April, Dani - Raven's Ranch (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme) by Dani April Page B

enough with all its imperfections for these handsome cowboys to consider. She doubted that Raven White as a person was really good enough to have partners like these men. Not to mention that although she cared about all these guys as individuals, the idea of letting them all have sex with her at the same time terrified her.
    “If you stay, I’ll have sex with all of you,” she told them, her heart beating rapidly with fear even as she said the words.

Chapter Nine

    Raven watched her guys as all five of them gathered around a table in the middle of the trailer yard. This table always set there, and sometimes the guys would have dinner around it after a hard day on the range. Tonight she was holding a meeting with them. All eyes were on her, no one missed a word of what she had to say to them.
    Connor sat close to the front. At the very end was Tyler, and the other three were in between. Raven was standing at their head and addressing them.
    “We can do this thing, guys,” Raven told them, and was feeling the confidence of her own words. “We’re going to have enough to take a big herd to market at the end of the summer. If we work hard and play it right, we could make a record profit, rebuild the ranch, and keep it in our family for the rest of our lives.”
    She looked over at Connor for support. He nodded that what she said was correct.
    “I have asked you all to stay with me because we are like family, and families stick together even when things get rough.”
    The guys nodded in agreement with her. No one could dispute that.
    “I am the owner of this ranch, and it is my responsibility to think about business matters and money. I owe you six months back pay,” she told them. Several of them started to put up their hands to object. They didn’t want money from her. She knew what they wanted instead, but she waved them down and continued anyway.
    “I can’t pay you what I owe you right now, but I promise you that you will receive every cent when we sell the herd in the fall.”
    Again there were some protests. They really didn’t care about the money. She silenced them down; she was their boss.
    “Furthermore, from this point on all of your pay is doubled. Again, I can’t pay you what you’ll be earning this summer until we sell that herd, but when we do, you will receive not only your back pay, but your pay for this summer at your new rate of pay.”
    “Raven, that’s a lot of money you’re talking about giving us,” Connor told her.
    “You guys save the ranch for us and you’ll have earned it.” She didn’t just speak to Connor, she spoke to them all. “What I am asking you to do won’t be easy. We are all going to have to work like hell for the next several months. If any of us lets up even a little we are going to fail.”
    “If you pay us that kind of money,” Roy said, getting up from the table and fetching a beer out of a cooler to the side, “we’re going to be making almost as much as some of those rich folks up in the city.”
    “You’ll be making more than most of them, and you deserve to.”
    Raven noticed that Roy’s old devil-may-care attitude had returned in full force. He opened his beer, walked up to her, and stared her in the eye. She could see the hunger in him.
    “Why are you promising that to us?” he asked her, inches away from her face.
    “Because you’re going to need it.” She came right back at him. “You’re going to have a girlfriend to take care of now, cowboy.” She gave him a big smile, flirting with him. “In case you didn’t know, girlfriends like you to buy them lots of presents. That’s how you’re going to be spending that extra cash, cowboy.”
    She pushed him back. He fell backwards and ended up on his butt, spilling his beer over his shirt. The other guys laughed riotously. This was the first light moment of the whole night and served to lift the high tension in the air.
    Roy picked himself up off the ground and took his seat back at the