Chapter 14 #2
She couldn’t think of a woman alive who could possibly resist a man who looked like Cody making a declaration like that.
No one had ever looked at her like that.
No one had ever made her feel so deeply, truly desired.
And she wanted him too. So much.
She didn’t have to have him. She’d believed she needed Aiden to keep her safe. She didn’t think Cody was going to keep her life from falling apart. In fact, he might put what she wanted to build in danger.
She wanted him anyway.
He took her hand and led her through the dim lobby, away from her room.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“There’s a place I want to show you.”
It was dark, so she had no idea what he was going to show her in all this darkness. She hoped his naked body. Well, she’d hoped to see his naked body in the light, but she’d take this.
With both hands.
He led her into the parking lot, and she shivered as the night air brushed against her skin. Brought back the memory of how he’d kissed her against the barn last night.
He opened up the passenger door, and she got in. He closed it, and she sat there alone for a moment, one breath, two, her heart pounding hard in her ears.
But she wasn’t indecisive. Not at all.
This was happening.
Cody got in and started the truck, and she wondered if there was anyone lingering on the property who might see them.
It didn’t really matter.
The only thing that really mattered was Cody.
And when he began to drive away from the hotel, he put his hand on her thigh, and she felt like she was eighteen, not thirty-two.
She felt excited and like she was driving toward something unknown, something that wasn’t going to be permanent or make anything better.
Wasn’t going to heal her or fix her, or anything quite so profound.
But it was a moment. And she couldn’t remember the last time she had ever lived for the moment.
As his truck rumbled along the dirt road, they hit potholes, and she bounced in the seat. A jackrabbit bounded out from the brush on the side of the road and ran in front of their truck, in the path of the high beams, before leaping off into the bush again.
“What –”
Another rabbit appeared, and another.
“Like dolphins,” he said.
“What?” she asked, laughing.
“I don’t know. I’m not really seagoing myself, but I’ve heard that dolphins like to swim alongside ships. Sometimes those jackrabbits like to pop out and bound down the road in front of my truck. No clue why.”
“What other animals are around here?”
“Bears. Mountain lions. Raccoons, possums. Pronghorn antelope. Mountain goat.”
“Antelope?”
“Yep. They’re kind of a dusky orange color, with white patches. Thick black horns that stand straight up on their head and curve back just a little bit at the tip.”
“Are they… big?”
“Smaller than a deer. They move in a herd.”
“Oh.… I didn’t know.”
“Then there are the Mustangs. The herd here is the Painted Ridge Herd. There are about fifty of them left.”
“Fifty! That seems like a big group of wild horses. I can’t even imagine.”
“Well, the ranchers don’t like them much. Because they graze on their land, drink the water, erode the ground.”
“Where are they supposed to go?”
“It’s complicated. There’s supposed to be a hard limit on how many horses can be in certain areas, but unless the locals kick up a fuss, BLM doesn’t often do anything about it. A lot of local ranchers want this herd rounded up and… thinned. They want them put in captivity or dispatched.”
“But you don’t.”
He shook his head. “No.”
She looked at his profile, strong and solid. A wild thing. Something that was part of this land. It didn’t surprise her that he wasn’t a fan of something else wild being put away.
“They’re great tourist attractions, anyway.”
“That’s not why you like them, though.”
“Maybe not. Can’t prove it, though.”
She laughed softly.
They kept driving, winding up a dirt road, and she noticed that another dirt road fed into this one, coming in from the other direction.
“Where does that come from?”
“Town?”
“Are we still on the ranch?”
“Technically. But it’s easy to access from town.
I just figured I’d take you up here,” he said.
And that was when he stopped the truck, right at the top of a mountain, she hadn’t even realized how high they’d gone up, and she still couldn’t quite tell, because it was so dark.
The moon loomed high above them, the stars even brighter, the farther away they were from everything.
“This place used to be pretty infamous back in my day,” he said.
“For what?” she whispered.
“For this.”
He shut the engine off, unbuckled, and leaned across the seat, kissing her.
Oh, they were parking. Excitement fizzed through her veins.
And she wanted… Well, she wanted him, all of him.
She wanted him to take her right there in the back of the truck.
She wanted to be reckless and wild. And so, she was going to be.
The kiss deepened, and he gestured toward the backseat. “Ladies first.”
She climbed into the backseat, and it was cramped and crowded, no real space, but he didn’t lay her down across the seat, instead, he positioned himself between her thighs, kneeling in front of her as he kissed her deep and long, fingers forking through her hair.
Her hands moved desperately against the buttons on his shirt, working to undo them, just to touch his skin.
Just as he pushed the skirt on her dress up past her hips, pushed her underwear to the side, and began to tease her, touch her.
“This is silly,” she whispered against his mouth, “how many beds do we have in this place? We literally walked out of a building filled with beds to squeeze into the back of this truck? For what? So I could see jackrabbits?”
He laughed, low and sexy. She was short of breath, aching between her legs. She didn’t know why she was running her mouth when all she wanted was for him to kiss her. She didn’t know why she was delaying what she wanted.
Maybe it was too intense. Maybe she was more afraid of it than she’d thought.
Though not so afraid that she wasn’t going to do it.
“There’s plenty of time for beds, Marlowe,” he whispered against her mouth, “There could be beds, showers, floors, against the walls.” With every suggestion, his voice grew more intense, with every suggestion, he touched her a little harder, a little faster, pushed one finger deep inside of her.
“I’d like to lay you down and fuck you in every single bed on this property.
But right now, I want this. Right now, I want to have you here. Is that okay with you?”
She shivered. The sensual promise was almost too much to bear. She wanted it more than she wanted her next breath. She wanted all of those things.
She wanted to live a life that the previous version of her would never have been able to imagine. She wanted to get lost in this. To not worry about consequences. To not worry about anything but what she wanted.
She had never been able to do that.
Because she had been so disdainful of all the people in her life who had thought only of their own desires. Only of their own needs.
Well, now she wanted to be selfish, and he was giving her permission to do it. Because he had already stated that he didn’t want a relationship, that he didn’t want anything permanent, that he wouldn’t be giving her children.
He was a roll in the hay, maybe even literally, if it came down to it, and he was happy to be that.
So, she was going to take him at his word and let him roll her here, there, and everywhere.
“What do you think of that?” He whispered, this time against her ear.
“I think I want it.”
“What do you want?”
“You. I want you to have me, everywhere on this property, so that every time you’re anywhere, you think of me. You think of being inside me.”
His jaw went tense, and he growled low, pushing his second finger inside of her, she gasped and arched her hips up off the seat. “That’s a good girl,” he said.
He loved to praise her, and she loved to take that praise.
It was such a small, achingly sad thing, she thought, that him saying that made pleasure roll over her in waves, made her eyes feel a strange kind of tension, like she might start crying, weeping at any moment.
Because it had never mattered to anybody but her if she was good.
So, no one had ever told her that, no one had ever cared.
Aiden had just taken it for granted and tried to take credit.
Her dad had been a broken person. He hadn’t cared what she did, hadn’t cared if she did well in school, if she succeeded at anything.
He probably wouldn’t have minded if she had stayed home in that single-wide trailer for the rest of her life, as long as he didn’t have to worry about what he ate for dinner.
He didn’t look at life as a game to win, just another day to endure.
She had been good, and no one had cared.
But Cody took that and twisted it all up, said that she was good for being dirty with him, for being reckless with him, and she could tell how much he liked it, because he was hard, desperate for her, and that made her want to give him the world.
Made her want to give him everything.
“Such a good girl,” he whispered again, two fingers very deep inside of her, and she shattered around him. Cried out his name.
Then, he began to strip his clothing off, while she did the same.
It was cramped and crowded in the back of the truck, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Look out the back window,” he said.
She was confused, but she looked over her shoulder out the window anyway.
“Not like that,” he said.
“Put your knees on the seat, hold onto the back, and look out at that view.”
She trembled, shivered as she obeyed his command, as she held onto the back of the truck seat, and faced away from him.
He kissed her back, right between her shoulder blades, moved her hair to the side, then wrapped his arm around her waist, lifting her just slightly, encouraging her to push her rear out just a little bit more.
She could hear him tear up a condom packet, as he pushed his fingers between her legs again, teased her wetness there. Tested how ready she was.
Ready was an understatement. She needed him like she needed to breathe.
“Oh,” she said, the sound turning into a moan as he gripped her hips and thrust into her from behind.
She moaned as every tantalizing inch of him entered her.
This was pure fantasy. This was romance novel stuff. He held her tight, thrusting hard, moving his other hand around to stroke her clit, making her whimper and push back against him as he continued to fuck her like she was precious and profane all at once.
He felt so big inside of her, filling her completely. Absolutely. Making it so she couldn’t breathe or think or be anything but his.
Her forehead hit the window, the upholstery on the seat bit into her knees, her fingers curled so tightly on the back of the seat, trying to hold herself in place. But none of that mattered. Nothing mattered except for him. For this.
He leaned down, bit her on the shoulder, and the sharp shock of pain sent her right over the edge, crying out his name, her internal muscles tightening hard around him.
“Marlowe,” he whispered, low and tight as he began to take her, over and over again.
As he shuddered out his release, slamming into her one last time.
And then she collapsed on the seat with him behind her.
He moved away for a moment, and she heard the sound of a paper bag rustling.
Then he moved onto the seat beside her, pulling her on top of his chest.
And in spite of it all, she found herself drifting off to sleep.