I woke up several hours later to the sound of a truck pulling into my driveway and brakes protesting. Hunter’s frantic bark was joined by someone pounding on my trailer door. I pulled on my jeans, crossing over from my bedroom to the door. I banged my head off the stupid light fixture, swearing lowly as I flung open the door.
Tessa Armstrong stood before me, looking sexy as sin in those tight jean shorts and that plaid, button up blouse. Her chest was rising and falling frantically, as if she’d run the entire way here. Her hair was still curly from the night before.
“Did you mean what you said last night?” she demanded. She didn’t wait for me to invite her in; she just walked past me, the skin of her arm brushing against my naked chest. The muscles in my abdomen clenched with desire at the contact and my dick was definitely awake and wanting to greet her.
“What?” In that moment, I couldn’t remember a goddamn thing I’d said the night before.
“All that stuff.” Tessa frowned, turning to face me. Her eyes dropped down to my unbuttoned jeans, seeing the rather large tent I’d pitched for her.
I cleared my throat. I should lie to her; I should send her away. I should tell her that I wasn’t interested in her. I should retract every word I said to her last night. “Yeah, I did, actually,” I said instead, as if my tongue wasn’t even linked to my mind. I ran a hand through my hair and turned away from her, but there wasn’t much space to move in this God forsaken trailer.
When I turned back to face her, Tessa was unbuttoning her shirt. All sensibility and rational thought fell out of my brain like a bucket tipping over. My eyes widened as I took in the sight of her lacy white bra, the dark of her nipples acutely visible beneath the lacy material. I swallowed hard, struggling to find words.
“Well, Brock Miller. Its morning, I’m sober and I can pretty much guarantee that you aren’t going to be something I regret,” she said, her voice dipping sensually. She reached out, her hands tugging my jeans down. She cupped me through the thin material of my boxers.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Tessa,” I hissed, my eyes practically rolling into the back of my head. How the fuck was I supposed to resist her when she was cupping and stroking me, half naked, standing in my goddamn trailer?
I didn’t know what my problem was with Tessa. Yeah, I wanted her…more than anything. But I was resisting that urge to just take her in all the ways I wanted, because I wanted her in more ways than I’d ever wanted anyone else before.
That was it. That was the entire problem. I wanted to romance her, she deserved that. She deserved flowers and dates and magic, but she was practically begging for me to fuck her and I could still give her all that other shit she deserved, couldn’t I?
I couldn’t think when she was stroking me like that.
My lips crashed against hers fervently, my hands tangling in her hair, and I stopped fighting it. I embraced it; I lost myself in the taste and feel of her. I pressed my hardness against her belly, making her moan into my mouth. The sound of her whimpers of pleasure sent a jolt to my dick, and it jumped eagerly.
The door to my trailer was still open, and Hunter was whimpering under the table, the sudden increase of emotions confusing him.
“Give me a minute,” I told her, kissing those lips once more before I tugged my jeans back up over my hips and whistled for Hunter. He darted outside and I closed the door behind him, turning around to find her standing exactly where I’d left her, her blouse and her shorts discarded on the floor. Her thong matched her lacy bra, and I felt my balls constricting.
She was a goddamn vision.
“I don’t have much time,” she said, explaining her rush to undress. I nodded, coming at her at the same time she came at me. Our lips met again, our tongues dancing a heated tango that made me acutely aware I wouldn’t last long at all with her. I picked her up, my hands gripping her ass cheeks and grinding her against me. I walked her backwards, towards the end of the trailer where my bed was. I dropped her on it, taking a moment to admire her beautiful curves while I kicked off my jeans. I crawled back on top of her, leaving my boxers on, and went back to kissing those lips. I held myself up with my right arm, letting my free hand roam against the soft skin of her inner thigh. My fingers toyed with the lacy material of her panties, and I could feel her wetness through the barely there material.
“Fuck, Tessa,” I groaned, the desire to taste her, be inside her and just consume her made me feel light headed. It’d never been like this for me before. I wanted to take my time with her, to explore every inch of her body, to taste her and please her to the point of her own destruction. But I also wanted to feel her immediately, to take her ruthlessly and frantically. I gently pulled her panties away, my fingers sliding against her wet skin and sinking into her. She arched beneath me, her lashes fluttering closed. She bit her lip as I pleasured her with my fingers.
I was enthralled with watching her, captivated by the soft whimpers that fell from her lips. “I need to taste you,” I all but growled.
Tessa bit her lip harder, glancing at me while I positioned myself between her legs. “Um, what?”
“Um what, what?” I asked, my hands on her thighs.
She laughed nervously. “I’ve never…” She trailed off, her cheeks flushing. Now was not the time to demand to know who the fuck had been so stupid as to not lavish this remarkable body the way it was meant to be lavished.
I arched a brow instead, pulling her panties away, and took a tentative lick. She arched against me, her head dropping back against the mattress.
She tasted like salvation; her taste was the most sacramental thing to have ever passed my lips. I ate her like a starving man, like I hungered for her taste as much, if not more, than she hungered for the feel of my tongue against her clit. I was relentless, using tongue, lips and my fingers in time with one another to completely bring her over the edge, never stopping until I felt her hips buckle beneath me as she came undone.
“I need you in me, Brock,” she whispered breathlessly. “Do you have a condom?”
“Fuck,” I muttered, the mood suddenly halting when I realized that I did not have condoms on me, and the nearest store was a gas station ten goddamn minutes away. My dick throbbed painfully.
Tessa bit her lip, considering. “I’m on the pill,” she told me. Those four words were both a blessing and a curse. It was a subtle way of her saying please, take me anyway. The goddamn thought of being inside without a latex barrier had me nearly seeing stars.
But I wasn’t that kind of guy; I wasn’t one to play with a loaded gun. I wasn’t saying that I thought Tessa was lying about being on birth control, but that shit wasn’t foolproof.
She said nothing, but I know she sensed my hesitation. Instead, her hand reached through the slit in my boxers and she gripped me, pumping me slightly. “It’s alright, we’ll take care of you anyway,” she whispered, slowly crawling over me. She forced me to lie down on my back, and then she took me in her mouth.
Her mouth was the sweetest sin. The way she worked me, taking as much of me as she could while pumping my base with her hand had me falling apart, shattering into millions of pieces. I couldn’t think of anything outside of her; her lips, her mouth, and her body. It didn’t take me long at all to explode in her mouth. She drank it all back, milking me for everything that I had.
“Jesus,” I exhaled roughly, pulling her up on my chest. My heart was pounding frantically and my body was on a complete high.
“I never would have pegged you for a holy man,” she joked, smiling almost shyly at me.
“Yeah, well. That was before you. What the hell did you do to me? Where did you learn how to do that?” Tessa opened her mouth, about to reply. I brought my finger up to her lips, the jealous anger rising like a current. “On second thought, don’t answer that question.”
I didn’t want to think about where she’d learned her skills, not that I was complaining; it was the best goddamn head I’d ever gotten.
I watched as she crawled off
me, searching for her discarded shorts and top. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“I told you I didn’t have long,” she reminded me, sending me a playful smirk over her shoulder.
The sinking sensation in my stomach told me that I didn’t want to see her go. I stood up, crossing over to where she stood. I let her slip into her shorts again, and when she straightened, I kissed her. My hands framed her face, my lips and tongue coaxing a soft moan from her. I pulled away regretfully, keeping my hands on her face. “When can I see you again?”
“Soon,” she promised, biting her bottom lip. “But next time I come over, you’d better have condoms,” she added.
I pressed my hardness against her; yeah, I was primed and ready to go again. This girl was driving me wild. “That’s a promise,” I added, nipping her bottom lip gently.
* * *
I stood in front of my trailer, watching Tessa pull away. I watched until her truck disappeared into the trees, until I couldn’t hear the sound of her tires on the freshly laid gravel anymore.
My phone started to ring, and I fished it out of my back pocket. “Hello?” I said, not even bothering to read the caller ID.
“Hey, Brock. It’s Becky,” my sister’s voice came through the line, sounding exhausted and worn. “I have a tiny situation here…”
“What’s wrong?” I demanded.
“Nothing.” She sighed, the wariness evident in her voice. “My sitter bailed on me again, and I can’t get a hold of Braden. I really need someone to watch Aiden today so I can go to work. I can’t afford to miss any more time…”
I rubbed at my jaw with my fingertips, a heaviness pressing down on my chest. I wasn’t ready to face things back home yet, but Becky wouldn’t have asked if she wasn’t absolutely stuck. Becky vehemently hated asking for help, all the Millers did.
“I can watch him. I’ll be by soon,” I finally said, disconnecting the call.
I grabbed my keys and got into my truck, whistling for Hunter. He hopped up into the cab and we set off.
I drove along highway seven, trying not to think about what I was about to do: see my dying mother for the first time since she called me with the news, and meet my nephew for the first time since seeing him in that incubator all those years before.
Instead of focusing on those heavy thoughts, I allowed my mind to drift to Tessa.
I had it bad for that girl, and there was no way in hell her family would let me within five feet of her. The look on Bill Armstrong’s face last night when I simply dropped her off, spelled that out clear as day and he hadn’t even known what had transpired between us minutes earlier.
Treating her the way she deserved to be treated, romancing her and taking her out places, was going to be next to impossible. I couldn’t just pick her up for a date night on the town.
My thoughts stalled when I pulled into the driveway of the small farmhouse I’d grown up in. Seeing it again was like a sucker punch to the heart.
The house was in disarray. The shutters were in desperate need of a coat of paint or two, and the roof needed new shingles. The yard was more weeds than grass and the gardens were overgrown.
When I lived there, the gardens were always pretty and free of weeds, the grass was always cut and the shutters weren’t hanging on by a single hinge. The outward appearance of our house had been a façade, my mother’s attempt at disguising the ugly that resided within, my father.
Brent Miller had always been an asshole. I don’t know why my mother married him, or why she stayed. He was an abusive alcoholic and lazy. He couldn’t hold down a job to save his life, and my mom was often left to work double shifts at the water treatment plant just to afford the basic necessities. Brent didn’t lift a finger to help her and his idea of parenting was beating us into submission when my mom wasn’t there to stop it and direct his anger on her. Life carried on like that until I got big enough to fight back.
The day that Brent Miller drank himself stupid and drove his shitty car into the guardrail on a highway was the happiest day of my life. I know it’s cruel to say that about the man who fathered you, but it was the truth. For years I prayed that my mother would kick him out; that we could live without his ugly shadow looming over us. His death was a blessing. His death released us all from the miserable spell he’d had on us. Or so…I’d thought.
My mom was relieved too, although she wouldn’t admit it out loud. But with him gone, I was able to actually leave the house without fearing he’d take out his rage on one of my siblings. I was actually able to chase my dreams. I followed the rodeo and competed in bull rider competitions, sending any money I earned back home to my family. I did this for a year, and I loved my life on the road. I loved competing, I loved feeling the sense of purpose in sending those checks home and I loved the open road.
Then, shortly before I was supposed to compete in the Williams Lake Stampede in British Columbia, I got a phone call that changed my life.
My little brother was fifteen at the time. He was in hysterics. He told me that our seventeen-year-old sister, Becky, was in the hospital, in labor. The baby was coming early and I hadn’t even known that she was pregnant. But it was far worse than that…it turned out that the father of Becky’s baby had beaten her so badly that the trauma was what caused the preterm labor.
I hopped on a plane and came home to find my sister sitting at the side of her preterm son’s incubator, praying he’d make it through another night. Her face was mangled, her right wrist was broken, and three of her ribs were bruised.
I’d never felt rage like that. That was a pivotal moment in my life; the turning point. I’d gone after the son-of-a-bitch that put my sister in the hospital and endangered not only her life, but the life of my tiny nephew. I found him at the shitty apartment he’d lived in with Becky, snorting coke on the coffee table beside a parenting magazine, of all things.
I snapped. I blacked out, and when I came to…I was standing over his body while he bled all over the carpet. Later, I would learn that I’d given him the same wounds he’d given my sister: a fractured cheek, bruised ribs and a broken wrist. I’d also broken his jaw for good measure.
I didn’t regret it. I knew I probably should, but I wouldn’t lie to myself and act like I did. In my eyes, it was justified. I guess in the judge’s eyes, it was too. He’d given me the lightest sentence possible and allowed me to get out early on good behavior.
I rolled up and parked in front of my mom’s old Civic and beside my sister’s little Accord. One of the tires on the Civic was flat, and I made a mental note to fill it before I left… before I realized that wasn’t necessary. Mom wasn’t driving her car anywhere these days.
I climbed out and held the door of my truck open, allowing my dog out of the cab. Hunter came everywhere with me, and had for the past two years. We’d rescued each other.
I’d only been in Alberta for a couple of months. My freedom was still new, but I’d traded jail for a different kind of isolation: a work camp. I worked insane hours and rarely got a day off. When I did, I always headed to the nearest town to do a little shopping at the general store. On one particular day, I stepped outside with my groceries and saw a group of local kids with a bat chasing a small pup. I dropped my bags and ran after them, getting to them just as one of the kids leveled a kick to the poor pup’s ribs as he trembled against the wall between two garbage bins.
I managed to scare them off, and warily crossed over to him. He was still trembling, his yellow eyes fixed on me with apprehension and hope. His fur was matted with mud and slush, and when I picked him up in my arms, I could feel that his ribs were protruding. He was starving, freezing, and terrified.
I took him to the local vet and was told that he was likely a little over a year old, and from the looks of it, he was a German shepherd wolf mix with some Husky. Once the mud was washed away from his beautiful agouti coat, his wolf traits were more noticeable and the vet insisted I put him down, expressly detailing all of the risks of owning a hybrid.
I wasn’t ignorant regarding Hunter’s breed though, and I started working with him immediately. He was an intelligent, loyal pup that was eager to learn and eager to please. Within a month, I had him completely trained. His training didn’t stop there and it still continued on to this day. A happy dog is an active dog, and Hunter was happiest when he was being challenged.
Hunter’s thick head nudged my hand, as if he was thinking about the past too. I patted him once and then started walking up the gravel driveway. The porch felt soft beneath my boots, and I added that to my mental list of things to fix around here. I lifted my hand, about to knock. Before it made contact, the old door flew open. My sister, Becky, stood in the doorway with her hand on her hip, her crystal blue eyes boring a hole into me.
“I can’t believe you didn’t stop in here sooner,” she huffed at me, crossing her arms and frowning deeply.
“Sorry, Becs.” I sighed, swallowing hard. “How is she?”
Becky’s gaze softened considerably. “She is as good as can be expected. Did you want to come in and say hi?”
I nodded and Becky opened the door completely, stepping back to allow me in. Hunter trailed behind me obediently.
“Does it bite?” she asked warily. “Because I can’t have it in here if it bites. Or if it doesn’t like kids…”
“He won’t leave my side, but Hunter is great with kids,” I assured her. She nodded, accepting my answer. “Where is Aiden?” I asked, peering around the living room for my nephew.
“He’s playing in his room,” Becky replied. She brushed back a strand of her dark hair, repressing a sigh. “I really appreciate you doing this for me today. I can’t believe Ashlynn bailed on me again. That’s the third time this week.”
Rebel Soul: (Rebel Series Book 1) ((Rebel Series)) Page 11
