The Cowboy

by Vonna Harper, P. J. Mellor, Nelissa Donovan

  It frightened her how much she wanted it. She could so easily excuse herself and slip away and run, not walk, down the dark sidewalk through the all but asleep town to that little motel room, and lock the door, and be safe from whatever it was she wanted, whatever it was she was afraid of. From him.

  But she didn’t move, because she wasn’t really that afraid. And if she was, she didn’t want to be. He put his hand on her arm, lightly, and she did not move her arm away while they made small talk about the rodeo tour he was on, how the season was spring to fall, you start out in the small towns, you build up to the big ones.

  She asked him why the broncs bucked, and he told her nobody knew, really. “It’s like this urge, this strong, undeniable urge.”

  And his hand was on the small of her back, just like she’d imagined it being, and he was moving it back and forth just a little, and she was all worked up inside, just from his hand moving on her there at the base of her spine. She was having her own strong, undeniable urge.

  “An urge?” she said, and her voice was husky.

  “To just buck—wildly and wholeheartedly. Why some horses are born like this—seriously, nobody knows. But it’s not ’cause they’re scared or hurt or anything. The horse just…wants to.”

  Anna could really understand that all of a sudden. There was no reason why she wanted this guy so badly. The good looks, the feel of his hand—those were excuses. The real reason was she just plain wanted him.

  He asked about her, and she kept it brief: worked for a magazine, LA really is a great big freeway like the old Burt Bacharach song said, and she was taking some time off—a vacation, more or less—before she messed up the rental car. All of which was true, as far as it went.

  Her skin felt so hot where his fingers were touching her.

  “You know something funny,” he said. “I don’t know your name.”

  “Anna,” she told him.

  “Almost as pretty as you are.” He smiled again, and the smile was so genuine that his words didn’t sound like just a line, even though they probably were, and he’d probably used lines quite a bit.

  She resisted the urge to throw herself against him, but just barely.

  This was turning into a fine, fine night. He was high on the win and a buzz of Cuervo, the look in Anna’s eyes, and the sweet curve of her body as she spun that trophy toward her, making the pink neon of the bar sign wash over the trophy like a sunset.

  She was smart enough to ask him the kind of questions he actually wanted to answer, as opposed to the silly sort of small talk he brushed off like rodeo dust. Maybe it was because she was so up front about wanting him; there was no game to it. Before he could even order her another drink, she leaned in and kissed him full on the mouth, her lips open and moist, and she said, “Can you take me someplace?”

  He could’ve just taken her back to her motel room—he was sharing his with another rider—but he liked her enough that he wanted to take her someplace that meant something. He liked her enough that he wanted it to mean something to her, too.

  Outside, the stars were sugaring the sky; there was a yellow half moon riding low in the hills.

  The din from the bar faded away as they walked across the street. When he put his hand on her shoulder, steering her toward his truck, goose bumps shivered over her night-cooled skin, and he saw her nipples harden through the thin fabric of her tank top.

  “Got a chill?” he asked her.

  “I’m used to LA summers.”

  “Which are the same as the winters, am I right?”

  “That’s a common misconception,” she said, laughing.

  “I’m sure there’re lots of things I’m mistaken about,” he agreed affably.

  “Maybe not that many,” she said. She laughed a little more, and she sounded nervous.

  He could tell she was going to be fun. He was having fun already just looking at her standing there in that short skirt and that tight white top, the funny little woven thing that passed for a sweater over that, and, beneath those, the shadow of whatever lacy thing she had on for a bra, not substantial enough to hide those erect nipples. It set Grant to wondering what her panties looked like; were they lacy, too? Did they match?

  Then there were those long legs of hers—seemed to go on forever, her feet thrust inside high-heel, backless sandals girls called slides. He liked the idea of sliding one foot out and then the other and nibbling on her toes, maybe. Massaging her ankles, calves, knees, following everywhere his hands went with his tongue. Slowly, not too fast, he would move his hands up her fine thighs—muscled but not too muscled—and spread those legs, licking higher and higher until his hands and his tongue both found those panties—they would be lace, he was sure they would be lace—pull ’em on down with his teeth, put his fingers on up in that pussy—it would be soft, it would be wet, it would open right up for him. Maybe she would lift up those legs and wrap them around his neck.

  The idea made his mouth dry, and he swallowed hard. He turned to unlock his truck.

  One thing he’d learned from the bronc riding: you didn’t try to climb on too fast because they would throw you faster. He liked moving slow, anyway.

  When he opened the passenger door, she was looking at him, expectant.

  He leaned over her and kissed her softly on the lips. “I want you,” he told her simply.

  “I want you, too. And I want you to—” She didn’t finish. She didn’t even know what she was going to say. Instead, she reached for his face, pulled him to her, kissing him, ravenous. They kissed until his lips felt hot and raw, and her lipstick was just about gone.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said when they broke apart.

  “Doesn’t matter. I do,” he said. At least, he sure hoped he did.

  He started the engine, backed the truck out of the space, shifted into drive, and sailed down the street past the tourist shops and the gas stations and the bronze statues in front of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, past her motel and a string of others and out into the unblemished darkness.

  Civilization, such as it was, disappeared into a blur of insignificant light behind them. Anna was as nervous as she was excited.

  He took a turn up a dirt road and then another turn, and unlike the fire road she’d trashed her rental on, this one led somewhere. They were alongside the tumbling Wind River, its rushing water golden in the moonlight.

  “Spring and summer, wild horses come down just about there.” He pointed to a wide spot in the river where the current seemed to slow before pulsing on downhill. “It’s one of the prettiest sights you’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s beautiful here,” she said. She relaxed a little and inched herself closer to him on the cracked vinyl of the bench seat.

  “And not what you expected,” he said, sounding pleased with himself.

  “In a good way,” she said. “Oh, look.”

  There, in the wide spot upstream, two horses, then a third and a fourth, sauntered out of the moon-swept brush and into the water. Their supple bodies moved with a fluid grace as they bent to drink, as if they’d sprung up from the water, were one with its shining liquid.

  They were both silent; she was practically holding her breath, just in case out there in the emptiness, the sound would carry and scare them away. They watched the magnificent horses until they left, slipping out of the water, disappearing, their hooves echoing into the night above the splashing of the river.

  “C’mere,” Grant said, and he pulled her close and kissed her again.

  She pressed her tongue to his, her lips to his; they were drinking in each other, lapping up each other. And while he was kissing her, and she was kissing him, he slipped one hand behind her back, finding that place along her spine she liked. He rubbed there, and she leaned closer, wanting more touch, more touch. How did he know she liked that spot?

  Then his hand was slipping under her crocheted sweater and under her ribbed white tank, too, and he just unsnapped the back of her bra. Her bra
straps drooped down off her shoulders, and he moved his hand around to her side; his fingers reached through the weave of her sweater, and he lowered the straps a little more.

  Then he sat back, just looking at her in the moonlight, his eyes glinting. “Let me just…see you like that.”

  She sat still, embarrassed, smiling. But he couldn’t just let her alone. His hand moved to the front of her breasts now, grazed her nipples until they rose under his palm.

  “That feels good, I bet?” He had a question in his voice, but she could tell it wasn’t really a question in his mind.

  “Yeah,” she breathed. They were getting started now.

  “So you’ll let me have my way with you?” he asked.

  “Sure looks like it,” she replied. Her heart was beating very fast.

  Now he moved his hand under her sweater and under her top and under her loose bra, and he rubbed each nipple skin on skin, first one and then the other between his thumb and his forefinger, making them harder still beneath his warm and calloused fingers.

  She gasped.

  He slipped her sweater off her shoulders, lowering her bra straps more along with it, until both the sweater sleeves and the bra straps were down around her elbows, pinning her arms. Her breasts were constrained only by her top now, rubbing against the fabric.

  He leaned in and kissed her lips again, his tongue moving between her teeth and out to trace the outline of her lips. He nibbled on her ear and ran his tongue along the line of her jaw and the tendons of her neck and then lower, shifting between light little kisses, and lapping with his tongue small circles right up to the edge of her shirt.

  She was so turned on her breath came in ragged little bursts.

  “You like this,” he said, not even a trace of a question now.

  “Love it,” she said. Then, feeling she had to let him know she said, “I don’t, you know, usually do things like—”

  He kissed her lips again, silencing her. She guessed he didn’t care whether she did them usually or not. As long as she did them now.

  He dipped his head down lower, kissing her loose breasts through the fabric of her top, his lips sucking on them, openmouthed, leaving wet marks on her top.

  He stripped off his own T-shirt, showing his taut, muscled chest, silvered in the moonlight. His skin was dark from night shadows and summer sun, and she moved her half-bound arms so she could press her hands against his chest, her fingers stroking his pectoral muscles, his shoulders. He bent his head lower against her chest, and she wrapped her fingers in his curly hair and pulled his face up to hers so she could kiss him again, and again.

  He drew back enough to work the sweater off her arms and, deftly, tossed it to the backseat.

  He stripped off her unfastened bra from underneath her top, and hung it like a talisman over his rearview mirror, freeing her arms.

  She laughed. “I’m surprised you don’t have a whole mess of bras hanging up there.”

  “I take ’em down,” he said.

  She wasn’t sure he was joking.

  Then he lifted her top over her head and let it fall beside her. He pushed her tangled hair off her face and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, her nose and then her lips again, all the time flicking his fingers against her nipples, rubbing his warm, rough hand across her breasts.

  She moaned as he put his mouth on her bare breasts for the first time, kissing and licking them, first one and then the other, the nipple, the aureola, the round flesh, and down to her ribs.

  She was enormously excited. She felt like she had a fever, as if some sort of delirium had overtaken her. Beads of sweat broke out along her brow and between her breasts. He licked her there, cooling her, but just a little.

  She could still hear the river, but she couldn’t see it through the steam they’d made on the windows.

  What she saw was Grant’s erection pushing at his jeans. She put her hand on his crotch and felt him pulsing under her palm.

  He teased her nipples gently with his teeth. Dropping them, glistening with his saliva, he moved his tongue over the whole of her breasts again, circling them, keeping them hard and wet.

  So far, she realized, all the action had been above the waist, except for her own hand on his dick.

  Like he was reading her mind, he lifted her hand off him and pushed her skirt up on her thighs and spread her thighs gently. He rubbed his hand up one thigh and then the other, slowly, slowly inching his hands from her knee to her pelvis.

  She cried out when he finally reached the corner of her panties and pushed the fabric to the side. He stroked the pubic hair he’d exposed, twined his fingers in it, and then, almost tentatively, stuck his index finger inside her. One finger, just one, and he wriggled it around until he found the right spot and made her slick just from stroking her there. Then he started moving that finger back and forth and sideways.

  She twisted around in her seat because it felt so good and she wanted more. He pushed her panties aside a little more and put in a second finger and then a third and then she came, shuddering and crying out into the dark night.

  It wasn’t like she was a virgin, although she’d been only with Steve before, unless she counted some semiserious groping in the freshman dorm back in college. This felt far more like a rite of passage than sleeping with Steve ever had.

  After he gave her the hand job, Grant sat back and watched the flush fade from her cheeks and bare chest and spread thighs. A thin sheen of sweat lay over her skin. Her mouth was just slightly parted, and he touched it with his fingers, still sticky from her cum.

  She took his fingers in her mouth and sucked on them.

  He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold back, no matter how determined he was to give her a good, long ride.

  “You like that, baby?”

  “Yes.”

  No need for the question or the answer; it was just part of the rhythm he was using to hold on.

  He turned her torso toward him and lifted her legs high on the seat so they were bent at the knees, her back nearly up against the passenger door. He spread her legs wider. He put one hand under her ass and, lifting her up, tugged her panties down about to about mid-thigh.

  They weren’t all lace like her bra, but they had trimmings of it over some kind of synthetic satiny stuff. The crotch was cotton, and he felt it, nearly sodden. He inhaled the smell of her sex and her sweat as he pushed the panties down her legs and slipped her shoe off her right foot—and the panties over that foot—and then slipped off the left shoe—and tugged the panties off that foot, too. Then her shoes and her panties were discarded on the floor of the truck. Then he began to kiss her, just as he’d imagined doing, only better, from her firm, trim ankles, up the swell of her calves, behind her knees, and along the inside of her thighs, until he rested his lips inside her other lips, the soft, pink labia, spread her open, so rosy and wet. He sucked on her clit and rubbed his tongue all around until she was even wetter and so much bigger, opening up to him.

  He lifted his head just once. “Look at you. You’re just dripping,” he said.

  She did look, and with her fingers wrapped in his hair, just looking, she came then, and again against his tongue, shooting out salty and strong, and again when he sat up and put his whole hand inside her.

  Her mouth was parted in a big round “O”, open kinda like the lips between her legs. Her lipstick was mostly gone and smeared around the edges, and that turned him on even more because he wanted the last of it gone and he knew how he was going to accomplish that, too.

  When he drew out his hand, her body made a little sucking sound, like she wanted to keep him there. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, she did. But he sat back from her again and slid the back of the bench seat all the way down and unbuckled his belt.

  She got the message and leaned over him, unzipping his fly.

  “Got a peppermint-flavored raincoat in my pocket,” he said.

  When she’d suited him up, she took him in her mouth and worked that cock until he w
as as hard as a tree.

  She had her own fingers inside herself, twisting in the pink, wet places beneath the damp curl of her pubic hair, and when she came this time playing with herself, she took him in her mouth deeper, right down to his balls.

  As good as it felt, he lifted her lips off his dick and then lifted her in his arms. She felt light as he swung her on top of him, thrust himself between her legs.

  She was wide open and loose and ready, and she clamped herself around him, moving up and down on him as he was pushing in and out of her. They got quite a little beat going, thighs slapping together, his cock and her cunny rocking hard.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “Oh, yeah, yeah.” And her hands clutched at his shoulders, and they banged together fierce and fine until she let out a long, vibrating cry. She collapsed against his chest, panting, and he let go, too, the cum exploding out of him. They just stayed together, his cock shuddering inside her, her entire body quivering against him like the beating of wings.

  After a while she gave a long sigh and raised up to look at him, all flushed, her hair wild. He pushed her hair off her face, smoothed it, and then let his fingers play down her cheeks to her lips. She took his fingers in her mouth again and sucked them, one after the other, moved them in and out between her lips like slender cocks.

  “Insatiable,” he said, amused.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” she replied, like she was surprised about it herself. She dropped his fingers and climbed off him, pulling down her skirt as she slipped onto the seat next to him.

  “We having fun yet?” he asked her.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said with that same throaty vibration in her voice that she had when she was coming.

  He laughed.

  She plucked her tank top off the floor and threw it on.

  “Don’t get yourself fixed up too much,” he said. “I like being able to reach over and touch what I see.”

  She just sighed, but it was a good sigh.

  He put his arm around her shoulders, and she rested her head against his chest.