by Mia Madison
“Squidge over, Piggie,” he says, nudging at my hip with his solid pelvis.
“Piggie?” I giggle. “Is that how you refer to all the women you meet?”
“Only the ones that I really like.”
I feel a blush slide up my cheeks and have to look down for a moment, overcome by feelings I’m not accustomed to. Shit, let’s be clear, I have never felt like this not once in my quarter century of existence.
“So what’s got you so engrossed you’re willing to forego a party with a bunch of ravenous cowhands?”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” I say, snatching the book out of his reach because I really don’t want him to see the title.
“What is it, some steamy erotic romance novella? Some bondage story?” He comes up another rung and grabs at the book, too powerful for me to resist. Plus fighting with him is making me breathless. “Ah, Overcoming Depression,” he says. “I must have missed that one. Was it a bestseller?”
“It’s no joke,” I tell him.
“I know.”
“I doubt that.”
“My mother was a depressive.”
“Oh,” I breathe. “Look at me making those snap judgments about people. I’m sorry.”
“She took pills for it from the day I was born.” A momentary sadness hits him and I feel the pain running down his perfect limbs. “Someone you love is struggling with the illness? A husband? Boyfriend?”
“Not exactly,” I say, preparing to come up with a lie if necessary.
Then I think why? Why should I hide what I’m going through out of shame. It’s an illness, like he said. “I’m not taking any meds. I’m doing it the natural way even if it takes longer. And it is taking a damn long time.”
“So you’re depressed?”
Again I look down, reflexively hiding the shame. But he asked me so naturally, that immediately dissipates. And this time, he pads one finger on the underside of my chin and tips my face back up toward his. My breathing starts coming in fits and starts, seeking air between the hard beats of my heart. He looks at me, searching, wanting to genuinely know.
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s grief that I can’t move past. Or guilt. Survivor’s guilt?”
“You were in an accident?”
All of a sudden the tightness ties up my heartbeat in a knot. I swallow down hard and over again, trying to release the pain tautening my chest.
“I apologize,” Diego says, so gently a tear starts to me eye. “I’m being intrusive, its none of my business.”
Let me try. I think but I can’t manage to say the words. I want to but it’s just too difficult.
“I want to know you,” he says.
He strokes two strong fingers down the length of an escaped tendril of hair. If this is seduction it’s an odd one. I can’t imagine he’s so desperate that he needs to waste time in the library with Miss Anxiety Attack. But he seems so easy to talk to and I really want to tell someone, but I’m afraid.
“I’m afraid I might come completely undone and become a screaming mess if I try to talk about it,” I whisper.
Apparently reluctant to let go of the strand of black hair, he holds the end, examining it like it’s the crown jewels instead of a scraggly mess.
8
Diego
I consider this moment very carefully, caressing the silken tress in my fingers. Then my hand is compelled to wrap around the back of her head and pull her mouth onto mine. The desire to bury my tongue between her lips and taste her is overwhelming. I want every part of her body in my mouth, from that perfect little toe to the end of her flowing hair.
As I fight with the demands of my body to claim her, I do think about what I'm about to say. I’m no therapist type but I know people. Like I know horses, through sense awareness of the emotion flowing through them. It’s how I can tell exactly when a woman is ready to be fucked.
This one is ready, she’s clamoring with hunger to be taken and adored. But she’s also restrained, held back by some heavy weight.
“It’s just difficult after pushing it out of my mind for so long,” she murmurs, her amazing purple eyes filling with molten terror. “I’m afraid.”
I could kiss her for her honesty with me, which is hard for her, I can tell. I actually feel honored that she would open up to me like this. I don’t know what the fuck is going on here. In the space of minutes this has gone from me looking to seduce the most beautiful girl currently available, to feeling like I want to protect her from every little hurt that’s blighting her life.
In that instant I make the decision to try it. If it backfires I just hope it doesn't hurt her. I twirl a tendril around and around my finger, the way girls seem to like. As though that skinny strand of hair has direct connection to their perfect inner folds.
“Not to distract from the current convo,” I say lightly, “but if you’re going to come undone and be a screaming mess, I’d be more than happy to take charge of that for you.”
I continue twirling and my thumb stokes down the side of her neck like I’m gliding across her swollen clit. She looks at me in surprise and my heart drops into my gut. Shit, did I misjudge this?
Her mouth twitches, the bottom lip coming out. I’d like nothing more than to suck it into mine and trail my tongue along the breadth of the swollen flesh.
Then she bursts out laughing and the room fills with the sound of her happiness.
“You are so outrageous and cheeky,” she says.
“You say it like it’s a negative trait, or is that two? Question is did it work?”
“I love that you’re so upfront about this – my condition or whatever it’s called. I hate the world illness or disease. People usually prowl around and slink away, afraid to say the wrong thing. I feel like I’m made of glass and no one wants to handle me.”
“Oh believe me there’s nothing I want more than to handle you,” I tell her, making her giggle again.
“I set myself up for that one didn't I?” she says.
“Anyone would think you were doing it on purpose to manipulate me into seducing you.”
“Would I need to do that?” she teases, her amazing eyes sliding up to mine, her lips parting a little.
“Not even a teeny bit.”
Before I can stop myself, my hand drops her soft strand of hair and snakes around the back of her neck. I tug her lightly but firmly toward me and cover her mouth with mine. She laps me up like a starving woman. Her hand flies up to flatten on my chest muscle then grasp at the bicep digging her fingers into the hard muscle as I probe her mouth with my tongue. I swirl around hers, doing a dance like a tango and drawing her ever closer to me.
My fingers delve through her thick hair, then flip over, to wrap the roots and hold her tighter. She moans lightly in my mouth and gouges at my upper arm, needing more.
If we weren’t precariously perched on the rung of a ladder, I’d already have thrown her back on the ground and torn the white dress from her body. I want her naked and writhing under me while my hands travel over every curve, every pore of her soft skin. I need to bend her over one of those big armchairs by the fireplace and pull her skirt up over her round ass.
My head fills with the need to yank her panties down her thighs and push my tongue deep into her soaked folds. The delirious nature of that thought has my cock shoving at my jeans to break loose. My other hand clamps around her firm waist. Either she’s so small or my hand is so large, I’m easily encircling it and squeezing her with all the lust pouring through me. My heavy thumb slides up over the mound of her breast and finds her nipple erect and hard.
A shard of lust drives through me like a dagger, I need her so bad. I only meant to kiss her, get one sweet taste of her lips. But now I’m filling my palm with her flesh, alternately squeezing and mangling her uplifted braless tit. I pinch out the hard bullet point, rolling it around between my finger and thumb until she gasps into my mouth with a sharp little moan.
Now all I can think of is pushing those tight thighs apar
t and discovering her most secret place. Is she wearing panties? Perhaps she prefers to go without underwear, which is hot. Although she’ll also have to wear some sexy sets of bra and panties for me. Just so I get the pleasure of ripping them off her and seeing her tits bounce free. Pulling her lips apart and revealing the sweet glistening folds with the intoxicating aroma rising up to me.
Finally her hands come up to my chest and push back on me, breaking the kiss. She comes away panting for breath, looking half shocked at what just happened. My hand glides back away from her prefect breast reluctantly, to slide down her waist and rest on her thigh.
We gaze at each other. I may be almost as surprised as she is which is an unusual sensation for me. I’m always likely to kiss a woman and caress her tenderest parts. It’s one of the things I’m famous for, almost as much as my expert chukkas.
“Oh my god,” she whimpers.
Her eyes scour mine, looking for some clue to what just happened. She looks down at my huge hand lying across her thigh and then her gaze takes in the huge bulge still pressing ferociously at my zipper. Why wouldn’t it be? When my fingers are less than an inch from her pussy which I know is dripping by now. I want her more than I want a delicious juicy steak. If we were anywhere else than up here in the roof, I’d already be buried up to the root inside her tight pussy. I’m sure she’s realizing the same thing right now.
“I have to go,” she says, slithering out from under my grip.
She climbs fast down the ladder with an agility I hadn’t expected. It only makes my imaginings more intense as to how she’d look sitting straddled across my dick, energetically bouncing on it’s prodigious length.
“Why don’t you stay?” I tell her.
“I can’t,” she whimpers and throws back the door to the library then dashes out like it’s on fire.
Again that strange tug emanates from my gut, not wanting her to leave. Not liking that I can’t be with her and don’t know when I’ll get the chance again.
This is ridiculous. Especially because this woman is at least a decade younger than me, more I’m sure. Not that that’s ever stopped me. Maybe I’m biting off more than I can fit in my mouth, if that’s the way the American phrase goes. Again, when has that ever stopped me.
I live for challenge.
I live for winning.
And I am determined that this perfect little filly will be mine.
9
Violet
I fly down that ladder like a fireman down a greased pole. Okay not literally because I’m no Wonder Woman but that’s how it feels, the speed I hurtle away from him.
Diego is like no other man I’ve ever set eyes on and he’s just too much. Too experienced, too confident, too freaking gorgeous. He’s about to turn forty according to the Shameless celebrity chatter website which makes him almost fifteen years older than me. Not that you’d ever know it to look at him. His lightly tan skin is flawless and I was shocked to discover that about him.
Not that I’m hung up on age. It’s mostly the awe-inspiring perfection and worldliness of the man that sets every wheel spinning in me. I’m like a train running off the rails and it’s too much. He’s way too much to deal with, and the intense need tearing at me.
I throw open the door to my room and dart inside like I’m being chased by a serial killer. I know that Diego isn't following me. He made no move to come down the ladder when I bolted. I’m sure he watched my speedy exit with a wry smirk on his beautiful mouth. He’ll have already written me off as a childish ingenue and headed back down to the party he was insisting I join.
I throw myself down on the bed mad as hell, wishing I hadn’t refused him.
Of all the men that could have suddenly inspired this complete turnaround in me, why him? Why the self-obsessed, slightly arrogant playboy with one thing on his mind? Why couldn’t I have felt this way with Peter, the only man I’ve ever dated?
Why didn’t I?
I’m not a virgin. Peter and I did get to bonk before I broke it off with him, for not being able to make me feel. I’ve heard women talking about the big O and that was mostly the reason I agreed to date a man when Shelley insisted I had to give it a try. Curiosity to experience the wash of passion riding through every cell of my body.
It’s something I can still only try to imagine in my wildest dreams. Nothing Peter did down there, the fumblings and prodding gave me any waves of pleasure. But then he didn’t inspire this throb in my clit either. That still hasn’t gone away. In fact it’s gotten worse. As though my pussy is pissed with me for running away from Diego.
Perhaps I can only get enthralled for a bad boy.
What do you do when you’re no match for a man?
Run was the only thing I could think of.
I have the worst sleep of my life but I don’t admit that to Modesty at breakfast.
“It’s so quiet out here at night and the sky is like an endless black ocean,” she says. “I remember being terrified the first time I stayed here. But I was such a different person then, like a child really.”
“That’s how I feel sometimes,” I tell her. All the women on the ranch are amazing but I find Modesty is easiest to talk to. “Like I’m stuck back there as a teenager.”
“Everything changed when I met Rafe. But it was hard to let go and trust him. because of his cockiness and experience”
“He’s older than you?”
“Yes.”
“So he knows what he’s doing – with your body.”
“Oh my god yes, no comparison to the boys back home.”
“I get that. I think.”
I don’t dare to ask her too much. I don’t want to raise her suspicions. And my purpose here isn’t to get off. Unfortunately.
Shit, I can’t believe I just said that, even just in my head.
“Yes, meeting Rafe opened me up in so many ways,” Modesty says, laughing lightly with a naughty glint in her eye. “Oh, TMI, sorry.”
“No, that’s great,” I reassure her. “You don't have to play the client/host relationship with me and definitely not the aloof therapist one. I don’t have any girlfriends, so this is nice.”
“Really. there’s no one?” she says, her face stricken with sympathy.
“No one at all.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without Dallyce and Edie and Chloe too. Although she’s the boss, there isn’t that kind of divide you’re talking about. We don’t stand on ceremony here.”
“Unless you’re Diego della Donna,” I say, somehow I need his name on my lips as a reminder of the real thing last night.
“Oh him,” she snorts.
“You don’t like him?”
“He’s a hunk, oops, don’t let Rafe hear me say that. He thinks the guy’s a pussy, strutting around in those tight pants all day, like he owns the place.”
“Well if you’ve got it, flaunt it.”
“He’s definitely got it and he’s all about the flaunting it. Have you checked out the bundle?”
“The bundle?” I repeat, dumbly before realizing what she’s referring to. “Ohmigod.” the color floods my cheeks and I feel like some Puritan virgin showing off her ankles.
“Sorry, there I go again,” Modesty quips.
“It’s okay, you make me laugh. And actually I did notice the bundle. It’s hard to ignore.”
“Right? But I guess a woman that would take that on is going to be one of his kind. You know the supermodels and actresses that are into the publicity and showing off and have a similar amount of self-adoration.”
“Yes I guess,” I say, my heart sinks back down in my tummy.
She’s right about that and I had the same feeling myself. That Diego would only be with a woman that matched his perfection, or came close. And she’d have to be very sure of herself to be able to handle him.
“Just too much to handle,” Modesty says, piling more hashbrowns on her plate. For a little girl she can eat like a horse.
“What is?” Dallyce comes in and g
rabs coffee, immediately followed by Edie. They both ate breakfast with their guys at home and Dallyce wants to know why Modesty isn’t making food for her man.
“Hmm,” Modesty swallows down a mouthful before trying to speak, “He brought me breakfast in bed before going out with the herd.”
“So why are you eating a second meal?”
“That was hours ago,” Modesty wails. “You know Rafe, out on the range before sun up.”
“He brings you breakfast in bed?” I murmur, surprised that a man would do that, especially when he’s out the door.
“Hmm, most days he does. He likes to wake me up before he leaves,” That naughty gleam returns to her face and we all laugh.
“Young love,” Chloe says.
I hadn’t noticed her come into the breakfast room and pour coffee from the silver pot on the buffet table. She serves herself a tiny plate of fruit slices and sits at the head of the table. She’s barely any older than Modesty and Dallyce, probably about my age but she takes her place with the authority of a CEO.
“Did anyone see what happened to Diego last night?” she asks, casually. Too casually.
“He never came back,” Edie says. “Quint was waiting to talk to him about the horseshoes he wants to take back to Argentina but he vanished.”
“He missed dinner?” Chloe asks, frowning?
“Perhaps he’s on a diet,” Dallyce quips. I can tell she also doesn't have much time for the Latin hunk.
“I’ve got something to tell you all, it’s a secret though,” Chloe says, then remembers I’m at the table and adds; “Later.”
“Oh don’t mind, Violet,”Modesty says. “She needs to be adopted by us. Isn’t that right, Vi? You want friends more than therapists.”
Chloe shoots Modesty a look but I could hug her and nod my agreement vigorously. Chloe looks doubtful, like she can’t decide whether that’s crossing a line, but it seems the need to share with her pack of besties gets the better of her.
She looks around the room as though she’s concerned about being overheard by corporate hackers. The three women lean into the table slightly, waiting for her share.
