by Imani King
DELETED SCENE
“What’s happening between us...” I start, but my thoughts won’t fully translate into words. I want to tell him about why I can’t stay here, why I can’t be with him, but it’s too early and too much. What I need to say is that the height of my feeling scare me, that I’ve never felt this way with anyone, so fast, that my work is better than it ever has been. And I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s all because of him—this happiness, this glow that surrounds me when I wake up here, in this house.
But where do I fit in his life? How do I even know what he wants? Heat pricks at my eyes, and I’m in danger of crying after this cowboy has carried me up the stairs yet again.
“It’s amazing.” His voice is rumbling and sexy, gruff sounding from the cold and wind outside. His cheeks are red, chapped from riding all morning. For a moment, I lock eyes with him, and I’m lost for a moment.
“What’s amazing?”
“Us, here. This. What’s happening between us. It’s amazing. That’s what you were going to say, right?” Rowan sets me down gently on the bed and brushes the disobedient lock of black hair away from my forehead. He sits down next to me and brushes his hand over my cheek and down the back of my neck. My skin is still cold from riding, my legs and ass sore, my body more alive than it has been in years.
“That’s all true—but—”
“If it’s all true, don’t say a damn thing more, woman. I brought you upstairs for one purpose. Seeing you out there today...” His voice trails off.
“Was a hot mess? I know damn well it was.” I laugh and throw my head back. Rowan gathers me in his arms and kisses me. I want to respond, need to respond. But his mouth is on mine, his lips searching my own, both strong and tender. The words hover at the tip of my brain, and they’re coming out now, coming out soon. We can’t go on like this.
I need to tell him that I’m a mess, that I’m broken. That I’m going home back to my bustling, anonymous life in the city.
“You’re beautiful, and we can be here for now.” His words are raspy with lust, echoing in my ear and sending vibrations deep into my center. Heat pools between my legs, and the searing hot arousal starts to pour through me, igniting me from the inside again. Rowan lifts his fingers to the buttons on my shirt, undoing them one by one, so slowly that I almost don’t notice. I’m still lost in his lips.
“Wait, Rowan, don’t—we need to talk—” He keeps unbuttoning my shirt like I haven’t said anything at all, his fingers lazily trailing over the fabric and brushing against my skin. I take his hand in mine, and we lock eyes. His eyes are serious, the deep blue distant and cool. At times, I get the feeling that there are things that he’s keeping hidden, hurts as big and deep and broad as my own. He brushes his hand over the lace of my bra, his thumb grazing my nipple. My skin responds with gooseflesh, every hair standing on end, bolts of lightning brewing a dark storm of arousal deep inside my gut.
It occurs to me then. The sex, it’s pulling us away from the past each time. Keeping us from resolving all the old things we’re hiding from.
The need becomes urgent, pressing. I open my mouth again, and he raises a finger to my lips.
“I know we do not need to talk right now. There’s nothing to talk about when you’re sitting on your bed, and I’m about to undress the hell out of you, Cadence.” I push him away, my hand squarely in the center of his chest. With my shirt halfway undone and the skin at the top of my cheese flushed, I know I look like quite a sight. But this feels too serious, after the horseback riding and the talk of dates and the deep way he looks into my eyes.
And all the hidden things that live in the space between us. Don’t forget about that, Cadence.
“Rowan,” I sigh. “I’m not the woman you think I am.” I try to say more, but my voice gets stuck in my throat. “We’re so different... we come from different places. What will people think—”
What will you think of me when you find out I’m broken? That I’m broke too? That I’ve wanted all this for so long, but it terrifies me to be here again, vulnerable in front of a man who makes me feel like I’m falling over the side of a cliff.
He takes my hand in his and holds it gently. His face is serious, even though I’m half naked and we were about to dive into bed yet again, following our bodies instead of the logic that should exist in both of our brains. “Cadence, I’m a cowboy by choice. I was sent to the fanciest damn private school in the country, and I went to Rice University with the richest assholes in Texas. I’m sick of people having opinions on what I do—and what woman I can see or not see. I came here to get away from what everyone else thinks. And I give zero shits what anyone thinks about me, or anyone I choose to spend my time with.”
I’m poor. I’m black. I’m an artist who came from nothing, and I spent all my money on fertility treatments.
And I’m infertile. Not a bit of this is going anywhere, nowhere good.
The truth sits at the tip of my tongue, and I hate every word of it. The one word that distills all the pieces of my truth is the one that comes out because I can’t bear to say it all, not right now. My heart nearly pounds out of my chest as I look at him, wanting him desperately and hating myself for wanting him all at once. “Gold digger,” I spit. “That’s what people will say. I can’t do that to you, and I don’t want to be that woman.”
A flash of anger rolls over his face, and he squeezes my hand, so hard that I feel blood rushing to the tips of my fingers. “I want to know who said that to you. Who’s saying these things? Cadence, I swear, I’m not a violent man, but I’ll end that person.” His voice is filled with layers of anger and hate, the kind that comes from experience. And I wonder just what people had to say about the women who came before me. This is a man who stays undercover, but still, I can read it on his face. He knows this fear, intimately.
It’s not his first time at this rodeo.
“Calm down, cowboy. There’s no one in the world that said that. I just thought—”
He looks down and laughs, but there’s something joyless about that laugh, something haunted. “Woman, don’t scare me like that. If there’s no one in the damn world who’s called you a gold digger, what makes you think they would start? Plus, there’s no damn person coming out here to this ranch besides the stable hand, and he doesn’t give two shits who you are or where you’re from. He just likes to feed the horses and get paid.” His voice is lighter now, back to that sweet, country twang that he uses when he’s being playful—or when he’s getting me into bed.
Shit, I’m becoming that woman who falls into bed with a man whenever he wants. And fuck me, I want it too. I want it to fill me, to please me, to make all of these horrible things go away. God help me. I want him more than I want to be rational.
I want to shake the man next to me, or maybe just hide under the covers and make him go away—or jump on him and never let go. My brain is a whirl of thoughts, my hands growing damp with the anxiety rising in my body. I place my hand at the center of his chest again, and his heat courses through me, his eyes locked on mine. I feel the power, the virility, locked up inside of this man, and my sex pulses despite my deep feelings of conflict and anger at myself. More than anything, I want to give my body over to his, to sate the pounding need that started when he first made me come and has only grown since that night, not so long ago. I want to toss all of my history aside and forget that I can’t stay.
Even if he wants me to, even if I want to.
The desire starts pouring through me again, taking everything else over. I close my eyes for a moment and know that this is the answer for now, the way to block everything else out.
Surrender. Give in.
I open my mouth to speak, but there’s nothing to say that would make any sense. There haven’t been any declarations of love, no talks about defining our relationship, no mention of a future where children might exist. So my arguments don’t apply, and the arousal coursing through my veins is increasing at a feverish rate.
&nb
sp; I raise a hand to his strong cheekbone and trace my fingers down over his stubble. He smiles and leans in, taking me in his arms all at once and lying me down on the bed.
“We can’t keep—” He covers my mouth with his and swallows my words.
We can’t keep doing this. I have to go home at the end of this month. There’s nothing in me that’s good for you.
I want to say all of it, but he already has his hand between my legs, his fingers searching down the waistband of my jeans and under the lace of my panties, finding my drenching, undeniable wetness. The electricity takes me over all at once, and I close my eyes and groan under the weight of his kiss.
“Not now, Cadence.” The tips of his fingers find my clit, and the sudden shock of his cold skin sends me reeling. I suck in a sharp breath, and the need winds its way through my body again. I’m aching with it, desperate, miserable. I spread my legs for Rowan, even though my mind tries to pull away, tries to tell me that this is too fast, too much, that it won’t work.
Instead, I’m shuffling out of my jeans and kicking them on the floor. Rowan rips my panties aside and deftly slipping two fingers inside of me and pressing his palm against my clit, working the base of his hand against it, slowly at first and then harder, more insistent. I throw my body back, hands hitting the soft silk coverlet as Rowan stands and throws me back, pushing his fingers in deep before removing them again and running them in circles over my aching clit.
“I love seeing you like this, Cadence. Hell bent on getting pleasure, a woman in control of that beautiful body. There’s nothing we need to talk about that’s better—or more important—that this”
He reaches around to my back and unhooks my bra. My breasts fall heavy and real into his hands as he pushes the length of his fingers deep inside my pussy.
“Oh Jesus,” I moan, my hips bucking against his hand. The thoughts collide through my brain in a cascade, but they’re fading with each other, not making any sense. There are things I need to say, but the scent of this man, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the way he parts my lips with his... That’s the thing taking over my thoughts, replacing all the worry with a coursing, intense arousal that heightens all of my senses and threatens to take me over completely. My nipples turn stiff as bullets under the wait of his palm, his fingers trailing back and forth over both breasts, playing me like I’m an instrument for his pleasure.
I can be this woman, for a moment. An instrument that he plays as he pleases.
Rowan pulls his hands away from my body and stands tall. I immediately feel the lack, sprawled naked before him. My body craves his like a drug, and I am desperate, miserable, aching with need. I moan, and acting on instinct, bring my hand to the slippery cleft between my legs.
“That’s my girl. Any woman that gets that wet that fast... I know she likes me for something other than my money. Go on and spread those knees apart so I can see you better, sweetheart.”
My eyes meet his, and slowly, I spread my legs apart just like he asked me, my body obeying his command like it was made for him.
“That much is true,” I whisper. Gone are the protests from before, and my thoughts on him and me seem fuzzier and fuzzier. Instead, I focus on circling my fingers over my clit and running my hands down the silky wetness of my pussy. From far away the thought comes to me that this is something I never did—never would have done—for Eli or any of the other men I’ve been with. But it feels natural—no, necessary—to show Rowan the pleasure he gives me.
“And what is it that you want?”
My lips curl up into a smile. I might not be sure about where this is going, but I am sure about what I want right now, in this moment. “I want your body. I want you—” I pause for a second, embarrassment creeping in even as I pleasure myself before his watchful, wanting eyes. I tilt my head back and lose myself in it, touching myself, drowning out all of my doubt with undeniable lust, the desire building inside of me until I slip my own fingers inside and show him what I want from him, what I need from him before I leave in two weeks. “I want you to take me—I want you inside me.”
Rowan undoes the buttons of his flannel shirt slowly and drops it to the floor as he reaches the last one. His muscles look like they were chiseled from marble, strong and fierce from riding and lifting weights in his gym at the back of his house.
“You like what you see, don’t you?” I nod, my eyes transfixed on his body as he strips out of his jeans and boxers, letting them fall to the floor next to his shirt. His cock is already hard, raised straight against the trail of his muscles. He takes one hand and strokes himself, his eyes flickering over my body. “Make yourself come for me, Cadence,” he whispers.
I groan, loud, my voice filling the room. My mouth waters as I look at Rowan stroking himself, my gaze focused on the bead of precum at the tip of his cock. Suddenly, and with jarring force, I come hard against my hand. My body is still shuddering when he steps over to me and pulls me onto my knees, like he knew my mouth was watering for him.
Of course he knew. It’s not like I haven’t been staring at his cock and touching myself... Oh God, oh God, oh God... I should have kept telling him why this won’t work, why we can’t be, why everything in me wants to run.
“I want your mouth on me, Cadence.” I’m kneeling before him, and the next thing I know, my hands are clutching the back of Rowan’s thighs and I’m taking his cock between my lips, licking over the head of it, tasting his soft, hot skin and the saltiness of his essence at the very tip of his cock. My pussy throbs again as I suck his cock, taking his shaft to the back of my throat and listening as his sighs turn to groans, as his hips start to move in response to my mouth, my tongue.
I move one hand forward to stroke his length, sucking his cock and running my tongue up and down the thick, heavy shaft. I can feel how badly he needs to come--how badly he needs to forget whatever caused his concern when we were speaking before. His movements fall into a rhythm, and I can almost feel his cock growing harder, throbbing in my mouth as he lets out a raspy moan. I’m ready for him to come in my mouth, ready to taste him, to take him completely--but he yanks himself away from my mouth.
“I’m going to come inside you, sweetheart.” I see him reaching for the nightstand, where he keeps his condoms. My pussy is throbbing hard now, and I want something more—I want to take him completely.
“Wait—I want to to come inside of me for real. Bare.” The words escape my lips before I can prevent them. There’s something primal in me that wants him this way, even though I know I can’t get pregnant. Before he can respond, I’m babbling, explaining myself. Seconds ago, I was on the brink of telling him I couldn’t be with him, but now I’ve given into my physical side, my human side. And this is exactly what I want. “I’m on birth control. And I’m clean.”
I am on birth control to get my body back together after what I lost. But he doesn’t know that. Am I leading him to believe—
“Shit, woman, you’re going to be the end of me.”
I won’t, I won’t. There will be another woman who can give you want you want. But my God, give me what I want right now or I’ll lose my mind.
He pulls me to my feet and throws me back onto the bed, kissing me hard and strumming his fingers over one nipple and then the other. My sex pulses in response, the electricity that only he can create sparking hard inside of me and sending fire through my veins.
“Now, Rowan, now...”
“Oh hell, woman,” Rowan says, moving so he presses his cock against my entrance. He pushes inside of me with one swift movement, filling me entirely and latching his hands around my waist. As his bare cock pushes against my walls, Rowan lets forth a throaty, deep groan and throws his head back as if lost in pleasure. “I’m going to come fast, baby,” he mutters. “Make yourself come again while I’m inside of you.”
I bring my hand to my clit again and rub it in circles, the pulsing in my sex rising to a fever pitch as Rowan slams into me. “Harder, Rowan,” I sigh. “Fuck me harder
.” I close my eyes as he rides me, far more brutal and insistent than he had been before. I bare down with my muscles and listen as he moans again. He pauses for a second and moves my legs so that they’re draped over his shoulders.
