Chapter 6
six
Knox
I fucked up.
She’s not coming back.
It’s pitch-black outside and Billie still hasn’t appeared at my doorstep.
I pace in front of the kitchen table, feeling sick to my stomach.
Partly because I ate so much of that stupid, delicious pie, but mostly because I’m positive she’s done with me.
Why couldn’t I just take the peach pie and say thank you?
Why can’t I be a normal human being? It was just such an…
unexpected gesture. It caught me off guard.
I didn’t want sweetness. I didn’t want kindness.
I wanted black and white, impersonal sex that wouldn’t bond me to her, any more than I already have been. Now she’s never coming back.
Voluntarily, at least.
Don’t think I won’t go down to that fucking ranch and get her. We had a deal.
I swipe five fingers through my hair, kicking a dining room chair so hard the leg snaps and sends the piece of furniture crashing to the floor. “Goddammit!” I roar at the ceiling. “I’m going to give her ten more minutes. Ten.”
If she thinks I won’t knock on the front door of her house and haul her ass out, she’s dead wrong.
I’ve only gotten a taste of her, but I haven’t had the full meal, and I’m dying for it.
I’ve been hard since she came in the palm of my hand, shaking and whining, her gorgeous blue eyes trained on me, so overwhelmed. So full of pleasure.
I can’t think of anything else.
I can’t taste anything but the virgin blood I licked off my palm last night.
Wetting the dried trail of it and using that slippery red streak to jerk off, grunting her name into my pillow, my hips raging forward, my unsatisfied meat cramming in and out of my fist. My sheets were soaked in sweat and come by the end of the night and I still had this lust for Billie running rampant inside of me.
It’s a curse and the only thing that will break it is getting my cock inside of her as deeply as possible.
I wouldn’t mind hearing her sweet voice, either.
Even when I was arguing with her yesterday, I couldn’t help but think…
She’s funny as hell. Her spirit is like a beam of light.
I might have the upper hand in this arrangement, but no one would know it by the way she refuses to take my shit. The girl is a fresh drink of water down my parched throat.
And she’s late.
I snatch my hat off the peg, nearly wrenching the door off its hinged getting it open.
Billie is standing on my porch.
“Hi,” she says, wincing at whatever fresh hell is written on my face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, we had an emergency on the ranch.”
She steps into the light and I can see she’s filthy.
Her jeans and T-shirt are covered in dust. There’s a streak of mud on her cheek. When she removes her cowboy hat, there are blades of grass dangling in her hair.
“I know what you’re thinking. Wow, look at her. She’s dressed for seduction.” She gives me a lopsided smile that flips my gut upside down. “Can I use your shower? It’s for your benefit, as well as mine. I have been wrestling with a sick pig all afternoon.”
A whirlwind has entered my home.
She shucks off her boots at the door, hangs her hat and skips into my kitchen, opening the fridge. She bends down to look inside, then closes it just as fast, only now there is a broad smile on her face.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
Fuck my life. She must have seen I ate the peach pie.
“I don’t like wasting food,” I shout at her back as she swaggers down my hallway.
Turning the corner into the bathroom, she winks at me.
All I can do is stand there with my heart in my throat and try to ignore the creeping intuition that my days are numbered. No. Fight back.
She’s only going to put up with you for a week.
With that impending doom hanging over my head, I cut a quick path to the bathroom and pry open the door, finding her in the middle of getting undressed. Her head is trapped inside her T-shirt, and I must have startled her, because she stumbles and smacks her temple off the glass shower door.
Something sharp slices into my jugular. Goddammit.
“Ow,” she sniffles.
“Come here,” I say, my voice annoyingly thick.
I turn her in my direction and—with more gentleness than I knew myself capable of—disentangle her from the shirt, her mussed hair and muddy face popping through a second later.
She’s so fucking beautiful, I stare dumbfounded at her face, instead of looking at her bare breasts.
Now, that is terrifying. “Is your fool head okay?”
She nods. “Just bumped it a little.”
“Don’t bump it again. Don’t bump anything.”
“I won’t.”
Why can’t I swallow? “Good.” Jesus, I need to pull myself together. I’m acting like she broke her leg. I need to get this whole situation back under control. She’s turning me into something I’m not. Someone I don’t know how to be.
I lower my head to hers, circling her throat with my right hand, and I speak right up against her mouth.
“When you’re done showering, go into my room and lie down on the bed naked.
Right in the middle. Keep the lights off and don’t say a word.
” I plant a hard kiss on her mouth, skating my fingertips down, down between her breasts, over her stomach, tapping a finger low against the fly of her jeans. “I’ll come in when I’m ready to fuck.”
I force myself to wait outside the bedroom for fifteen minutes.
I can’t let her know how eager I am.
Can’t let her know that I am salivating over the fact that she is on the other side of this door naked. Waiting for me to come collect on her parents’ debt. Although…
There must be a conscience rattling around somewhere inside of me, because the insane lust raging inside of me is now tinged with guilt.
Shame. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man about to defile an eighteen-year-old girl who set out to be brave for her family.
To fix a problem she didn’t cause. Perhaps if I wasn’t so fucking drawn to Billie, I’d forgive the debt without making her sacrifice her body.
But I know damn well there is no other way I can have her.
No other way she’d choose me.
She’s a light.
I’m a dweller of the dark.
If this is the only way I can experience her, so be it. I’ll ignore my conscience.
I’ll ignore how she’s getting to me…emotionally.
That horrifying admission has me ripping the door open with a snarl curling my upper lip. I’m going to attack her. I’m going to spread her legs open and ride her as hard as I want, because that was the deal. I get to do anything I want to her. Right?
I’m in a trance at the foot of the bed, however.
Marveling at the treasure laid out before me.
She’s exquisite.
I’m a rich man simply by observing Billie, naked in my bed.
Her pussy is a shadow between her bent knees, her tits rising and falling with nervousness.
Her wet hair has been towel dried and left to fall in dark brown waves on my comforter.
I can smell the fresh, inviting warmth of her flesh.
That spot where her tight ass cheeks transform into her cunt makes my balls clench and out of necessity, I unzip my jeans, relieving some of the pressure. Pressure she causes just by existing.
“You actually followed instructions for once,” I say, sounding winded.
Her gentle smile reaches me in the dark. “Don’t get used to it,” she whispers.
I make a gruff, involuntary sound.
I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m overwhelmed with hunger for her.
All of her. Her delectable body, her quick wit, her soft heart, her admirable courage.
Instead of holding her down and taking what I need with some impersonal fuck, I find myself unbuttoning my shirt and removing it, knowing if I don’t feel her skin against mine, I’ll regret it for the rest of my miserable life.
I notice her breathing quicken once I’m bare chested and wonder what it means.
Does she enjoy my body, with all its crude ink and shank wounds?
Doesn’t matter what she enjoys, roars some angry voice in the back of my head.
I ignore the voice and let instinct guide me to a kneel between her thighs.
She squeaks in trepidation and tries to close them, but I shake my head at her.
Biting her lip, she opens them again, allowing me to look down at her virgin cunt.
Smooth and sweet, fresh from the shower.
My dick surges with hot blood at the sight.
The scent of what I hope is her arousal.
Oh God, eating her out wasn’t part of the plan.
I’m supposed to be served by this arrangement, not the other way around.
I’ve already made her orgasm once without taking my own satisfaction.
She’s going to realize I’m wrapped around her little finger.
But I can’t think straight until I taste test her pussy to be sure she’s horny.
For fuck sake, I got dizzy when she knocked her head into the shower door. If I hurt her when we have sex, I might throw myself off a cliff.
I get down on my stomach, inhaling the sugary aroma of her, my palms pressing open her trembling legs. “I’m licking it for me, do you understand?” I bite the flesh of her inner thigh, making her whimper. “This is not for you. I want a wet ride. That’s all.”
Her stomach hollows on a shaky inhale. “O-okay.”
Lord, that twang in her voice is so sweet. “Don’t forget what you’ve been asked to call me while we’re in this bed, girl”
I hear her swallow. “I didn’t forget.”
“Good.” With rough hands, I shove her knees open and down, pinning them to the bed, her cunt blossoming open right in front of my eyes.
Slick flesh parts and reveals valleys, dips.
That tight little hole. Farther down is her puckered asshole, and I groan at the sight, my animal urges telling me to flip her face down and take her anally. Anything I want, right?
But what I want most is her pleasure.
And I want her pleasure so fucking bad, I’m burning up.
Goddammit.