Chapter 13
He kissed me. I ran away.
Cassidy was doing it. She really was. No sooner had she and Dalton returned to Rustler Mountain than she had gotten into her truck and gone to see West.
The trip had been just as tame as she’d told West it was.
Dalton hadn’t touched her again. They’d spoken, in the driest terms, about how they might see if the two of them were …
compatible. He was actually talking about getting married.
But never once had he mentioned love. Never once had he been overcome by anything that even remotely resembled passion. But neither had she.
That lack of passion was what had driven her to West.
Because she wanted another taste of his passion. Because she knew he was right. If she didn’t do it, she would be haunted by the memory of what they had almost had.
If she didn’t take the mystery out of it, then she would never know.
She was still afraid even when she got there, still arguing with herself. She wasn’t fighting West. No part of her had ever been fighting him.
She had been fighting herself. Her expectations of what sex should mean to her.
She wanted that passion. She wanted to feel lit on fire, even though it scared her.
She had thought she didn’t. But the idea of missing it, turning away from it, filled her with a sense of regret so deep, she didn’t think she would recover if she didn’t do this.
And now she was … she was in his room, and they were naked.
He was glorious.
His body was the most stunning work of masculine architecture she had ever seen.
She wanted to touch him everywhere. Lick him everywhere. Now that she had left her reservations behind, she wanted everything.
She wasn’t going to think about Dalton tonight. Because, actually, this had nothing to do with him. This was between her and West. And really, it was about her.
She wanted this. She wanted to do something wild and reckless. She wanted to exist outside the snow globe, even if only for a moment. It felt dangerous, but it wasn’t. Because it would end here, in this bedroom. Just as it began.
Because it was only one night. And just as she’d told him all about her childhood when she had never managed to tell anyone else, just as she’d confessed her insecurities when she had kept them hidden from every other person in her life, she could be free here too. Uninhibited.
She obeyed his orders, and got on the bed, sitting right at the center, propped up on her elbows, her thighs parted just slightly, her lack of embarrassment shocking her.
But that’s what this moment was for. A little bit of audacity.
She didn’t disguise that she was looking at him. Admiring him. Openly. Boldly.
His chest pitched on an indrawn breath and he moved to the bed, resting beside her, pressing his thumb against her lower lip and opening her mouth wide.
She looked up at him as he brought his face down toward hers, as he kissed her, hard.
The sweep of his tongue went deep, and he pulled her body up against his, halfway over the top of it, her bare breasts pressing against his chest, his hair rough against her skin.
She gasped. The feeling was so good, so intense that she felt it resonate between her legs.
She arched against him, and in response to the movement he put his hand down there between her thighs, stroking her wetness, circling his thumb over her clit before moving it back down and pushing a finger deep inside her.
She gasped, clinging to his bicep, his muscles hard and solid, providing stability as he added a second finger. The sensation was wicked and delicious, and she found herself moving her hips in time with the stroke of his fingers deep inside her.
Then he kissed her neck, down to the tips of her breasts, taking one nipple deep within his mouth and sucking hard.
He continued to tease her with his fingers as he sucked her, licked her.
Then he moved down her body, until his face was between her thighs.
“And now I’m going to have my fill of you,” he said, his voice rough.
Without hesitation, without any sort of introductory move, he buried his face between her legs and began to lick her, kiss her, torment her.
Her hips flew up off the bed, and she arched against him, gasping as he devoured her like a starving man.
Then he moved his fingers again, thrusting into her as he continued to feast. She could feel her climax building.
Could feel herself being pushed to the edge.
She speared her fingers through his hair, held his head there as he licked her.
She looked down at him, at the absolute debauched picture he made there, and felt momentarily out of her body as she realized that West Hancock was eating her out.
This hadn’t been a fantasy of hers, not specifically.
But it was far better than anything she had ever dreamed up for herself. And it was glorious. Her pleasure built and built until the release hit her like a wall, sending her spinning out, holding on to West as if he was the only thing that could possibly anchor her to earth.
And when it was over, he moved up her body and claimed her mouth, kissing her hard, letting her taste the evidence of her own pleasure. She had imagined sweetness. She had imagined that snow globe, even when it came to sex. Something gauzy and lovely. Not something raw and animalistic like this.
She felt as if she’d been set free. As if something wild inside her had finally been given permission to come out.
She was the one who had been hiding herself.
She was the one who had tried to force herself to be good and safe and acceptable.
She couldn’t even recall why now. It didn’t even matter now.
Because West had set her free with his wicked tongue. Someday, she would need to go back. Someday, she would need all that safety again. But here, right now, she felt wild. Here, right now, she was free.
He moved away from the bed, went down to collect his wallet from the floor, and took a condom out.
She battled against the feelings that rose up when she saw he kept them in his wallet.
The implications of it. It was childish to feel jealous.
Particularly when she had just gone away with Dalton, particularly when the plan was still to end up with him.
She didn’t want to think about Dalton again.
Not tonight.
West threw the condom on the bed beside her and joined her again.
She rose up on shaking knees and kissed him.
Then kissed his neck, his chest, down that gloriously ridged abdomen, down to where he was hard and heavy between his legs.
She leaned down and took him into her mouth.
No testing, no hesitation. The way he had taken her.
He made a deep, guttural sound in the back of his throat, his hand going to her hair, holding her tight as she sucked him deep.
“Yes,” he said. “Just like that.”
She reveled in him. The taste of him. The feel of him.
He was beautiful and perfect and absolutely everything. And she didn’t want this to ever end.
He made a sound as if he was being tortured and pulled her away from him.
“No, I …”
“No,” he gritted out. “Trust me. It’ll be over too fast. It’s not what I want.” He met her gaze, intense and sharp. “Remember, you have to do what I say.”
She nodded. “Lie back,” he said, his tone commanding.
She obeyed. He took the condom off the mattress, ripped it open, and rolled it over his length slowly. She watched him, mesmerized by the movement. By the way he touched himself.
She could feel need building between her legs again, incredible, especially given the orgasm she’d just had.
But she could feel it happening again. He moved over her, stroking her between her legs again, pushing two fingers inside her, “I have to make sure you’re wet enough,” he whispered in her ear.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m wet.”
“Good.”
He kissed her, kissed her, and kissed her as he moved on top of her, as the blunt head of his arousal began to stretch her, as he thrust into her slowly, inch by agonizing inch.
It did hurt. An unfamiliar stretching, rather than anything wildly painful, but it was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.
It was … amazing.
She moved her hands down his back, back up to his broad shoulders. She held his face and looked into his eyes as he buried himself totally and completely inside her.
She felt impaled. So full she could barely breathe. Perfect.
It was so much more intense than she had ever imagined.
So much more physical. Then he began to move, the sensation of him deep inside her making her moan.
She arched her back as pleasure began to build and build.
He growled, moving his hand beneath her, grabbing her ass and thrusting her against him as he moved deep inside her.
Hard, uncompromising. She was lost in it.
In him. In the savagery of it. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t pretty. It was everything.
He growled each time he buried himself all the way; she gasped when he withdrew.
They were both breathing hard, the physical exertion shocking, satisfying.
He thrust so hard that her head was pushed back against the headboard, the bed slamming against the wall.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and urged him harder, deeper.
“That’s right, you didn’t fuck him,” he whispered in her ear. “You came to fuck me.”
She lost it, that building pleasure unraveling inside her, a cresting wave that crashed over her completely as she dug her nails into his shoulders and cried out his name.
Then he thrust one last time, his own release guttural, his body pulsing deep inside her as he came hard. And somewhere, floating around in her completely scrambled brain, she thought that maybe she should be mad at him for bringing Dalton up. But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be.
Because what had just happened was the single most extraordinary experience of her life. She was floating. Dizzy, so exhausted that she was on the verge of blacking out.
“I knew it,” he said, his voice rough. “I knew we would be amazing.”
“You are very arrogant,” she said, staring at the ceiling, because if she looked at him, she didn’t know what she would do. She didn’t know what would happen.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I am.”
She huffed out a laugh. “God.”
“I’m here.”
Then she did look at him, and she shoved his chest. He caught her arm and pulled her over him. “We are doing that again. Tonight,” he said.
“Aren’t you supposed to be all gentle with virgins?”
“I have no idea, because I’ve never had sex with one before. But you’re not just a virgin, are you? You’re Cassidy Wilder. So you can tell me if you don’t want to, but I’m definitely not going to assume based on lore about mythic virgins of yesteryear.”
She wanted to have sex with him again. She was addicted to the way it felt to have him touch her.
And maybe even more than that, addicted to the way he talked to her.
Like she was unique. She wasn’t a species—virgins.
Or even Austin, Flynn, or Carson’s younger sister.
To West, she was Cassidy Wilder. Her own thing.
And that was maybe the most addicting thing of all.
“Does that mean I can spend the night?”
“Yes,” he said, the grin on his face a little bit wicked.
“Do you have plumbing?”
“Yeah. The lights just don’t flick on. There is actually power running to the house … I just need … I’ll get it fixed. Really quickly. I’m just kinda fussing around with things.”
“You don’t have to do it for me.”
“How long do I have you for?”
He tightened his hold on her, his fingertips digging into her hips.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Can I have you until Christmas?”
That made sense. In January, Jessie Jane would be taking over as mayor. Maybe it made sense for her to mark some sort of transition. She and Dalton could pursue their relationship in the new year. Until then she could be with West. Her stomach clenched tight.
As if it was trying to hold on to something. As if she was trying to hold on to something. But she couldn’t think about it right now. Couldn’t analyze it. She simply didn’t have it in her.
“Let’s go have a shower,” he said, lifting her up out of bed. She went with him. Let him hold her beneath the hot spray. Let him move his hands over her body, until she couldn’t take it anymore and she had to explore his.
Until they fell back into bed, and he had to go hunting for the condoms that he kept in a box somewhere in the house. And when he sank into her again, she felt something a lot closer to the emotion she’d expected to feel the first time.
It was the most terrifying, exhilarating moment of her life.