The Wildest Ride--A Novel

by Marcella Bell

  His fingers left her scalp, and she mourned the loss, until those calloused hands gripped the bare tops of her hips to press her closer. Goose bumps sprang up along her skin, sensitizing her to the tiny breezes blowing around. The cool night wind did nothing to dim the heat. If anything, its silky caress only fanned the flames.

  AJ ran his palms up her ribcage until his thumbs came to cup her breasts and find her nipples. He rubbed them in delicate, lazy, circles, pulling back just enough to watch her face.

  Her head fell back with a moan and he lifted his hip. The hard length of him pressed against her center, hot through the thin fabric between them. Colors flashed behind her eyelids, and his name slipped out from between her lips.

  “Can I take your braid out?” He rasped the question, and she nodded.

  She was surprised when his fingers deftly untied and unbraided without tugging and tangling. He didn’t touch her hair like it was a battle to be fought. He touched it like it was something to be coaxed and teased and chased and adored. Something female.

  It sprang free around her. Messy curls bounced every which way, brushing against her shoulders and back, and sending shivers down her spine. Lil purred.

  “There she is.” The gravel in AJ’s drawl was equal parts pleasure and possession and the combination was ethanol to her flame.

  He kissed her earlobe, then her neck, trailing down to run along her collarbone before lifting to lay her back and hover over her, palms planted on either side of her head. His face was shadowed, but no less beautiful.

  If anything, the dark hollows emphasized the gorgeous structure of his face: breathtaking jawline, proud cheekbones, the way his dimple turned wicked when he smiled like that...

  Lil shook her head, trying to rein her wild thoughts in. It was too much. She had no reason to feel the kick of ownership over that smile, the sense that it existed for her alone. No reason she should be so sure—in him and this—so confident this was right, knowing that she’d always been waiting for this perfect here and now, as true and powerful as the desire that threatened to engulf them both.

  And then he was reaching his arm down between their bodies, his calloused palm running down the bare skin between her breasts and down her belly, sending electric shocks all along the way to pull the drawstring of her thermals.

  His fingertips, brushing lightly over her skin as they worked, were like branding irons, even through fabric and the lace of her underwear.

  The whisper of cool air through lace called all of her attention to the juncture of her hips, and she instinctively lifted them so he could do the work of getting rid of her pants.

  Beneath them, she wore a black lace thong, plain by her standards, but his eyes blazed, twin black flames, as he uncovered them.

  “Mmmm. Hidden depths, Liliana linda.” His voice was breathless, and she felt it in every cell.

  The words were a hot freshet to the river of heat running through her, even as she told herself not to hold on to them, tried to remember he was a rodeo cowboy and there was an unspoken for now at the end of his every sentence.

  She shivered, nothing between her and him but a thong. Eyes intent, he gripped her hips and pulled her up so they were flush with his.

  Just the pressure of him against her was nearly enough to push her over the edge, and she hadn’t even seen it yet.

  The need to see him, all of him, filled her with greedy urgency. It wasn’t enough to lie on her back while he took her in—even if his chest was glorious. She needed to touch him. Taste him. Mark him in some way.

  She bucked him, but he caught her, grip holding fast, holding her hips at a slight elevation. That she hadn’t shaken him off sent another wave of heat to pool at her center and she moaned.

  “Te gusta, querida?? What about this?” He pressed his own hips against her, grinding his length against her, nudging her open beneath the barrier of her thong, just slightly.

  Another moan escaped her, and he smiled. “I thought you might.”

  She responded by rocking against him, pressing more of her wet heat along him.

  This time he moaned, and taking advantage of his moment of weakness, she bucked again. He held fast, though, and the next time she pressed into him, it was because she needed to.

  His smile was open and real when he said, “You’re perfect, Lil.”

  Lil narrowed her eyes. “Take off your boxers, AJ.” Her voice would have been dry, if it weren’t thick with want of him.

  He laughed before clicking his tongue at her. “Now, is that any way to ask?”

  She growled and he used his hands to tilt the angle of her hips forward so the sensitive bud of her clit pressed directly against his shaft. Sounds she’d never made before slipped out of her lips and AJ groaned himself, falling victim to his own torture.

  Slowly, as if he was loath to release his hold on her hips, he lowered her back down against the thick pad of the sleeping bag. He was over her once more an instant later, enveloping her in his heat and scent of fresh cotton, summer grass, leather, and something she couldn’t name. Something that made her want to rub her body all over his and purr.

  Her hands were on his hips, pushing his boxers down, before her mind registered their intent. He caught her mouth with his, taking her into a deep kiss, and she took it as permission to keep going.

  She pushed them over his hips and down his thighs, stopping when his heavy erection fell against her and he groaned into her mouth. The tip of it landed just shy of her belly button, leaving traces of the scalding moisture beading there.

  When he released her from the kiss, she looked down between them and her breath caught. He was perfectly formed, primally beautiful, exuding raw masculine power from every pore.

  Lil’s mouth watered. Again, she was filled with a desperate urgency to touch him. To taste him. To have him inside of her. All of it, at once. She wiggled her hips, working to align herself with him, but he shook his head and leaned in to kiss her neck beside her ear, whispering, “Not yet, querida.”

  He trailed kisses down her neck, sending shivers down her spine as his lips brushed against the hypersensitive skin of her breasts. She cried out when he found one of her nipples.

  Back arching, she pressed against his mouth, his wicked tongue coaxing her inner flames higher and higher, even as his rough palms caressed up and down the length of her side, thumbs sometimes brushing teasingly along the outer edges of her breasts as he went.

  He switched to the other and the newly abandoned hardened further, chilled, wet, and exposed to the elements.

  When his kisses trailed lower, down her belly, her breath came in mini gasps that were shallow, rapid, and desperate. He made his way slowly, deliberately. He kissed the spot just below her belly button and it was an electric jolt through her body.

  Her breath stalled. On some level she’d recognized the trajectory of his path, but the reality, the gentle pressure of his mouth, coupled with the tiny flickering tastes of his tongue against her skin had all her blood pooling in the place that was his ultimate destination. A part of her thought of stopping him. Her past boyfriend had gone down on her, but it’d mostly just made her feel awkward and pressured. She brought her hands to rest at the top of his broad shoulders, unsure if she meant to push him away or hold him there. All thoughts fled with the gentle pressure of his lips pressing against her most intimate place.

  The kiss wasn’t salacious—just the gentle pressure of his lips pressed against her opening without exposing her, without plunder—and it almost broke her. She lifted her hips, unconsciously opening herself up to him, and he hummed against her. The sound vibrated through her core, triggering an answering sigh from her. And then, as if he’d been waiting for the cue of the sound, he devoured her.

  His tongue found its way between her folds to lap at her inner heat. He savored, sucking, licking, and pressing soft kisses along her crease whi
le she arched her back, fingers curling in to grip the sleeping bag on either side of her body.

  He placed his hands on her inner thighs, igniting the delicate skin there with the brush of palms, roughened from years of ropes, before he spread her wider, opening her, exposing more of her to his plunder.

  His tongue entered her and she didn’t recognize the sound that came out of her mouth. She panted, hips bucking, and he held, digging in farther.

  He said her name against her slick folds, and she nearly came.

  Pulling back slightly, he murmured with a smile, “So impatient...” before blowing softly.

  The cool air across her most sensitive area was a torturous interlude—soothing and calming, even as she craved more fire and heat. She squirmed for more, anything, and he obliged, sliding two thick fingers into her while using his thumb to rub the sensitive bud at the top of her entrance.

  She cried out, startling answering moos from the cows grazing in the distance, and his laugh was full of triumphant male.

  She felt herself fraying in the onslaught, threads of Self unraveling from the outside in, and she knew she wasn’t long for the world. Lil, as she knew her, was dissolving, disappearing. Never to be seen again.

  Whoever emerged when it was all over would be a different woman entirely—remade, she was afraid, in his image.

  A part of her balked, ever the wild mustang, unwilling to bend or bow to him, but he held fast, his powerful, calloused thumb and slick fingers unyielding, demanding nothing less than her complete surrender. She’d broken enough horses in her lifetime to sense when she herself was breaking, bowing to a will stronger than hers. Trusting his lead.

  Lil disappeared. In her place were a thousand fireworks. The entire spectrum of color going off in a sea of rainbow explosions accompanied by the sound of a single name: AJ.

  When she coalesced, he was once again above her, tip poised at her entrance.

  He caught her eyes, his near black in the intensity of their focus. “You’re sure?”

  Lil nodded and his answering smile was blinding. He reached between them to guide his head up and down her damp crease, stirring up the internal sea she thought had calmed.

  He groaned and said, “Lil, you feel like heaven and I’m not even inside you,” and she flushed.

  He was hot, and so large she knew she’d have been scared if she hadn’t grown up on a farm, and she wanted him inside her. He teased her, though. And kept teasing her. Until she was wetter than she’d ever been in her life and teetering on the edge again.

  He didn’t stop until she said please.

  “Dios mío, Liliana,” he growled. “I thought you’d never ask.” And then he was pressing into her, slowly, giving her time to adjust with every inch. “Jesus Christ, Lil.”

  She moaned, his words sending electric thrills along her spine.

  The pressure of making space for him inside her was intense, but not the pain she’d been told to expect. It was...good. Immense. Heavy. Hot. A new heartbeat pulsing deep inside her.

  And then he started to move. Slowly.

  Her body answered in a shuddering wave of pleasure. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and let it carry her over the slow, easy edge.

  He leaned down to press kisses across her face, repeating her name, over and over, “Lil. Lil. Lil.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but her face stalled as another molten wave of pleasure crested over her. Whatever words she had were lost in a moan.

  His thrusts grew deeper and harder, and with each one she grew wetter, her body delighting in his bombardment.

  Her hips found his rhythm, leaping to meet his, striving to give him greater access. To take more of him in.

  He groaned and the sound reverberated through her from the inside out. She gasped as her inner muscles began to clench, yet again, surprised that there was anything left of her to fall apart.

  He growled, “Let go, Lil,” and she did.

  She ceased to exist, once and for all, fragmenting into a mere collection of sensations—tremors and moans driven by a primal pulse of grip and release—until finally it was too much for him, too. His last thrust sank deep, the deepest yet, and he roared her name as he came.

  22

  The sound of restless cows was the first thing Lil noticed when she woke. The second was that she had, after all was said and done, snuggled into AJ during the night. What made the situation more complicated was that he had done the same.

  It was still dark outside, but she knew it was morning, probably somewhere around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. She was on her back, her head resting in the crook of his arm, her side snug against his. Somewhere during the night, he had wrapped his arm around her, crossing her chest and stomach, his palm cupping her hip bone.

  He smelled good. Really good. His scent was fresh and earthy, not like hay, but somehow tangible and right in the same way. It was the smell of steady mornings through changing seasons. It smelled like safety, and a place to turn to—and everything that AJ was not.

  Dragging her mind away from its waxing rhapsodic about his body chemistry, she turned her attention instead to the arm draped across her chest. She’d have to move it if she wanted to get untangled.

  He’d missed her nipples, but barely, and both of them, not to mention the places where her breasts touched the weight of his arm, were very aware of the fact, sending charged signals to her brain to let her know it’d only take a little movement in either direction to make things interesting.

  Enough of that, she thought. She was an adult woman. She was just going to lift his arm and scoot away. She reached for the hand on her hip.

  He responded by pulling her closer and murmuring some form of protest, his strong arm drawing her closer into his chest, pressing the length of her body against his. Close enough that suddenly all her focus was on the fact that the hot, hard length of him pressed against her thigh.

  Her body flushed and, interpreting the contact as the sign that all bets were off, readied for round two, nipples hardening and skin turning needy again, demanding she roll over, lift her face, and kiss him.

  Instead, she blew a breath through her mouth and shook her head clear. What she needed to do was to get away from him. Pronto.

  He solved the problem for her by waking up. His eyes flew open—he looked at her, looked down at their position, then grinned.

  “Well, isn’t this a nice way to wake up,” he drawled. His accent, like his voice, and...other parts of him, was thicker in the morning.

  Lil pushed his arm off and sat up, body protesting the sudden movement.

  “You’re shameless,” she said. “You haven’t even gotten out of bed yet.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “That’s when it’s the best...” His voice carried an offer to prove it, but Lil inched away.

  AJ sent her a “suit yourself” shrug and sat up. The sleeping bag pooled in his lap, and if there was a force in the world with a chance of tearing her eyes away from the broad expanse of him, Lil didn’t know what it was.

  She had a problem. She refocused her attention on her own body, hoping the concrete sensations of discomfort would be an anchor against the sea of input that was AJ.

  After being thrown from her horse, sleeping—and other things—under the stars, she certainly wasn’t going to feel good when all was said and done—especially since “all said and done” was yet to be concluded with timed sorting and penning—but she wasn’t so hurt they’d be out of the challenge. Which was as it should be. This was rodeo and there hadn’t been a day in all its history that rodeo had ever been about feeling good when all was said and done.

  Lil’s voice was all business when it came out. “We’re both up. Might as well get going.”

  Not moving, AJ laughed, “No breakfast? We’ve got more marshmallows.” He said the last bit in the same cajoling tone that Gran had used to g
et Lil to try new things when she was little. Lil responded the way she always had: she gave one shake of her head, pursed her lips into a stubborn line, and drew her eyebrows down, face turning dark and serious.

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest and said, “We’ve got to make up for lost time. Best get going.”

  AJ’s eyes took on a competitive spark and he nodded. “You’re absolutely right. Early bird and all that.” He slid out of the sleeping bag and stood up as he spoke and Lil’s mouth dropped open.

  They might have slept out in the open under the stars, but the man could pitch a tent. Lil’s entire body flamed so fast she was sure she blended in with the red of her long johns.

  He was huge.

  He stretched luxuriously, long arms reaching high, his shirt lifting at the hem to reveal hints of rock-hard abs and defined hip muscles. All somehow guiding and directing the eye back to the proud centerpiece, AJ in his full glory. He sauntered over to his saddlebag, the very definition of shameless.

  Lil was equally torn between laughing and meeting his dare head-on. She was a coward, though, so she laughed.

  She didn’t laugh at him. How could she? He was beautiful. Close to perfect. No, she laughed because he made the whole thing light and free. A power that’d always eluded her.

  He pulled on his jeans slowly, and she enjoyed the view.

  Today’s button-up was emerald green, by far the loudest thing she’d seen him wear all circuit.

  “Think they might miss you from far away?”

  AJ snorted. “Nope. I just want to make it easier for them to film me coming in first place of course.”

  “You mean us.”

  AJ grinned over his shoulder. “Sure.”

  Lil scowled, reality intruding. He was teasing, but it was also the truth. She’d do well not to forget.

  “Speaking of, do you think the camera van is looking for us? By day they can probably track our GPS.”

  He looked thoughtful. “Maybe? They seemed like they were having trouble with the rocks yesterday. I wouldn’t be surprised if they settled in for the night and plan to catch up today.”