Lone Wolf Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  “I sure do.”

  Jacob turned and saw Vanessa standing near the doorway, her expression unreadable. Then he turned back to the bar and collected their food, and they both went out toward the truck.

  “I told you,” she said. “I don’t know how much of it was my fault.”

  “He should have known,” Jacob replied after they were inside the cab of the truck. “He should have known you were too drunk. And he should have taken care of you, he should never have taken advantage of you.”

  She visibly shrank when he spoke that word. “I’m not sure if you understand a blackout, Jacob. I have a long history of them, and that was the first. But since that one, I know... I could say anything. Do anything. My body is still working, my mouth is still working... The Vanessa that makes good decisions and thinks of the future and cares about safety and...about anything at all, she’s gone during that time. I’ve had a lot of evenings explained to me after the fact, nights I don’t even have slivers of memory of. And the person my friends have described to me? I don’t know her.”

  “He should have taken care of you, he should never have taken advantage of you.” The idea made his stomach turn. He wanted to go hit him again. One hit wasn’t enough. It never would be.

  “Sometimes I feel like I was assaulted,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like it was his fault. Sometimes I feel like it was mine. Sometimes I feel like his victim. Sometimes I feel like I’m a victim of myself.”

  “No,” Jacob said. “No. He—”

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” she said, leaning in and sliding her hand over his shoulder. “It’s you through and through. Black-and-white. Right and wrong. I don’t worry so much anymore about what it makes him. Because I don’t want to be around him either way.” She swallowed hard. “I’m not ashamed anymore. I used to be. I was overwhelmed by shame. Like there was a stranger, a monster who lived inside me who came out when I took a pill or had too much to drink. And for a long time I worried it was the real me.”

  She took a breath and looked up at him, her dark eyes shimmering. “People say that so carelessly. That the real you comes out when you’re drunk or high, and when you’ve done things like I’ve done, the idea that might be true is haunting.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault. And he...he came over and talked to you and had the nerve to be in your face about how you’re not over it?”

  “Well, maybe I should be over it. The not getting over it, where does that lead? To drugs, let me tell you. To a whole lot of questions that I can’t answer. And...being over it would just be a lot better.”

  He grabbed her chin, holding her steady and looking her in the eyes. “There’s been some shady people in your life. Who made you feel like you weren’t worth what you should feel. Don’t go trying to make it all your fault. Especially not this. It wasn’t your fault. He deserves more than I gave him. I meant what I said. I’d kill him.”

  “I believe you,” she said.

  She took the order, stacked in white containers and put them on her lap, and Jacob started the truck. When he looked over at her again, he saw tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Hey,” he said. “Don’t cry...”

  Then she pushed the food off her lap and lunged across the bench seat, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. It was over in a second, but when it was done, she was breathing hard and looking at him with glittery eyes. “Take me back to my place.”

  Jacob wasn’t about to argue.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  VANESSA KNEW THAT some people might argue she wasn’t thinking clearly. Not at the moment. Not with the upset of her family, and then the shock of seeing Jared in the bar. But somehow, deep down, she felt like she was thinking clearer than she had been for a long time.

  Jacob was...everything. The way that he had stood up for her. The way that he had...

  The way he looked at her and told her that it wasn’t her fault.

  Somehow, in that moment, she had been brought right back to the day that he had responded to her 911 call.

  He’d been her only ally then, her advocate. And he was that now.

  The one person in the world who seemed to look at her and see something else. Something more.

  Excitement flooded her, her stomach getting tight. And there was something about this decision that blotted out all of the gross, awful things that had happened over the past few hours.

  She had Jacob.

  In this world full of darkness. Full of her mistakes that she couldn’t seem to extricate herself from completely, that wrapped themselves like vines around her ankles and tried to hold her down, she had Jacob.

  Who could stand up to her father, hold on to her tightly so she didn’t collapse and destroy an enemy in a single blow.

  Her desire to be with him, to be closer to him, was something primal and beyond anything she had ever experienced before.

  It wasn’t about loneliness or a lack of resistance brought on by an altered state.

  She was fully and clearly in her own mind. She knew exactly who she was, exactly who he was.

  This wonderful, heroic man who saw things so simply. Who was her champion, no questions asked, no qualifications.

  Her need for him was sharp, cutting like a blade, that distinct, wonderful feeling that she hadn’t even recognized as desire at first because it was so different to the fuzzy, half-realized sensations she’d had before.

  Wanting him wasn’t intoxicating. It was clarifying.

  It burned everything else away and left this one thing shining brightly like a beacon. They took the drive in silence, the sound of the road filling the cab of the truck. And she looked out the window, watching the inky black trees blur against the midnight blue of the sky, the stars glittering there like jewels on velvet. It was all so real.

  And she felt so connected to it. To her body. To what she wanted from him. When they turned onto the gravel drive that led up to the house, her hands began to shake. But it wasn’t fear.

  It was need. An intense shot of adrenaline that signaled her readiness. She wanted him. She wanted this. There was no doubt.

  But it was different. Different from the frantic, desperate times they had come together before.

  There had been no thought then at all. No decision to get naked in front of him and be vulnerable.

  This was something. Something else.

  But like so many other things that she had shed over the past few years, she needed to let that past trauma go. To take it off along with her clothes. Because nothing that she wanted with Jacob made her feel ashamed.

  And yes, it had come with a consequence yet again. But life did. That didn’t make her past redemption. It didn’t make her wrong. It made her human.

  A woman who desperately wanted the man sitting next to her.

  This wonderful, incredible man who had set himself up as a guardian for her.

  When no one else ever had.

  When they pulled up to her house, she tumbled out of the truck, leaving the food behind. She didn’t actually care about the food, and judging by the fact that Jacob slammed his door quickly and didn’t seem to give another thought to the foam cartons, neither did he.

  They met around the front of the truck, the headlights shining on the two of them, and he grabbed her, pulling her into his hold, and kissed her on the mouth, deep and hard.

  It took a moment for the lights to turn off, but when they did, the two of them were plunged into darkness, kissing there in front of her house.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said softly, pressing her hands on his chest and rubbing her palms over his muscles. Even covered in the thin cotton of the shirt, she could feel all his heat and hardness, and she wanted all of it.

  She never had him completely naked before, and she wanted it.

  She wanted him.

  He took her hand, like they were walking through a park on a date, and not about to get into bed and ravage each other, bu
t she liked that. Loved the way his large calloused fingers felt rubbing against the tender skin on the back of her hand. Loved everything about the comforting reassurance of his touch.

  And she had been so bound and determined not to need. Not to need at all.

  But tonight, she was going to let it all happen.

  She was going to give him everything she had, because he had given her something no one else ever had.

  He had made her feel like she might matter.

  Are you really that sad?

  Maybe. Maybe she was.

  Maybe the bottom line was she still saw herself as something that didn’t quite mean as much as any of the other people around her.

  Someone who was damaged and lesser.

  Someone who had atoning to do, someone who didn’t exist outside the tightly controlled framework that she had built around her life.

  Someone who only mattered as long as she was good.

  But tonight a whole lot of ugly had been thrown in front of Jacob, and he had stayed the same.

  He had been tested, and the bonds didn’t break.

  She unlocked the front door and they went inside, she threw her purse on the ground, along with her keys.

  Jacob practically growled, pulling her up against his body and kissing her again, this time harder, deeper.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and melted into him, her tongue sliding against his, her whole body going liquid as the kiss went on and on.

  She had never kissed like this before. Like it was a destination in and of itself. Like it was comfortable and new all at the same time.

  Each pass of his tongue was a thrilling discovery, a new level of arousal that she hadn’t known she could reach with just the pressure of a man’s hand on her face, and arm curved around her lower back, and his lips fused to hers.

  She could feel him against her body, hard and ready, and she wanted. So deep and real.

  The present moment had never been so real. The rasp of his whisker-covered jaw against her hand, the heat of his mouth, the strength of his body. The sound of their breathing, mingling with the hum and click of the refrigerator and the gentle sound of the air conditioner coming on and off. Even the small things, the small details and sounds meant something. Grounded her in this moment. Where it felt like nothing had come before, and it didn’t matter what came after. All that mattered was now. The heavy weight of those masculine hands on her body.

  And if she closed her eyes and stilled for a moment, she swore she could hear the beating of his heart mingling with hers, fast and heavy like they’d been running a race.

  He was the one who moved them from the spot, who transitioned that kiss from the living room and down the hall.

  He found her bedroom with ease, though in fairness it wasn’t difficult, since it was the only door in the hall standing open, but part of her would like to think that he just had a sense for it, like he seemed to have a sense for everything else. How to touch her, how to hold her.

  He flipped the lights on when they got into the room, and she was grateful.

  He moved away from her, pushing his boots off with his feet, taking his socks with them, before gripping the edge of his T-shirt and jerking it up over his head.

  She’d seen his chest the day they made love in the classroom, the day she’d used his body as a canvas, but it was even more spectacular than she remembered it.

  His well-defined muscles shifting with each breath. His chest was broad and thick, his waist lean and narrow with perfectly defined abs and those hard-cut angular lines that seemed to create an arrow down to the part of him that was hard and ready for her, with only those low-slung jeans keeping him from being completely naked.

  She had never been so happy to be fully engaged in a moment in her entire life.

  Mindfulness, she knew, was a concept partly created to keep a person from drowning in anxiety, but she felt its primary use for her right now was to enjoy having a man with a perfect body standing in front of her, ready and waiting to be her personal playground.

  She closed the distance between them and put her hands on his belt, undoing it and then the button and zipper on his jeans. She wanted... She wanted to show him how much she wanted it. How much she knew exactly what she was doing right now.

  She wasn’t distressed or impaired in any way.

  She was ready.

  She pushed his jeans and underwear down his lean hips and then stood back to admire his body, fully exposed for her pleasure.

  He was a work of art.

  She could happily paint him. Paint on him. All of the above.

  He was a masterpiece of bold strokes and decisive lines, hard, masculine angles.

  And she wanted every inch of him.

  Beside her, over her, in her.

  Her breasts ached, her core hollow and needy for him.

  And then his lips lifted upward into a wicked smile, and he advanced on her, pulling her up against his naked body as he ripped her top up over her head, those knowing hands making even quicker work of her skirt and underwear.

  Her bra was gone in a skillful second, on the floor with the rest of her clothes, and then she was blissfully naked, every glorious inch of his naked skin against every glorious inch of hers.

  He was everything.

  And so was this. Wonderful and powerful and unabashedly sexual.

  He lifted her up off the ground, carried her toward the bed, but he didn’t do what she expected. Instead, he gripped her ass tightly in both palms, bringing himself down onto the mattress on his back while he hauled her up toward his mouth, positioning her over him, his tongue finding her most sensitive spot unerringly as he pressed her to his face, his whiskers scraping against her inner thighs while he lapped at her like she was a dessert.

  She gasped, holding on to the headboard as pleasure rolled over her like an uncontrollable wave.

  In this position, with him gripping her so tightly and holding her in place, there was nothing she could do but submit to what he was doing.

  If a man had ever given such focused attention to her pleasure in the past, she couldn’t remember it, and she didn’t think it had ever happened, because she would remember this. This feeling of sharp, intense pleasure, of blunt male fingertips digging into her hips as that slick, knowing tongue took her to places she thought only existed in fiction.

  She tried to say his name, tried to protest, because in spite of the fact that he managed to give her multiple orgasms the last time they were together, she was always afraid that it wouldn’t happen.

  In general, orgasms had never been the goal of sex for her. Often there hadn’t been a goal so much as just that sometimes it was easier to be with someone than to be without them.

  Jacob didn’t seem to see it that way. The man was goal oriented, and her pleasure seemed to be a huge part of that goal.

  Not that she was complaining. It was just that...

  She couldn’t think anymore because suddenly he slid his hand from her ass, down between her legs, and teased the entrance to her body, sending a cascade of need raining down on her, crashing into a turbulent, jagged release that made her shake and shudder endlessly, until she was sure that it would never end.

  He picked her up and lowered her down his body, so that his thick, heavy erection was pressed against her stomach, and their noses were touching, their lips nearly brushing.

  “I’ve been dreaming about that,” he said. “I can’t get your taste out of my head.”

  “Oh,” she said because she didn’t have anything clever to say. She didn’t have anything to say.

  Her brain didn’t work anymore.

  He had transformed her entirely into a creature of sensual need, not one of thought or coherent phrasing.

  He arched his hips upward, his hard length pushing insistently against her. “I want you,” he said.

  “I want you too,” she said. But there was more in that declaration. More than she even wanted to admit to herself.

 
He reversed them so that she was pressed into the soft mattress, his large body over hers, his blue eyes staring down into hers. Then again, the moment felt sharp, just a little bit too sharp, with nothing to avail the connection between the two of them.

  She was afraid he could see inside her. See things that not even she could see.

  He claimed her mouth in a searing kiss, his mouth fitting perfectly over hers, his tongue sliding against hers, as he positioned himself at her entrance and slid inside her in one smooth stroke.

  She gasped as he filled her, as their bodies joined together.

  He slid one hand down her arm, gripped her wrist and pushed it up over her head, before repeating the same motion with her other arm, capturing both wrists and his large hand, holding her in place as he thrust deep and hard.

  The way he held her, the way he moved inside her, all of it brought them closer together, let her feel all of him.

  And as he moved, the pleasure, the need, spiraled higher and tighter inside her.

  She felt transported completely, and right there all at the same time. Their breath, his body, the bed, everything so real and clear. But nothing was more real than the orgasm that was building inside her, tightening every line in her body like a bowstring, so tight that she was afraid she was going to break.

  And when it did, when it did, it was like a free fall, terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time. But at the end of it, when the shaking stopped, when the pleasure subsided, he was holding her in his arms because he had fallen right along with her.

  Their skin was slick with sweat, their breathing harsh. But they were together.

  And Vanessa realized she hadn’t fully known just how alone she had felt, until she had experienced what it was to truly be with another person.

  Their hearts beating together, their breath in the same time.

  And whatever happened next, whatever happened tomorrow, or ten years from now...they would have this.

  And maybe, just maybe, it would be enough of a foundation to build on.

  She had wrecked him.