The muscles across my back and shoulders burned as the lariat strained taut in my gloved hands. I lost my footing and face-planted in the scrub.

I'd gotten a loop over a good-sized heifer with her mind set on heading down into a wash and over the Mexican border. I'd lost my hat, my horse and now my dignity trying to keep her from renouncing her citizenship as a future all-American burger.

"You could just let go. Heck of a lot easier than that body-surfing through the brush."

Shit. All I needed was an audience, and it had to be JT. "You could get a rope on her and help get her back to the herd," I shot over my shoulder as I regained my feet.

"I suppose I could, though it seemed you had a plan there for a second or two, and I didn't want to interrupt. A woman and her rope work are a fascinating combo."

I managed to lock the rope half around a Joshua tree and looked to where I'd heard the voice, ready to let loose with a stream of descriptive phrases. JT already had a loop out and was swinging it lazily over her head. She took the shot. The rope floated, landing like a caress over the runaway's head. She snugged it up with a flip of her wrist. Taking a turn of the rope on her saddle horn, JT set her horse back to take up the slack. That settled, she shot me a wry grin.

"I like that you don't quit. You were taking quite a beating."

I let my lariat drop and slapped the grit from my Wranglers and shirt. "I've taken better," I replied, peering at her through sun-squinted eyes.

"Really? Didn't know you made a habit of rounding up your cattle for branding this way. Does save on the horses, I guess, but hell on your wardrobe, I'd say." JT reached into her saddlebag and pulled out my crushed straw Stetson. I stalked over to retrieve it, popped out the crown and reset the brim, as well as it could be, and settled it on my head.

"So. What was that about taking a better beating? If you don't mind my asking."

I wasn't paying attention, focused on getting the sand out of my leather gloves, picking kindling out of the cuts on my face and restacking jeans over my boots. I was silent while JT's question registered in my shaken brain. "Just what I said. I've taken better."

The leather split rein caught me twice across the shoulders. The slap with its tingle made me jump and turn to face JT.

"Then maybe you'd better learn to take the best." JT swung free of the saddle, pulling her work gloves off. She grabbed my shirtfront in one hand and started a rhythmic tattoo against my cheeks with the sweaty leather palms of the gloves clenched in her other hand. Each impact rocked me back and forth. Her steel-gray eyes locked with mine, neither of us giving way. She shifted her hand on my shirt and began to pluck and twist my nipples, the gloves never stopping. My pussy soaked the crotch of my jeans in the afternoon heat, and the scent rose between us.

"Are you getting off on this? Are you getting wet on this? Your wires are crossed, girl." The derision in her voice was punctuated by the thud of cowhide.

She knocked my hat off, the strokes getting harder. My cheeks stung from sweat and grit.

"Is that why you let those bitty calves drag you around the desert? You're whacking off? You haven't had better if that's what's getting you off. You think you've had it good do you?" The slaps stopped. "Well, do you?"

I'd hired JT a couple of months after buying the place at auction. I'd been a rich daddy's girl who rode primped, pampered show horses in the ring, with cowboy dreams and a couple of dude ranch vacations under my belt. It wasn't long till I'd figured out that life on a cattle operation wasn't Bonanza. That was just about the time my friends quit coming to spend imagined bucolic days, when instead they wound up getting put to work mending fence and hauling feed. I'd been getting ready to pull up stakes when JT had driven up in a battered red Ford with her horse in the back and her saddle on the passenger seat.

"Pay attention!" Whap. My head and body were both spinning. She had me over and down on one side, hands and a single foot wrapped in my own piggin' string before I could catch myself.

"Were you thinking about Wild Bessie over there in her rope?" JT jerked her thumb in the direction of her horse and the runaway. "You jealous?" JT stood and looked down as she stepped over me. "You like to play with little heifers. Well now, so do I."

I lay there doubled and watched as she built a fire, pulled down her saddlebags and started laying out the irons.

"I'd say it's about time all the cattle on this place get their brands. That way there'll be no disputing who owns them if they decide to wander." JT laid the patterned ends up close to the fire, not yet in the coals. She walked to me and crouched by my hip. "Now, we hadn't discussed where exactly you wanted brands placed on your cattle. But I know exactly where I want mine." JT flipped open my belt buckle and popped the button on my jeans. Grasping both front belt loops she pulled them apart, forcing down the zipper, then the denim to my knees.

"Nice big roasts here." JT slapped my ass. "You've been feeding up well by the looks of it. Though it does look to be tough. Maybe with a little tenderizing it'll soften a bit." JT rolled me up onto her lap and began spanking each cheek hard. She pummeled my ass bare-handed and then pulled on her glove and continued until tears and my pussy poured. I was on the edge. JT sensed it and stopped.

"Now that looks better, nice and red," sliding her hand into my sopping twat, "and juicy." She turned my face to her and offered her gloved hand to be cleaned. "Don't you agree?"

I met her eyes, looked at her hand, and then licked the leather clean, slinking my tongue between, around and up the seams, suckling her fingers like a newborn calf.

JT moved her free hand back to my cunt and slipped her fingers in, mimicking my suckling, picking up my rhythm. She danced around my G-spot, teased my asshole with her thumb. Never varying from what she felt on her leather-clad hand.

I sucked her fingers into my throat, up to the palm, and JT slid her cupped hand into me. I pulled my mouth free.

"God! Please JT. Now! Hard!" I broke. JT went with me.

She paced me now, driving me, tweaking my nipples with her gloved hand. "Go on, get up there. C'mon." She chided and kissed me, riding herd on my orgasm. "You're almost in there girl. That's it. Step it up. That's it. Now! Come now!"

I bucked and spurted, soaking JT's shirt to the elbow and her Wranglers beneath me.

JT slid her fingers free and gently put me back on the ground facing the fire. She stepped over me again and picked up her irons, placing the ends in the heated coals. She wasn't saying anything now.

I watched, still tripping, as she heated the ends and then pulled one free and came toward me. The cherry red shape was indecipherable in its mirror image. JT stepped over and behind me. I felt her grasp the waist of my jeans bunched at my thighs. She dropped a knee over to lock me down. "Don't move."

I wouldn't have thought to. I saw the iron swing down out of the corner of my eye and could feel the heat radiate as it neared my skin. I heard the searing sound and waited for the pain to come but it never did.

JT leaned over, released her hooey from my wrists and ankle and stepped back.

I reached to pull up my jeans, feeling heat come off of my leather belt. I turned to look at JT.

"Well the way I see it, the brand would be hidden anywhere else when we're out here. And if anyone decides to adopt your style of roundup, well, I'll know which one's mine."

Go back to the Rode Hard, Put Away Wet page.

"Rope 'Em and Brand 'Em"
from Rode Hard, Put Away Wet
© 2005 Val Murphy