by Mia Madison
Sharing my past with Edie now lifts a massive burden from my shoulders. I can actually feel the strength in the muscle instead of it being tautly weighed down. I'll tell myself it was gratitude, relief, survivors ecstasy, but it's a lie. When I kiss her it's just plain ecstasy, no other complicated emotions, just that.
Having her there between my legs, safe and secure, it seems like the most natural thing to hook her cheek and bring her face around. Our lips find each other like they'd been seeking the missing part for lifetimes.
I shouldn't have done it. Although she plays tough, she's way too sweet. But I crushed her into me as hard as I could and her luscious tits squeezed against the ridges stepping up my stomach until my cock was pounding against her back. I half expected a slap from her but I felt each and every emotion arise in Edie's body from the moment I dragged her to the ground.
When we break the kiss, needing air, needing to breathe and consider what the fuck's happening here, our lips refuse to peel apart. My arms refuse to release her. I hold her crushed against me and feel her sweet breath fall on my lips, still grazing softly on hers. Still so close the tingly energy holds us bonded.
It was all I could do not to ravage her. Not to throw her down on the ground and climb over her, caging her in and pulling her shirt apart 'til the buttons went flying.
I want her naked like I want to live another day, with a desperate pounding need filling my veins. I want her lying on her back on my rough wood floor, spread apart, her lips gently parted and those hazel eyes looking at me with all the craving I feel flowing around her body.
“Oh god,” she murmurs.
It would be wrong to take advantage of her, right after she told me how long she's gone without love. We're like a pair of renewed virgins here, inching toward the ultimate connection for the first time. That's how it feels. Like I never kissed a woman until her. Like I never felt a woman's lush soft body molding perfectly into my coarse hard one.
I want her. I want her round tits floating on her chest as I tug open her jeans and plant a kiss on her pubic bone, right above where it slits to reveal her secret entrance. I know she wants my mouth covering her clit, sucking the point between my lips.
I know it because now, very slowly I part my lips and clamp gently onto her lower one, then suck it into my mouth. I run my tongue along the length of her lower lip, feeling the nubs and ridges on the inner part. My hand slides up her ribs to cup the underside of her full breast and she lets out a small whimper of lusty need.
It would be wrong to take advantage of her. Having narrowly missed being taken out in the middle of the night, she's vulnerable, shaking with fear and pounding adrenaline. But she's safe. No fucker will ever harm her as long as I'm around. And right then, with her lip trapped between mine, our breath co-mingling, I know I'll never leave her.
If she wants to remain friends only, I'll do it just to live close to her. No, fuck that, I could never allow any other man to claim her. The thought of that makes the blood surge in my veins and without meaning to, I mangle her breast in my fist until she lets out a cry that falls into my mouth.
My palm slides up over the swell of her flesh to curl around her neck. I dagger my fingers into her hair, clamping the back of her head to tug her mouth deeper into me. She moans and arches her back, lifting her chest so her breasts rub into my swelling chest.
“I want you naked,” I growl against her lips.
She lets out another whimper that I take for pleasured agreement. And I'm on the point of throwing her back to the ground to rip the clothes from her body when a sharp rap at the door makes her leap against me, her heart doing a military tattoo against my chest.
I release a hard growl of annoyance at the interruption then pull her into my embrace.
“It's okay, babe.”
Another rap at the door. Then the handle is slowly turned. I unhook my leg from behind Edie and press her behind me so she's shielded.
The ass-hat coming for us will have to take me out first. Surprise is the only advantage I have here, that and a furious rage that he's scaring my girl. In one move I reach up the handle, jerk it and throw back the door.
“Jesus, Shea,” I grunt, seeing the head ranch hand on the other side.
“I heard gunfire. Are you okay? Anyone hurt?”
“No, we're fine.”
“What are you doing on the ground? Oh, evening Edie, you okay there?”
“Yes thank you, I'm fine.”
Shea's eyes travel across my naked body, the towel hanging apart. As he sizes up the situation, a big grin spreads across his face.
“Christ, don't tell me you came out to shoot this gnarly old bastard and put us all out of our misery,” he asks her.
“No,” she whispers, still in shock, mostly from what almost just happened between us, I assume. I feel it too, the overwhelming sensation of discovering a hunger I didn't know was there.
Shea smirks wide and adds; “I'm kidding Edie, don't look like that. The guys all love Quint, right fellas?”
A round of 'hell, yeahs' and ironic jeers goes around. When I look back through my front door, squinting into the dark, I see that all the ranch hands are standing out there in the shadows, backing up Shea. An unusual warmth that comes from belonging flows through me. For all their joshing and taunts, the cowboys on the ranch are all here to have my back.
“I guess it was someone taking pot shots,” I say.
Shea looks unconvinced, but he has a girl now and I guess he wants to get back to her.
“'Night then,” he says. “Have a good one.”
He steps back and pulls the door closed but not before I hear a couple of jocular laughs from the boys, no doubt amazed to discover me in a compromising situation with the best looking girl in town. I ain't never gonna hear the end of this but I don't give a shit. They head back to their own rooms and I look down at Edie, her eyes filled with soft desire.
“I should take you home.”
Chapter 11
Edie
“I don't want to go home,” I say, very quietly.
It's not like me at all, the girl that normally has no problem announcing what she wants and telling people what to do. Bossy, they call me sometimes. But how else do you run a bar full of hunky cowboys without being a bit of a tough nut yourself?
“Are you afraid, Baby?” Quint asks.
When he calls me that a shiver runs along the lining of my skin. It could be just a friendly nickname. I mean, even the guy at the corner store will call you 'Baby' on occasion. Just to be friendly. I wish I could ask Quint outright whether he thinks of me as his baby now. Whether something's shifted after our close call.
But I don't dare.
I want to know the truth but I can't take the truth. What if he’s a killer? Worse, what if he's just being kind? We had the most intense kiss of my life and now he wants to send me home? Why doesn't he throw me down on the floor and tear my clothes off.
That's what I want and I don't get why he doesn't want the same. He can't have gone back to the friend zone. Now when I felt that solid bolt of burning steel pressing into my spine. I know he wants me too. Or wanted me, until Shea and the others busted in on us with all their macho jocularity.
“If you don't want to be alone -” he starts and I interject, completely distracted by his bared muscular form.
The taut defined V disappearing into the towel that he's managed to rearrange so as to be almost decent. Almost. There still a tent shifting there. From those narrow hips, his torso splays out to shoulders that are bristling with power. There is no way in hell I can think of Quint as a friend right now.
“I'm not afraid,” I tell him.
“Edie,” he grits out, his voice raw with feral need.
“What?” Mine is filled with defiance.
“You can't stay here.”
I wasn't expecting that.
“Fine.”
I grab the door handle and tug it back but Quint's hand slams flat against it so it cracks ba
ck into the frame.
“You can't stay here because it isn't safe, Babe. Remember a shot just went flying past an inch from that beautiful head? You think I'm going to sleep one minute knowing you could be in danger?”
“I said I'm not afraid. And who said anything abut sleeping?”
“Baby,” he rasps. “The guys will never let you live it down. You have a reputation in town. I wont let you ruin it for me.”
“What if I want to ruin it? You think I can't handle Rafe's teasing?”
“Babe, think about what you're wanting.”
“Are you saying that because you regret kissing me?”
“Jesus, no. How could you imagine that? You have no idea the things I want to do to your gorgeous body but I want you to be safe. And happy.”
“Then make me happy.”
Quint's gaze plunges into mine and holds me captured like a slave. For an instant he seems like he might falter.
“I'm taking you home.”
He takes off across the living room. The large stone fireplace looks inviting and has a beautiful guard crafted by Quint, of course. He goes into another room, which must be where he sleeps. I can't believe he's pulled away from me and dismissed me after that kiss.
Did he not feel what passed between us? I suck my lower lip into my mouth, thinking about what's happening here. As soon as I do, the memory pops up of how Quint sucked it into his mouth, teasing and toying at the bulbous flesh with his tongue. How he inhaled deeply though his nostrils as though he was breathing in my aroma. How our breath entwined the same as our bodies. Quint resting his forehead on mine and just breathing against my lips was the sexiest thing I've ever done.
He comes out of his room in a black tee, stretched tight across his strapping chest and a pair of low-slung loose black jeans with a studded belt that he's tugging in as he walks, make that strides, across the floor. His boots clack on the floor with a dominance that says he's always in charge. A throb picks up again between my thighs. I do not want to go home to my apartment but I don't get the chance to tell him.
“We'll talk about this on the way,” he announces as he pulls the door open.
He presses his hand into my lower back to guide me through the opening, then reaches for my hand to restrain me. He holds me behind him and steps out first, pulling me in and shielding me in case the marksman is lying in wait.
Then he leads me across the yard and at the passenger door to his big black truck, he throws a glance back over his shoulder. He pulls me in front of his chest, using it as a shield for my body. I shiver all the way down from the way he's caging me in with his wide ripped torso, ready to take a bullet for me if it comes to it.
“Are you cold, Baby?”
Baby.
The word is hardly out of his mouth when I reach up to take his roughly stubbled cheeks in my palms and drag his mouth down onto mine. His heavy hands clasp my waist and tug me hard into him. I'd gasp, except Quint doesn't kiss so much as ravage my mouth.
His tongue daggers into me so that the sensation of that transfers lower. Throbbing pulsations start there, deep inside and I moan into his mouth, imagining how it would feel to have his tongue exploring that forgotten part of me.
His hand comes up to cup my cheek then his fingers crawl through my hair and cup my head to deepen the kiss. The other hand still clasps my waist firmly, feeling like it's completely encircling me finger to thumb, holding me immobile as he devours me with his expert tongue.
I moan again and arch my spine under his hard palm so my tits press into his chest. That small move on my part only makes Quint into more of a wild man. He wraps my hair around his fist and tugs so my head tips back. Then he trails kisses, hard and wild, down my neck into the opening of my shirt. My nipples are swollen so hard they must be digging out through the plaid.
I need his mouth sucking those points between his lips. The desire swirling around in my breasts is directing hungry pressure at the tips, making them ache with need. I turn my head from side to side, moaning with the lust pushing at my edges and threatening to drive me completely insane.
But Quint's fist still ropes my hair and he tugs firmly, holding me still, arching me, tipping me, exposing me. This man could ravage me like no other ever has.
His mouth moves over the swell of my breast and bites the nipple through the thick fabric, hard enough to make me gasp.
“I want you,” I moan, my hands gripping the huge swell of his bicep and digging in. I don't get much purchase on the hard muscle though. It's like clawing at a slab of rock.
Quint lifts me up onto the seat like he's picking up a little girl. I've never felt so small and light. I open my legs ready to pull him into me but with one last kiss he presses my legs together and swivels them into the well.
Then he closes the door and strides around to the other side, not rushing, not looking timidly all around. Either he doesn't give a shit or more likely, he won't allow anyone the satisfaction of seeing him cringe. I can't imagine Quint cowering for anyone.
Chapter 12
Quint
It takes every last drop of willpower and them some, to control my animalistic urge to tear the clothes from Edie's gorgeous body, throw her down on the flatbed of my truck and make her scream and howl my name. The way she thrashes her head when I'm biting her swollen hard nipple, I know how desperately she wants me too.
But this is insane. This hunger is a reaction to coming close to death, facing it and enduring is making us into a pair of demonic lust driven beasts.
I can't take advantage of her like that. She's my only friend, or was until I discovered Shea and the others have warm and fuzzy feelings toward me. That came as a surprise. From all the teasing, I figured they found me a bit of an odd ball and an outcast. I guess you never really know what other people think of you. Not until the chips go down.
And they've fallen now, that's for sure. I've got decisions to make but most important right now is to take care of Edie. I don't want her harmed, not one soft hair on her beautiful head, and I don't want her mixed up in this.
She's not going to become my collateral damage in a situation she didn't create. I know those Russians bastards would have no problem at all with using her to get to me.
“How did they get you to do it?” she asks, after we've driven down the long straight road that leads between the ranch and the main blacktop. “Make the weapons?”
I guess that long silence saw her thinking and reconsidering what she's asking to get herself into and she's reaching the conclusion that it's a very bad idea.
“I wasn't thinking about weapons at first. My ego allowed me to believe that gangster oligarch actually wanted artwork for the walls of his mansion,” I say ruefully. Now I wish I'd claimed Edie's body when I had the chance. Before her regret set in as expected.
But her small hand reaches across and her hand rests on the edge of my seat so her fingertips graze my thigh. Before I can stop myself I reach down for her hand and lift it to my lips. She doesn't pull away. Her fingers rest and stroke on my lip as I hold her hand there.
Every part of me tells me not to do this, not to put her in danger, not to cross a line in our friendship. But every part of me wants this. Even her fingertips on my mouth are making the blood rage through my veins so that I can hardly focus on the straight road ahead.
I don't know what I'm going to do when I get her back to her house. I have to concentrate on driving and not veering off and taking her right here in the truck, at the side of the road. The desire to bury my burning wood inside her tightness is driving me close to insanity. All this time I've known Edie and we've spent a lot of nights together, even if there was three feet of wood bar separating us.
But not one of those nights has this fever of need overtaken me. Her little fingers rub against my lips, letting me know she wants me to talk. I set her hand back down, high on my thigh and clamp it there, just in case she's thinking of retrieving it.
“It wasn't until the first killing was all
over the news that I realized,” I tell her.
She gives my thigh muscle a friendly squeeze, urging me not to stop talking. For some reason I trust Edie, I want to tell her everything. I want her to know me so she can make a decision about being with me. Only when she knows everything can I claim her as mine without any qualms.
“Some businessman was beaten to death in a back alley,” I continue. “When they described the unusual murder weapon and called it a ritual killing, I knew. But by then it was too late. The ugly Russian had already hired me to construct enough iron sculptures to murder half of Wall Street.”
“Couldn't you have gone to the police and told them everything?” Edie wants to know, ever the pragmatist.
She’s full of trust for her world, so long as it's not a man that has designs on getting too close.
“He owns the police. I didn't run to escape the police or the Russian mob. I just wanted a life free of all the crap in this world.”
“I think I understand that,” she whispers. “But it never goes away, even when you run away from it. It just comes with you, I've realized that now.”
I park the truck in front of McDools and leap out to come around to her side. I open the door and help her climb out. Something tells me that smarmy stranger is responsible for the shot as well as the break in. I need to make sure she isn't in danger, even walking ten feet to her door.
My glance goes to her windows, the new bars firmly in place. No one's coming in through those openings. Only the door is vulnerable. She unlocks it and I press her lower back to move her inside, stepping behind her to guard her. Then I kick the door closed with the back of my heel and pull Edie back into me.
She tips her head up to kiss me but we're way past that now. I grip her hips and whip her around so her back is up against the door. Then recalling the last time we were kissing in a doorway, I pull her to one side so she's lining the wall, with my chest caging her in.
Finally I get to rip those buttons open and her perfect full breasts are exposed in a red bra. Hot as the sight of that is, I need her naked. I pull the straps down over her shoulders and tug harder until the cups drop and her tits fall free.
