Soft Wild Ache (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  She tugged me down to her. I felt her smile curl against my mouth as I kissed her. White heat coiled at the base of my spine as she pressed against me and I allowed us both to tumble back on to the chair. She was fully cradled in my arms now, and she flung her arms up around my neck with such sweet abandon that a sound I'd never heard boiled up from inside of me. "God you smell good," I growled. She moaned and arched herself into me as I trailed my lips dangerously close to the top of her breasts. "Can I kiss you here, Rachel?"

  "Yes." She squirmed a little in my lap, intensifying my hard-on.

  "Shit." Her skin was soft on my lips and it took everything I had not to tug her shirt down and expose her further. "If you don't like where my hand is, you move it, baby, but I just want to feel you. Does that feel good?" Her soft moan into my mouth was all the answer I needed as I slipped my hand under the hem of her T-shirt and smoothed my fingers over the softness of her belly. "Ah Rachel, what are you doing to me?" I had my mouth at the top of her other breast now, and forcibly wrenched my lips back upward to her mouth rather than explore lower. When her mouth met mine, her lips parted immediately. Groaning, I fisted her hair, twining it around to grip more tightly. The enthusiasm with which she entangled her tongue with mine drove all thoughts of caution from my brain. On their own, my hand drifted down, seeking that heat between her thighs and...

  "Oh!" She stiffened and drew back.

  Shit. "I'm sorry." I snatched my hand away, but it was too late. She was staring up, wild-eyed and gasping and even by the low light of the fire I could see how pink her cheeks were.

  She inhaled sharply and sat up, not looking at me. "I should..." Her voice was high and not at all like her normal one. "I need to go home."

  "I'll drive you." I leaped up and then tugged at the seam of my pants. My body hadn't quite gotten the message that it was all over yet, but it quickly caught up with my brain.

  Shit.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rachel

  Don't run away. Don't run away.

  But when Beau pulled up in front of my house, that was exactly what I did to get away from... from him and the terrifying thing he had just done to my body.

  Chosen girls got married young. Before I left, I had known several girls my age who were on their second or third child. I knew what had happened to get them in that condition. What I hadn't understood was how they could possibly... like it.

  "Oh, you'll see," Suzanna Heath had crowed, primly flicking her braid back and then bouncing her firstborn on her hip. Then she'd leaned in and whispered something to my younger sister Rebecca that made her blush and giggle and then look at me with such sorrow and pity in her eyes that I had left before I could find out any more about what I was missing as an unmarriageable girl.

  I hadn't thought about that moment until that... flash... that heat had coursed through my body. It had been terrifying, but what was worse was how much more I wanted. I wanted Beau's hand to go there, to rub right there, again, let the friction heat my skin because something...

  ... something had happened.

  It shouldn't have happened. Sex - desire - was for procreation. To bring more souls into the world to follow the way of God's Chosen. And since... since...

  Since I couldn't have children...

  I licked my lips, forcing myself to remember. To think the thought I'd been running from ever since I found out the awful truth in that doctor's office as I bled and bled. I can't have children... so I can't have... sex.

  I'd never wanted it before, but now?

  Now I was sinning, and the worst part was that I was reveling in it.

  I wasn't the one who had left the Chosen. They left me. They cut me loose and sent me out into the secular world. They couldn't expect me to hold myself to Chosen rules anymore, right?

  Right?

  I shut the door and sagged against it, that throbbing in between my legs reminding me of what I had cut short. My quiet house seemed to be waiting for me to do... something, but I couldn't take a full breath and that ache...

  Mindlessly I reached down and laid my hand flat in between my thighs, then snatched it up and away when I felt how scalding hot I was down there. Was I feverish? Was I sick? But then why was the brush my hand trailing sparks across my skin? Why was I shivering now, unless I was sick?

  I rushed to my bedroom and quickly stripped off my clothes, then opened the window to let the cool of the night into my bedroom. Pacing back and forth, I tried to burn off the energy that coursed through me. But when my nipples stiffened against the cold, it somehow only intensified the ache between my legs. Slipping under the sheets to escape the breeze was torture because even the brush of my skin across my clean sheets felt somehow sinful. The ache inside had become a throb, and I was suddenly aware of an... emptiness.

  My only thought was to understand why I felt this way. But my tentative touch made me gasp as my fingers slid against slick, hot skin. The throbbing inside of me became a drumbeat.

  "Ah, God!" The emptiness couldn't be filled by just my fingers alone. Frustrated, I sought the source of the ache, but the faster I rubbed, and my hands became Beau's hands, an echo of what he had done at the fire, the way his mouth had played across the tops of my breasts. I trailed my fingers across the path his lips had blazed, and arched into nothingness, wanting the warm hard bulk of him to press against again. The more I touched and explored the places that ached for him, the more agitated I became until - "Ah!"

  It exploded out from nothingness, a scorching fire sending out sparks to alight in my limbs. I was shimmering, falling down in a shower of glittering light and the noises that came out of my mouth were like nothing I had ever heard from my lips before. My eyes shot open as the sparks settled into a warm, liquid glow.

  Shocked and panting, I lay there naked, the sheets in a tangle from my bicycling feet, and stared at the ceiling. The ache was gone, it was true, but it had been replaced with the kind of all-consuming craving that should have terrified me.

  But I wasn't terrified.

  I blinked as I realized what had happened, and then blinked again when I realized, I wasn't afraid of what I had done.

  I wanted to do it again.

  And I wanted Beau to be the one to make it happen.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Beau

  "You look like your dog died." Claire looked up from her dinner and leaned her head into the living room. "Duke? You doin' okay dude?"

  Our ancient Lab thumped his tail twice on the floor. Claire smiled. "Good." She turned back to me and when she saw I was still glaring down at my plate, she leaned over the kitchen island and poked me with her fork. "What gives?"

  "Nothing." I was only picking at the stir-fry I'd helped make for my twin and her. I grabbed my dishes and scraped the leftovers into the trash, then dumped the plates in the sink, all the while ignoring my sister's laser-like glare.

  "Is it about how Rachel didn't stay the night?"

  "She wouldn't have!"

  "I mean." Claire shrugged innocently and jammed a pile of rice into her mouth, then stabbed the air with her fork. "It sure looked like that was where things were headed."

  "Shut up. And stop talking with your mouth full, you're gross."

  "Bleeehhh!" She showed me a mouthful of chewed up food then swallowed. "Did she get all fundie-cult on you at the last minute? Is that why you're such a grouch?"

  I shook my head. "I shouldn't have pushed her so hard."

  My sister raised an eyebrow. "She didn't seem to be raising many objections."

  "It wasn't right."

  "I mean, she did say yes when you invited her."

  I looked at my confident, bossy sister. It wasn't often I went to her for advice over, say, Jonah, but this was different. "Hey, you're a girl."

  "Well done." She raised a snide eyebrow.

  I rolled my eyes. "I just..." I sighed heavily. "Am I an asshole for wanting a girl like that?"

  "A girl like what? A grown ass woman who's been making her
own life and her own choices for two years now? Someone who left the only life and family she ever knew and struck out on her own with nothing but her own hustle?" Claire shook her head and softened her voice. "You're not an asshole, Beau. And she's not a child. As long as you stop when she asks you to—"

  "Of course."

  "Well then? What's the problem?"

  I let out a long exhale. Claire was right, what was the problem? Except - "I have no idea what happened to her in there."

  Claire lifted one shoulder. "So find out."

  "How?"

  "Jesus Christ you are such a hopeless man. Of all my brothers, I always thought you had the most sense and yet... here we are."

  "Claire."

  She opened her eyes wide and let her jaw go slack. "Duh! Ask her?"

  I blinked. "It's not that easy."

  "I assure you, it is."

  "How do you know?"

  She rolled her eyes. "I have twenty-three years of experience as a woman backing me up."

  "Okay fine, but like... when?"

  Her eyes gleamed in a way that I'd learned to be cautious around. "Beauregard Donovan King, I have never seen you so worked up about a girl before."

  She had me there. But letting Claire think she was right about something was dangerous. "That's because you're not around much."

  "Bullshit." She dismissed me with a wave. "Go get your girl and ask her questions about herself. Be her friend then her boyfriend or whatever. See how that works?"

  I narrowed my eyes at her. "You know I'm right," she sing-songed. Then burst out laughing as I silently grabbed my keys and headed out the door.

  Driving across town reminded me that Finn and I still hadn't nailed down our living arrangements. Right now, I could be across Crown Creek and out on the western border of the county in less than ten minutes, but when we moved out into the woods the way Finn wanted? Shit, I wondered if he even knew how much life would change, how much more of a project everything would be.

  Did I want that change too?

  I pushed the question aside once the college came into sight. Far from the leafy campus and stately edifices of your usual university, the campus of Crown Valley College looked like a federal prison. Apparently, the school founders saved on blueprints by just asking a penitentiary designer to just hit copy/paste. It was ugly with a capital U. Even the streaks of color from the setting sun couldn't make the box-like towers look beautiful. Crown Valley earned the nickname Frown Valley, and most of the students commuted rather than be surrounded by its hideousness twenty-four seven. This meant that the parking lots were huge and the bus shelter pretty much an afterthought. It was located in the remotest corner of the campus and to reach it, Rachel would have to cross acres of baking asphalt first.

  I wished like hell I knew which direction she'd be coming from so I could save her the trip, but I didn't know her shifts very well. This was awkward as fuck, but Claire had said to be her friend, and a friend would pick her up from work, so she didn't have to waste an hour riding around on that broken down country bus that only showed up once in a blue moon. And a friend would ask questions about her day and listen in the hopes of finding out more about her.

  Maybe a friend wouldn't sit there in his car, watching the bus stop until she came out, and maybe a friend wouldn't have startled the fuck out of her by leaping from his seat and shouting her name when he saw her, but at least I was trying, right?

  "Beau!" She was still clutching her bag to her chest, but the terror in her face had finally quieted down to amused confusion by the time I crossed the road and met her at the bus stop. "What are you doing here?"

  I swallowed. She didn't look exactly overjoyed to see me. Maybe my sister had been wrong. What was I doing here? "I thought you might like a ride?" It came out as a question. Fuck, this girl was reducing me to stammering and upspeak. I'd never felt this off-kilter before, not even when I was playing in front of twenty thousand screaming fans at Madison Square Garden. "It's getting kind of hot," I went on, looking both ways along the deserted, no-bus-in-sight road and gestured for her to follow. "I cranked the A/C for you." Then I caught myself. "Unless you like the windows down better? I can do that too. What do you like? Windows or A/C, I mean?" Fuck, STOP TALKING.

  I forcibly clamped my mouth shut and waited for her to speak. After all, listening to her and finding out about her was the whole point of me coming way out here, right?

  But she didn't speak. Not for a long, long moment. She must have been really hot, because the pink that had started on her cheeks was now spreading across her chest, right across those places that I had kissed last night. Or maybe it was just the fading pink sky that had her looking so beautiful.

  Shit, I'm staring. I wrenched my eyes back up to meet hers. "I just wanted to be sure you're okay." I swallowed and looked down, and had to work really hard to force the words out. "If you're not okay with me being here, just tell me and I'll leave, Rachel. I promise."

  "Don't leave."

  I snapped my head back up so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. "Really?"

  Her smile was like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. First a small twinkle and then shining full strength. "Thanks for coming." She looked like she wanted to say something else, but caught herself and fell silent.

  Feeling unreasonably proud of myself, I nearly sprinted across the road to open the door for her. She followed behind me, still quiet, and I had to catch myself to keep from running my mouth even more.

  Rachel let out a small sigh of relief once she sat down. I'd run the air conditioning down to meat locker temperatures. You could almost see your breath. "It's early in the year for it to be this hot." Oh, awesome, I was making small talk about the weather. The back of my neck heated and I jammed my foot down on the accelerator in frustration. We lurched out into the road in the least graceful bit of driving I had ever done in my life, and I decided that I would count backward from three hundred before I was allowed to say anything else.

  The silence in the car was thick and heavy, the silence of waiting, of held breath and furtive glances. It was not friendly silence and I was here trying to make friends with her, to get to know her.

  I was only to eighty-three when I lost it. "How are voice lessons going?"

  "Good." She answered quickly enough, and her voice didn't hold any traces of hostility toward me. Why was she so tense then? "Your sister is really nice."

  I was about to disagree when I remembered that Claire's advice was why I was here with Rachel in the first place. "She's okay."

  "She's teaching me a little more about music that's popular right now." She glanced at me from under thick lashes. "I've got a lot of catching up to do."

  Here. Right here would be the place to ask her. But my tongue tripped over my question and I ended up asking the wrong one. "Can you sing something for me?"

  She shook her head. "I don't think I'm ready yet."

  "Are you sure?" I dared to nudge her with my arm. "You've done it before."

  "With a few drinks in me, yeah."

  "It doesn't have to be a popular song. How about that hymn you were singing before?"

  A quick glance at her revealed that the blush was back again, and this time I had to wrench my eyes back up again before I drove us into a ditch. She was so fucking beautiful, the way she sat there poised and proud, yet shy and vulnerable too. There were so many angles to her, she could be a wholly different person depending on which direction you approached her from. "It's okay." I took a deep breath. "You're right, you're not the performer here. I am."

  I cleared my throat and started to sing.

  I didn't know the words much beyond the first verse. But I knew them well enough to startle Rachel. "How sweet the sound," I sang. "That saved a wretch like me."

  I let the last line fall away as I pulled into her driveway and slid into park, then held my breath. "Rachel?" She was watching me with her lips slightly parted, the pink high in her cheeks, eyes glittering. In that moment she was th
e most beautiful thing I had ever seen and fuck being friends, I couldn't do it, not with her. "Rachel, I—"

  She threw her arms around me and silenced my doubts with a kiss.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rachel

  His voice reached inside of me and found all of those places his hands had not yet touched. When he sang, it was like he was kissing me with his words.

  And then he was kissing me with his mouth.

  "Beau." I was saying his name, again and again, because it was the only thing that made any sense. Everything I thought I knew about the world, about men and wickedness, was wrong because he existed. This generous, caring man - who made my body quiver with the expectation of something I'd never experienced but already knew I craved - was real and he was saying my name now.

  It sounded just like a prayer.

  His kiss was devouring. His tongue sought dominion over my mouth, sweeping away any hesitation as he nibbled, bit, and tasted. "You tell me," he breathed against my neck as his mouth wandered lower again. He tugged at the strap of my tank top, kissing and soothing the red line where my bra had chafed me before trailing his kiss down to the top of my breast. "You tell me if you want me to stop."

  "I don't want you to stop." It was the truth and it had been for a while. And if I had known how much it would inflame him, I would have said it a lot sooner. His hazel eyes darkened to deep emerald before he hissed in a deep breath. "Stay there." The command in his voice made me shiver, but it was anticipation, not fear.