High Moon

by Kati Wilde

  His weight suddenly comes down over me, his chest heaving against my sweaty back. Before the heavy pressure restricts my breathing, he pulls me over onto my side, spooned behind me, his cock still buried within my quaking pussy.

  “Fuck,” he pants with awe in his voice, and presses an openmouthed kiss to the side of my jaw. “Hot damn.”

  I laugh against him, then shudder as an aftershock rips through me, squeezing his dick. With a low groan, he holds me tight until my shaking eases, then reluctantly reaches down between us, gently slipping out of me.

  “You stay here. I’ll clean you up and— Fuck.”

  I look back. He’s got the condom off, and he examines it for a second before smearing his fingers through the wetness on the inside of my thigh, sniffing. “Did it break?”

  “No.” He’s frowning. “Just overfilled and spilled out the bottom. I don’t think any got into you, but I can go get one of those morning-after pills tomorrow.”

  “You’d have to drive to Coeur d’Alene for that because the local pharmacy doesn’t carry them.” I sit up. “But if none got into me, we should be okay. Does that usually happen—overfilling?”

  “No.” He slides off the bed, heading for the bathroom. “Usually there’s just a few little squirts. But I suppose my fungus really wants to get you pregnant.”

  I’m still laughing as he returns to the bed, then my laughter dissolves into giggling surprise and I start squirming as his ‘clean you up’ turns out to be with his tongue, not a washcloth as I assumed. He works his way up to my belly, where he flicks his tongue into my navel before looking up at me.

  Softly he asks, “You want me to head back to the bunkhouse or stay?”

  “Stay,” I tell him, my heart suddenly tight and aching. Stay forever, if you can.

  His eyes flare bright, and his voice has a husky edge as he climbs up to lie down at my side, propped up on his elbow and looking down at me. “Good thing about you being so tall is that you’ve got a long bed—even longer than the one in the bunkhouse. I don’t like it when my feet hang over. I’m always afraid something will reach up and grab them.”

  Laughing, I wrap my arms around him. “I’ll protect you,” I swear. “Because you’re mine now, right?”

  And he says gruffly, “I’m pretty damn sure that I always have been.”

  18

  Ethan

  I wake up to the exquisite torture of Makena’s tongue working a hot path up the length of my cock. Fuck. Instantly hungry, I reach for her but she bats my hand away, making a warning noise in her throat before lifting her head.

  “We don’t have much time. The alarm’s about to go off,” she whispers huskily, laying her soft cheek against my shaft, her lips moist and full.

  “So am I,” I tell her through gritted teeth.

  She grins, holding my gaze through the early morning dark, before leaning in and swirling her tongue around the fat head of my cock.

  The air hisses through my teeth. “Makena—”

  “Shh. You never let me touch you last night.”

  But she touches me now, stroking my dick with both hands while she sucks the broad tip into her mouth. Her gaze flicks upward, and she only pauses for a second to take in the sight of my face, but I know what she’s seeing.

  Me, battling for control, trying to keep still and losing my fucking mind. Because with every lick and stroke, her scent’s blooming, too. Syrupy and hot and spiced with her arousal, as if she absolutely loves what she’s doing to me. Her breathing is heavy, her eyes at a blissful half-mast as she sips away the pre-cum dripping from the tip. And I don’t know whether to cry with agony or relief when she says in a throaty voice, “Toss me one of those condoms.”

  But it’s agony and relief. The way she sucks me deep one more time before rolling on the rubber. The way she pushes me back down when I sit up, saying without a word that this is her show to run. The way she swings her leg over my hips and straddles me, her pussy slick with her need. The way she so greedily grips my shaft, aiming my thick cock at her little entrance.

  Scalding wetness engulfs the head of my dick. She gasps like she’s drowning, her head falling back as she takes more of me in. Her pussy’s so tight that she has to work at it, rocking and twisting her hips, wrecking my mind with every inch she gains.

  When she takes in the full length, it’s almost like she collapses from the effort, falling forward and bracing her hands on my chest.

  Then she just sits there, clutching my cock within her paradise of heat, her body barely moving. Except for the way her heaving breaths sway through her, the way her thundering heart rushes the blood through her veins. Except for the tiniest grind of her hips that stirs me inside her, not up and down or back and forth, but just the slightest circling movement, those taut inner walls subtly torturing every inch of my cock.

  “Makena.” Gut-ripping need turns her name into a snarl. “Ride me.”

  She laughs a little, and the amusement shakes through her body, tormenting me with a tremor of hot cunt around my cock. “But, Ethan—your dick is so big and hard inside my tight, melting pussy. So I know you like it. No matter how much you fight and squirm.”

  Fuck. Maybe I deserve this, then. I groan and laugh. “Yeah, I do. I fucking love it.”

  Teasing me, she arches her back, cupping her breasts, pinching her nipples. That pinch is echoed in the clench of her pussy around me, and her breathing deepens, her scent thickening into sheer desire.

  And I can’t keep myself from touching her anymore. Palming her thighs, I slide my hands up, watching her face as I sweep my thumb inward over her clit. Her pussy walls tighten again, and she gasps a little, but doesn’t push my hand away.

  Hell yes. I lick my thumb, tasting her juices and then sending it right back in. Her pussy lips are stretched tight to accommodate the width of my cock spearing deep inside her. The heat’s just pouring off her skin, like the wetness slicking her cunt.

  She groans as I begin working her clit, her body tightening up, inside and out. And when she starts grinding harder over me, it’s as if she can’t help it. She closes her eyes, her face flushed and glowing with sweat, those plush lips parted as she pants and moans.

  The alarm blares on the nightstand. Cursing, Makena leans forward to shut it off, her pussy stroking up the length of my cock as she moves. Finally. Biting back a howl of pleasure, I throw back my head against her silk pillow, struggling against the urge to drive upward and bury myself deep again. With her bottom lip clenched between her teeth, Makena stops with the head of my cock just inside her, as if she can’t bear to let me slip out, and swats at the clock. She misses.

  Because she can’t reach. In order to, she’ll have to get off my cock. But my arms are longer than hers.

  Growling, I reach out and silence the damn thing.

  Another laugh shakes through her. “You didn’t have to kill it.”

  Yeah, I did. And its death wasn’t in vain, because I’m still inside her—and when she sits back, fills herself up with my cock again, this time she doesn’t just rock and grind. With a flex of her strong thighs, she begins to ride.

  And thank Christ for it, because I’d been going fucking insane, though this is a new kind of torment, not pounding up into her but letting her set the pace. Blistering pleasure scalds the length of my shaft. A grunt rips from my chest every time she crams herself full of me, and I clench my teeth against the need to beg as she rises up, her pussy sucking my cock the whole way. I get my hand between us again, strumming her clit, rougher and faster, matching the rhythm she’s setting, and in a few more strokes her movements are disjointed and frenzied, the sounds coming from her like she’s hurting, like it’s too much, but she doesn’t stop.

  Then all at once she does, eyes closed and lips parted and thighs trembling, her cunt tightening. So fucking beautiful. I slick my thumb roughly over her throbbing clit and her eyes fly wide. Even as her pussy starts fluttering around me, she lurches her upper body forward, grabbing my hair and d
ragging me up for a kiss that’s just our mouths opening together as she comes, her ragged scream breaking against my lips.

  That strangled wail shreds my restraint. Fingers clamping down on her rounded cheeks, I fill my palms with her gorgeous ass and hold her in place for a brutal upward thrust. Makena cries out and those erotic flutters of her inner muscles become stronger, more frantic.

  Raging need boils in the base of my spine like liquid lightning. Bracing my feet, I ruthlessly pump into her convulsing sheath, long and hard strokes that jar her forward into the hot and wet of my kiss. Her fingernails dig into my scalp, as if it’s all she can to do hang on through the savage fucking beneath her. Her old bed creaks and squeals, her tits bouncing, her thighs shaking as she clings tight. There’s no hope of lasting. Not at this rough pace. My body could keep it up but the rest of me can’t, not my heart when she whimpers and moans my name, not my mind as she kisses me frantically and starts coming again, her pussy squeezing me so fucking tight. I slam deep and hold, roaring at the eruption of heat that doesn’t seem to start anywhere near my cock but from a volcanic flow at the top of my head, everywhere she’s touching me, setting my whole body on fire. The world burns around me in a white-hot flash, and I come to with Makena sprawled sweating over my chest, my cock still buried in her clinging wetness, and her beautiful smile aimed down at me.

  “Good morning,” she says huskily.

  Grinning, I lift my head and kiss her. “The best damn morning.”

  “It is. And I get the bathroom first.”

  “All right by me.” I’ll just lie here in her bed, wondering when I’m really going to wake up. Because I sure as hell didn’t expect to be here. Not in her room, holding her close all night. Makena bringing me into her house knocked the heart and the soul right out of me, put them square in her hands. And even after tasting her, after making her claim me as hers, something in my chest still feels like it’s been shaken loose and hasn’t yet settled in. Because I started falling for Makena real quick—but even that night on her porch swing, she kept a few fences up between us. I thought they’d be there for a long time.

  Instead she let me in. Just about every way there is, Makena let me in.

  While I take my turn in the bathroom, Makena skips her way down to the kitchen, humming to herself and sounding so happy that my heart swells up like a goddamn king’s. I haul on my jeans and head down the stairs. Jonas does a double-take when I come into the room, barechested, bareheaded, and barefoot. He looks more stunned than the first time he saw my warrior’s skin.

  I suppose if Makena’s never brought anyone else home, my being in her room all night is practically like announcing an engagement.

  He doesn’t say a thing about it, though. Just offers me a good morning while the dogs say their good mornings, too.

  And it’s like nothing else changed. Makena and I head out to the barn, start the morning chores. It’s all the same. Yet the whole world feels brand new.

  Brand new for me and Makena, anyway. All the rest of it is filled with the same old shit.

  Makena and I are down in the pasture, moving the cattle to their new grazing patch when I hear Sheriff McKinley’s engine coming down the road toward the ranch. I give her a heads-up, then watch the worry tighten her eyes and mouth as we finish up and drive back to the barn.

  No need to guess what she’s worrying about. I didn’t meet that Fauconnier fellow, but Jonas strikes me as someone who’s real good at reading people. He pegged me for what I really was in no time, though the only kin he’d met before were the bears who killed Makena’s parents. He’s also got a fine way with animals, likely because he’s good at reading all their signals, too. So if he’s of a mind that Fauconnier might silence those three assholes who tore out their fences and then try to throw the blame this direction, I’m inclined to think that Jonas has it right.

  I’m also inclined to think that maybe Fauconnier and I might have a little chat sometime in the near future. Makena isn’t so inclined that I do, though.

  And maybe she’d be right. When Makena hired me, her friend Carrie was worried that I’d bring more trouble onto her. I don’t ever want to do that—and going after Fauconnier, telling him to stay the fuck away from her and her ranch, might blow back hard. So as satisfying as it might be, I won’t go looking for him.

  If the fucker comes this way, though… I’m not promising anything.

  When we pull up to the barn, McKinley’s standing at the corral fence, watching Jonas saddle one of the fillies, and talking easily enough that I don’t figure he’s here to tell us that he found those three boys dead and my fingerprints planted on the bodies.

  “Hey, Kyle.” Those lips that were all over my cock this morning are now curved in a tight, wary smile. “Are you just dropping by, or is this an official visit?”

  “A little of both,” he tells her, and I see her tension ratchet up. “Because I just got a call from the state saying that they’re temporarily shutting down MDC’s site during the investigation—”

  “Already?” She gapes at him in astonishment that’s quickly followed by triumph. “Yes!”

  “But that information came with a warning—so I’m passing that warning on.”

  I frown. “What kind of warning?”

  “As a courtesy, they’re informing local law enforcement of their decision before making it official. So we can prepare.”

  “Just in case putting a bunch of townspeople temporarily out of work doesn’t go over so well,” I realize grimly.

  “Yep,” McKinley confirms. “I expect some grumbling, for certain. A whole lot of drinking, too. But they’ll all be able to draw unemployment—and the state says that if MDC falls into compliance regarding the mines quickly enough, then they’ll let them continue construction beginning next week. So that might help keep people settled down.”

  “Yet you need to pass on the warning to us?” Makena asks, her eyes troubled. “You think word got out that we’re the ones who brought that evidence to the state?”

  Kyle shakes his head. “They came in like it was a random inspection. But there’s some townsfolk already pushing blame your way for supposedly preventing MDC from getting all those new jobs open. And you never know what kind of nonsense gets into people’s heads—especially since there’s some other stupid shit going around about how you had Charlie Langerman arrested for no good reason. On the other hand, you recently doled out thousands of dollars worth of free dog food and had a bunch of cattle slaughtered, so there’s others feeling pretty kindly toward you right now. I’m just saying… emotions will be running high. So be extra careful over the next few days. All right?”

  She nods. “We will.”

  He looks satisfied by that, but I’m pretty damn sure neither Jonas or I are. As McKinley drives away and Makena heads toward the house, Jonas says quietly, “You’re going to stay close to her, yeah?”

  As close as I possibly can.

  19

  Makena

  If Kyle’s worries had come true and someone made trouble for us, I wouldn’t have had time to deal with it anyway. Over the next couple of days, it seems like every one of our fall-calving heifers gives birth—so over those couple of days, barely anyone on the ranch gets a wink of sleep. And on Saturday afternoon, I hit my annual “screw this preserving-my-own-food shit, I’m moving to the city and buying my groceries like normal people” breaking point while canning corn and pears in a steaming, sweltering kitchen.

  So after I pull the last jar out of the water bath, I run upstairs to change, and head outside beneath a glaring sun. We’re two weeks into October but summer still hasn’t loosened its grip. The long warm season is perfect for the new calves and good for the ranch overall. But lordy, it’s hot. And because my brain says it’s autumn, somehow the weather seems even hotter than it is in July, when the temperature is higher.

  I find Ethan in the yard, working on the hay baler. Today he’s winterizing all of the equipment that’ll be stored away until next
spring and summer—and it appears that he’s feeling the heat, too. He’s stripped off his T-shirt and tucked it into the back of his jeans’ waistband, and I would tease him about having a tail if the sight of him didn’t leave my tongue hanging out and too useless to say a word.

  Because that man. Holy shit. He’s still wearing his hat—most likely so the sun stays out of his eyes—but his chest is bare, his torso a sheer miracle of tanned muscle gleaming with sweat. He braces his hand and leans in to spray WD-40 on something in the baler’s guts, and the arm bearing his weight becomes a hard, sculpted marvel. And his ass. Good lord, that ass.

  He has to know I’m here, too. Ogling him. He always knows when I’m near.

  So he must deliberately be ignoring me, generously allowing me a minute more to look. Then I roll my tongue back up into my mouth and call out, “Hey, cowboy!”

  He glances over at me, eyes narrowing. Straightening up, he asks in a low rumble, “Is that a bikini you’re wearing?”

  Bright yellow, with a tiny pair of denim shorts covering the bottoms. “If I see one more Mason jar in the next two hours, I’ll probably flip my lid. So I’m thinking about heading down to the swimming hole and playing hooky. Wanna join me?”

  “Well, that’ll depend on whether certain attire is required.” He sets down the can of lubricant and starts walking toward me, and lust lashes through my belly like a whip. In those low slung jeans, his loose-hipped swagger drawls one word with each step. Sex. Sex. Sex. My eyes go straight to that corrugated abdomen, the ridge of muscle defining his hips, the happy trail that leads to the bulge swelling behind his zipper. “Because I don’t own a pair of swimming shorts.”