Page 4 of Feral

He lifted his chin at me from his saddle. How could he even see me? The sun was reflecting off the pane of glass and should have made me invisible from the outside.

Strange.

He tipped his hat next, a sexy smirk on his rugged face. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered I’d aimed my service pistol at him.

Damn hot cowboys in general, but damn him, especially. Although his arrogance was a better response than getting all embarrassed and awkward and running out stammering after my little show or piss his pants at having a gun pointed at him. Not that I believed a man like him had ever stammered or pissed himself. He didn’t even blink when he came through the door or when I’d removed the safety. My nipples hardened at the size of his figurative balls. I hadn’t seen his actual ones, but I hadn’t missed the thick outline of his dick in his jeans. It had gone down his leg! What guy was that big? How’d he walk with that thing? Or ride a horse?

I groaned, my pussy unfulfilled, now considering what it would be like to ridehimto my finish. That thought made my inner walls clench, and I was hornier than ever.

What the hell was wrong with me? The guy had barged into my house, and I was fantasizing about the size of his dick. Of using it instead of my toy to get off.

I was losing it. The only good news was that I’d hopefully snuffed out his interest. I pulled a gun on him and had been bitchy as hell. Rob Wolf probably wouldn’t be coming back. Had he honestly thought I needed protecting? I wasn’t sure if I should find that appalling or sweet. It didn’t matter either way.

I was here for the job. I had to focus on the investigation. On Jett Markle.

I had to blend in though, and I sure hadn’t done that with the welcoming committee from the Wolf Ranch. I grabbed said dildo and went across the hall to the bathroom to clean and sterilize it before tossing it back on the bed. It made no sense to put it away. I’d have to use it again later, this time to ease the ache Rob Wolf brought about.

“Fuck,” I whispered, pushing the confrontation away. I’d been in tenser scenes than that. I needed to get a grip. And an orgasm. I groaned at myself.

I still needed to clean out the drawers in the dresser to make room for my things… clothes and not just my small sex toy collection. I was a loner and a woman has needs. As for the rest of the place, I would’ve liked to clean out the whole house, but I didn’t want to overstep. This place wasn’t mine. I wasn’t Natalie Shefield. I was Willow Johnson, DEA agent.

The real homeowner would arrive when the case was over, and I couldn’t very well tell her I’d donated her uncle’s things, even though that’s exactly what should be done for most of it. The house hadn’t been updated since the sixties, and I had to be thankful it was too damned warm to need hot water. The place needed work—a gross understatement—and I’d have to tackle some of it while I was here or else it would seem strange.

I pulled my damp hair up into a ponytail and slipped on a pair of cowgirl boots to go with my jeans and tank top. It was time to meet the neighbor, and not the sexy one. I was cranky because while Rob Wolf was a tall drink of water—as they said in Montana—I hadn’t gotten off. He’d interrupted me right before the big finish, and now, I was not only hot but horny too.

Not wanting to go to Markle’s place completely unarmed, I slid a small pocket knife into my back pocket. I’d rather take my Glock, but that wasn’t an option. A knife I could explain away but not a pistol.

I picked up my cell about to text my boss an update, when he called. Speak of the devil… which made me anemployeeof the devil.

“Johnson here,” I answered.

“Yeah, what’s your status?” Nohello, nohow’s it going in Montana?

“I’ve arrived on location and, ah, settled in.” Of course, I didn’t quite get to finish that settling in, thanks to Rob Wolf. “I’m about to go to Markle’s for a friendly introduction.”

“I still don’t like it,” he grumbled.

It worked out perfectly that Natalie Shefield had inherited the property next door to Jett Markle but had yet to move in, meaning no one in the area had met her. We couldn’t have asked for a better setup. Finding someone to replace Natalie, a twenty-six-year-old woman with ties to the state, had been narrowed down to me. Only me. I’d lived in Montana until the day after high school graduation, knew how people rolled around here. Regardless, Vaughn thought sending a female agent alone on a job was a disaster waiting to happen. He didn’t have another agent to spare to play house in Cooper Valley, Montana. Honestly, I didn’t want anyone cramping my style.

There was one advantage to being female in the DEA. It was, well, being female. I knew from my research that Markle was registered on several dating sites and cut a swath through the eligible women in town. He wasn’t going to pass on his pretty new neighbor. A single one, which was the nail in the coffin for me having a partner on this undercover job. It wasn’t as if any one of my male colleagues could show a little cleavage and sweet talk his way into Markle’s house to look for evidence of drug running.

Getting friendly with him was going to be the easiest and most efficient way to get up in his business. While he checked out my boobs in this snug tank top, I’d check out his place. I didn’t want to sleep with the guy—I definitely drew a line there, but I had to keep tabs on him, search his property, and figure out exactly what his connection was with the Columbian drug czar Carlos Murrieta. Getting him tothinkhe had a shot of getting in my pants, that was something else entirely.

I rubbed some lip gloss on and applied a little mascara.Watch out, Markle. Here I come.

I headed out the back door, noticing the screen door needed the hinges oiled, and followed the path along the telephone line toward Markle’s ranch. The hedge fund tycoon-turned-rancher had bought the huge property next door. To the world, he’d retired a billionaire to the quiet life of Big Sky Country. The DEA knew he’d left because he’d lost a billion in clients’ money and been fired. Digging had discovered that one of his clients was a shell company for Murrieta. We had to assume he was either hiding in plain sight or a cog in the drug running to Canada.

The county records indicated his property was over a thousand acres, half of it open grazing land with a huge farmhouse, the other half rugged terrain with pine and aspen trees. Plenty of space for bad shit to go down.

Markle had been relentlessly trying to buy the Shefield place since he moved in. According to Natalie, he’d emailed and called her with pitches that varied in nature from dire warnings about the state of the deterioration to offers far exceeding the value to downright threatening, saying he’d be turning her in for every type of county code violation imaginable.

Sure, the place needed updating. I paused in my walk, looked back at the house. It was two story with wood siding painted a forest green. It was faded in spots, and the white window sills and trim needed some scraping, but it was… homey. The roof was shot, the grass overgrown. It looked neglected, which it was. But it wasn’t dangerous or against county code. Hell, I didn’t think therewereany regulations way out here. It all led to the fact that Jett Markle was most likely a dick. A retired hedge fund manager on paper but most likely a drug runner who wanted the extra land for some illegal purpose.

When I reached the end of my property line, I carefully pulled up the top string of barbed wire and set my boot on the lower one, then slid between them to emerge on his side.

A group of cows turned their heads to watch me approach, completely uninterested. Two were lying down in a small patch of shade near the fence line.

I breathed in the Montana air—the scent of wild grasses and dusty earth hit my nostrils. I’d thought I would hate being back in Montana, but it was strange—there was definitely a sense of “home.” A rightness or belonging, even after the nightmare of my childhood. I couldn’t hate an entire state for the wrongs of the Carp family. I’d stayed away long enough, but now… I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. Like this was how outdoors should feel, with the hot sun on my face, the constant breeze, the verdant smell. It was like my body recognized it here over the places I’d been living the past ten years.