by Pippa Grant
“I’ll get you gloves to protect your hands and then you can sort through the pieces. I like to lay my sculptures out on the grass first, in a kind of flattened 3D style, then assemble from the base up, tweaking as I go. But not everyone’s brain works that way. Blake likes to make heads first, then bodies, and attach the arms and legs last.” I jab a thumb toward the fence at the back of my two acres. “Those are his. The metal scarecrows. The rest of the redneck sculpture garden is my stuff.”
I wave in the general area beneath the ancient apple trees, where my initial Wizard of Oz tribute from a few years back—Dorothy and her friends populate the center of the space—eventually turned into a full-fledged fictional characters-made-of-scrap party. I’ve got all our favorites from when my brothers and I were growing up as well as a special request from the kids down the street, who insisted no sculpture garden would be complete without a Pikachu.
“Wow. You’re both so talented.” Cassie bites her lip. “Just to warn you, I’m consistently awful at artistic things. I’d hate to ugly things up around here.”
“It’s okay,” I assure her. “Art is about the fun, not the end result. And I’ll have to hide both of these in the shed after we’re done, anyway. The kids from the neighborhood like to hang out here, and I’m not ready to explain dildos to them. Or to their parents.”
Cassie points a finger at my chest. “Good call. That would be an excellent way to get even more people waving pitchforks and trying to run Sunshine out of town.”
“Which we’re not going to think about tonight,” I gently remind her. “Tonight is for happy things.”
Her eyes meet mine, a look in those rich chocolate depths I can’t decipher.
“What?” I finally ask. “Do I have paint on my nose?”
She shakes her head. “No. You have handsome on your nose. And I was just thinking that…” She shrugs. “Well, I was thinking that I’m pretty much always happy when I’m with you.”
That does it. I can’t resist going in for a kiss.
I thread my fingers through her silky hair and slant my lips over hers, kissing her with the late afternoon sun warming our faces. But it isn’t the summer heat that makes my blood run hot. It’s this woman, who I’m finding it harder and harder to imagine letting go of.
At least not anytime soon.
“I have an idea,” she whispers against my lips.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“I’m not going to give it a clown face. I’m going to do something even better. But it’s going to be a surprise.”
I smile down at her. “Then let’s glove up and get going.”
Thirty minutes later, Cassie has all the pieces for the base of her own giant metal dildo laid out on the grass. She hands them to me one at a time, giving instructions on how she wants them joined together, but insisting she isn’t ready to learn to weld just yet.
“Baby steps,” she says, handing me a faded blue piece of sheet metal she’s just finished hammering into a half circle on one of my shapers. “I’ll learn to play with fire next time.”
Next time. I like the sound of that. I like it so much that I have to kiss her again. When we come up for air this time, her lips are swollen and there’s a hungry look in her eyes that makes me want to offer myself up as her appetizer, main course, and dessert.
“I just realized something,” she says. “I won’t be able to surprise you with the face unless I weld it myself.”
I arch a brow. “That’s what you were thinking about while I was kissing you?”
Lids drooping to half-mast, she shakes her head. “No. That wasn’t what I was thinking about. That part came after. During the kissing part I was thinking of…other things.”
“What kind of other things?”
“Help me figure out how to make my surprise,” she says, lifting her nose into the air. “And maybe I’ll tell you.”
I smile. “I’ve got super glue. Won’t hold it forever, maybe, but it’ll do until I can solder it all in place later.”
Cassie claps her hands. “Perfect!”
And it is perfect.
Every minute with her.
By the time the sun slips behind the horizon, we’re nearly finished. I get to work on clean up, collecting the leftover scrap and disposing of the pieces too small to recycle into something new, while Cassie puts on her finishing touches.
“Okay, you can look now,” she says, granting me permission to check out her masterpiece. The moment I lay eyes on the thing I burst into laughter. I can’t help it, but thankfully Cassie seems pleased by my response.
“It’s a unicorn,” she announces happily. “A unicorn dildo!”
“I see that,” I say, still chuckling. “I like the rainbow mane.”
“The paint is a little sloppy since I was in a hurry,” she says, grinning up at the multi-colored spikes she’s affixed to the head. “But I kind of like it. The messiness is working for me.”
“Me too, but you didn’t have to rush. I’ve got lamps in the shed. We could have turned them on and kept working after dark.”
Cassie turns to me, threading her fingers together in front of her paint-spattered cut-off jeans, holding my gaze a long moment before she says in a softer voice, “I didn’t want to keep working after dark.”
My pulse leaps in my throat. “No?”
She shakes her head as she starts across the grass toward me, every step making my heart beat faster. “No. I wanted to do…other things after dark.”
“Toast marshmallows over my fire pit?”
She shakes her head, stepping deliberately over a hammer I missed during clean up. “Two guesses left.”
“Help take George for his evening walk?” I ask, my voice going husky as she stops in front of me, close enough for me to count the specks of blue paint scattered across the bridge of her nose and dotted on her glasses. She’s so cute, it’s almost painful to look at her, and I have to fight the urge to imagine her wearing those paint specks and nothing else.
I’m pretty sure I’m reading the look on her face correctly, but I don’t want to make any assumptions or do anything to pressure her into making a decision she’s not ready to make yet. I want this to be her call.
“One guess left,” she coos, clucking her tongue. “Really, Ryan, you’re pretty awful at guessing games.”
“I am.” I tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, letting my fingers linger on the delicate skin behind it before I pull away. “Maybe if I had a hint?”
“A hint…” Her lashes sweep down, fanning across her flushed cheeks before she looks back up at me, a Mona Lisa smile on her face. “What has two arms, two legs, and would like to wrap all of them around you as soon as possible? Hint—her name isn’t George.”
“Could it be Cassandra Mae Sunderwell?”
She nods, her face going pinker but her gaze never wavering from mine. “It is. Take me inside? I’m ready to learn what all the fuss is about.”
“You’re sure?” I ask, fighting to keep my hands to myself until every shred of doubt is swept away.
“I’m sure,” she says, sliding her hands around my neck.
A beat later, my lips are on hers as I sweep her into my arms.
Twenty-One
Cassie
* * *
I’m breathless and drunk on Ryan’s kisses even before we make it to his bedroom. He kicks the door shut and settles me on top of a homemade quilt on his king-size bed, following me down and aligning his body with mine.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he murmurs as he strokes my hair back and recaptures my mouth with his.
Everything about him engulfs me. His woodsy scent mixed with heat and metal. His touch—both the gentleness of his fingers along my neck and the scratch of his stubble against the sensitive skin around my mouth. His taste, rich and intoxicating.
The solid strength of his body.
The soft moan of pleasure as I touch my tongue to his.
Anticipation bubbles through my vein
s and channels between my legs. I’m not nervous—just excited.
This feels so right. Finally right. Finally everything I’ve wanted and more.
Like maybe the reason I’m still a virgin is that I was waiting for this. For today.
For him.
He pulls out of the kiss and gazes down at me. “If this is too much—if you want me to stop—any time—”
“Please don’t stop.” I run my hands down his neck, over his wide shoulders, and pluck at his tee shirt. “And please get rid of this. I want to see you.”
He reaches behind his head, pulling his tee off in one smooth motion. “Anything else?” he asks with a grin, as I breathlessly take in the sight of his bare skin. He has a light dusting of dark hair across his broad chest and a firefighter badge tattooed over his heart. I trace the ridges of his ribs down to the sculpted beauty of his hard stomach while he leans beside me, letting me inspect him.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“Careful.” He pulls my knuckles to his lips and presses the sweetest kiss to them. “That kind of praise could give a man a big head.”
My gaze drifts lower with a grin. “Really?”
He laughs and tugs at the hem of my shirt. “Oh, yeah. And you’re overdressed.”
“Can you help me? I think I forgot how to undress myself.”
I bat my eyelashes like a big dork, but he just smiles wider, his eyes going smoky and that bulge pressing tighter against my thigh. “It would be my pleasure.”
He scoots down the bed, settles between my legs, and pushes my shirt up, revealing my belly button. Inch by inch, he kisses and licks his way up my chest, pushing my shirt up as he goes, until I’m writhing under his touch.
He pulls my nipple into his mouth through my lace bra, and sheer pleasure flutters from my breasts to my core, pulsing deep inside me, more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced. My legs tighten around him instinctively.
“More?” he asks, rubbing at my other nipple through my bra.
“More,” I gasp. I want so much more. And I’m too high on the sensations he’s sparking throughout my body to form any other words.
“Time for this to go.” He pushes my shirt over my head, stroking my arms as he pulls them from the sleeves, his rough fingertips the perfect mix of gentle and possessive, arousing and soothing. He glides his body along mine, settling his thick, hard cock between my legs, and capturing my lips in a kiss that utterly owns me.
I’m wrapped in Ryan, lost and found in him, and I don’t want to be anywhere else.
Ever.
Not San Francisco. Not Savannah’s house.
Not even the next room over.
I just want to be here, with him, this man who feels like home.
“You,” he rasps out as he breaks the kiss, “are an addictive goddess.”
My fingers dance along the hot, flat planes of his chest and I arch closer to the bulge pressing between my thighs, lifting my hips to rub it against where I ache. “More,” I plead.
“Trust me?” he asks while he kisses a trail down my neck.
“Yes.”
He slides back down my body, and I whimper when his hips lift off mine.
But when he pops the button on my jeans and lowers my zipper, licking and stroking my lower belly with his tongue, I’m back in heaven.
“Pink lace,” he murmurs while he nibbles at the top of my panties and angles my hips to pull my pants down to my thighs. “You match.”
“I was hoping for more of a reaction than—Oh God. Ryan!”
His name is a strangled cry as he licks me through my panties.
It’s the most exquisite torture I’ve ever had. I want him to lick me more, but I also want more. Of everything.
“I’ve been dreaming about this forever.” His breath heats the lace covering my sensitive flesh. “And reality is so much better than I’ve ever imagined.”
He strokes me through the lace with his tongue again, and I moan. I’m gripping his hair, the coarse thickness as perfect as everything about him.
“I’m going to take your panties off and make you come in my mouth, Cassie,” he says. “Sound good?”
I think I answer something like yes. My heart is racing, my tongue is dry, and Ryan’s gliding my panties down over my hips. He pulls my shoes off, then my pants, until I’m lying naked on his bed—except for my bra—with cool air drifting over my skin, a sharp contrast to the hot wetness between my legs.
And then his mouth is back where I need it so desperately, licking and kissing before he pauses at the top to suckle my clit into his mouth.
Everything’s so new, but so right.
The burst of pleasure making me ache in my core, need coiling deep inside me while he suckles and strokes me and makes love to me with his mouth until I’m gasping for breath and arching off the bed, my release building thick and heavy under his talented tongue.
“More—yes—there,” I moan.
And suddenly I’m shattering.
Muscles I didn’t know I have tighten and release, my inner walls clenching, and bliss rockets through my veins. My thighs clamp around Ryan’s head as I ride out the new sensations overtaking my body.
So this is what the fuss is about.
The natural high of ultimate pleasure shared with someone else. Except it’s not enough.
I want to share even more with him. I want him inside me.
“More?” I ask.
He chuckles and lifts his head. “That wasn’t enough?”
“I haven’t had you yet,” I answer, suddenly shy. “I mean, that was—you were—amazing, but I want—I want everything, Ryan.”
I freeze, because it strikes me a moment too late that he might think I mean in and out of bed, but his smile’s growing, and his eyes are getting darker, his lids heavy.
“I mean, if you can do that with your mouth, then when you use your…”
“My…?” he prompts.
He’s not laughing. He’s watching me intently, and I swear he smells turned on.
“Your cock,” I whisper. “I want to feel your cock inside me.”
He swears softly, and an instant later, his pants and underwear go flying across the room. I gasp as I take in the sight of his fully naked body—the tight hips, the hollow of his belly button, the very large, very thick, very solid length of his cock.
He snags a condom from the bedside table, and I find my coordination to reach for it, plucking it from his fingers. “May I?”
“Of course,” he says, voice husky.
I want to inspect every inch of him—and there are a lot of inches—but just the sight of his engorged head and erect length is making me ache with emptiness.
There’s no fear, despite his size, because I know as surely as I know my own name that he’ll fit perfectly.
And he’ll be gentle.
I grip him, shocked at how smooth his skin is, and tentatively trace the tip.
Such soft skin over hot iron.
“Cassie,” he grinds out. “If you don’t stop—”
I smile, because I might be a virgin who balks at speaking the word dildo aloud, but I still hear things, and I’ve read my share of romance novels. “Ryan O’Dell, am I making you lose control?”
“Yes,” he grunts.
His eyes flutter shut again, but not before I catch sight of them crossing.
I roll the condom down his length, and as soon as I’m done, he pounces, trapping me against the bed. “Give me just a minute,” he says.
“I—” I start, but then he’s sucking on that magic spot between my neck and shoulders while he unhooks my bra and sneaks a hand under one cup to roll my nipple between his thumb and finger, and I suddenly need a minute too.
“You are so damn sexy,” he tells me.
His cock is pressing against my entrance, but he’s not making any effort to rush. I tilt my hips, my body outside of my control, instinct taking over as he whispers praise of my breasts, my skin, my sweet, delicious pussy.
He sucks my bare nipple into his mouth, and my hips come off the bed at the intensity of the pleasure rocketing to my newly-awakened orgasm muscles. “Ryan,” I cry.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispers. “So perfect.”
He presses a kiss to the hollow between my breasts as he pushes into me, slowly stretching my inner walls apart, one careful inch at a time. I open my legs wider and angle my hips to take him deeper, wonder and joy filling my entire being as deeply and fully as he’s filling my body.
“God, Cassie, you’re so perfect.” The strained reverence in his voice nearly brings tears to my eyes. “So tight. Are you okay?”
“More,” I say, because I don’t think I can force anything else out around this lump in my throat.
I grasp his firm ass cheeks and pull while I open myself fully to him.
I want all of him.
I want to feel him in my soul.
He lifts his head and holds my gaze as he fully sheaths himself inside me. He pulls almost all the way out, then glides back in, easier this time. My breath catches as he hits a sensitive spot inside me, and he slows, stroking inside me to hit it again.
“There?” he asks.
“Oh, yes,” I moan.
He catches one of my hands and lifts it over my head, threading his fingers through mine while he pumps into me, the slow, luxurious strokes giving way to frenzied thrusts that build that coil tight deep inside me again.
He’s still watching me, watching my eyes, his lips parted, a sheen of perspiration forming on his forehead. “Cassie,” he gasps. “Baby, I can’t—I can’t hold out much longer. I want—I want you to come. I want this to be good for you.”
He drives into me one more time, and with his big, strong body against mine, his solid cock hitting that magic spot inside me, and the intensity in his expression while he holds me captive with his eyes, I fall over the edge.
Again.
My walls clench and spasm around him, my climax hitting so hard and tight that everything beyond our connection disappears. “Ryan!” I gasp.
He cries out my name and throws his head back, and I press my hips as close to his as I can get.
