by Mia Madison
I close my eyes and imagine the man in my bed, with all the implied promise his gaze threw at me across the bar with his cheeky remarks. But when I imagine a hand running up the side of my ribs to cup my naked breast, it isn't his. A shiver ripples down my legs and it's Quint's hard black soot smeared hand I imagine palming my flesh and squeezing hard.
I've noticed his fingers curled around the sweaty beer glass and was stunned at the breadth of them, the hard force bristling around the glass, even while relaxed. My breath quickens as I picture those fingers stroking across my swollen slit, now pushing out hungrily from between my lips. I want Quint's thick digit corkscrewing inside me as I dig my fingernails into his solid shelf of shoulder muscle.
It's way too easy to visualize Quint's huge chest above me, pinning me down on the bed, caging me in with his strength so I feel small and helpless. I shouldn't want him like this. We're friends. We talk at the bar and that's as far as it goes. He's never once given me the slightest inkling that he's interested in me in that way and that's fine with me. Because we're friends.
So why can't I get his face out of my head?
Why, when at long last I have a chance for some fun with a man, is Quint the only one I want. My body crawls and stretches towards him, needing him, craving his rough stubble buried into the crease of my neck. The heady masculine aroma of Quint fills my nostrils as my hands creep into my crease.
Chapter 8
Quint
I thought I recognized him, first instant I saw him, as one of the bastards out of New York. But turned out he wasn't one of them, although he damn well gave off the exact same vibe. My first concern is for Edie but backing right onto that is the certainty that he's here for me and she's just an amusing interlude for his time on the road.
“Nice shirt,” I said when he made some more smarmy remarks about my work. “Looks new.”
He knows me from New York, I don't know how I know, but there's no doubt in my mind he's been sent out to look for me and that's why he's here. Which means they're still after me, Nothing's gone away and all I've done is bring danger right into the arms of the most amazing woman I've ever met.
I come back from installing Edie's security and rebuild the fire. There's not only the bath struts for Chloe to do but Abel ordered up a shoe for Power, his beloved black horse. All the mounts at the ranch have hand-forged shoes, like New York banker bastards wearing hand-tooled leather. Nothing but the best for Foxworth Ranch steeds. I can't complain seeing as that's what got me hired here.
As I start to hammer out the red hot steel, the first thought is I ought to get out. If they've found me, they've come for only one thing and that's to make it permanent. But this ranch is the most deserted place in the country. If they found me here, they'll find me anywhere I go. I don't care much about my own safety but one thing prevents me tossing my tools in the back of the truck and hitting the road.
Edie.
I never would have imagined a woman could infiltrate her way beneath my skin, like Edie's managed without even trying and without me noticing.
When I leave the forge, the guys are sitting around the fire pit like always, just shooting the breeze late into the night. It's always seemed natural that the cowboys hung out together, or in my case resorted to my solitary space, at a distance from the world. Now I'm not sure that we aren't a bunch of guys hiding out from reality and ourselves.
“You look like the devil in-fucking-carnate,” Abel hollers at me when I cross the yard at the end of an exceptionally long day. The other cowboys, Rafe, Jessop, the usual suspects hanging out, let out jovial responses.
I flip him a finger in jest, but when I get to my house I can see what he means. My face is blackened from soot so my eyes blaze out like a demon, almost yellow gold like a beast howling at the moon.
I plunge through the house straight to the shower, tearing my clothes off as I go and dropping them to the ground. My muscles swell hard against my skin, like they'd like to tear right through. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, I'm burning up with a kind of fever but it's nothing an ice cold shower can't cure.
I'm wrong about that. Standing under the stream of cold water, I'm rigid with rage imagining Edie in bed with that a-hat stranger. It's gonna be another rough night.
Once I emerge from the shower, my skin tingling from being rubbed raw I hear a roar of macho laughter from the guys outside at the firepit. Then moments later, a fierce rap hits my front door. It's soon followed by another hammering, so insistent I don't have time to go to my room and throw on some sweats. I answer the door bare-chested and with nothing but a small white towel strapped around my hips.
“What the fuck, Rafe?” I bark, and am instantly silenced by the sight of the most beautiful face I know on the other side of my door.
“Edie, my god, it's a bit late for house calls,” I bite out.
My cock is leaping up at the sight of her luscious curves in the tight jeans and plaid shirt buttoned across her full breasts. While I desperately try to focus on thoughts of old grannies in smelly housecoats so that the towel barely strapped around me doesn't rise up between us in a huge tent, I also can't help my eyes from trailing down the length of her.
What a length.
I generally only get a look at the part above waist height while the rest of her is hidden behind the bar. Normally her lower curves are hidden from view for which I'm kinda glad. I don't want every fucker in there gaping at her as he downs his brew.
Only once have I filled my thoughts with her curves. The one time I watched from underneath my lids as I gazed down at my beer, she bent over to retrieve something she'd dropped and the round heft of her cheeks had my dick pushing wood at my jeans in no time flat. She popped back up and looked at me oddly, so I was never sure if she knew I was checking her out. I stared steadfastly at the suds and refused to meet her gaze, not wanting to let her know what a dick I was.
I never was able to ascertain whether she was pleased or thought I was a douche. It was better not to take the risk. She'd offered me her friendship. If she wanted anything more presumably she would have said.
I look at her now, her curls framing her heart shaped face, her full lips working up to a lashing. The girl is mad.
“What the fuck is your problem,” she blurts out.
“Whoa, Edie. What's up, where's this coming from?” I reply, lifting my hands to clasp her arms to calm her, then realizing she might not care for being restrained in her current state.
“You're acting all weird.”
“I'm a weird dude you know that,” I quip.
“Everything cool, Quint?” Rafe hollers across the yard as the boys head to their rooms. “Evening Edie, we don't see you out here much.”
“That's because I've never been out here apart from during the rodeo,” she shouts back, putting him in his place.
The group amble on to their beds but I know I'm not going to hear the end of this from them.
“You were out of and all, I don't know, possessive. Like you were mad that some guy was trying to hit on me.”
“So you admit he was hitting on you.”
“No. Yes, I don't know maybe. What's it to you?”
“Nothing. I just don't like that dude.”
“That's the first time you've set eyes on him,” she says, suspiciously.
“He's not right for you.”
I should pull her inside. We can't stand her fighting like lovers on my porch for all to see. But I don't trust myself once I have her inside my house, so better we stay right where we are.
“And you know that, how?” she continues, not giving up. “You don't get to judge what I need.”
“You're right but I do get to look out for you. As a friend.” I add, just so she knows.
“Friend,” she snorts. “Friends want friend to be happy.”
“Yeah. I want that for you. Aren't you happy, Edie?”
“How could I be happy when I haven't gotten laid in two years?” she snaps, then her ey
es pop wide and she claps her hand over her mouth like she wishes she hadn't said that.
“I'm sure if that's the case it's your choice. You could have any man on his knees for you,” I tell her, meaning every word of it, no bullshit line.
Her cheeks pinken a little and she looks even more adorable.
“You've been acting weird even before that guy. And how come you don't come to the bar anymore?”
I open my mouth to give her some sort of explanation without a clue what I'm actually going to say. I can hardly tell her that when I'm sitting there, all I can think of is spreading her across her bar and opening her up until she surrenders all of herself and screams for me never to stop.
I can't tell her any of that and I don't have to. As I mumble out some excuse, a loud bang ricochets through the darkness and I feel the blast of a bullet fly right past my ear.
Chapter 9
Edie
I'm not a screamer but I do let out a shrill gasp when a shot rings out right next to my ear. Before I know what's happening I go crashing to the ground and am dragged across the floor to go crashing into a solid wall. Quint's leg flies out to one side and his heel kicks the door closed as another shot fires through the dark.
“Ohmigod,” I squeak through tight air channels.
My throat has suddenly closed, my heart is jumping in my chest like a freaking toddler wanting candy.
“It's okay, babe. You're okay, I've got you,” a husky voice rasps into my ear from behind.
“Ohmigod,” I breathe out again, because I think I know why my heart is pounding right out through my chest and my lungs are exploding from lack of air.
The instant the shot was fired, Quint dragged me to the floor and tugged me out of the open doorway. Keeping himself in the line of fire, he pulled me between his legs and wrapped his body around me making sure I'm protected on all sides. His arms are two steel bands around my chest and the heat from his biceps pouring into my breasts is giving me heart failure. I feel his heart beating against my back and something else, pressing me urgently.
“Ohmigod,” I murmur again.
“You're okay, my baby,” he husks into my hair and pulls a tendril out of my eyes to wrap it behind my ear.
With the tender skin exposed, I feel his hot breath fall on the shell and flickers of white sparks fly down my body straight between my thighs.
“Nothing's gonna happen to you,” he grits. “They'll have to get through me first.”
“What's going on? Someone tried to kill us.”
“Me,” he rasps.
“How do you know that?”
“Shhhh,” he tells me and I do as he says, surrendering to his command for once in my life.
It actually feels good to let a man take charge and not have to worry about what's coming next. I have to remember not to get used to it though, not to sink and let that become my new normal when of course it can't be. We sit there, Quint with his back against the wall, me with my back against his chest.
His breath comes in short hot bursts but nowhere near as fast as mine which is like a runners pant. His huge thighs encase me in their hold like those great jaws of the machines that rip up scorched earth.
And they're bare so, glancing down, I see the ropes of muscle flexing beneath the skin. Is it my imagination that I feel the ridges of muscle from heavily defined abs pressing into my back? I don't know, because I'm losing my mind and unable to think clearly about anything.
Quint is naked. Aside from the towel that was strapped around his narrow sinewed hips. And that must have come apart with his legs stretched wide to wrap me into his hold. More than all of that, I feel a solid bolt of iron, hard as anything Quint pounds all day, pressing into the base of my spine. And it is enormous.
“Ohmigod.”
Quint's cock is rock hard and burning a sear into my butt cheek like a brand.
“It's okay, I think they've gone,” he husks against my neck, his lips lightly grazing my skin.
“How do you know?” I whimper. “What if they're sneaking up on the house right now, coming to kill us?”
“He missed his shot.”
“Barely,” I say and the word emphasizes the sensitive awareness that Quint's basically stark naked body is wrapped around me. How did I never notice before how freaking hot he is? I was so obsessed with keeping him at arm's length all I chose to see was his detachment and the dirty smears of ash and metal across his skin.
“He won't wanna stick around and face a posse of crack shot cowboys gunning for him.”
It crosses my mind to ask why he's keeping me locked in his fierce hold, if they've gone. His trunk of heavy thigh is lining my legs making them look tiny. But I don't want this to end so I say nothing. I want to stay here in his protective hold forever. I feel incredibly safe in his arms. More secure than I've ever felt in my entire life and also more incredibly turned on than ever.
All I want to do is flip over and press my face to his and feel Quint's mouth covering mine. His breath against the side of my neck is sending shivers up and down my limbs and I'm certain I'm losing my mind. The heat is intense, way hotter than a normal Texas midnight. If this quivering doesn't stop soon I'm sure I'll go completely insane from the urgent need pulsating around my body worse than any adrenaline fear.
“What's going on,” I whisper. “Why are people trying to kill you?”
“It goes back to when I left New York,” he rasps out, still on alert.
“You aren't literally on the run?” I whisper, sure a convict has me in his grasp and not even caring. Judging by the throb between my legs I'm finding the information pretty damn hot.
“No, Babe,” he says in a low growl, his voice filled with sensual need. “I did some stuff, back then.”
I can tell he's struggling to talk, even more than usual. He's all man, one that would likely be happy to live alone in a cave. I've always been a social type, it comes natural when you work in a bar. But I could happily move into a solitary hut on a mountain just me and Quint for the rest of our days.
Christ, I'm being ridiculous. Terror does strange things to your mind, inciting fantasies of survival. I read about people in the second world war having sex right after bomb raids, even during them, alive with the joy of survival.
Or maybe it's the danger seeping through every one of Quint's pores that fills me with desire.
“What sort of stuff,” I mewl.
“I was making those fancy railings for New York city types and some unsavory characters had me create- other stuff.”
“That doesn't sound too bad.”
“They were using my iron bars as killing machines. Two women were murdered, their 'girls'. Then a cop. I refused to make any more weapons and they threatened to kill me if I talked. I guess they don't trust me, after I disappeared and came down here to get some peace.”
“Thank you for telling me,” I say. “It makes me feel really close to you, knowing you trust me enough to share that. And don't let that freak you out, I'm just saying.”
“Seems like we're both opening up to each other. You're the only woman I've ever talked to like this. The only one I've ever wanted to share with, so that she'd know the man inside me.”
“I want that,” I murmur except it comes out of my mouth like a whimper. I'm coming apart at the edges, knowing Quint has to let me go and finding the prospect unbearable.
“Yeah? Which part?”
“To know who you are.”
“You're getting to know more of me than you signed up for,” he quips and I know he's trying to make light of the position we're in.
I'm about to tell him not to joke around, that I'm not a little girl, but Quint already has it under control. His thick finger hooks my chin and lightly but firmly tugs my head to swivel around to face him, half face him, because I'm not the Exorcist girl, but it's enough.
As my face swivels around toward his, he tips his head down and his mouth covers mine. His one finger holds me firmly in place so I couldn't move even i
f I wanted to. He plunges into my mouth and the tongue wrestling starts, swirling and parrying. I give back as good as he gives but Quint is too strong for me. His mouth takes me and claims me. I feel completely laid bare by his tongue making me his.
Shivers run down my skin and my pussy starts to spasm with eager little throbs, hungry for more of Quint. I writhe and press back into the curve of his ripped chest, rotating myself as far as possible so as to suck in more of him. The side of my breast crushes against his ab carvings sending tingles through every part of me.
“Hmm,” I moan into Quint's mouth, undulating my full globes of flesh into him, urging him to touch me and squeeze me. His tongue is an avid explorer and the thought of it moving between my legs, him pressing me back to lay sprawled on the floor, spread open for him is unbearable.
Chapter 10
Quint
I've never told a living soul about what went down in New York. It seems like another world now. Being sought after for art I made in the fire, instead of a handyman laborer hammering out functional items. Back then I lived on a small place upstate, not much more than a simple hut but with enough land that I was distant from human beings and could build a forge that wouldn't disturb anyone.
Without any effort on my part, QuintSmith became a weekend pilgrimage for wealthy and pretentious types from the city. They came looking for the crazy hermit and to order up some fancy bespoke bars for their brownstone ground floor windows.
One week some fat cat with a Russian accent came out with his wife and ended up ordering a bunch of iron sculptures to fill the thirty thousand empty square feet of their penthouse on Fifth. I don't know who he was, but he was every inch a gangster and even gave me the creeps when he looked at me. His smile was viperish and even then it seemed he was contemplating murder.