by Em Petrova
He moaned softly against her lips as she sank over the bulge in his jeans. In the dark, his eyes were dark and glittering with passion.
Taking his hand, she guided it up her waist to her breast.
“Jesus,” he grated out as he cupped it fully, swishing his thumb over the tip. Back and forth, back and forth, a slow torture that went along with the way he was kissing her, like he had all night and meant to take his time.
She pressed into his hand, seeking more as she drew a line over his lower lip with the point of her tongue. He closed his fingers around her nipple and pinched.
Overcome with lust, she pushed him back into the grass. Both their hats fell off as they threw themselves into a kiss to end all kisses.
At least in her mind.
The carnal flip of his tongue and the way he demanded more with each stroke had her burning.
She wiggled on his erection, moaning at the sensation it created.
“Gracie. I need you.” He went for her shirt hem, pulling it up and over her head. Then he took one look at her rounded breasts propped up on the cups of her bra and bowed his head. For a long moment, he remained still, breathing her in, unmoving.
Tenderness washed over her at the intimacy of the moment, and she pressed her had into his nape to draw him nearer.
“You slay me.” He looked up at her.
“We haven’t even started,” she whispered.
“Darlin’, we’ve been goin’ for a long time.” He hooked a finger under her bra strap and pulled it down over her shoulder, taking time to kiss the skin from neck to shoulder and arm and back up.
She turned her mouth into his, seeking the solace in his arms even as she wanted to demand the wild satisfaction only Noble could give her.
Be patient.
But she couldn’t, not when he was pinching one nipple, and then the other, and driving her crazy.
She went for his shirt too, needing to feel the solid steel of his body under her hands. Their breaths came out raggedly as they each explored flesh and muscle.
When he popped the clasp of her bra, she shivered at the delicious pleasure of being without the constriction… and more when he bent to suck and kiss her breasts. The moment he sucked her nipple in a deep pull of his mouth, she threw her head back and cried out with abandon.
“I could stay here for hours just sucking your beautiful breasts,” he ground out in a deeper voice than usual.
She skimmed her fingers over his pecs. The experience of warm steel was enough to make a girl pant with excitement, and she loved how he reacted to her brushing over his nipples too.
They puckered under her touch, and she pinched one lightly to see what he’d do.
He moaned and moved to her neck, locking onto the column and moving upward to her ear in a series of small kisses and nips. Passion bubbled up, and she couldn’t hold back.
She went for his belt. The cool metal in her hands enticed her to keep going, flicking open the button of his jeans and guiding the zipper down. When she touched his hard cock covered by his boxers, he went dead still.
“Gracie.” His throat worked. “I can’t hold off if you touch me more. Have mercy.”
She gave a throaty laugh but soon realized her error when he flipped her into the grass and pinned her down with his body and hands clamped around her wrists. They stared into each other’s eyes for a long minute.
“You don’t have to be gentle with me. I won’t break,” she said.
“I’m just tryin’ to go slow.”
“But we’ve got all night.”
He dropped his head forward, panting hard at her words. When he looked at her again, her stomach did a heated somersault. “You mean I get to have you more than once?”
That deep flutter inside her was unstoppable, but she shouldn’t be doing this, letting Noble touch her. Worse was getting closer to him in more than physical ways.
It was too late for her to stop tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough.
Leaning up, she captured his lips as her only answer. While his hands roamed over her, pulling off boots and jeans, and finally ridding her of her panties, she watched his face. The intense expression grew to a hardened want, setting the already chiseled planes of his cheeks and jaw to pure stone.
When he began to kiss a pathway down between her breasts to her navel and finally poising over her mound, she forgot how to breathe.
Then he plunged his tongue into the seam of her pussy, and she was pretty sure she’d gone to heaven.
* * * * *
Noble could make love to her with his tongue all night. Her flavors left him burning, throbbing, aching to sink inside her tight sheath. Lucky he’d had time to run to town for supplies, and his pocket was stuffed with condoms. He intended to use every last one and be deafened by her cries of pleasure come dawn’s first light.
He flicked his tongue up and down her slit, gathering all her sweet juices and circling her hard clit.
Her knees closed around his ears. “Noble!”
Sucking her pearl into his mouth, he watched pleasure cross her beautiful face. Hell, this woman was imprinting herself on his soul in ways he never would have dreamed of. That whole soul mates thing wasn’t real to him—it was a label people gave someone they wanted to hang onto longer than they should.
But the idea of losing Gracie now—of letting her go… No, he wasn’t going to give her up easy. Not now.
He drove his tongue deep into her opening. Her arousal flooded his tongue, and he groaned, burrowing deeper. When he lifted his head, she had her eyes closed tight, her lips swollen from biting them or from his kisses.
As she opened her eyes and met his gaze, he teased two fingers at her entrance and held her stare as he sank them inside her.
She stretched around him, enveloping him in so much heat he thought he might unload then and there, especially when she flattened her hand over his head and brought him back down to her pussy.
Small bats of his tongue on her clit had her squirming. As he added the forceful pumps of his fingers, she bucked.
And when she came apart for him on a scream of ecstasy… Hell, he fell headlong.
Her body tightened under his mouth and around his fingers, even as she drenched him. He moved his lips up and down her seam, cleaning every last drop off her body. She flung her arms out to her sides, staring at the sky with glassy eyes.
“Did I kill ya?” he rumbled, moving up to kiss her belly.
She gave a deep laugh of pure joy.
He grinned against her warm skin.
Pushing onto her elbows, she eyed him like a woman eyed a man she intended to steal the heart of.
Didn’t she know she already had?
“Get out a condom, cowboy,” she said.
He moved to his knees to shove his jeans and boxers off his hips, along with boots and socks. When her gaze lit on his erection, she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips.
Slow.
“Gracie. I don’t know if I can last long.”
“You’d better have some stamina, cowboy.”
He laughed. “Leave it to you to put the pressure on.” Feeling less worried about how long it’d take him to reach his peak, he made a show of slipping the condom into place.
She reached out and cupped his length in one soft hand.
Okay, he took it back—he couldn’t last.
Swallowing hard, he hovered over her once more, starting all over again. Kissing her sweet lips until the intensity swelled between them. Moving down to tease her breasts and press his thumb over her pulsating clit while watching her eyes flutter shut in bliss.
Only then did he guide his cock to the root of her. She spread her legs farther and covered his hand with hers. “I’ll guide you in,” she rasped.
After that, he lost all sense of reality. The tight clutch of her body around his shaft, the liquid heat.
And her hands—roving from his shoulders and down his chest to his abs and around his spine. When she gripped his ass a
nd dragged him deep inside her, they shared a wild moan that startled a screech owl.
Her eyes flew open in surprise, and they collapsed against each other in laughter. But soon that moment fled, replaced by a rampant need to reach his end. Pressure built in his core, and he felt the moment she tipped over the ledge, body contracting hard and fast around him.
She took him with her, and there was no going back.
He came with a growl against her lips, and she delivered one right back, rocking up to meet his thrusts. The waves of release seemed to go on forever.
He collapsed against her, and she looped her ankles around his backside, holding him in place.
“What… the hell… was that?” she asked at last.
He somehow found the strength to lift his head and pierce her in his gaze. “That was round one.”
“Well, if I’m doing this, I’m in it for the prize.” Her smile stole the last of his mind.
“You already got the money shot,” he teased.
She giggled and closed her eyes, still holding him. He let himself drift in the pleasure of being with Gracie for a long moment before realizing he must be crushing her and rolling off.
She curled against him before he even drew her into his embrace, and his heart gave a hard flex at the idea that she might want to be with him as much as he wanted her.
Maybe this could be a thing, their arguments only foreplay and working as a team from dawn to dusk, and then finally falling into dreams together.
He was probably an idiot for allowing any of these thoughts into his head, but something about Gracie had him dreaming of forever.
“You know this can’t happen after tonight,” she said softly.
The words rocked his world he’d just built in his mind.
His brows pulled together, and he tightened his hold on her, unwilling to let her leave him, especially on that note.
“Why not?” he asked in a roughened tone.
She pushed out a breath, a warm puff against his chest. “You know it’s not a good idea. The guys’ll all know.”
“Not unless we tell ’em.”
“They’ll know. Cowboys are like that—observant. We gotta be to make sure things run right.”
“Well, who gives a damn if they do find out?” He didn’t mean to sound ready to take a swing at the first man who tried to split him from Gracie, but dammit, he felt that way.
“I care. And you do too, Noble. You don’t want to risk your chance at your place here.”
“No.” He swallowed. “I don’t. But Gracie, I’m tellin’ you right now, one night with you will not be enough.” He raised his head to catch her gaze.
She gave a slow blink and then rested her head on his chest once more. “I never came here thinking I’d have more than once with you, Noble.”
He rolled her, pinning her to the ground and staring down at her. “Tell me you don’t want me again, Gracie. Tell me that right now, you’re not soaking wet at the thought of me sinking into you. And that you’re going to be able to wake up tomorrow and act like nothing happened between us.”
“Noble…”
“If you can say those things, I’ll let you go.”
Her breath hitched. She chewed on her lower lip, and it was too much for him—he claimed her mouth in a hard, demanding kiss that spiraled on until he was hard and aching again, and she writhed against him for more.
He didn’t reach for another condom—not yet.
“Tell me you’ll stay with me tonight,” he said.
“I shouldn’t have come at all.”
“You’re about to come a third time if you say the words. Say, ‘Noble, I’ll stay with you all night.’”
Her chest rose and fell as if she waged some internal battle. Knowing her, she did. The stubborn woman had come here thinking it’d be a one-time sating of pleasure, knocking boots with the cowpoke and then walking away from him. But she was wrong.
He wasn’t letting her go.
Reaching out an arm, he found his stash of condoms in his jeans pocket and pulled one free. Holding it before her eyes, he demanded, “Say the words and I’ll make your body sing, Gracie darlin’.”
She shuddered. “Noble, I—”
Her words were cut short by the sputter of a truck engine, far down on the ranch. But it was enough to make her shove him off her and jump up. She started throwing her clothes back on, jumping on one foot as she fought to get her boot on.
He got to his feet too, shooting glaring looks toward the ranch and who the hell ever was awake at this time of night and starting their diesel truck.
Before she took a step away from him, Noble flung out an arm and trapped her. She tried to twist from his hold.
“We can’t do this, Noble. Let me go.”
His heart throbbed out a sickening beat. The thought of her walking away and never having another moment like this again… He just couldn’t think about it.
“Gracie.”
She went still.
He tipped her head up to look into her eyes. “Stay with me.”
She searched his eyes.
He dropped his hand, giving her the choice.
In the end, he watched her walk back down the hill.
* * * * *
“Vin, you’ve got Timms and Minich on fence duty. Try to get as much done as you can this morning before the heat sets in. Can’t have my cowpokes keelin’ over in the field from heatstroke.” Langtry had them all gathered in a semi-circle, doling out the day’s duties.
Gracie had positioned herself as far from Noble as possible. If he so much as looked her way, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. Her body’s reactions seemed to be much different from her brain’s—the disconnect between the two made her feel unpredictable and out of control.
“Dalton.”
She looked up at Langtry for direction. Please don’t put me with Noble. Please don’t put me with Noble.
“You’re with me today. We’re taking some of the young horses out to work the cattle.”
She beamed at the challenging task she’d been given.
Langtry continued down the line, separating some of the veterans to break the youngest horses. All the horses they’d been breaking were now accustomed to feeling the weight of ropes on them and were getting ready for bridles.
He reached the end of the line and had Noble going off with a couple guys for supplies an hour away. They were to take the truck and haul back enough grain to get them through the rest of the month plus odds and ends.
She chanced a look at Noble out of the corner of her eye and caught him staring at her. A burning heat crawled from her face downward, enveloping her breasts and making her nipples harden. When it reached between her thighs, she shifted her weight to ease the heavy throb there.
The man knew how to claim a woman, and if she was honest, it’d been the best, most exciting sex of her life. Everything from the ambience of the night to the shattering orgasms wouldn’t be soon forgotten.
Langtry waved to Gracie. “Warm up that horse so it won’t buck out in the field.”
She nodded and moved away, striding as fast as she could to the barn and hoping and praying Noble wouldn’t follow and corner her. If he did, she’d have to put him in his place, and she didn’t like confrontation. Hopefully, he was smart enough to have gotten the point from the night before—they couldn’t continue this affair. The end.
She hadn’t taken two steps inside the barn before a warm clasp of fingers on her upper arm had her turning. Noble backed her up against the wall, pinning her with his body.
Her breaths came fast and hard, and she fought to control them. Her traitorous nipples were peaked and begging for his fingers, lips, tongue… teeth.
“Let me go,” she said but even her stupid voice wouldn’t obey and came out a breathy puff of air.
His eyes, a glimmer of gold, amber and green, burned into hers. “Stop avoiding me and I won’t have to trap you to get you to talk to me. You ignored me when I tried to talk t
o you before breakfast and during morning chores.”
“I told you last night we can’t do this.” If she put her hands on his chest to push him away, she didn’t know if she could bring herself to ever drop them again. It was likely she’d just slip them around his neck and lean into him.
“Gracie.”
God, did he have to keep saying her name like that?
“That wasn’t a one-night deal, and we both know it.”
She shook her head, but he captured the point of her chin between his thumb and forefinger. The scent of leather and musk infused her head, and her eyes threatened to close.
Why the hell was she being so weak? Noble was just a man, and she’d resisted a hell of a lot of those.
He wasn’t anything special.
He was only the hottest man she’d ever laid eyes on.
She could watch him load grain sacks all day long. The pull of his shirt across the muscles of his spine, the strain of denim against his hard thighs…
Maybe she should ask Langtry to switch her to his group going to town.
No. I need to get away from him so I can think.
He nuzzled his nose along her jawline, sending sparks of need straight to her core. A gasp threatened to break from her lips.
“I’ve never had a woman like you, Gracie. You’re all I can think about.”
“Then you’d better learn to concentrate, because you can’t be distracted on a ranch.”
“I know.” He brushed his lips over the corner of her mouth. Liquid heat soaked her panties. Drenched, more like. She’d chafe all damn day in the saddle if he kept this up.
She found the strength to place her palms against his chest and push him away. He came right back, harder this time, crushing her to the wall, his lips a scant breath away from hers as he stared right into her soul.
“You don’t want me to stop this, darlin’, and I couldn’t now if I tried. Which I won’t. Now, I’ve gotta go or miss that truck to town, and you need to warm up that horse. When we get back, don’t even think about trying to avoid me. It won’t work.”
He did a push-up off the wall and stepped back.
Her insides quivered, and it wasn’t until he’d made it to the door that she realized she was shaking with the urge to wrap her thighs around his hips and taste those hard lips of his again.
