Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AUbrEY
How weird was it that I’d gone forty-seven years without Rye holding my hand, but now that he had, I never wanted him to let go?
We parked in front of Your Local Bookie and then continued our conversation while we walked slowly through town. It was a peaceful, starry spring night, but the slight chill in the air disappeared around Rye.
“So what about you?” I asked. “You want kids someday?”
“Nope.”
“What? Why not?”
Most guys I knew wanted four or five kids, boys to carry on their name and girls to dote on and protect.
“Dunno. Just never have. I guess my focus has always been on the ranch, and now, it’s shifted a bit, but it’s still ranchin’. I want marriage, or even if it’s not marriage, I want a partner. I want someone to love, to walk through this life with me. But kids, naw. I’m almost thirty-five. That window’s closin’ quickly anyway.”
“You know men can have children pretty much up until they die, right? You could be eighty and still father a whole brood of kids.”
He laughed. “Not if my woman can’t.”
Did he mean me because I was… well, we’ll call it mature .
“Your woman? You want a little lady waitin’ at home for you when you come back from a cattle drive?”
“Not at all. I want a woman to go with me on that drive. Or if she doesn’t want that, I want her to do things that make her happy while I’m away, and when I get back, I’ll make love to her and listen to her when she tells me about all her adventures. I’ll cook her breakfast and rub her feet and make her come so many times, she won’t be able to walk straight for a week.”
The smug smile on his face as he looked down at me had me blushing and digging through my mind for any subject I could change the conversation to. If he kept turning me on with his tongue and his words, I’d never learn enough about him to be able to pull the wool over his parents’ eyes.
But I didn’t have to search too hard because we ran into Daisy and her husband José in front of a closed Coffee Shot. Like, nearly ran right into them because I was too busy blushing and trying to hide it from Rye, and I almost bowled Daisy over.
She gripped my shoulders so I wouldn’t fall on my ass, and José said, “Hey, Rye. Aubrey. How are y’all tonight?”
Daisy didn’t say a word, she just smiled up at Rye with a look full of gossipy satisfaction, giving me quick sideways glances every few seconds.
Rye reached out to shake José’s hand. “We’re alright. Thanks. Oh and thanks for that meat-and-cheese-board thing the other night.” Rye winked at me. “It was a hit.”
“Glad to hear you enjoyed it, Aubrey.”
I could already hear the book-club talk. The impending squeals and demands for information made it difficult to concentrate on what José had said. “Thanks.”
Daisy’s smile grew while she looked back and forth between Rye and me, not even trying to hide her curiosity anymore. And when she noticed him holding my hand, her eyes flared.
“Rye, this is my wife, Daisy. I don’t think you two have met yet, have you?”
“No,” Daisy said. “We haven’t, but I’ve seen you at the diner and around town, young man. It’s a pleasure.”
She held out her hand to Rye and he shook it, but he seemed to be catching on to the undercurrent of her teasing smile as he looked back and forth between Daisy and me. José seemed oblivious. He’d probably heard the gossip from his wife, but he wasn’t really one to get involved.
“Alright, well, nice to see you,” I rushed to say. “We’ve gotta get goin’.”
“So soon?” Daisy asked innocently.
“Yes, Daisy. See you at book club,” I nearly growled, and I squeezed Rye’s hand and yanked him down the sidewalk.
Dammit. As soon as she could, she’d be calling everyone we knew to report who she’d run into and how cozy Rye and I had looked together.
“C’mon,” I said, pulling Rye as hard as I could, which barely budged him at all.
“Nice to see y’all,” he called behind us with his usual cocky grin. To me, he asked innocuously, “Where we goin’?”
“My shop,” I whispered. “Hurry up.”
“Why you in such a rush, Spitfire?” he asked, and I could actually hear him smiling. Great, now he was teasing me too.
“Just come on .”
I pulled my keys from my purse as I speed-walked back to my shop, pulling poor Rye like a puppy, but he just laughed under his breath, like he was enjoying my embarrassment. I almost fell through the front door after I unlocked it, and his sexy chuckle sent a chill down my spine.
He followed me to the storeroom, and when I found the light switch, I flipped it on and rounded on him. At least no one could see us through the big front windows back here.
“Daisy’s lightin’ up the gossip tree as we speak. I just know it.”
“So?”
“You don’t get it.”
“Enlighten me,” he said with a grin. “We’re supposed to be datin’, right? So if someone sees us or talks about us, how’s that a problem?”
“I don’t care if people see us. I agreed to your dumb plan, and I’m stickin’ to it, but now they’re all gonna be talkin’ about what they think we’re doin’.”
“Such as?”
“Rye!”
“I don’t think I know what you mean, Spitfire. I’m gonna need it explained.” The side of his mouth lifted in the cockiest smirk I’d seen yet. “In great detail. Now, please.”
“Dammit, Rye. You know what I mean.”
Turning away from him, I tried to calm down. He was right. What did it really matter? The whole point of fake dating was to convince everyone we were together. The gossip could probably help us.
But there was something intimate growing between Rye and me and knowing that everyone would be talking about it made me feel protective of him.
Just as I was about to turn back to him, his big hand warmed my hip. He held me in place, sliding the length of my hair over my shoulder and trailing a finger lazily between my shoulder blades. The warmth moved slowly up to my neck where he gripped and squeezed softly.
“So,” he whispered, “if I do this”—leaning down, he pressed his lips to my neck and placed a soft kiss there—“someone will talk about it?”
The instant his mouth touched me, tingling pressure began to build between my thighs.
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t speak. The panic I’d been feeling about my body, about sex, and about being the focus of gossip dissipated. I wanted all my concentration on how Rye’s touch made me feel.
What the Pavlovian crap was that?
But whether he’d trained me to want him, to need him, or not, I did, and the wanting was making me shake, making breath come out of my mouth in shudders.
“Or this?” His other hand snaked under my arm, around my ribcage, and he cupped my breast in his hand, thumbing my nipple through my shirt.
“Or this?” Dropping that hand, he fit it over the warmth now quickly forming between my legs, rubbing with his thumb exactly where he knew I couldn’t ignore it.
Heat rushed around the inside of my body like an out-of-control wildfire. It didn’t know where to go, so it went everywhere. “Oh God.”
“Not God, Spitfire. I think what you meant to say was ‘Oh, Rye.’”
I was practically hyperventilating now as I remembered the last time he’d whispered in my ear and touched me there.
“Does the invitation to spend the night with you still stand?”
“Yes.”
“May I see you home then?”
“Yes.”
“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about before we go?” He paused for dramatic and annoying effect. “We still haven’t discussed our plan.”
“I don’t care,” I said, moaning and pushing back to better feel the rigid length of his cock grinding against my ass.
His hand still on the back of my neck applied strict pressure, and he guided me to look at him. When I did, his mouth came down over mine so fast, he gave me vertigo. But that didn’t matter, because he released his hand and turned me into his body, kissing me harder and holding me tightly.
My heart took flight inside my chest, and I opened for him, delving my tongue into his hot mouth.
Strong hands gripped my hips, and he lifted me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, locked my ankles together behind him, and ground myself against his erection through our clothes in an embarrassing display of need versus proper old-lady behavior. An orgasm had already begun to build deep inside.
It had been so long since I’d had a man’s body inside mine, and I was having a hard time imagining the sensation.
“ Rye .”
“We ain’t makin’ it back to your place, are we?”
I shook my head wildly. “Here. Now.”
Into my mouth, he breathed, “You’re so needy, baby. I fuckin’ love it,” and he reached beneath me to pop his fly and unzip his jeans. “I want you up against that wall.” He nodded behind us. “And I’m gonna take you a second time from behind while you’re spread open for me over that desk.”
He looked to the right, to where my mom’s old writing desk had been sitting for years, piled with papers, receipts, and schedules I never bothered to look at. I pictured him sliding his arm across the mess, knocking it all to the floor so he could take me just like he said he would.
Somehow, seeing my storeroom in this new, erotic light felt like a dangerous adventure. It was so exciting to be wrapped up in this man, to be enticed and seduced by him in this plain, everyday place.
I groaned. “Yes, please .”
Moaning in my ear, he unhooked my legs and set me on my feet. I swayed and reached out for him again to steady myself as he took my hands and placed them gently on his shoulders.
And then for the second time in less than two weeks, he got down on his knees for me and began to undress me.
“Ever been naked in here before?”
I shook my head, unable to speak while I watched his eyes eat up every inch of my body when it was revealed to him.
“Mm. I like that. It’ll be our first time together in more than one way.” He tossed my shoe behind me, and then tugged the other one off my foot and tossed it too. “If you’d fucked anybody else in here, I’d have to rut you like a stud bull to stake my claim. I’m gettin’ harder just thinkin’ about it.”
He unzipped my mom jeans, leaning forward to kiss my stomach. I tried to hide it, to move my hands in front of the loose skin below my navel and the disgusting fat pocket I hadn’t been able to get rid of, no matter how many diets and exercise routines I tried, but he pushed my hands away.
“Don’t you dare. I have dreamed of this body for far too long for you to hide it from me now. I understand your tummy ain’t your favorite feature, but you need to understand that I think it’s sexy as hell. We’re just gonna have to agree to disagree.”
The serious-as-a-heart-attack look in his eyes had me nodding my consent, and he went back to kissing and dragging his lips and scratchy beard across my skin.
Slowly, he pulled my jeans down, catching my underwear with two fingers and pulling them down, too, until he removed them completely, tossed them away, and nuzzled his beard between my legs, looking up at me like I was a goddess and he was on his knees at my altar, ready to worship.
Rye gave me courage, so I lifted my shirt over my head and tossed it, unsnapped my bra and tossed that too.
He studied my breasts like he’d never seen a pair before, his mouth working to hold his tongue inside. They were okay. I’d never thought much of my breasts. A little saggy from pregnancy forever ago, but not too big, not too small. There were visible stretch marks, but Rye seemed to think they were the best things since sliced bread if the clenching of his jaw while he looked at them meant what I hoped it did.
“Arms up,” I told him, and when he complied, I bent to lift his shirt, too, and he latched onto my hip with his mouth, sucking and licking and working his way north.
Lord above, the chest on this man!
His muscled pecs and shoulders, and, truly, I’d had no idea trapezius muscles could be that hard and strong.
He was the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen. And the tattoo covering his whole upper right arm and pectoral muscle was so sexy, I had a hard time looking at anything besides the life-like black and gray rendering of the Tetons, with tiny cows grazing in the valley below, and a banner with the phrase “where the heart is” below it.
Lust slipped between my lips in a moan, and Rye tilted his head. He looked up at me, and I pushed my fingers into his hair and fisted it in my palms.
“Like what you see, Spitfire?”
“Mm.”
“It’s all for you. It’s always been you,” he whispered, and he slid his hand between my legs, growling when he felt how wet I already was for him.
I pulled him closer, he nuzzled his mouth between my breasts, and I widened my legs as he slipped a finger inside me.
“Yeah,” he breathed, his lips whispering against my skin. “That’s what I’ve been dreamin’ about.”
“B-but your jeans.”
“What about ’em?”
“They’re still on.”
“They’ll come off soon enough, but first, I want you ready before I fuck you, so you can take me easier.”
“O-oh okay.”
He chuckled and got to work with his mouth on my clit. He held me up, stopping me from falling over because it didn’t take long before waves of euphoria began to pulse through my bloodstream.
His tongue should’ve come with a warning: *Slippery when wet. Do not use unless you’re prepared for utter satisfaction, and please beware that just when you think you can’t take another second, this tongue will double down. *
Sure enough, he did. He thrust another finger inside me, and his tongue fluttered against the most sensitive part of my body as quickly as a hummingbird’s wings. His saliva coated my pussy and dripped from his mouth, and he rubbed me with his chin, his bristled beard doing things to me I’d never even imagined.
“Ride the mustache, baby. That’s what it’s there for.”
“ Oh .”
“Use your words,” he demanded.
“Th-that’s sinful, Rye. So good.” My hands gripped his hair harder, and before long, I was guiding his head to the most delicious rhythm.
He hummed his satisfaction, the vibration made me gasp as he added a third finger, and then I was riding his hand, my hips rolling to the tempo of his tongue, while his beard and mustache rubbed me in all the right ways.
How had I not noticed that before? But I’d been so utterly shocked at what he’d done to me in the bed of his truck that I didn’t blame myself for missing such a wonderful part of his sexual tool set.
I couldn’t miss it now, and I wanted more .
“Harder,” I begged, practically riding his face now.
Fast flicks and licks of his tongue drove me higher, and I pulled his hair so hard that if I hadn’t been in the throes of orgasm already, I would’ve worried I’d made him bleed when I yanked it all out.
“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful when you come,” he breathed when I called out my release and my head fell back, my hair swaying behind me, tickling his hand still bracing me from behind.
His knees had to be killing him on the hard tile floor, but he never complained.
When he stood, those knees popped audibly while I tried to get my sea legs back. He shed his jeans and a pair of navy blue boxers, then towered over me silently and still, like a mountain.
I couldn’t not reach for his cock. It was nearly purple, he was so hard and ready, the thick veins running up his length raised and ribbed for my pleasure.
He stopped me with his heavy hand on my wrist as I grasped for him. “Oh no you don’t.”
I gasped, and he ran his tongue over his bottom lip, leaving a trail of wet shine to draw my eyes there.
“This time, I want your pretty pussy ’round my cock when I come.”
He released my wrist and arched an eyebrow, daring me, and I climbed him like a fucking tree.
His hands found my ass, and he squeezed while I wrapped my legs around him again, securing my body around his. He walked us to the wall between two old, yellowing “buy local” posters and pressed me against it, watching my face and listening to the moans falling out of my open mouth as he pressed his bare chest to my breasts.
Just to feel the warmth of his body, skin to skin against mine— I couldn’t describe how amazing he felt.
Leaning down, he took my nipple into his mouth, and his hard cock slid between my legs as it twitched and pulsed.
He drew his hips back, released my breast, and straightened.
And when I felt the smooth, full pressure of his thick length gliding into the core of me, my eyes rolled closed.
“Yes!” The voice that came out of my mouth was guttural, like I’d been possessed by the devil. “Oh dear God, yes !”