Clean Break

by Erin McLellan

  He turned back toward the fire, a small smile on his face.

  “Who is he?” I asked. “To you, I mean.”

  “Leon? He was a cattle roper on the rodeo circuit for years. Pretty much a legend in these parts. He’s also my godfather. He was my father’s best friend from the time they were boys.”

  “Cliff’s?”

  “Yes.”

  Damn. What a twisty scenario.

  “Do people think it’s weird that your mom married her late-husband’s twin brother?”

  “Of course.” Connor’s shrug was anything but nonchalant. “There have always been rumors that I’m Red’s biological son, that my mom was cheating. Mom and Cliff had been married a long time before I was born—they were in their mid-thirties and had been high school sweethearts. The rumor is that they’d been trying for years, but Cliff couldn’t have kids. Then suddenly I came along.”

  “Oh my God, who told you that rumor?” I couldn’t imagine it was Susan or Red.

  “Some kids at T-ball. I’m sure they heard it from their parents.”

  How old were T-ballers? Like five? What an awful thing to have thrown in your face so young.

  “Some people who were close to my father—Cliff—felt betrayed by her moving on so quickly, but Leon’s never acted that way. He’s solid.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question—I was fascinated by this new Connor information—but he seemed lost in his own thoughts. I patted his knee, and his beautiful hazel eyes crinkled at the corners.

  “I want to show you something. Then we can head out, if that’s okay with you,” he said.

  “Lead the way.”

  We said goodbye to Lena, Desi, and his parents, who both hugged me—I loved them—before we bundled into his truck again. The setting sun painted the pasture gold and pink. We drove along the Blume’s property line for several minutes before Connor turned into a field and cut across it. I’d never off-roaded through a pasture before. It was fun.

  Eventually, we came to a stop.

  Western Oklahoma was stereotyped as this flat, windy prairie, with no interest or deviation, and in most cases, that was true, but Connor had brought me to a natural overlook with a creek below, slashing across the prairie like a lightning bolt. There were huge, white wind turbines in the distance.

  I’d been fascinated by the wind turbines out here since I’d seen a semi-truck carrying one of the blades down a highway. They were enormous.

  Connor put his truck in park. I studied his face as it softened around the edges.

  “I used to come out here as a teenager when I was emo and full of angst. It’s my favorite place,” he said.

  “In the whole world?”

  Connor turned his gaze toward the pasture, and his lips twitched down a bit, like he was thinking hard.

  “Of the places I’ve gotten to see so far—yes.” He tipped his head toward the field in front of us. “Horses.”

  I jerked my face forward in surprise. I’d assumed the animals down there were cows.

  “Oh my god!” I jumped out of his truck and rushed toward the edge of the overlook. It was a steep drop down.

  “Careful, Trav.” He came up behind me and pulled me back against his body and away from the edge. I sunk into his warmth, his arms wrapping around my stomach.

  “Do you ride them?” I asked. My knowledge of farm things was abysmal.

  “No. They’re wild mustangs. We have a lease with the Bureau of Land Management.” After a pause, Connor said, “I’ve never ridden a horse actually.”

  I watched a pair of horses circle each other like a choreographed dance. They were beautiful—moving, living power, all muscle and motion.

  “I assumed you rode ponies around the pasture, like a cowboy.”

  He cleared his throat. “We drive our trucks out here. Or tractors. ATVs in the cattle and horse pastures.”

  “Well, that blows up my whole idealized image of you on a horse with a ten-gallon hat. And chaps. I think about the chaps a lot.”

  “My father died on a horse. He was bucked off and hit his head.”

  “Oh my God, I’m sorry.” I turned around in his arms, trying to comprehend all this new information about him. “That’s horrible.”

  Connor lifted his shoulders, but didn’t lower them. His gaze strayed out toward the horizon. “I never knew him.”

  “That’s still tough, hon.”

  When Connor turned back toward me, his bright eyes held unheard of depths. God, I wanted to kiss him. And it wasn’t because of sex. It was because I wanted to comfort him. But friends-without-benefits didn’t kiss for comfort, did they?

  Well, they probably didn’t stand tangled in each other’s arms during a romantic sunset either.

  Shit.

  “This is what’s left of him,” Connor said. “This place.”

  “This overlook?”

  He jerked his head. “The business. The farm. This life. It’s my connection to him, and I should honor that, right?”

  I took my time answering, wishing I had the full story here, wishing we were close enough for Connor to let me in on all of his thoughts and feelings about this, all his fears.

  “I think the best way to honor your father, and your family, is to be yourself. And if that’s managing the farm, then great. If not, that’s fine too. The farm isn’t all that’s left of your father. He’s here too.” I placed my palm on his chest.

  Connor glanced away, but I caught a flash of pain in his eyes, there and gone so quickly, I wasn’t sure it had been there at all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  CONNOR

  Travis and I made it back to his house and watched several episodes of a reality television show about movie makeup. My heart wasn’t in it.

  Everything in me ached, like one huge sore muscle. I needed to face some facts. Maybe make a list of them.

  I was falling for Travis Bradford

  We had no future

  I didn’t want the future that was laid out in front of me

  I had no idea what I would do otherwise

  I wasn’t brave enough to make a change

  On the tail end of my conversation with Leon, I couldn’t imagine airing my worries. By ten that evening, my brain had been running on a hamster wheel of stress over things I couldn’t control, and those I could but was too scared to. I was exhausted. Eventually, Travis’s living room and his gallery of amateur paintings turned fuzzy, and I fell asleep.

  When I woke up, it was after one in the morning, and Travis was asleep beside me on the couch, one of his legs thrown over mine, his head tipped back, his glasses on the coffee table. In sleep, he seemed more open. Vulnerable, maybe.

  I pressed my lips to the soft skin underneath his jaw, and he made an adorable mewling noise in his throat. His arm lifted, loose with sleep, and he petted my shoulder. I mouthed up to his earlobe.

  “Mmm, Connor.”

  “Yes?”

  “We fell ’sleep.”

  “Yes.” I kissed the rim of his ear, and he tilted his head to give me room. “We should go to bed.”

  Some tension threaded back into Travis’s lethargic body, and his eyes flashed open. “Here?”

  “If you want. I can head home.” We’d never spent the whole night together. That seemed to be an invisible line in the sand.

  He stared into the distance, his eyes unfocused. “It’s late.”

  “It’s technically Monday.”

  His fingers, which had been lax against my shoulders, dug in. “Our week is up.”

  I nodded and pressed closer to him.

  “And what was the point of our sex moratorium again? I can’t remember,” Travis said.

  “To prove that we can be friends.”

  “Did it work?”

  I rubbed my thumb over his cheekbone. “Sure.”

  Being friends with Travis would have been great, but I was pretty sure I’d screwed all chances of that the moment I kissed him in a storage closet a few months ago. All th
is week had done was rev me up. My fingers tingled with the need to touch him, to be close to him, to hold him in completely non-platonic ways. I wanted him more than ever, and for once, I didn’t want to hold back. I held back in every other aspect of my life, and I was sick of it.

  His lips landed on mine. His body was slow with sleep—easy, pliant, and warm. I parted my lips on a breath, and he dove in, his tongue slipping into my mouth. I tensed but let him in, analyzing the sensation objectively, as if from far away. He’d never kissed me like this, and it was odd, but not as overwhelming as my past experiences. I didn’t particularly like it, but I liked that Travis was giving me sleepy kisses.

  I tentatively rubbed my tongue along his, and he gasped, pulling back. Some of the drowsiness had cleared from his eyes. “Connor, I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m okay.”

  There was a time when I would have stressed out about that kiss. I’d have run it over and over in my head, trying to determine why I was fussy about things that other people seemed to enjoy without stress, but I no longer cared. Travis had taught me to embrace what I enjoyed, what I needed, and let go of what I didn’t.

  He’d given me the key.

  He pressed his forehead against mine. “I want you to stay.”

  It was like my heart had wings. It wanted to fly out of my mouth and into his hands. We never slept over. I never got to stay.

  “Okay,” I said. He smiled, like that was somehow funny. I nudged his nose with my own, my heart thundering in my ears. “Travis?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Would you fuck me?”

  I liked topping. Topping was a-fucking-mazing. But I also wanted to experience the flipside before my time with Travis ran out.

  He touched my chin. “Are you sure you want that?”

  “Yes.” I was scared of how much I wanted this. I had no idea if I’d enjoy it, but I wanted to give it a go. I trusted him.

  “Come with me.”

  We made out in his bed, stripping ourselves slowly, our skin warming under gentle caresses and hot breath. When we got to the point where I normally would have taken control and moved us forward, I didn’t. Travis rolled on top of me, then inched down my body. Before I could blink, I was in his mouth. It was petal soft and perfect.

  I relaxed into the bed and closed my eyes, the bright string of lights on his ceiling leaving stars behind my eyelids. Once heat was tingling through my legs and the base of my spine, he nudged my thighs apart and spread my cheeks open with his thumbs. My breath stuttered out of me. Those stars in my head imploded, making it hard to think about anything but where he was touching me. Where he was looking.

  “So pretty. All pink,” he said, his lips against my inner thigh. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to fuck me.”

  “I know that.” His thumb traced from behind my balls and down. “Do you want to be in control, though?”

  I wanted it to happen, but I didn’t want to have to orchestrate it. That would be too intimidating.

  “No. You. Want you in control.”

  “Gladly.”

  He didn’t pause to let me overthink this whole damn thing, for which I was grateful, but slid a fingertip over me with no hesitation. I bit my lip hard and my eyes rolled back. I’d done this before, to myself, but never with another person. It was different.

  “Feel good?”

  “Yes.” I lifted my head up to see him, and he grinned. His eyes were still soft with sleepiness. Fuck, he was hot.

  “I want to eat your ass. Are you game for that?”

  My brain blinked out and went offline for a second. “Uh?”

  “It’s okay to say no.”

  “Can I say maybe?”

  “Yep.”

  He stuck his fingers in his mouth, getting them shiny with his spit. “We’ll start with this. Tell me if it hurts.”

  It didn’t hurt at all. It felt like all my pleasure sensors had fled to my ass. After working one finger inside, he crooked it, and sensation zapped through me. My whole body went rigid. “There,” I whispered. I wanted to feel that with his cock all up inside me.

  He loosened me up with one finger, quickly graduating to two, until I was shaking apart, overcome with feeling. His mouth trailed over my hipbones and down my thigh, leaving tender kisses and tingly skin. Without warning, he reached up and tugged my bottom lip out of my mouth. I’d been biting it hard, my neck strained back and body on edge.

  “Stop hiding.”

  “What?” I panted.

  “Stop smothering your noises. I want to hear them.”

  I almost told him no because being loud and out of control would make me too vulnerable, and I was already as exposed as I’d ever been. Being silent had never been intentional, but now the groans pressing against my ribcage felt unbearable. He pulled his fingers out of my ass, and I choked back a whine.

  “I want to make you scream, Connor. I want you to be so overwhelmed, to feel so good that you can’t keep it inside.”

  He rolled my ass up and off the bed with his strong hands, dipped his head, and licked across my hole.

  My mouth dropped open. My heart drummed in my ears, like the bass was turned up in my head.

  “Connor, yes or no?” he asked.

  If he was asking if I wanted to feel that slick, hot slide again, the answer was hell yes.

  “Okay.”

  He laughed. “Is that a yes, babe?”

  “Yes.”

  He practically growled as he licked me again.

  “Love tasting you. You like this? You gonna let me in, Connor?”

  I nodded. “Fuck.”

  This—Travis’s filthy words, the slick rasp of his tongue, his focus on parts of me that had never been given so much attention—was really doing it for me in the same way that spanking Travis did it for me. I didn’t know what to make of that, but I was willing to ride the wave.

  I was surprised I liked being rimmed, that it wasn’t locking me up with self-consciousness. I could only attribute that to Travis, to the trust I had in him.

  He teased me with his lips, with his tongue, never pushing in fully.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  He fucked his tongue in. A shocked noise burst free from my throat, and Travis answered it with a moan of his own. Now that the silence had been broken inside me, I couldn’t hold the sounds back. I whined in the back of my throat and stared up at the lights around the ceiling.

  “That’s it, Connor. Let go,” he whispered.

  Suddenly something blunter, something hard slipped in beside his tongue, and I cried out.

  His fingers. It was his fingers. He sunk them deeper and touched off a mini explosion in me. I couldn’t control the tremble in my legs, or the break in my voice.

  “Fuck me.” I wanted Travis’s face within kissing distance, his breath on my neck, my arms around him. I wanted him to anchor me.

  He sat up, his eyes wild, and reached for the bedside table, coming back with lube and a condom. He got me all slippery, preparing me quickly.

  “Your noises have me close,” he whispered, and a shiver raced through me. “How do you want it?”

  “Like this,” I said, and drew my knees closer to my chest.

  “Oh God, yes,” he murmured as he ripped open the condom, slid it on, and slicked it up.

  I finally got my lips on him as he crawled on top of me and planted one fist over my shoulder. The tip of his dick kissed my hole, and I tensed.

  “Breathe, Connor.”

  “I know.”

  I let out a long, slow breath, and he held his cock steady and pressed in. The stretch was incredible and scary—and it hurt—but I was also about to shake apart in anticipation.

  The head of his cock popped past my first ring of muscle, and I cried out. I couldn’t hold it in, and the sound echoed around the room and pounded in my ears.

  Travis cupped my cheek. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded and wrapped my arm
s around his neck, digging my fingers into his muscles. Tears were pricking the back of my eyes. I felt so exposed, and I needed him close. His skin was shiny with sweat, his face a mask of hunger, and seeing his lust and restraint was a shot to my confidence. I was trembling with how much I wanted this.

  He worked his way inside of me, inch by inch, and I held him close, pressing against him until I no longer felt as if I would splinter apart. His stomach skimmed the tip of my dick, and a moan busted out of my throat. He answered with one of his own before reaching down to get a hand around my cock.

  No, no, no. Couldn’t handle that yet. I shook my head frantically. “I’ll come. Not yet.”

  The pain was turning sweet now. There was too much sensation and I was so worked up, it wouldn’t take much stimulation to get me there. I wasn’t ready yet. I wanted to live in the moment for a little longer.

  Travis nodded and thrust into me, hitting my prostate and making white spots burst in my line of sight. A thin, startled noise escaped my mouth.

  I drew my arms and legs around him, until we were connected everywhere, our skin slipping together, sharing sweat, our palms greedy and mouths fused. He wrapped his hands around the backs of my shoulders for leverage. On each retreat of his body, I couldn’t hold in hoarse cries.

  Travis’s muscles flexed under my fingers, and the scent of our sweat and sex filled the air. It was intoxicating. He put his lips to my ear, and my eyes rolled back.

  “You feel perfect. Do you like it?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “Tell me what you feel.”

  I loved his voice in my ear. Loved the sensation of his lips against the shell. Wanted it to last. I wanted him to babble like when I was spanking him.

  “Your body is fighting me a bit, but you’re also shaking as if you like it. And I love that. Deep breaths, babe.”

  I sucked in air and let it out, and he was able to shove himself deeper.

  “Yes. God. Keep talking.”

  It sounded like he chuckled, but I couldn’t be sure. Everything was fuzzy in my head. Every noise amplified and distorted.

  “Your sweat tastes sweet . . . And I adore your freckles.” He nipped my neck, sucking it hard. “Yeah, Connor, squeeze me.”