by Julia London
He crumbled on the inside and slipped away from his invisible harness. He took her breast into his mouth and moved between her legs and, with his knee, pushed them apart. Ella hooked one leg around him and pressed against him. The desire for her burned through him—this woman was driving him to madness. He was afraid of his own strength, of wanting her so desperately and overpowering her.
He stilled himself to take a breath, to get a grip. He looked into her eyes—which shone back at him with the same hunger he felt inside himself. She seemed to understand his hesitance, seemed to feel his restraint. She put her hand on his hip, gripping it, and pulled him toward her.
Luca closed his eyes and guided himself into her. The sensation of her body around his stole his breath. He’d hardly moved, and he was already flying. A demanding rhythm began to beat in his veins, and as Ella pressed against him, he began to move, pushing them both toward the peak, stroking her with his hand and his body at the same time.
It was quick and furious. Ella arched her back, her hands seeking his flesh, her heels digging into his back. Her body was damp, her breath warm on his cheek, and there was nothing more erotic, nothing more arousing than this. His blood flooded through his veins, his heart boiled just beneath the surface of his skin. He groaned as she caressed his body and her mouth moved along his jaw. As his body slid in and out of hers, he could feel the massive release building in him, the increasing pressure in his body, and when Ella suddenly gasped and shuddered around him, Luca’s body and heart felt as if they exploded away from his thoughts, releasing into the air, soaring away from him like a rogue balloon.
Several moments passed as they both struggled to catch their breath. Her body was limp, one arm slung overhead. Luca rolled onto his side with her, wrapped his arms around her, and closed his eyes. “Unbelievable,” he said.
“I have no words,” she said into his chest. “No words.”
They lay there, not speaking, until their breathing had returned to normal. Ella reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Should we have a snack and then try again?” she asked.
He grinned up at the water-stained ceiling. A woman after my heart. “I definitely think we should have a snack and then try again.” He hugged her closer to him. “So, are you falling for me yet?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, and kissed his chest.
“Just checking,” he said, and sighed with a contentment that had settled into his marrow.
Ella extracted herself from his embrace, picked up his shirt from the floor, and shrugged into it as she disappeared into the other room. “No, Buddy,” he heard her say when she opened the door, then he was rudely startled by the snout of that dog on his bare skin. When Ella returned, she was carrying a bottle of water and a bag of potato chips. She kicked Buddy out of her room, closed the door, then leapt onto the bed, stepping over him before collapsing, cross-legged, onto her bottom beside him.
It was the best after-sex glow he’d ever experienced. They ate potato chips and laughed about high school, the people they’d known, the things they’d done. And when they made love again, the bag of potato chips sliding off onto the floor, it was slow and easy. They took their time, taking care with each other.
When they at last slept, she was wrapped in his arms.
Luca was awakened the next morning by a phone ringing somewhere. Ella sat up, her hair tangled around her. “Who calls this early?” she demanded, and climbed out of bed. She was still wearing his shirt. She opened the door, stumbled into the other room. Luca heard her mutter under her breath, and then the ringing stopped. Ella returned to the bedroom and jumped on the bed, straddling him, bouncing up and down. “Time to get up, cowboy. I have to go to work.” She jumped off and, whistling as if she’d just slayed a dragon or two, waltzed out of the bedroom.
Luca slowly pushed himself up on his elbows. He was still thinking about last night, a delicious swirl of memories and sensations in this bed. He thought of the way she’d taken him into her mouth, her lips and tongue swirling around the tip of his cock until he couldn’t stand it another moment and had dragged her on top of him to ride. Saddle up, she’d said with a laugh.
He remembered the way her hair fell wild around her shoulders, teasing her nipples. He remembered how she’d tossed her head back the moment she came, and how he’d had to hold her hips to keep her from falling off when she did.
Ella Kendall was a sorceress—she had cast some sort of magical spell on him, had turned him around and upside down, and had crumbled up all his rusty, dusty emotions and rearranged them so that they all felt fresh and new. He felt like a teenager who was just discovering how exciting and consuming adoration could be.
He sat up, ran his fingers through his hair, then sleepily looked around him, seeing the small room for the first time. Their clothes and shoes were scattered about the floor. There was a basket of folded laundry near the closet. Novels and jars of creams covered the small bureau. On the wall, a pair of paintings, one the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio, a very colorful, tropical place with palms and a rainbow of umbrellas. The other was of a windmill. He recognized it as the broken windmill behind this house.
This room was Ella’s world. This was what she saw when she woke each morning. God knew it wasn’t as luxurious as the surroundings he awoke to each morning, but her essence was here, painted into every corner, woven into the fabric. He didn’t want to leave it. He wanted to stay in this bed for as long as he could.
Unfortunately, he had things to do.
Luca got up, found his clothes. “Would you mind if I used your shower?” he called out.
“Help yourself!” she called back. He heard the screen door slam, and glanced out the back window. Ella was walking barefoot down to the chaise, a cup of coffee in her hand.
He showered quickly—and examined the slow leak under the sink—then dressed. Then he went in search of her and his shirt. As he grabbed a cup of coffee in the kitchen, he heard Ella shouting. “Buddy, no!”
He found Ella standing at the fence, waving at Buddy. But Buddy was running with the wild horses, barking.
“Bad dog!” Ella shouted.
Luca slipped his arms around her waist.
“Buddy is scaring the horses away!” she complained.
“Nope. He’s playing. Watch,” Luca said.
Two of the horses had moved down into a gulley, but one of them was loping around the field beyond the fence in big circles. Buddy wasn’t chasing the horse—he was running alongside, barking gleefully, his tail high. The horse changed direction. So did Buddy. The horse suddenly went another direction, and Buddy wasn’t as quick to change. He raced around, catching the horse near the gulley, then running alongside him again. They did this two more times, and then the horse disappeared over a hill. Buddy sat down, watching his playmate go.
“Oh my God,” Ella said, her voice full of amazement. “You mean all this time Buddy was calling for the horses? I thought he was trying to scare them off.”
“Buddy likes horses,” Luca said, and kissed her nape. “You’ve seen him with my horse. He likes to run beside him.”
“Oh my God,” she said again, her voice full of wonder. “How did I not see that?”
Luca slid his hand beneath his shirt, to her bare belly. “As much as I hate to do it, I’m going to need that shirt.”
“Oh yeah?” She turned around, looped her arms around his neck.
“Yes. I have a reading lesson at eleven,” he said. “What are you doing today?”
“Work,” she said with a sigh. “My part-time accounting job, then hostessing at the Magnolia.”
Back to reality, he supposed. The night had definitely turned to day.
They walked back to the house, and Ella changed clothes, returning his shirt to him reluctantly. She followed him onto the porch.
Luca went down the steps and turned around. Dressed in cut-offs and
a cropped T-shirt, Ella stood watching him. Buddy was lying beside her, panting, his tongue long and pink. The pig had come around, too, and was nosing around Ella’s pockets. “I’ll call you later?” he asked.
“Text me,” she said with a wink.
Luca groaned. “You might not understand it.”
Ella grinned. “I’ll figure it out.”
Luca shook his head. He still didn’t move. He kept looking at her, almost fearful that he would forget a freckle or the tiny scar on her collarbone. “You’re something else, Ella Kendall.”
“Around here, we call it poor,” she said, and laughed. Her phone began to ring. She sighed, pushed her hair from her face, and said, “Bye, Luca Prince.” She stepped inside.
Luca headed to his truck. He got in and cranked the ignition and looked at that ramshackle little house before putting the truck in gear. He was falling for this woman. He was falling hard.
He just hoped that after last night, Ella was starting to fall a little, too.
Chapter Twenty-one
The next three weeks were a gauzy dreamscape for Ella. She and Luca were together as much as they could be between her work schedule and his efforts to pull together a viable fund-raiser. They weren’t dating, exactly, but getting to know each other. Hanging out. She didn’t want to define it or put expectations on it.
Luca showed up almost every day, generally bringing something she desperately needed. Like feed. And a kitchen faucet, which he easily installed. Ella was especially grateful for that—she had not realized what a huge difference running water made in her life. He repaired other things around her house, too, like the bathroom sink. They would laugh at how the moment one thing was fixed, something else would break or malfunction.
They took long walks around her property, and Luca pointed out native plants or showed her landmarks that had guided travelers for centuries. His knowledge of the evolution of this land was fascinating and impressive. He showed her where vaqueros held their version of a rodeo, the charreada, for bragging rights. He understood ecology, why some plants flourished and some didn’t. He knew the wildlife, down to the beetles scurrying between prickly pear cactus. He cut the fruit from one very large complex of cactus and peeled it for her. “Eat it,” he said.
Ella ate it. It was delicious.
She realized during one of those walks that he had shown her ancient Texas and what this land had looked like to the Native Americans and Spaniard and French explorers. Then to the hardscrabble people who had come west and eventually settled this land. When she saw it through his eyes, it was amazing, so much more than trees and cactus and grass and a natural spring. It was a living, breathing thing.
Luca also talked about his lessons, and the things he was learning from the books he was reading on conservation. He talked about the work he and Brandon wanted to do, and how much effort and money it would take to see it come to fruition. He told her again how costly it could be. “Reclaiming the land from an invasive species that has choked it is not easy,” he’d said. “And it’s not cheap to remove old oil wells or seed entire pastures. Or construct natural barriers to prevent soil erosion and protect watersheds. There’s a lot that needs to be done.”
He talked about where they hoped the money would come from to realize their vision. Environmental groups. Universities. Philanthropic organizations. “But not,” he’d said with a laugh, “the Prince family foundation.”
“Why not?” Ella had asked.
Luca had sighed. “It costs a lot of money. The board—mostly family—prefer to see our money go to things that might shine with the Prince name. Like hospital wings or women’s shelters. Ecology and conservation is a little out there for them.”
Ella didn’t know squat about family philanthropic organizations, but that sounded terribly unsupportive to her. “So if you manage to do all that you want with the land, then what happens to it?” she asked.
“Hopefully, it will attract scientists to study the ecology and renewal of the land. And hunters and recreationists, too. What I want is for everyone to be able to see what the land is in its most natural state. What it should look like.”
Everything hinged on the fund-raiser. He said if they could get the buy-in from universities, environmentalists, and government, they had a chance at some real funding through grants and charitable donations without depleting their bank accounts.
Luca Prince was nothing like what Ella had assumed when he’d come riding out of the landscape to help her that day on the road. He’d talked about her layers, but he was the one who was the evolving picture book. She’d always thought him a jock, and while he was very athletic, he was so much more than that.
It was also astounding to her that for a man who couldn’t read, Luca knew so much. He had failed to learn in the traditional way, but he had forged a path around it, had learned in spite of his glaring disability. She’d thought that, with all of his family’s money and influence, Luca was the sort of man who could move through life doing what he pleased, with any woman he wanted. His privilege far exceeded that of those around him. She never would have guessed he had viewpoints that were at odds with his entire family.
And neither was he a player as she had always assumed. He was respectful, and he cared in a way she couldn’t really fathom.
They rarely ventured away from her little house. They ate tacos from the taco stand and barbecued once until they discovered the pig was not deterred by fire. Ella wasn’t much of a cook, but she made a batch of enchiladas two nights ago—thank you YouTube—which Luca very gallantly proclaimed the best of his life.
“You are such a liar,” she’d said, and Luca had pulled her onto his lap.
“What, me lie? I freaking loved those rock-hard enchiladas,” he swore, and kissed her. Before long, they were on the couch like a couple of teenagers in a desperate hurry before curfew.
Surprisingly, Luca had a trick or two up his kitchen sleeve. “Frederica taught me,” he said, and told her about the cook who had been with them longer than he’d been alive.
He talked some about his family, mostly Hallie and his brother Nick. He didn’t say much about his mother. His grandmother, he said, was two-thirds crazy.
Ella told him a story or two from her time in foster care, too, but mostly, the time they had together was spent in the moment, enjoying each other, making love, laughing at silly shows on Netflix at night when the satellite passed over.
Neither of them mentioned the future. Neither of them asked what their relationship meant or where it was going. And for that, Ella was particularly grateful. She didn’t want to think about those questions just yet, because she feared the answer. She just wanted to live this dream for as long as she could.
As she dressed for work one morning, she happened to look at Buddy lazing in front of the screen door. That was his preferred spot in the house now. He was the first to know if Luca was coming, either by horse or by Sombra or by truck.
As she walked out of the bathroom, the dog lifted his head and gave her the once-over.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
Buddy thumped his tail.
“Well, take a good long look, pal,” she said, throwing her arms wide and twirling around. “This is me in an extremely good mood. I know, unbelievable,” she said, and laughed as she went down on her knees to vigorously rub Buddy’s ears. Then she popped up, dusted off her knees, and grabbed her bag. “Don’t wait up.” She waggled her brows as she opened the screen door to shoo him out, then locked the door behind them.
“Good-bye, Priscilla!” she shouted as the pig came running forward with the evergreen hope of more food. They had named the pig after Luca declared it was either name her or eat her. “That’s the rule for farm animals,” he’d said.
“That is a horrible rule,” Ella had exclaimed.
“So name her,” he’d said with a shrug. “I like Priscil
la, because she’s a little prissy when she’s had enough to eat.” As if to prove his point, that afternoon Priscilla had been doing some hopping and rolling around in the dirt.
Ella grinned as she recalled that conversation and climbed in her vehicle. “Yeah, you’re high on life all right,” she said to herself. “If I didn’t know me better, I’d think I’d never had great sex.”
Well, she certainly hadn’t had sex as great as what she’d been having the last three weeks—that was for damn sure. Luca was the best lover she’d ever had, which, granted, was not a large pool. But he knew his way around a woman’s body, knew how to make it hum. Every time he touched her, she felt like she might disintegrate. Every caress of his hand, every brush of his lips against every body part sent white-hot charges running through her. He had explored every crevice, every crease, over and over and over again.
It was hard to not want him all the damn time.
Ella started up her car and listened for any rattles. She heard none today. They seemed to come and go. Maybe, things were finally turning around for her. Because she’d never felt quite as sunny and pretty and invincible as she had these last few weeks, and she liked it.
The only cloud that seemed to occasionally drift over her sun was Stacy. She hadn’t seen Stacy since Mariah told her Stacy had stolen the dress. She’d let Stacy’s calls roll to voice mail. She’d exchanged a text with her here and there, usually citing how busy she was. Ella generally liked to deal with issues head on, but she was so furious with Stacy that she wasn’t ready to speak to her yet.
She couldn’t avoid her forever. But she hadn’t wanted the shadow of Stacy to rain on her Luca parade.
Ella drove into town whistling “La Bamba,” the earworm stuck in her head since it had played at the Magnolia a few nights ago, and some of the bar patrons had broken into mangled Spanish, trying to sing along. She would be grateful for the day she had a working car radio.
She pulled into Lyle’s for gas. She got out and stuck her card in the reader. Lyle walked out of the shop, rubbing his gray hands on a rag that he returned to his back pocket. He reached for the pump.
