Cowboy Take Me Away

by Lorelei James

  Even without touching her nipple it was already rigid, nearly poking through the lace insert.

  The instant Carson’s mouth enclosed around that hard tip, and he sucked it through the lace, she gasped. She gasped again when he suckled harder. He pulled the cup away and there was no barrier between his mouth and her bare flesh.

  “Oh. I…” Had no idea that would feel so good.

  Carson’s magic mouth continued to tease and torment. Focusing on her breasts and then he’d kiss her neck in that deceptively lazy way that made her burn.

  At some point his hands had migrated to the tops of her thighs and he was running the backs of his fingers from her knee to her inner thigh. Each stroke got bolder.

  The first time his thumb connected with that bit of flesh at the top of her mound her entire leg twitched.

  His hands returned to her face and his eyes searched hers. “Do you want me to stop? Yes or no.”

  “No. Please. Don’t stop.”

  His lips met hers. “Lean back on your elbows.”

  Carson mired her in a maelstrom of need. His hands were never idle, worshipping her every curve from her shoulders to her hips. His mouth was in constant motion, kissing, licking, tasting her thoroughly.

  Carolyn tingled from head to toe. Her head was muzzy. Coherent words were impossible. She’d just moan softly when Carson did something she liked. And she liked it all.

  But she reached the point where she needed more. More body contact. Her hands on him, her mouth on him as he moved against her.

  “Carson. Please. I want to feel it all tonight. Everything. I don’t want you to stop.”

  He gently pulled her to a sitting position. “You talkin’ about us havin’ sex? Right here?”

  She nodded.

  “Just strip you bare and don’t give a damn if you get bruises and bug bites when I’m on top of you? That’s not…dammit, Carolyn, no.”

  Stung, she shrunk back away from him.

  “Shit.” He turned, took half a dozen steps and stopped with his back to her.

  Retreat.

  She quickly put on her blouse and had just zipped her skirt when he returned.

  Without saying a word, he started to get dressed.

  Rather than stand there suffering through his silent anger, she slipped on her shoes and picked her way through the vines covering the ground, stopping to lean against the big cottonwood tree. She gazed across the lake, now an ominous black. Although she wasn’t a fan of the water, she liked the soothing sound of the waves hitting the shore. With the way her cheeks burned with humiliation, she welcomed the cool breeze.

  Carson’s boots crunched the vegetation and Carolyn automatically tensed up when he moved in behind her.

  He set his hand on her shoulder and she jerked away. “Oh hell no. You ain’t gonna ever cringe when I want to touch you.”

  “But it’s okay for you to yell at me when I want to touch you? Wrong. I want to leave.”

  “You got more than a little sass in ya, doncha, sugar?”

  “You’ll see a whole lot more of it if you don’t take me back to my car right now.”

  “Look me in the eye.”

  She shook her head.

  “Turn around and look me in the eye when you let me have it.”

  Such a condescending… She whirled around and stood toe to toe with him. “Happy?”

  “Not even fuckin’ close to happy right now.”

  “Good.”

  He lifted the one eyebrow that managed to be both sexy and annoying. “Why’s that good?”

  “Let’s just forget tonight ever happened.” Although I doubt I’ll ever forget how mad you got when I threw myself at you.

  Then his hands circled her upper arms and he yanked her close enough to get in her face. “That’s what you think? I got mad at you because you asked me to have sex with you tonight?”

  She’d said that out loud?

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “Well, what else was I supposed to think when you yelled at me and stormed off? I don’t have any experience with this, Carson.”

  “You think I don’t know that? You think maybe I’m feelin’ guilty for lettin’ it get that far out of hand in the first place? When I said you could set the boundaries as to how far you were willin’ to go with me? Then the second I put my hands on you I lost my goddamned head. The next thing I know, you’re askin’ me to fu—make love to you. And I see you—this perfect, beautiful angel, layin’ there half-dressed, with love bites on her chest and I got pissed off at myself. Not at you—never at you.”

  Totally bewildered, she asked, “Why?”

  “Because you deserve more for your first time than me rutting on you on top of a rickety picnic table and getting slivers in your ass.”

  “Oh.”

  He pulled her against his chest. “With the way I look at you and the way I was touchin’ you tonight can you honestly tell me you thought I didn’t want you?”

  “I thought you did…then I wasn’t sure.”

  “That’s one thing you can be very sure about.” He kissed the top of her head and smiled at her. “You ready to go?”

  She nodded.

  They walked back to the truck in silence. Carson held her hand but she could tell his mind was elsewhere.

  The silence continued on the drive back to her car. After he parked, he kissed her—more chastely than she was used to from him. “I want to see you tomorrow night.”

  Her mouth opened before her brain engaged. “Where and when?”

  “This same parking area around seven?”

  How would her father react if she told him she was going out again?

  Do you really care?

  No.

  Can he stop you?

  No.

  Carolyn wreathed her arms around Carson’s neck and kissed him greedily. He had the skills to seduce her completely, but from this moment on she’d be a full participant in that seduction. He didn’t get to call all the shots. She didn’t relinquish his mouth until she’d had her fill of it.

  For now.

  She smiled and kissed that spot on his throat that made him groan. “See you here tomorrow night at seven. Don’t be late.”

  Chapter Six

  Carson

  Carson leaned against his pickup, his elbow resting on the box, trying to look casual as he waited, even when everything inside him was wound tighter than a ball of baling twine.

  Goddamn he had it bad for her. So bad he’d damn near sliced off his finger today. He’d been so lost in thought, remembering his hands roaming over the smooth expanse of Carolyn’s belly, that he’d nipped his knuckle with the wire cutters and it’d bled like a sieve.

  After he’d returned from the lake last night, he’d suffered through a lecture from Cal about slowing things down with Carolyn. Which Carson had taken to mean break it off with her. That hadn’t gone over well; until Cal explained he’d meant slow as in proceed with caution, not as in come to a complete stop.

  Which just proved how fucking antsy and touchy he was about her. How crazy in love he was with her.

  After six fucking days.

  Her car appeared on the horizon. He remained in place, watching as she parked, his pulse quickening when she climbed out.

  Grinning, he held his arms open and she launched herself at him.

  As soon as she’d wrapped herself around him, nestling her face in his neck with a soft sigh, Carson closed his eyes as he squeezed her tight. Yeah, this woman was his.

  They remained locked together, not speaking, just…being.

  His fingers twined in her hair and he tugged her head back to get at her mouth. He focused on tenderness with her. Brushing his lips over hers. Teasing and nibbling. Sucking her sweet breath into his lungs.

  Impatient, Carolyn tried to wrest control. Framing his face in her hands and pulling him closer.

  But Carson wrapped his fingers around her wrists and gently removed her hands. “Sugar, what’s the rush?” he whi
spered against her lips. “All day I’ve been lookin’ forward to takin’ my time to enjoy this.” He lightly licked the seam of her lips; his tongue followed the bottom of her teeth. She tasted like sweet sin.

  When Carolyn released a shuddering sigh, he slowly kicked up the heat level of the kiss from warm to molten. By the time he broke the seal of their mouths, sweat dampened his skin and his cock pressed against his zipper.

  Whoa. Her hands were on his ass, holding his pelvis to hers, forcing the teeth of his zipper to bite into his cock as her lips trilled over every hot spot in his throat.

  “Uh, Caro?”

  “You always smell so dang good.”

  “You wouldn’t have said that earlier when I was covered in dust and sweat.”

  “Wrong. You’d still smell good. Like earth and man.”

  He groaned when her sassy tongue flicked his earlobe.

  “I like that I can get you to make that noise,” she said softly.

  “You make some pretty sexy noises yourself when my mouth is on you.”

  She stilled. “Last night wasn’t a dream, was it?”

  “No.” He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You still all right with it? No regrets?”

  “Just that you stopped.”

  Jesus. “I didn’t wanna stop. You know that.”

  “I know you’re worried we’re going too fast. But I’ll bet if I was any other woman, besides a virgin, you wouldn’t have reined it in.”

  “You don’t compare to other women and not just because you’re a virgin.”

  “Then why?” she demanded.

  Because you look at me like no other woman ever has. Like you see beneath the surface of a hell-raising cowboy to the man inside. The man I want to be.

  “Carson?”

  “Because you’re you. From the moment I met you I’ve thought of nothin’ but you. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

  “I’ll let it go…for now. But please don’t treat me like I don’t know my own mind, okay?”

  “Okay.” He fused his mouth to hers and the kiss soothed the restless parts of him. Parts he hadn’t realized needed soothing. “Come on. Let’s hit the road.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.” He boosted her into his truck on the driver’s side and slid next to her. She rested her head on his shoulder and her hand on his thigh.

  “What did you do today, rancher McKay?”

  “Besides check cattle? Fixed fence.”

  “Didn’t you do that yesterday?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you do that every day?”

  “We could. We should. But we don’t. Just happened we did it two days in a row.”

  “What does fixing fence entail?”

  “A fifth of Jack Daniels.” He grinned at her. “Kiddin’. It’s a tedious job that’s never ending.”

  “Because the McKays have so much land?”

  “Not that as much as there’s a lot of fence. No matter how well the fence is installed, the elements and the cattle make a mess of it. Summer is slow until haying starts, so that’s when we do the majority of the repairs.”

  “No wonder you wanted to cool off in the lake last night. But it didn’t help much since you got us both all hot and bothered.” She sighed. “That’s all I thought about today. How it felt to be skin to skin with you. And how much I liked having your mouth all over me.”

  He hadn’t even put his mouth where he most wanted it.

  “I liked it when you bit on my neck almost as much as when you sucked on my—”

  “Jesus, Carolyn. Stop.”

  “Language,” she chided.

  “Then you watch what you’re sayin’.”

  “What?” she said innocently.

  He snorted. “You know what.”

  Her pause chilled the air in the cab despite the eighty-degree heat.

  Aw hell, she hadn’t been playing coy. She doesn’t have enough experience to do that, remember?

  “Oh. So that’s how it is.”

  “How what is?”

  “The virgin/whore thing. I’m a virgin so I couldn’t possibly be thinking dirty thoughts about you and me naked, nor am I supposed to voice those thoughts.”

  “Not true.”

  “But you’ve said I’m different than other women, so do you separate them into the other category? What happens after my virginity isn’t an issue? Then I’m a whore?”

  Dangerous to have this conversation at sixty miles an hour. He kept his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road. The woman would push and push and push… Yet he admired her for that trait. Just because she was innocent didn’t mean she was a pushover. “How about we cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “We crossed that bridge last night, Carson, when I was in my underwear spread out on a picnic table.”

  The image—the beautiful image of her writhing under him hit him hard. “What is it you want me to say?”

  “The truth.”

  Don’t do it.

  But his mouth opened of its own accord. “Last night I wanted to fuck you. I will fuck you but it won’t be on a whim on a hard goddamned picnic table. It’ll be in a proper bed where I can take my time so your first time is special because God knows mine wasn’t. It won’t make you a whore. It’ll just make you mine.”

  “Oh.”

  “And sugar, if you wanna talk dirty to me, I’m good with that. But I’d rather you didn’t do it when I’m behind the wheel ’cause I’m liable to wreck my damn truck.”

  Silence.

  After a minute or so of dead air, he chanced a quick look at her.

  The woman wore that I’ve-got-a-secret smile that spelled trouble.

  Shit. “Say something.”

  “Now that that’s sorted out, where are we going?”

  “I thought we could see a movie in Spearfish.”

  “Do you know what’s playing?”

  “Nope. But it’ll be dark, you’ll be next to me so I don’t really care.” Did that make him sound smarmy? He changed the subject. “So tell me about your day.”

  “My mom’s friend Maxine Granger stopped by. She takes in mending and ironing, plus she does alterations and some custom tailoring. Maxine’s daughter had a baby and she’ll be gone to Kansas for at least a month. She’s asked me to fulfill her sewing and alterations jobs during that time. Which will work out because I can do it from home.”