Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “I was going to do this sexy thing where I tease you until you’re weeping with want,” I admit.

  “Oh yeah?” he taunts. “Go ahead.”

  I spin a little circle on his chest. It’s the manliest thing I’ve ever seen, a broad plane with a sprinkling of dark hair.

  “Ha ha. Yeah, right. I think I’ve lost feeling in half my body. My heart is only pumping blood to my nether regions.”

  “If it helps, I think you’re sexy as hell.”

  My brow perks up. “That does help.”

  He grinds his very hard, very erect length against me. It’s a sure sign that he’s as turned on as I am. Maybe my plan didn’t backfire as much as I thought it did?

  With a burst of courage, I reach down and grip him in my hand. It’s, ahem, bigger than I’m accustomed to, but hey, that’s what they say about things in Texas.

  This is happening. He reaches up to grip my hips in his hands, holding some of my weight for me. It makes it easier to push onto one foot and angle myself over him so that together, we can guide me down until he slides into me the first few inches. I hiss, surprised by the tight fit. I ease off a bit, but the second he’s gone, I crave him again.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  It’s sweet, the idea that if I wasn’t okay, we’d stop. He could crack my pelvis and I would demand he keep going.

  “Here,” he says, moving my free hand to his shoulder at the same time he lifts some of my weight off him. Now I have a better angle and I can ease down onto him gentler this time, bit by bit so it’s not painful. It’s earth-shatteringly sexy, being filled up while he stares into my eyes, watching for any sign of pain or hesitation. I clench. He groans. I exhale, relax, and he slides deeper.

  I’m not all the way on him, but for now, I’m at my limit. I sink down on my knees and wrap my hands around his neck, kissing him and showing him how insanely hot this is, how perfectly right it feels to be here with him.

  He brushes my hair behind my shoulder then wraps his palm around my neck. My pulse jumps against his thumb. “How does it feel?”

  I don’t answer him. Instead, I lean back and smile. The look I’m going for: moonlit goddess of the fields. The look I’m probably nailing: escaped sex addict, armed and dangerous.

  I decide to turn the tables.

  “How do you feel?”

  He looks at me like I’m simple. “Are you kidding?”

  “I can back off—”

  With lightning speed, his hands move to my waist and he tugs me off him a little before lifting his hips and filling me again. My reaction is a wonderfully sexy eyes-rolling-into-the-back-of-my-head move.

  “Again,” I demand like a spoiled toddler. “Moremoremore.”

  He lifts me up then drags me back down. I arch my back and my loose hair brushes the base of my spine. I’m staring up at the sky when his lips brush against one of my breasts. I’d forgotten all about my breasts. I’d forgotten they even exist, how amazingly sensitive they feel as he brushes his tongue across them. Hooookay there. This cowboy just became a cowman.

  He keeps moving me up and down, on and off him, doing the heavy lifting so I’m left with nothing to do but enjoy the sparks of pleasure building inside me. My nails bite into his shoulders. I’m probably leaving crescent moon-shaped divots, but I don’t care, because my hips are relaxing and eventually, I slide down all the way onto him and his hip bones meet mine and now this is the point at which my brain can no longer translate simple messages. It exists solely to process his mouth on my breasts and his hand circling between my thighs and his hardness filling me up.

  “Jack…Jack.”

  I’m trying so hard to delay my orgasm, but it’s like trying to prop up a house of cards in a tornado. We press our foreheads together and our lips barely touch. I can feel myself clench around him and my shoulders sag as a jolt of pleasure runs down my spine. Another shock follows right after, and there’s no more holding off. I’m tipping, tipping, tipping…I want him to know what he’s doing to me, how sufficiently he’s shattering me from the inside out. I tell him, whispering single, choppy words against his lips as my orgasm wrecks me. I want to say more. I want to tell him I love him, but I won’t because that’s cliché and maybe he’ll think I only love him when he’s doing this to me, as if, for the rest of our lives, we’ll have to bone 24/7 to keep the love alive. I’ll have a skinny almond milk latte—yes, YES!—and a blueberry scone—right there, harder! But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I loved him before this moment. I loved him at the wedding, when he was sitting all alone on that pew. I loved him when he slept on the floor of the shack, scared I might not make it through the night. I loved him when he kissed me right in front of Helen earlier, consequences be damned.

  I could tell him that, but instead, I show him. My lips are on his throat and our chests are pressed together so tightly, you couldn’t pry us apart if you tried. We’re both damp now, sticky and hot. His fingers work their magic and he makes me come again and the second orgasm hits so quickly, I feel like he’s cheating. He’s memorized where I like to be touched, how I like to be touched. I tell him we’re not playing by the same rules and he laughs huskily. It’s the richest, happiest sound and I want to hear it again, but I want him to come even more.

  I lean back and sink onto my knees so I’m kneeling over him. I like this position, this moment where he looks like he’s on the brink of insanity too. I leverage myself so I can move on and off of him. I’m doing the work now and I feel seriously sexy. His head tips back and he watches me with a lazy, arrogant smile. He exhales a shaky breath as I press my hands to his chest and keep going, clenching around him when his hips buck up into me. He’s been patient, a hell of a lot more patient than me.

  “I want to watch you unravel,” I tell him. “I want to see what you look like—”

  I don’t even get my full sentence out. My words push him over the edge. His hands dig into my waist so hard it’s almost painful and his eyes pinch close. I can feel his orgasm surge through him, powerful and all-consuming. He’s gripping me like I could slip through his fingers at any moment, like he’s scared to let me go. As his shakes start to subside, I kiss his cheek, his chin, his throat. I feel like I just won a competition I didn’t realize we were having. Sure, he made me come twice, but I made him come hard, and that should count for something.

  He thinks my logic is flawed.

  He tells me we could keep going as his hand skims down between us and OKAY, is he honestly trying to kill me? Because I’m like Céline Dion, except my heart can’t go on. I’m completely wrung dry. My knees are bruised from the bed of the truck.

  “I need to hydrate and towel off. I need to sink into one of those giant ice baths athletes use after a hard workout.”

  He laughs and starts to uncoil me from my position on his lap. I protest.

  “Let’s sleep here.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  It’s a great idea. I’m already half asleep on his chest right now. His shoulder makes a wonderful, albeit slightly stiff pillow.

  I position his arm back around me. “Here, just hold still and don’t move until I start to snore.”

  He doesn’t listen and instead plops me onto the bed of his truck then tells me to hold up my arms. My dress is put right back on, sans bra and underwear. With the buttons undone, I feel seriously sleazy. One glance up at him proves that he likes the look a lot.

  “If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll maul you again,” I promise.

  We somehow make it out of the bed of his truck and back to the farmhouse. We tell each other to be quiet and to stop laughing as we make it up the stairs to his bedroom. We manage a shower together in which he does most of the cleaning and I do most of the slack-jawed, fully satisfied staring.

  “Can we have sex in here?” I ask, painting a heart on his chest with my wet finger.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Okay, it’s tomorrow.” It is already past midnight.

 
“As soon as we wake up.”

  “What is that?” I ask. “Six hours?”

  Too long, in my opinion. What’s the least amount of sleep humans can subsist on?

  “I’ll need breakfast first,” he points out. “For energy.”

  “Fiiiine.”

  He presses a kiss to my cheek and cuts the water. I prove useless as he towels me off and gently pushes me toward his bed. I’m too happy and in love to sleep. Doesn’t he feel it? The excitement in the air?

  “Hey,” I say once we’re lying in bed together, face to face.

  He smiles and there are adorable little crinkles around his eyes. He looks worn out. I should let him sleep.

  “Never mind.”

  His gaze drops to my lips, where I’m nibbling away as I consider something.

  “What? Tell me,” he insists, dragging his hand beneath the covers to take hold of my hip.

  “No. It’s nothing.”

  I close my eyes and try to tell myself to go to sleep. One adorable fluffy sheep is counted off before he says my name.

  “Zee-zee-zee-zee-zee, sleeping,” I insist.

  “Tell me.”

  He shakes my body.

  “It’s not important.”

  His finger hits my eyebrow and he tugs gently so my eyelid opens.

  I laugh.

  “I was just going to declare my love, but it can wait until morning.”

  Then I close my eyes again because I’m too nervous to see what his face looks like right now. If he looks horrified, I will shrivel up and die.

  “What a little chicken,” he says, scooting toward me.

  I wink one eye open. “Chicken?”

  “Yeah. What was that?”

  I blink both eyes open now. “What do you mean?”

  “‘I was going to declare my love’? That’s like saying ‘I’m sorry you were hurt’ instead of saying ‘I’m sorry.’ It doesn’t count.”

  I poke his chest. “Hey! It took a lot of courage to say that much! I don’t hear you declaring your love.”

  He chuckles and then plain as day, he says, “I love you.”

  Damn. He said it so simply—didn’t even blink.

  I’m the one tearing up, eyes misty with swoony emotion.

  “Oh, okay. Zee-zee-zee-zee.”

  He smiles and leans over to kiss me.

  “See? Chicken.”

  “I’m not a chicken!” I slap his chest playfully. “Look at what I’ve done in the last few months! I showed up on this ranch all on my own and demanded a job from the most arrogant devil I’ve ever met—that takes courage.”

  “But now you can’t tell that same devil you love him?”

  I press my face to the crook of his neck and say the words against his skin. He smells delicious, just like the body wash we used to rinse off. Maybe I’ll live here, right in this little, warm pocket between his head and his heart.

  His hand brushes down my spine, soothing me as he speaks. “You don’t have to say it. It’s okay. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

  It should be easy to thwart his reverse psychology mumbo-jumbo, but it’s not. He thinks I’m not ready to say it?!

  “Are you kidding?” I pick my head up and aim blue daggers at him. “I love you! I was going to say it first! You just leapfrogged me!”

  “Let’s check the record.” He holds his finger up like he’s consulting imaginary referees. “Yup, I had the first official ‘I love you’.”

  I roll over and climb on top of him to smother him to death.

  He cups my butt.

  “Hold still,” I groan, hands around his throat. “I’m trying to kill you.”

  He laughs and it makes my entire body shake.

  “Kiss me,” he says.

  “Admit you’re wrong, and I’ll let you live.”

  “Kiss me,” he says again. This time his brown eyes meet mine and I realize this is futile. He’s going to win every argument we ever have—there’s no competing with those eyes.

  “Kiss me and I’ll let you let me live,” he promises.

  My lips are within millimeters of his. “I’m the winner,” I whisper.

  He smirks. “Don’t you feel like in some ways, we’re both winners?”

  He laughs at his silly joke and I groan. He rolls us over, crushing me with his weight. We lock eyes and the laughter slowly dies. A heavy emotion settles over us and the mood shifts. We aren’t teasing anymore. We’re stripping each other bare and getting to the heart of what matters.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d even want to love a man after Andrew,” I admit. “I loved him, he knew it, and he used that love against me.”

  His brows furrow. “Are you scared of me taking advantage of you like he did?”

  I think about that question for a little while then heave a resigned sigh.

  “Does it make me seem foolish if I say no? If I just trust you completely?”

  “Love is supposed to make us fools.”

  “Oh yeah? What does that make you?”

  He smiles and tips his head down to kiss me. “The biggest fool of them all.”

  Epilogue

  Jack

  Today is the grand opening of Meredith’s new business: a yoga studio in Cedar Creek town square. That’s right, Meredith is bringing the ancient, south Asian practice of yoga to Tiny-town, Texas. She found studio space a year ago when we were walking along the square after dinner. She saw the FOR RENT sign in the window, squashed her face to the glass, and told me her grand vision.

  “Front desk there, small studio on that side, and changing rooms in that back corner.” She turned back to me, eyes gleaming. “JACK! IT’S FATE! Just this morning, Leanna rolled her yoga mat out onto some of Alfred’s poop! We can’t keep practicing in the middle of a field!”

  She had her work cut out for her. The space used to belong to a clothing boutique, and Meredith had to completely overhaul it to transform it into a studio.

  It’s been hard work, long days that stretched into long nights. She wanted to be involved in every aspect of the business, partly because she couldn’t afford to outsource anything, and partly because she was too stubborn to give up any amount of control to someone else. She’s the sole owner, something I know she’s proud of. I could have helped her with the initial capital, but she wouldn’t budge on that issue. She scrimped, saved, and worked with Dotty on securing a small business loan. I hate that she’s wasting money on interest payments, but there was no convincing her otherwise.

  Some aspects of the business came easily: instead of charging a monthly fee, each of her yoga classes will be donation-based. That way there’s no barrier to entry. “Yoga for the people!” as she likes to say.

  Some aspects of the business took a little more thought, especially the name. She kept a journal with hundreds of options. She went back and forth on a few favorites, and then one night, while we were lounging on the couch with Alfred at our feet, she turned to me and asked how Blue Stone Ranch got its name. I couldn’t believe I’d never told her. I also couldn’t believe how perfect the timing was. She needed to know the story, and after being together for three years, I had a question I needed to ask her.

  In the late 1930s, my grandfather immigrated to the United States from England. He was sixteen, on his own, and dirt poor, but he was determined to make something of himself. Work on the railroad brought him to Central Texas. He liked it here, especially after having spent a few winters up north, and the heat never bothered him like the cold did.

  One day, while he was working and laying new tracks, he accidentally dug up a blue topaz. They’re common in this area, but this one was especially large and the color was unique enough that he knew he’d found something special enough to keep. He tucked it in his pocket and forgot about it until he was playing a game of poker later that night with a few guys from the railroad and a few local ranchers. He’d already used up what collateral he had when one rancher decided to up the ante, but he knew he was holding a winning hand. Then he rem
embered the stone in his pocket. He bet the blue topaz, won the game, and in the end, he walked away with a little bit of cash and a few acres of that rancher’s land. It was hardly worth anything at the time. The soil was rough and infertile, which is why the rancher had bet it in a card game in the first place, but my grandfather saw its potential.

  When it was time for his crew to move on to lay the next section of tracks, he quit working for the railroad and stayed in Central Texas. He had that land, but not much else. For two years, he cultivated it, trying to figure out a crop that could handle the clay-filled earth, eventually moving into raising cattle and acquiring more land. It was during those early years that my grandfather met Edith. She lived in the area with her family and he’d had his eye on her for months before he finally worked up the courage to ask her out on a date. Her parents weren’t impressed by a poor immigrant farmer and made their opinions known, but after only a few weeks of dating, Edith loved him just as fiercely as he loved her.

  Three months after that first date, he still hadn’t worked out how to make the land flourish. He had no money to buy her a ring, but he had that blue topaz, so that’s what he used to ask Edith for her hand in marriage.

  Edith wore that stone on her ring finger every day until she passed it down to me on my one-year anniversary with Meredith. I was ready to marry Meredith then, but I knew she needed more time. So, I gave it to her—two more years. Two more years of us building a life together on the ranch. Two more years of Meredith sinking roots into Cedar Creek. Two more years of that ring burning a hole in my pocket until one night while we lounged on the couch she asked me why Blue Stone Ranch was called Blue Stone Ranch. I told her the story and then I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me.

  Two weeks later, she and I got married at the courthouse downtown. She didn’t want to spend a year planning an extravagant day when all she wanted was to be my wife as soon as possible, so we agreed to elope. We planned on it being a small affair with Edith, Helen, and Brent acting as witnesses, but when we arrived, we were shocked to find that it was standing room only in the courtroom. Every ranch hand and employee from Blue Stone had crammed into the small space. Leanna and a few of the other women from Meredith’s weekly yoga group had decorated the room with flowers. Meredith didn’t walk down the aisle toward me; we walked hand in hand through a crowd of our closest family and friends toward the waiting judge. Meredith stood across from me in an altered version of Edith’s wedding gown and we said I do in the shortest ceremony known to man. Everyone whooped and hollered and demanded a second kiss after the first. I dipped her low and she squealed with excitement.