Cocksure (The Cochrans of Cocker County)

by Walker, Shiloh

  Years of practice kept me from stiffening up.

  However, no amount of practice could keep the overall caution from washing through me. Duncan had picked up on something and he slanted a look over at me. “Everything okay there, Luke?”

  “Yeah.” I reached for the beer somebody had brought out earlier. “Things were just...unsettled between us after Mark died.”

  “Mark.” He grunted under his breath, the noise more than a little disgusted.

  I shot him a hard look, and after a moment, he turned his head and looked at me.

  I couldn’t read anything in his eyes, though, and after a few moments, he pushed back from the table. “Your gorgeous fiancée is on her way back. Funny. She’s keeping an eagle eye on Mo, herself.”

  Instead of looking at him, I focused on Sabrina. She strode across the floor, looking like the queen of summer with her hair swept up in a loose, sexy knot, and the pink of her dress glowing against her warm, golden skin. A few people gestured to her or tried to catch her attention and she smiled or waved, stopping to talk briefly, but her focus remained on me.

  Her gaze sharpened and cut to the right. I fisted my hand, hidden out of sight under the table, resting on my knee. Casually, I glanced over just as Mo made her way toward my table. She’d been seated on the other side of the mayor’s table, just next to mine. I’d been grateful for the barrier, although I’d have preferred she sat a little farther away. Siberia would have been acceptable.

  She reached me only a few seconds before Sabrina.

  “Luke,” Sabrina said, her voice sounding across the scant distance between us.

  “Luke...it’s been a long time.” Mo spoke at nearly the same time, her voice high-pitched, nasal and pinched.

  I focused on Sabrina, rising to greet her, even though Mo was closer.

  Sabrina picked up the speed, her long legs scissoring, and she reached me just as Mo did, laying her hand on my arm and leaning against me to press her lips to my cheek. She murmured, “We have to be going soon, baby.”

  “Luke.” The sound of Mo’s voice made things inside me shrivel and curl up.

  I met Sabrina’s eyes.

  She settled back on her heels and held my gaze.

  The message in them was clear.

  However I decided to handle this, she’d back me. I could walk out, and she’d find a way to smooth it over. If I decided to turn and give in to all the antipathy I felt for Mark’s mother, she’d find a way to handle that, too.

  I caught Sabrina’s hand in mine and squeezed lightly. That odd swelling I’d felt in my heart earlier spread, all but spilling over. “We need to talk,” I told her softly. “Soon.”

  She cocked a brow at me. “We talk all the time, baby.” And she squeezed my hand back, glancing over to my side as Mo parked herself there. Canting her head, Sabrina said, “We have to leave soon. Mr. Cochran’s only got a few minutes. Was there something we could help you with?”

  Mo gave us both a simpering smile. “Actually, yes. I just need a minute of his time...in private. The two of us. We’re old friends.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sabrina

  “OH...HOW NICE.” I LEVELED my best smile at the snake in human form standing in front of me. “But I’m sorry...Luke’s contracts specifically require that he has his assistant or manager with him at all promotional events.” I summoned up a smile that was a cross between a pout and frown. “He doesn’t always remember when he commits to something, so I’m pretty much there to make sure he doesn’t promise to give away the moon. He sort of did that once to a little girl. Fortunately, the girl’s mom realized he wasn’t being literal. The girl didn’t, but we made it all work out.”

  Mo pursed her lips together in a tight little pucker as she focused on me. “I’m hardly going to ask him for the moon. We won’t be long.” She shifted her gaze to Luke, clearly expecting him to just...follow.

  His thumb rubbed over my hand, lingering on the ring he’d bought.

  “Sorry, Ms. Wine,” he said easily. “Like my fiancée said, I require supervision at all times.”

  She tightened her jaw, then took a small step forward, one that was almost imperceptible.

  “We will talk, Luke,” she said in a low, threatening tone.

  I moved in. “Just what do you want to talk about, Ms. Wine? Oh, wait...let me guess...does it have to do with events you’d rather keep quiet?”

  Luke went rigid next to me. I squeezed his hand. Trust me...

  I knew manipulative cows like this woman. My mother, at her worst, hadn’t been much different. Yes, she’d been sick, but that didn’t make the manipulations any less real, or any less painful. I’d learned how to deal with it as I got older, and I’d moved past the scars and even healed, mostly. I wasn’t about to let this hag inflict another scar on Luke.

  Maureen Wine’s gaze shot to mine, the venom so thick, it all but stung my skin.

  “I can see that it does,” I said quietly. I pulled a business card from the pocket of my skirt and held it out. “My email is on the card. If you want to...discuss something with Luke, you can reach him through me. But let me make this clear. Any threat you intend to lever against him, you’ll regret, because I will destroy you.”

  Maureen stared at me, her face florid. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I don’t know.” Cocking my head, I asked, “Are we discussing something that involved physical violence against a fourteen-year-old boy?”

  “You...nobody would believe that.” Her gaze flickered from me to Luke, then all around, as if making sure nobody heard. She looked at my business card but wouldn’t take it.

  I waited until she looked back at me. As I tucked the card back into my pocket, I gave her a small, confident smile. I’d been working around the glitterati of Hollywood long enough to know just how important confidence could be—and how useful it was, as both a tool and a weapon. “Are you willing to bet your reputation on that?”

  Her lids flickered and I saw the first gleam of uncertainty.

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll make sure your daughter has my contact info. You have a lovely day,” I said in a bright, loud voice. Quieter, I added, “Don’t ever threaten him again. Because you will regret it.”

  I squeezed her shoulder gently, nice and friendly, then turned and beamed up at Luke.

  He was still staring at Mo, his expression blank and void of emotion. When I reached up and touched his cheek, he swung his head around and met my gaze.

  “We need to get going, baby. Ready to make your grand departure?”

  “I CAN’T DECIDE IF I want to paddle your ass or kiss you.”

  Looking up from my phone, I found him paying more attention to me than the road.

  “I can’t decide if I want to scream or grab the steering wheel,” I said.

  He growled and whipped his head around, correcting the SUV. He’d been drifting to the right—which was better than drifting to the left on the narrow, two-lane country highway.

  Luke blew out a breath, then gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles went white. “I could have handled talking to her. I’m not a kid, Ina.”

  “Tell me something, Luke,” I asked, deleting one of the hundreds of emails that clogged my inbox. I wasn’t even going to consider giving an interview to Today’s Modern Bride. What the hell? “If positions were reversed, and some guy had put his hands on me and one of his parents walked in, then all but dragged me up the stairs, then, on top of that, backhanded me when I was still scared to death and shaking, how would it make you feel?”

  He didn’t respond immediately, so I looked over at him.

  His face was bloodless, save for the flag of color riding his cheek.

  And it looked like he was trying to strangle the steering wheel.

  I went back to looking at the screen of my phone. “Now try to imagine how you’d feel fifteen years later if that same person tried to corner me into going somewhere alone, just so I’d be forced to listen to some s
ort of vitriol or threats, possibly even blackmail.” I deleted three more interview requests. This was getting to be ridiculous. “Can you honestly tell me that you’d just stand there and watch, Luke?”

  “I really don’t like how you insist on being right and logical,” he said slowly, dragging out each word as though it cost him just to speak.

  I reached over and patted his thigh. “It’s okay. At least you didn’t pull some bullshit macho crap like that’s different, I’m a guy.”

  I went to pull my hand back and he caught it, dragging it to his lips and pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the back of it. “You’re driving me crazy lately, Sabrina,” he muttered against my skin.

  “Sounds fair.” My throat had gone tight all of sudden. It was a miracle I could speak without rasping. “You’ve been driving me crazy for years now.”

  He shot me another one of those heated, intense looks.

  It lasted a second, yet I felt seared to the very core of my soul. That look had such a devastating impact that I didn’t even realize he’d pulled off the road until the Porsche bounced abruptly, hard enough to send me jolting into the seatbelt.

  Then the engine was cut.

  I looked around, confused. Green surrounded us. “What are you—”

  Luke undid my seat belt and pulled me up against him, his mouth swooping down to steal a kiss. At the same time, he slid a hand up my thigh, pushing the material of my skirt up as he went.

  “How long have I been driving you crazy, Ina?” he muttered against my lips, sinking his teeth into the curve of my lower one before sucking it into his mouth.

  Any chance I might have had to offer a rational response disappeared as he hooked two fingers in the panel of my shorts—yet another pair of the thin yet useful ‘smoothing’ shorts—and dipped inside. “Open for me,” he ordered.

  The air in the car grew thick and hot. Head falling back, I stared at him as he screwed his fingers up into me. At the same time, he sought out my clitoris and gave it a sweep of his thumb.

  Every nerve ending went on red alert and I arched up off the seat, straining to meet his touch.

  He groaned against my mouth, then kissed me again, greedy and demanding. That greedy demand was echoed in the way he brought me to a quick, rough climax, one that left a fine sheen of sweat across my body and turned my muscles into gooey masses of pudding.

  He buried his face in my neck as I calmed, soothing me with strokes of his hand down my thigh.

  I clung to him, and when he went to pull back, I resisted, still holding tightly.

  Luke lifted his head and peered down at me.

  Slowly, I stroked my hand down his chest, then lower.

  His lids narrowed to slits as I found the hard ridge of his cock pressing against the zipper of his khakis. My attempt to wrap my fingers around him was hampered by the material of his slacks so I pushed him back and wiggled around in my seat, then caught the button and dragged down the zipper.

  He caught my wrist. “I’m already on edge, Ina,” he muttered in a raw, ragged whisper.

  “Maybe I am, too.”

  For a taut, hungry moment, we stared at each other.

  Then he caught my head and hauled me to him. Our mouths connected once more as I half-sprawled against him, the console and gearshift both digging into me. We started to go down and through the fog of lust and need. I realized he was lowering the back of the seat.

  He tried to pull me over the console, but I resisted. Breaking the kiss, I trailed my lips down his chin, his neck. I wanted to get to bare skin but was in too much of a hurry to fumble with the buttons of his shirt, so I just kept moving downward. His cock was a fiery brand in my hand and I wanted to feel him in my mouth.

  I shifted in the seat again, finally finding my balance.

  “Ina...”

  The silken, dark edge of his voice made me shiver and the hungry ache in my belly grew. Ignoring it, I bent over him and pressed my mouth to the head of his cock.

  “Fuck,” he snarled, shoving his hand into my knot of hair. A few rough motions had the dense, heavy locks spilling down around me and he fisted his hand in the weight of it. He arched up, pushing deeper into my mouth. At the same time, he held my head steady.

  It was hungry and naked and needy and a wave of sheer longing swept over me, dragging me under.

  I shoved upward, resisting the weight of his hand, then sank back down on him, trying to take more of him.

  He swore and arched up again, clearly on board with the idea of more.

  This time, he dragged my head, using his hold on my hair, then urged me back down.

  It was a primal, essential, base thing, the way he thrust into my mouth, his hand both possessive and protective as he guided my head. His other hand gripped my hip massaging restlessly, fingers molding my curves as if he wanted to memorize them.

  “More,” he muttered, a desperate, urgent plea in his voice. “Please...Ina. More.”

  Eyes watering, I took him to my limit.

  He arched into my mouth, then started to pump. Semen jetted out. I jerked in response, startled by the intensity and speed of it, then, tightening my hand around the base of his cock, I began to pump up and down. I’d only ever given a couple of blowjobs, but I’d read more than a few books...and maybe I’d sneaked a peek at a few movies that hadn’t been shy about the details.

  A low, animalistic sound escaped him.

  I couldn’t even see now past the sheen of moisture flooding my eyes and my lungs screamed for air, but I wouldn’t have stopped for anything, not while he was still moving, not while he was still groaning and thrusting.

  The tension drained from his body between one second and the next, and the hand fisted in my hair went from tight to caressing.

  I pulled away, rapidly blinking to clear my eyes. Breath coming in hard pants, I lifted my head to meet his eyes and found myself tumbled down to spill across his chest.

  He wrapped both arms around me and nuzzled the top of my head.

  “You really are driving me crazy,” he whispered into my hair.

  “Like I said, it’s only fair. You’ve been driving me crazy for years.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Luke

  WITH THE WINDOWS FOGGED up and the two of us adjusting our clothes, the buzzing coming from my back pocket was getting annoying. My phone had been buzzing in my back pocket for a good twenty minutes—no, I corrected myself with a look at the clock. Forty minutes. It had started not long after we’d left Madison and I’d been too focused on what had happened before we left to worry about phone calls.

  Sabrina had blindsided me with her calm, rational, explanation for her actions, pretty much deflating my anger, although the embarrassment and humiliation I’d been dealing with for so long were still twisting through me.

  They weren’t as strong, though.

  Over the past few weeks, everything had changed, and after I’d told her, and she’d so calmly accepted it, the uneasy, sick, consuming self-loathing I’d felt for so long...it wasn’t gone—there was no magic cure for shit like that—but somehow, I found myself breathing easier. It wasn’t instantaneous, but bit by bit, hour by hour, the weight eased and I found myself able to look myself in the mirror without instinctively wanting to hide all the time.

  The ring on her finger had glinted in the light, reminding me of this “engagement”...and of everything else going on between us. I didn’t want to let her go. The need to touch her, kiss her, mark her, had consumed me and whoever had been calling had been the least of my concerns.

  I fiddled with the defrost controls, hoping it would help clear the windows, then pulled my phone out. My gaze landed on the dashboard—and the Bluetooth read-out there before I even had my phone in hand, though.

  “Fuck,” I groaned.

  Sabrina gave me an owlish look, one that made her look adorably disheveled as she tried to smooth her hair. “What?”

  I pointed at the display before hitting the talk button.


  “Yeah?”

  Duncan’s testy voice came out. “Did you forget something?”

  Sabrina tried to cut me off. “Duncan, it was—”

  “Yes,” I said, raising my voice and nudging her back into the seat. “Sorry. Somebody distracted me earlier and I wasn’t thinking.”

  He grunted, not sounding appeased. “Can you please tell me that you and Sabrina are not on private property a little ways outside of Chelsea?”

  “How far do you define a little ways?” I hedged even as I started to back the car up. I knew this stretch of land. I used to come out here to smoke and drink and be by myself. A friend of my dad’s had owned it, once upon a time. It had been sold—I knew that. But I was still familiar with the area. The back window had cleared enough that I could see to reverse, and by the time I’d done that and was on the gravel road, the windshield was also mostly clear. Starting out, I glanced over at Sabrina.

  “Luke. I better not have to arrest you for trespassing.”

  I put the car into drive, then paused long enough to put on my seatbelt. There was no reason to speculate about why Duncan was asking these questions. Somebody had either seen or followed us. Usually, I showed a little more caution when driving around, but at home, I didn’t tend to. That had apparently been a mistake.

  “Hey, now how can you do that when you don’t even know where I am?” I asked him as I hit the gas and started down the gravel road, leaving a plum of gray dust rising up in the air behind me.

  “How about you look to your right?”

  Sabrina sighed and rubbed her head. “Somebody was following us.”

  “Looks like,” I muttered, spying the black truck heading toward us. It was Duncan’s, and it was an official vehicle. We’d followed that truck as we drove into Vevay for the lunch at the casino. “Who all knows, Duncan?”

  “Not that many, lucky for you. Most of the dispatch was at the lunch, thanks to your PR company,” Duncan said.