by Sacchi Green
When the room had flooded back in a hail of pinpoint awareness, she had dragged me off the table and pushed me to my knees. In a frenzy, Lauren had crushed me to her even as she fumbled with the zipper on her Wranglers. With her jeans bunched just below her hips, legs straining against the restricting fabric, I sucked her clit, tracing its length with my tongue. Her fingers had gripped my head, pulling my hair in her sharp, rapid rise to orgasmic release. And when she came, exploding in my mouth, Lauren had slumped over me, her body convulsing and quivering as she regained her control.
The memory rippled through me, flooding me with desire. God, I wanted her. But I held tight to the table, knowing she would take me where I needed to go. The promise was in her dark eyes, in her crooked, teasing smile as she moved a chair into position and sat. Her mouth was inches from my aching cunt, her warm breath whispering across my skin, teasing my clit each time she exhaled.
Lauren placed my feet on the arms of the chair, opening me to the cool air and her demanding gaze. “God, I love the smell of you.”
I felt wanton and worshipped as she gripped my ass and lifted me off the table, leaving my pussy suspended in front of her face. She didn’t suck or lick; she just spread her lips and took me in, holding me in the warmth of her mouth, her tongue spread flat against my clit. Slowly, so very slowly, she circled my singing bundle of nerves, making me quiver with the soft, gentle torture.
“Please,” I begged, knowing I shouldn’t. Asking for more, begging Lauren to go faster, would only make her slow her pace. I knew it, but I couldn’t hold back the whimpering plea.
She pulled back slightly, her mouth gliding away, her lips coming to a light, puckered kiss against my clit as she straightened in her chair. “What do you want, Bryn?” Lauren’s lips were swollen, dark like cherry wine, and I was drunk in the moment.
I swallowed hard against the rising tide of anticipation. How long would she make me wait?
“You,” I whispered. “God, Lauren, I want you. Please.” I held my hips off the table, exactly as she left me when she pulled away. My muscles burned and shook and I needed her.
“What do you want me to do?” She loosened her grip on my ass and drew her index finger between my cheeks, circling with a teasing rhythm against my clenched anus. Pure fire shot through my belly, burning her into me on a cellular level.
“Make me come,” I panted, desperate for her.
She pushed into me, the tip of her finger stretching the tight ring of muscle and wrenching a gasp from deep inside me. “How?” she asked with a wicked smile as she wiggled her finger.
I wanted to lower myself, sink onto that wayward, deviant finger, beg her to fuck me until I screamed. If I tried, I knew she’d remove it, stop the delicious, teasing dance inside me. So I held myself rigid, my thighs trembling with the strain, my cunt quivering with warning tremors. She could do that to me, make me come with a look, a carefully placed word, an exhaled breath against my clit. The circling pressure against my puckered opening, stretching me, readying me for more, but denying the promise, was going to make me explode at any moment.
“Do you like this?” Lauren asked as she added a second finger.
“God, yes,” I gasped. “Yes, please. More.” I eased closer—barely, imperceptibly, uncontrollably closer to her, to the promise of heaven in her touch.
“I should make you wait.” She eased out, then in, fucking my ass. “Make you beg.” The warm glide of her tongue over the length of my pussy, teasing my clit in time with her thrusts, made me throb, pressure radiating from her invading touch to every pulsing, sobbing part of me. “But I’ve missed you so much. The taste of you, the sound of you coming in my hand.”
My world narrowed to the beautiful, relentless climb toward orgasm. With every word, every touch, she drew me closer. My body screamed, muscles gathering tighter and tighter, clenching and begging. As I sobbed for release, loving her, praising her touch, she thrust into my pussy, filling me beyond anything I’d known before, and sucked my clit between her teeth, flicking her tongue against me in a pounding tempo of sex and need.
The orgasm tore through me, erupting from somewhere deep inside and radiating outward in waves as I collapsed against the hard surface of the table. I languished there, gasping for breath, reconstructing myself fiber by fiber as she stretched over me, kissing me sweetly. First my forehead, then my eyes, then my cheeks, and finally my mouth—a flurry of tender, soft kisses seasoned with her low murmurs of love and devotion.
As I lay there, the room seeping into my consciousness, I ran my hands over her body, the smooth work-worn denim soft beneath my touch. She stayed there holding me longer than usual, long enough to alarm me. Normally she twitched with pent up energy, restless and ready to move on. I struggled out of her embrace and hopped off the table, wiggling my uniform back into place.
“How long are you in town for this time?” I tried to keep my voice casual, like the answer didn’t matter. But, of course, it did.
“That depends on you, Bryn.” She watched as I straightened my hair and smoothed my skirt over my legs.
“What do you mean?” The low-grade throb in my pussy told me that no matter what the answer, it wouldn’t be long enough.
Lauren kept herself stiffly apart from me but took my hand in hers. “I’m tired of the road. Every morning I wake up and I’m alone. You’re here and I go crazy wishing I was with you. I’m tired of wishing.” There was a slight quaver in her voice as she finished speaking, and she took a deep breath. “I want to stay here. With you.”
My knees shook and my head buzzed. “What are you saying, Lauren, exactly?”
She pressed a soft, sweet kiss to my lips. “I’m saying, take me home.”
I laughed, a quiet release of the tension and dread that always preceded her departure. She wanted me. More than the rodeo. “Come on, cowboy. Let me show you the way.”
She wrapped her arm around my waist, low and possessive, and I led her out the door and into the rest of our lives.
GIRL COWBOY
Charlotte Dare
Lucille had some choices. Either sell the small dairy farm she had struggled to manage on her own or hire a stranger to help her keep it up and running. Either way the dream she’d shared with her husband before he shipped off to war would never come to fruition.
“Mornin’, ma’am,” he said, tipping his cowboy hat. “Name’s Del Mather and I’m here on account of your notice at Crowley’s Market.” He smiled brightly, his baby face a beacon atop a slender lighthouse dressed in a checkered shirt and dusty Levis.
“I just put that ad up no more than a half hour ago,” she said.
“I know. I watched you do it and then followed you here, Mrs. Lucille Grady.”
Lucille examined him from the weathered, felted wool of his Stetson down to the worn-out boots with shiny spurs that jingled as he fidgeted. “This is a dairy farm. A very small dairy farm.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, still smiling.
“Forgive me, but you look like you belong breaking horses on a sprawling ranch somewhere in Texas.”
He hiccupped in a childlike laugh. “Well, ma’am, I do hail from Amarilla and did work the rodeo circuit for a spell, but these days I’m lookin’ for any work what I can do outside and with my hands. A very small dairy farm’ll do just fine.”
Lucille smiled. “I have a fresh batch of blueberry muffins cooling. Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
He looked at the tip of his boots. “No, ma’am.”
She watched Del with fascination as he scoffed down his third muffin and polished off a second cup of black coffee. “Would you like a peach, Mr. Mather? I just picked a basket of enormous ones yesterday.”
“No Mister—just call me Del, and yes, I’d love a peach.”
Lucille selected the largest one from the basket on the windowsill and wondered when this poor fellow last enjoyed a meal. “Here you go.”
“Thank you kindly, Mrs. Grady. I better take this with me. Looks like
there’s a lot of work to be done out yonder. What do you want done first?”
“The milk needs to be bottled and the eggs crated and taken to Mr. Crowley’s. I’m already two hours late on delivery again, but he’s been understanding.”
“Then I better hop to it.” Del sprang from his chair, his hat in one hand and the peach in the other.
“Del,” Lucille said, tossing him another peach. “A snack for later.”
His sweet grin and the ensuing flutter in her stomach unsettled her. Her stomach hadn’t fluttered like that since the day she stood at the Altar of Saint Sebastian Church over four years ago and said “I do” to Henry Grady, Jr.
She quickly grabbed a cloth and occupied herself washing the breakfast dishes. No sense wasting any more time wondering about Mr. Del Mather when there were a dozen peach cobblers to make and deliver to Mr. Crowley’s before suppertime.
By late afternoon, Lucille looked out the window for Del. He was by the barn hacking overgrown grass, a job Lucille hadn’t assigned, but he’d already completed every task she had given him. He wiped the sweat from his brow and then from his neck with a gray handkerchief Lucille assumed was once white. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, an unusual sight since most young men in New England were shirtless by this time of day in early August—not that Lucille was hoping to see him shirtless.
She walked out onto the back porch. “Del, would you make another delivery to Mr. Crowley for me?”
He trotted over to her, blotting sweat from his upper lip with his forearm. He held out his hands to receive the stack of boxed cobblers. “Mmm-mmm,” he said, taking a deep whiff. “I know what I’m buyin’ when I get my first paycheck.”
When he looked up, Lucille nearly lost her footing on the wooden step from the impact of his placid blue eyes. She stepped down to the ground to get a closer look at them.
“You don’t have to wait until payday, Del. I saved one for after supper.”
A flush lit his sweaty cheeks. “Supper? Oh, no ma’am, uh, Mrs. Grady, I couldn’t impose on you for another meal. You been generous enough what with breakfast and lunch.”
“Del, three meals are included in your salary. Quite honestly, I can’t afford to pay you that much. It’s been a bit of a struggle since Henry…” She stopped herself. “So, there you go.” She pointed at the boxes in his hands. “Mr. Crowley’s customers are waiting for those, and supper is at six sharp.”
Hurrying up the steps and into the house, she was surprised to find a film of sweat glistening on her own forehead. Well, it was awfully hot out.
She busied herself cutting beef into small pieces so her stew would appear meatier than it really was, a trick Henry caught onto after only a few months. Henry—he’d been dead just about eight months now, and she still missed him so. A respectable widow, she was loyal to her husband’s memory. The strokes of her knife came harder and faster. Then how come every time she glanced at this Del character she had to force her eyes away from him?
“Ouch,” she shouted as the blood pooled in the sliced skin beside her fingernail. She grabbed a dishrag and applied pressure to her gashed finger as she paced the kitchen.
She sat on the parlor sofa and stared at a photo of Henry on the end table, her heart heavy with loneliness. To feel someone’s arms wrapped around her once more…
The rumble of the old pickup chugging up the dirt driveway woke her from her nap.
“What happened?” Del asked, staring at the bloodstained cloth around her finger.
She stood up, still a bit groggy. “Nothing. I nicked it starting supper. I can’t believe I fell asleep.” She swiped wisps of blonde hair off her face.
“Let me take a look at that.”
“No, it’s okay,” Lucille said, brushing past him into the kitchen. “I have to get supper ready.”
He gently grabbed her arm and enchanted her with those piercing eyes. “Supper can wait. Let’s fix you up first.”
Supper can wait? When was the last time a man ever uttered those words?
He opened the bloody rag and examined the wound with slender fingers dirty under the nails. “Where’s your first-aid kit?”
“Under the sink.”
“That’s some nick you got there. You could damn near bleed a pig with a nick that size.” He dabbed the cut with Mercurochrome, wrapped it in gauze, and wound it securely with white tape. He looked up and gave her a warm smile. His teeth sparkled without the slightest hint of tobacco stain, and his lips were thin with a rosy shine.
“You don’t look like a cowboy,” she blurted with a grin.
His warmth faded into a hard glare. “You don’t look like a damsel in distress, yet here we are.”
She ripped her hand from his. “I told you I didn’t need your help. I was okay.”
He threw his hands on his hips. “So okay you were just about bleedin’ into your own lap?”
A deep breath gathered her composure. “Mr. Mather, perhaps we can get back to our respective duties and meet back at the supper table at six P.M. How does that sound?”
He glared at her stubbornly. “Sounds plumb fine, Mrs. Grady.”
He stalked back outside with a toughie’s swagger, leaving Lucille in need of another breath.
Glancing out the window, she smiled at Del washing his hands in the water trough and then turned to carefully inspect the supper table. Steam wafted from the stew bowls, while a stack of white bread rested on a plate and apple cider beckoned in condensation-slick glasses. Fresh-cut blue hydrangeas exploding from a vase added a delicate touch.
“Mrs. Grady?” Del’s soft voice floated in from the side door.
“Del? Where are you?”
He materialized behind the screen, holding his hat against his chest. “Mrs. Grady, I’m awful sorry about before. I was awful mean to you, and I apologize.”
She laughed. “Mean? How were you mean?”
“I called you a damsel in distress.”
“Oh, Del, you saved me from bleeding to death, which I was perfectly contented to do for some odd reason. Come on in and have your stew.”
They both sat down and began eating silently.
Lucille’s eyes darted between Del and the cloth napkin in her lap. What was it about this petite cowboy from “Amarilla” that had her so captivated? “So, Del, what brings a Texas cowboy all the way up to a Connecticut dairy farm?” she finally asked.
As he looked up over the hydrangeas, the hue of the flowers made his eyes pop a heavenly blue. Lucille nearly forgot her question.
“I needed a new start,” he said. “I picked New England on account of it’s where the folks in England went when they needed a new start. Seemed to work out good for ’em, so I figured I’d give it a whirl.”
“The colonists were running away from something, an oppressive ruler trying to tell them how to live their lives.”
“Rings familiar,” he mumbled.
“Are you running away from something, Del? The law maybe?” Her lips curled with the thrill of intrigue.
He laughed. “I ain’t runnin’ from nothin’, Mrs. Grady. I reckon I’m runnin’ to somethin’. A life lived my own way.”
“What way is that?”
“Just me bein’ able to be me.”
“That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said, spooning in the last of his stew.
“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Twenty-two.”
“I knew it. I knew you looked young.”
“You’re young, too, ain’t ya?”
“Twenty-five.”
“That’s young, all right.”
“I don’t feel young anymore. It’s hard to feel young when you’re a widow.”
“The war?” Del asked.
She nodded. “Henry was a gunner stationed in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. Silliest thing, he didn’t even die on the front lines. There was a Jeep crash…” She looked away and let out a soft sigh. �
�I’ve never talked about it before.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then regarded her with admiration. “I imagine the day he left you was the hardest day of his life.” He scratched his curly dirty-blonde hair and pushed away his empty bowl.
She smiled. “Would you like more stew?”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Grady. As delicious as it was, I wanna have room for that peach cobbler you promised.”
“Why don’t you go relax out on the porch swing, and I’ll put some coffee on.”
“You sure you don’t need no help cleanin’ up?”
“Cleaning up?” she repeated, laughing. “Heavens, Del, what are they teaching boys down there in Amarillo?”
His awkward smile tugged at her heart.
“Thank you, Del,” she said sincerely. “Why don’t you cut up the cobbler? I’m not too skilled with knives today.”
Over the next six months, Lucille had several things to note on the kitchen calendar: the Japanese surrender, her fifth wedding anniversary to Henry, the one-year anniversary of his death, and six months to the day since Del Mather and his sunset of a smile appeared at her door.
More than a farmhand, he had become her friend. Lucille had grown to cherish the simple things—having a meal companion just as interested in conversing as he was in eating; evenings on the porch watching the sun dip below the hillside, then later relaxing by the fireplace, listening to The Jack Benny Program. She even taught him how to waltz to Les Brown and Doris Day’s hit, “Sentimental Journey.”
As she wiped her hands on a dishtowel, she smiled at the thought of waltzing eye-to-eye with him after insisting he remove his boots lest he crush her other set of toes.
