A brief, bright flare of shame washed over me.
“Tell me what you need,” I begged.
“I got lube.” He whispered, lifting and bending my knees until they were pressed against my chest. I could barely breathe from the excitement that flooded me. He held me there for what seemed like an endless time, looking into my eyes while he stroked me open.
“I just need you, Sky.”
I nodded. Couldn’t speak. Pain accompanied his first push inside me, unintentional, but sharp and lasting.
“They can’t take this,” he whispered next to my ear.
“What?” I cupped his face between my hands as he eased inside me. “Who can’t?”
“No matter what. They won’t be able take this away from me.”
“Wait—” Alarm and arousal dizzied me. My mouth went dry and my cock flagged, but his hands, his clever, clever fingers strummed over me while he dotted kisses over my jaw, my neck, the vulnerable half-shaved place beneath my ear.
“Shh.” He kissed me again, pushing deeper. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” I panted. “Go . . . More . . .”
His cock was big enough to steal my breath. Thick and long. Accommodating Rock’s dick was not a piece of cake. I arched and stretched and clung to his shoulders and when he started to move my breath came in gulps and gasps instead of sighs. My body yielded with a silent shudder, and he was in.
“Christ, you’re tight.” Brow furrowed, he paused to let me get used to his size. “You sure you done this before?”
“Don’t tease.” I let my head fall back, exposing my throat for his kisses. “You know I’m about as pure as a public toilet.”
He pulled back to frown down at me. “I don’t know any such thing.”
I found it easier to look at Maisy. “I never lied about that.”
“Except to yourself.” He hadn’t moved yet. That either made him the most patient son of a bitch in the world or some kind of idiot.
I gripped his hips to pull him toward me, but he was having none of it.
“You think I care about the men who had you before me?”
When I didn’t answer, he gripped my chin. Forced me to look right in his eyes.
“You think it matters how many?”
It obviously didn’t matter to him. Or it mattered too much. “Doesn’t it?”
“Are you with me now?”
“I—” A little pop of his hips sent fire racing up my spine. My mouth fell open on a groan.
“Pay attention. Are you with me now?”
My mouth was so dry, I croaked, “Yeah.”
He was inside me, over me, all around me. My eyes rolled back from the bone-melting pleasure of his cock’s first contact with my gland.
I gasped. “Only you.”
“Good boy.” His smile was both a promise and a warning.
He caught my lower lip between his teeth, drawing it back until it made a soft snap. My ass throbbed, forcing my attention to the connection between our bodies. To his fat cock and my sweet spot and the magic holding us together like one.
Two hearts beating out a similar, rough rhythm. Compatible but not necessarily in sync.
Don’t have to be the same to be together.
I closed my eyes and arched, forcing his cock deeper inside me.
He drew a breath and snapped his hips. Pushed and twisted and pushed again, driving me mindless with desperate, aching need. I fisted my cock but he balanced his weight on one hand, took me in his other, and after that . . . after that my hands fell limply to my sides and there was only Rock.
Rock’s hands. Rock’s hips. Rock’s cock. Rock’s needs, which mercifully included me . . .
Take me. God, yes.
Use me.
Need me.
“Fuck,” I whispered, over and over. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
Pressure built. A slight breeze cooled our heated skin as Rock’s hand sped up and down my cock. Wave after wave of heat burst from inside me. I closed my eyes. Colorful dots danced in the thick black void. He wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to him, rolling us until I was on top, with him still pulsing inside me.
I pressed my forehead to the hot, sweaty roughness of his neck and pleasure flooded me, dissolving me. Breaking me into a million pieces. Sea glass on a sunny beach. Shiny and transformed . . .
Repurposed.
Chapter 30
Rock
I wrapped my hands around the back of Sky’s head. Pet his hair. Despite how careful I was, Sky gave a hiss when I pulled out.
“Okay?” I asked. “You’re all flushed. Did I hurt you?”
“Shut up.” The look he shot me before he rolled off was affectionate.
He grabbed one of the blankets to wipe himself.
“Here.” I pulled a pack of wipes from my backpack.
“Thanks.” He took the wipes and used them to clean us both.
I stretched out naked, loose, and satisfied.
I am a fucked-out lion basking in the summer sunshine.
“Hungry?” I yawned so big my jaw cracked. “I’ve got jerky. Which do you want, beef or salmon?”
Sky made a face. “Hard to choose between those fine breakfast offerings.”
“You don’t want my redneck surf and turf?” Shaking my head, I offered him a Subway bag. “You’re too easy.”
“That’s not what you said ten minutes ago.” He took the bag.
“Was that only ten minutes? Maybe you are too easy. I got you turkey with avocado and bacon.”
“Wait. No beef jerky?”
“I got some of that too, sweet and hot”—I winked—“just like you. But I was only kidding about the salmon jerky. Elena gets it sometimes. Maisy loves it but it has too much salt and sugar. I get her freeze-dried salmon sometimes.”
“Yum.” He wrinkled his nose. “How do you resist eating it all yourself?”
“It’s disgusting, that’s how.” I reached for the cooler and came back with two cans of Coke and Maisy’s water bottle and bowl.
Giving the dog water was a move that displayed my flexed shoulders, which I knew for a fact were awesome. A peek at Sky told me I was fooling no one.
“Are you posing?” His eyes couldn’t have gotten wider.
I picked up my own sandwich. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about this—” He mimicked my move, adding a weird face I have never made in my life.
I slapped my hand over my heart. “Oh my God, it’s—Blue Steel.”
He studied his Coke can. “You know you don’t gotta do shit like that, right? Just be Rock. I see you.”
“My shoulders are awesome, though.”
“Yeah they are.” He pulled me over for Coke-flavored kisses and I started writing a song about us in my head. We kissed—from sweet, barely there touches to deep, almost exhausting penetration by tongue and teeth and who wouldn’t love a song about that?
Expression serious, he let me go.
“I’m a done deal. You don’t gotta do anything to get me, Rock. I’m serious.”
I was serious too. Very serious.
Did I love him? I would. I knew I would, if only I had the time to fall all the way.
“Okay.” We smiled at each other.
He sat up, completely at home in his nakedness. “You should eat.”
“Yeah.” I took a big bite out of my sandwich while he opened my Coke. I took it, thanking him with another wink.
“Drink lots of water too,” he reminded, resting his head on my thigh. “Not just coke.”
“Sure.” While I ate, I traced the tats on his chest with my fingers, the word Górrion. More birds. “Your ’Nando was the birdman of Texas, huh?”
“His nickname is Crow. He used to say he got it from stealing fish right out of other dudes’ nests, b
ut that’s not true. Folks called him that on the street too. Before. Since he was a kid. He never said why.”
“Fish?”
“New cons.”
“So this Crow . . . ?” When Sky tensed, I changed my mind about asking. “I don’t need to know what he was to you.”
“He’s nothing to me anymore.”
“Fair enough.” Sky’s expression worried me a little. He’d gone blank. Emotionless. It was like he was mulling something over, and when he was done, he shrugged.
“But you should probably know what I was to him.”
“All right.” I traced over the barbed-wire tattoo on his wrist. He laced our fingers together, still pensive. “If you want to tell me.”
“I did for him,” he said simply. “Like a wife. Got his mail. Picked up his dry cleaning. Stood against his enemies and sucked his dick. When Papi said bend over, I bent over. Didn’t matter who wanted my ass. If Papi got something out of it that was enough for me. I got to set the rules. No barebacking. No violence. No second chances if you fuck up the first one.”
I reacted like you’d expect. Sounded like slavery to me.
“What did you get in return?” It was hard keeping judgment out of my voice. I didn’t know if I succeeded.
“I got out in one piece,” he said woodenly. “Mostly.”
I exhaled slowly. His hand gripped mine too tight to be comfortable.
“’Nando’s gonna die inside and I’m yours now.”
His eyes glittered in the candlelight. He kept them open while I studied him. Tested the truth of his words against what I knew to be true about him.
God, he was so strong.
Way stronger than me.
To honor his unflinching honesty, I took my time responding.
A man capable of that kind of raw honesty didn’t need me to say the first thing that came into my head. He needed me to say the right thing.
A long time passed before I simply repeated his words.
“Now you’re mine.”
He smiled at that. A wide, white slash in his stubbled face. “And you have to let me do for you. Whatever you need. Okay? You just tell me.”
“All right.”
“’Cause you have to eat regularly and make sure you get enough rest. I read that on WebMD. And you need to take your meds on a fixed schedule. I can help with that. I used to work in the infirmary. I can keep a chart.”
I couldn’t tell him I had to leave. How could I? “What I need is you. I need this night with you.”
“That’s almost too easy.” He smiled, pulling his phone from one of the pockets to check the time. “Sun won’t come up for another hour and a half yet. I am all yours ’til then.”
“I talked to Foz. He, um”—I downed the rest of my Coke—“he said you’re free to sleep in until after the hands eat lunch. We’re expecting thunderstorms, so the hands have to ride out and make sure the herd keeps to higher ground. We get some real gully washers in the summer, so we need to check on ’em regularly.”
“So I can stay here with you for now?” He crushed his empty Coke can and tossed it into a bin before lying back. “I get to sleep in? Being your ass slut is going to have an upside?”
“I’ll show you upside.” I captured the moment in my memory, but it wasn’t enough. I pulled my phone from my backpack. “Let me get a picture.”
He covered his dick with both hands. “I’m shocked you’d even suggest such a thing, mister. I didn’t know you were some kind of perv.”
“I’m only taking the half that eats. Smile.” The flash went off, blinding both of us.
As I took a second picture, his grin reached its full power and stopped my heart. My next picture was all blurry because my hands trembled.
“Christ, you’re beautiful.”
He covered his flushed face with both hands and I captured that too.
“C’mon. Gimme that pretty pout again.”
“Fuck you.” He flipped me off. Snick. Frowned. Snick. Glared. Snick.
Since I’d made him self-conscious, I had to capture him every way I could think of—take his picture until happiness lit his eyes again.
At one point, I snapped him looking over his shoulder. He winced and rubbed the muscle.
“Sore?” I asked.
“Little bit. This cowboy shit’s hard work.”
“Let me.” While I rubbed the muscle, he rocked his head from side to side, unwinding. Knots eased. His shoulders came up, effectively pushing my hands away.
“This feels all wrong.”
“How come?” Wasn’t I doing it right? Wrong pressure? Wrong spot?
He smiled shyly. “It’s me who should take care of you.”
“I don’t need to be taken care of.” His words lit the fuse on my temper. “I’m not some helpless—”
“Never said—”
“Don’t you start coddling me too. I can’t stand that.”
I turned away. Shoved my phone back into my pack.
The mood was tanking, even though I wanted nothing more than to stop the world and stay cocooned there with him, forever.
“I wouldn’t ever coddle you.” His face had lost its color, somewhere.
“I don’t need taking care of.” I felt awful but it had to be said. “I’m not a child or a sick person. I’m not mentally deficient.”
“’Course not. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. I’m a grown man.”
“I heard you.” He pulled his hand away to tear a strip off one of his nails with his teeth.
“Stop that.” I caught both hands and held them down. “Why are you so upset? I don’t understand. I like being with you—”
“Maybe you don’t need someone. I was hoping you did, is all.”
I shook my head, as if that would make his meaning clear. “Come again?”
He gave an eye roll worthy of Andi Chandler herself. That girl could throw shade like a total eclipse of the sun. Seconds ticked by. Our discomfort grew into irritation.
“I wish to fuck somebody needed me,” he said bitterly. “I—”
“Wait.” My mouth fell open. I closed it. Took my time parsing his words, because that wasn’t the first time I’d noticed Sky trying to make himself indispensable. Being necessary to his protector got him through a stretch in prison. He’d worked real hard to make himself useful to the Rocking C, to Elena, to me . . .
Being necessary meant safety to him. Being necessary meant staying alive in a hostile world. He was looking to me for reassurances. And I— Oh God.
“You get that even if I didn’t need you, I’d still want to be with you? Do you understand that? I like you.”
“Yeah?” His cheeks bloomed with color and heat. I was so close, I felt his sigh.
“You’re fucking hot. I like being around you. I think about you all the time when we’re not together.”
“Okay.” Sky gnawed on his lower lip some more. “All right. So that’s good, right?”
“Of course it is.” I gave his nose a little tap. “But I need to tell you something. I got a phone call last night and—”
“Shh,” He stopped my words with an urgent kiss, hands cupping my face, thumbs brushing over my cheeks. He broke away with such reluctance I thought he was going to cry.
“Right now, I’m yours. You said that. Did you mean it?”
“Yes.”
His expression softened. Warmed. His pupils grew, large and black, almost eclipsing the dark amber of his irises. By then, a sexy half-smile kicked his lips up on one side.
“You can tell me later,” he whispered. “Okay?”
Throat tight. Mouth dry, I nodded.
Was I repaying his offer of loyalty with the worst kind of betrayal? Maybe I was. It felt like I had two choices. Tell him everything. Make the r
est of our time together be about me leaving. Or seize the time we had left and live the hell out of it.
I pulled him to me, intent on fitting everything I could do to his body into the ninety minutes we had left.
It couldn’t hurt to leave the world outside for a bit.
It couldn’t hurt to take what we had then and enjoy it.
He looked so fucking sexy, spread out like a bad angel on the rough, worn bedrolls I’d laid out. He was tough, and simpatico, and mine, goddamnit.
Mine for now. No one can take this from us.
As long as I told him the truth before he left with the rest of the hands, I wasn’t hurting anybody.
We couldn’t waste one single second . . .
All we had was now.
“C’mere.” I crooked my finger.
“You say the nicest things.”
He grinned that dopey grin of his and melted against my body like wax. Raindrops on the roof shrouded us in a deeper world where only the two of us existed. I fell asleep, content to stay like that forever, if only I could.
“Wake me up in a bit, yeah?”
“Sure,” Skyler whispered. “Whatever you need.”
Chapter 31
Sky
Rain drenched everything, making it hard to tell the hands from the beasts. I listened for shouts and whistles to keep from losing track of them but it was hard to hear anything over the constant rumble of thunder.
“H’yah. Here. Come on.” As the hands and I drove the cattle to higher ground, rivers of rain cascaded off the brim of my hat and ran down the oilskin duster Tad loaned me.
Lightning arced across the sky, still far enough to the south that I didn’t piss myself with fear but Christ, that was some scary weather.
Scary and exciting.
We were unprotected out there.
Shit gets real when you see a storm like that one coming your way. On horseback, with little or no shelter. The strain of controlling the uneasy beast made all my muscles ache.
I was so alive.
More unnerved by that storm than I’d ever been, and not just because of the job. Concern for the animals drove me past exhaustion. But the last look I’d had of Rock—lying in his nest of blankets, naked and sated—that’s what kept my pilot light burning no matter how hard the work was.
My Cowboy Freedom Page 24
