Chapter 13 #2
“Wow,” she said, suppressing a grin. “It doesn’t feel weird to have me here.”
“Well. It just … It never felt right. The idea of bringing someone back here. My place. Where …”
“You can be yourself.”
She said it so simply. So directly, a straight dagger through his heart. Because he was so many different people in so many different places. But not here. On this lonesome ridge that his grandfather had given him. The only person who maybe knew him and understood him exactly the way he was.
“Good point.”
“Well. It’s only fair that you let me up here. Because you’re the one person who’s been in my house. Who knows me.” She stood up and closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I really like you, Flynn.”
Her words warmed his heart. Which was a sentence he had never thought of in his life.
Nothing and no one had ever warmed him before. This felt like Thanksgiving and Christmas, if he were someone else. Someone with a family who wasn’t quite as dysfunctional as his.
Her kiss turned savage, and he loved it. Wanted to revel in it. In everything Jessie Jane.
She moved her fingers through his hair, ran her hands down his face, and he felt a growl rise in his throat.
She was perfect.
“Jessie,” he said.
“Flynn.”
She pulled away from him, and she smiled. “I can’t believe it. I still can’t.”
“That we’re finally doing this?”
“Yes. And that I’m brave enough. Finally.”
She went back to him, claiming him with another hot kiss.
Then she pulled her shirt up over her head and revealed a simple white bra that honestly drove him insane.
This was the kind of thing he didn’t get because he didn’t do intimacy.
He got going-out lingerie, underwear that was meant to be seen, and there was definitely something hot about that, but her plain white T-shirt bra was doing things to him that he didn’t think he could ever explain.
She licked her lips, moved her hands to her belt buckle, and stripped her jeans off. And there she was, white cotton bra, white cotton underwear. Her arms were toned, her midsection firm, her thighs well defined from all that trick riding she did.
She was a specimen, was Jessie Jane. He had always thought she was beautiful. Hot. Had always known that sex with her would be incredible.
But that fantasy sex was with the woman he’d thought she was. Sex with the real Jessie Jane was better than he could’ve ever imagined. And there were aspects of it he could never have anticipated.
She reached around behind her back and unhooked her bra, let it fall loose before casting it to the ground.
She was bold, keeping eye contact with him as she took her underwear off too, leaving her entirely naked while he wore way too many clothes.
She moved to him and planted her hand in the center of his chest, pushing him back toward the mattress, and he went willingly. Which was how he found himself, still wearing boots, jeans, a shirt, and hat, lying flat on his back with a naked woman over him.
He could die happy. Honestly.
She raked her fingernails down his clothed chest, and he arched his hips upward, searching for some kind of relief for the need that flooded him.
“Don’t try to buck me off, cowboy. You know that doesn’t work with me.”
Yeah. He did know. He also knew he wanted this woman to ride him.
Badly.
“You’re a quick learner,” he said.
“I just know what to do. Because it’s you.”
He didn’t want to question that. Didn’t want to dig into it too deeply. He just wanted to keep it. Hold it close. “Undress me,” he said.
“You’re bossy,” she said.
“We both are. So let’s make the most of it.” He moved his hand, cupped her rear, then gave it a smack. “Take my shirt off.”
Her breath was coming in short, hard gasps as she pushed his shirt upward and eventually off.
She leaned down, her nipples skimming his chest as she kissed him, and he growled through clenched teeth. “Lord have mercy,” he groaned.
She got off him, then turned her focus to his belt and his jeans. He flicked his hat off his head, and he heard it hit the wall next to the bed and bounce onto the floor. He didn’t care.
She took his jeans and underwear down, tugging them lower and lower, and when she got to his ankles, she took his boots off along with everything else. Then she moved back up into position and stopped.
She looked at him, mischief shining bright her eyes, and then she leaned over and took his cock in her mouth.
“Dammit,” he said, his breath hissing through his teeth.
He moved his hands up to grab her hair, fistfuls of that gorgeous silk, and she took him in as deep as he had ever been taken. He was weak.
Her lips were like salvation, her tongue an incantation. And the sure glide of her mouth over him was a hallelujah chorus. He was undone.
He had never thought much of God, but he was sure right then that he saw him.
In vivid detail.
He tried to keep his eyes open, so that he could watch her. That familiar, beautiful face doing those things to him.
Jessie Jane.
Jessie Jane Hancock.
“I need … no more of that,” he ground out he pushed her away from him with great effort. He deserved a medal of honor for that.
“I was enjoying myself,” she said.
“Me too. Too much. That’s not how I want it.”
“What about how I want it?”
“I don’t think that’s how you want it.”
Her cheeks went pink, and he reached over and grabbed a condom out of the box. Then he moved toward her and put his hands between her legs, stroking her until she was whimpering, until she was moving her hips in time with his rhythm. Until he knew she was right on the edge.
Then he lay down on his back, grabbed her hips, and brought her down over the top of him. “Ride me.”
“Flynn I … I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
“Judging by what you just did to me, you absolutely know what you’re doing. You know what I want. I want you. Get on me and ride.”
She bit her lower lip, and he gripped the base of his shaft, angling it upward as she lowered herself slowly onto him, and took him in inch by devastating inch.
He nearly blacked out.
Judging by the way she was digging crescent moons into his shoulders with her nails, she was close too.
“That’s right,” he said. “You might be kind of a bad girl, but you’re a good girl for me, Jessie Jane. So make it good.”
She moaned and began to rock her hips back and forth, the subtle movement driving him crazy. Then she began to move, establishing a rhythm that was both too slow and too fast all at once. Too much.
She cried out, and her internal muscles pulsed around him, and he gripped her hips, driving her up and down on his length for a moment before he reversed their positions, completely out of control now, just following the beat of his own pleasure.
She cried out again, and he let go. Her name on his lips, desire a beast that grabbed his throat and wrung him out completely.
Left him damn near dead.
He lay on his back, his forearm thrown over his face, and Jessie moved up to him, snuggling her face into his neck. They were lying sideways on the bed, and he realized his feet were hanging off. He didn’t care.
“Wow,” she said.
“Damn straight,” he responded.
“That was … that was incredible, actually.”
“Well, thank you.”
“I can stay the night?”
“You have to stay the night,” he said.
“You don’t have to be bossy,” she said.
“I’m bossy,” he responded. “As we just covered.”
“Well then, in that case …”
She slipped away from him and moved up to the top of the bed, sliding beneath the covers, and snuggling into his pillow. She was on his side of the bed. But then, he had always slept in this bed alone, so he supposed he didn’t really have a dedicated side.
So that could be hers.
He sat up, then went into the bathroom to dispose of the condom before coming back out and joining her in bed.
“I have to prepare for that damn debate,” she said.
He turned toward her, and his lips were right there, next to her temple, so it seemed totally logical that he ought to kiss it. “You’re going to be great.”
“I’m afraid this is where people are going to find out that I’m kind of a fraud? And you know what, I never minded being a fraud. But I do now.”
“Why do you think you’re a fraud?”
“Because I … I don’t know … I don’t know anything about policy, really. I mean, I have read up on a lot of things, and I know the city code pretty well.”
“Of course you do. You run a business here. You’re part of the town.
And maybe you can’t play the game in quite the same way that Danielle does, but I think that’s a plus.
You’re one of us. And you want things to move in favor of those of us who own businesses in this town. Who work here. Who live here.”
“You would think that Danielle would too.”
“No. You know how she is. She thinks she’s better than everyone else.
She thinks she can make this place better than it is.
But her version of better is … it’s just snobby.
She thinks she’s fancier than Rustler Mountain.
But if she moved into a bigger pond, she would never have this kind of power.
It’s why she stays here. Not for the love of it, but for the love of the status she has in this place. ”
“Wow. Well, when you put it like that …”
“She doesn’t have to be exceptional here. She’s coasting on the legacy of our grandfather, and she is not doing him proud.”
“I guess … not.”
“Very not. Trust me.”
“Well, I do want to do what’s right for the town. I also would really like to ride in one of those cool convertibles in the Christmas parade.”
He laughed. “Well, I think that could be arranged.”
“Who doesn’t secretly want to be a parade princess?”
“I don’t. But I’m happy for you.”
She laughed, and he thought that he could maybe die happy if her laugh was the last thing he ever heard.
“Tomorrow, let’s go into town and do some shopping. We’ll visit all the businesses, and we’ll make sure everybody knows about the debate. Make sure all the people you want to know about the debate know about it.”
“You’re brilliant, do you know that? I could’ve had you be my campaign manager instead of being my fake boyfriend.”
He chuckled. And yet, fake just seemed like a weird word to use here. Because nothing between them felt especially fake.
He didn’t say that, though.
“Well, we created more gossip this way. And you did want that.”
“Definitely.” She pursed her lips. “I do know how to create a spectacle. I’m very good at that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She let out a long, slow breath. “Do I seem different to you?”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I just feel different.”
“I guess I just … I’ve always felt I’ve known you. Granted, I know you better now than I did. But you don’t seem different to me. You seem like a woman who knows what she wants. And is on the right track to get it. And for that, you ought to be damn proud of yourself.”
There was silence in the room. “I am,” she said finally.
Flynn fell asleep with a smile on his face.