by Vicki Tharp
He buried his face in his hands, his fingers raking through his hair. Then he looked back up at her, his eyes almost empty. “It’s not good enough. Not for her.”
She stood and went to him, taking his hands and wrapping them around her waist. He rested his chin on her abdomen as he stared up at her.
With her hands cupping his face she said, “What happened this morning happens to every parent. Maybe not at the rodeo, but at a store, or the park, or a busy street. It happens. As for the yard, she has whole rodeo grounds to run around in and explore. Kids in every city she stays in to play with. And school... school is at least two years away. That’s not something you have to worry about right now.”
She ran her hands through his hair, careful to avoid his injury. “All I know is Clementine is happier and healthier than I’ve ever seen her. No one has been able to give her that. Only you.”
He sat up a little straighter, tugging her closer. “Maybe.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”
For the first time since he came over, the tension in his expression eased, and one corner of his mouth turned up in a grin. “We?”
She gave him a shrug and one of those what-can-I-say smiles. Levi Banks had a way of winning a girl over. If anyone doubted his powers, just look at Clementine. “She’s my blood, too. As much as I can be in her life, as much as you will allow me, I want to be. I’ve already lost Mae. I don’t want to lose Clementine, too.”
He wrapped his arms tighter around her and pressed a kiss to the middle of her abdomen, then glanced up at her. “I’d like that.”
Then his eyes shifted from something that resembled appreciation to something much more mischievous and lascivious. He ran his hands down to the hem of her shirt and back up again until he hit bare skin. The muscles in her abdomen quaked under his featherlight touch. “There’s something else I’d like as well.”
The thought of turning him down never crossed her mind, but she couldn’t let his earlier rejection go without at least giving him a good-natured ribbing. “What about your life being ‘complicated’?”
“Forgive me,” he said, as he raised her shirt above her waist and kissed the skin south of her belly button. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
She laughed. “Oh, and now you are thinking clearly after guzzling two beers in as many minutes?”
“It takes more than a couple beers to get me buzzed.” He wrapped his arms around the tops of her thighs and stood with her in his arms, his face at chest level. Her nipples peaked, pressing against the thin blue cotton.
“Sweet baby Jesus. You’re not wearing a bra.”
He turned his head, nipping at her through the fabric. It took everything not to wrap her arms around his head and keep him there. “You going to put me down?”
He stepped over to the bed. “If you insist.”
Then he dropped her on her back in the middle of the mattress. She laughed as she bounced. Levi landed beside her. He stretched out, his large hand spanning across her abdomen, his thumb drawing loose circles above her hip bone.
He leaned in, taking her mouth with his with a hesitancy that hadn’t been there before. He drew a finger down her jaw line. “You good with this?”
She ran her hand over the bulge of his bicep. “Yeah.”
“Sorry about earlier. I was an idiot.”
“Yes. You were.”
He laughed. The deep rumble settled around her, wreaking havoc on her nerves. “Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?”
“I could stop.”
By the grin on his face, they both knew it wasn’t the truth. “Don’t you dare.”
But Olivia wasn’t finished. When he leaned in to kiss her again, she laid a staying hand on his chest. There was one last thing she needed to clear up. “What about Cora?”
“She’s with Ian.” When it became clear things weren’t going any further until he elaborated, he said, “Look, it’s no secret I was sweet on her. We had good times. Great times, even.”
“I don’t have a problem with you being her friend or cherishing the good memories that you two shared. I’m just saying I don’t want to be the runner-up at the county fair. I don’t want the red ribbon.”
“I’m not going to lie. There had been a while there—until more recently than I’d like to admit—that if she’d wanted me back, I would have said yes. Which would have been a mistake. She’s still a great friend. I want Cora in my life, but I have no desire to have her in my bed.”
“Is that the I-will-take-what-I-can-get libido talking?”
“No. That’s me.”
A month ago, she probably would have called bullshit on that, but in that time, he’d been honest and true. He was a man who lived up to his responsibilities. A man who lived with integrity.
She took his words at face value. “That’s what I needed to know.”
That time when he kissed her, he didn’t hesitate to take the kiss deeper. She opened to him, tasting the beer on his tongue and smelling the soap on his skin. His hand on her abdomen slipped lower, his pinkie dipping beneath the waistband of her jeans and panties.
He broke the kiss and said, “Your jeans are undone.”
“I know.”
A low growl sent goosebumps down her sides and heat to her core. If he didn’t get inside her quick—
Her hand went to his before he could go any farther. “Please tell me you brought a condom.”
Grinning, he reached his hand to his back pocket. Then his face fell, and he stood, patting the front and back of his sweats. “Shit. I must have left my wallet in my jeans. Any chance you—”
He didn’t even have a chance to get the sentence out before she was shaking her head. “I hadn’t planned on having sex while on the road, so...” She raised up on her elbows. “I guess this means this is a no go.”
He straddled her hips. She stopped him with a hand on his chest. “What are you doing, we can’t—”
He kissed her to shut her up, making her head spin and her breathing accelerate. “There are many things we can do that don’t include fucking.”
Fucking. None of the men she’d been with before had talked to her that way. It should have turned her off but like a breath of air, it stoked the fire, revved her engines, and made her wheels spin out of control.
“Like what?” she asked, not because she was clueless, but because she wanted to hear him say it out loud.
He chuckled. “Oh, baby, aren’t you naughty?” He shifted between her legs, hooking his fingers into the waistband of her jeans and tugging them down. “I’m going to start with my mouth on you.” He stopped the slow slide of her pants down her thighs long enough to cup her. She arched up, grinding against his hand. “And we’ll work our way down from there.”
* * *
Slowly, Levi dragged Olivia’s jeans down her long legs, enjoying the rash of goosebumps that broke out over her skin as he trailed a lagging finger down each leg.
She was still lying on her back, propped up on her elbows watching his every move. At the foot of the bed, he dropped her jeans and quickly stripped off his own clothes.
“Oh, Lord.” Her gaze dropped, and the avid longing in her eyes made him impossibly hard, insanely ravenous. “Bring that baby up here where I can get my hands on you.”
“Patience.”
“I’m fresh out.”
“Too bad,” he said as he climbed back onto the mattress between her legs. Her eyes narrowed, but her playful grin told him her devious mind was already calculating tortuous, mind-blowing ways of paying him back. He looked forward to that. “Take off the T-shirt.”
He didn’t have to ask twice. She laid back down, fully exposed. Breast wise, she lacked Cora’s size and volume, but what she possessed, he found infinitely more attractive.
Confidence.
Confidence that what she had was enough.
Confidence that she was enough.
Of the women he’d been with, she was the first woman w
ho hadn’t covered her breasts the first time she bared them to him. She traced a lazy finger down her sternum. His eyes locked onto the movement as he followed her finger across the gentle rise of one breast as it skipped across a taut peak.
He had more immediate plans, but that finger...
He dropped down on his forearms and nestled between her thighs, trapping his erection between their bodies as he laved her nipple and sucked it into his mouth. She groaned. Her back arched. Her pelvis ground against him. Levi wanted nothing more than to shift and bury himself balls deep in her warm, wet, walls, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not this time.
But until then, he’d make damn sure they both enjoyed themselves enough that there’d be a next time. She encircled her arms around his head and held him in place, the sounds escaping the back of her throat made his balls buzz.
He released her, his mouth making a soft pop as he worked his way to the other side. He couldn’t be partial. He loved her responsiveness, the way her hands tangled in his hair, the way her short fingernails scratched and clawed at his shoulder, the way her ankles locked, and her heels pressed against his hamstrings urging him closer.
He kissed his way up her chest, his tongue dipping into the divot between her collarbones. “I love the way you taste. Fresh like the first cut of summer hay, salty like a woman unafraid of hard work.”
She pulled him up, mashing her mouth against his, and he savored the sweet, sharp sting of her teeth on his bottom lip before a swipe of her tongue soothed the soreness away.
“Don’t forget your promise.” The way her voiced dipped low with need had him remapping his trajectory.
“I’m on it, boss.”
She chuckled. “Asshole.”
The lights dimmed when the decrepit air conditioner kicked back on with a sputter and a low-level hum. “Automatic mood lighting,” Levi said as he raised up on all fours. “You pay extra for that?”
She didn’t answer but placed her hands on his shoulders and guided him south. He drew his hands down her sides, his thumbs tracing the line down her middle. Down he went, past the patch of precum he’d left above her pubis, through the mat of tight curls at her apex.
Her hips rose up into his touch, wanting, needing so much more. Before critical contact, his lips skipped over her clit. She mewled her frustration, a primal, pitiful sound that made him laugh.
“You are so going to pay for tha— Gah.”
He dropped his mouth on her, sucking the sensitive nub. Her hands fisted in his hair, pin pricks of pain erupted along his scalp, egging him on. He settled on his stomach, his legs hanging off the end of the bed, but he hardly noticed.
With his tongue, he licked down her slit. She was so hot and wet and ready. He buried his nose in her mound and inhaled her musky scent, vowing to make sure he stuffed his wallet full of condoms and never, ever, left home without them.
She thrust her hips, matching him stroke for stroke, his tongue doing what his dick couldn’t. Her moans got shorter, sharper, tiny little puffs of pleasure escaping past the constriction in her vocal cords.
The walls of the motel rooms were thin, and he heard the television in the next room, the canned laugh track on a sitcom, but he didn’t care who overheard them. In fact, he planned on making her scream, on making the guys in the next room turn up the volume to drown them the hell out.
He swapped his tongue for a finger, then added another as she rode him, her wetness making soft sucking sounds that almost had him blowing his load.
Her cries got louder. She was getting close. “That’s it, baby,” he said as kissed the crease at the top of her inner thigh. “Like that. That’s so fucking sexy.”
She upped the tempo. He upped his, too. Her hands went to his head, guiding his mouth to her clit. He latched on, the suction sending her over the edge with a shout. He glanced up at her and watched as she tripped into ecstasy.
Levi wiped his face on the sheets and crawled up the length of her body, kissing his way up her neck as she caught her breath. He settled his pelvis against hers, loving the lazy, hazy way she ground up against him.
She ran a hand through her sweat-dampened hair, her words barely a whisper when she said, “Fuck me.” The words came out as more of an epitaph than a command.
Levi chuckled, tracing the curve of her ear with his tongue. “I thought I did.”
She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him down, taking his full weight.
“I’m not crushing you?”
With firm hands, she stroked up and down the long muscles on either side of his spine. “Mmmm,” she said as her hands cupped his ass and tucked him in tighter against her. “I’m not some cracked piece of porcelain you have to handle with care. Besides, I like the way you feel against me.”
He didn’t have any complaints either. She was tall for a woman. Slender, yet strong. He liked not having to worry she’d shatter in his hands... unless it was the good kind of shattering.
When she reached a hand down between them, gathered the moisture, and took him in her hand, he didn’t complain about that either. He buried his face in the crook of her shoulder, his eyes practically rolling back as she stroked him.
He rose on his forearms, thrusting into the tight space created between her hand and her pelvis, already hot and hard from watching her come, from watching her take pleasure from his hand and his mouth.
Olivia’s thumb spread the bead of precum over the rest of the head, his ridge bumping across the edge of her finger again and again.
Her breathing picked up again along with her firm strokes. He rose up a little higher, changing the angle so that his cock also stroked her clit. She gasped, and her body shuddered, her hips finding their own rhythm as she came again. He felt the tingling at the base of him. His thrusts went erratic as he came in her hand and across her abdomen, her belly button filling.
His arms shook as he held his weight off her. Even though she said she liked his weight, a part of him didn’t believe he wouldn’t crush her. He glanced down, the sight of her covered in his cum almost turned him hard again.
She slid her hand up, catching a drop with her finger that threatened to slip over the edge onto the sheets. With devilment in her eyes, she lifted the finger to her lips and licked it clean.
He groaned, claiming her mouth with his, a touch of his saltiness still on her tongue. “That’s hot as hell. You make it awful hard for me not to take you right now. Damn the consequences.”
7
Olivia laid on the mattress with Levi stretched out beside her. He rested his head on his hand, one leg tossed casually over hers. Like him, she wanted nothing more than to lose herself in the pleasure, in the sex, in him.
Damn the consequences.
Except those consequences could turn into three-year-old little girls.
“Next time,” she said.
A furrow formed between his brows as his thoughts turned inward, his fingers ghosting over her chest, down her side, and across her upper abdomen. Still keyed up, her muscles fluttered under his touch.
She played with a lock of his sweat-dampened hair on the nape of his neck, liking the way his sensual gaze grazed her body as if what they’d shared hadn’t been a mutual itch that needed scratching, but perhaps something deeper and truer.
Finally, he sucked in a deep breath and scrunched his fingers through the hair at the juncture of her legs. “Do you think there’ll be a next time?”
She didn’t want to fill him with false hope, since she was headed back to her ranch first thing Monday morning. But she also wouldn’t lie. “I hope so.” Then to lighten the mood, she said, “But if it makes you feel any better, you win.”
He cracked that sexy, bad-boy cowboy smile and she had to remind of the reasons why a relationship with him could never work. “I win?”
“I told you I wouldn’t sleep with you... so...”
“Technically, neither one of us slept.”
“True.” She laughed, then hazarded a glance at her alar
m clock. It was after eleven thirty. “Speaking of sleep... We both have early days tomorrow and we still need to get cleaned up.”
Levi grumbled, his hand tracing a delicate circle around her belly. “Do we gotta? I like the way you look—sexy, and sated, and covered in my cum.”
She did, too. “Unfortunately.”
He rained light kisses onto her forehead, her eyelid, her cheek, the tip of her nose. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Ladies first.”
“You don’t want to join me?”
“More than anything, but I won’t be able to keep my hands off you or my dick out of you if I get you wet and lathered.”
Levi helped her to her feet before she could forget she was doing the right thing. He sent her to the showers with a swat on her rump. “Save me some hot water.”
“We’ll see,” she said, though only cold water lay in her future. The thought of his large hands on her, soaping her up, made her too hot and bothered as it was.
Quickly, she washed off, enjoying the mild soreness between her legs that had left her wanting more. She came out of the bathroom with a threadbare towel around her body and another turbaned around her head.
Levi was stretched out in her bed completely naked, his head and shoulders propped up on the pillows, a farm and ranch magazine laying across one upturned knee as he skimmed through the pages.
Olivia’s gaze went to his crotch. Maybe it was crass, but anyone who saw how endowed he was wouldn’t blame her. He cleared his throat and used two fingers to point at his eyes. “Eyes up here. I’m not a piece of meat,” he teased.
But the way his cock hardened when she dropped her towel, did make her awfully hungry. He hopped off the other side of the bed before she could get her hands on him. Backing away, he held his hands out in front of him for protection.
He couldn’t keep the laughter out of his voice when he said, “I’m trying to be good here. You need to do the same.”
“Spoilsport.” With big, sad, puppy-dog eyes and a pronounced pout, she plopped belly first onto the bed and retrieved the magazine.
By the time he got out of the shower, she was three pages into an article on the new technologies in the artificial insemination of cattle, which if it worked as well as the article predicted, could be a boon to her bull breeding business. Think of how much more money she could make selling sperm without always having the hassle, dangers, and inconveniences of live covers?