by Em Petrova
His jeans hugged his buns, his broad shoulders reminding her of how feminine she’d felt in his arms. A shudder ran through her. She leaned against the truck and watched him until he disappeared inside the convenience store.
A low whistle caught her attention, and she looked up to see a man wearing a hat and boots staring at her while he pumped his gas.
She gave a small nod before turning away. But he called out, “Was that Ridge Calhoun I saw getting out of the truck?”
“Uh, yes.” There was little point in denying it when he had rodeo stickers plastered across the tailgate. Plus, his license plate said bronc1.
He gave another whistle. “He just got dumped by that other little blonde, and he didn’t waste much time finding another, did he?”
She leveled a glare at him. “That’s none of your business.” She darted a glance at the store. If Ridge came out while this asshole was still here and he said something to Ridge…
Her brain conjured fists flying and exploding gas pumps. Basically an apocalyptic scene that would be plastered over the news and land Ridge in jail—and kicked off the show.
Without waiting for the truck to fill the whole way, she circled the vehicle and stopped the pump. Then she got behind the wheel and moved it up to park at the front door. As soon as Ridge came out, his eyes widened. He opened the driver’s door.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh something’s wrong with the gas pump, and it shut off. I couldn’t top it up, but there’s three-quarters of a tank. We’re good for the rest of the way to Kansas. Want me to drive for a while?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. He always did know when she was telling a tall tale. Well this one wasn’t that tall, but she was saving his ass. “I’m drivin’.”
She shrugged and swung her legs out. His body heat scorched her shins, and she sucked in a breath as awareness hit her system. He stood at eye level where she sat. All she had to do was part her legs and he’d be against her, and she could tug him close and kiss him.
His eyes darkened, and he knuckled his hat back a bit more, giving her a clear view of his expression.
His very dark, hungry expression.
“Fuck,” he muttered and took a step forward.
Her thighs parted on their own, and she slung her arms around his neck. He brought his body flush against hers as he slammed his lips down across her mouth. She opened for him, and he swiped the inside with his hot, slick tongue. Her pussy squeezed, and she wiggled closer.
They were making out in front of a convenience store entrance, and someone was sure to capture it on their phone, but he didn’t seem to care as he slanted his mouth over hers again and again.
When he broke free, they stared at each other, panting.
“We need to find something more private.”
Heat slithered between her thighs, and she nodded. He clasped her waist and pulled her out of the truck. When her boots met the asphalt, she realized her knees may not hold her. She wobbled around to the passenger’s side and got in.
Without a word, he drove across the parking lot to a less busy restaurant and parked beside a tractor trailer. Then he turned to her again.
“C’mere.” His growled demand was fireworks exploding in her core. She launched into his lap, her boots dangling over the console and her hip digging into the steering wheel, but she didn’t care because his mouth was commanding hers again.
She melted into his caress, learning a different side of Ridge. With each flip of his tongue against hers, she understood what a passionate man he was. Each rock of his erection against her ass told her about the lust pounding through him. As he slid his hands beneath her shirt and over her bare skin, she gasped. He explored her spine before running his hands around to cup her breasts.
“Oh God,” she murmured, head thrown back.
He nibbled down her lips and jaw to her neck. Every swirl of his tongue across her skin felt like hot lava. She couldn’t stop touching him, learning every dip and swell of his muscles. And another hard body part dug into the seam of her jeans.
“You’re so fucking hot, honey. These tits…” He kneaded them.
She gave a roughly whispered, “Harder,” and he went still. Pulled back.
Looking into her eyes, he said, “Do you like it rough?”
“I…maybe.” She arched so her breasts were in his palms again. As he searched her face, he did as she asked—kneading her breasts harder until he found the points under her bra and pinched them. Not as hard as she liked but as hard as her nipple clamps.
“Ridge,” she rasped.
“Fuck yeah.” He tugged up her top and dipped his head to bite her nipple through the cloth of her bra. She cried out and locked his head to her with a hand on his nape. He closed his teeth over the bud and held the pressure there for a long minute. She watched his face shudder in the pleasure that he was giving her. Maybe he liked it rougher too?
Yeehaw, her mind said.
Reaching between his shoulder blades, she gripped the fabric of his T-shirt and yanked it off. He had to release her nipple as she removed the shirt, but he flashed his eyes at her as he dipped his head again.
“I want to bite you without the cloth between us. Will I hurt you if I do?”
“No,” she panted, mesmerized as he dipped a long finger into her bra cup and pulled the material down. Her breast popped free, her nipple pink and straining and strangely pale next to his tanned digits.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he grated out before lowering his head to feast on her breast.
He latched onto the bud, sucking with long, strong pulls that curled her inside out. Then he let it go and swathed it with gentle flicks of his tongue. This man knew what he was doing. Knew exactly how to torture.
When he bared his wicked white teeth and bit into her sensitive flesh, she gave a long cry of pleasure.
“Fuck, you’re getting off on this.”
“You say…” pant, pant, “fuck a lot.”
He rumbled a laugh, and she lost herself to the pleasure-pain of his teeth. He dragged his mouth free and turned to do the same to her other nipple. After countless minutes her breasts felt swollen and the urgency inside her was reaching a pinnacle. She wiggled against him, raising groan after groan.
“I want you so bad,” he said before plunging his tongue between her lips again.
“I’ve got condoms in my purse,” she said when he came up for air.
His eyes cleared a bit, the brown as deep and dark as sweet chocolate. “I can’t take you here in the parking lot of a two-star diner.”
“They have a twenty-four hour all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. Can’t be that bad.” She set the points of her nails into his shoulders and dragged him closer again.
He laughed, the rumble a warning that a volcano was about to erupt inside her. “Kash, I don’t want it to be that way with you. You’re not a Buckle Bunny. You deserve better.”
“What if I want you bending me over the seat and your cock pounding into me?”
He gave a visible shudder, his eyes closing momentarily. “I… Damn, woman, you know how to pillow talk, don’t you? Fuck.” He gripped her shoulders and pushed her away the scant inch of space they could gain between them. When he searched her eyes, back and forth between blue and brown, she didn’t cool off even a little bit. She waited for him to come to the conclusion that he needed to do as she’d said and bend her over and fuck her.
“But I want to do this right. I want to taste you.” His hot words lashed her, and her pussy grew wetter at the idea of his tongue between her folds.
“Ridge. Please.” She ran her finger around his nipple, and it hardened in the swell of muscle.
He groaned. “Dammit. Kash, honey…” He struggled and finally took a deep breath. “I’m going to stop for now. I’m dying to sink my cock into your pussy, but I don’t want to mess up our friendship with crappy, fumbling sex.”
He had a point. If she only got one chance with him, then she wanted it t
o be something that fed her fantasies for a long time.
She nodded and he kissed her again, a deep, rousing kiss she never wanted to break away from. But he pulled her bra back into place and her top down. Then he opened the door and set her on her feet.
By the time she’d walked around the passenger’s side, he’d put his shirt on and his hat sat straight on his head. Without a word, he started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, back onto the highway.
They didn’t make it nine exits before he pulled off again.
* * * * *
Ridge had felt Kashley up at Jolene’s Country Café, gotten to third base behind a Kwik Mart—fuck, he could still smell her sweetness on his fingers—and almost thrown away all control and fucked her against the side of his truck just five miles from their destination.
He threw her a look as she got her duffle bag out of the truck and looped the long handle over one shoulder. Her hair was mussed, her lips bitten, and her top was a little crooked.
She couldn’t look more beautiful if she’d had a full staff of makeup artists and hairstylists. He’d never been so hot and bothered either. His constant state of arousal had him in a frenzy, and he was the first to admit he wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Let me take your bag,” he said, hooking his fingers under the strap just so he could touch her shoulder.
She looked deep into his eyes. “I’ve got it.” Her voice was a little breathless.
He eased his fingers down the strap, over her collarbone to rest over her breast. Her eyes shot blue and brown sparks, and she did that adorable sinking her teeth into her lower lip thing.
“You didn’t bring much,” he noted. Her bag looked half empty.
“All I need is a couple clean pairs of clothes and a hairbrush.”
Anna had traveled with several suitcases, one of them entirely full of makeup. But Kashley didn’t need any of that, and it was refreshing as hell.
“I’m not certain you’ll even need the clothes,” he said, low, and watched her eyelids flutter and her teeth depress her lip further.
His cock had been battering his fly for hours. “C’mon, let’s check in.” He took her bag whether she’d given him permission or not and slung it over his shoulder. Then he led the way into the hotel.
In ten minutes he had their luggage scattered on the hotel room floor. The door slammed shut behind them, and they turned to each other. His heart pounded heavily in his chest, worry finally hitting.
“Sure you wanna do this?” Was that his voice? The grating sound belonged to someone else.
She bit her lip again, eyes glowing. She nodded. “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll still be here, Ridge. I won’t walk out on you.”
If he hadn’t been bone-crushingly attracted to Kashley before, he was now. He took a step toward her. She didn’t move, eyes roaming over his face. That was another thing—he loved the way she looked at him as if he was the only man alive.
Standing several inches from the wall, she was in the perfect spot for him to do what he’d been fantasizing about for the past hundred miles. In one step, he grabbed her, cradling her spine as he trapped her against the wall. She sucked in a sharp breath and moved to put her arms around him, but he caught her wrists and pinned them overhead.
A tendril of hair was stuck on the corner of her mouth, and he nuzzled it free. She quivered in his hold.
“Ridge, don’t play with me anymore. I need you to rip off my clothes and fuck me until I’m screaming.”
Oh yeah, she was a pillow talker. That meant she wouldn’t lie there like some lifeless cold fish, but it meant he needed to take his time with her so he didn’t lose control and come in his pants like a teenager.
Pressure mounted in his groin as he used his hips to pin her more fully against the wall. Then he found her lips again. The instant their mouths brushed, his hormones kicked into overdrive. She threw herself into kissing him back, tongues tangled and little whimpers escaping her.
When he dragged his lips free, he leaned his forehead against hers, staring into her eyes up close. There were whole worlds in those blue-brown depths—why was he just now noticing this? He searched them for a long, heart-throbbing moment.
Then he abruptly stepped back, releasing her. She started to melt down the wall and got her feet under her. “Take off your clothes.”
Her lips fell open, giving him a tantalizing—and tormenting—view of her wet pink tongue. He clamped off his need and focused on hers. Yeah, he wanted to strip her naked and kiss every inch of her honeyed skin, but some darker need inside him drove him to gain the upper hand.
She moved slowly, lifting one leg to reach her boot. She pulled it off easily and let it thump on the worn carpet. Followed by the other. She curled her socked toes, and he pulled his gaze from them to her fingers as she nimbly caught the hem of her top.
With each inch of her midriff she bared, he felt as if he was revisiting an old flame. Now that he knew how that skin felt under his hands, his fingers ached to touch it again.
But not yet.
When the red bra that had started it all came into sight, his cock practically burst his zipper. He bit back a groan. “The jeans too,” he ordered.
“I’m getting there, bossy.” Fuck, now her sass was coming out? She had no idea the fire she was playing with. Ridge wanted control—period. And she was going to be his good little slave.
Hell, can I do this to Kashley?
He didn’t know how to do it any other way. Now that they’d stepped onto this path together, he couldn’t think of having her in some boring vanilla, missionary way.
Her eyes sparked, and he tipped his head to indicate her jeans. Her breasts jiggled with her quick inhalations as she unfastened her belt and fly. She wiggled the denim down to reveal an expanse of supple flesh and matching red panties. She didn’t seem like a woman who’d wear matching undergarments. She was so unpretentious and unconcerned with her looks.
Or maybe she wasn’t—it was just effortless while other women fought to be attractive.
She removed her jeans entirely and kicked them aside in a wad of fabric.
“Get on the bed.” It was all he could do to give the command, because his body was screaming to tear off her bra and panties and dive in.
She hesitated only a second before pulling away from the wall and sashaying over to the bed. He pivoted to follow her, gaze latched to every curve he’d lusted after for the entire trip.
He swallowed hard as she climbed up the bed, slowly, as if playing the role.
But that couldn’t be—could it?
On her hands and knees, displaying the finest, fullest ass he’d had the pleasure of touching, she tossed a coy look over her shoulder.
Oh yeah, he was going to spank her.
“Stretch out on your back.”
She did, staring up at him with those beautiful eyes. She raised her arms overhead, and he jerked in surprise. He’d never spotted that tattoo before. Just above her bra line on her ribs.
“That must have hurt like hell to get ink there.”
“It did.”
The detailed crescent moon with a sun in the center curve drew him in. “What’s the meaning behind it?”
She stared up at him. “It represents opposites, things that will never touch.”
He had to put his lips on it—along with every other part he’d been burning for.
“Should I take off my bra?”
He shook his head. “That’s my job, if I choose to.”
“You don’t want me naked?” A shiver ran through her voice, spiking his need. He spent a long heartbeat battling his way back from the edge of control.
“Not yet. My job is to give you pleasure, but you have to trust that I know when and how to give it.”
Her pupils dilated. She let her thighs fall apart, giving him an enticing view of her pussy lips encased in red satin. Set in the center of her folds he knew the contours of her clit, knew how it had swelled under his fingertip.
/> “Ridge, I’m burning up for you. Please.”
“When I say, honey.” He removed his boots, aware of her gaze on him. Then he took off his belt, letting it zip through the loops. Would she accept the leather between her teeth? On her upraised ass?
God, he loved the build-up, the burn.
She wiggled restlessly.
“Keep your legs spread. Wider.”
She did his bidding, which gave him a rush unlike anything he’d felt in…well ever. The times he’d played at control and submission before, he hadn’t been attached to those women. They were unknowns to him, and he’d liked it that way. But Kashley was different, and having command of the wayward spitfire gave him a heady feeling.
Her thigh muscles leaped, and her nipples distended her bra. “I’m going to suck your tits first, through the fabric of your bra until you’re crazed. Then I’m going to do the same to your clit.”
“Ridge…please.”
He took off his shirt and twisted it in his hands to create a rope. “Do I need to tie your hands or will you do everything I say?”
“Everything. Just…please.”
Fuck, he loved this side of her, a begging, needy wench ripe for his taking. His cock extended another fraction. And after he had her, and satisfied himself, he’d stroke her and soothe her and make sure she was okay.
He intended to mind-fuck her a little, but next time he’d dive deeper.
When did there become a next time?
He stepped up to the bed, his knees hitting the mattress. As he covered her with his body, arms braced on each side of her, she gave an uncontrolled moan. Exactly what he’d wanted—he’d deprived her of his touch for only a few minutes, yet she was primed and wild for it.
He did a pushup over her and kissed her. Tenderly at first and increasing the pressure of his tongue and lips, claiming her every whimper. She moved to put her arms around him, and he pulled free to say, “Arms overhead.”
She quivered and nodded, her lips kiss-swollen and her eyes glazed with passion. Fucking hell, she was everything he needed at this minute. He kissed her again as he cupped one breast, starting their foreplay from their drive all over again. Except, he made good on his promise to suck her through her bra.