The Prize

Melissa passed the group of ranch hands playing cards outside by the corral, an ice chest of cold beers alongside them but curiously enough, no piles of money in the ante pot this time.

Oh well, maybe they'd just gotten started, she thought as she passed them with just a glance and headed inside to tend to her mare.

If she had really known what they were wagering over in this particular poker match, she might have headed back to her cabin.

Or ripped them all a new one, Buck thought as he caught her eye as she passed. The men around him reacted to the woman in their midst. They crowed and started eagerly accepting cards from the dealer for the next round of high stakes poker.

The prize had already been selected and the game had started in earnest, as every man in the game wanted to emerge the winner.

Yesterday on the same day the nation celebrated its birthday with great fanfare, Melissa had turned 19. She'd been working at the ranch since she'd turned 15 and had been emancipated from her parents who lived across the state. She didn't talk much about where she came from, content to spend her days proving she could work every grown man around her into the dirt. She did it too, out riding, out lassoing and she could split a fence twice as far in half the time. It'd be great to say that all this hard work earned her the respect of the men around her but truth be told, all it did was make them want to get into her worn Levies even more, to be the first man on the ranch to slide between those deliciously long legs of hers and to feel the warm slickness of her pussy hugging their cocks while they went riding some prime filly.

An untried filly not yet broke to saddle because Buck knew what they all did and that was that Melissa hadn't been ridden. Meaning that she was a virgin and for most of her time here under aged and the men knew that doing more than looking at her would mean that their foreman Buck would bust their chops before calling the law on them.

Oh but they loved to look and so did Buck. But no one had lassoed this filly and bedded her, with Buck around no one even tried.

It had nothing to do with her looks, because the wildness of her curly dark hair, her piercing emerald eyes and her plump lips which hid a saucy mouth drew men to her like tom cats. And most of the men in the valley were rangy like their feline counterparts and wanted to corner this young woman somewhere and fuck her, almost as much as they wanted to breathe.

Her party had been low key because she hadn't wanted to compete with the nation's own anniversary but when she had broken her rules against wearing dresses and worn a tight flowery piece of fabric that hugged every curve of her body, a chorus of whistles and offers to dance on the makeshift stage had met her.

And she did dance once or twice until she had left the guys standing there to go cool off with some beer and sit back with Buck listening to him talk about how a bull nearly gored him in the rodeo earlier that day. She smelled of alfalfa and honeysuckle and something else, as she sat there on the steps next to him, her dress riding up her thighs just enough to hint at what remained covered, awaiting a man's touch. If he slid his callused hand up in between those thighs, what would she do? Push him away probably so he'd behaved himself. Some fillies needed a gentle touch; they needed to be handled in a way so that when they were finally saddled and ridden, they believed it had been their idea.

So it would be with Melissa, when he slipped in between the sheets with her, she'd be urging him on, as he breached that last barrier and pumped his cock in and out of her wetness while she held on to him.

Having been dealt another hand of cards, he sighed, not believing that he'd agreed to the stakes of this particular poker match.

"You think she just doesn't like guys?"

Slim repeated a question Buck had heard before from the men.

"Nah, maybe she just doesn't like you," Carlton said, eying his hand, "but I'll bet she'll like what I have to give her."

Buck eyed the two of them and decided he couldn't walk away from the game until he won it.

If he won the match, he'd take home the ultimate prize, the virginity of the woman inside the barn.

That was the stakes of the game. Whatever man was left standing in the game with the best hand, would be Melissa's first lover. Of course she didn't know it but she would when the victor went to claim his prize. And Buck guessed that whoever did that, would be slapped in the face for his efforts. He didn't share that with the other players because he had planned to win himself.

But a girl like that couldn't work alongside a group of men and stay a virgin for long and he knew that the poker game was simply the more civilized version of what had been planned. It was also his way to make sure that he'd control the outcome because he'd picked five card stud with no wild cards, his favorite game.

He'd win the match, claim his prize and go into the barn not to take it from her but to keep anyone else from doing it. They'd wait a while and he'd come out and tell the others it had been done, and then life would return to normal.

She'd look at him with eyes wide when he told her what he had spared her from and she'd appreciate his help keeping all the other hands away, enough to allow him to move in slowly for the kill.

Melissa stroked her mare's neck thoughtfully, thinking about how frigging awesome it had been to turn a year older yesterday. It hadn't been her fault she had been born on Independence Day but it fit her philosophy on life that she'd adopted.

She'd always been an independent spirit as her father had disparaged her with before his liver finally exploded on him one day. The first chance she got, she sought and won emancipation in the courts just to get out of the house, away from her parents' fighting and four other warning siblings. She'd switched from working the family ranch for nothing to earning enough money for her to sock it away for college some day.

But when she thought about being her own woman right now, her needs turn more primal. She didn't want to be a virgin anymore. Actually she hadn't wanted to be one since not long after she left home and started working here but being jailbait just didn't get here what she needed. So she got stuck waiting until she got older and even then, the men just looked at her as if she were forbidden fruit, mostly thanks to the foreman Buck.

But what she wanted from the ruggedly built man with dark hair and a sexy smile, rhymed with his name. When they had sat together on the steps sipping bear watching the partying around them, she had hoped that he'd compliment her on her dress. She had purchased it at the boutique in town just for the party but he had just sat there nursing his bottle talking about nearly getting killed by a pair of horns on an ornery bull.

When all she could think about is if he whispered into her ear about how much he wanted to slip away from the party to do some private celebrating...the kind where he'd relieve her of her virginity...her birthday just couldn't get any better than that. But instead he hadn't done anything and after the fireworks died down, she had gone to her own bed and stroked her own pussy as she closed her eyes and imagined him wildly fucking her on the side of the barn while the sky sparkled from a whole different kind of pyrotechnics.

She sighed as her mare nudged her shoulder. No such luck, that Buck would ever want to put aside his professional detachment and do the nasty with her. Not that she'd ask or beg him to do it only to have him push her away, and say no thanks. He'd be so nice about it when he rejected her, that she'd feel even worse.

No, she'd have to find some other guy to deflower her, someone who didn't care what people thought because she wanted so much and if it wasn't with Buck, well another guy would suffice. But she imagined what it'd be like with him, his mouth marking her breasts, and branding her pussy with his cock, the shivers it sent through her just at the thought. His face etched in concentration as he stroked her in ways that dazzled her all the way to her toes.

Damn in a few minutes, she'd have to go back inside her cabin and take a cold shower. It had been another hot and humid day that hinted at rain but didn't deliver. The barn offered some relief and her mare, good company but she'd tried to whittle down her restlessness by cleaning tack in the groom's room while sitting on the cot and staring at the rodeo trophies gathering dust on the shelves.

The names etched on them in silver long gone.

All she had done while sitting there was imagine what it'd be like if she had Buck well, buck naked in front of her and she could touch every inch of him with her hands, over his roughness and the softness she knew she'd find too. Slide her fingers over his muscular chest, over his taut abdomen even lower to his...

She felt the heat rise in her face then as she wondered if he were hung like the bull that nearly gored him, how it would feel in her hands. She ached to wrap her hands around his cock and explore it but if he knew that, he'd probably avoid her...not to mention if he knew that her mouth itched to taste him, to suck gently on the mushroom head, and to draw him slowly inside while she still held onto him.

How would he taste, how would it feel to go down on him? If she knelt in front of him and drew down the fly on his jeans, would he turn her away? Or would he stand there while she drew his cock out of his pants and started fondling it, watching it grow rigid before she took him in her mouth?

She could do that, she'd done plenty of reading about going down on guys, and if she did that, then that might warm him up into sliding between her thighs and giving her what she needed.

What they both needed if he'd only realize it. But she was done waiting around for him, the next guy who walked into the barn, would be the one who would be her first. If it happened to be Buck, that would be her choice but she needed someone to scratch her 19 year old itch.

The poker playing got fast and furious and in the ante, one of the men had chuckled and threw a condom. Whoever would win the poker match would be covered literally and figuratively when he went inside to tame the filly. Brock looked at his hand and sighed. His luck had to change or Dylan across from him would win the game and he didn't want the cocky upstart anywhere near Melissa.

No, he'd have to keep praying for good cards when he hit up the dealer.

"So how would you do it Slim," he said, "Would you take her at a fast gallop, or a leisurely canter?"

Buck just fired a look at them but they ignored him. Slim chuckled.

"I'd take her anyway she liked it," he said, "You know bent over the hay bale, her panties down and that shiny pussy just ripe and waiting."

The men crowed even louder than they had earlier. It all disgusted Buck really but he had to go along with it that was his strategy when he had agreed to the poker match.

"I would hope she'd be willing to prime the pump with a little cock sucking first," Dylan said, "On her knees taking it in all the way to the back of that throat before we do any riding."

That won him some backslapping. All eyes then turned on Buck.

"So how would you like her," he said, "Fully clothed or trussed up first and just ready to go?"

He hesitated, running his hand through his hair because he had his own fantasies about her. But didn't feel like sharing them with a group of horny ranch hands.

"We'd fuck, end of story."

That earned him some boos.

"Oh come on bro," Dylan said, "Don't you tell me you haven't been wanting a crack at that fresh pussy since she arrived."

Buck sighed.

"She was only 15 Dylan."

The other man shrugged.

"Hey, she was fully developed and I'm sure all her parts worked," he said, "but when I walk into that barn, she'll know she's in for a good time."

Likely Dylan would get his face punched by Melissa before she sent him packing. He'd stick around in case it got out of hand but he didn't plan on letting Dylan win.

Not at anything and certainly not with her. But all he had to do was win this land hand and he'd get the girl. Then he'd figure out what to do with her.

Melissa sat on the hay bale imagining what it'd be like if Buck walked in right now, and for once looked at her like the woman she had become instead of just another hand. She knew she had grown attractive, with her thick dark hair and her breasts which had ripened to where they stretched her camisoles. She felt the dampness in between her thighs and knew she had what men liked there as well.

But the barn remained empty though occasionally she heard some whoops and hollers outside from the ongoing poker game no doubt. The men sometimes let her play, after teasing her that for each hand lost, she'd have to remove an item of clothing but she stuck to paying for hard cash.

Her body tingled and she knew she had to stop thinking about him and just head inside for the night. She'd take that cold shower and then lie in her bed, stroking her pussy until she climaxed, imagining that her hands belonged to Buck. If he knew how often she had gotten herself off imagining what it'd be like with him, he'd probably freak out.

So she kept that secret to herself, even as her pussy began to ache because the fantasies about sex weren't doing it for her anymore. She needed a man to leave his mark on her, whisker burn on her breasts or even on her...oh and the scent of his musk as proof of where he'd been. Her legs felt heavy unless she could lie there and splay them open, putting her pussy on display for a man who wouldn't hesitate to take what she offered. She'd wrap her legs around his slick body and grip him tightly as he thrust inside her, nailing her to the stall floor if necessary.

God, she really had it bad. But what was she going to do about it and was anyone going to walk through that barn door?