by Susan Arden
“Hell yeah. Don’t play hard to get with me. We both know what you want. I saw how you and Bell can’t take your eyes off each other.”
“You saw nothing!” Caught by surprise, at first she couldn’t conceive that he actually meant her harm. A whiff of his breath at close range and she understood. He wasn’t thinking straight. “You’re drunk! Take your hands off me. Now, Lonny!” Sommer wrenched her wrist, trying to get away.
“I will. After a kiss. If you’re involved with Clayton, we both know what that means.” He snapped her arm back, sharp enough to send a biting jolt through her shoulder and Sommer gasped in pain. Lonny didn’t relent but slammed her backwards.
It felt like the top of her head was going to explode. Twisting and turning, she snarled, “For the last time, take your hands off me!”
“Quit fightin’ and do as I say.” He jerked her arm and she nearly tripped, but he seized her around the waist.
The smell of pungent alcohol on his breath assaulted Sommer’s nose. If this idiot was in league with Clay, he deserved to get his ass kicked. God help them both if she got her hands free! “I swear, you’d better let me go—”
“Shut up.” He shoved her up against the building, so hard her head knocked against the wall with a muted thud.
Sommer was so wound up, she didn’t even feel it. Pissed to the max, anger fueled her sense of self-preservation, and she yanked then jerked her hand free. Outraged that Lonny refused to listen to reason, she crushed the lit end of her cigarette against the top of his hand. “There! Next time, you’d better listen.” She started to run but he recaptured her, snagging her around her waist with both of his hands.
“Nothing but a tease!” he snarled.
“Let me go. Stop right now!” She thrashed to get free and clawed his arms.
“Take your hands off Sommer,” Rory’s voice rose in back of her.
Sommer glanced over her shoulder. Oh no! Her heart froze. The air evaporated from her lungs as the glimmer of metal snagged her attention.
“Fuck off. This girl wants a real man. Not one of you McLemores who think you can do as you please. Use up and disregard any woman like a first class prick. Throw her away to the biggest devo—”
“Let me go!” She had to do something to keep Lonny quiet.
Lonny grabbed hold of her around her waist. “Girl, you’d b—”
Smack! She elbowed him in the throat. Lonny coughed, spewing out foul smelling air as he hauled her against him, hacking and choking from having his windpipe clipped. Sommer shifted her face, making eye contact with Rory. Like this, she was a barrier between them. It wasn’t a long-term answer. One look into his dark angry expression and another kind of fear snaked through her. This was getting seriously screwed up.
Rory stepped closer. The knife he usually carried wasn’t sheathed on his belt. “Sommer made it clear. Take your fuckin’ hands off her.”
“Or what? You gonna make me?” Lonny sneered.
“Please Rory, don’t do anything you’ll regret.” She’d seen him angry and a few times enraged, but never with his knife in hand. The last born of his brothers and he’d been given the fieriest temperament in a long line of men who had perfected the art of getting angry and getting even. All his brothers had proven they could trounce, knock, and kick the stuffing out of whoever was dumb enough to provoke them.
Rory glanced at her and gave her a curt shake of his head. The muscle hinged at the corner of his jaw pulsed a line across the bottom of his cheek. A huge warning sign that meant he was going to unleash on Lonny. She tried to pull free but Lonny jerked her back, and the lines in Rory’s face tensed. His eyes seemed to flatten and his lips thinned into a severe line of controlled rage.
“Sommer said to unhand her. Didn’t she? Last. Chance.” Rory’s voice went deadly low and hung in the air.
“Shut your piehole, McLemore. Better get moving. Last I heard, you had no claim on Sommer.”
Rory’s eyes flicked up and down her, then seemed to focus on her middle where Lonny grabbed her. She thrashed, trying to elbow Lonny but ended up stomping her booted heel down on his instep. He howled and raised his hand as though he were going to strike her, and then Rory lunged forward.
She didn’t know exactly what he did, but Lonny’s other hand lifted off her waist and Rory shouted, “Go back inside, Sommer. Now!”
He held his blade against Lonny’s neck and she refused to leave. “No. Drop your knife. Rory, I’m serious.” She stared back unwilling to fold and he nodded, his eyes glinting.
In a fluid move, he tossed his knife so it landed stuck in the ground off a ways. “Take it Sommer, and meet me inside.”
She backed away, all the while watching Rory’s curled hands form into fists and begin to pound Lonny in the face, then his middle. Sounds fill the humid air as Rory swung and grunted. He used both of his fists in a rapid paced rhythm of jabs and hard-hitting punches. Lonny crumbled forward and Rory brought his knee up to meet the other man’s face as he slammed Lonny’s shoulders downward. She bit the back of her hand to stop from crying out.
When Lonny crumbled to the ground, Rory leaned a shoulder against the building, and spat out, “You ever touch Sommer again and I’ll kill you.”
Chapter 4
Rory caught sight of Sommer standing on the sidewalk in the shadows, and his need to shake her overrode every lucid thought in his head. Shit. He had no idea what to say to her as he walked away from Lonny. Countless images of that asshole’s hands on her consumed him. Minutes ago, Sommer under threat pushed him into a black space. This strung out, his temper got shorter and his ability to speak intelligently lessened. His chest felt caged in steel barbed wire. The type that spanned the top of the line fence back on the ranch.
He hadn’t been this put out by Sommer ever—and they’d had more than their share of disagreements, arguments, and fights. But tonight he was ready to spit nails.
“Baby, didn’t I say to go back inside?” he gritted out in a strained voice, retrieving his knife where he’d chucked it. She was right to make him give it up. Sommer knew him better than anyone and that included his brothers.
“Are you okay? I couldn’t just leave you out here.” She crossed a patch of grass, coming into the light where he could see confusion blanketing her face.
“Yep. You?” he rasped.
“I’m fine.” She walked alongside him and he grabbed her hand, his vocal cords pulled too taut to say much.
Sommer tugged on his hand with her delicate petal soft fingers and they stopped in front of the Diamond. Shouts arose from behind the closed double-doors and he silently swore. Inside there’d be high-spirited fast talk going round, shots poured and toasts. Didn’t matter if a man was winning or losing in the middle of a game. The outcome was never for sure. He wasn’t in the mood to high-five his crew or trade one-liners. Not with the fury of fire still lit in his veins. A rapid Texas firestorm couldn’t rage hotter. Or threaten to fulminate, destroying everything in its wake.
Words still escaped him, staring down into Sommer’s beautiful face. His. His. His. A chant that echoed cell deep and times like tonight felt more like a curse than the fragile thread of love that bound them together. Her beauty would break him, if he didn’t get hold of his unrelenting hunger to own her. Make her mine.
That moronic voice needed to shut the fuck up. Reason why he acted like a prick more often than not. Shit! The band of Rory’s hat squeezed his head. His skull pounded from the pressure of blood surging in his temples, thudding in time with his heart.
Sommer wrapped her arms around her middle as he watched her from under the brim of his Stetson. He jerked his chin toward the corner of the building and they walked hand-in-hand until she released his. Sommer ran her slender fingers along one of the bricks of the exterior wall where she paused and then leaned. Instead of gazing in his direction or sayin’ something, she kept her face averted; her expression unreadable behind a curtain of blond silk.
“Rory, I’m sorry.” It was Sommer who broke the silence, looking up at him with anguish in her clear starry eyes. “I don’t know what the heck got into Lonny.”
The ache to take hold of her ripped through him, roaring in his mind. Her floral fragrance, the one he knew so well that he could smell it in his sleep, swam around him and he clenched his jaw tighter.
“He’s not your responsibility.” His curt tone refused to soften in the aftermath no matter how he wanted to relax and act calm and collected. Cool. Ice wasn’t his style or in him, not where she was concerned. Every fiber of his being twisted, watching her for a second before he shifted his gaze upward into the unending pitch sky. Less mysterious and far easier to fathom than the untamed girl a few inches away.
“Thank you for coming out here in time.” Her voice sounded hoarse—the way she sounded when she was upset, and that didn’t happen too often.
He was the one who ranted, while she came across with a softer touch, whether it was with her words or her presence. She’d been aptly named Sommer. Since they were little, she’d been as brilliant and blinding as sunlight. Invigorating as a misting rain, and puzzling. Of late, she had him seeing double. Probably ‘cause she was as stubborn as a mule.
“Jesus.” He pushed back his hat, unable to manufacture the right words to express his anger—or the depth of his torment if he’d been too late. She might be the one lying on the ground, instead of that fucker around the corner. “You can’t continue to do things on the fly. Sommer, you need to put aside acting on impulse, just because some flaming idea catches fire.”
He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, and tried to find some measure of sanity within himself. God, the fury he felt brought him to the edge, and he struggled to refrain from acting on his own gut-wrenching impulses. If he did, he’d let loose on Lonny again. Rory curled his fists—a couple of his fingers were swollen from split knuckles. He didn’t have to inspect his hands to know the damage he’d more than likely walk away with tonight.
But if he didn’t get his shit together, he might do something stupid to let off some steam, like punching the side of the building. Then he risked breaking a few fingers or knuckles or bones in his hand.
“It wasn’t like that,” she said. “I came out here to think.
“Don’t forget smoking, and don’t go all wide-eyed. Come with me.” He took her by the arm and walked around the other side of the bar where he wasn’t about to be overheard. He swung his face toward Sommer and his chest locked. What he’d give to deal with the root of his problem—his restless hunger to make Sommer his.
“I didn’t do anything. Well, nothing reckless,” she huffed at him.
“Baby, I disagree. You were sitting next to me. And then you weren’t. Not a word. You just walked out.”
“If you’re so interested in my whereabouts, then make a move. Not in a week. Now, Rory. Man up!” She looked like a lioness about to pounce with her hair flowing in unruly waves over her shoulders, her eyes shining, and her full lips parted.
He’d never seen Sommer this riled. The sight of her this worked up, prompted him to hold her against the brick wall as he fought to figure out what to do next.
Staring into her golden eyes, it was like trying to explain his worry to the wind. “Girl, I am a man and that’s why this is hard. I’m not some prick where you’re concerned.”
“Sometimes, Rory McLemore, I wish you were!”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m tired of waiting. I don’t understand why we can’t do what we feel. Unless, it’s because I don’t do it for you.”
“You think for a second you don’t do it for me?” If this girl only realized a tenth of what she did to him. His hell and heaven combined in how much he wanted her. She swam in his blood. Plagued him from sun up until sun down.
“Cowboy, if I did, you wouldn’t hold back.”
Sommer was pushing him at a time when he rightly didn’t know if he could take it—hold back from crossing the line. In a strained voice, Rory gritted out, “Baby, that isn’t true. Far from it, matter of fact.”
He moved his hands to her hips and squeezed, so tempted to crush his body against hers and do what they both craved. God, he hungered to sink into her until they were joined hip-to-hip. He’d make her eyes roll back in her beautiful head—his too—as he drove his dick all the way into her.
Languidly, he pushed his hips against Sommer, seeking to make their bodies fit. The way her softness melded to him blew his mind. All he had to do was lift her skirt, lower her panties, and he could rub his fingers between her legs. Unleash and explore this razor sharp tension threatening to splinter apart his bones. Finally assuage this relentless hunger to do what his body demanded. His cock pulsed with raw lust and need to sink fully into her wet pussy. They’d fuck for hours. The things he envisioned, it’d take a solid two years to dent his spank bank in how he’d make her scream his name. His thoughts twisted as to where he could take her, get her naked. Him naked.
But that would start with him taking Sommer back with him to… Oh hell! He didn’t even have a place of his own to take her, truth be told.
Sommer rocked her hips, rubbing over him, and he felt himself begin to break. He had to get inside her or pull away. Get control of himself, before it was too late.
“Please, Rory. Let’s go to your truck. I’ll go down on you. Then you can do the same for me. Not all the way, but something to get us off. I need this.” She rubbed her hand down the front of his jeans with a sultry moan.
His dick reared up and throbbed for relief! Holding his breath, he watched her fingers trace the outline of his hard-on ready to punch through his jeans. She pressed her finger along the ridge of his crown and Jesus fuck! He pulsed, straining his zipper— tungsten carbide wasn’t this hard. His abs clenched in a domino effect as the muscles all over his body went rigid.
Every cell he owned blared for his morality to stand the fuck down. His primal instincts manned the control center of his brain and he didn’t stop her. Sommer undid his belt and popped the button on his jeans. She grazed two fingertips across the top of his cock and he jerked hard. “Baby,” he groaned.
Sommer’s fingers found him again. She hesitantly caressed his shaft, then more decisively grasped him. That’s it… The air in his lungs condensed. She encircled his girth, not all the way and tugged. She gave his cock one good pump. Holy shit.
He hissed, “Yeah. Sugar, just like that.”
Sommer stroked him, up and down. He watched her hand on his shaft and bit back a groan. Pinpricks of sweat sprang up along his neck and shoulders. It felt as if his dick and nuts were about to explode.
“One taste. Let me. In your truck and I’ll spread my legs for you. Nothing too crazy. Okay?”
She didn’t realize if he tasted her pussy, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Officially, tonight—right here—this was the end of the line in his self-control. So close to breaking. He had to step back or he’d risk doing her right here. In the shadows against the side of a bar. That would go down in McLemore history.
“Don’t do this. To us,” he growled low. The sound of his voice felt caught in his chest. “I’m not going to fuck you in the back of my truck or some vacant field. We haven’t waited all this time to just do it like that.”
Like all his brothers and friends had done. He wasn’t going to bring up that fact or the bigger issue that his brothers had blazed a trail with women that were as nameless as they were faceless to those skirt-chasing hound dogs. But if word got out that a McLemore had touched Sommer in some cheap move—she’d be marked. He wasn’t about to do that to her.
“Cowboy.” Sommer rubbed her tits against his arm, stealing his focus. “It wouldn’t be like that.”
“Wouldn’t it?”
Sommer shook her head like he was so off base. “No. Not the experience. That’s just geography. This is about you and me and taking what we’ve got to the next level.” She lowered his zipper and wrapped her fingers around him. An electrical current of pleasure flash burned a path deep into his bones. He pumped his cock within her fingers. God. So. Good.
“You’re wet. Slippery.” She lifted her fingers coated with his pre cum, then sucked each one clean. “You taste salty. So yummy.”
If he let her recapture his cock in her hand, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from coming. He grappled to get hold of his ravenous need to sink into Sommer, take her, and unload deep inside her. Feel her wrapped around his cock as she called his name. She reached for him and he intercepted her hands.
“No,” he growled, grabbing her two hands in one of his.
“But why?” Shock registered in Sommer’s golden eyes as he tucked his engorged shaft back into his jeans and zipped up.
“I’m not going to get a hand job in an alley. Make no mistake, I want you. Spread under me bare. Us fucking. And when we do, I’ll take my time. Eat your pussy and watch you suck my cock. Afterwards, I’m going to fuck you all night. When that happens, everyone around here will know it from the grins on our faces and the rings on our fingers.”
“Oh,” she whispered. “More waiting.”
“That depends on you. Marry me,” he said. “Sommer, we can have a blowout wedding or go to Vegas. Whatever you want. Those are details and I’ll deliver. What matters is us being together.”
“I can’t do that without seeing if we’re compatible. You’re being hardheaded. If you love me, it shouldn’t matter if we’re married or not. How do you know I’m the one for you? We might not click in bed, and then what? Me sitting at home, while you’re here, or at some other bar. I’m not down for that.”
He still didn’t have his own place and lived at home with his parents. Twenty-two frigging years old. By this time, all of his brothers had been given a parcel of land on Evermore and were on their way to building a house. Okay, in part that wasn’t entirely true. Most opted for a trailer, to get to know the land, and then after a couple of years, they’d contacted an architect to begin drawing up plans to build a house.