Chapter 30
IT’S THAT TIME
“Oh golly,” Quinn sighs, “I don’t think I’ve got a fourth story in me tonight.” She turns to me, questioning, all that’s missing is her bushy tail.
“No.” I shake my head, and drag my hand across my throat. “Don’t you dare con Miss Quinn and take advantage of her good story-reading nature, Sadie Ruth.”
She kicks her feet under the covers, sending them rippling as she laughs wildly. Quinn smirks and grabs her ankle over the comforter. “You tricked me!”
Sadie laughs, but eventually sits up and takes her around the neck, her little hands getting lost in Quinn’s golden hair. They share words, hushed and deliberately private, and hug for a moment longer. And I ache to see this on a daily basis.
When Quinn gets up, I get to my knee and give Sadie a kiss, and a very long hug. We exchange I love yous, and she doesn’t say a word about Miss Quinn going down the hall toward my room when she leaves.
Quietly we head downstairs and find ourselves sinking into the porch swing, watching the stars through the sheeting. She rests her head on my chest, and I stroke my hand over her head, and the world feels right.
“Quinn,” I broach, and just saying her name makes me vibrate.
She reaches for my hand and her touch fills me with desire.
It’s wild and exciting to know I still have life in me, that I’m more than hardened grief and softened acceptance.
I thought the best for me was dulling all the sharp pains inside me just to survive, that surviving successfully was the best goal I could ever aim for.
With her around, I see that things are possible and life can be good again. That I’m a man of a pair, meant to be part of a team, and I know now for sure I don’t want to be alone.
I need Quinn, and I want her to stay.
And we haven’t had even a free second to talk lately, what with exhibition and training rides, bullshit with the Montgomerys, impromptu ice cream parties, and everything else.
But we need to talk. Time is closing in on us, and I feel the suffocation of it coming.
I planned on talking to her earlier, but we were tugged out into another ice cream party which inevitably resulted in a Slip ’N Slide party which then turned into handmade pizzas by the fire and late-night kid rides on Daisy.
Quinn’s been with Sadie all day, never asking for a break, never begging off. And the other night, we were simply too exhausted to make love or talk.
She strokes her fingers down my forearm, lazily tracing my tattoos as I use one foot to keep the swing swaying.
Cicadas sing, and the porch creaks, and Quinn sighs as she gets to the pinup tattoo, her absolute favorite.
Through the open window above us, I can barely hear Sadie’s sound machine, lulling her into a sleep full of dreams and sweet nothings.
This is the most perfect life, right here and now.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Quinn asks, touching the side of my neck, then my cheek. She loves touching me and I love being casually adored by her. It makes me feel better than winning any rodeo could.
I look down at her draped on my chest, her legs intertwined with mine, green eyes sparkling.
I smile. “I’m in love with you, Quinn.”
Her eyes widen and she lifts off of me, pushing back to put a little space between us. “What?”
She’s so beautiful, and I swear she looks like the definition of love here on my porch in the moonlight. “I love you, and I want you to stay. And I want to be with you, for real, forever.”
My heart is racing, despite the fact that I feel pretty calm.
I’ve come to terms with how I feel about Quinn, and what it will mean if I do this and she says no.
Nothing would change. Our agreement is to annul shortly after the rodeo, and if she says she doesn’t love me right here and now, well, the outcome is the same and at least I will have taken my damn shot. For me and my girl.
“Landry, I love you, too,” she says as relief hollows my chest, emptying the tension and stress with just those words.
“Yeah?” I rub the back of my neck as heat crawls into my ears. “Really?”
She lunges, landing against my chest, and my arms wrap around her, my lips finding hers. “Yes, of course I love you, dummy.” She giggles, pressing kisses on the corner of my mouth, against my lips, and all over my cheeks as the swing sways wildly. “And of course I want to stay.”
I bury my head in the crook of her neck, losing myself in the vanilla and familiarity of her hair and perfume, feeling my eyes sting. “I love you,” I repeat, wanting to say it again, for all the times I felt it but denied it. “I love you so much.”
She stays in my arms, her words trapped between us. “You and Sadie gave me a home here, a home I didn’t know I was looking for, one I didn’t know I needed. But I do. I need Sable Sky, I need Vaughn Ranch, and I need the two of you.”
Quinn tugs my T-shirt down around the collar, pressing her lips to my bare chest as I sift my fingers through her hair, pulling it back, away from her face.
“I’m so glad to hear you say that,” I admit as my eyes fall closed, her mouth carving a trail of adoration and ownership up my neck and along my ear.
She reaches between us, going to my pants, and I grab her wrist. “The condoms are upstairs.”
Our eyes lock. There’s still so much we have to discuss. Being in love is just the beginning. But she’s said she wants to be here, that she doesn't want to leave. Quinn kisses me, our faces but an inch from one another’s when she whispers, “I know. I don’t care.”
I tug her little shorts aside, and panties, too, and she frees my cock from my jeans, and right there on the porch swing with the cicadas chirping, she sinks down on me bareback.
I take her face in my hands and crush my mouth to hers, overwhelmed with how good this all feels. Quinn rides slow, lifting her hips a little, sinking back down slowly, her eyes holding mine the whole time.
“You feel so fucking good, baby,” I praise her pussy, how wet and tight she is, how velvety she feels.
I reach back and fill my hands with her plump little cheeks and encourage her to ride me faster, lifting her up and guiding her down.
Her head falls back, and the ends of her hair dust my knuckles as I guide her through her first bareback ride.
“Oh my god, Landry,” she whines, letting go of her grip of my chest and throat to pull up her little Skynyrd tee, exposing her full breasts, the little pink tips stiff and plucky.
I crash my mouth to one, sucking it onto my tongue as she mewls with delight.
Her spine arches, and I bring my hands to her tits, cupping and kneading them as I lick and suck her nipples, moving my greedy mouth between the two.
She rolls her hips, fucking me slow and deep, her soft moans scrambling my brain, pushing my restraint farther and farther away.
“Damn, baby, you have such a hot little body, I love your tight little pussy and these perfect tits,” I tell her, still cupping one breast, my other hand pressed to her flat belly, just above her groin. I grip her lightly, and her hips cease rolling as our eyes slam together.
“I’m gonna give you a belly, and you’re gonna look so pretty with my baby inside you.
You’re gonna be goddamn perfect sitting on this swing, holding our baby, feeding it with these breasts.
” My cock is painfully rigid inside of her, and she tests me, clenching, whining in tandem with my words.
“I’m gonna breed my beautiful, young wife, and keep her pregnant because I can’t keep my filthy hands off of her, did you know that?
You, my wife, are gonna be on your back with your legs spread every day of your life because you’re so goddamn sweet, so perfect, so special,” I praise, meaning every word, seeing every single bit of it in our future.
She nods, panting, sweat beading on her forehead as she swivels her hips to take me at a different angle, sinking down to get every inch inside. We both groan at the movement, my orgasm snaking down my spine, readying itself in my groin, coiling, hot and potent.
“Yes, Landry, yes, put a baby in me, please,” she moans, fucking me so hard I’ve gotta dig my heel into the ground to keep the swing from smackin’ the house.
“You want my cum?” I grit out, her little pussy milking me as she finds her release.
“Oh god, Landry, I’m coming, please, come with me, come with me,” she begs, her hips still working fast as she chases her high, finding pleasure on my cock, which sends me over the edge.
“There you go, baby, come on my cock, fuck, that feels good,” I tell her, pulling her face down to mine, crashing my mouth to hers. “You ready?” I ask, nipping kisses off her lips as she clenches me, still grinding and fucking herself, eyes hooded.
She nods as my cock swells, throbbing in pulses as my orgasm tears through me, erupting in white-hot waves.
“Landry.” She moans my name as her hips stop their journey, and she sinks down on me fully, taking my cock as deep as she can as I fill her instead of a condom.
It feels like heaven, and my toes curl in my boots as my orgasm trails off, and my cock calms inside of her.
Quinn leans back and holds my eyes as she strokes her fingertips over the base of my shaft, right below where I’m still buried inside her.
“I love bareback everything,” she sighs, bracing her feet against my thighs, holding the back of my neck to keep her steady.
Slowly, she lifts herself nearly off, keeping the head of my cock inside of her.
We watch as white cream slides out of her pink pussy, down my shaft, before she sinks back down, sending it all back inside.
“Well, cowboy,” she says as I help her off of me, nearly getting hard again when she rights her panties and slams her legs together to— “I’m goin’ to keep you inside me as long as I can.”
She straightens her little shirt. “You’re right, bareback is better.”
I pull her against me and drape the blanket over her lean, bare legs. “I think you’re right about that.”
We sway in the swing, and Quinn tells me that in the last few days, she’s gotten the idea for a series of small-town documentaries.
She tells me that she’s met so many incredible people in Sable Sky while learning about me that she believes there’s enough content here to get a whole series of small-town documentaries.
I admit to her something I’ve been wrangling with for the last few weeks, too.
I tell her that maybe I’m not done with rodeo. I haven’t decided just yet, but with her here, the joy has come back.
Maybe this will be my comeback, and not just for a film, but for real.
I thought I was done with the rodeo, but that was when I was at my lowest, and holding on to bronc ridin’ just didn’t feel important.
With happiness and clarity, both of those things I gained with Quinn's presence, I’m starting to wonder if a real comeback wouldn’t be a good thing.
We talk and swing, and Quinn tells me one day, whenever life has slowed down and things are calm, we should have another ceremony, just for us, and to that, I agree.
That night we sleep together, as husband and wife, in our bed.