Chapter 32
[Cadence]
With a little extra pep in my step and an additional sway in my hips, I saunter to the lobby doors, feeling the pressure of Ford’s gaze on me trickle down my spine, along my inner thighs and against my sensitive bits. My entire body throbs with anticipation.
This is going to be so much fun.
Taking a seat at the bar shaped like a horseshoe, the open end pointed toward the back wall, I order tequila on the rocks. I’d order a margarita to keep my head clear, but this place has mountain cozy with gin-joint vibes happening, and straight alcohol might be more in order. I’m also nervous.
The bartender has a don’t-fuck-with-me aura. One that would typically have my mouth watering and my flirt on. With his short dark hair and thin layer of scruff, he looks a little like Ford, but that’s where the similarities end.
The lobby isn’t full, but people filter through it. A few other stools are taken. A family plays a board game on a low table in front of a large stone fireplace. A woman rushes out a swinging door that must lead to a kitchen area.
“Duke, I owe you,” she says, out of breath while addressing the bartender.
“That you do.” He gives her an affectionate smile but not one that says they are an item while he continues to wipe glasses behind the bar.
My body hums waiting for Ford to enter this space.
The area is dimly lit but not dark like Randy’s.
Instead of crooner’s music like I imagine once played in this lobby, Luke Comb’s sings “Fast Cars,” a remake of a Tracy Chapman classic.
Their combined performance during the last Grammy’s was showstopping.
The minutes tick by slowly.
“You good?” The woman asks me, glancing at my sliver of tequila.
I haven’t touched the drink. Ford says he wants me lucid.
I can’t wait for whatever he plans although he sounded quite clear that we didn’t have to do anything.
If I tell him I want to binge-watch Leverage, his favorite series, or talk all night, I have a feeling he’ll be just as content.
That isn’t going to happen, though. I have a few plans for my cowboy as well.
“Yeah.” I hardly recognize my own voice when I answer her.
“My name is Lindee, if you need anything.” She looks over my shoulder after speaking and exits the bar area, heading toward the front doors.
I feel his presence before I see him.
Ford takes the seat beside me, orders a beer from Duke, then remains quiet. The anticipation is killing me. I smell his closeness. Feel the hum of his body mixing with mine. His leg bounces. He so close and yet not close enough. Not yet.
Finally, he turns toward me. “Do I know you?”
Duke scoffs from behind the bar, as if already sensing our gig before we play it out.
I fight a laugh and turn only my head, giving Ford my best smile. “I don’t think so.”
His eyes roam my seated position from my hair to my mouth and over my breasts until he’s tipping back to check out my legs.
If he were any other man, I’d be closing out my tab and walking away.
Then again, who am I kidding. He’s hot as sin, and with the way he’s looking at me, like I’d be his last meal, I won’t be leaving this stool until he propositions me.
“Hmm. Swore you looked familiar.”
“Doubt it,” I play along.
“Maybe only in my dreams, then.”
I can’t help it. I laugh outright, turning the head of the mother-figure playing the board game.
Tucking my head, so my hair falls forward to shield my face, I finally respond. “Maybe we had the same dream. You look familiar to me, too.”
Ford shifts on his stool, his legs spreading, his foot hooking into my high-seat chair. Suddenly, I’m dragged closer to him, wedged between those spread-wide thighs with his knees caging me in.
“Want to get more familiar?”
I chuckle again. “Is this really how you’d pick up a woman?”
Ford picks up his beer and takes a long pull while never looking away from me. After he drinks, he says, “I’m out of practice.”
“Maybe I could teach you a thing or two.” I tease, leaning my elbow on the bar and twisting my upper body toward him.
“The only thing I want you teaching me is how to be better acquainted with you.” His eyes heat. His gaze intense. He’s going to incinerate me right here where I sit.
I walk my fingers over his thigh, leading the tips to an area I hope is eager to know me.
Ford catches my hand before I get too close to the zipper of his jeans.
He’s dressed similar to the night we met.
Dark denim and a faded gray tee minus the fall jacket and baseball cap.
He looks like any other guy when my heart knows, he’s not.
“I mean it,” he says, lifting my fingers to his mouth, where he kisses the tips but keeps his gaze on me. “I want to know everything there is about you.”
My heart hammers. There’s so much dirt in my corners and yet something tells me Ford could be the one to sweep me clean of every bad memory.
I clear my throat, falling back into our act. “There isn’t anyone I can save you from tonight.” I glance around, noting that Lindee hasn’t paid Ford any attention, and the mom with her family hasn’t looked up again.
“I don’t need saving, darlin’.”
My head swings back to him with the endearment. Maybe I do. “Then how are we going to pretend you’re mine.”
“We aren’t pretending.” Those eyes of his heat up another notch.
“Ford,” I whisper. My love for him frightens me.
Still holding my hand, he says, “Ready to get out of this place?”
I can hardly wait, and I quickly dismiss what he said. For tonight, we will be pretending Ford is all mine.
And I’m all his.
+ + +
On the door of our motel room, a handcrafted sign states the room’s theme.
“The Birthday Room?” I question.
“I was told they try out new themes every once in a while. Guess this room isn’t terribly popular and that’s the reason it was the last room available tonight.”
“Well, we can always pretend today is your birthday,” I say as Ford opens the door with an actual key linked to a hexagon-shaped fob, the room number etched into the plastic.
I enter the room and immediately start to giggle.
The strawberry-shortcake pink and buttercream yellow wall coloring is painted horizontally—pink on the bottom, yellow on top—with a white stripe through the center and white color thickly layered at the top.
The design makes me feel like I’ve entered a slice of cake.
A lamp shade that looks like it has candy sprinkles sits on an ice cream cone-shaped base.
The bed’s cover has raised polka dots in vibrant pastel colors like someone spread Funfetti confetti on the white spread.
Ford stands behind me, quietly closing the door before looking up. “What the fuck?”
I laugh again. “Happy Birthday,” I tease, spreading my arms like a game show hostess.
Ford stutters a laugh as well. “Too bad it’s really my birthday.”
“What?” I turn to face him.
He stands with his hand cupping the back of his neck. His expression one of mirth. “Turned thirty-eight today.”
“Ford.” I playfully smack his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because someone ran away from me earlier.” The sudden reminder of how this day shifted presses on my shoulders but Ford grips my hips and tugs me to him. “But we aren’t going back to earlier.”
“Ford. We should be somewhere special. A fancy restaurant or an elegant hotel, not . . .” I glance over my shoulder at a picture of muted candles over the bed. “Not here.”
“But I didn’t meet you at some five-star restaurant or upscale hotel. And I wanted to start over.”
He suddenly looks so innocent, and I cup his jaw, the stubble prickling my palms. “That’s so sweet, cowboy.”
He leans forward and kisses me, but this kiss is nothing like earlier.
Where that kiss was tender, this one reminds me of that first kiss we shared.
When we’d been arguing outside my sister’s wedding, and I ordered him to apologize to me.
Ford has nothing to be sorry for tonight, though.
He’s been nothing but good to me lately, and I want him to know how I feel about him.
I’m falling hard for him. And losing him would be so much worse than losing anyone else.
So tonight, we pretend.
Breaking the kiss, I reach around Ford and click off the light. “Maybe in the dark, we won’t feel like we’re in the middle of a birthday cake.”
Ford reaches awkwardly behind his back and flicks the light back on. “But I want to see every inch of you while I devour you.”
“Oh, and you think you’ll be eating me?”
“Don’t lie to yourself. You know you want me to. You know I want to. Your pussy is becoming my favorite treat.”
“Well, you sure know the way to a woman’s heart.”
Ford covers my hammering heart with his flat palm. “Somehow I doubt that’s all it takes to get to yours.”
“Cowboy,” I whisper, but Ford is cutting me off, filling my mouth with his tongue while his lips meld against mine. He presses me to back up and I take the few steps to the bed without breaking our kiss. When my knees hit the edge, I fold to the mattress and stare up at him.
“When you look at me like that . . .” He runs his thumb over my lower lip, tugging it downward.
Any second, we’re going to be saying things neither of us might be ready to hear. Or maybe it’s that I’m afraid to say those words, so I reach for his waistband and tug him toward me.
Ford stumbles a bit from the force and catches himself on my shoulders.
“Since it’s your birthday, I was thinking spankings might be in order.”
“You are not spanking me,” he threatens as I unbutton his jeans and lower the zipper, giving his thick shaft space.
“I was talking about me.”
“Fuck,” Ford mutters.
He gently presses at my shoulders, forcing me to fall back on the bed, where I bounce once.
With laughter, I scramble further backward on the mattress before Ford catches my ankles and flips me face down.
A squeal escapes me. Ford climbs over my body, straddling my thighs while tossing the skirt of my dress above my hips.
“You’ve been wearing this beneath this dress all day.” He growls. There’s no real question in the statement, just pure desire as he plucks the thin string of my thong between my ass-cheeks.
Ford leans forward, catching himself on his good arm. “I should punish you for running from me.” He lightly taps one bare cheek. “Maybe for keeping secrets, too.” He smacks the other a little harder, the sting forcing me to lift my head.
“Do we need a safe word?” he asks.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“Had your ass spanked?” Surprise fills his tone as I glance at him over my shoulder the best I can.
Our reflection in the mirror above the dresser catches my eye. My backside on display. Ford straddling my legs. I want him to take me just like we are, and he must sense my desire because he meets my stare in the mirror.
“Gonna get to all the things tonight, baby. And then we’re going to do something else you haven’t done.” Ford leans forward again, his mouth close to my ear. “I’m going to hold you all night. Spoons. Knives and forks. Whatever utensil you want to call it. You’ll be mine. And in my arms.”
This turns me on more than it should, and I buck my hips, forcing my backside upward to nudge at Ford. His hand comes harder on my ass in response, and I squeal again, but then his fingers slide between my crease and lower for where I’m wet and ready for him.
Ford tugs the thin material and the fabric snaps. “Better,” he groans before slipping two fingers into me. My knees bend but I have nowhere to go. Ford is holding me down and I want to rock.
“Need to move, baby?”
“Yes,” I whimper.
“Not yet.” He smacks my ass again, pulls his two fingers out, then rushes in again.
I moan at the sensation. Then he’s twisting those fingers, and his thumb slips between my cheeks.
“Ford,” I whimper, lifting my head again.
“Another something you haven’t done?”
I drop my head once more, shaking it against the polka dot coverlet.
“But you like me teasing you, don’t you?”
He isn’t asking for an answer. He can feel how my body is responding to his fingers inside me, his thumb against the puckered hole, teasing me. I’m grinding into the bed, fighting against Ford’s thighs over mine, and yet loving the restraint.
“Gonna come, sweetheart.” No question. Pure fact.
Within seconds, I’m screaming into the bed cover beneath me as Ford presses harder at my hole and slides his fingers faster into my entrance.
I didn’t expect to come without clit stimulation, but I’m rubbing against one of those raised dots on the bed in just the right spot, and suddenly, I’m like a firework, exploding in the night.
“Yes,” Ford hisses behind me as my body lights up and I let go.
While I’m still in the throes of the high, he removes his fingers and flips me to my back. He presses my dress up above my hips. His eyes focus between my thighs where I’m soaked and dripping, and still throbbing with need.
“Now, I eat cake for my birthday.”
My knees are bent beneath his forearms as he scoots back a bit and presses his face between my legs. His tongue laps. His lips suck. He even gives that sensitive spot a nip, and Ford eats like I’m the tastiest dessert ever.
“Frosting,” he licks up my slit.
“Filling,” he delves his tongue inward.
“Pure sweetness.” He kisses me, then starts the process all over again. My legs tremble. Something drips down to my ass. I’m a mess and I’m loving every minute of it, but it’s Ford’s birthday.
“Need to celebrate you,” I remind him.
“We’ll be getting to that.”
“Gonna let me lick you like an ice cream cone after this cake?”
Ford groans against me, lifts me by my backside, and cups my cheeks like he’s holding up a bowl and slurping the contents within. His tongue moves faster. His mouth presses firmer. He flicks my clit and, like a match, I light up again, crying out his name.
He doesn’t relent until there doesn’t seem to be a spark left in that orgasm. Then, he lowers me to the bed. I’d tossed an arm over my eyes. The room too bright. Ford too much. But he reaches for my wrist and tugs my arm down.
“Ice cream time,” he announces. “But first. Get naked.”