American Honey

by Heidi McLaughlin

  “Did you know Jackson?”

  Callan nods, ringing out the rag again and running it over my legs as he wipes away dirt to reveal more bruises forming. “I did. He was a good kid.”

  It hurts to hear him say that. Jackson was a good kid. He’s better than me and he’s better than Kasey. I think that’s why Kasey is the way he is. He’s not even trying to be the younger brother living in the shadows of the great man Jackson would have been.

  “How did you know him?”

  Callan gives me a soft smile, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Just knew of him. His dad knew Red.”

  “Red’s your dad, right?” I know this but I don’t want to lead on to how much I know about him.

  “Yeah.”

  His face is closer than before, but not as close as I want him. “How long did it take you to figure out Kasey was his brother?”

  “Not long.” he smiles but I can’t see his eyes anymore. They’ve dropped to the floor and I know he’s about to say something that has meaning. He does that when he’s speaking from his heart. “Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear or a fool from any direction.” He speaks slow, his voice soft but raspy.

  “Who said that?”

  “I’m not sure who originally said it,” Callan shrugs running the back of his hand over his forehead as he stands and puts distance between us, “but my dad used to tell us that when we were kids.” He gives me a shrug. “It’s pretty good advice if you ask me.”

  I nod. “It is.”

  “Do you miss your dad?” I feel like it’s a stupid question but I don’t know how close they were and that’s my way of knowing.

  “Yeah, I do. He was sick for a long time so it didn’t come as a shocker when he died. We knew it was coming.”

  “So you came back for the funeral then?”

  “No. I couldn’t make it. I came back to sell the house and pay back your dad for his troubles. Where I come from, and how I was raised, you don’t walk away from something you owe.”

  I laugh but only lightly when the motion sends a pain through my body. “That’s not a rebel thing for you to say.”

  Callan’s eyes squint when he speaks. “I’m trouble, sure, but don’t define me with a term. I love and work harder than most will ever believe.”

  “I believe that.”

  I’m quiet, fidgeting with a straw of hay when Callan shifts his feet, the shuffle catches my eyes. He’s leaning against the side of the barn now, three feet away but it might as well be three hundred at the loss I feel when he moves away.

  “Why do you bother with Kasey?”

  I shrug. “I’m not sure. He was a comfort at first, and now he’s just there. Making me think I’m something, when he treats me like I’m nothing. I think it’s a way for me to remember Jackson.”

  “He’s an asshole. You need to stay away from him.”

  “Why did you leave if Katie confessed to lying?”

  Callan’s visibly shocked by the change in the conversation and the fact that I know why he left. “I was always going to leave. It really had nothing to do with her but she ruined our lives here. There’s never been anything to come home to.”

  “So it wasn’t true?” I knew it wasn’t, but I want to hear his side.

  “No.” He narrows his eyes and watches me take in the information. “I’ve never touched Katie that way. Neither had Reed. Ty was dating her. They were both underage at the time and it was totally consensual.”

  “Have you seen her since?”

  “No. Neither has Ty. He’s living with me now in Decatur. They broke up right after that and he ain’t heard from her since.”

  “So that’s why you wouldn’t touch me?”

  “Yes. I can’t do that. She costs my brother a chance at a World title and me a suspension for six months.” He gives me another glance, fleeting and then directed at the field. I see that same look I saw the night I met him. “I wasn’t making that mistake again.”

  “I’m eighteen now.”

  He nods, as if he knows but it’s not convincing. He knows I want him and I think he wants me too. He does. But it’s not that easy to move from what we’ve been talking about to something like that.

  Callan lifts the longneck in his hand to his lips, tipping his head slightly to the right. “It hasn’t been easy to resist you.” His eyes find mine. “Not easy at all. I got hung up that night and you wouldn’t let go.” He swallows and sets his beer down on the ground. “I think the hardest thing about bull riding is knowing when to give and when to take. Being patient and waiting for your time to make a move. This wasn’t my time to make a move, not sure when or if that time will come but I just knew that the time wasn’t right.”

  I give him a look and he knows what I’m thinking. This isn’t me just wanting sex. This is me wanting someone who sees me through this haze I have around me, around my heart.

  “What is it about me that you want?” Callan asks. “You know I’m leaving. Are you trying to bury the pain or believe I’m someone else? I’m certainly not Jackson. I don’t do relationships, my lifestyle won’t allow that. So why are you pursuing this?”

  “You’re right, you’re not Jackson. And I’ve never thought you were, or wanted you to be.” I say speaking from my heart for once. I lift my eyes to meet his. “I’ve never left this town. I’m not sure I ever will. Then one night I see a guy at a party and his eyes are lit by a bonfire, so bright they look like diamonds. They shine these sparks at me and give me hope, as if something is finally looking down on the girl left behind. I’ve been used, given just enough to make me feel like that’s all I’ll ever have. But there’s diamonds in me now. You’re not Jackson. You’re Callan James. Someone I was meant to see through this flat land that owns my soul.”

  His head tips to the side, his eyes barely visible with the shadows his hat is creating. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why now? I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Because, I want tonight with you.”

  He places his finger over my lips before I can beg again. “I can’t give you anything more than tonight. I’ve…I’m not in a place where I can really get involved with anyone.” He whispers under the wind, his voice so strong it takes me and holds me in place.

  Chapter Ten

  Remember Tonight

  “I’m not asking for that. Just give me tonight.” I breathed against his lips. The shift in his demeanor reminds me he is a bull rider, all heart, all go with a confidence only they have.

  “Don’t hate me for leaving in the morning…” his voice shakes as he speaks, never more vulnerable as he’s ever been, making sure I know what this is going to be.

  “I could never hate someone like you, Callan.”

  He swallows, his breathing coming a little faster now. “I’m not having sex with you just because you want me to.”

  “But—”

  Callan shakes his head. “What I will do is show you that there’s more than just being with someone physically and getting off.”

  “I…” I swallow. “Uh…”

  “You need to believe you’re worth it. Because you are.”

  No one has ever said that to me. Even Jackson. But we were young when I was with him. I was fourteen and he was sixteen. He was my first everything and then before I had a chance to really love him, he was taken from me.

  His head is down, staring at the weathered wood when he pushes himself from the tractor.

  As he walks toward me, his hands are on the hem of his dark shirt, yanking it over his shoulders. I’m begging for his kiss and he’s not denying. His shirt drops behind me on the hay bales, steady and sure palms cupping my cheeks and a kiss so heavy I’m drowning in him.

  He takes my body in his hands, a slow descent to the floor of the barn. He sets me down on the hay bale where his shirt is and then kneels before me. I watch the muscles in his stomach and arms as he does so, flexing with each movement. His knees spread once he’s on the ground, sli
ding against the dirt of the floor.

  His hands are on me, rough and wild but yet steady and patient like he’s memorizing a beautiful canvas before him. He’s showing me there’s more than giving my body to someone. I feel it because it’s an emotion, a feeling. His fingers move to the band of my jean shorts, sliding across my exposed skin to meet in the middle to the button. My eyes are on his but he’s not looking at me, he’s watching my body curve around his. His jeans are still on, as mine are, when he grinds his hips into mine and I feel his arousal, hard and straining against his jeans.

  His mouth finds mine, eager but controlled. I feel so much right then. Not just sexual frustration but something so much more when I kiss Callan. He gives his heart when he kisses me like this. Everything he says and does shows that. He’s giving now. There’s no teasing anymore. I know this when he gets the button of my shorts undone with one hand.

  He’s not rushing, he’s slowly loving. He moves both hands from my waist and lower to the backs of my knees hooking his hands around them. He brings both my legs to rest on his left shoulder. His head moves to the side pressing my calf against his hot ear. He takes his hat off next with his right hand and puts it over my face, laughing.

  It smells like him. Dirt and grass but there’s that distinct leather cowboy smell that melts me on the inhale.

  I remove the hat to see him staring at me. There’s a slight grin but it’s more that intensity in his eyes that gets me. It’s like the night I met him. I take the hat and place it on my chest. Callan smiles knocking it away and puts his hands back on my hips dipping his fingers inside the waist band of my shorts. He gives me a wink and I lift my hips for him. Slowly he pulls them down and up over my thighs as his knuckles graze my skin. When they’re at my ankles, he tosses them near his hat on the floor.

  I’m not sure what he’s going to do next but his mouth is lingering on my skin over the bruise on my calf that’s forming.

  “Does it hurt?” he asks, still looking at the bruise.

  “No.” I tell him bending my knees and sliding them down his bare chest. He stops grabbing my ankles and spreading my legs for him.

  “You’re trouble.” He says when my legs are spread and my lower half is now completely bare for him.

  “You’re torture…” Callan’s mouth twists, a half grin that fades quickly as his eyes drop, his fingertips moving and squeezing my upper thighs as he groans, a low throaty sound I want more of. When his hands fall away, he leans in, supporting his weight by his arms beside my head. His buckle presses against me when he does this, cool metal giving me a little jump. Moving his right hand, he scoots my hips down to the very edge of the bale, both hands now on my hips.

  He pauses, his eyes searching mine. My hands move to his chest and then his hair. He lets me pull at his hair, trying to make him come forward, but then he stops and takes my wrists and pins them down on the bale. Pressing forward, his buckle grinding into me again. The hard metal has bumps and ridges that outline a cowboy on a bucking bull. Never would have thought that could work.

  But it’s Callan James we’re talking about. He knows his way and I’m his sinning soul waiting for him. His lips are on mine, his elbows holding him up while my wrists are still trapped under his hold. “You like that?”

  I can’t even respond. I’m fucking a belt buckle worn by a world champion bull rider.

  I’m not sure what it is about Callan and this, but everything is exactly right and the friction of the cool metal grinding against me is exactly what I want. Writhing under his hands, I begin to move my hips on my own will. When he comes forward, Callan’s chest is heavy with heavy breaths giving me another angle. I kiss his rough and tensed cheek, his jaw, and then his lips.

  “That’s it…come for me, baby.” He says plunging his tongue in my mouth.

  I never thought this was going to happen. I was giving up on the idea of Callan giving into me. Right now with him being this way with me, I’m beginning to think it’s more than giving into me physically. Look at him, he’s loving this. He’s just as into this as I was giving him a blowjob the other night.

  The warmth starts low and it’s sudden, like the pop of a firecracker, nothing compares to what I’ve experienced before is headed my way. Callan has nothing on these boys from the south and he hasn’t even entered me yet, this orgasm is going to be the eight second ride of my life, maybe longer.

  Callan’s eyes are low watching his buckle rubbing where it wouldn’t normally be touching me, watching, moving me against him when I start to shake against him. My heels dig into his ass, begging him to come closer, harder, anything to make this last longer. He does, oh God, does he.

  His breath comes out in short gasps, much like mine.

  “Oh God!” I scream, my eye squeezing shut as I throw my arms around his shoulders hanging onto him, clawing at his skin.

  “That’s it, baby.” His voice is rough, low and tense as he whispers to me. “There you go…fall apart for me.” One hand moves from beside me, wrapping around the back of my neck and bringing his kiss to mine. He’s excited and his kiss shows me, wild tongue and frantic gasps.

  Oh yeah, Callan James is a champion bull rider all right.

  My attention goes to the clanking of his buckle and then the faint sounds of his zipper. He smiles at me, dirty and wicked, when he sees I’m watching him.

  Me having an orgasm just off his buckle must have gotten to him more than he’s willing to admit because he’s undoing that buckle the next second, searching for the condom in his wallet and pulling down his jeans. It’s like it’s all in one motion.

  “That was so fucking hot.” He’s panting as much as I am, barely able to get the words out as he rolls the condom on.

  “Have you done that before?” I’m still trying to catch my breath but I can’t wait for him to get that condom on because I want more. So much more. I never want tonight to end.

  “No, never.” He didn’t hesitate to answer as I feel his hardness right where I need him. He slides forward but doesn’t slip in. I move slightly but he holds me in place. “Stay there. I’m nowhere near done with you.”

  He’s most certainly not.

  His fingers trace my cheek bone. “Are you sure?”

  I slide my fingers over the hair on his chest. “I’ve had sex before, Callan.”

  He gives me a long stare, his eyes searching mine as a grin appears. “Yeah, but you’ve never had sex with a bull rider, have you?”

  Oh. Uh. Speechless. How do I even respond to that one?

  “No…” I stutter out. My heart starts hammering, the cool night washing over my body, heated only by his breath. I flinch when his warm palm finds my bare breast, his thumb brushing over my nipple.

  “Are you sure?” he asks again sucking my nipple into his warm mouth. The feel of his soft tongue lapping at my breasts makes me shiver in his arms.

  “I’ll never say no to you.”

  His eyes raise to mine. “Maybe you should.”

  My legs wrap around his waist a little tighter. “I’d be stupid to tell you no.”

  He doesn’t seem convinced just yet, his eyes scanning the barn. “Should we go to your room?”

  “My dad’s in there…”

  He laughs. “The barn’s just fine.”

  Callan doesn’t say anymore and though there’s some hesitation, he’s giving in to me.

  “Do you want to?” I finally ask, wondering if this is just for me.

  “You have no fuckin’ idea.” He gives a nod, that same confident nod and it gets me, it’s as if he really is dying when he presses forward his mouth finds mine again. “Hang on, baby.”

  Sweet Jesus.

  He’s not waiting any longer, his patience gone as he enters me.

  We both gasp when he’s in, breathing escaping me entirely but all I can do is inhale, I need to stay alive this close to him. It’s the sweetest relief, a slow kissing dream, fire-lit, soul healing kind of feeling I’d never believe would be possible except that
it is.

  Callan doesn’t move right away, his eyes on mine when he does, a slow movement as if he’s wanting this to last.

  He lowers his lips to my throat when he begins to move a little faster, but still, he’s not rushing. “There’s so much more to sex if you feel it.” He says, keeping his eyes locked on mine. “Let yourself feel.”

  I am. For the first time I am.

  He’s got a way that he moves. A swagger that only he can pull off. And he knows he’s that good. He’s confident he’s going to make me feel what no one has ever made me feel. Instantly I feel like there’s a heat building and I’m gasping and whimpering at what he’s giving me, something no one else has cared to give.

  He’s not just fucking me. Callan could never do that. It’s not in his heart to do so.

  His mouth nips at my skin, his hands on my ass forcing me into every move he’s making. Then he leans back so he can see me laid before him. His hands move from my ass, to my breasts and then down my curves.

  “Come for me, darlin’. Just one more…come for me…” he begs in a low raspy voice that makes me shiver, rattles my bones and pleads for more, “give me one more.”

  He’s begging for me to give in and give him what I’ve never given anyone else.

  It’s not his movements that get me, though they’re enough, it’s that voice and those words, begging me for more.

  My body arches, curving around him, my hips angling just enough that nothing remains of my control. I’m gone completely.

  He groans low in his chest. “That’s it, baby.”

  He knows that I came, exactly what he wanted, a grin forms and those diamond cut eyes travel up my body laid before him, his strong confident hands spread over me. He squeezes my hips bringing me into each thrust he’s giving.

  Bending forward, he groans, touching his forehead to mine. His lips are on mine next, kissing me with an intensity I’ve never felt before. Our mouths are colliding, tongues tangling and breathing heavy. Words are falling from his lips but I can’t hear them, all I feel is pleasure that shoots through me and blinds me, makes me only see this. Someone giving me a piece of me.