Brokedown Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  And blow job or not, she was his best friend. He didn’t talk to very many people. Hell, he didn’t really talk to anyone. Didn’t he owe her this? Honesty?

  “She just didn’t ever want to,” he said. “She very early on told me she thought that was gross. Granted, we were in high school, and I was trying to talk her into doing things that weren’t going all the way. But that was her stance. And that was the stance she kept through all of our years of dating, and eight years of marriage.”

  Silence settled over them like an itchy blanket. But then, what did you say after something like that? There wasn’t anyplace good to go.

  Finally, Liss cleared her throat. “Okay, I think my curiosity is satisfied. But for the record, it’s not gross.”

  He shifted, feeling like an absolute ass, because his cock was getting hard while they were discussing this. “Good to know.”

  “I’m saying that because I feel like that’s part of why you freaked out afterward. Because you were worried I would be disgusted. But I wasn’t. I did that because I wanted to. Because I think...I think you’re sexy. You must realize that. I wouldn’t have done any of that if I didn’t.”

  “You think I’m sexy?”

  “Connor, I’m not going to make out with a guy I don’t think is hot.”

  “Or...other things.”

  “Oh, definitely not other things.”

  “So,” he said, shifting position on the bed, “what do we do? Do we just try to let things go back to how they were? Do we try to forget that this happened?”

  “Well, we tried that after we kissed in the barn. Then ten minutes later we made out on the porch and went further on the couch. Then we spent the entire day avoiding each other. So I’m not sure that’s going to work.”

  “So the alternative is what?”

  Liss shrugged. “Having sex, I guess.”

  Connor nearly choked on his tongue. “You can’t just say things like that.”

  “I just did. Look, we are in close proximity, and it’s obviously bringing things up. Some things literally,” she said, looking pointedly at his lap. “And...like you said, you want to have sex, but you’re not ready to go out and hook up with somebody random, because for you sex has always been intimate. Well, it’s always been that way for me, too. But I think between us, even though our connection is friendship, we have intimacy that’s already built-in. And maybe the thing with you is just psychological. You’ve only been with one woman, so the second one feels like a big deal. Plus, the first woman after your wife is always going to feel like a big deal. So...this might make it easier. And then you’ll be able to kind of move forward.”

  He was pretty sure his dick was doing all of his thinking, because what she said made a strange kind of sense. Just a few months ago he’d told Eli he never wanted to have sex again. And a few months ago he had believed that. But now he knew that wasn’t true. He was going to have to deal with a whole heap of personal crap before he did. Maybe this was a way to have his cake and eat it, too.

  “I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” he said. What she said made sense, but he still wasn’t convinced.

  “I don’t, either,” she said. “But we already crossed the line. We already started this. We can’t go back and forget it happened. Wouldn’t it be better to just try to make it work for you?”

  Her words sent a spark of discomfort along his veins. The kind he felt when townspeople showed up at his door with food and sad eyes. And he didn’t like it one bit. “You want to make this work for me? What about you?”

  “What do you mean what about me?”

  “I am not going to be a pity fuck, Liss.” He felt like an ass the minute he said the words, because Liss’s face turned bright red, and she looked away from him as if he’d just flashed her on Main Street. “I’m tired of pity. I’ve had too much of it. I don’t want casserole sex.”

  “I’m genuinely insulted that you would compare my sexual skill to casserole, which I know you hate.”

  “That isn’t what I meant. What I meant is it’s one of those things that people only give you when you’re sad. Kind of like when your best friend gives you a blow job on your couch.”

  “A couch blow job is totally not the same thing as a casserole.”

  “I just don’t get what’s in it for you.”

  “You just don’t get that I think you’re sexy as hell and that I want to sleep with you?”

  Just when he thought Liss couldn’t shock him anymore, she managed to lay the verbal equivalent of wrapping his hand around hot wire on him. “Since when do you want to sleep with me?” he asked.

  “It’s one of those things. It comes and goes,” she said.

  “No way, baby, that doesn’t fly.”

  “Baby? You’re calling me baby now just because I felt you up?” she asked.

  “You did a lot more than that, and you know it. And I’ll baby you if I feel like it. Give me an answer.”

  “You’re so demanding,” she said.

  “You don’t mind,” he said, shifting his position slightly on the bed.

  “No, I don’t.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to doubt our friendship because of this. So don’t freak out. But I’ve been attracted to you off and on for a long time. Like, long time. But we were friends, and you were dating Jessie. So you know, you starred in some rather formative fantasies of mine, but that was it. I never wanted to compromise what we had. Or what I had with Jessie. But if it’s on the table now? Then yeah, I want it. And trust me when I say it’s not because I feel sorry for you.”

  “I don’t know how to have this conversation.”

  “It’s a terrible conversation for a lot of reasons,” Liss said. “But either we have the conversation or we continue unsuccessfully ignoring it. And eventually one of us is just going to blurt out what happened in the middle of a poker game. Kate would die of embarrassment. Jack would never let us hear the end of it. In fact, Jack would probably ask why I’ve never done the same for him. Eli would be too nice to say anything.”

  “Eli would be too nice to say anything to you.”

  “Whatever, I’ll take it.”

  “Can you imagine how asinine everyone would be if they knew?”

  “Oh, I need one thing to be very clear,” she said. “They must never know.”

  That suited him just fine. He wanted for himself and Liss to be able to go back to being best friends when all of this madness was over. And that meant the fewer people who knew, the better. That meant only the two of them could ever know.

  “You cannot tell Jack,” she said. “He would be the biggest, most obnoxious frat bro about it—”

  Connor cut her words off with a kiss, deciding this was as good a moment as any. His heart was raging fast, his hands shaking, his whole body shaking from the inside out. Liss grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him closer to her, and he pushed forward, letting them go down backward onto the mattress, settling over her body.

  This was Liss, his friend. He’d touched her a thousand times, his hands brushing against hers, fingertips meeting as they’d passed things between them, but he had never touched her like this.

  “Connor.” She sighed, arching against him, parting her thighs and letting him settle between them.

  This was Liss. He’d heard her say his name more times than he could count, with a giggle in her voice, in anger, and happiness. But he had never heard her say it like this, thick with pleasure, with need. She wanted something that only he could give her right now, and that feeling, that realization, sent a shock of desire through him so sharp, so intense, it nearly buckled his knees, even though he was already lying down.

  This was Liss, and he was damn glad it was.

  * * *

  LISS FRAMED CONNOR’S FACE with her hands, kissing him back, deeply,
passionately. Frantically. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Could not believe that he wanted this, too. Finally. After so long. After so many years of fantasy, he wanted her, too.

  He groaned and shifted, pressing a kiss to her jaw, and her eyes started to sting. She was going to cry. She didn’t want to cry. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, fought against the wave of emotion that was swelling inside her.

  He pushed his hands beneath her shirt before taking it up over her head. She lifted her arms, helping it go smoothly. Because she really was anxious to get naked with him. They hadn’t been naked together yet. The very realization that they were about to sent a shiver through her.

  Yes, she had taken him into her mouth, but this was a new level of intimacy. A skin to skin they hadn’t shared before.

  She pulled his shirt over his head, sliding her hands over his bare back, relishing the feel of his muscle definition beneath her fingertips. “Connor Garrett, I should have gotten you naked a long time ago,” she said, moving her hands down his back and cupping his ass.

  “I guess we’ve just been waiting for the right time.”

  “Timing is a bitch.”

  “Not right at this second. She’s being pretty sweet.”

  A half smile curved Liss’s lips, and she brought her hands around to the front of his belt, undoing the buckle as quickly as possible before shoving his jeans down his lean hips. Now she had him completely naked. Just like she wanted him. And now she needed to be naked, too.

  As if he were some kind of mind reader, his hands went to the snap on her jeans, opening it, the brush of his fingers against her stomach so erotic it almost pushed her over the edge then and there.

  Then he gripped the tab on the zipper, drawing it down slowly, and she trembled. She had never trembled during sex before. But then, she had never had sex with Connor before.

  He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her jeans, his rough skin abrading her thighs as he drew them down, taking her panties with them.

  He leaned back, his eyes intent on her. “Fuck,” he said.

  “Your vocabulary has become very limited recently,” she said, her voice breathless.

  “I blame you.” He leaned in, pressing a kiss to the inside of her knee, moving up to the sensitive skin of her thigh. “Hey, Liss?” he asked.

  “What?” she asked, anticipation knotting unbearably in her stomach.

  “Remember when we made that rope swing at the creek?” He moved his hand down her thigh, parting her legs a little bit more, leaning in, pressing a kiss a little bit higher.

  She did not get why he was stopping to engage in story time. Not now. Not when she was liking so very much where this was going.

  “And you were scared, but I told you it would be fun,” he continued. “And you said you had never done it before, but I said you just had to take a chance. And you did, and you screamed and screamed. But in the end, you told me you loved it.”

  Oh, yes, she knew that swing. That summer. And the summer years later when she’d wept her heart out over losing him. She knew that swing well.

  “That’s a really great story, and it’s a nice memory. I do recall. But I’m not sure why you’re telling me now.”

  He kissed her again, higher on her thigh, and she trembled. “For a couple of reasons.” He moved his fingertips along her sensitive skin, perilously close to where she was aching for his touch. “I’ve never done this, but I know I’m going to have fun. And I’m pretty sure, just like when you rode that swing, you’re gonna scream.”

  Liss was pretty sure she was going to spontaneously combust then and there. She may have already done it. She might be nothing more than a little Liss-shaped pile of ashes. She was trying to process too many things at once. He had never done this before, either; he was going to do it now; he wanted to make her scream...

  And then he lowered his head, sliding his tongue over her clit, a low sound rumbling in his chest. And she lost all ability to think entirely. She looked down, the sight of his dark head in between her thighs the most erotic thing she’d ever seen in her life. She was so very aware that it was Connor, that it was her best friend, the man she had always wanted. And what he lacked in experience, he certainly made up for in enthusiasm.

  He tasted her with deep, long strokes, holding tightly to her hips, drawing her toward his mouth as he did. He lapped at her like she was ice cream on a hot day, trying desperately to get every last drop before it melted entirely. And she was definitely close to melting.

  He teased the entrance to her body with a fingertip before sliding in deep, continuing to lavish pleasure on her with his mouth as he did. Forget enthusiasm, he was just good at this.

  He added a second finger, increasing the rhythm of the strokes of his tongue, and everything went bright, like the sun through the trees on a hot summer day. And she was flying. Just like she had on the rope swing. And hell, yes, she screamed. And when she came back to herself, Connor was right there with her, kissing her lips now, his cock hard against her hip. Not only had he been enthusiastic, and very, very good, he had enjoyed it. She could feel the very irrefutable evidence of that.

  “Condoms. We need those,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, barely able to force words to her throat. “Those.”

  “I... My bathroom?”

  “I have no idea,” she said, feeling helpless and just plain irritated. If they’d come this far only to be stopped by a lack of contraception, she would have to go ahead and give the universe a serious talking-to.

  “They expire, don’t they?” he asked, his tone dire.

  She groaned. “Yeah, they do.”

  “Great. I’ll just go check that. You don’t have any...”

  She shook her head, holding back a weird, inappropriate giggle. She didn’t know why, as turned on as she was, as concerned as she was about the condoms, as slightly awkward as she felt, she wanted to laugh. “I don’t have any. I haven’t been with anyone since Marshall. And along with the truck, he took the condoms.”

  “He took your four-wheel drive and your safe sex? What a bastard.”

  “In his defense, condoms are pretty cheap. I just haven’t needed them.”

  “Shortsighted.” He kissed her, getting up from the bed. “I’ll be right back.”

  Liss lay flat on her back, her arms up above her head, her breathing irregular, her heart thundering fast. She couldn’t believe that had happened. She could not believe this was happening.

  More than that, she couldn’t believe how right it felt. Sure, there was going to be awkwardness later, she knew that. There had been awkwardness every step of the way as they’d started down this road. The aftermath of the kiss had been awkward; the aftermath of the first bit of serious intimacy had been awkward, and this was going to sting in the morning. But all things considered, it was easy to be naked with him. Easier than it had ever been with anyone else.

  He returned a moment later, holding a box. He was still naked, and she couldn’t stop staring. Could not believe that he was walking across the room as bare as the day he was born right in front of her. After so many years of waiting to see him like this, she felt as if there should be fanfare.

  In the absence of fanfare, though, she would just stare.

  “They’re still good. Not for much longer, but they are still good,” he said.

  “I’m very encouraged by this.”

  “Because my only other option was going to ask Eli, or driving to town.”

  “You would not have gone to ask Eli.”

  “I would’ve had to send you. It would’ve been less shocking, and you could’ve pretended you had someone else here,” he said.

  “You cannot send the girl to get condoms. I’m pretty sure that’s some kind of Round Table, King Arthur’s knights, courtly love shit.”

  �
��If it had been a serious emergency, I would’ve had to send you.” He pulled a plastic packet out of the box. “Fortunately, we are covered.”

  “Well, you aren’t. Yet.” She sat up, scooting to the edge of the bed and holding out her hand.

  “You want the honors?” he asked, one eyebrow raised in a very Connor sort of expression.

  “Any excuse to get my hands on you.” He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, and she snatched the condom from his hand. “I haven’t even touched you yet tonight,” she said, looking at the pained expression on his face.

  “It just feels so good that you want to,” he said.

  Her heart crumpled a little bit. “You know how much I want peanut butter and chocolate. Like all the time.”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes locked with hers.

  “I want this more. I want you more.” She tore open the packet and positioned the protection over the head of him, rolling it down his hard length, her breath hissing through her teeth as arousal tore through her. “Seriously, I would give up Reese’s peanut butter cups forever to have this.”

  He growled, and suddenly she found herself flat on her back, and Connor was kissing her as though it was more important than his next breath. She laced her fingers through his hair, and he grabbed a hold of her wrists with one hand, holding them together and lifting them above her head as he deepened the kiss.

  She gasped as he settled between her thighs, the blunt head of his erection probing the soft entrance to her body. And suddenly she just wanted to stop everything, to stop time so that she could be here for a moment longer. About to experience the one thing she had fantasized about more than anything else. Being with Connor. Actually being with him. Having him inside her.

  She was going to know what it was like in just a few seconds. Have every question answered about him. What it was like to feel him inside her. And she just didn’t feel prepared. She almost felt terrified.

  But she wasn’t going to stop him, wasn’t going to stop this.