Gruff Ass in Love: Hard, Fast, and Forever, #3

By Sasha Burke

She's the maddening, ridiculously cute trespasser who sneaks on my property to play with my rocks.
(No euphemism—she really does just look at rocks.)

 

He's the grumpy, unbelievably handsome rancher who has the best rocks to study in the area.
(What on earth would rocks be a euphemism for?)

 

After months of resisting the urge, I finally haul her over my shoulder to escort her off my land.
(Really, why I haven't done it before now is beyond me.)

 

After months of being clueless, I finally notice that his land isn't the only thing hard around me.
(Really, how it escaped my attention before now is beyond me.)

 

She's so friggin' responsive.

 

He's so brawny and burly.

 

The next time she sneaks in, I'm ready for her.

 

The next time I sneak in, he shocks the heck out of me.

 

To be fair, the woman is utterly injury-prone.

 

To be clear, the man has apparently lost his ever-loving mind.

 

I just want her to stay safe and out of trouble for a change.
So…I cuff her to the bed.
For a few hours, tops, while I take care of some ranch things that can't wait.
And now I'm wondering what the hell's going to happen next.

 

His constant alpha protectiveness is, yes, very sweet, but seriously?
I should be more outraged by this.
Really, I should be.
But…now I'm kind of curious what's going to happen next.

NOTE: This high-heat, low-drama standalone is a HOT, swoony rom-com chock-full of feel-good fun. Contents include: One gruff, rugged billionaire rancher. One feisty, nutty geology grad student. Lots of schmexy good times and steamy romance throughout. And of course, a sweet, melty HEA. No cheating. No angst. No stress. No cliffhanger. Enjoy! 
 

* * * * *

The HARD, FAST, AND FOREVER Series
- Book 1: Bare Ass in Love (Jason & Summer)
- Book 2: Hard Ass in Love (Logan & Nicole)
- Book 3: Gruff Ass in Love (Cade & Katelyn)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sasha Burke
• Release date: Feb 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386755432

Sasha Burke

Sasha Burke has been reading romances ever since she discovered her local library would let her borrow whatever kind of books she wanted…probably far younger than she should’ve started. Fun, schmexy, and swoony stories with possessive, protective alpha heroes have long been Sasha’s biggest weakness. Reading and writing about them, especially when there’s an awesome feisty heroine involved, has resulted in her staying up many a night over the years. You’ll usually find Sasha out and about spoiling her many dogs, or trying to perfect the world’s greatest mac & cheese recipe (and tirelessly taste-testing practice runs in that pursuit), or hosting outdoor fajita nights for her friends as often as she can. Join her email list for new release alerts, bonus books & scenes, sneak peeks, and other goodies! Email List: http://eepurl.com/cYJpUr Website: www.sashaburke.com FB: facebook.com/sashaburkebooks                

Book preview

1

| CADE |

There she goes, trespassing on my land. Again.

Katelyn Carr, a.k.a. the undeniably gorgeous pain in my ass, has been sneaking onto my property for several months now, and though she always looks contrite when I catch her, she’s made it perfectly clear that she has no remote intention of stopping anytime soon.

What the hell am I going to do with this woman?

Fearless as always, she scrambles up the rocky terrain round the hillside to get to the small, tranquil canyon hidden just beyond the trees. Though it’s not really that far from the main part of my ranch—if you’re a normal, sane person who follows the trails here instead of going the elaborately convoluted way Katelyn insists on taking to avoid detection—the area feels like a whole different world. Practically an untouched Garden of Eden.

Truth be told, if not for my having to do this every week, I wouldn’t get out here nearly as often. Shame, I know. But, I wouldn’t have it be any other way. There’s a reason why I left the city life behind to become a rancher. It’s a back-breaking living, day in and day out. And I love the hell out of it. Even if it means I don’t get to spend as much time stopping to admire the beautiful things in life anymore.

Speaking of.

As I start heading over to confront my little serial trespasser, I approach her the way I always do. By trying to avoid looking directly at her.

This lasts a whole two seconds until inevitably, I give up that stupid mission and proceed to drink my fill of her.

Christ, even when she’s frustrating the living daylights out of me, she’s a sight for sore eyes. And per usual, she’s in her own little world right now, completely oblivious to my watching her go around snapping photos of the ground around her.

Why anyone would want to spend so much time looking at rocks beats me, but it seems to float her boat more than anything else does. No exaggeration, I’ve never once seen her smile at another living creature the way she smiles at her rocks. Myself included.

Don’t really know why that’s starting to bug me so much, but it is.

I walk up behind her just as her tongue peeks out to make contact with a small, porous rock she’s picked up. At least I hope it’s a rock.

So far, my Google research hasn’t supported my argument that she could keel over from doing this sort of thing out here, but my workers are definitely on my side on this. God knows my men and I aren’t exactly clean freaks—we eat food we drop on the ground all the time. Somehow though, licking rocks seems slightly less sanitary.

How many times have I told you to stop licking the rocks out here?

She jumps out of her skin, startled, looking at me for a beat like she’s astonished to find new life form on her planet of rocks. I don’t lick the ones near any animal tracks, she informs me then before turning back around and tilting her head, moon-eyed and fixated on something.

While I know following her gaze is going to be pointless, I can’t help myself.

Yep. Just as I suspected.

That is in fact a rock wall she’s smiling at.

Strange, strange little thing.

See this here? She traces a finger over a shiny line that runs through the craggy surface of the mountain face before showing me the chunk of stone she’s cradling gently in her other hand.

It’s quartz, I say, wondering where she’s going with this.

Maybe. But it could also be calcite or gypsum, or halite. If it tastes salty, it’s halite. She scribbles something in her notes and places the rock back in its crevice exactly as she found it before patting—or affectionately petting, rather—a few of its little rock friends.

Did it? I ask.

Hmmm? she replies absently, wholly preoccupied by a cluster of rocks that, by my estimation, don’t look any different from the other countless rock clusters here.

Did it taste salty? Really, I’m just asking to draw her attention back to me.

She shakes her head. Nope, you were right; it’s quartz.

I study her for a moment as she stares in wonder at the wall, her riveted gaze continuing to follow the different bands of color woven into the earth.

As we stand there in surprisingly comfortable silence, me looking at her, her looking at the wall, the wind kicks up, sending her long waterfall of dark, silky, shampoo-commercial-worthy hair swirling around her. And me. Until she frowns and ties it up to get it out of her face.

For months now I’ve wondered if her hair is half as soft as it looks.

It is.

Damn it.

Honestly, it’s not that I mind her presence per se. I just don’t like her wandering around out here unsupervised. None of my workers ever come over to this half of my land because unlike Katelyn, they try to avoid doing anything that’ll piss me off. They know that I like the wild animals that call my ranch home to have this area all to themselves. So, they stay away.

When I mentioned this to Katelyn way back in the beginning, she simply smiled and informed me that’s exactly what she liked best about being out here too.

Still can’t think about that conversation without chuckling. Such an odd duck, this one.

You know I’m going to have to ask you to leave soon, don’t you? I tell her as gently as I can manage, finding it harder and harder to do the one thing that’ll allow me to stop worrying my ass over her and be able to return to work. The one thing that makes the heartbreakingly sad look appear on her face.

After the negotiation period, that is.

I can’t stop now, Cade. I finally found some chrysocolla and some unusual volcanic rock out here, she says, her features animated as she launches into an explanation that actually feels interesting simply because she’s talking about it. And see this one here? she pulls a sand-colored rock out from that cluster she’d been entranced with earlier and puts it up to my face. Lick it.

I lock down my frown even tighter to keep that thing out of my mouth, and give her a look that causes her to return a shrugging frown of her own, like I’m the weird one and it’s my loss.

With a defiant chin-lift then, she leans in and slides the tip of her pink tongue across one of the rough planes of the rock, eyes on mine the entire time.

Fucking hell. I know she didn’t do that to be deliberately (or even accidentally) provocative, but now, it’s all I can do to quit imagining her looking at me the same way while she slides that rebellious little tongue of hers along my now rock-hard shaft.

It’s a clay-like rock that sticks to the tongue, she concludes, wholly oblivious to her effect on me. You can learn so much from licking.

Okay, no more innocently dirty rock talk from her. Katelyn, I’ve got a busy day today. I need you to wrap it up and get going.

It’s obvious that she’s tuned me out as her attention is now on a nearby cluster of twenty-foot tall boulders sitting smack dab in the water. She isn’t ignoring me on purpose, that much, I know. As I’ve come to find, the woman just gets totally lost in her own world.

If not for the fact that the wildlife out here seems to think of her as one of them, barely even spooking when she comes around, I wouldn’t be nearly as tolerant as I am of her visits.

Yes, tolerant.

I always wait at least a few hours before I kick her out. That’s more than generous, if you ask me. Naturally, I expect to qualify for sainthood any day now.

All that said, the idea of her getting hurt out here alone one day is constantly messing with me. Which is precisely why I shadow her as soon as I get wind that she’s snuck her way in again.

Not because I find her really friggin’ cute.

Or whatever the fitting description is for a woman who looks about as natural as a goat scaling across the side of a mountain, which is basically what she’s currently doing.

Did you know there’s lots of sandstone up here? she exclaims excitedly, nearly clotheslining herself with a low hanging tree limb jutting out from between one of the boulders.

Whoa. She ducks to avoid it at the last second, landing on all fours on the other side of the creek, inexplicably without injury. That came out of nowhere. Anyway, like I was saying—

"Katelyn," I rumble out, hopping a few rocks American Ninja Warrior style to get across the water. I yank her to my chest just as she trips and nearly falls headfirst into the creek. It’s only waist-deep, but still. Knowing her, she’d find a way to somehow require major medical attention.

What’s wrong? she asks, sounding as affected as I feel as she stares up at me with those big brown eyes of hers. The longer I keep her held tight against me, the wider those expressive eyes get, and the harder it is for me to think straight.

It’s bad enough that she’s soft and curvy and spoonable to boot, but does she really have to smell so damn good as well? Sweet. The way orchard trees do in the summer after it rains.

Jesus, now she’s got me sounding like a sappy-ass country song.

To top it all, seeing her now racing heartbeat pounding away at the base of her throat while her cheeks slowly pink up is seriously screwing with my head. Can’t remember the last time I saw a woman blush. Hell, if I don’t let her go soon, it’ll be a while before I’m able to let her go at all.

You popped a button, she says out of the blue when I finally unlock my arms from around her waist. I can take care of that later if you’re interested. Since it’s probably my fault and all.

Stunned shitless, it takes me a few beats to figure out that the button she’s talking about—and the situation she’s offering to take care of—is at my collar, not further down south.

See now, this is exactly why I don’t ride my horse over to come track her down anymore. Learned my lesson the hard way. Literally. The woman just can’t help being sweet, and my saddle is apparently not designed to accommodate a rider sporting a big fucking hard-on.

At this point, my molars are practically grinding down to dust from the effort it’s taking to force myself to back away from her another step. It’s time for you to go, Katelyn. Now.

Her lips turn down at the corners as she looks longingly back at the big boulder. But…

I don’t know if I’m still pissed that she almost took an eye out not watching where she was going, or if I’m just frustrated that I can’t get her to do my bidding when men twice her size tend to ask how high when I tell them to jump.

Or if it’s that I’m jealous that she’s giving the boulder a look that would have me balls-deep in her if ever if it were ever directed my way.

Whatever the reason, I’m not giving her another chance to argue.

When her eyes start drifting back over to that goddamn boulder again, I do what I should’ve done when she’d first started trespassing months ago.

I haul her up and throw her over my shoulder.

2

| KATELYN |

He basically just tossed me in the air one-handed like I don’t weigh a thing, and I’m not surprised. The man is positively brawny. Burly. All of the above. With a seriously ripped physique a sculptor would die to carve out in stone. Holy Moses. Feeling the flex of his muscles as I hold on for the ride, I practically have handholds to grip, he’s that shredded. For crying out loud, you’re built like a rock wall. The words pop out with zero filtration between my brain and mouth.

You thinking about licking me, too, sugar? he growls, sounding equally unfiltered. Because there’d be consequences for that.

Good lord. No, I wasn’t thinking that (really, I wasn’t). But I sure as heck am now. Plus, it’s impossible not to be a little curious about what he meant by consequences…

As I give that all way more thought than I probably should, we start going up a slight incline across the terrain and I feel his rough, calloused hand shift across my thighs to keep me steady.

Oh my. A few more inches and he’ll be palming my behind.

And draped as I am down his back, that’s all I’d need to palm his as well.

Really, this is just the first of a whole slew of entirely inappropriate thoughts that follow like a dirty little runaway train I have no hope of controlling. Destination: a heap of trouble.

Luckily, I get distracted by a sheen of color from a big rocky mound jutting out of the ground a few yards away. It takes me a bit, but the reality of what I’m seeing eventually registers, and a surge of emotions flood my throat, leaving me barely able to cry out in time, Stop!

Cade comes to a dead halt. I’m off his shoulder an instant later, transferred swiftly into a fiercely gentle cradle hold in his arms as he peers down at me worriedly. What’s wrong?

With his intense stare lasering in like that, it’s hard for me to grasp coherent words so I focus my efforts on trying to squirm out of his iron grip.

I may as well be trying to get out of a ridiculously sexy straightjacket.

The corded mass of solid, stacked muscles surrounding me from neck to knees just grows more impressive—and more unyielding—the harder I wiggle.

Did I hurt you when I picked you up? he demands when I don’t explain my outburst.

I