With a final lick, she ran her tongue down his chest.
“What are you doing?” he rasped, and placed his hand at the back of her head, anchoring her to his chest.
Continuing her path she followed the line of hair in the center of his body, stopping when she came to his belly button. Bending slightly to better reach him, she struck her tongue inside, smiling against his stomach when she felt his low goan.
The hand in her hair clenched, tightening when her tongue went lower.
“Enough,” he bit out, forcing her to stand.
He lifted her, placing his hands beneath her bottom, and sat her on the bathroom counter. Before she could protest, if she was of a mind to, he had her panties off and on the floor. Crouched low, he glanced up at her.
Slowly, his big hands grasped her by both of her ankles, moving up, past her knees, until they rested on her thighs. Keeping his eyes on hers, he parted her thighs, moved in closer.
She held her breath when his head moved in, expelling on a long breath when she felt the tip of his tongue against her inner thigh, the brush of his mouth against her mound.
“Mmm,” she sighed, releasing the breath slowly, her hands planted on the counter on either side of her.
His fingers dug into her hips as he angled her so that her mound rested firmly against his mouth.
She felt his breath fan against the hairs covering her, and she screamed when he stroked between her crease with one long sweep of his tongue.
With each stroke, he carefully avoided her quivering bud, swirling his tongue around it, beside it, but not taking it inside his mouth. He took his time with her. Savored her as though she were his last meal.
Yasmine glanced down, moaning, her body on fire;
the sight of his dark blond head between her thighs, the feel of him catering to her, was too much. As much as she wanted him to continue his sensual torture, she didn’t know that she could accept much more.
“Oh God, Holt, baby … please … Holt, slow down. I—” Her protest ended on a sharp cry of disbelief when he brought her straining nub into his mouth and bit down lightly on it.
She felt the erotic sting of his kiss all the way to her toes, and her spine arched, her head falling back, as he continued his teasing strokes.
He finally drew her bud deep into his mouth; tugging gently on it, he gave her what she desperately needed.
When her orgasm hit, she grabbed his head, pulling him closer, and screamed her release.
“I can’t wait, baby. I’m sorry, I’ve got to have you.” She heard Holt speak as though from a distance, her body completely boneless. She barely had enough strength to place her hands around his neck when he lifted her from the counter.
She nodded her head weakly against his hard chest, too spent to speak as he carried her out of the bathroom and laid her on the bed.
He reached over, fumbled in the bedside table and withdrew a package before he joined her on the bed. Then he was on the bed, positioning her body so that he lay directly behind her.
“I need you, baby. I need you now.” He growled the words against her neck. “Please tell me you need me, too,” he begged huskily. He reached around her, his fingers delving between her legs, finding her core and testing her readiness for him, his fingers coming away with proof that she was.
She heard a rip behind her, the rustling of movement and jostling of her body before moments later, she felt the tip of his shaft as he slowly penetrated her from the back.
In one long, hot glide, Holt pushed inside Yasmine’s body, pressing past the slight resistance until he was fully seated.
Once he was all the way in, he stopped, resting his head against the curve of her neck. Her walls clamped so tightly on him he had to grit his teeth and force himself not to move for fear he’d release too soon.
God, she felt so good wrapped around him.
So right.
He held the position for as long as he could.
“Are you ready for me?” He breathed the words against her neck.
She nodded her head, glancing over her shoulder at him.
The light from the bathroom cast a sensual glow over her face, the look in her eyes as she stared at him one of lust, desire … and something more.
He swallowed deeply, gritting his teeth as he felt his shaft grow even harder wedged deep inside her body.
Closing his eyes, he tightened his jaw, his mind fighting against what she made him feel with just one look.
The only thought on his mind was making love to her. For as long as they had together, he intended to love her as no man ever had, or ever would.
She looked back over her shoulder, the expression on her face a combination of virginal innocence mixed with sultry seductiveness. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, her voice low, throaty.
With a growl, Holt tightened his hold on her and shifted his hips, drawing himself nearly out of her before gliding back in.
Her mewling echoed in the room.
The feel of her walls clamping down on him, molding and adjusting to his length and girth, sent an electric shock of pleasure through his body.
She was his. For as long as he had her, as long as she was at Wyoming Wilde, she belonged to him.
His hands shook as they gripped her hips tighter, plunging into her softness, his pace and depth of stroke quickening as she bucked back against him, grinding her body against his shaft, accepting his body, molding and adjusting to his, as though she’d been made just for him.
With every plunge of his body, she gave back as much, until their seesawing motion began to rock the bed.
She felt so tight, so good wrapped around him, her walls milking him as he delved into her, over and over. Her firm globes slapped in a rhythmic beat against his stomach, her mewling cries growing with every glide and retreat.
A roll of her hips against his body was his undoing.
He felt the beginnings of an orgasm, but he held on. Sweat dripped down from his chest to land on her back.
She arched, slowly, sensually, as though she felt even that smallest of nuances.
God, she was so responsive to him.
Gritting his teeth, Holt lifted her by the waist, rose and moved one of his bent knees so that one foot was flat on the mattress and continued to thrust, realigning their bodies so that with every downward plunge the top of his shaft scraped her straining clitoris.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh …. ” she panted, her voice hoarse. “Holt, baby … Holt, Holt, Holt, Holt, Holt.” She cried out his name, blurring it together as though it were some erotic prayer, over and over, until he felt her body stiffen, her spine arch.
“I’m coming, baby, I—” Her words ended in a scream when he reached between their joined bodies, found her hot nub and pinched. With one last thrust he sent them both over into oblivion, their cries of release echoing, bouncing off the walls, melding into one harmonious cry of satisfaction.
“I remember the first day you came to the ranch.” It was several minutes before Yasmine could muster enough energy to speak. Her body limp, she’d collapsed onto the mattress after her tumultuous release.
She opened drowsy eyes, found herself lying on Holt’s chest and smiled. She didn’t know the last time she’d felt so … relaxed.
“Oh, you do, do you?” she asked, her voice husky. She cleared her throat, blushing when she realized her voice was so scratchy from all of her yelling. “And what do you remember?”
Although she lay on top of him and was unable to see his face, Yasmine heard the smile come through in Holt’s voice.
“I remember you were wearing a really fancy-looking little dress, complete with black shiny shoes and a hat.” He laughed and she groaned, remembering the outfit and how out of place she’d felt when she’d arrived at the ranch dressed up, the only girl on the ranch filled with men and boys in dirty jeans. She wrinkled her nose.
“I can’t believe you remember that!”
“I do. But mostly I remember the hat. It was pre
tty,” he said, startling a laugh out of her. “I had never seen a hat like that. If you tell my brothers that, I swear I’ll hunt you down,” he said, laughing with her.
“I won’t,” she promised. “Scout’s honor.” She held up two fingers, making the vow official.
“I remember that day, as well. I remember mostly how afraid I was during the plane trip over.” A reminiscent smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “We flew over the Teton Mountains. And I remember looking down and everything looking so different than what I was used to. When Aunt Lilly came to get me at the airport I remember the ride back and only seeing mountains, flatlands and bush.” She laughed. “She thought I was quiet because I was shy. I was just taking it all in.” She smiled in memory.
“I bet it was a lot for a little girl to take in,” he said, running a hand over her hair.
“It was. Everything was just so much more … quiet than what I was used to, living in New York. No tall buildings obscured the sky, like we had back home, nothing but mountains was all I could see. No taxis honking at you to get out of the way, and everybody spoke English,” she said, and heard his quiet laughter.
“And then you fell in love with it,” he said softly, and Yasmine smiled. Although he was referring to the ranch, she knew she’d also started to fall in love with him a little that day.
“Yeah, I did. It was scary at first, I didn’t know what to do, how to act. Who to be,” she said, her voice losing some of its faraway note. “But, between Aunt Lilly, Jed … and of course, you, Nate and Shilah, I felt welcomed.” She stopped and laughed, the sound bittersweet. “In fact I felt more at home at Wyoming Wilde than I’d ever felt with my parents. I think that’s what I felt the most guilt about, after they died.”
He hugged her close. “It was understandable, with them traveling so much, and you staying with relatives most of the time. That doesn’t mean you didn’t love them.” He hugged her, and she turned into his embrace.
Yasmine knew that Holt, as well as his brothers, knew what her life had been like before she’d come to live with him. She remembered the night she’d come to stay with them. Not being able to sleep, she’d crept downstairs quietly to pour herself a glass of milk.
Before she’d walked into the kitchen she heard voices and stopped, crouching against the wall, and listened when she heard her name mentioned by Jed Wilde, the man her aunt worked for, and father of the three boys she’d met earlier that day.
Jed had been in the process of explaining to the boys that she was going to be living with them, and that her parents had just died. Yasmine had kept her body low, listening as the young boys had plied Jed with questions, asking where she was from, what happened to her parents and how long she’d be living with them.
When she’d met Jed earlier that day, she’d been more than a little bit intimidated by him. Tall, he had to be the tallest man she’d ever seen, with a voice so deep her eyes had widened into saucers when she heard him speak.
Yet despite his gruff manner, he answered his boys’ questions patiently, and after he’d answered them had told the boys that Yasmine was now family. Just like them, she was family.
She’d peeked around the corner and saw them each nod their heads solemnly. Nate, who she’d guessed was the oldest, spoke first. “You can count on us, Dad. We’ll make sure she feels at home,” he’d said, his voice breaking in the middle of his sentence, in that way boys had when their voices were about to change and deepen.
“She’ll be family.” Shilah spoke then. Yasmine had been fascinated by the middle brother, the way his dark solemn eyes had watched her closely when they had met earlier in the day. Not saying a word, he’d simply stuck out his hand for her to shake.
But it had been Holt whom Yasmine believed she fell a little bit in love with that night when he piped in, volunteering his room for her to stay in. Jed had laughed gruffly, assuring his youngest son that they had more than enough room for Yasmine, that she’d stay in the new room they’d added to the upstairs wing.
Although so uniquely different on the outside, Nate being black, Holt white and Shilah Native American, on the inside the boys were as similar as if the same blood ran in their veins. Jed had a lot to do with forming them into the young men that they became.
As Yasmine remembered that year she’d come to live with them, the dark room, Holt’s strong arms wrapped around her waist, holding her close as she lay on him, all gave her the freedom to speak what she’d held on to for a long time.
The words seemed to pour out of her: how afraid she’d been, how even though she loved her parents, she hadn’t been able to cry at their funeral. She felt nothing but anger, anger that they left her and even more anger that they hadn’t taken her with them when they decided to take a vacation.
Anger that they’d left her alone.
“I guess I was most angry because I never felt like my parents even knew I existed. They were always traveling, and they always left me behind. When I’d ask … beg … them to take me, I can remember my mother telling me they were going to do ‘grown-up fun’ and promising that one day soon, when I was older, we’d all go on a trip together.
“It wasn’t until I came to live at the ranch that I felt …” She stopped and drew in a breath. “That I felt like I really had a home. With people who loved me. I didn’t have to feel alone anymore. I had a family.”
When he released her, she laid her head back on his chest. Saying aloud what she’d kept deep inside for years was freeing. She felt a burden she hadn’t been aware she’d been carrying lift from her shoulders.
“And now? Have you found that same sense of contentment in your life you found with us … with your aunt, when you lived at the ranch?”
The question momentarily caught her off guard. She frowned, thinking of the places she’d traveled, all over the world, and the accomplishments she’d made. For all of her achievements, there was a part of her that still yearned for the sense of home she’d only felt at Wyoming Wilde.
“I don’t know,” she said softly.
The uncertainty, but mostly the honesty in her voice, reached out and when he least expected it sucker punched Holt directly in his heart.
She was so open, so giving.
He felt humbled at the way she opened up to him, told him things she’d never mentioned to anyone else.
Humbled and ashamed.
Ashamed because he hadn’t been able to do the same.
As he’d listened to her, he’d heard the sadness in her voice when she spoke about her parents. The loneliness she felt even when they were home, and how even then she felt separate from them, as though they were in their own world, one she didn’t share with them.
So much of what she said, he felt deep inside. He’d wanted to open up to her, as well. Wanted to tell her how he could relate to much of what she said, that he, too, knew what it felt like to be alone, even if he was in a crowded room.
But the thought of exposing himself to her, to anyone, in that way, in a way he never had before, even with his brothers, wasn’t something he was willing to do. To see sympathy in her eyes, like he’d seen so many times in the past when he was younger … No, he wanted no one’s sympathy. Not even Yasmine’s.
He hugged her close, showing in action what he couldn’t say in words.
He could get used to this … to her. Waking up to her every day, her warm body close to his, their bodies aching from a night spent loving each other.
He mentally brought himself up short. Not loving. Sex. Having sex with each other. Lovers for the rest of her stay at the ranch.
And how will you feel once she’s gone? an inner voice asked.
He settled against her. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, this was all he needed. All he had to give.
As her head lay on his chest, Holt ran a hand over her hair. He loved the way the thick strands felt against his fingers.
He was still thinking of the things she had shared with him, along with his own mixed-up feel
ings, long after he heard her soft snores telling him she’d gone to sleep.
Chapter 18
“I was thinking. When we get back to the ranch, how would you feel about moving in with me?”
“What are you talking about? I’m already staying at the ranch,” Yasmine said, frowning up at him.
“No, I meant into my room.”
“Are you joking? God, Holt, Aunt Lilly would kill us both!” She laughed off the suggestion. Although a part of her found the idea appealing, she didn’t want to even think what her aunt would have to say about it.
It was late, and in less than six hours they would be heading back to the hospital to pick Lilly up and return to the ranch.
Over the past three days when they weren’t spending time with Lilly, and Holt wasn’t on the phone with his brothers, they were with one another, going into downtown Sheridan at night. Although it was still early spring, and the nighttime air could grow cold, they enjoyed walking around the picturesque part of town, mostly window shopping, as many of the shops had closed by the time they reached the area.
Their time together had seemed so idyllic, almost standing outside time. A part of Yasmine wished she could capture the moments and lock them away, storing them to savor for the time when she would have to leave. And after hearing from Lilly’s doctors, she knew that before long her aunt would be up and around and wouldn’t need Yasmine’s help.
They’d been surprised when they’d gone to see her the day after the surgery and she was up walking around, with the help of a cane. As the doctors had taken a less invasive approach to Lilly’s knee-joint replacement, her recovery, they’d been told, would be half the time of a normal knee surgery, a fact that relieved Yasmine. Her expected recovery time would be no more than a few weeks.
When Yasmine realized how quickly her aunt would recover, although she was happy for Lilly, a part of her was saddened, knowing her time at Wyoming Wilde would soon be coming to an end.
To Love a Wilde Page 13
