She balked, then lifted her chin and folded her arms defiantly. “We don’t give out information on visitors,” she sniffed.
I looked left and right. No one else was around. I vaulted the counter and muscled in on her, backing her up against the far wall. She dropped the tough girl act instantly, her eyes going wide with fear. “I—I’ll call the cops!” she bleated.
I grabbed the phone and pulled it out of the wall. Then I showed her the photo again. This time, I caught the recognition in her eyes. “Talk!” I snapped. “When did she come?”
“You’ve got it wrong! That’s Mr. Hanlow’s granddaughter. She comes every few months.”
I frowned. “Hanlow?” Who the fuck was Hanlow?
“He’s a resident,” the receptionist said. “Room 233.”
Then I got it. “And which room is Abigail Oates in?”
She checked. “232.”
Oh, clever, Tessa. Very clever.
I grabbed the visitor’s book. Mr. Hanlow had had a visitor just two days ago.
I jumped back over the counter and marched straight to 232. The receptionist would call security, or maybe the cops, but I had a few minutes before they arrived. And I only needed a few minutes.
The doors to the residents’ rooms were cheap, crappy things. I broke the thing open with one good kick. Tessa’s grandmother was sitting there doing a crossword puzzle.
“Oh my,” she said with a start. “Who are you?”
I frowned. Had there been a second of recognition, when she’d first seen me? Had she guessed who I was and why I was there...or was I just imagining it?
“Tessa,” I snapped. “Where is she?”
“Tessa!” she said happily. “Is she coming? I haven’t seen her in so long.”
“I know she was here! Where is she living?”
She frowned at me. “In New York, of course. Why, she must be starting school, by now.”
I groaned. Senile. Of course she was. She was in her eighties. She probably didn’t even know what day it was.
Unless...
I narrowed my eyes. Unless she was acting.
She smiled happily back at me, quite unafraid. “Would you like some tea?” she asked.
No. Not possible. Not at her age. I sighed and looked around. Tessa had been here, but I wasn’t going to be able to get anything useful out of her grandmother. And I only had a few minutes before the cops showed up.
I checked the wastepaper basket. Empty.
Then I saw something behind it. Someone had tossed a napkin and missed. I unfolded it without much hope.
Printed in the center was a cartoon gold prospector. Coffee or tea or something had blurred the name of some bar or restaurant below it, but I could read the last word of the address: Texas.
Lily
The next evening, I drove out to the ranch. No one had to ask who I was there to see—my little Toyota was known, now. I flushed. Did everyone suspect what we’d been doing in the stables and the barn?
Then I remembered that this was Bull, and flushed deeper. They didn’t suspect. They damn well knew.
I pulled up, the engine coughing on dust. I made a mental note to take the car in for a service sometime soon
I’d stopped on the way to pick up a box of pastries from the bakery. I figured munching our way through those would give me time to talk with him—there was some stuff we had to cover, before we got to the sex.
I pushed open the door of the stables, glad to step out of the sweltering air and into the shade. My eyes took a while to adjust to the gloom, but I could see Bull coiling ropes. He was wearing a t-shirt, for once, but the thin fabric didn’t do much to hide his muscles. He was bending slightly and his hard ass was outlined through his jeans. “Hi,” I said nervously.
He turned and his gaze raked over me. I’d forgotten the raw, primitive effect his eyes had on me. I swore I could feel them sweeping down over the scarlet shirt, tied to show off a little cleavage and leaving my stomach bare. It felt weird, walking around with my navel on display, but I had to admit it was a hell of a lot cooler.
So was the skirt. His gaze skimmed down my thighs, sliding around to the sides and I stiffened as I felt invisible hands stroke down the denim and hit bare skin. It wasn’t indecently short, by any means, but compared to the jeans I normally wore, I might as well have been in a bikini.
“Well, hello,” he told me, already starting to walk towards me. The words blazed through my mind. It wasn’t what he said, it was the hunger in his voice. He might as well have said, “Just stand there—I’m going to fuck you.”
“I brought pastries,” I told him, holding the box up defensively in front of me. I was desperate to maintain control of the situation.
“First a latte. Now pastries.” He was close enough now to touch. “You really don’t get me at all, do you?”
He finally stopped, so close that the front of his shirt brushed one side of the bakery box and my naked stomach brushed the other.
“Now wait,” I said quickly.
He put a single huge finger under the bakery box and lifted. The box tilted, turning vertical, and he stepped closer.
“Wait,” I said again. But I didn’t move. His size, his hard bulk...they did something to me. Suddenly, I was gazing up into those fierce blue eyes and I couldn’t move at all. “Wait,” I croaked again.
The box went vertical, the pastries sliding down to the bottom. And then he was leaning forward, bringing his lips down to mine.
I didn’t move my feet, but I dodged my head to one side. “Wait,” I said weakly.
He followed me. I dodged to the other side. “Just a minute,” I said.
He gave me a look. One that said I better damn well keep still. And I did. As he moved in again, I clutched the box to my chest and said, “Bull, I—”
His mouth met mine and it felt so good I actually groaned. His tongue explored my lips, tasting me, and he drew back just a little, testing to see if I’d follow.
I lifted up onto my tiptoes to avoid breaking contact. My mind was suddenly adrift, all moorings severed. I closed my eyes as my tongue found his, darting and twisting. My hands crushed the edges of the cardboard bakery box, and then he was pressing up against me, his hands in my hair, and the box was crushed between us.
I gasped in a little moan of air. The kiss moved and changed, tracking across my lips and down my jaw. His hands were stroking through the hair behind my temples, strong and firm and so damn big. His leg pushed against mine, the denim of his jeans rough against my bare legs, and I pressed hard against him, opening my legs instinctively, hooking one leg around his. I felt the hot throb of his cock against my thigh and a tremor ran through me.
The box slipped from between us and fell to the floor, sending pastries cartwheeling across the hay. Bull’s body slammed against mine, mashing my breasts against his chest. One big hand slapped down on my ass, his fingers spread onto both cheeks, and held me against him. “There,” he growled, lifting his lips for a second. “Now I can finally get you to hold still for a second.”
He squeezed my ass and I moaned. A finger pressed the fabric of my skirt between my cheeks, probing, and I gasped, only to have my gasp swallowed up by his kiss. His kisses were such a perfect blend of hard and soft, power and heat.
I used both arms to push myself back from him. “Wait!” I panted. “I need to talk to you.”
He gave me a look but then crossed his arms. “You got thirty seconds,” he told me.
Bull
She stared at me in horror, as if thirty hours wouldn’t have been enough to explain everything she wanted to explain. But I knew I wasn’t going to last any longer than a half-minute before I grabbed her again. Damn, she looked good. Something was different, aside from the clothes. She’d done her make-up, or her hair, or her nails or any of those other hundred things women do that are too subtle for guys to notice straight off, but that just make them ooze femininity. Standing there in that barn, she looked like the perfect Texas cowgirl,
all tied shirt and denim skirt, but her pale skin and black hair made her exquisitely exotic—voluptuous and sexy, yet vulnerable at the same time.
My eyes were locked onto her...but the weird thing was, I wasn’t staring at her boobs, the way I usually would with a girl. It was her eyes I couldn’t stop looking at, those gorgeous, liquid green eyes. And her lips. I could still feel them against mine and, every time I glanced down at their softness, my hands bunched with the need to grab the knot of her shirt and tug her against me.
“Look,” she said, still panting. ”I need to set some limits.”
I grinned. “Like a safeword?”
Her eyes bulged and her cheeks flared red. “What?! No! Not like a safeword!” But I saw her give a little twist of her hips, as if the idea touched a nerve, deep inside. Well, now. Ain’t that a thing? I filed that little nugget away.
“I mean,” she said, “I have some secrets. I don’t like to talk about my past. If this is going to work, you’ll have to respect that.”
I went to take a step towards her, but held myself back at the last second. “Okay,” I said.
“And my business...I know you don’t like it, but I’m going to keep doing it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Girl, I don’t want you getting hurt. I care about you too damn much.”
She bit her lip when she heard that, but stared back at me determinedly.
I sighed. “At least let me know what’s going on, so I can look out for you?”
She considered. “Okay,” she said at last.
Thirty seconds was long since up. I moved in to kiss her.
“One more thing. How’s your health?” she said, dodging.
I grabbed her upper arms to hold her still. “I got an old muscle tear in my shoulder from wrestling a steer.”
“I mean…” Her eyes looked in every damn direction except at me. “Is it safe for us to...without a….”
I suddenly got it. “Oh!”
She blushed, which looked so damn cute I had to will myself to hold back. “I just mean—You obviously...you know a lot of the local girls. Very well. And regularly. And you prefer to...you know. Go bareback. And—”
“My health is just fine. But what makes you think I do that with the other girls?”
That seemed to throw her completely. “Don’t you?”
I shook my head and just told her the truth. “Lily, when I saw you, I had to have you. Completely. That’s something that’s for you. You’re not like the other girls. That was just fucking.”
She closed the gap between us.
“Are we done talking?” I asked.
“Shut up,” she muttered, grabbed the front of my t-shirt and pulled me down to her. My lips met hers. I closed my eyes and just went for it, me all sweat and stubble, her all sweet, perfumed softness. I devoured her, eating her up like a goddamn candy bar, my hands stroking her cheeks and winding into her long, silky hair. I was so hungry for her, I couldn’t stay still. I started twisting her around as we kissed, moving in slow circles across the barn as if we were slow-dancing.
When we finally came up for air, I muttered without thinking, “Damn you, Lily, I think I’m falling for you.”
Which, it turned out, was the wrong thing to say. Because suddenly, she pushed me away and staggered back, her mouth open in shock.
Lily
Falling for me? Oh God. That was too much...way too much. My carefully constructed plan to control the relationship had just veered off of a cliff.
“Lily?” he asked. “What the hell?!”
I stumbled backwards towards the door. “Falling for me?” I croaked. “You can’t fall for me!” It was exactly what I’d wanted to hear...and it was terrifying. I didn’t deserve someone like Bull falling for me.
“I can’t—” I shook my head. “This was a bad idea.”
I turned back towards the door and put my hand out to grab the handle—
There was the sensation of something falling around me, then a high-pitched whine and a snap. My legs shot out from under me and I landed, face-down, in the hay.
I lay there stunned for a second and then rolled over onto my back. I went to get up and discovered I couldn’t...because my ankles were roped together.
He’d just lassoed me!
He began to wind the rope around his hands.
I opened my mouth to speak, but his voice came like a bullwhip. “Don’t you say a fucking word,” he commanded.
I shut my mouth.
He took up the slack and kept winding the rope. I began to slide on my ass across the hay.
“You goddamn, over-thinking, Gucci-wearing, latte-drinking city folk,” he muttered.
My feet met his. I stared up at him and he glared down at me.
“Bull—” I started.
“Shut up.”
“Bull—”
“Quiet!”
“B—”
“You say one more thing and I swear I’ll take you over my knee.”
I went quiet. A dark heat rippled outward from my groin.
He crouched down by my feet, the muscles of his legs bulging. He looked even bigger, looking up at him like this. “Now for once in your life, Lily, shut up and listen.”
“But I—”
“It ain’t all about you!”
We stared at each other. I completely underestimated him, I realized. This man was an unstoppable force...and I’d tried to control him, to put him in a convenient little box. For the first time, I saw how frustrated he was. Not just about the sex but on a much deeper level.
“What happened to that guy I met in Lucky Pete’s?” I asked. “The one who just wanted to fuck me?”
“He stepped out,” Bull growled.
We stared into each other’s eyes and something about the way he was looking at me made my heart lift and pull like a balloon that wants to be released. I felt my eyes grow moist.
“You’re Bull,” I protested. “You’re not meant to—You shouldn’t be falling for anyone!”
“Yeah, well, I never met anyone like you,” he muttered.
The barn was incredibly still. I could feel the words bunched up inside me, jostling for space, eager to come out...but releasing them was the hardest thing imaginable. “I think...I’m falling for you, too,” I said at last. And that admission changed everything. It reverberated through me, leaving me humming like a tuning fork. My resistance began to crumble.
Bull’s hands slackened on the rope. “There,” he said. “That wasn’t so fucking difficult, was it?”
I put my hands to my face and shook my head. “I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve...you.”
“Well now you’re just being dumb.” He hunkered down further and stared right into my eyes. “I’ll tell you what you deserve, Lily, and it’s a goddamn prince in a fairytale castle.” His voice softened. “But will you settle for me?”
I nodded, choking up a little. I was just starting to realize what an idiot I’d been. And how much I’d been denying myself any chance at happiness, ever since Annette died. “Sorry,” I said quietly. I don’t think I’ve ever communicated as much in two syllables as with that word.
He leaned down and brushed my hair from my cheek with a finger. “I’m sure we can figure out a way to punish you.” His smirk had come back and I felt my heart lift and tug, rising a little higher as I relaxed. It felt incredible. I shifted a little and the rope rasped at my bare ankles. I really was tightly bound.
Helpless.
He reached down to the rope, his big hands warm on my bare skin. I drew in my breath.
He looked up at me. “Relax. I’m just going to take the rope off,” he explained.
Our eyes met and held. We stared at each other for a few seconds. He tilted his head questioningly to one side.
I wriggled, a whole new sort of delicious, dark heat winding upwards through my body. “Rhinoceros,” I whispered. “That’s what I want my safeword to be.”
“Lily!” He sounded stunned, but there was a note
of dark lust in his voice, too. “I didn’t know you...”
I swallowed. “I didn’t know either,” I blurted, blushing.
“Rhinoceros?” he asked, considering.
“Rhinoceros,” I confirmed. My heart was hammering. I felt as if I was standing at the very top of a long, sweeping hillside, about to roll all the way down. I’d never done anything like this before. You’re supposed to only do this with someone you really trust…..
I really trusted him.
I nodded again, confirming that it was really okay.
He knelt down atop me, straddling me, his knees like tree trunks either side of my hips. Then he planted his arms either side of my head and I was completely caged in by him, trapped. I let out a soft little moan as he leaned down to kiss me again, my head sinking back into the soft straw as we pressed and moved and his tongue slipped into my mouth.
It felt different, now. You wouldn’t think you use your feet, to kiss, but I couldn’t seem to stop moving them. I kept twisting them and trying to jerk them apart, just so I could feel the rope tight around my ankles.
The heat started to build inside me, throbbing outward from my core, and it was different, too. Darker, somehow. Before, it had been clean and bright, like the Texas sunshine. Now it was roiling, oily smoke rising up from ruby-red, smoldering coals. And I could feel the same darkness in Bull, too, a side of him he’d only hinted at before. With every passing second, we were burning hotter, growing darker. It was even more powerful because relinquishing control was such a completely new experience for me.
I realized I’d never trusted anyone enough, until now. That’s why I’d never even thought of doing this with the few boyfriends I’d had.
I felt his hands on my tied shirt, undoing the knot with expert fingers. He went to pull the two sides apart and I reached up and caught his wrists. I’m not even sure why I did it, because I wanted to feel myself naked against him more than anything.
He stared down at me...and then grabbed one of my wrists. I went unexpectedly squishy inside at the feeling of his muscled fingers gripping me. So big. So strong.
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