by Cara McKenna
His cock had been humming, but in a breath he was hard and hurting. She didn’t help matters—already she was grinding against him, the friction like torture. He moaned without meaning to; couldn’t have held it in if he tried.
She pulled away, breathing heavily, and pushed the door open. Confusion and excitement and panic muddled his brain, but as soon as her feet hit the ground she was pulling off her boots and unbuttoning her jeans. She found a condom in her wallet and tossed it onto the far seat, slung her jeans on the side mirror.
He had to smile, thinking she hadn’t changed since she’d been sixteen—wild then, wild now. It was extremely unlikely they’d be spotted by anyone other than cattle or antelopes, but still he felt funny as he pushed his own jeans down to his calves. She was back on him in a moment, and holy shit she felt good. A familiar scene—just her panties and his shorts stood between them, and she settled the warm cleft of her sex along his cock. Just like last night. Pure fucking heaven.
“Jesus.” He dropped his head back, overcome when she began to move. His hands were shaking as he rubbed her shoulders, her arms, cupped her breasts. He kneaded them, stroked his thumbs across her hardening nipples, and fought for composure. “You have no clue what you do to me.”
She grinned, and drew herself along the length of him. “Oh, I have some idea.”
“You’re gonna wreck me before we even get going.”
“All the more reason to get to it, then.” Her hips slowed as she started undoing his shirt’s buttons, spreading it open as she went. When she was done, he stripped her tank top away, then she turned her attention to his lap. She eased a little farther down his legs, and together they managed to tug his shorts away enough to expose him.
“My hands are filthy,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. AC or not, it felt like he’d catch fire or pass out at any moment.
“Then leave it all to me.” She closed her grip around him, stroking slow and tight. She looked . . . fascinated. “I don’t think I even got to touch you last night.”
No, she hadn’t. In Miah’s fantasies, she did this to him for ages, spoiling him with an admiring hand until he was aching, throbbing, begging. He shut his eyes and moaned, letting her know exactly how good it felt. He felt big in her fist, hard as hell. Only place better was inside her, buried in all that heat.
Raina reached for the condom, its latex cool as she slid it down his pounding flesh. He bucked at the contact, so sensitized it hurt. Fucking crazy.
She didn’t even bother stripping her underwear—she just pulled the crotch aside and sank down on him.
“Oh, fuck.” He gripped her arms, maybe too tight, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were closed, mouth open, something like reverence on her face as she took him deeper, deeper, all the way, and settled against him with his cock sunk as far as it went.
He’d never felt wanted quite like this—not this ferociously, not ever before in his life. Her blazing eyes and pawing hands, her needy motions . . . all of it made him feel like she was about to eat him alive, and he loved it.
“Yeah,” he whispered as she started to move. “Whatever you need.” He forced his body to cool, determined to see this through, to be whatever she was after. He wanted her to use him, and to see what she’d take. Wanted to know how quick she liked it, what angles she needed—everything. He wanted the keys to her body, and the know-how to make her feel better than any man ever had, or ever would again.
“You feel so fucking good,” she hissed, and buried her face against his neck.
He drew her hair back, breathed her in. “So do you.” He slid his hands between them, letting her motions brush her breasts against his palms, felt her nipples through the smooth fabric of her bra, then reached around to unhook it. He fared better than he had last night, and together they got the straps wrestled down her arms.
Her chest was soft and warm against his, her arms tense, nails digging into his shoulders. He held her with his fingers splayed on her back, recording the restless motions of her muscles as she rode him. He couldn’t remember ever being so in awe of a woman. He shut his eyes and felt everything—her hot exhalations, the tease of her long hair on the backs of his hands, and the searing, slick heat of her body, using his.
“Touch me,” she said.
Reality intruded—Miah’s hands were dusty from the morning’s work. Still, it wasn’t an order he was about to deny. There was a big water bottle in the center cup holder, and he splashed his fingers and cleaned them on his open shirt. He slid his arm between them, and found her clit amid her soft curls and the taut tangle of her panties. “Rough or light?”
“In between.”
He obeyed, rewarded by a gasp and a squeeze of her arms.
“Yeah. Like that. Oh God, wait—charley horse.” She grimaced, rising up off him and flexing her hips. With any other woman it might’ve dampened the mood, but Raina wasn’t any woman, and she didn’t look embarrassed in the slightest. After a moment, she sank back down and resumed the deed.
They found their pace, and Miah let her motions dictate his own speed, stroking with the pads of two fingers each time her thrusts drove their bodies together.
For long minutes they perfected the dance, and her panting voice in his ear was the most erotic music Miah had ever heard. She’d come last night, with help from her own hand, but this was something else. His fingers on her, his cock feeling worshipped by the greedy movements of her hips.
She mumbled, “I love this song,” and turned to tweak the radio’s volume. “Keep going.”
Miah couldn’t even say what song it was—there was no room in his reality for any details outside those of her body, her smell, her touch, her noises. He moaned, lost in her. Her clit was slick and hard against his fingertips, the act of touching her tricky with her hips pumping, awkward and hot and perfect. “Fuck me, honey.”
She took him more roughly, her back arching and her lips dragging hot across his jaw. “Christ, I love your hands.”
“What else?”
“Your cock,” she whispered, mouth at his ear, and took him at a sharp, explicit angle, drawing a groan from his chest.
“You feel so fucking good.” Too good, nearly, and he had to tune his own pleasure out or risk beating her to the finish. He focused his attention on her clit, and felt goose bumps rising along her arms. Her motions grew frantic and stiff, breaths harsh, and he knew she was there when she gripped his hair and gasped his name. She pressed close and held, trapping and stilling his hand, riding out the spasms he felt trembling inside her.
“Yeah,” he whispered, and stroked her back.
In time she sat back with a hazy, drunken smile on her pretty face, and patted his cheek like he’d done good. With a mighty sigh she said, “You now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” All he needed was that permission, and a minute of just about any kind of friction. “Keep going like you were.” He’d gotten so hot, feeling her body move how it had, taking pleasure from his. Using him.
He touched her breasts as she rode him, and in a breath he was on the brink. The excitement gathered low and hot and heavy, urgent, and when the promise of release became an inevitability, his hips pumped of their own accord, pushing up to meet her strokes.
“Yeah. Faster.”
She gave exactly that, and his orgasm went from a simmer to a boil, finally a force of nature. He hugged her tight, thrusting up inside her until every last drop was wrung from his body, and they went still amid the hush of the AC and the drone of the radio deejay.
“Fuck me.”
She smiled. “Think I just did.” She twisted around and got the passenger door open, then eased herself off Miah’s lap while he held the condom in place. He ditched it in a napkin as she made it to the ground, and hitched up his shorts and jeans.
Sure, not the most romantic encounter, but this wasn’t about romance, was it? It was more primal than that. A collision of history and chemistry. In time, he’d like to make it romantic, but right now i
t felt clear that the main objective was to use each other’s bodies until the madness passed.
He joined her outside and slammed the door.
“You want to get married, right?” she asked, buttoning her jeans.
Miah started, his surprise clearly plain—she laughed as she buckled her belt. “Not to me. Just in general.”
“Sure.” Maybe to you. Who the fuck knows? She’d been his friend for ages, but now he knew precisely how hot they burned together. Right about now, she was nothing short of perfect. “But where’d that come from?”
“You think your future wife’s going to put up with only getting laid outside? Getting bug bites and hypothermia and having her hip seize up while she fucks you in a truck?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s a preference, not a requirement.” He’d had sex indoors before. Provided all the windows were wide open and there was a fan blowing, and he didn’t have any covers on him, it could be okay. But it was never as good as it was outside—Miah was never as good indoors. Distracted, stifled, not plugged in like he could get out here under the blazing sun, or with all those stars overhead. And why settle for okay when you could have phenomenal?
He’d been just the same in school—a terrible student in the classroom, edgy and twitchy, and his mom had fought a hundred battles to keep him off Ritalin. Any assignment he could do outdoors he’d done fine on, but he’d been useless at sitting through tests and lectures. Somehow or other he’d graduated, and his parents hadn’t pressed when he decided not to pursue an agricultural management degree—it had always been the plan, but by the time he got his high school diploma, another four years’ study sounded like a prison sentence. He was a hands-on kind of guy, his father’s son through and through, right down to the phobia they shared. He had to pity his old man, stuck desk-jockeying while his hip mended.
“It really bother you that much?” Miah asked. “Us, outside?”
Raina was leaning her butt against his door, pulling on her boots. “I can’t complain, I suppose. I just enjoy teasing you about it. It’s comforting to know that you’re not as suspiciously normal as you seem.”
“Thanks?”
“But someday, Church, come hell or high water—you and me, in a real bed.”
“Fine. When’s your birthday? December first?”
She laughed, standing up straight then coming close. She buttoned his shirt for him, taking her time. “Yes, and if we’re still fucking in December, you better believe it’ll be indoors or not at all.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
She patted his chest. “And you have to get back to work, so I’ll drop it.” She stroked his stubbled jaw with both palms, smiled, and stepped away. “Thanks for the quickie.”
“Pleasure was all mine. See you soon, maybe?”
A final grin. “You better.”
And as he watched her saunter toward her truck, all he could think was, You’ve got me by more than just my balls, woman. She was jumbled up everywhere, in his head and his history, in his heart, no doubt. She’d been right there in front of him all this time, and all this time he’d been too blind to see. But better late than never, they said. And now it felt like he was falling hard enough for all those wasted years combined.
“Fucking goner,” he muttered, and called for his dog.
As he climbed back in behind the wheel, he watched Raina’s dust settle and her truck disappear in the distance, cranked the radio and the AC and smiled as he headed west.
Chapter Six
People could say what they wanted about how useless men were after they got laid, but Miah tackled the rest of the day’s tasks with an energy he’d not felt in he couldn’t say how long. He’d even skipped lunch, but he didn’t register the hunger, nor the missed sleep. All he felt was . . . buoyant. Yeah, that was the word. Like he was going to float up into the sky on some cloud of smug satisfaction.
Just before six, he found his mother in the kitchen.
“Smells goddamn good in here,” he said, and kissed her cheek at the sink where she was rinsing a pot. “Roast?”
“Yes indeed. You have your dad to thank—he had a call get canceled, so he did all my ordering for me. So it’s a half-decent dinner for a change.”
“I’d have been happy with leftovers.” He grabbed plates and silverware and set three places.
His dad arrived then, shuffling behind his walker. He was getting faster, at least, Miah thought.
“Hey, Dad. How you feeling?” He fetched him a beer from the fridge.
“Like I’ve got a metal pin in my hip. Otherwise, peachy.”
“No alcohol,” his wife scolded. “Not with those painkillers—it says on the label.”
“I’m not taking the damn pills—they turn me into a zombie. Give that here,” he said to Miah, and took the bottle.
“They’ll help you sleep,” she said.
“So will this.” He twisted the cap off and took a long drink.
She sighed, relenting. Then her expression changed utterly, and she turned to Miah. “Raina Harper came by the house this morning.”
He took a seat, nodding as he grabbed a roll. “Yeah, she found me.”
“I hope nothing was the matter.”
“She just needed a word.” So to speak. He focused on the butter knife in his hand, wondering what he could ask his dad to shift the subject. He hadn’t lied to his mother since he’d been about seventeen, and didn’t want to start now, but if she knew he and Raina had started something, he’d never hear the end of it. His mom was so eager for him to find somebody permanent, there’d be two hearts broken if Raina decided she wasn’t after something serious.
“A word about what?” his mother prompted.
“Just . . . things.”
“It wasn’t Raina you were out with last night, was it?”
“Leave the poor boy alone,” his dad cut in, and asked Miah, “How did the outbuildings look?”
“Mostly good. The shelter nearest Bronson Rock had its door forced, but I put a padlock on there for now.”
“Nothing much to steal in there.”
“Maybe a few bottles of water and an old Maglite, I think. First-aid kit was where I last saw it, though. Probably just somebody drifting through, needing somewhere to crash. No vandalism aside from the break-in. I’ll ask Jason to fix the door up tomorrow.” One of their senior ranch hands had trained as a carpenter. “I also tore out that last stretch of the temporary fence.”
“Good.”
“Road’s getting a little rough in the middle mile—I nearly bottomed out in a couple spots.”
“There’s a load of gravel in the junk barn. We can send out a couple strong backs to fill it in.” His dad finished with the roast and passed the platter to Miah.
“Thanks.”
With her husband’s mouth now occupied, Miah’s mom jumped back in. “You know I always wondered about you and Raina.”
He shot her a kind but pitying look. “You’ll have to just keep wondering. My lips are sealed.”
“Do you not want to jinx it?”
His dad swallowed. “For the love of all’s holy, Christine, leave him be.”
She ignored him, still studying Miah. “Will you be going into town tonight?”
He shook his head. “I doubt it.” Not unless he got some kind of invitation. Sleep had to come first at a certain point . . . Though then again, he knew if Raina told him jump, he’d be there in a hot minute, asking her how high.
“If you change your mind, you look very nice in that new gray shirt.”
His father sighed loudly and helped himself to potatoes.
“Raina’s had twenty years to see me in shirts,” Miah said.
Her face lit up. “So it is her!”
“If I say yes, will you drop it?”
“Unlikely.” She was already hunkered forward, elbows flanking her plate. “So when did this all start?”
“Tuesday night. And I haven’t got any clue if it’ll turn into anything seri
ous, so don’t bother getting ideas.” He needed to keep that at the forefront of his own mind.
“Well, she’s a very fine young woman. Hard-working, and attractive, and with a nice strong backbone on her.”
“Like I said, don’t get ideas.”
His dad had gone quiet, chewing thoughtfully and wearing that face that suggested he was going to say something sooner or later. Miah’s mother caught it as well, and they waited until he set down his fork and took a sip of beer.
Eventually he announced, “I like Raina. Girl knows her way around a horse.”
“Woman,” his wife corrected.
“I’m glad you both approve, but seriously, let’s all shut up about it.”
“Does she want children?” his mom asked.
“That’s it—I’m cutting you off.” He slid her wine glass out of reach.
“These are excellent potatoes,” his dad said, clearly having exhausted the extent of his opinions about Raina Harper. Ask him about the stock or the weather and he could hold court for hours, but for personal matters? Yeah, ten words was about his limit. And lately there was one topic that got both of Miah’s parents going, with no chance of shutting them up.
“Any new rumors about that casino project?” Miah asked, and that bait carried them through the rest of dinner, letting him escape without further interrogation. Though the damage was already done—he’d not hear the end of this from his mom until he and Raina welcomed their first child into the world.
Which was a far-fetched notion, he thought as he checked in on the hands, who were finishing up their nightly duties and bedding down the stock horses. Though they’d never had occasion to talk about kids, Raina had never struck him as the motherly type. Not one to lose her mind over a new baby, or to perk up over news of an engagement. Then again, there were a lot of things he didn’t know about his friend. His lover. He could be completely wrong—she might want a family as badly as he did.
You’re getting way too far ahead of yourself, Church.
He joined in the chores, body restless despite the sleep deprivation. It might be best to wear himself straight into the ground. Might keep his legs from carrying him to his bike, stomping on the starter, and finding his butt on a barstool yet again. It took a monumental effort, though, because he knew damn well she was there, right now, that body behind that counter, that mouth and those eyes right there, ready with wry smiles and conspiring glances, if only he were close enough to inspire them.