by North, Cara
“Just pretty good?” he asked.
She laughed. “Okay pretty amazing.”
“Go on,” he winked at her. Stole her breath for a moment.
“I was involved with another park ranger there, my boss. He was married, though he swore he was getting a divorce. He was actually having another baby. When his wife found out, she wrote a note to him, her children, and my parents. She was driving to deliver the note to my parents telling them what a slut their daughter was when her car drove straight through the red light, she swerved…I didn’t know…you know? I mean I thought…”
“It’s not your fault.” He said so certain of it. Maybe he should have been there when everyone, including her parents had declared otherwise.
She sniffed, wiped a tear of sadness, remorse, and anger. “The worst part of it is her life, her unborn child, gone; her living son, motherless, and I didn’t even love him. I mean…I was just thinking…I’m not getting any younger and my family was pressuring me to get married, but to who? You know. I realized all too late that I was working double time, saving, not for my future, but so I could stay hidden and oblivious to his real life.”
“That’s why you said you would go to dinner?”
She paused. “I’m not going to be a dirty little secret.”
“Never,” he shook his head no. “I would never hide you from anyone.”
“But…”
“I didn’t want to you to go to dinner unprepared. If you want to go face that wild and unruly clan, put some clothes on, or at least some shoes. We’ll go right now.”
“I don’t want to go.” She admitted.
“Me either,” he agreed. “So you came out here to get away from your past. That stuff happen recently?”
“Over a year ago. I escaped first to a women’s retreat, a Christian based retreat for women who needed to …get back on the path.”
“You seem to have a lot of paths popping up in your life.” He stacked the dishes and pushed her slice of cake in front of her and pulled his towards himself. “I’d take the one less traveled.”
“Which is…”
“Me.”
“I hear you’ve traveled quite a bit.” She’d shared her deep dark demon and he didn’t even flinch.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’ve been around. Easy enough to do in my youth. I thought I had someone special in my life once. She broke my heart, or so I thought, but in reality, she was never meant for me. There was always something off about it…I wasn’t in love with her, not the way she wanted me to be. It was more of a…security blanket I guess. I always had her to fall back on, but then one day I didn’t and I was pissed. Not because she moved on, but because I had nothing to fall back on. Then I realized I didn’t need a safety net. I got over it. She did, too. So did her husband, he was…”
“Your best friend. I guess that explains why she was so upset.” Hope shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do this, Lucky. It’s weird.”
“No stranger than Jack and Bethany. They got married after knowing each other a few hours in Las Vegas. No stranger than Heath and Chance, they got married, she ran away, and now you’re making all those sounds because she’s back and running the dining facility like it’s a four star eatery. Certainly it’s no stranger than Rafe and Layla. She was pretending to be the mother of her twin sister’s kids because she was afraid of telling them the truth that their mom was dead. Trust me when I tell you, nothing about meeting you, nothing about your past, will make me feel any different.”
So maybe they grew them gorgeous and attracted to crazy women in Montana. It made more sense that all the handsome came with a price.
“Well maybe you’ll change your mind when I tell you that I have recommitted myself to a virginal state. I’m not having sex again until I’m married.” Take that Lucky.
He bit his lower lip. Her heart skipped a beat. Her thighs tightened against the urgent need her body signaled.
“You do realize I just said no sex, right?”
He nodded. “No sex until marriage. I get it. Doesn’t mean I can’t kiss you.”
“No,” she said as he moved from the chair to kneel before her. He was so flipping tall she barely had to look down at him. “Doesn’t mean that.”
He gripped the sides of the chair she was in and pushed up enough to meet her lips for a terribly brief kiss. She wanted more, needed more. “Just lips, unless you ask for more.”
Fortunately, his lips touched hers again in a soft gesture of acceptance she barely knew existed anymore. As her mouth opened, his opened. Her tongue moved, his moved against it. The control she had over him was intoxicating. Once he had kissed her senseless again he moved his lips to her jaw, her neck. “You’re beautiful, Hope.”
Her eyes closed as a moan slipped from her throat. She believed him. She believed in his eyes she was beautiful. She allowed herself the luxury of seeing herself that way, maybe for the first time in her life. Her exotic features had left her uncertain about her looks; the incident had left her shaken about her judgment. He was piecing her back together again with each stroke of his lips and tongue and teeth.
Her arms moved to wrap around his back and draw him closer. He simply lifted her off the chair and stood. He carried her to the bed and crawled in as he laid her down.
“No sex, I know,” he said.
She wasn’t so sure she could keep that vow anymore but he seemed able to remember it.
“But kissing,” he stopped long enough to undo her tied belt and loosen the robe. “I am allowed to do.”
The word yes came out like a strangled gasp as he slid his hand and her gown up her body until her breasts were bared to him. His mouth covered an erect nipple and tormented her with alternating licks, nips, and suckles. Her panties were damp with need. Her stomach jumped, jerked, her fingers slid into his hair to hold him close. He had the gown and robe off without effort.
He slid farther down her body leaving warm kisses and urgency in his wake.
“Lucky,” she whimpered as he neared her hipbones.
“Not yet,” he nipped and moved towards her thighs.
He made his way to her ankles and back on both legs before slipping a finger under the elastic of her now drenched underwear. A few tugs and the slip of fabric was off her body and sailing towards the floor. His voice had dropped another octave when he spoke this time. His eyes burned into her soul as he looked at her. “I dreamed about you last night.”
She felt like she was dreaming right now. In fact, she was so high on his kisses she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she wasn’t dreaming. He nudged her legs apart as he kneeled between them. He pulled his shirt over his head. Her eyes widened at the full expanse of his chest, the muscles, the lean torso and the erection predominant in his jeans. When his shoes came off, she had no recollection. He reached for his belt and said, “Just to get comfortable.”
Her eyes grew wide as he removed his belt, unfastened and unzipped his jeans to adjust his impressive bulge.
He licked his lower lip as he looked at her again. “Damn, you’re just…look at you.”
“I’d rather look at you,” she admitted.
He closed his eyes, his jaw worked, she watched him swallow. His tan chest flushed pink, he stroked his fingers along her legs. She could barely keep her eyes open. He was playing her body like an instrument that needed tuning and he was taking his time doing so.
She could feel his shoulders press against her knees and she spread her legs for him. This wasn’t what the women’s group had in mind when they committed to re-virginize. However, nothing in her life had felt this right before, nothing.
His warm breath caused her legs to jerk, his tongue slid along the lips of her labia and she trembled. His kiss grew deeper, more urgent. Her hips bucked, her back arched, her voice turned to husky moans of pleasure. His name on her lips like a mantra. She begged for more. He slid a finger into her swollen, soaked core and she shattered into orgasmic bliss. He took his time, milking every second
of it from her body, calming her, testing, teasing, he inserted another finger, filling her, stretching, then licking again until she was right back to the edge of insanity, of the little death, of bliss, of dare she think it, hope.
She came harder the second time than she had the first. She rarely had any orgasm with a partner and here she was trembling from two. He removed his fingers, kissed the inside of her thigh, her navel, her ribs, he sucked each breast and she moaned again. She was ready for him. Ready to take whatever he was willing to give.
He moved to lie next to her side, his fingers slid along her jaw and his lips met hers again in a dance of tongue twisting passion. She was spent, sated, easily he could have taken her, but he didn’t. He looked at her with a tenderness his large body shouldn’t have been able to posses. He kissed her lips again, too brief, too soft.
“You know,” he said as he sat up on the edge of the bed. “Native American’s used to get married before the eyes of God without all the paperwork and hassles. It’s not just them. There’s this alleyway in Italy where people would go and kiss, back when kissing was equal to having sex, and then declare themselves married. It’s really all a cultural thing you see.”
He pulled on his shirt.
“Are you leaving?” She was sleepy, his touch had made her weak, pliant.
“Yeah,” he said. “I can’t stay here tonight. You’d get no rest.”
“Lucky,” she whimpered. “I would if you wanted to.”
“I know,” he said. “And that’s why I have to go.”
Chapter Four
Another sleepless night had left him cranky and frustrated. He had gotten the text from Heath that he needed a key that somehow only Lucky had wound up with. He was going to stop by in the morning. Lucky texted him to just come in, it would be on the table. When the knock rapped at the door he was furious.
“Just come in!” He covered his head with the pillow and rolled to his side. He had taken care of his erection last night in the shower. The need he had for that woman was unprecedented. He tried soothing himself again in the middle of the night. It allowed him a few hours of sleep before he was dreaming of her all over again.
The footsteps across the hard wood floor didn’t sound like Heath, but that was who he had expected. Maybe he had sent Chance. Maybe someone else.
“Lucky?”
Her voice pinged like sonar on his dick and instantly he was fully awake, hard as a rock, and feeling all too savage to be alone with her. He remained still, silent. Maybe if she thought he was sleeping she would just leave and he could settle down.
“I tried sleeping, but I kept thinking…and well, it wasn’t fair of me to let you leave like that.”
“Hope,” he said her name as a warning. Muffled by the pillow he wondered if he could just cause himself to pass out if he held it tighter to his face. He had no amount of restraint left in him at this point.
He heard material move over material, over skin. He felt the blankets lift, her weight as she crawled into bed next to him. He remained statuesque. Until her cool hand slid across his abs.
“Hope.” He grabbed her hand and held it in place. “I had the ability to stop…earlier. I don’t have that right now.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “You showed me that. I can just…kiss you.”
Her lips touched his shoulder, then his chest, then his nipple. He could have ground his teeth to ashes he was clenching them so hard. His entire body was coiled or in the process of coiling into tight knots. He couldn’t breathe. He moved the pillow and wished he hadn’t. She was moving over him, straddling him to get better control of his body. Instinctively his hands moved to her hips and slid her down towards his cock. Her green eyes closed on a moan when her ass hit his erection. She lifted enough he was able to adjust enough for her to slide over it. He slept naked. She had access to every inch of flesh.
“Wow,” she said.
He let out a strangled laugh. “I think it’s proportionate to my size.”
“Yeah, well that is pretty wow, too you know.” Her words were soft, light, and breathy. She was rubbing against him. The friction of her panties, the heat and wetness of her sex had his resolve breaking.
“You need to do what you came here to do, woman.” He had lost all decorum.
He felt her body shiver under his hands in response to the command. Damn it that only made him ache more as his dick grew impossibly harder.
She shimmied down his legs letting his dick slide along her flesh. She had removed everything but her panties. He was thankful for the smooth skin, the curve of her breasts cradling his dick between them the tilt of her head as he thrust and found her mouth open and ready for him.
Heavenly. He could feel his toes curl, the blood rush to the critical points of his body, he pressed his fingers as gently as he could to the soft tissue of her breasts. With her hands free to wander she made use of stroking his stomach effectively causing his abs to clench and jerk beneath. He groaned as she cupped his testicles and thumbed them gently. Her tongue licked out over the head of his prick and slid around the rim. He fought for the air in his lungs, the ability to breathe was a privilege when he let his hands slip to the sheets and fist the fabric. Her mouth was divine. Exquisite torture as she gripped him and traced each vein with finger and tongue. He tried to pull back, he tried to hold on. She wasn’t having any of it. She set the pace, drove him harder, took him deeper.
He spilled into her without warning, the grip of sensation rippled up inside of him so quickly and acute he flashed. The space-time continuum collapsed and reopened with nothing but bone melting pleasure. All the knots that had been coiling released, some quick, some languid and slow, like the way her tongue still moved on him. Now, he could sleep. Now, he didn’t want to.
***
Hope crawled up the length of his body and settled along his side. His large hand settled on her ass and pulled her closer still. His heartbeat was already settling. His breathing slowed. She curled her fingers over his heart and allowed her leg to slide over his hip. She was completely hidden in this spot beneath the covers, warm against his flesh. She wasn’t asleep. She was still marveling at the wonders of his body, but being careful to only think, not touch them so he could enjoy his sleep.
She heard the door open, heavy footsteps, the words “Well well. It’s about time someone saddled that cowboy.” Then a few moments later she heard the footsteps head back towards the door and the click of the lock as he left. It wasn’t Jack or Rafe. Lucky snored lightly, oblivious to the visitor who obviously knew the clothes on the floor didn’t belong to Lucky. He slept like he hadn’t slept in years. She could have done almost anything to him and wouldn’t have stirred.
At some point she must have fallen asleep. She awoke to Lucky adjusting them so he faced her. He slid down the bed enough to actually see her face to face.
“Good morning,” he said against her forehead.
Hope smiled. “I’m willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, you are the answer to my prayers.”
He chuckled. “What’s with the maybe part?”
“I need to know a few things about what you want from this,” she had her eyes closed, forehead pressed to his lips.
“Everything,” he whispered.
She smiled. “More specific.”
“Hmmm.” He murmured.
“Marriage? Both the spiritual kind you talked about last night and the legal kind that allows us to share an insurance plan?”
“That.” He said. She could feel his smile against her forehead.
“Kids?”
“At least two.” He squeezed her ass cheek and pulled her closer to his warm body.
“You want to live here? In Montana?”
“I’d like my momma to see her grandbabies, but that can mean travel if you don’t like it here. All of my sister’s are married and live nearby. It’s good for the kids to visit the reservation and understand their heritage.”
“You’re…”
“Half, what you thought this tan was from baking naked on the roof?” He laughed. Pulled her up to eye level. “I’m a cowboy. I don’t tan on purpose.”
He kissed her then. She welcomed his tongue, his touch, his massive arms as they wrapped around her and brought with them the promise of holding her that way forever, cherished, loved. He hadn’t said it, but she could feel it, acceptance, unconditionally.
“What else?” he asked.
“From me?” she asked.
“Your soul. I think you should give it to me as a mate to my own. Can’t you see with those pretty green eyes that you belong to me?”
She sighed. Her arms wrapped tighter around him pulled at him until he covered her.
“I do.” She whispered.
Lucky made quick work of removing her panties. “Are you sure you want to do this, now? I can wait until you’re ready if you’re not absolutely sure.”
“I’m positive.” She was. She arched her back and pelvis until he rubbed against her opening. “I love you.”
“Good,” he pressed forward. Her entire body trembled with pure satisfaction at his entry. “It’s about time.”
She held onto his back, then his shoulders. His kisses seared his name on her heart, branding her as his forever. This first time, he was making love to her. She understood that. It was an offering a binding, a marriage of old. Hope knew when it came time for the paper and formality, she wasn’t going to be sweet, and she was going to do what the man who came into the cabin earlier had suggested. This was her cowboy, she planned to saddle up and ride.
Epilogue
“Hey there.” Lucky smooched her lips as she entered the barn. The array of children made a “ooooh” sound. Hope was a natural at guided tours. Of course that was part of her old job as a park ranger. Now, she guided everyone from local school groups to tourist groups through the ranch and on some nature hikes.
“This is my husband, Lucky.” Hope announced the youngsters.
“He sure is.” One little boy said.
