38. Audrey
AUDREY
Dinner was easy.
Easy conversation, easy laughter.
The only tense part was talking about Dean, but Ridge didn’t push, and I liked that about him. The way he knew when to back off, when to give me space.
We finished dinner and I cleared the table while he loaded the dishwasher, a partnership that felt intuitive.
It was all new for me. When I’d been married to Dean, I’d done the cooking and the clean-up, a routine we’d fallen into almost without discussion.
Dean got home later than I did. It only made sense for me to take care of dinner, and his days at the company were demanding, so it only made sense for me to clean up, get Ella to bed, while he retired to his office to do more work.
Or that’s what I told myself back then.
It wasn’t until after the divorce that I’d realized how fucked up it had all been. How little respect was given to me for my own work, which was at least as demanding and draining as Dean’s.
Ridge didn’t ask for credit when he cooked or when he did the dishes. He had that easy way about him, just getting things done that needed to get done.
No timesheet. No scorecard.
We ate ice cream in the living room, passing pints back and forth like we’d been doing it forever. Ridge told me about Holden’s exploits with fire on the farm — a blaze in the east field that had required the fire department, a smaller one in the tractor barn that hadn’t.
“Is that where he got the scar?” I asked.
Ridge shook his head, passing me his pint. “That one’s not my story to tell.”
He told me about Graham’s love for the ranch, the way it was in Graham’s blood, in his bones. The way the bank had come after him when his dad died, thanks to a second mortgage Graham hadn’t known about.
“What did he do?” I asked. “How did he manage to keep it?”
Ridge shook his head. “That’s not my story to tell either.”
There seemed to be secrets everywhere on the ranch, but they weren’t the kinds of secrets Dean had kept from me in our marriage.
The cheating. Whatever was going on at the company.
The Bulls’ secrets were the kinds of secrets I kept. Things I’d had to do during hard times to stay afloat.
To keep Ella safe.
To stay alive.
They were secrets I could live with. Secrets I understood.
We put the pints back in the freezer and turned off the lights in the kitchen.
Then Ridge leaned against the counter, took my hand, and pulled me against him.
I lit up like a Christmas tree. My body already remembered him.
Already remembered what he could do to me.
He slid his hands into my hair. “It’s just you and me tonight, wildcat. And I want you in my bed.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck, past the point of pretending I was being forced to be here. “Then take me to bed.”
He took my hand and led me up the stairs and into one of the rooms next to mine.
He turned on a lamp next to the bed and the room came into view, a masculine space with a rough-hewn bed I knew instinctively had been made by Ridge, a patterned rug on the wood floors.
The walls were painted a deep shade of blue so dark it was almost black. Together with the faint light from the night stand it cast shadows all around the room, making me feel like Ridge and I were alone in a world of our own making.
He took my hand and pulled me closer. “I’m surprised Graham let me have time alone with you.”
“I don’t think Graham cares much who I’m alone with.”
“You’d be surprised.” Ridge held my face in his hands and stroked my cheeks, and the warmth of his palms set a fire burning under my skin. “I could fucking look at you forever.”
“I don’t know why,” I said.
“That’s part of it.” His gaze skimmed my face, like he was making notes. “You don’t even know how fucking beautiful you are, how much we all want you, Graham included.”
I wanted to argue the point about Graham, but it seemed like bad form considering I was about to get into bed with Ridge.
And I didn’t want to talk about Graham anyway.
I want to be here with Ridge. Wanted to soak up every moment of the way he looked at me.
The way he touched me.
I thought he might kiss me. Instead he reached for the hem of my T-shirt and lifted it over my head.
“I should shower,” I said. “I usually do after being at the hospital.”
“We can absolutely shower,” he said.
He led me into the attached bathroom, a large luxurious space with an expansive walk-in shower, the tiles warm and wood-like. There was another big soaking tub, like the one in my room, and two sinks, which made me wonder if Ridge had ever had a girlfriend — or a wife.
I pushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter. Ridge was a year older than me, neither of us kids.
We both had our pasts.
He turned on the shower, then re-focused on getting me naked, stripping off my jeans and underwear, finishing with my bra.
His gaze raked my body. “Jesus christ, wildcat..”
“Stop.”
“Stop what? Telling you how fucking beautiful you are? How hot you make me.”
I looked down at my stomach, soft and striped with the shiny stretch marks that had been unwanted gifts from my pregnancy with Ella. “My stomach— ”
“Is perfect.” He pulled me against him and placed his hand over my naked stomach. “It made a home for Ella. Nothing more beautiful — nothing fucking sexier — than that.”
He pulled his hand away and stripped off his own clothes, shirt first, then the black work pants that seemed to be part of his uniform.
His dick sprang free, gloriously taut and hard, jutting between his thighs.
He took my hand and wrapped it around his shaft and a bolt of wet heat rushed between my thighs.
“See how fucking hot you are, wildcat? See what you do to me?”
He lowered his head to kiss me, and I stroked his rigid shaft while his tongue dove deep into my mouth. My tongue met his in a heated tangle and his cock got harder in my hand, drops of semen wet under my thumb on his thick crown.
Finally he groaned and reluctantly removed my hand from his dick. “Let’s get wet, wildcat.”
He tested the spray, then pulled me into the shower after him, placing my back to the spray of hot water.
The water pressure was amazing, and I tipped my head to let the water soak my hair. It rushed over my neck and shoulders, cascading down my body while Ridge cupped my tits in his hand.
“That feels so good.” I don’t know if I was talking about the hot water or Ridge’s hands, his fingers pinching my nipples.
Both.
“You’re telling me,” he growled.
He bent his head to one of my tits and took my nipple in his mouth, sucking until I moaned, tangling my fingers in his now-damp hair.
The pleasure was intense: the hot water streaming over my tired body, washing away the hard parts of my life while Ridge teased my nipple with his tongue.
I arched my back, wanting more, and he slipped his hand between my thighs.
I gasped when his fingers slid through my slick folds, brushing against my clit, already sensitive and begging for his touch, his mouth.
“You’re soaked, wildcat,” he said when he pushed his fingers inside.
I moved my hips as he circled my clit with his thumb, his fingers driving deep inside me, the water still beating on my back.
I slipped a hand between us and took his cock in my hand again.
He groaned and lifted his head, capturing my mouth in a feverish kiss, his tongue plundering my mouth while I rocked on his hand and stroked his dick.
I broke away, filled with the sudden urge to suck his cock.
“I want to take you in my mouth,” I said against his lips.
“You’re not going to hear me complain.”
He swapped places with me, putting himself under the spray so that I was clear of the falling water, and I got on my knees, barely registering the hard tile around my desire to have him in my mouth.
I stroked his shaft, relishing the silky softness of his skin in my palm, the thick engorged head of his dick that would soon press into my cunt, spreading me wide.
He stroked my hair and looked down at me, lust flaring in his hooded eyes.
I leaned in to lick the semen from his tip, then closed my mouth around his head to suck.
He drew in a sharp breath, his hand still on my head, and I took him deep in my mouth, let him sink slowly to the back of my throat.
“You take my cock so deep, wildcat. So fucking deep.”
I massaged the base of his shaft and dragged my mouth off his dick, then pushed onto him again. My pussy throbbed with desire, the feel of him in my mouth a promise of how it was going to feel when he fucked my cunt.
He groaned as I swallowed him whole, then dragged slowly off him before pushing onto him again, taking him all.
My own desire was thrumming like a song deep in my belly, my tits tingling in the overspray from the shower head. Ridge got bigger and harder in my mouth and I remembered the way Holden had come on my tongue, the way he’d tasted when I swallowed him down.
The memory made me move faster on Ridge’s dick, eager to taste him too, and I was so lost in the need to make him come, the anticipation of having him inside my pussy, that I was surprised when he dragged out of me in a hurry.
He held my face in his hands and stared down at me, looking like a sculpture chiseled out of marble, the water sluicing over the mountain ridges and cedar branches etched onto his skin.
“No more of that, wildcat. I’ve been dreaming about coming inside that tight little pussy again.”
He pulled me to my feet and spun me to face the wall, then nestled up against my back.
His skin was slick and hard, and he slid his arms around my waist to cup my tits as his lips seared a path along my shoulder, up my neck.
“Fucking perfection,” he murmured against my throat. “That’s what you are.”
And that’s how I felt under his hands.
His body.
His mouth.
He ran his hands down my arms and twined his fingers with mine, then lifted them over my head to place my hands on the shower wall.
“Hang tight, wildcat.”
I missed the heat of his body immediately. “Where are you going?”
“Condom,” he said.
Right, a condom. How far gone was I that I wasn’t even thinking about birth control?
He fumbled around in the vanity drawer and returned less than a minute later.
He ran a hand over my back and over my ass.
“I like that you’re a good girl for me.” He slipped his hand between my thighs from behind. “Are you my good fucking girl, wildcat?”
“Yes!’ I gasped when he plunged his fingers inside me.
The time I’d spent with his dick in my mouth had already lit me on fire, and the push of his fingers into my wet channel, the feel of his rigid shaft against my ass, only made the flames higher and hotter.
He withdrew his hand to roll the condom onto his dick, and a few seconds later, he eased himself between my thighs.
I moaned when the head of his dick slid through my folds to hit my clit.
“Keep your hands on that wall.” He reached between our bodies to guide himself to my entrance, then drove into me all at once with a hoarse growl.
I gasped with the total pleasure of it, the way he filled me up, and I leaned my forehead against the wet shower wall.
The water sprayed onto my back as he dragged out of me, and I braced myself on the wall as he slammed into me again.
“Fuck, Audrey…” He rested his head on my back and pinched my nipples while he pulled out to drive in again. "Fuck.”
I rocked against his hips, seeking more of him even though he was already all the way inside me, hitting my cervix, sending shivers up my spine.
“You’re getting tighter,” he said. “You ready to come, wildcat?”
“Not yet!” It wasn’t that I wasn’t ready.
It was that I wanted it to last. I wanted to stay in this place where there was no Dean, no worries about the future or about Ella.
This place where the weight of the world was taken off my shoulders by this man fucking me into oblivion.
“You don’t have to hold back, wildcat. This is just the beginning. I’m going to lick your pussy all night long. I’m going to fuck you all night long. You’re going to come so many times you’re going to beg me to stop.”
“Please…” I begged.
“You don’t even have to say please,” he said, pounding into me again and again. “I couldn’t stop fucking this sweet little pussy if I tried.”
He reached around our bodies and slid his hands over my mound and between my thighs, then massaged my clit.
“Oh my god…” I came apart in his arms. “Ridge…”
The orgasm rocked my body as he drove into me hard and fast, his fingers working magic on my clit until the pleasure overflowed from every cell in my body.
“That’s right, beautiful.” His voice was gruff with desire. “Give me everything. I love to feel you come for me.”
The waves of pleasure went on and on, a firestorm that burned me whole.
“Don’t stop” I croaked.
“I’m not going to stop,” he grunted. “I’m going to spill everything inside you, and you’re going to take it like my good girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes!”
He groaned as he came, still working my clit with one hand while he gripped my hip with the other, driving into me so hard my eyes watered as tremors rolled through my body.
My channel tightened on his cock, forcing him to tunnel through as he came, but he didn’t stop until I was gasping and leaning on the wall, barely able to stay on my feet.
“Fuck, Audrey…” He kissed my neck, my cheek.
I turned my head, seeking his lips, and his tongue dove into my mouth while he was still inside me.
The desire was still there, partially satiated but not fully quenched.
Panic moved through me, the only emotion strong enough to push aside the intense pleasure I’d been feeling just a moment before.
Because maybe I wouldn’t ever be satisfied. Maybe I’d want to fuck this man forever.
And then what would I do?