Praise for Maisey Yates

  “Yates brings her signature heat and vivid Western details to another appealing story in the excellent Gold Valley series... Fans of Kate Pearce should enjoy this.”

  —Booklist on Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch

  “[A] surefire winner not to be missed.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Slow Burn Cowboy (starred review)

  “This fast-paced, sensual novel will leave readers believing in the healing power of love.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Down Home Cowboy

  “Yates’ new Gold Valley series begins with a sassy, romantic and sexy story about two characters whose chemistry is off the charts.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Smooth-Talking Cowboy (Top Pick)

  “Multidimensional and genuine characters are the highlight of this alluring novel, and sensual love scenes complete it. Yates’s fans...will savor this delectable story.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Unbroken Cowboy (starred review)

  “Fast-paced and intensely emotional.... This is one of the most heartfelt installments in this series, and Yates’s fans will love it.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Cowboy to the Core (starred review)

  “Yates’s outstanding eighth Gold Valley contemporary...will delight newcomers and fans alike.... This charming and very sensual contemporary is a must for fans of passion.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Cowboy Christmas Redemption (starred review)

  Her Cowboy Prince Charming

  Maisey Yates

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  JESSIE GRANGER HAD never been brave enough to go to the masked ball down in Mapleton. Well, ball was really stretching it. But it was what they called it. It was Christmastime, and everybody got a little antsy. A little sad maybe, a little drunk. And they liked to put on their fancy spurs, and some airs along with it, and pretend that Mapleton was some kind of big city.

  She had never seen the point of it. It was a meat market. A place to hook up. And anyway, the holidays made her sad.

  Her oldest brother did his best to make them not sad. Levi was a prince among men—if a bit too serious and a hell of a lot too overprotective. But she was twenty-three, and she was tired of being sad. And more than anything, maybe, she was tired of being alone. So she had put on the tightest dress that she had been able to find while still maintaining the ability to walk—and whether or not she was going to manage to keep her circulation going for the evening was iffy—a pair of high-heeled shoes unlike anything she’d ever worn before, a big, sparkly mask with feathers coming out of the top and a whole lot of red lipstick for good measure. Because well...it was kind of supposed to be a disguise.

  But only kind of.

  The problem with growing up in a town as small as Pyrite Falls was everybody knew who she was. And not only did everybody know who she was, they also knew who her older brothers were. And knew that they would kick their asses as soon as they looked at them if they were to fool around with her. She could have left Pyrite Falls, she supposed. But it just hadn’t seemed right ever.

  She was worried that Levi needed her—though he would swear up and down that he didn’t. But her oldest brother had raised her and her siblings after their parents’ deaths, and she could see how that had taken over his life. She worried he didn’t have anything without them.

  He swore up and down he was fine, but she just didn’t believe him.

  But there just wasn’t...anything there. But there was Mapleton, the town over, where at least some things might be possible. And tonight she wanted to have the experience of walking into a room without everybody knowing who she was. Tonight she wanted to feel beautiful. Like a woman. Maybe she was looking for a Christmas miracle.

  Maybe you just want to lose your virginity.

  Whatever. Either way, she was feeling good.

  When she had put on the short red dress that she had ordered online, she’d been surprised by how good her body looked in it. She was accustomed to seeing herself in baggy T-shirts and high-waisted jeans. The kind that gave a girl that particular Wrangler butt that some men liked, but in her experience men ignored her. Maybe it was the long, baggy T-shirts. But she’d been uncomfortable about her abundance of curves since she was a kid, and she preferred to wander around looking spherical rather than displaying the rather extreme hourglass she had.

  But when she had put the dress on... Well, she felt like a different person. She felt like the kind of person who could do...damn well anything. The mask really helped. Because the mask made her feel like someone else entirely.

  For the first time—especially since her crushing rejection two years ago—she felt beautiful.

  The parking lot of the Evergreen ballroom was full. Normally, it was a place that hosted line dancing lessons, West Coast swing and the odd concert and special dinner. But once a year, she had been told, it was transformed.

  She got out of the truck and crossed the gravel lot, and was surprised to find out there was a small line at the door. The women were wearing masks, and over-the-top dresses, though few men were decked out quite as grandly. Though they all had on masks, of varying degrees of severity, and definitely not the way the women did.

  She bought her ticket at the door and got her hand stamped, and was ushered inside, where the whole space had been absolutely transformed. There were twisted trees covered in white Christmas lights all over the place, with blue light creating the feeling of a winter wonderland.

  There was a dance floor, tables with champagne and appetizers. She was genuinely impressed. She hadn’t actually thought anything in this area could be half so nice.

  She was handed a glass of champagne and she smiled, taking a sip. She already felt like somebody else. Like she was somewhere else. And all right, it was just about forty-five minutes from home. And if Levi knew what she was up to he would probably have a coronary. But she would only have two glasses of champagne, and she would make sure to do it hours before she went home. She would be safe.

  There was a giddy feeling in her stomach as she looked around. There were good-looking men everywhere, though most of them seemed to be attached.

  But there was one man, standing in the corner, wearing all black. From head to toe. His mask was more like Zorro, bandit style, covering his eyes and most of his nose. His mouth was set into a grim line, his jaw square and arresting, even from where she stood across the room. He was big, broad shouldered, and he looked... Well, he looked kind of mean. He definitely didn’t look like he was excited to be there. But she found she couldn’t look away.

  She imagined walking over to him. Imagined starting some kind of conversation. What would she even say?

  Don’t imagine. You’re wearing a mask. You’re dressed up.

  Yes. She was. And for a moment she stopped, tried to see if there was maybe someone else. Somebody a little less dangerous. Somebody maybe a little bit less...everything.

  Why are you here? Anyway. There’s no guarantee anything will happen. But if it was going to... Why not make it a fantasy?

  Yes. This was her chance to escape.

  She didn’t know why, but this year the approaching holidays had felt like a noose tightening around her neck. Like the grief of everything—the loss of their parents back when they’d been kids—had only gotten worse, instead of better. Like the passage of time made her miss her mother more than she ever had before. Made her miss her father’s warmth and wisdom.

  Their mother had been sick for several years before her death. Cancer that had just come back and back and back until she hadn’t been able to fight anymore.

  It had been devastating, and to a small child, as shocking as anything, because she hadn’t fully been able to wrap her head around how sick her mother was. But the real shock had been her dad. Nine months later. A heart attack that had killed him right out where he was working on the ranch, and had killed him fairly instantly.

  She felt like they had to be cursed. Like there had to be something wrong with them, because how could that happen to them?

  They had been such a happy family. And it had been up to Levi to take care of all the kids in the aftermath. And her oldest brother had.

  So she had never wanted to say anything to him about just how difficult this time of year was.

  But it was what had driven her here. What had made it feel unbearable now. Maybe it was that all of them were finally adults. Maybe it was Camilla’s leaving to go to college. That probably wasn’t helping. She didn’t like endings. She didn’t like change. Because she had lived through too much of it.

  And so she would be bold. Because she wasn’t here to be timid. At the end of all things, she was not here to be timid.

  “Hi there,” she said, making her voice a little lower, a little huskier.

  The man looked her over, and she couldn’t read his expression. His eyes were shaded by the black cowboy hat, his features obscured by the mask. The dark stubble of his beard made him look dangerous.

  Her heart beat harder. Faster.

  “A

re you here all by yourself?” she asked.

  His head tilted to the side. “Yes.” And then she noticed. Noticed the way he looked at her body. And she felt a little bit of a thrill. She didn’t think a man had ever looked at her body. Not like that. Slow and lazy, and interested. But then, she usually covered herself so that it wouldn’t happen. So she sort of made her own invisibility cloak with those T-shirts.

  “You?”

  “Yes. I came alone.”

  “Surprising.”

  “I figured it was best to come alone since I didn’t aim to leave alone.”

  Her own words made her tremble. She’d tried to proposition a man one other time in her whole life and it had not gone well.

  He had, in fact, disappeared after.

  Not that his leaving town for two years was directly connected to her, but it felt like it.

  And it stung.

  She’d had one serious crush in all of her existence. A long, enduring, crushing crush, fitting of the title because it made her feel like the air was being pressed from her body whenever he was around.

  And when she thought of Damien Prince she... Well. It made her wish she were dead. Because she had wandered around mooning after him for most of her life. And he had never noticed her. Not once.

  She’d checked.

  Little girl, this is above your pay grade, believe me.

  Bastard.

  He didn’t know what she wanted. She didn’t believe in romance, anyway. She just thought he was hot.

  The world had taken too much out of her to believe in fairy-tale endings.

  When things were good, she knew they couldn’t last.

  The other shoe would always drop.

  His thinking she was young and naive...it was offensive.

  She didn’t need to be thinking about him, anyway.

  She hadn’t even seen him in almost two years. He’d started some wine business up north. She had cried when he’d gone. Twenty-one years old and she’d been crying about a man who’d never seen her as anything other than a little sister. It was humiliating. But this wasn’t humiliating. This was exciting. Electrifying.

  Healing, even.

  “I take your meaning just fine,” he said.

  “Do you want to... To dance?”

  Because the woman she was tonight wanted to dance.

  And the woman she was tonight didn’t care if this mystery man turned her down. Sure. She would be disappointed. But she would find somebody else. She wasn’t going to let it be singular or anything like that.

  “If that’s what you want.”

  He pushed back from the wall, and suddenly he was walking toward her. So tall, even in the shoes she was wearing. It made her dizzy to look up at him.

  But they went out to the dance floor, and he pulled her into his arms. And she had never felt so... So delicate. So exquisitely aware of every part of her body as he pressed her against the hardness of his muscular form. She didn’t know how long they danced for. Maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe two hours. Everything started to lose meaning. And she only had that couple sips of champagne.

  It was like they were the only two people. And she couldn’t see his face. But they couldn’t see each other. They couldn’t. Because it had to be like this. This fantasy. Where she was brave, and maybe a bit seductive, and not just Jessie, who was little more than Levi Granger’s sister.

  She didn’t want to lose her grip on this moment. She didn’t want reality. Not even a little bit. She needed the fantasy.

  But then he kissed her. She’d never been kissed before. And it was like fire igniting her body. Igniting her veins.

  And she was afraid. Afraid that now his mouth had touched hers she wouldn’t be able to stop kissing him. This man whose face she couldn’t even see.

  His beard was scratchy, and she loved it. She had never liked the look of a beard on a man before. And it really only added to how little she could see of his features, but she loved it all the same.

  She pressed her body against his, melting into him.

  And she could feel him getting hard, ready against her pelvis. “Come here,” he said.

  He took her hand and led her off the dance floor, out the door at the back of the room.

  And then he pulled her into a very small storage room, closing the door behind them and propping a mop just under it to keep the door from being openable.

  And then he was back to kissing her. Hard and deep.

  She started to undo the buttons on his shirt, without even really thinking. This wasn’t her. And not only was it not her, it was well above her level of experience.

  She had thought to come to lose her virginity, but she certainly hadn’t thought about doing it in a storage room, where there wasn’t even a bed.

  But she was past thinking. She pushed her hands beneath the fabric of his shirt, felt his muscles. Felt his chest.

  And then she found herself being pushed back against the wall.

  He kissed her neck, and she shivered. And then he pulled the top of her dress down, revealing the red lace bra she had on underneath, a bra that barely covered anything. “You’re beautiful,” he said, the awe in his voice giving her the strength to push on.

  He pushed the bra cups out of the way and bared her breasts to him. He groaned, and suddenly big, rough hands moved up to cup her, his thumbs sliding over her nipples. And she let her head fall back as she gasped.

  “Yes,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

  And then he was kissing her again, from her mouth, down her collarbone, to her breast, taking a nipple deep into his mouth.

  And at the same time, his hands worked their way up her dress, between her legs. His fingers were stroking her, over the matching red underwear she had on, before he pushed them beneath the waistband, began to stroke her slick flesh in earnest. This man, the stranger, was touching her. And she thought she might die of pleasure.

  And she thought dimly, it was the strangest thing, that for most of her life she had imagined that she could never want a man other than Damien Prince. And here she was, coming apart under the expert hands of a man whose face she’d never even seen.

  It gave her hope, really. It gave her a lot of hope.

  But right now it was about to give her an orgasm, and she couldn’t think anymore.

  Suddenly, he pushed two fingers up inside her, and she cried out her pleasure, desire raining down inside her like a storm.

  Her hands were greedy at his belt buckle, clumsy and uncertain of what might happen next. But she managed to free his stiff arousal, and wrapped her hand around his heat. He was big. But then, she didn’t really have anything for comparison. All she knew was that it was bigger than she expected. She had the vague feeling of being on a runaway train. She didn’t know what she was doing. And she couldn’t stop.

  It was like her innocence was acting to make it even more impossible to deny. Not as a barrier. Because she just needed to know what happened next. She needed to know.

  He moved his hand down her thigh, gripped her leg and pulled it up around his waist, and then she felt the blunt head of his arousal testing the entrance to her body. She was powerless to do anything but roll her hips forward and accept the invasion. She was too hungry for it to do anything else. Too desperate for pleasure to be afraid of the pain.

  And it did hurt. A cry was wrenched from her lips, and suddenly, his gaze met hers, fierce and almost angry.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine.” She put her hand flat on his chest and felt his heartbeat raging there, and then she kissed him. And he didn’t resist anymore. He pumped deep inside her, and she was lost in the rhythm. Lost in the pleasure.

  Then he lowered his head and bit the side of her neck, and her whole body spasmed, her climax shocking her, even as he found his own on a hard growl.

  And suddenly she realized, she had just lost her virginity in a storage room two days before Christmas. She had just lost her mind. Utterly and completely. And all the boldness she had felt only moments before transformed into shame. How could it be anything else? Sickly, awful shame.

  Tears filled her eyes, and she did her best to blink them back as she pushed away from him, and tripped on her shoes.

 

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