Thinking about her, resenting her for being able to read me well enough, like no one ever has before her, has my dick so fucking hard I have half a mind to go take care of my problem. But there is no taking care of Miss Miranda Phillips, even in the figurative sense. She invades me. Her child-like laughter. Her smiling eyes. Her perky tits. Her soft coconut-tasting lips and the way they fit so well around my cock like a vise.
Pure fucking torture.
Drying my hands on an old dishtowel, I grab the envelope, watching the rain pour down as I sit at the kitchen table. A more formal letter this time with exhibits on water the company had purchased and all of the pertinent details of how they did their best to clean it up and try to make it clean. It wasn’t surprising that they would remove litter from along rivers and lakes, as well as offer well-testing on private properties. Every aspect of what they did, they strove to make water and essentially, the Earth, better.
Maybe it was my vulnerable state or the pelting rain outside, but as I read through all of the brochures, I start to believe them. I’m not willing to hand over my shares by any means, but they give a convincing argument. Was this mass media mailing? Why me? How did they know I owned shares?
An approaching visitor pulls me away from the brochures. The one person I want to see and yet, really don’t, pulls to a stop at the foot of the steps leading to my front door, being sure to park as close as possible. I watch her through the sheet of rain as she watches the water pour, her windshield wipers flipping at the max. I could read her from here. Wondering if there was going to be a lull in the downpour or if she should try and make a break for it. I can see when she makes up her mind and watch her as she bends forward against the steering wheel and I don’t quite understand what she is doing until she raises both of her high-heels and sets them in the passenger seat.
I don’t wait to watch her jump out of her car. I fly off my seat and through the porch, pushing open the screen door I practically run to meet her out on my concrete steps in the pouring rain. I am so far gone with her. She’s already half-soaked, startled at me bum-rushing her and all it takes is that simple, questioning gaze and I sweep her into my arms.
I can’t think beyond her, beyond this moment between us. My emotions are past their threshold and she is so fucking beautiful. Our lips meld together, her mouth a warm safe haven for my tongue. The rain pours over us, mingling in between our heated kisses, each drop finding a spot, a crevice to invade, making us wet. Wet beyond salvation.
She feels right against my body as my mouth kisses and nips her lips, her throat, her shoulder. I fumble with the buttons on her red shirt, finally giving up and ripping the thing clean open. She may have squealed, I can’t be sure and I know I’m acting feral but I’ve had enough. Her hands press along my torso, around my neck, fingering my hard nipples.
I’m chaotic. Working my mouth here and there. Her body is warm and the exquisite taste of her mingling with the downpour of rain, has me grinding my dick into her skirt. Managing to shove it down her thighs and legs, I take pleasure in the feel of her fingers roaming through my wet hair, caressing my shoulders and finally she tugs at the hem of my shirt and I help her pull it off over my head.
Her red bra and white panties compliment her red top and white skirt perfectly which are no doubt running down the small river set up in my front lawn compliments of this torrential rain. Her small fingers tug at the waistband of my jeans, finally unbuttoning the top button and pulling the zipper down. I tip my head allowing the rain to wash over my face as she fists my cock. My anger at her for calling me out hasn’t diffused, I’ve only set it aside. As she keeps up her rhythm, my body sways into her with each fist pump.
Bringing me to the edge, I pull away and cup her wet bra, her beautiful perfectly perfect tits I’ve been thinking about all day and with some finagling, throw the bra into the stream of tossed clothes. My mouth covers her hard nipples, my tongue flicks them, pulling each one into my mouth with a desperate need. I push her panties down, the rain making it difficult for me to pull them off in a swift power move. Finally, mission complete.
She is already pushing my hand down between her thighs, reminding me of the wedding night and it’s unbelievable how far we’ve come since then. My fingers sink into her un-fucking-believably soaking wet, tight fucking heat, because that is where they belong. With her is where I belong. The raw truth of that splits my heart wide-open underneath the pouring sky.
I want to tell her. To say something to let her know that I will be there for her irrevocably, stick up for her, tell anyone who cares that she is mine, if only she would have me. But I don’t even have a handle on my own life: what I wanted to do with the farm and if I sold the farm, what Brianna and Alex would think. The thunder drowns out whatever words are on my lips as she grips my jeans, pushing them down around my ankles and I pull her with me, onto the wet grass, not able to maneuver too much with my jeans wet and around me the way they are.
At long last, she slides that tight, needy pussy of hers onto my cock and the sight of her, she is like a queen sitting on her throne. Her wet hair cascading around her face, over her shoulders and finally just barely grazing each pink nipple. She is a siren and I am her everything. I grasp her hips tightly, unable to keep my hands off her and we get into our own rhythm.
I can’t take it any longer. As much as I enjoy watching the rain pelt and drip off the curve of her tits, I have to take control. I sit up and switch positions, covering her body with mine, I drive my cock so deep into her, my balls bang against her bottom. The thunder unleashes a round of applause and I pound into her, giving her my all, fucking her and loving her, with everything I have.
“You are mine, Miranda,” I growl into her ear. “Let me hear you say it.”
“I’m yours.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m all yours. All yours.”
Her pussy quivers around me as she screams and bucks and her fingernails dig so deep into my back, I know they’ve left tread marks. It doesn’t take me but a second to follow her into sweet oblivion as I pump my cock into her pussy, my come filling her, marking her as my own.
Later, after I carried her inside and we exhausted ourselves once again, in my bed, I’d rounded up our clothes, mostly hers and gave her one of my shirts to wear. Sitting at the table eating hamburgers I’d grilled as Miranda looked over the High Plains brochures, I felt like a family. I felt content – like we’d done this hundreds of times in the past and on the other hand, it felt so new like I couldn’t believe she was here, enjoying this house with me.
“High Plains is only interested in A&T water stock. That’s what he wanted in the chat room thingy I discovered.”
I stay silent. A&T was what I owned. Coincidence?
She takes another bite of her burger, chews and swallows, “At least, that was all they were interested in then. They aren’t even the most valuable so I don’t understand what would be so great about them.”
“Unless you’re a local.”
“What do you mean, unless you’re a local?”
I set my beer down, “I mean, unless you’re from around here, you probably wouldn’t know, much less care, about A&T. But since it comes off Pepper Ridge as the Ackelson Thorn River and feeds into the river that goes through Lone Star, you might use it or care then.”
“Oh my gosh, Ryan. Do you think High Plains is someone local?”
“I don’t know. If it was someone local, why wouldn’t they just come and talk to me?”
“Wait. Back-up.” She fishes through the papers from High Plains, finding the least important-looking one before turning it over to take notes. “Okay, you clearly own A&T shares, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, what makes them so important?”
“Nothing. You said yourself they’re worth the least amount of money.”
She jumps in her seat, pulling her bare feet underneath her. Her excitement making me smile, “Yes, but this has to mean something. I can fee
l it, Ryan. We are finally getting somewhere.”
“Where, Miranda?”
“I don’t know. Let’s go back to the shares. It has something to do with those shares.”
“They aren’t worth much. They’re local.”
“Right. Someone local wants them. Maybe.” She scribbles away on her notepad before looking back up, “What we have to figure out is why. Why A&T?”
“My shares have been in the John family since eighteen ninety-three. Maybe someone just wants them as an investment.”
“But how would High Plains fit into that scenario?”
“Good point.”
“Damn it, I wish we could figure out who is behind High Plains. I feel like High Plains is interested for more than what they claim. My gut still tells me they aren’t a legit group.”
“Looks pretty legit, Miranda.”
“Trust me, I know. Something’s off. Blame it on my tight investigative skills, but it’s just not all there.”
“Your tight investigative skills?” My gaze drops to her thighs. “You’ve got tight bedroom skills, too.”
“Ryan…”
Chapter Twenty-One
Miranda
“I better get scooting. The kids will be home soon.”
“Stay.”
“No, Ryan. I can’t. I don’t want to fight with you and that’s what will happen if you continue to press this issue.”
“What issue? All I asked was for you to stay.”
“The issue of us. Of being together. Of how you’re on the city council and you don’t want to jeopardize all your…stuff…by being with someone like me.”
We’d been having such a wonderful time since I’d shown up in the rain and I feared having this inevitable conversation now, would ruin how far we’d come putting us directly back to square one. When he didn’t say another word, I took that as my cue to leave. With a heavy heart I gather up my belongings Ryan had fished from out of the storm. It’d stopped raining at this point. My skirt was ruined from the mud and dirt and rain and I didn’t want to cry but suddenly Ryan’s large hands were around me and I was crying into his bare chest. Big, heaving sobs wracked my body. I hated this.
Why did his body have to be so perfect? Why did this have to feel so right? Like he was strong enough to carry all of my failings and love me for them anyway. How could we mold together so perfectly and have this wrench in our relationship? He was clearly in no position to give me anything more than what we’d just experienced and I was reminded of our original agreement that we’d have one night together. One exceptionally extravagant, I’d-never-made-love-in-the-rain-and-god-was-it-good, night.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t plan on this, Miranda. I didn’t plan on you.”
“What does that mean, Ryan? That you aren’t willing to be seen with me in public? Because you didn’t plan on me. You didn’t plan on changing your life around and you’re too fucking stubborn to try anyway?”
“It just means right now isn’t a good time.”
“You realize people have relationships and children and jobs all the time, right?” I put emphasis on all the “ands.”
When he doesn’t dignify my question with a response, I take that as my cue to leave.
“Have Brianna call me at work to discuss her article.”
I leave on his blue-buttoned shirt he let me wear, shimmy into my ruined skirt and no, I don’t do the walk of shame. I do the fuck-you walk, holding my head high and leave without a backward glance, trying not to think about that big wrench that I have no idea how we will ever get passed.
My drive home was terrible, almost getting sucked into the ditches of the wet roads. I’d almost hit a deer. I’d been a mess. When I’d finally made it inside the comfort of my home, I shucked my inexpensive skirt, about to throw it away, but the memory of Ryan and his hands on it, pulling it off of me in that downpour, stopped me. I toss it on my nightstand, having a hard time focusing on our relationship as a whole and only being able to think about our lovemaking. It had been off the charts. Tender. Exquisite. Loving. Caring. The most passionate kind of sex I’d ever experienced. I know he felt it too. It was there in his eyes. In the way he held me against his chest, wrapping his arms around my middle and kissing the back of my neck, my hair, my head. How could something so perfect happen at a time when one of us wasn't ready?
I laugh out loud. This would happen to me. Retribution for killing Mrs. Potter’s fish, letting out all of the chickens, simply finding Ryan and falling harder than I had ever thought was possible. I breathe in his shirt that I refuse to take off. Can’t. I’m still celebrating in the glory of what we’d shared, how intimate it’d felt and how I was loving the fact that I was slightly sore from all of his love-making skills. Being cocooned in his shirt, still smelling him, I was able to cherish the moments a little while longer.
What a disaster. My heart physically ached. I’d fallen for Ryan hard and fast and I didn’t want to lose him over this. Yet, I didn’t want to be his dirty little secret either. This whole thing with his water shares had me all worked up as well. We were on to something, my reporter instinct kept telling me this. Every time I was researching a story, I felt this same sensation in my gut – apprehension, anxiety, rightness – and it had never steered me wrong before.
Lying in bed, sadly without Ryan, I laid out all the facts over and over, splitting what we knew as absolute with the what ifs. We knew High Plains was interested in A&T stock, but if we wanted to get technical, we didn’t know if the person in the forum was legit with the High Plains screen name. For simplicity’s sake, I assumed that to be legit only because how coincidental would that be? High Plains wanted A&T. What I didn’t know was why. Why those shares and none of the other ones? Tomorrow I would have to do some more digging and see if anything big was happening with the Ackelson Thorn River.
I stayed awake most of the night, lying there, getting myself worked up thinking about Ryan and our off-the-charts fucking we had done. Only to have myself get worked up about the shares. I’d thought so much about what, if anything, would be happening with the river that I wasn’t even sure I was making sense. What could happen to a river that would make someone want to own more shares? Having no real knowledge of this, I couldn’t answer some of this stuff, couldn’t even begin to guess.
With the dawn, I get out of bed long before my alarm is set to go off and still unwilling to take off Ryan’s shirt, I make a cup of coffee and sit at my kitchen table. The land. That is my answer. I needed to go back through that list of eight or so people who had purchased property and see what I could come up with. I could determine which properties were in town and which were in the country. I would further categorize them by which properties nestled up to the river and which properties had land. Then I could possibly call A&T and ask for a generalized checklist to tell me if water rights were sold with any of the land deals, because they most likely wouldn’t be able to disclose owner’s names of who bought what.
But I didn’t know if any of this would lead me to the ultimate answer of who was behind High Plains and what was going on with A&T. Finally forced to get out of Ryan’s shirt, I take a shower. As the warm water washes Ryan from my body, I can't help but touch myself. Thinking of him and imagining his hand as my own hand travels in between my legs where my lips are every bit as wet as the water cascading down my body. With my free hand bracing myself against the tile, I come loudly, a moan ripping from my throat as I envision Ryan pumping into me.
Getting dressed, I hope that today will lead me to some answers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ryan
A city council meeting is scheduled for tonight and I am knee-deep in cow shit. I’d finally managed to fix some old corrals that had been needing repositioned and straightened out so they no longer appeared as if they were going to fall over at any given time. I needed to shower and be there in less than thirty minutes but fuck, I was almost done. I’d already had the day from hell and wasn’t looking forward to t
his meeting but I was hoping to find out more information about Jean Yates.
I haven’t been able to figure out if he’d been serious about the position when I’d ran into him at the court house. Having never talked to the guy, I hadn’t been able to get an angle on him. One thing did bother me and that was what he’d told me about him having plenty of secrets at his disposal. At the time, I’d been so fired up about our fight as well as Miranda, that I hadn’t allowed myself to get baited by him.
But now. Now, I am wondering what, if anything he could possibly have up his sleeve and if it would be of any interest for me to know about it. Why am I allowing myself to let this bother me? The guy is a punk. Any guy who would do what he did to Miranda is a fucking scumbag and I have absolutely no respect for him. Something nagged at my brain though. That I should at least talk to the guy and see what he has to say. That’s all I would do. He wouldn’t be at the meeting tonight but I planned to stop by his house once it was over and try my luck that he’d be home.
“I have a meeting tonight. Make sure you guys are ready for your last day of school tomorrow. And Alex, bed time is at nine-thirty, if I’m not home by then.”
“Where will you be that late? With Miranda? Did she say anything about my article?”
“Shit. She told me to have you call her today at work, when she left last night and I forgot to tell you.”
“Ry-annnnn,” she wines.
“I’m sorry. You can call her tomorrow once you get out of school. I had a lot on my mind. Look, I have to hurry. I’m going to be late.”
Taking a lightning fast shower, I pull on my jeans and a collared shirt, not even bothering to fuck with my hair. It would air dry. I had five minutes and I was ten minutes away. I was still late and I hated being late. Walking in, all eyes are on me.
“Sorry I’m late everyone.”
Wet: A Small Town Romance (Love in Lone Star Book 1) Page 12
