But, damn, even though the pain that seeing her heartache caused me, I couldn’t help but notice how gorgeous she looked with those diamond tears shining in her eyes, and how they made her cheeks so dewy and fresh as they fell.
There was nothing in the world, it seemed, that didn’t make Bella more beautiful in my eyes.
“I just don’t know. I don’t know how to—”
I never found out what she didn’t know how to do, though, because I interrupted her words by pressing my lips to hers. My words didn’t seem to do much to assure her. I couldn’t blame her. Words were cheap.
So, I figured, maybe a kiss would get through her barriers and let her know how I truly felt inside. We’d always communicated well that way—with our hands, our lips, and our bodies. It was more than just a physical connection, or good sexual chemistry. We had always had an innate ability to communicate on a deeper level when we touched or kissed. It was one of the things that had let me know, from early on, that we were more than just a good match. We were meant for each other.
As I moved my lips against hers, her words of protest melted away immediately. She collapsed against me, letting out a small moan of surrender. I could feel her heart beating a mile a minute in her chest and I knew that she understood the significance of the moment between us right now.
This wasn’t just a kiss, just like this wasn’t just a conversation. What happened between us in the next few minutes would determine the course of the rest of our lives. I could feel that. I could feel it before I even walked into the barn. And now I knew that she could feel it, too.
“I want you so much. I wish I didn’t. My life would be so much simpler…but I do,” she whispered in my ear, and my heart exploded in my chest.
That was it. That was the sign I’d been waiting for.
“Baby, I’m here. I’m all yours,” I whispered back in her ear, and then I was lost in the heat of kissing her, of my tongue exploring her mouth. Of my hands roaming over her body and taking delight in every delectable curve, every soft line, every flat plane.
Just like I did every single time we touched or kissed, I was immediately consumed with the desire to strip her of all of her clothes, and get rid of all of mine, as well.
It was tough for me to be in the same room without wanting to be naked with her, but when my skin hit hers, it was damn near impossible to control that desire.
She pulled back and my heart sank.
She changed her mind.
Her concerns were that deep, that real.
But, no, I realized quickly that she was just looking over my shoulder at the wide-open barn door.
Damn. I’d been so caught up that it hadn’t even occurred to me that, for all intents and purposes, we were standing in what amounted to the great outdoors. And if she hadn’t brought my attention to it by taking a look at that huge hole in the wall, I would’ve stripped us both down right here, never even giving it a second thought.
I started to turn to close the door but Bella grabbed my hand and pulled me farther into the barn, ducking into the cool shadows under the loft, hidden from the outdoors by a multitude of stacked hay bales.
“I’m gonna resist making a ‘roll in the hay’ joke,” I teased as I followed her deep into the cavernous space.
“Wow, you really have grown up,” she replied dryly, and shot me a quick smile over her shoulder.
As soon as we were hidden, she turned and faced me, and the movement was so sudden that I didn’t even notice until I bumped into her. We both laughed, and it felt so good to be there with her in that moment—not thinking about anything but us.
No past, no future. Just this moment.
I cradled her chin in my hand and tilted it up so that she was looking right into my eyes. I brushed my thumb across her cheek and watched the alternating light and shadow play across her face from the sun streaming through the barn wall slats.
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” I breathed.
It wasn’t exactly poetry, but it was what was in my heart to say, and it came right out of my mouth. Bella was a filter-killer, that was for damn sure.
She squeezed her eyes tight. “Colton… Please.”
I knew what she meant. I knew what she wanted. I bent my head and placed my lips against hers. It was gentle and soft. Nothing hurried about it. I moved my lips languorously against hers and let the heat build, slowly but surely.
If this was going to happen—and by this, I meant everything that lay in our future, not just making love here in the barn—then I wanted that to be because she wanted it. Really wanted it. Not that she’d just gotten swept away.
I’d let her make the first move forward, give me the first indication that she wanted to move this on to the next level.
Of course, after that, I thought with a small smile to myself, all bets were off. I was going to take control and make her mine, and I was going to love it.
Finally, she pulled her mouth away from mine with a deep, frustrated moan as she fisted my shirt in her hands and pulled. “I want to feel you.”
That was all I needed to hear. I backed her abruptly against the closest bale of hay, drawing a sharp gasp from her lungs. Her eyes widened in surprise, and I saw the fire flickering behind them.
I loved how responsive she was to me being dominant. She was so independent, so self-sufficient. But she liked it when I took charge in the bedroom. Or, the barn, as the case may be.
I lowered my head and kissed her neck with passion and fervor as my fingers got busy roaming all over her body. She was wearing a sexy sundress that hugged her curves, the kind with the spaghetti straps that showed off her toned shoulders.
I kissed every inch of those shoulders, and then down her beautiful chest. I trailed my lips along the top edges of the soft mounds of her breasts where her cleavage peeked out from the neckline of her dress.
I reached my hand down, finding the hem of her skirt where it fell halfway down her thigh. I slipped my fingers up underneath, lightly touching the bare skin of her inner thigh, running gentle circles over that trembling, tender flesh.
A thrill ran the length of her, causing my own arousal to heighten. Even though I’d touched this exact same patch of skin before, so many times in the past, and even recently—there was something so thrillingly naughty about putting your hand up a girl’s skirt. There was no getting away from that.
With my other hand, I trailed a finger along her cleavage, peppering kisses as I went. Then I hooked my finger in the soft material of the neckline and pulled down until her magnificent, full breasts were uncovered. I dipped my head to trace the outline of her nipples with my tongue and edged the fingers of my other hand higher and higher on her thigh.
Her nipples hardened under the stiff flicks of my tongue tip. God, I loved her breasts. Always had. They were so beautiful. Especially like they were now, uncovered and bare before me, her nipples shiny and slick from my saliva.
My hand had reached the nexus between her legs now. I cupped her mound and moved my fingers back and forth over the thin fabric of her panties. She was so wet that it was almost like that fabric didn’t exist. I hadn’t even shoved that wispy material aside yet and my fingers were already completely coated with her juices.
Her hips rocked back and forth in counterbalance with the movement of my fingers. She was grinding against my hand; a low, engine-like growl rumbled in my chest as she did.
“Inside,” she gasped breathlessly, “Touch me inside.”
I didn’t hesitate, not even for one second. I slid my finger beneath the thin slip of fabric between her legs and yanked it down to her knees. My hand flew back up to the wet, hot, pulsing core of pleasure between her legs in less time than it would’ve taken her to ask again.
“Yes,” she moaned as I slipped two fingers into her and massaged her and her walls. “That’s it, right there…yes!”
I moved my thumb in circles around her hard button as I pumped my fingers in and out of her. Her walls sucked at me, beg
ging me to go faster and harder in a way that was clearer and more compelling than if she had said the words straight out.
I lowered my head to take her nipples into my mouth one by one. There was no playful flicking with my tongue this time. No, now I was sucking on them in earnest. I wanted to send every possible sensation from every possible pleasure point centered through her at the same time. I wanted to give her mind and body, not to mention her soul, the most mind-altering experience she’d ever been through.
I wanted to leave her with absolutely no doubt that I was the man for her. I wanted to erase any other man from her memory. Convince her that no other man could do what I could do for her, and not just in the bedroom.
She whimpered and cried out and clung to me as she came undone on my hand. I continued my ministrations until the last spasm rocked through her. Then I looked up at her, and I had to smile. She was pressed up against the heavy stacks of hay bales, her head leaned back as far as it would go, her hair spread out in a silky fan across the wall of hay. Because of that, it was messy and tussled in the most beautiful way imaginable, with little bits of straw spread through it like flowers in the curls of a medieval princess.
I watched as she came down from her orgasm, drinking up the expressions that crossed her face like clouds across a clear, blue sky.
When she did finally open her eyes to look at me, she ran her fingers through my hair, a wicked little half-smile on her face.
“What?” I asked, amused.
“I want you now,” she whispered. “But not like this.”
All amusement fled from me, replaced by pure and simple lust.
“What did you have in mind?” I rasped. “What do you want?”
She bit her lip as she swiftly unhooked my belt, button and unzipped my pants. Then reaching in my boxers she pulled out my heavy shaft and stroked it as she said, “I want you to spin me around, pull up my dress and take me from behind…that’s what I have in mind.”
I grinned, a smile as wide as the sun. “Did I ever tell you, I like how you think?”
Chapter 28
Bella
“If ya try to tell yourself you don’t want somethin’, dollars to donuts you’ll want it more.”
~ Papa Duke
I smiled back at him as a thrill ran through me.
I could’ve just turned around on my own, placed my palms against the bales of hay, pulled my skirt up, and I was sure that he would’ve gotten the idea.
But I didn’t want to do that. This could be the last time that we would be together and I wanted to tell him exactly how I wanted this to play out. I wanted to feel his hands on my body, moving me and manipulating me. I wanted to feel his fingers digging into my soft flesh. I wanted to feel him taking charge, taking what he wanted. Taking me.
I’d had enough of steering the ship with no one but myself to depend on. It was enough. More than enough. In this, at least, I wanted to surrender control and let someone else, someone who was strong and capable and authoritative, take the reins.
Heat flared in his hazel irises as his large hands fastened firmly around my hips and spun me around to face away from him in a move that was even faster and smoother than I could’ve ever imagined. I gasped aloud and felt my core tighten.
Yep. This was exactly what I wanted.
I heard the clank of his buckle and the rustling of fabric, but refused to turn and look. I didn’t want to track his progress. I didn’t want to know exactly what was coming next. I wanted him to be completely in charge, and I wanted a little bit of the element of surprise.
I heard tearing paper and assumed that was the condom wrapper. Tingles ran in waves up and down the skin of my arms, back, belly—basically everywhere. The anticipation was so thick and real and strong that it seemed almost like an outside force, rather than a feeling that was coming from inside my own body.
Finally, the feathery sensation of my light cotton sundress moving up over my skin hit the back of my thighs and I drew in a deep breath and closed my eyes to try to still my rapidly-beating heart. My fingers curled into the hay we were pressed against. The sweet-smelling straw filled my senses with sight, touch, and aroma. I had a feeling that it would be a very long time before I could come in contact with it again and not feel powerfully turned on at the memory of this moment. Even if I didn’t make a point to reminisce about it, I knew that flashes of memory would ignite in my mind unbidden.
I had barely had time to process Colton’s firm grip on my hips, the way his fingers dug into the soft flesh and pulled me back towards him, before his thick, hard flesh was driving into me. He stretched out my walls, making me feel tight against him.
I squeezed as hard as I could during every stroke, never wanting the incredible sensation to end, wanting to get the most intense pleasure I could from it while it was happening.
God, why did it have to be like this…always savoring each moment together, each feeling, each touch because it could be our last time? Melancholy threatened, deep in my soul. Why couldn’t things be easy for us? If they were that would mean being able to enjoy this connection, this pleasure, every day of my life from now on.
It was so tempting.
But then, all thoughts of anything other than what I felt in that moment were driven out of my mind as Colton leaned forward and wrapped his strong arms around me, holding me up as he drove into me again and again. He used one of his hands to play with my nipples while the other dipped to where we were joined and softly caressed my pleasure nub. The combination caused an earthquake at the epicenter of my being, one I couldn’t control. It took over my entire body.
It wasn’t just physical sensation. It was so much more than that. I felt so cared for, so protected, so loved. It allowed my soul to rise up and break free of the bonds that held me back for so long. More tears slipped from my eyes, but they weren’t sad ones this time. They were tears of freedom, of relief after having been so scared for so long.
I didn’t know what this awakening meant in terms of the future but I didn’t care. It wasn’t that I was beyond caring. Far from it. It was more that I was filled with a deep sensation that, no matter what the future held, I would be all right. We would be all right. Everyone would be all right.
When I moaned my words of encouragement, telling him not to stop and expressing how good he made me feel, he had no way of knowing that it meant so much more than just what his strokes were doing to my body. I meant what they were doing to my soul, too.
He tightened his hold around me, tilting my hips so that he could get even deeper penetration than he already was. I wanted nothing more than to have him buried so deep inside me that he completely filled me up, leaving no room for anything else. Not doubt, not fear. Not uncertainty. Nothing but the sweet feeling of him in me, driving hard and deep and fast.
He whispered words in my ear, words of love, words of need, words of desire as he continued showering my breasts with attention while at the same time rubbing small circles around my most sensitive erogenous zone as he continued to thrust in and out of me. He struck a hypnotic rhythm, and before I knew it I was moving my hips in time with it. Every time he thrust forward, I leaned back to meet him. Every time he buried himself inside me, I squeezed my inner walls around him in perfect time with his pumps.
Then, without warning, he broke the rhythm. He didn’t thrust forward when I would’ve expected him to, and when I reached my hand back to touch him, to see what happened, I realized that he’d actually taken a full step backward.
I turned my head around, looking over my shoulder to see if I could meet his gaze and when I did, he grasped me around the waist with both hands and spun me around to face him. In one quick movement—so quick, in fact, that I was off my feet before I could even really process what was happening—he had picked me up and pushed me back against the bale of hay that my palms had just been using as a brace.
“I want to see you when I make you come.”
My eyes widened, and I drew in a sharp breath,
but I was beyond being completely surprised. Colton was so take charge and so unexpected that I’d kind of gotten used to the idea that if I would just go along for the ride, he would have nothing but pleasurable surprises in store for me.
On instinct I wrapped my arms and legs around him and he slid his hands down to support me by cupping my ass and holding me up. He took advantage of that additional control to move my pelvis so that he was positioned perfectly at my entrance.
I closed my eyes and hummed low in my throat as he lowered my body down over his shaft so, so slowly. I threw my head back in pleasure—well, as far as I could, anyway. I was pressed so tightly up against the hay that my movements were slightly limited.
But I kind of liked that. I liked the feeling of being trapped there, cocooned between Colton and the heavy bale of hay. I felt safe there. I could feel every ripple of the strong muscles in his arms that were wrapped around me. Feel every flex in his back where my calves were pressed up against him. Feel every jump of his pecs where his chest was pressed so tightly against my breasts.
In that position, I was hyperaware of the power he wielded, both in the strength of his muscles and the strength of his character. And it drove the point home yet again that I knew he would only ever use that power to protect me. Never again to hurt me. I was scared, sure. But deep down I knew what the truth was, and if I was honest with myself, I probably had all along.
When push came to shove, Colton would take care of me.
I felt a powerful orgasm building inside of me. I wanted to let go and just feel. I felt a fresh wave of heat wash over me at the idea. My inner walls clenching around him as my fingers dug into his strong shoulders.
“I’m close,” I gasped. “I’m gonna…come….”
“Yes, baby. Now. Come for me.”
That was all the encouragement I needed. A rolling wave of ecstasy spread from deep in my belly outward. A silent cry ripped from deep in my chest as I clung to him as my orgasm raged on and on.
Claiming Colton (Wishing Well, Texas Book 5) Page 18