by Stasia Black
Nothing. She had nothing to lose. The worst had happened.
And she was still here.
She was free.
Free to start over.
Free to be anyone she wanted to be.
With no past history or future expectations.
She could just be.
That realization made her chest feel so full, so sun-burstingly bright that she felt almost light-headed as she walked into Bubba’s Bar, the only place open in the tiny town of Hawthorne, Wyoming at 9:00 at night on a Wednesday.
And didn’t they say the best way to get over someone was to get under someone else? It hadn’t been her intention heading into the bar, but Hunter was so sweet and handsome and when he’d made his indecent proposition, she’d wanted to drag him out to her car and jump him right there.
“You want to ride with me or take your own car?” Hunter asked, pulling back after another long kiss. It looked like it took effort to yank himself away.
He was such a good-looking guy. He had a square jaw with a few days growth of beard that gave him a rugged, sexy look. His brown hair was thick and curly and he was obviously overdue for a cut. It was the kind of hair that made you want to dig your fingers in. Add to that a strong brow line over blue eyes that were bright with lust. For her.
“I’ll follow.” Isobel felt equally breathless. She was reasonably certain Hunter was an okay guy since everyone in the bar seemed to know him, but she didn’t want to be without her car.
“Okay,” he said. But instead of going to his car, he leaned down and kissed her again. His body pinned her to her car and almost unconsciously, her leg lifted to wrap around his hip.
Which was when she felt just how hard he was. It didn’t scare her, though. With the freedom of her new lease on life still loosening her inhibitions, she let out a desperate breathy moan and rubbed her core against his hardness.
He ground into her several times before swearing and pulling away. His nostrils flared as he looked down at her. With only the light of the lamplight, his brow shadowed his eyes, making him look dark and dangerous. And sexy as fuck when he leaned over and growled in her ear, “I might break a few traffic laws to get to my house because I need that sexy as hell body wrapped around me this second.”
Isobel’s sex clenched at his words but then he was already turning and striding away with purposeful steps.
“I’m parked out front but I’ll pull around so you can follow me,” he called over his shoulder.
She opened her car and slid into the front seat, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to the steering wheel.
“Holy shit.” She drummed her feet against the floorboard in a spastic little happy dance and then she turned on the engine and watched out for Hunter’s car.
She didn’t have to wait long. It only took a minute before he pulled up beside her in a rugged blue truck that looked like it had seen better days. At the same time, the masculine vehicle perfectly fit the man. She backed up and then headed out down the main street and into the dark roads, always keeping Hunter’s rear truck lights in view.
In spite of his ‘break traffic laws’ comment, he actually kept to the speed limit and drove very responsibly. Which both impressed and annoyed Isobel because the pulsing between her legs only got worse with every passing mile.
It was fifteen minutes before they finally turned into a long gravel drive. Isobel bit her lip, apprehension snaking in when she realized just how remote Hunter’s place was. Any other time, she would have said that following a strange man back to his house in the middle of nowhere was a really stupid idea. But everyone in town knew this guy. And they saw them leave together.
Then again, if he was the town’s darling, he’d be the last one they would suspect of being a serial killer. What if his nice guy act was just how he lured women in? Then if anybody asked, he could just say Isobel had been passing through if she didn’t turn up tomorrow. It’s not like anyone at the horse rescue was actually expecting her. There hadn’t been a way to call ahead since she’d left her phone behind. Plus, the way Rick—the stablemaster where she kept her horse Buttons at their summer house in New Hampshire—had described the rescue, they were always short on help. It was in a remote location and the pay wasn’t much more than room and board. She was planning to apply for the job in person tomorrow.
And hadn’t she just been thinking about how the worst-case scenarios always seemed to happen to her? It would just be her luck if the nice guy from the bar was actually a psychopath with a penchant for chopping up dark-haired girls into little itty-bitty pieces and—
The porch light turned on and she could see Hunter standing by the front door to his house, the door slightly ajar. He was obviously waiting for her, but it was like he could tell she was second guessing her decision in coming out here. And he wasn’t pressing the issue. He just stood there waiting. Letting her choose to come in or back out and drive away.
She took a deep breath. Okay, maybe her paranoid brain was getting a little imaginative.
She grabbed her purse and got out of the car, then walked toward his house.
“Just so you know,” she said when she got closer, “I called a girlfriend and told her your address and to call the cops if I don’t check in with her tomorrow morning.” No need for him to know she was bluffing.
Hunter inclined his head. “That’s good. I want you to be as comfortable as possible.”
He gestured toward the front door and after she passed, his hand came to the small of her back. He followed her into the house. As soon as he closed the door behind them, he nuzzled his nose into the back of her neck where her hair touched her shoulders. Goosebumps immediately shot up and down her arms.
“You have a lovely house,” she barely managed to say, her breath hitching as he slowly pushed her hair away and began dropping light kisses across the base of her neck. He was being so gentle, his lips so achingly soft that they barely made any contact at all.
She wasn’t just saying it about the house, either. It was a large cabin with an open living room and kitchen. The ceiling was tall with a pitched A-line roof and there was a second floor loft where she assumed the bedrooms were. It was a simple but classic space that, like his truck, seemed well-suited to its owner.
Speaking of whom… Hunter withdrew his lips and had moved on to massaging her with those big, glorious hands of his. She sank back against him as he released knots in her shoulders she hadn’t even realized she was carrying around.
“God, that feels amazing,” she groaned.
“I need to touch your skin.”
A shudder wracked her body at his whisper.
She started moving toward the staircase at the other side of the cabin—they’d come in the back door and the staircase was by the front entryway—but Hunter’s hands on her shoulders stopped her.
“Lift.” He urged her arms over her head. Like he meant to take her shirt off right here in the middle of the brightly lit living room.
She clutched her arms to her sides.
“The bedroom,” she said, trying to move that direction again. Where she would make sure the lights were off.
But he just shook his head and lifted the bottom of her cotton T-shirt. She expected him to jerk it off quickly. His kiss had been so urgent back at the bar by her car.
But he only lifted her shirt slowly, his fingers tracing her stomach inch by treacherous inch as he glided her shirt up. By the time he reached her breasts, her breaths were coming in panting gasps.
Her mind was a mess of conflicting thoughts: did he feel how soft and squishy her stomach was? And: oh God, that felt so good, oh, oh, yes—
“Slowly,” he whispered in her ear from behind. “Slow down your breathing. I want to wring every ounce of pleasure possible from your body tonight.” His thumbs brushed the tips of her nipples through her bra and her breath hitched.
“Ah ah ah,” he chastised. “Deep breath in,” he demonstrated at her back, her shirt still just barely lifted over
her breasts. She licked her lips and tried to humor him, though, because his every touch told her that this man knew what he was doing.
She took a deep breath in and tried to shut out all worries about her body. He obviously liked what he was touching if the hardness against her ass was any indication.
That’s only because he hasn’t gotten a good look at you. He’s standing behind you right now. If he saw how ugly and bloated your stomach was from eating that burger, he’d run—
No. She shut down the voice in her head that sounded so much like her stepmother’s. She wasn’t that Isobel anymore. She’d left that Isobel behind in New York.
“Good, and now breathe out.”
Her breath rushed out before he’d finished the words. He instructed her through several more rounds of breathing and then, once she had the hang of it, he ever so slowly pulled her shirt up and over her head.
When he gently lifted her shirt off her arms, she didn’t resist this time. His thumbs caressed up and down her forearms as he drew her arms back down, her shirt falling to the floor. No one had ever paid so much attention to every detail of her body.
“Your skin,” he whispered reverently, his thumb rubbing the inner pulse point on her wrist. “It’s so soft.”
God, he was driving her insane. She couldn’t take it anymore. She turned in his arms so that they were chest to chest. It felt dangerous doing it—he could actually see her now—but she needed to look into his eyes.
She could tell she’d startled him but his quick smile let her know it wasn’t unwelcome. She threw her arms around his neck and drew herself up on tiptoe to kiss him.
Strong arms encircled her waist and he lifted her up even as their mouths met. His tongue tangled with hers. Unlike at the car, though, he delved in only slightly. When the very tip of his tongue connected with the tip of hers, she’d swear it was like a thousand volts of electricity shot straight to her sex.
He must have felt it too because the next thing Isobel knew, he had her slammed against a wall. She felt all of him—his strong arms wrapped around her, his seeking tongue, his hardness pressing into her through his blue jeans.
She moaned into his mouth and lifted first one leg up and around his waist, then the other, until she was all but riding him. He dropped an arm underneath her thigh, hiking her up even further.
She locked her ankles around his back and moved her pelvis back and forth against his hardness. He thrust up and into her as she moved on him.
She broke their kiss and threw her head back because oh God, yes. Right there. Holy shit. She rubbed herself back and forth even more shamelessly.
Hunter’s mouth latched on to her neck, lavishing open mouthed kisses all over. She couldn’t even care if he was giving her a hickie because he was taking her so high, it was so good—
His hands had been holding her under her thighs but as he leaned in to pin her against the wall with his body, his rock hard cock thrusting against the place where she needed it most, he reached and grabbed a handful of her ass.
Oh shit, that was so hot. Especially considering how he buried his face in her chest, his teeth nipping at her already hardened nipples. But he couldn’t get very good access to them and it must have frustrated him because the next thing she knew, he pulled her away from the wall.
Then he was carrying her. She let out a squeak of surprise, her pleasure popping like a bubble as she clutched onto him. He must feel exactly how heavy she was.
“Let me down, I can walk.”
He ignored her and carried her to the center of the living room. Finally her feet touched the floor and he immediately pulled her down to the soft rug with him.
Hunter pushed her backward so that she was lying down and he started peeling off her jeans. She covered her face with her hands. Like a little kid, if she couldn’t see him, then he wouldn’t be able to see her. Or her cellulite.
She couldn’t help her whole body going tense as he finished pulling her jeans off her legs. Oh God, this was a bad idea.
She wasn’t a new Isobel.
She was the old Isobel. She always would be. Miserable and insecure and fat and—
“Hey, you okay up here?” Hunter’s big hand gently peeled one of hers away from her face. His handsome features were creased in concern.
“Fine,” she squeaked.
Oh God, the super-hot guy was seeing exactly what a disastrous freak she was. Not that he knew the half of it. There was probably an arrest warrant out for her in New York at this very moment.
“We can stop.” His hand cradled her cheek. “There’s no pressure here. We can do whatever you want.”
His eyebrows had dropped low in concern. “Do you want to stop?”
He moved to withdraw his hand but she grabbed it and held it to her face, turning her head and dropping a kiss on his palm. This was the first thing that had felt good, that had felt right, in months. “I don’t want to stop.”
It only came out as a whisper. That was all she could manage at the moment. But she didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to be the old Isobel.
She lifted up from the ground and pulled his face down to hers. As soon as his lips touched down she felt the spark that had been doused by her obsessions fire back to life. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the kiss.
“Christ, you’re beautiful,” he whispered in between kissing her lips and up her neck to her ear. “So fucking beautiful.”
Isobel automatically frowned. He sounded earnest. For a moment, though—just a moment—she could almost believe him. His words were perfect. He was perfect.
Her eyes still closed, she took his other hand and pushed it past her belly and down to her sex. As soon as his fingers made contact, immediately circling and teasing her clit through the thin fabric of her panties, she gasped and arched into his touch.
After just a few moments, he pulled away. Isobel dared to open her eyes and was rewarded by seeing Hunter pull his own shirt off over his head. Her breath hitched. He was muscular in a normal-guy way, not like he hit the gym for hours a day. Like those were the kind he got by doing regular hard work. Isobel imagined him lifting bales of hay and carrying heavy equipment around all day.
She didn’t have long to just stop and stare, though, because almost immediately, he dropped and his mouth was back at work kissing his way down her stomach from just underneath her bra all the way to— Her breath hitched when he got to the top of her panties.
Oh God, he wasn’t going to…?
“Wait,” she squeaked, pulling her legs together and to the side when his tongue darted out along the top seam of her underwear. “You don’t have to do that.”
But when Hunter looked up at her, there was a devilish grin on his face. “I want to.” He leaned in and buried his nose in her crotch. “Fuck, do you know how good you smell?”
Isobel felt her cheeks flood with heat. Did he really think— Was he serious or just trying to—
He pushed her legs open wide and lowered his head between them. She was about to object again, but then that wicked tongue of his was back at work, right where her thigh met her sex. She squirmed and her legs started to draw back together but he easily pushed them apart again.
One of his fingers teased underneath the seam of her underwear, running along her swollen vulva and dipping ever so slightly inside her. She cried out at the sensation.
Somewhere in the back of her head she imagined herself like a beached whale, flopped out in the middle of Hunter’s living room floor like this, her flabby legs spread so wantonly. But every other part of her brain was consumed with firing neurons of pleasure.
He pushed aside her underwear and his tongue teased along the path his finger had just traced. But then he pulled back again. He was driving her so freaking insane. She didn’t recognize her voice as she reached down and buried her hands in his dark brown curls. “Hunter, please,” she begged. “Please.”
“Please, what?” he asked, and she could feel the warmth of his breath through h
er damp panties. As close as his face was, he had to be drenched in the smell of her arousal.
“Touch me.” She couldn’t help the whining quality to her voice. But she couldn’t stand any more teasing either.
His hands grabbed her inner thighs just above her knees and he started massaging up toward where his tongue continued its torture. “I am touching you,” he said.
Her hands fisted in his thick hair. “Touch my…” She swallowed. God, was he really going to make her say it? “Touch my cunt. Lick my cunt.”
His hands squeezed her thighs and he buried his face in her sex at her words, breathing her in and biting at her pussy.
She cried out, almost coming on the spot at the contact after so much teasing. He dragged her underwear down over her hips. She lifted her butt off the ground to help him and he had her panties halfway down her thighs the next moment.
And then, oh God finally, he was diving face first into her most intimate area. He ate with abandon, like he wanted his mouth everywhere at once. He was licking between her folds and sucking on her clit one moment, then thrusting his tongue deep into her passage the next, then just burying his face as deep as he could in her cunt like he couldn’t get enough of her.
She couldn’t help the unintelligible high-pitched squeaking noises that came out of her throat. She’d never— Jason had never— He always said it wasn’t hygienic. That she smelled like fish down there. She’d been paranoid about it when she was with him, using all kinds of products to make sure she smelled fresh and clean whenever she knew they’d be spending the night together.
But she hadn’t showered in a couple days and here Hunter was lapping at her like he’d never tasted anything as sweet. And having his mouth there, his tongue, doing such—
She cried out and shamelessly thrust her pelvis up and into his face. “Oh God, yes,” she cried. “Eat me out. Eat me out so fucking good!”
She’d never in her life been so vocal during sex, but she’d also never had sex in a cabin in the middle of the woods before. It was freeing to shout her dirtiest desires at the top of her lungs. She slammed her hands to the soft rug underneath them, clawing into the carpet fibers as the pleasure ramped higher and higher. White spots burst as— Oh God, how could it feel so—