Best of Virgins Bundle

by Cathy Williams

  “We’ll make a fire. And sleep in a tent. Murphy says the sleeping bags will keep us warm even in subzero temperatures.”

  “Friday and Saturday night?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She eased next to him, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  “Does the tent have soundproof walls?”

  Ginny drew back. “Do they have those on tents?”

  “Do you think we’ll need them?”

  “We’ll be way out in the middle of nowhere.” She grinned. “Maybe.”

  “Then I’ll go.”

  ON FRIDAY it was nearly dark by the time they arrived at the lake. They found a secluded clearing, set up the tent and built a fire. They roasted some hot dogs, then sat on a blanket by the fire to eat.

  “This is so good,” Ginny said, starting on her second hot dog. “I never knew something could taste so wonderful cooked over a fire. Oh! And I brought the stuff for s’mores. I’ve never had those before, but I can’t imagine not liking them. With graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate they can’t help but be good, right?”

  She was having such a wonderful time that pretty soon Cole caught her enthusiasm and decided a little trek into the wilderness hadn’t been such a bad idea, after all.

  After they ate, Cole threw another log on the fire, and Ginny snuggled close to him. She’d changed so much over these past few weeks, going from naive virgin to eager lover, and he couldn’t get enough of her. At the same time he knew that it was going to come to an end in a few weeks and they’d be going their separate ways. He had a life to pursue, and so did she. But was there any reason they couldn’t enjoy their time together until then?

  “Time for bed,” Cole said.

  “Bed? It’s only eight-thirty!”

  “Is there something you’d rather do?”

  Ginny smiled. “Can’t think of a thing.”

  They picked up things around the campsite, then went into the tent. Cole pulled the tent flap down and zipped it, then turned to Ginny.

  “Okay, sweetheart,” he said. “Time to get naked.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s fifty degrees in here!”

  “Ah, but you should have thought of that when you invited me on a camping trip. Did you think I’d actually let you stay bundled up like Nanook of the North?” He grinned. “Off with it.”

  Ginny looked a little shy, but to her credit, she rose to the challenge. Off came her coat. Then her boots. She pulled her sweatshirt over her head, then dropped her jeans to the floor of the tent.

  “Cole,” she said. “You’re staring at me.”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  “I’m freezing!”

  He dropped his gaze a bit. “I can tell.”

  Ginny glared at him. “You’re downright lecherous.”

  “Never said I wasn’t.”

  She quickly removed her bra and panties, then dived into the double sleeping bag, yanking it over her. As Cole started taking off his clothes, she gave him a lecherous grin of her own.

  Moments later he was bundled up inside the sleeping bag with her. To his surprise, she pushed him onto his back and kissed him, a long, lingering kiss with her breasts pressed firmly to his chest. He’d gotten a little worked up watching her subzero striptease, and the feel of her warm, naked body next to his was turning up the heat even more. She continued to kiss him, her hand roaming across his chest, his abdomen. Then she slipped her hand lower and caressed him in the most intimate way possible, squeezing gently, rubbing slowly up and down, sending him halfway to heaven in a matter of seconds.

  He couldn’t believe this was the same woman who hadn’t experienced so much as a kiss only a few short months ago. He also couldn’t believe he was on the verge of losing it and she’d barely even touched him.

  “Whoa,” he said, pulling his lips away from hers and taking her hand in his.

  “What?”

  “I’m getting a little too excited here, sweetheart.”

  “That’s a bad thing?”

  He laughed. “No, it’s not a bad thing—”

  “Then hush.”

  Cole was in awe of what this woman could do to him with a single word, a single touch. She’d become a willing pupil who didn’t think twice about teaching the teacher a thing or two, and he loved every minute of it. She began touching him again, and all she wanted him to do was lie back and let it happen. But he had no intention of letting things go at that.

  He rose and eased her onto her back. She reached for him, urging him to move on top of her, but instead he pressed her thighs apart and moved between them, rubbing his hands upward in slow circles toward the apex of her thighs. He eased his fingers into her cleft, and she closed her eyes and sighed softly. She felt so hot and wet that he could have entered her and she would have been ready for him, but he had other things in mind. He moved his hand upward, found the place she was the most sensitive and lingered there, touching her, rubbing her…kissing her.

  Her eyes sprang open. “Cole—”

  She squirmed against him. He held her hips steady. “Relax, sweetheart,” he whispered, dropping a gentle kiss just below her navel. “It’s okay. Really. It’s perfectly normal, I promise you.”

  “I know,” she said breathlessly, every muscle in her body suddenly tense. “I—I was at the library the other day, and there was this book….”

  He touched her with his tongue, swirling it enticingly.

  “I—I learned a few things about stuff like this, but—”

  He stroked her with his tongue.

  “I never thought you’d actually—”

  He closed his mouth over her and sucked gently. Her whole body stiffened.

  “Good heavens!”

  Her voice was filled with wonder, and Cole couldn’t help smiling. She seemed to be ready to bolt and dying for him to continue all at the same time, putting her in a state of such heightened awareness he could almost hear her body hum. The fact that she’d been doing a little self-study pleased him to no end. And he wanted to please her to no end.

  He continued to tease his tongue over her, caressing her thighs at the same time. Her hands fluttered against his shoulders as if she were unsure where to put them, but then slowly he felt her fingers tighten. Her accelerated breathing became harsh and needy. Instead of shifting uneasily back and forth, she began to move subtly with his rhythm, arching her hips to meet him. She moaned softly, rolling her head in a semicircle, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.

  “Cole…”

  He increased the pressure, clasping her thighs in his hands, loving the hot, silky sound of her voice as she spoke his name.

  “Cole, no…not yet…”

  He continued.

  “No…please…”

  He had no intention of stopping.

  “Cole!”

  Before he knew what was happening, she’d squirmed away from him, sat up suddenly and pushed him onto his back. She put her leg over his thighs to sit astride him. And it shocked the hell out of him.

  She stared at him, her hands against his shoulders. “I want you inside me,” she said, her breath coming so hard she was barely able to speak. “We have to do it together.”

  He must have still looked shocked, because she gave him a smile and said, “It’s okay, Cole. It’s perfectly normal. I promise you.”

  He laughed, thrilled that his repressed little virgin was no longer repressed in the least. “This book you read was in the Coldwater Public Library?”

  “Yes. Can you believe it?”

  “Just for the record, I’ll take you to the library anytime you want to go.”

  She shifted slightly, then lowered herself slowly, slowly onto him. He put his hands on her hips and pulled her down until he was deep inside her. She began to move, sliding up and down on his shaft, easing into a slow, seductive rhythm that took his breath away.

  “Yeah, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Just like that.”

  He took her breasts in his hands, squ
eezing them gently, then stroked his thumbs across her nipples. They felt like hard little pebbles. That told him it was probably cold in the tent, but what Ginny was doing to him was making him feel hot all the way to the bone. She ran her hands down his arms to his shoulders and back up again, still moving, always moving, giving him pleasure at the same time she was seeking her own.

  “Cole…”

  Her voice was barely above a whisper, but he heard an undercurrent of pure excitement. Her eyes were squeezed closed, her cheeks flushed pink, her windblown hair framing her head like a tangled halo. He clamped his hands onto her hips and urged her harder, faster, losing himself in the mindless pleasure of their bodies moving as if they’d been born to make love together. Until now, it hadn’t much mattered whom he was with because it had been about pure sexual release and nothing else. So why with Ginny did it feel like so much more?

  Her breathing became deep and raspy, her movements urgent, and soon he could tell her climax was only moments away. Heat pooled in his groin, stoked by the sound of her voice, the feel of her body moving on top of his. Then all at once she cried out his name, driving down on him again, her body convulsing, and that’s all it took to push him over the edge with her.

  He pulled her down and tightened his arms around her, her breasts crushed against his chest, groaning at the sudden, indescribable sensation that had exploded inside him. She shuddered in his arms, moaning softly, which only added fuel to his fire and made his climax seem to go on forever.

  She lay on top of him for a long time afterward, his arms encircling her. They were still joined together, her cheek against his shoulder. Finally she fell to one side, and he pulled her into his arms.

  “I can’t believe I just did that,” she said. “I mean, I saw it in the book, but—”

  “How many pages were in that book?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe two hundred.”

  “Did you read it all?”

  “Not yet. I was too chicken to check it out.”

  “How far did you get?”

  “Page one hundred and forty.”

  “Are you planning on finishing it?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Will you be demonstrating what’s in those last sixty pages?”

  Ginny smiled. “Only if you want me to.”

  “Oh, I want you to, sweetheart. Believe me.”

  She snuggled next to him, and he pulled the sleeping bag around them, wrapping them in a cocoon of warmth. Her eyes slowly drifted closed. He stared at her in awe, still unable to believe just how beautiful she was and how blind he must have been not to see that. It was beauty unlike any he’d ever expected to find in a woman—naïveté and innocence wrapped in joy and enthusiasm and pure goodness, and suddenly sex didn’t seem like just sex anymore, but a connection he’d never felt with anyone else.

  It’s because you’ve been around her longer than you’ve ever been around a woman before. Of course you’d start to feel something. It’s called friendship. You’re friends. That’s all. Friends who have lots of hot sex, but friends just the same. And soon even that will be over.

  They had fewer than two weeks together left. He felt a rush of regret, then chased the feeling away, focusing instead on the moment at hand, because when it came right down to it, that was the only thing that was real. He’d known from the start, just as Ginny had, that this would be coming to an end.

  Because nothing, no matter how good it was, could possibly last forever.

  15

  THE NEXT DAY, Ginny was still reeling from her night of lovemaking with Cole, blushing when she thought about the things they’d done, and for just a moment when she woke, she almost couldn’t look at him. She was afraid that in the light of day he would think she was some kind of sex-crazed hussy to allow such things, to do such things. But then he smiled at her, a broad, dazzling smile that told her not only had he liked what they’d done together last night, he would be willing to do it again anytime she said the word.

  After a leisurely breakfast, he taught her the basics of fishing, a sport she decided she could do without. Well, holding the pole was okay, and watching the little red-and-white bobber thing, and turning the little knob to pull a fish to shore, but baiting the hook and taking the fish off the hook were tasks she left to Cole. In the end it was all pretty pointless anyway, since she felt sorry for every fish they caught and insisted he throw them all back. Nevertheless she got to sit with Cole beside that lake and talk to him when the fish weren’t biting, which was most of the time. Suddenly fishing didn’t seem so bad, after all.

  They relaxed all afternoon, taking a walk along a two-mile nature trail they found. They spent a surprising amount of time at the lakeshore, skipping rocks off the water. Ginny thoroughly enjoyed herself, refusing to think about the fact that their time together would be over before she knew it.

  Cole seemed to grow quieter as the day wore on, and when evening came and dinner was over, there were long moments when he did nothing but pull her close to him and stare into the fire. And when they finally slipped into their tent together, he drew her into his arms without a word and made love to her with a sweet intensity that took her breath away.

  Afterward they lay together, tucked inside the sleeping bag, Ginny’s head resting on Cole’s shoulder.

  “So,” Ginny said softly. “I guess you’ll be selling the ranch pretty soon.”

  Cole sighed. That was the last thing he wanted to talk about right now. “Yeah. I guess I will.”

  “And that means the horses, too?”

  “Yeah, the horses, too.”

  “Can I buy Sunday from you?”

  “What?”

  “I was thinking maybe I could find a stable in Austin and keep her there. I know I’ll miss riding, and she’s such a sweet horse—”

  “Ginny, if you want her, she’s yours. Saddle, bridle, whatever you want. You can have one of the horse trailers, too. How would that be?”

  “That’d be wonderful. Thank you.”

  She acted as if it was a big favor he was doing her, but to him it seemed like such a small thing after all they’d been through together. There was the twenty-five thousand, but that was money. An impersonal pile of cash. He’d already been thinking about what it was going to be like to hand her that check, and it made him feel very uneasy.

  “So what are you planning to do when you get back to Dallas?” she asked. “Invest in that apartment complex?”

  “Probably. Among other things.”

  “I guess you’re pretty good at making money.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “You know, you’ve been telling me lately that I need to start looking at myself differently so I can be something more.” She rose on her elbows and stared at him. “How about you, Cole? When are you going to start looking at yourself differently so you can have more out of life?”

  “I’ve already had it all, Ginny. I lost it, but it wasn’t my fault. And the minute I get some seed money back in my hands, I’m going to—”

  “Money? Do you think that’s what I’m talking about? Don’t define yourself that way, Cole. There’s more to life than that.”

  “Maybe, but money makes life a whole lot easier. Believe me. If you have enough of it, nobody can touch you.”

  “Maybe it’s time you let somebody touch you.”

  He had the sudden uncanny sense that Ginny could see right inside him, and he didn’t like the feeling. He gave her a cocky smile.

  “Sure, sweetheart. Touch me all you want to.”

  Ginny sat up suddenly. “Stop it, Cole.”

  “What’s the matter? I was only joking.”

  “Well, cut it out.”

  He sat up beside her. “I don’t get it. What’s wrong?”

  “Anytime I mention something you don’t want to talk about, you find a way to squirm out of it.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Don’t believe me? Then tell me about your grandmother. Why did you visit her only f
our times in ten years?”

  Cole blinked with surprise. “Who told you that?”

  “Murphy.”

  “That figures,” he said, lying down again.

  “Answer the question.”

  He started to tell her once again that it was none of her business, but suddenly his heart was beating rapidly, and he had a dry, harsh feeling in his throat. He swallowed hard, but the feeling remained.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally.

  “Did you love her?”

  “Yes, of course I did.”

  “Then why didn’t you come back to see her more often?”

  She was going to think he was stonewalling again, but the truth was he honestly didn’t know.

  “Cole, there must be some reason—”

  “I told you. I don’t know.”

  “Murphy says it was nothing but ingratitude.”

  “You need to stop talking to Murphy.”

  “I think you were afraid to go see her.”

  “Afraid? Hardly. Murphy didn’t intimidate me any more then than he does now.”

  “Murphy had nothing to do with it.”

  Cole suddenly felt hot, even though the temperature in the tent couldn’t possibly have been more than fifty-five degrees. “What do you think, then?” he asked with a hollow laugh. “That I was afraid of my grandmother?”

  “Yes. In a way I think you were.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  Ginny slipped her hand over his. “After your father and your mother were gone, I think you were afraid that nobody could possibly love you. You didn’t believe that somebody would ever be there for you tomorrow just like they were there for you today. So no matter how much your grandmother showed you she loved you, you were always waiting for the other shoe to fall.”

  Cole stared at the ceiling of the tent, his heart racing. All at once he felt now as he’d felt then, that all-encompassing pain and disbelief that had swept over him when he’d been told that his father—the only parent he had left—had been thrown in jail, leaving him with nobody. And then his grandmother had stepped in, showering him with more love and affection than he’d ever known. But every bit of experience he’d had told him anything that wonderful couldn’t possibly be real, and if by some chance it was, it couldn’t possibly last.