Bounty (Colorado Mountain #7)

by Kristen Ashley

“The thing is, it wasn’t about what I wanted. It was about what I needed.”

  “Yeah?” he asked when I didn’t go on.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I had it all. I was uneasy because I had it all in a way I had it but I wanted something else. Something more. And I was uneasy because it felt like I was being ungrateful. All I had, all I could get, and I wanted more.”

  Deke’s hold on me tightened. “Did you know what you wanted?”

  I nodded to the night and answered, “Less.”

  His deep voice had been restful, quiet.

  He sounded puzzled when he asked, “Say again?”

  I curled my fingers tight on the phone I was still holding, lifting my free hand to trail Deke’s forearm, over his wrist, until I could lace my fingers with his.

  Then I repeated, “I wanted less.”

  “You wanted less,” Deke murmured, and I knew he still didn’t understand.

  “Less is more,” I told him. “You can have it all, but if you don’t have the things that are important, you don’t really have anything.”

  I felt his fingers tighten in mine but he didn’t say anything.

  “I had good friends. A good family. But I didn’t have…”

  You.

  I left the word unsaid.

  Deke kept tight hold on my hand.

  “I have it all now,” I whispered, the words thick. “I have it all and he’ll never know. He’ll never see. He’ll never get that peace knowing his girl has everything.”

  There was a beat of silence, it was heavy, weighing further down on me before Deke asked gently, “You talkin’ about your dad, baby?”

  I nodded, my throat sounding clogged when I said, “And the fuck of it is, I found it because I lost him. I found it because losing him meant I needed to find my peace in a world without him in it. But I got more than that. I got my less that’s more. I found my place. I found my oasis. I found home. I found where I’d be safe and looked after. I found peace. And he’ll never know.”

  Deke made no reply.

  But he didn’t let me go.

  He held me to him, my fingers laced with his as I stared into the night, and he did this for a long time.

  Then he lifted his chin from my shoulder and put his lips to my ear.

  “Come to bed, Jussy.”

  I nodded again and Deke let me go.

  He moved. I moved.

  I had shit on my mind, and as I put on my pajamas, more shit crowded in.

  Like he said we would, and I knew we would (which was why I had a doctor’s appointment the next week), Deke and I had sex regularly. Always before we went to sleep. Most of those times we did it then we cuddled and chatted and did it again. There were times, rare and only happening when we spent the night at my place where I could go back to sleep when we were done and not have to get up and get in Deke’s truck to come to my place, he woke me early in the morning and took us there.

  But right then, I was not in the mood.

  Right then, I was coping with a clash of emotions I was having difficulty processing.

  Loss and gain.

  Profound joy and acute sorrow.

  Feeling this, all I wanted to do was climb in a warm bed, try and hold on to the remnants of that mellow buzz I was quickly losing and go to sleep, wake up with that all gone and face a new day when I had the energy to bury the bad again and focus on the good.

  What I didn’t want to do was have sex with Deke.

  I wanted to hold tight to my big, warm teddy bear that came in the form of a mountain man and use his strength to take me where I needed to be.

  But Deke might have other ideas. He always had other ideas. Ideas I’d always had too. And I didn’t know what I’d do if he acted on those ideas or how I’d feel if he tried.

  I climbed into bed, unsure how to share what I needed to share, equally uncertain how he’d take that, and scared of how I’d feel if his reaction wasn’t what I needed it to be.

  Then I lay in bed, Deke claiming me, turning my back to his front. He curled into me, yanking the covers up to my shoulder then burying his face in the back of my hair.

  And like that, he held me. His hands didn’t wander. His lips didn’t search for anything. I didn’t even feel the hardness of his cock against my ass.

  He was just Deke, sensing and then giving me what I needed.

  And doing it, he opened that place inside me. That place I’d closed after I lost it the day I heard Dad had died, needing to shut it away so it wouldn’t crush me. That place where I’d buried everything and turned into Deke after I’d been assaulted. That place where I didn’t go when I found out one of my best friends might be pulling her shit together, but she was doing it with someone who was not the man I’d want her to have, so much so, her future terrified me.

  It started with my body rocking.

  The sob came only when Deke’s arm around my waist slanted up so he could curl his fingers around the side of my neck and whisper into the back of my hair, “Let that shit out, gypsy.”

  God, God.

  I hoped I was made for him.

  Because he sure as fuck was made for me.

  I lifted both hands and curled my fingers around his strong wrist and did what he invited me to do.

  I let go.

  He didn’t turn me into him. He didn’t say words that might soothe me and I was glad because there were no words to soothe me.

  No.

  Deke just held me while I cried, first for the monumental loss of my dad and all he’d never see, all the things that would happen without him being with me. Walking me down the aisle. Holding his grandchildren. Meeting the man who’d been made for me.

  And then I cried for Bianca, how she’d been cast adrift a long time ago by parents so caught up in their own shit, they didn’t notice she had no anchor. How Lace and me, Dad and Joss had tried to keep her on course, steady, loved, and how we’d failed and now…

  Now…

  Now she’d found her course but it was just as stormy.

  Then I cried for all I’d gained, all of it encompassed in the big, warm body curled close and holding me.

  This meant I cried a really long fucking time.

  Eventually, the sobs tapered into hitches.

  And through it all, Deke kept holding me.

  Finally, I quieted.

  And Deke kept holding me.

  I drew in breath and burrowed backward.

  Deke kept holding me.

  The dark room was quiet and I blinked slowly, exhausted by my tears, my eyes losing focus on the silver of moonlight on my sheets.

  “Better?” Deke whispered.

  “Yeah, honey,” I whispered back.

  “Been through a lot. You’ve needed to let go for a while. Good you did that, gypsy.”

  I drew in a soft breath. It broke twice as it came in.

  It flowed out easily.

  He didn’t think I was weak.

  He didn’t think anything but giving me what I needed.

  I bent my head and kissed the apple of his palm.

  He followed my movement, keeping close, his face in my hair.

  “Sleep, Jussy.”

  “Okay, Deke.”

  His fingers still at my neck gave me a squeeze but otherwise he didn’t move.

  And I lay in bed while the silver of moonlight vanished, giving way to sleep.

  But I fell into it knowing one thing.

  There was no falling in love with a man like Deke.

  If you had him, he had that.

  And I had him.

  So he had that from me.

  * * * * *

  When I woke, I felt bright sunlight on my eyelids, so I took it slow in opening them.

  After a couple of blinks, I saw sheets and sun and trees.

  But all I felt was Deke.

  We hadn’t moved in sleep, except his arm was no longer slanted up, fingers curled around my neck. It was resting heavily along my waist.

  I attempted a small stretch o
f my back, not wanting to wake him if he was still asleep.

  “You up, gypsy?”

  He was not asleep.

  And God, I loved his voice in the morning.

  Or any time, really.

  I turned in the curve of his arm and he straightened his legs for me so I could press in, front to front.

  I tipped my head back and looked at his face.

  He was awake but the life he’d lived that he normally wore on his face was still smoothed out. There was a tranquility there I wished I could give him so he had that look throughout the day. So he felt that serenity every second he was awake.

  An impossibility.

  I still wished I had it in me to give him that every breath he would take, even when he was awake.

  “You doin’ okay this mornin’, Jussy?” he asked quietly.

  I nodded, tangling my legs in his, pushing closer. “Thanks for last night, Deke.”

  He dropped his head and I felt him run the tip of his nose along mine, from the bridge between my eyes all the way to the end.

  I closed my eyes at the marvel of how this big, rough man could give so much with a simple touch, and when he pulled back, I dipped in and pressed my face into his throat.

  “You wanna get up, shower, go someplace and find breakfast?” he asked the top of my head.

  He was still being cool with me. Giving me the affection I needed after my emotion last night. Not doing what I suspected he wanted to do on a morning when we had time, no work to get to, nothing.

  I drew in breath and slid my hand over his waist, to his back, up his spine as I touched my lips to the base of his throat.

  Once I’d done this, I answered, “Later.”

  He got me and I knew this when his hand moved too, under my cami and down, so just his fingertips were inside the waistband of my pajama bottoms.

  “Watcha want now, baby?” he murmured.

  I pressed my breasts to his chest and slid my lips up his throat.

  In response, his hand glided fully into my pajama bottoms.

  “Anniversary fuck,” he mumbled.

  I tipped my head back and caught his eyes. “Sorry?”

  “Last night, Jussy,” he started, “we’re a week old.”

  He was keeping track.

  That was sweet.

  But I thought back, my attention turning vague, as I said, “Seems longer.”

  I lost the vague when Deke replied, “Figure we can celebrate a lot of different anniversaries. Wyoming. You walkin’ into Bubba’s. Me walkin’ into your house. First night we slept in the same bed.”

  I felt my lips curve. “That’s a wide variety of anniversary fucks.”

  He rolled into me, his eyes dropping to my mouth, his lips muttering, “Absolutely.”

  Feeling his gaze on my mouth, I was done talking.

  So I lifted my head and kissed him.

  It was a soft, warm morning kiss.

  Until Deke slanted his head and it was no longer that but instead a deep, wet, start-of-foreplay kiss.

  When he ended it, his mouth went to my neck.

  My hands drifted all over.

  His hands didn’t drift. They shifted up into my cami, then he arched away from me and my cami was gone.

  I decided to let my hands get busy too, so I pushed them into his shorts. His mouth now at my throat, he angled his hips away so I could pull them over his ass and push them down. Deke lifted a knee, catching them with a foot and shoving them all the way off.

  His hands then went back, both of them, in my bottoms and this time my panties. They spread to the sides and down, grazing over my hips. He rolled his legs to the side so I could windmill them off and they were gone.

  Naked.

  One of the top things on my list of how I liked to be with Deke.

  He slid his mouth from my throat, down to my chest, between my breasts, to my midriff where he kissed me then lifted up, hovering there.

  I looked down at him to see his gaze on me, his hazel eyes firing, the smooth of sleep still there but mingling with the dark of hunger.

  A good look on Deke.

  Though, for me, every look was good on Deke.

  “Be back,” he whispered, and I watched him bend again to me, touching his mouth to my belly before he rolled off me and the bed.

  I turned to my side, cheek to the pillow, arm under me curled, the other arm straight out. I hitched a knee and watched Deke go to his bag. He pawed through it and I pressed my lips together as my clit contracted when I saw he had a blue bandana in his hand.

  He hadn’t tied me since that one time with my scarf.

  I was getting the feeling anniversary sex was going to rock.

  But I had no idea.

  No idea it wasn’t going to rock.

  It was going to change my world.

  He climbed back into bed, crawling into it on hands and knees, his eyes locked to mine, his movements predatory, and I swallowed, my fingers reflexively clenching into the sheets, heady prickles radiating from clit, through cunt, over my ass and up my spine.

  When he reached me, he yanked the covers totally off me and hooked my waist with an arm. He pulled me up, coming up himself, so we were both on our knees, facing each other.

  Then he trailed the hand with the bandana down my arm, to my wrist, where he circled it and lifted it up.

  Only then did he take his eyes from me so he could watch as he threaded the rolled bandana between our wrists.

  When his head moved that way, I turned my eyes and watched him secure a knot he’d done one handed, tightening it with his teeth.

  At feeling the material constrict, anchoring me to Deke, a spasm exploded between my legs, another one close on its heels at the sight of his strong teeth, the feel of our wrists bound snugly together.

  His gaze came to mine and I got lost in it, mired deep in the heat of his eyes, so in the thrall of Deke sharing his need for me stark, right there to see, to feel, I lost track of where his other hand was until I felt it in my hair. Up it went until it was close to the scalp where it gripped, yanking back.

  The pain at my scalp translated to pleasure as it raced over my body, my back arching at his demand, then his mouth captured a nipple and sucked hard.

  “God,” I breathed, my arch pushing deeper, offering more to him as he took our bound wrists, twisting my arm, pinning it behind me.

  He worked my nipples, one, the other, back, and again, until I was whimpering, my free hand fisted in the back of his hair, my lower body pressing hard into his, feeling his rigid cock snug against my belly.

  I rubbed into it, needing the feel of it, wanting to give him something while he was giving to me.

  Then suddenly his hand at my hair wasn’t tugging back, it was pushing down and Deke shifted as he forced me to bend. Drawing our tied wrists around, his hand covering mine over his cock, his other hand still in my hair, tugging it back now to arch my neck, he drove the head of his cock through my lips and I took him. I took him with my mouth as both Deke and I jacked his dick.

  Damn.

  Amazing.

  Never anything like it.

  I’d never had anything like Deke.

  I planted my free hand in the bed to keep steady in order to give him more while I took what he was giving. I closed my lips tight around the rim of the head of his cock and sucked hard. His fingers around mine gripped firmer, moving faster, pumping harder.

  I was moaning against his cock, the insides of my thighs quivering, feeling the wet gather, desperate to put my free hand between my legs, unable to because I needed it for support, this making the desperation more acute, phenomenal, turning the noises I was making into verbal keening.

  Deke heard it, pulled our hands from his cock and started fucking my face in earnest and I rocked into him, meeting his thrusts, hollowing my cheeks to draw him as deep inside as I could get him, feeling the rumbles he was making sound around my heart and tremble in my womb.

  I thought he wanted me to take him there
with my mouth but abruptly I was up, both our bound hands between my legs, Deke’s middle finger pressing mine to my clit, circling, twitching, his mouth slamming down on mine, his tongue invading.

  I kissed him back as I rode our hands and I kissed him harder as I rode us urgently when he slid both our fingers inside and started finger fucking me.

  He took our fingers from clit to cunt, back and again, until I was so gone, I couldn’t take his mouth anymore.

  I tore my lips from his and shoved my face in his neck, moaning, “Baby.”

  “Do not get there,” he growled.

  “God,” I breathed, holding on, fighting my orgasm, unable to stop my hips moving feverishly against the manipulation of our fingers.

  I took all I could take and when I could take no more, with my free hand, I reached and cupped his balls. Not able to control it, I squeezed him maybe a bit too roughly.

  In reaction, on a grunt that blistered through me, Deke sunk his teeth just beyond where my neck met my shoulder and he did it hard.

  Right where he’d marked me.

  And I knew he’d again given that to me.

  “Deke,” I whimpered.

  At his name, our hands went from between my legs. He twisted my arm behind my back again and used both our arms to lift me, swinging me around, and he fell into me. My back was to the bed, my head hanging down the side, Deke’s weight on me. He shifted his hips and I read what he wanted, opening my legs for him to fall through.

  He reached to the nightstand.

  I lifted my head.

  And his hand came back just as his mouth crushed down on mine for a wet, bruising kiss.

  He pulled away and I watched, squirming under him, as he used his teeth to rip open the condom packet.

  “Hurry,” I begged.

  His eyes caught mine and I saw he was right there with me, gone like me, nothing existed but Deke and me, what we were doing, all we were feeling.

  I felt his hand work between us and repeated my plea.

  “Hurry.”

  He yanked our bound wrists from under me, twisting his, lacing his fingers in mine, pressing our hands into the bed as I felt the head of his cock slide over my clit that was so sensitive, my entire body jerked underneath him.

  I needed him to slam inside, to fuck me hard, but when Deke caught at my entrance, he didn’t thrust deep.

  He pressed only the tip in and whispered, “Jussy.”