by Lia Riley
“I can’t get enough of you,” he murmured. His desperate lips wouldn’t stop and hers couldn’t. She couldn’t quit him now if she tried.
She stroked his tongue, sweet madness tangling through her. “Me too.”
He released her, sat, and fisted his tight grey t-shirt off in one yank. “Now you.”
“Are you sure?” She reached out and rubbed his hard chest, gentle, right above a nasty fist-sized bruise.
“I’m not sure about most things in my life. Never have been. But that’s all changing. I’m sure about you. And I’m sure if I don’t get you naked in the next five seconds, I’ll kick my own ass.” He made quick work of her clothes, and rolled her onto her back, whispering, “So fucking beautiful.”
Never in her life had Edie been so comfortably naked. No shame. No embarrassment. He bent and licked her nipple, roamed her breast with his lips, stubble grazing the sensitive skin. “You like this, don’t you?” he muttered, moving to suck her other tip, adding a light tug with his teeth.
Any coherent reply was lost in a soft moan.
He sat on his knees and positioned her legs on either side of him. “I love you here.” He stroked his hand over her belly to cup her mound. “Like fire. Soft, silky fire.” His finger slid across her slippery skin and her next moan filled the room.
“Sorry.” She clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Never apologize for your pleasure. Now wrap those sweet legs around my neck and let’s see what other sounds you can make.”
Laughing, she threw her legs on his shoulders, careful not to give him too much of her weight. It didn’t matter. He grabbed her thighs and hauled her close. He pressed his face against her, inhaling, enjoying, savoring. She couldn’t look away and as he parted her folds, he glanced up, his green eyes locking with hers as his tongue flicked to circle her clit.
Her eyes closed on instinct, pure pressure radiating through her hips.
“Watch me.” His breath brushed across her slick heat. “Watch me love you.” He feathered her with his tongue, his mouth increasingly fervent. How could she feel him through her entire body, strange when he only touched one place? Every limb tingled. He needed to be here too, feeling everything she did.
She pulled away and he growled, actually growled, grabbing her ass. “No. Let me give you this.”
“Yes, don’t stop,” she said. “But I’m doing you too.”
He paused, brow creasing.
She crawled around to his side, grabbed his strong thigh, and slid on her back between his legs, his cock hanging thick and full above. “There’s no reason we can’t both enjoy it.” She craned to run her tongue along his long, hard shaft.
“Jesus, woman,” he ground out.
She grabbed him at the root and angled his length between her lips as he crushed his mouth between her spread legs. If he’d been hungry before, this time he consumed her like a man starved. He circled her clit, kissed her folds, but even as she took him deep into her throat, he wouldn’t go where she needed him most. She writhed, rocking her hips in pleading thrusts, until realizing he toyed with her.
He knew what she wanted. What she begged for with her body. And he withheld the reward until the build was unreal. Her thighs trembled so much that the bed shook and the noises tearing from her chest were inhuman. Her nails dug into his perfect hard ass and she moved back to lick his sac. That seemed to do the trick.
“Fuck.” He fixed his lips on her clit and sucked, wild and strong, almost as strong as she sucked him, and it was like going from sixty miles an hour to hurtling at the speed of light. He did it again and her mind blanked. The pressure built, not just in her pelvis but throughout her stomach and thighs. Her heart buzzed as nerve endings grew extra sensitive, pulsing with ever increasing intensity.
She couldn’t bear another second, she couldn’t breathe, or whimper. Never had her mind been so empty while every sense was honed, brighter, and more aware than ever before. A gasp, one last suck, and she screamed her release with his cock between her lips, pleasure and adrenaline coursing through her.
Then he was gone and she couldn’t move. She tried. She struggled to open her eyes but nothing would cooperate. She’d run hard in her day. Pushed her body over miles, to paces that left her lungs burning and legs on fire. But never had she been this worked.
Foil tore. She couldn’t . . . how could she take him when so sensitive . . . it wouldn’t work, and then he was inside her, one solid thrust and she was full. Her hands fisted his hair. It was like he’d always been there, a part of her, and her body found a reserve it didn’t know it had.
“Edie,” he ground out. Again, and again, he rumbled her name as if it were a holy word, a prayer, a blessing. In and out, he moved deep and slow.
“Don’t stop,” she begged. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”
“Never stopping.” Faster he went, hips pumping in a mind-blowing rhythm. “You like this?” he asked when she offered a soft whimper.
“I like it all,” she responded. “What you do, how you move.”
“What about this?” he swiveled his hips in a slow circle, hitting new places.
She arched. “Yes, that too.”
“I want what’s best. I want to give you the best orgasm of your life.”
“You just did,” she gasped.
“I can beat it.”
“No, you can’t, it’s physically impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible with you.” He buried himself to the hilt, grinding his pelvis against her clit. A minor adjustment of speed and everything shifted, became more.
“Yes?” He groaned.
She bucked. “Yes. God, yes.”
It didn’t take much, this time there was no slow build. This was dropping in a bucket over Niagara Falls, the world receding to a thunderous roar. He cried out and as her quick-fire pulses receded, he brushed his mouth with hers.
Falling onto his side, his arm slung over her waist, they stared at each other, in shock, in wonder, as if seeing each other for the first time. The same world spun on but suddenly shined with strange magic.
“The best?” he said at last.
She laughed, and once she started, couldn’t stop. “So much better than the best.”
And in this golden moment, in Archer’s bed, a shaft of sunlight pouring through the window, all was right with the world.
Maybe, just maybe all would be well.
And if everything burned, she’d fiddle in the flames, as long as she had Archer standing by her side.
Chapter Eighteen
ARCHER PEEKED INTO his bar fridge and back at Edie, blinking from the bed, wrapped in his sheets, wearing his cowboy hat. Her wild red hair spilled over her bare freckled shoulders and for the eight hundred and second time in the past few hours a feeling of pure dumb luck socked him in the chest.
“Besides your pie, I don’t have much to offer as far as food goes,” he said apologetically. “I usually grab dinner at The Dirty Shame.”
She raised a brow. “Every night?”
“Sometimes I go to the Save-U-More for a roast chicken or deli sandwich. That old recipe box hadn’t been touched in a long time.”
“Archer, that’s not okay.” She looked equal parts confused and concerned. “You need meals cooked with love.”
“Haven’t had a lot of love before meeting you, sweetheart. These cupboards are bare. I got a six-pack, a half a pack of Twizzlers, and a bottle of ketchup.” He glanced to the dusty can on the counter and his lips twitched. “Oh, and Dinty Moore beef stew.”
She made a disapproving sound. “We need to go do some serious shopping. But tonight we should go back to my apartment so that I can look after you. At this rate, you’ll have scurvy by the end of the month.”
“What do you say I do a quick town run and grab some supplies? Seems a shame to make you cover up all that pretty with clothes.”
“But you are injured.”
“I need to move, it feels better than being cooped up in bed.”
Edie glanced down at herself. “I can’t sit around your room naked by myself.”
“You absolutely can. It will keep a smile on my face.”
“How will you drive? You truck is in the shop because of the accident.”
“Can I borrow your car keys? Before you say anything else, let me get in another sentence. Let me do this, spoil you.” He pulled out the Twizzlers, walked to his shelf and grabbed his iPad, fiddling with the screen. “You cuddle up on the pillow and watch a chick flick.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Um, okay. I feel really spoiled.” She looked a little bemused, but also thrilled.
His heart gave a funny double beat at the notion that licorice and a show made her this pleased. How the hell had she been treated in the past? From now on all he could do was treat her like a queen. “So what will it be . . . The Notebook?”
She gaped. “You’re a Nicholas Sparks fan?”
“Okay, confession, it’s the only girlie movie I know. Don’t all women love that one? It seemed like a safe bet.”
“Most women at least love Ryan Gosling making out in the rain.”
He gave her a playful glare. “In the rain? Hmmm. Maybe not that one then.”
“What about North & South?”
He typed that into Netflix with a frown, peering at the thumbnail of a woman in a flouncy dress. “A Civil War movie?”
“No!” She giggled. “Victorian costume drama starring Richard Armitage.”
“Who?” He stared blankly, no bells ringing.
She placed a hand over her heart in mock dismay. “Only the most yummy British actor who has ever existed. His voice alone is pure sex.”
“That English accent does it for you?”
She mashed her lips together. “Are you getting jealous over an actor in a BBC drama?”
“An actor who has a voice that’s pure sex?”
She crawled to the edge of the bed, leaving the sheet behind. He approached and she took off his hat and set it on his head. “Did you know that I used to think cowboys weren’t my type?”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yep. I never could figure out the big attraction.”
“And now?”
She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him on top of her. “I was blind but now I see.”
After another thirty incredible minutes, Archer threw his shirt back on, stomach growling. “We keep this up and I’ll have to go grab an animal from the ranch. I’m starving.”
“Me too,” she admitted. “I could probably demolish a burger with bacon.”
“That’s my girl.” He handed her the iPad. “Okay, make do with your Dick Armitage and I’ll be back in two shakes.” He gave her forehead a kiss and then one more for each cheek. “Will you stop being so damn cute? You make it impossible to leave.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking his hand.
“What for.”
“For everything.” She kissed his knuckles. “I . . . I . . .”
A distant crash occurred.
“What was that?” Edie snapped her head around.
“I don’t know. It sounded like it came from the ranch house.”
Edie jumped up and threw on her clothes. “I’ll come with you.”
Together, they ran down the stairs. Inside the barn horses whickered uneasily. Night settled into the valley and the main house was dark.
“Hello?” Archer cupped his hands over his mouth. “Grandma? Sawyer? Who’s out there?”
Silence followed.
“Maybe it was a raccoon or something?” Edie whispered. “Could it be a bear?”
“Doubtful. Anyway the sound didn’t come from over near the garbage bins.”
He scanned the dark windows. Grandma was usually still up at this hour, but maybe she turned in early. If an eighty-year-old wanted to go to bed with the sun, Godspeed, she had every right.
“Wait.” Edie pulled up short. “Did you hear that? Was that a cow or . . . ?”
Archer cocked his head, only wind rustled in the trees. In the distance, a truck backfired. Then it came again. A low moan. “Shit, that’s no animal.” He ran around to the front of the ranch house. Grandma was crumpled in a heap at the bottom of the porch stairs.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Edie said, turning toward his apartment.
“Here, take my phone.” Archer dug it out of his back pocket. “Call 9–1–1 and then Sawyer. He’s probably at Annie’s next door.” He ran to Grandma’s side and dropped to his knees. “Can you hear me? It’s Archer.”
“I know who you are.” Grandma’s eyes fluttered open. “I broke my hip not my brain.”
“You think it’s your hip?” Shit, what should he do? She looked so frail, far more fragile than he was used to.
She nodded, flinching. “Tripped down the steps like a damn fool.”
He wanted to kick himself. He’d focused so much on proving himself on the ranch; he hadn’t paid attention to the obvious fact staring him the face. While Grandma’s wit was sharp as ever, should she be rambling around this big old house alone? He and Sawyer lived close by, but that wasn’t good enough. If he hadn’t been home tonight . . .
“You’re going to be fine, just fine. Sawyer will arrive any second.” His big brother was her favorite. She’d be happy once he got here and reassured her everything was under control. “Right now you’re stuck with me, but I’ll do my best.” He took her hand in his, the skin paper thin, bones jutting in sharp relief, like a baby bird.
“Such a good boy,” she murmured. “Always such a good boy.”
Shit, she was starting to get delirious.
“Funny and charming. So like your grandfather.”
Damn it. How do you check for a concussion?
“I need you to try and focus. How many fingers am I holding up?” He held two in front of her nose.
She grimaced. “What are you doing?”
“Seeing if you hit your head.”
“I told you, it’s my hip.”
“Just doing a quick examination. You’re not acting like yourself. You thought I was someone else.”
“Archer James Kane, who the heck did you think I thought you were?”
His shoulders caved. “Dunno. Sawyer.”
“What would I think that?”
“Because . . .” Hell, this wasn’t the time for his hang-ups.
“Listen to me good.” She gripped his leg. “If something should happen to me, Hidden Rock, it’s to go to you. My will has it all laid out. You’re the one meant for the place. You always have been. Born to it.”
“Okay, Grandma,” he patted her hand. Yeah, maybe she hadn’t hit her head but she was certainly not right in the head.
Headlights appeared. Not the siren of the ambulance but Sawyer’s truck. His brother pulled up on the lawn, jumping out, keeping the lights trained on the house.
“Have you checked for signs of shock,” Sawyer asked Archer. “Rapid weak pulse, confusion, irritability?”
“Haven’t checked her pulse, man, but I’m worried. She’s confused, keeps saying things that don’t make sense. And irritable? That’s not out of the normal.”
Sawyer gave a tight smile before crouching to turn his attention to Grandma. “Do you know where you are?”
Her brow wrinkled. “My ranch.”
“Do you know what happened?” Sawyer pressed.
“I saw a strange car by the barn and went out to investigate. Someone could have been messing around with the horses. Or my grandson.”
“What day is it?” Sawyer continued.
“Quit your horse and pony show. You’re as bad as your brother.” She glared at Edie. “It’s you, the redhead from the coffee shop. You’re together with my grandson.”
Sawyer glanced up, his normally stoic face lit with surprise. “She is?”
Archer set a hand on Edie’s shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. “She is.”
/> Grandma moaned.
“Shit, I hope the ambulance gets here fast. I don’t have a PASG with me,” Sawyer muttered to himself.
“A huh?” Archer said.
“It’s an airbag that wraps around the pelvis and inflates.”
The siren of an ambulance sounded in the distance, growing incrementally louder. Somewhere a dog howled. Then a coyote joined in.
“What a bunch of fuss and nonsense,” Grandma said through gritted teeth.
The ambulance pulled up and Sawyer ran to greet them. As sheriff, he knew all the local first responders. Archer stayed next to Grandma, still gripping his hand, and Edie stayed huddled beside him.
The paramedics approached, carrying a stretcher. They carefully put her in a collar that immobilized her neck and then got her onto the board, administering oxygen. “Archer.” Her hand fumbled in the empty air. “Archer James. Where are you?”
“Grandma, I’m here, right here.”
“Ride with me,” she whispered. “Don’t make me go alone.”
“I’ll fetch Sawyer.”
“No. You.” She gripped his hand. “I want you.”
Sawyer clasped a hand on his back. “Stay with her, there’s not much more these guys can do now except give her diesel therapy.”
“What the hell is that?” Archer muttered.
Sawyer’s smile was grim. “Drive fucking fast.”
Edie stepped beside him. “Go. We’ll meet you at the hospital.”
Archer nodded, gave her a quick kiss, and climbed into the back of the ambulance. He wasn’t sure why he was the one Grandma wanted, but he’d do his best to look after her.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he told her again, crawling inside the back of the ambulance.
Her face grew pale. “How many dead people do you think have been in here?”
“Let’s not worry about that. You’re going to be around for a long while yet.”
Grandma gripped his hand. “You’re a good man.”
And Archer realized that he was finally starting to live up to the word.
