Chapter 12 #2
Clay’s breath hitched as a rush of words affirming his intention to do exactly that stumbled over each other in their haste to get out.
Deciding on action instead, he strode the half dozen paces to the haystack and threw himself down beside her in a much less elegant fashion than Stevie had managed.
Immediately the grassy aroma was superseded by the floral scent of her, winding its way through his system, unfurling like a drug, tripping through his pulse, utterly intoxicating him.
With her knees still bent, she fell back, her hair fanning out like a corona on the blanket, and Clay rolled to his side, searching her face for any signs of hesitancy or renitence.
There was none.
‘I thought you might back out,’ he said as his hand slid to her belly, the muscles beneath jumping at his touch.
Her fingers touched his face, her thumb stroking the whiskers peppering the hard ridge of his jawline, the soft scratchy noise loud between them. He could see the pulse beating hard above the hollow at her throat. ‘Wild horses couldn’t have stopped me coming to the barn tonight.’
Clay nodded slowly. She was sure. She wanted to make out with him on this haystack. And he sure as fuck wanted it, too.
Still, he forced himself to temper the wild impulse to plunder her mouth, rake his hands down her body, rip open her buttons, put his mouth to her nipples, his fingers inside her panties.
He’d lectured her about going slow and slow he would go – even if it killed him.
Leaning in, he kissed her lightly then, his pulse a bull’s roar through his veins, her small, throaty moan a rodeo crowd ovation through his head. It was close-lipped but he let it linger on her mouth, her soft sigh telling him all he needed to know.
She was into it.
Drifting his lips north, he dropped kisses along her jaw to her ear then across her cheekbone, to her eyelids and the freckles across her nose before he sampled her mouth again.
But this time, obviously not satisfied with a second chaste press of his lips, she was waiting for him, opening to him, her moan deeper now, more desperate, digging claws into his resolve as her hand furrowed into his hair.
Her rough breathing filled his head, accelerating the in-out chug of his own breath, each inhalation drenching his system with the perfume of her, chipping away at his determination to keep in check, swamping his control, the kiss getting deeper and harder and longer.
Where he found the wherewithal to pull away, Clay would never know, but he stepped back from the edge to rain kisses down her throat, shushing her protest at his absence against the rigid column of her throat, bussing hot, wet circles as his lips moved down, her thick swallow pressing against the flat of his tongue.
When he reached the frantic thrum of her pulse, he lingered, sucking lightly, the buzz of her life force sweet against his tongue, the knowledge that he was making her heart beat hard even sweeter.
The knowledge his was beating just as hard was a heady kind of rush.
As he dipped further, Clay’s lips moved to the shallow basin where her collarbones met, and lower still, tracing a wet trail to the scoop of her neckline and that first tempting little button.
He heard her gasp as his tongue flicked out to swipe under the shirt and his hand curled in the fabric sitting against her belly to stop himself from reefing the shirt down and sucking on one of those taut nipples he could see already tenting the lace.
Not yet.
Flattening his palm, he dragged his mouth back to hers, gratified at the slackness of her parted mouth and her not-quite-focused gaze, like she was a little high and he was her drug of choice. She looked in thrall and Clay wanted to beat his chest and holler like a fucking caveman.
He’d made her look like that. His mouth, his touch. She was in thrall to him.
‘You look good like that,’ he murmured, dropping a kiss to each corner of her mouth.
She gave a half laugh, which Clay felt reverberating through her abdominal muscles. ‘Like what?’
‘Intoxicated.’
Her lips curved into a smile as she made an effort to focus on him. ‘I am definitely drunk on you, Clay Calhoun.’
Her admission was like a lit match to the simmer of his libido. She was drunk on him. And he was drunk on her. He kissed her mouth harder this time and she responded in kind, the sweetness of her ardour a rising sugar tide in his blood, and he couldn’t get enough.
He was addicted to Stevie Everhart. God help him.
They kissed for long drugging minutes. Just kissing.
Experimenting with their mouths, fitting together perfectly, twisting and turning, his tongue searching out all the spots that made her sigh and moan and twist the hand in his hair a little harder.
When he pulled away, Clay was pretty sure he also looked intoxicated.
Her eyes fluttered open when she realised more kisses weren’t forthcoming. ‘Are we stopping?’
An unhappy frown told him stopping was not something she wanted to do.
He grinned as he shook his head. On the contrary. He lifted his hand from her belly, touching his index finger to her chin before trekking it down the path his mouth had taken before all that serious necking. It reached the scoop of her shirt and stopped.
‘You said only over clothes before?’
Her eyes widened a little. ‘Uh huh.’
‘Like this?’
Clay’s other fingers joined in, brushing lightly down the front of her shirt from neckline to the hemline then back up again, dragging over the hard bumps of her nipples as they went back and forth, back and forth. She gasped at each pass, her mouth parting, her back arching at the stimulus.
‘Like this?’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ she said on a tiny pant. ‘But… it didn’t… it didn’t feel like that.’
Clay smiled triumphantly. He didn’t have to ask to know that his touch felt better. ‘Is it okay?’
She nodded vigorously. ‘God yes,’ she breathed out on a half laugh.
‘What about this?’
Clay’s hand slid from the last button of her shirt, heading south, traversing the bare strip of her belly, down the bumpy buttons of her fly to the seam of her jeans nestled snug between her legs. ‘Is this okay?’
She bucked against the trace of his index finger as he brushed slowly along the seam, back and forth, her breath hitching with each pass. ‘Yes,’ she panted.
Her bent knees fell apart and he smiled at how eager she was. His gaze locked with hers. ‘Do you ever touch yourself here?’
Her hips shifted as Clay kept up the rhythm. ‘I have,’ she admitted with surprising frankness. He’d thought she might demur and the fact she hadn’t told him she was over her shyness or just too turned on to object. ‘But not often.’
‘You don’t like it?’
‘It feels good at the time but…’ She moaned and arched her back as Clay’s finger exerted a little more pressure along the seam. ‘I just feel… lonely after.’
Clay nodded. Solo sexual gratification was a transitory pleasure but he could guarantee she wouldn’t feel lonely after she’d come for him.
‘Does this feel good?’ he asked, watching her face flush and her mouth part as he rubbed his finger along the seam a little firmer, her hips rising to meet the stroke of his finger as if seeking more pressure.
‘Uh huh,’ she said on a strangled kind of whisper.
‘God, you look good,’ he muttered, taking her in, her eyes glittering with pleasure, her cheeks warm with desire, her knees spread wide, her teeth biting into her bottom lip.
‘I feel good.’
‘Can I undo your shirt?’
The thick swallow of her throat betrayed her desire more thoroughly than any words, but her quick nod was all the invitation Clay needed, pulling his hand from the seam of her jeans to that top pink button.
He hadn’t planned on undoing them, he’d just wanted the thought that he might, ramping up the anticipation even further.
But he was salivating at the thought of seeing her bared to him.
At the thought of sucking those hard nipples into his mouth.
He didn’t want to remove her shirt altogether – too much, too fast.
He just wanted a peek. A taste.
He watched her as the first button ceded easily to his questing fingers – thank fuck – popping open without effort. Stevie’s eyes widened and her breath hitched as her gaze drifted to where the fabric gaped a little and, unable to stop himself, Clay dropped a kiss on the spot of exposed flesh.
A soft whimper fell from her lips, stoking the fire in his blood, urging him on. One by one, the buttons fell open, his lips pressing more kisses until the shirt was completely open, revealing what he’d already felt – or hadn’t felt.
No bra.
With his index finger he gently pushed the fabric covering her breasts aside, exposing her to his gaze.
‘They’re… not very big,’ she said, an apology in her voice.
‘They’re perfect,’ he murmured on a rush of exhaled air. Because they were. Small and high and firm, tipped with puckered pale-pink nipples like icing rosettes on the top of a cupcake, and he bet they tasted just as sweet.
Without seeking permission this time, Clay lowered his head and sucked one tempting peak into his mouth, her cry of pleasure, the arch of her back, gratifying down to his bones.
Clay felt like a fucking god. And when he’d done swirling his tongue and scraping his teeth against that one, he switched to the other, the push of her hand into his hair holding him fast, confirming she was as in to this as he.
It felt like an age when he finally roused himself from worshipping her breasts, from the addictive sounds of Stevie panting and moaning and mewling her pleasure as he licked and sucked her nipples, twisting her hands in his hair as she urged him on.
He was breathing heavy when he lifted his head to capture her gaze, which was brimming with bliss and boiling with frustration. Clay knew exactly how she felt. His still hard cock was reaching strangulation point and his balls were so blue they were practically navy.
But blue balls never killed anybody – he could wait.
Sliding his fingers down her torso once again, he took up the teasing caress along the seam of her jeans once more, her legs still akimbo. ‘Ever had a guy bring you to climax?’
Clay knew the answer but he asked anyway, and he was glad he did because the flare of desire burning brightly in her eyes licked at his libido like a wildfire.
‘No.’
‘Do you want to?’ So much for taking this slow. ‘We don’t have to,’ he assured, his fingers keeping up the action at her seam. ‘There’s plenty of time.’
His balls might just rupture but he didn’t want to push her out of her comfort zone the first time they made out.
Nodding furiously, she said, ‘Please.’
‘You want it like this?’ His finger flicked at a point along the seam he hoped was near her clit. The buck of her hips and the sharp intake of her breath told him he’d landed in the vicinity at least. ‘Or you want my hand down your panties?’
Even saying that word had anticipation fizzing in his blood like fireworks. He wanted to touch her there with no barriers. Hell, he wanted to taste her but he was barely keeping himself in check as it was; going down on her was not conducive to restraint.
Her throat bobbed but her gaze didn’t waver from his as she said, ‘Panties.’
Clay grinned. ‘Excellent choice.’
And he didn’t waste any time getting to it. He didn’t tease his way there – he’d done enough of that tonight. Nor did he slowly undo her fly in the way he’d done her shirt; he just pushed his hand beneath the denim waistband and then the silkier one beneath.
Clay knew his hands were rough and calloused from years of roping and manual labour so he urged himself to be gentle, but her gasp as his fingers slid straight to their target, finding the swollen knot of nerves at the apex of her sex, told him she did not object to his methods.
‘Christ,’ he groaned, her warm slickness lubricating his roughness, watching her face as he circled her clit. ‘You’re so wet, Stevie girl.’
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, her eyes fluttering shut like it was impossible to keep them open, her face fixed into a grimace but not of pain or distaste.
Clay knew that look well. It was complete and total sexual immersion and hell if he was going to insert himself into that bubble.
His job now was to coax her body to crescendo and even though he suspected making Stevie come would ruin him, he could think of nothing more important in this moment than doing exactly that.
He lowered his head, sucking her nearest nipple into his mouth, the arch of her back, her low moan vibrating against his lips, urging him on.
It didn’t take long; she was well primed and Clay knew exactly what he was doing, his fingers not moving from her clitoris.
He didn’t try to plunge them inside her – he wanted his cock to be the first thing a man put inside her – or do anything fancy, he just rubbed at the hard nub, circling slowly as his tongue circled her nipple, waiting for signs to pick up the pace.
When she started to gasp and pant and thrash, he quickened the pace – bit by bit in time with her clues – until her hands were once again buried and twisting in his hair and she was crying out his name, straining and arching, ending in a final keening cry of ‘Claaaaay!’ as she tipped over the edge, her body bucking to the urgent dictates of her release, her nipple impossibly hard against his tongue.
He sucked it – deep – the stimulus seeming to course like an arc of electricity through her body, kicking her orgasm to new heights as she held him to her breast and moaned his name this time, long and low and perfect.
A chord that reached inside him and yanked.
A note that surged through his rock-hard dick, pushing him perilously close to his own orgasm.
Christ… do not come in your Levi’s, man. This is not about you.
Clamping down on the sensations threatening to overtake him, Clay concentrated on Stevie – on her pleasure.
Alternating between sucking and stroking her nipple as pleasure ravaged her body, wringing every last gasp and moan from her mouth and spasm from her body before it spun away and she lay spent and lax on the blanket, gasping for air, a smile as big as Wyoming on her mouth.