back. Hadn’t come back. Not in two long years.

  Until now. The only reason she was here was because Jolene had called her, told her she was now one third owner of the Bar M, and she’d better get her ass here for the funeral and help figure out what they were going to do about the ranch once and for all. Jolene had demanded Brea and Valerie give her a month to figure things out.

  A month! Like Valerie had that kind of time. But Jolene could be relentless, and yes, she and Brea had kind of abandoned their baby sister to deal with the house, the land, the cattle and everything else. They’d even left Jolene to deal with Uncle Ronald, so they kind of owed her. So Valerie had agreed. Not because she wanted to come back here. Not because she had a stake in the Bar M. As far as Valerie was concerned, the ranch and all it contained belonged to Jolene now. That was going to be her decision and nothing was going to change that.

  She had a good life in Dallas and a career that was just about to take off. None of her old life here on the ranch mattered anymore. She’d kissed it all good-bye the day she’d told Mason she wanted a divorce. Then she’d run like hell and hadn’t looked back. Hadn’t come back.

  Until now.

  She took a deep breath, unable to hold back a smile at the smell of furniture polish and Pine-Sol. Old memories, old scents. Something was in the oven in the kitchen, the fresh smell making her stomach rumble. She hadn’t eaten this morning when she left Dallas, had just grabbed a latte as she drove through Starbucks on her way out of town.

  She climbed the long staircase with her bags in hand, walked down the hall to her bedroom and opened the door.

  Yeah, some things never changed. The room was exactly as she’d left it, the bronze lace curtains billowing in the breeze from the open windows, the hope chest that had belonged to her mother sitting just underneath the window. The top of the old, scarred chest was always adorned with fresh flowers thanks to Lila, their housekeeper—“manager” was more appropriate, since Lila took care of everything related to the house. The dresser and nightstand gleamed as if freshly polished.

  Valerie stared down at the queen-sized bed that Mason had always complained wasn’t long enough, that his feet hung over the edge. Though they’d had plenty of room to make love. She stared at the patchwork quilt, remembered how she and Mason would kick it down to the end of the bed every night during their tussles together.

  There had been so many things wrong with their marriage, but the sex? That had been oh so right. She still remembered the feel of his unshaven jaw rubbing against the skin of her face. She used to love his scratchy beard, would slide her palm across his jaw because it made her tingle all over.

  And his kisses—good Lord the man could kiss. Even now, years later, she had vivid memories of his mouth on hers, the fullness of his lips, the taste of sweat and outdoors and the earthy scent of him whenever he came in from working cattle. He was such a . . . man. He felt like one and smelled like one and God he could turn her knees to jelly.

  He was so masterful at what he did, as if he’d been born to pleasure a woman. And even when she’d been young and inexperienced and asked him to take it slow, she’d felt the fires of passion barely banked inside him, and knew how explosive his desires were.

  His touch on her breasts, between her legs, the way he could coax her to orgasm faster than a brushfire in the hot, dry summer . . .

  She shuddered. Two long years of drought, without a man, without Mason. And just thinking about him could light that flame again.

  There were a lot of reasons she’d divorced Mason Parks, but sex definitely hadn’t been one of them. If there’d been a way she could still jump that man’s bones, without the ties of marriage, she’d have been on him in a heartbeat.

  But somehow walking out on your husband and serving him with divorce papers didn’t make that man look kindly on his ex-wife or in any way make him want to swoop her up and give her an orgasm.

  “I heard you were coming in today.”

  She pivoted, her heart in her throat as she faced the man she’d just been reminiscing about, and reminiscing in a decidedly sexual way, too.

  Two years hadn’t changed him much. Still tall, still with that unshaven look, still wearing dusty blue jeans, cowboy boots and a work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing off impossibly muscled forearms. He took off his cowboy hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Yeah, everything was still the same. His hair was still brown, his eyes the same color as his hair, and he still goddamned took her breath away.

  “Hi, Mason.”

  “Val.”

  He swaggered into the room—because he didn’t even walk like a normal man. More like a man who commanded a woman to look at him. And really, what woman wouldn’t?

  She stood frozen to the spot as he circled the bed and moved toward her. Her first thought—run. Run like hell. Her heart started pounding as he stopped in front of her.

  “Jolene said she’d asked you to come.”

  “Yes.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Didn’t think you would.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you couldn’t wait to get away from here. And when you left you said you’d never be back.”

  Damn him for remembering. “I’m here for the funeral.”

  “You hated Ronald.”


  “I’m here for Jolene.”

  He arched a brow. “Seems to me that Jolene asked you plenty of times to come. And you didn’t. Why now?”

  She shrugged, clasping her hands together so he wouldn’t see them shake. “It’s time Jolene and Brea and I settle a few things about the ranch.”

  “You could do that by phone and mail.”

  She circled around him, moved toward the window, needing some air to clear her head. Being near Mason jumbled her brain cells, made her think of the past, of what she’d missed. She finally turned to face him. “I didn’t come back here to argue with you, Mason.”

  “No, you never liked doing that, did you? God forbid you should say what was on your mind.”

  He moved in on her again, trapping her between him and the window.

  She lifted her gaze to him. “I’m not going to do this with you.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then, “So you’re finally a doctor. It’s been a long time for you.”

  “Yes it has.”

  “You worked hard for it. I guess you’ll get exactly what you wanted, won’t you?”

  Not everything. “Yes, I will.”

  They used to be married. She used to throw her arms around him whenever she saw him, kiss his neck, feel the beat of his heart as he pressed against her. She loved when he held her. It made her feel safe.