He made a clicking sound with his tongue and Apollo obediently trotted forward. Wait—he can speak horse? I can’t speak horse! I looked at him helplessly.
“Pick up the reins.”
I’d been completely ignoring the reins. I snatched them up.
“Lily,” Bull said chidingly, eying my white knuckles. “You can relax.”
I relaxed my grip a millionth of an inch.
“Good. Now press with your legs a little. Gently.”
I’d been trying to avoid thinking about the fact I had a huge, warm-blooded animal between my thighs. I looked down at my legs and felt his gaze there, too, which didn’t do anything to cool me down. Thank God I was wearing jeans. Why hadn’t he warned me he was taking me riding? What if I’d worn a skirt?
Had he been hoping I’d wear a skirt?
I squeezed my legs together, feeling the hot mass of muscle and power between them.
“Not that gently. She’s not made of marshmallow.”
I squeezed a little harder and Caliope started walking. Suddenly, I was bouncing up and down, her warm body pressing hard up against my groin and then falling away. She walked straight past Bull and Apollo and towards the door.
“Um—” I started.
I emerged out into the light, blindingly bright after the dim stable. Caliope turned right and headed down the ranch’s driveway, walking faster. I felt about a thousand pairs of eyes on me—ranch hands, visitors, even the horses. All staring at the dumpy girl on the horse.
A horse that was—yes, we were definitely speeding up. Oh shit. I made the mistake of glancing down at the ground and the hard-packed dirt was flashing past. This was almost certainly a gallop. I was going to die. Help!
I twisted the reins around my fingers, but I had no idea what to do with them. If Bull comes and saves me now, I’ll kiss him. He can have me naked and willing. I’ll do every depraved thing he wants—
Bull rode up alongside me. “How do I stop?” I called.
He blinked. “Stop? You’re barely trotting. Relax.”
Annoying, arrogant idiot!
We approached a bend in the drive. “How do I turn?” I yelled. “How do I stop? I don’t understand the controls!”
“Relax your legs. You’re still squeezing.”
Ridiculous, I’m not—Oh. I guiltily relaxed my legs and Caliope slowed to a gentle walk.
He showed me how to gently pull on the reins to guide her. “What are you so scared of, exactly?” he asked, sounding genuinely bemused.
“That she’ll get out of control!”
Bull made another of those weird noises with his mouth and both horses stopped, very close together. His dangling leg brushed mine.
“I don’t think that’ll happen,” he said, looking at me seriously for a second. “She’s pretty sensible. She knows what she’s doing.”
And he leaned in towards me.
Bull
I got within an inch of her, my lips close enough to hers that I could feel her trembling breath. Then she sat up straight in her saddle and said, “What are you doing?”
I fixed her with a look. “You know exactly what I’m doing.”
She stared at me for a second, those fabulous breasts rising and falling under her blouse as she panted...and then she jerked the reins and Caliope trotted on.
I sighed and fell in behind her. This was getting to be a problem. Any sensible guy would have given up by now. And me? I should have given up right back at the arena, the first time she didn’t hurl herself into my arms. What the hell was I doing?
Her ass was bouncing in the saddle right in front of me. Perfect and rounded, curved and full. Watching it come up off the saddle and then thump back down into it again, the cheeks separating just a little, the denim stretched tight over them, was poetry in fucking motion. It was impossible to watch it and not think of her on top of me, riding me as she took my cock. However frustrated I was that I hadn’t slept with her yet, just the sight of that firm yet pliant ass bouncing up and down was enough. I’d rather be here, watching Lily, than off in the barn fucking Kirsten, I realized.
I couldn’t remember ever being this into a girl.
And it wasn’t just her body, fine as it was. Or even that gorgeous face with those luscious green eyes, all huge and liquid. It was the way she didn’t let anyone get the better of her—not even me. Hell, she wouldn’t even put up with me, and everyone put up with me. No one ever told me “no.” So that fascinated me.
I mean, I still sure as hell needed to teach this girl a lesson. Sooner or later, these games were going to get too much for either of us to take, and then she was going to wind up over my knee. Or up against a wall. Or bent over the nearest available object.
There was something else, too. Something was wrong with this girl, and not just her weird city ways. Some folks are loners but Lily was lonely—isolated—in some deeper way I couldn’t get a handle on. Like she hadn’t just foregone friends and family but actively pushed them away. Hell, she’d pushed me away, too. It was only my stubbornness that had kept me coming back.
I pushed Apollo a little faster so I could ride alongside and just slightly behind her. She had her head up, now, gazing at the road ahead, and I thought I could see just the tiniest suggestion of a smile on her lips. She was enjoying herself. She’d never admit it, of course, but she was.
And then my eyes tracked down and I could see how the neck of her blouse was flapping open and, because I was at just the right angle, I could peek in and see the upper curve of her breast in its bra cup. Her bra had some delicate lace edging right where I’d want my thumb to go as I swept along that smooth skin.
I glanced up. She was looking right at me and, if I could read her eyes right, she was halfway between shocked and turned on that I’d been looking at her. I felt my cock swelling and thickening in my pants.
And then she snapped her gaze forward and trotted on, and I was back to the view of her ass again.
I started imagining what it would look like in a swimsuit, or maybe a short, tight skirt—one that could easily be hauled up to bare her. Damn….. I loved the fact that she didn’t drape herself in huge, tent-like clothes, like some curvy girls did. Her blouse and jeans fitted well, even if they were a lot more modest than the stuff Kirsten and her friends wore. She seemed shy about her body—maybe some idiot had said something to her, once, and dented her confidence. Maybe the same idiot who’d made her so closed-off and secretive.
I wanted to kill that idiot.
I called out directions when we hit the street. I saw Lily tense up when the first car passed us, but Caliope had done this so many times she plodded on calmly, and that calmness seeped into Lily, too. Soon, we turned off the street and down a trail, heading out into the desert.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Lily asked.
“You got someplace you need to be?”
“I have work to do.”
“What do you do, for work?”
She shrugged.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Internet stuff,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
I was riding behind her, so she couldn’t see my expression. I made the most of it. “Guess you’re right,” I said sadly.
I saw her catch herself and look around. I just had time to adopt a tough-but-pained look, staring off at the horizon like I’d been told my dog was going to die.
“Shit,” she said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
I shook my head. “Nah, you’re right. No point me asking what I’m not going to understand anyway. I guess I must seem pretty dumb.”
“No! Not at all!” She looked horrified. It was difficult to keep my face straight.
“Truth is,” I said, “I don’t really get computers. Like, I’m not sure how you people fit all that information about everything in the world in one itty bitty box.”
She gave me a pitying look. “Well, it’s not in the box, it’s the internet, it’s—” She frowned. “Wait a
minute. You’re on fucking Facebook!”
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I threw my head back and roared with laughter. Lily’s mouth was hanging open, which only made it funnier. “You must think country folk are dumb as hell!”
She gave me a death-ray glare. “Not all of them,” she muttered. “Just you.”
“It’s not in the box...it’s the internet,” I mimicked, and collapsed into laughter again. And this time, finally, she managed to relax enough to smile at herself.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Yes, okay. I’m sorry. I’m just not used to talking to locals, yet.”
“Yet? How long have you been in Gold Lake again?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “Two years.”
I was desperate to find out why. Why did she live all by herself? Why had she never been to Lucky Pete’s until that week? But I didn’t want to push her too hard. So I just said, “So what do you do?”
She took a deep breath. “I write documentation about web server interfaces.”
It was completely unremarkable. Boring, even. Exactly the sort of thing you’d say if you didn’t want someone to dig any deeper. And she’d said it as if she’d said it a thousand times before, which didn’t make sense given how few people she seemed to know. Almost as if she’d rehearsed it in the mirror.
We rode on into the desert, out where there’s nothing but sky, rock and sand. “Are we heading anywhere in particular?” she asked at last.
“Should we be?”
“I thought there’d be a destination. Like, some hill or the world’s oldest tree or something.”
I studied her. Interesting.
“What?” she demanded.
“You always gotta be heading somewhere,” I said. “Always doing something. Achieving something. Don’t you ever just...relax?”
“Oh, I should be more like you?”
I grinned.
“I do just fine, thank you,” she said. “I can relax.” She managed to stay quiet for all of five seconds. “So where are we heading?”
I couldn’t stop myself grinning. God, I liked this girl. I tugged on the reins and Apollo came to a halt. “We’re here,” I said.
She looked around blankly.
“Trust me,” I said. “Best show in town.”
And then I just sat there and watched as the sun started to sink slowly behind the mountains, our shadows drawing out into long tails behind us, the light turning from yellow to gold to red. Distracted by the sunset, Lily finally started to relax in the saddle. She gazed up at the sky, spellbound, as the clouds were lit up from behind in shades of pink and orange and scarlet that no postcard can do justice to. Soon, it looked as if the whole sky was on fire.
There’s nothing in the world like a Texas sunset. I’d watched them all my life and I still wasn’t tired of them.
But I didn’t watch it; I watched her.
I watched as the golden light streamed through her blouse and showed me the faint outline of her body. I watched as a light breeze picked up and molded the fabric to her breasts. I watched the sun paint her hair with bronze and copper and I held my breath as the wind played with strands of her silken hair.
“It’s beautiful,” she said as the sun sank below the horizon.
It’s the second most beautiful thing I’ve seen tonight. I wanted to say it so much my damn chest ached.
But I couldn’t, even though it was true. It’d sound like I was teasing her again or, if she realized I was serious...I’d have no idea what the fuck to say next. I’ve never been any good with words, except when I’m kidding around. That’s what I am—who I am.
I’m called Bull, for Chrissakes. What do you want?
So instead, I pulled out my phone. “Let me take a picture of you,” I said.
She twisted around to look at me. “What? Why?”
“So I have something to come up on the screen when you call me.”
“Who says I’m going to call you?”
I sighed. “To remember you by, then.” I nodded at the sun. The last sliver of it was just disappearing. “C’mon, it’ll look great - you on a horse, the sunset behind you—”
She shook her head. “I don’t like people taking photos of me.”
“Why?”
She didn’t answer, just tossed the reins. Caliope started the long walk home.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket, annoyed. Was this because she was a little bigger than other girls? She seemed self-conscious about her size...but this felt like something more. She’d looked almost scared.
She barely spoke as we rode home. The sky darkened to blue and then to black and a thousand pinpricks of light started to appear overhead. But my eyes were firmly fixed on Lily as she rode ahead of me. My frustration started to build. There’d been so many almosts, that afternoon, so many moments when something had nearly happened...but she’d backed away at the last moment.
Well, no more. I’d tried taking it slowly.
When we got back to the stables, playtime was over.
Lily
I was getting used to the horse. Part of me was wondering, what was I ever scared of?
And part of me was wondering that about Bull, as well. I’d seen another side to him. One that went beyond the teasing and cocky arrogance. One that I liked.
For a moment, when we’d been watching the sunset side by side, I’d had the overwhelming urge to stretch my hand out towards him to see if he’d take it. And then….
And then what? Suddenly, the past rose up out of the blackness to meet me and all of my childish, happy dreams were rammed aside. And then he’d kiss me and it would be cherry blossoms and fireflies? Is that what you thought?
I closed my eyes for a moment and cursed myself for being a selfish bitch. I’d been dangerously close to making an awful mistake. Jesus, we hadn’t even kissed yet and already he wanted to take my picture! What secrets would he find out in a day or a week or a month? And even if I could keep him oblivious to my past and my work, that didn’t put him in any less danger. Just being with me meant that, one day, he could wind up like Annette.
The memories came swimming back. Her eyes. Those beautiful cornflower blue eyes, pleading with me—
I gripped the reins harder, trying to control my breathing. One one thousand.
The pills rolling around in her mouth—
My vision swam with tears. Two one thousand.
Water spilling down her chin—
Three one thousand.
The counting trick finally worked and I managed to force the memories back down into the depths of my mind. But I knew they could come swimming back up at any time.
The problem with having no life is that there’s nothing to fill your head up with—no friends or laughs or pizza or running jokes about cats. Just a void. It acts like a vacuum, sucking at the door to your memories.
I tried to keep that void filled with work and staying organized. Being the best at what I did. But sometimes it was barely enough.
And now there was someone, right there, who could be in my life. Someone who seemed to like me, even though he barely knew me and I was being cagey as hell with him.
I felt myself wavering again. A tiny, stubborn part of myself screamed that it wasn’t so much to ask: to wake up in the middle of the night because you heard a noise and just once not to be all on your own.
And then I clamped down on the feelings, sniffed and rode on. I figured the night air would dry my eyes by the time we hit the stables.
***
I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, as we rode the rest of the way home, that I didn’t notice the change until it was far too late. Not until we’d dismounted and he was showing me how to brush Caliope down.
His hand closed over mine as I held the brush, taking me through the brush strokes, and suddenly my heart was in my throat. I couldn’t think, could barely breathe. He kept his hand on mine for far longer than necessary. When he looked up and our eyes met, I went weak inside because it was obvious h
e knew exactly what he was doing and what effect it was having.
That’s when I became aware of it. There was a feeling in the air like just before a storm. It was thick and charged with emotion—every word was loaded, every glance powerful.
I tried to remember how I’d felt on the ride home. How determined I’d been to politely say goodbye and head home, to end this whole thing right then and there. Suddenly, it didn’t feel that simple.
Bull went to brush down Apollo, watching me over the horse’s back the whole time, and I just stood there, my hands knitting together nervously. It was the perfect time to walk away. But I stayed there, rooted to the spot.
He finished up and slowly walked towards me. The air was almost crackling, now, every little hair on the back of my neck standing to attention. What’s going on? Why am I suddenly…
And then I worked out what it was. Before, when I’d found him annoying, that had helped to hold back the other feelings. Now that I liked him, now that we were alone, in this dark, private place….
There was nothing to hold me back.
My brain told me, firmly, no.
But I swallowed and stayed right where I was.
Bull marched past me and over to the door that led outside; a big wooden thing with an old-fashioned iron bolt. “I should close up, now,” he said.
We stared at each other. I went to say goodbye but the word died in my throat. I tried to take a step towards the door, but my feet wouldn’t move.
He tilted his head to one side. “Don’t play fucking games with me, Lily,” he said. “You’ve run away from me enough times. Don’t start what you can’t finish.”
I swallowed.
And nodded.
And watched as he closed the door and bolted it, locking us inside.
When he walked back towards me, he seemed even bigger—a giant. The crunch of the hay under his boots was shockingly loud. He came right up in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body. My breathing grew high and tight.
“Lily,” he said, the word just a low rumble in his throat. The sound vibrated against my mind and then sank all the way down my body leaving a trail of heat behind it.
Texas Kissing Page 7