They stayed like that for a while, with the river rushing by outside the truck, and the wind moving the cottonwood trees and the pines along its banks, and the heat of their bodies slowly cooling. The steam crept back from the windows, and soon they had a view again, of the moon higher up over the hills now, rimming the rocky points with halos of light.
She was not herself; she was floating outside herself; she was seeing little colored lights flashing; her ears were ringing; that was how fucking fantastic it all felt. It was like getting struck with lightning bolts but in a good way. She was just shaking with the electricity of it, the way he touched her, licked her, felt her up, put his hands on her and in her. And his tongue—coursing over her skin, pushing between her lips, licking her and stroking her and then moving wet and hot between her legs and up inside her, the warmth of his saliva in the heat of her, his tongue reaming up inside her. God, she’d never had anyone do something like that to her before. He had sucked her clit until it vibrated, and she felt the vibration echo through her whole body until it was almost a sound. And, in turn, when she was sucking him, she wanted to make him her own instrument.
Then when he had lifted her up, opened her up, shoved his dick inside her, it was like a convergence or something, a harmony, a rhythm section just fucking away to the beat. And he was right: She was insatiable. She wanted more. It was like she’d never even considered feeling like this, and now she wanted to keep feeling like this, keep the wildness going, not let it slack off, not calm down, not ever.
Maybe, she thought, this was what he felt on one of those horses. Maybe it was the sheer craziness of it that made him want to take the ride. That was more or less how she felt, anyway. She just wanted to keep him on her, crazy or not.
She just wanted the night to last forever; she wanted nothing more than to feel his skin on her skin, his lips on her lips, his lips all over her body, hers on his. She was so hot, inside and out, she thought she must be giving off steam.
Had she once found this night chilly? Now she was practically incendiary with heat; she wanted to jump in that cool river out there, she wanted to take Grant with her and swim with him somewhere, wherever the current would take them.
She listened to his heartbeat, a rapid staccato. Gradually, its rhythm slowed. Her own heart was still pounding.
“I want to go for a swim,” she said. “In the river.”
He shook his head. “Baby, the water’s so wild they don’t take the rafts in. You can’t swim there.”
But she was already scrambling out of the pickup, barefoot.
She had no intention of really climbing in; she could see for herself how fast the water was tumbling. And at the calm place, upstream where the horses drank, the bank was lost in brush and boulders. But she wanted to at least feel the spray of the water on her burning skin, feel on her cheeks again the cool wind she’d felt back in the rodeo arena. She wanted to let it circle her body, brush between her legs where she was naked and hot and wet beneath her crumpled skirt.
The fever that was consuming her was starting to frighten her just a little. If she stayed in that truck one more second, she would be begging him for more. She wasn’t just insatiable, she was shameless. She was consumed by a desire that ached out of a place she didn’t know, couldn’t name. She didn’t think she should let him know how much she was feeling.
She ran down a sharp slope, skipping around rocks and creosote, until she reached the edge of the riverbank. She’d wanted to wade in the water, just put her feet in, but the bank was steeper than she’d realized. It was still a good three abrupt feet down from the cut line. So, she stopped where she was, her toes slipping in the damp mud and sand. She could feel the dampness rising off the river, a mist dewing her hair. It felt good. She just stood there, wriggling her toes in the cool muck. The fever began to leave her, her heartbeat to slow down.
She felt his hand on her elbow. “I was afraid you were insane there for a minute,” he said.
“When was that? When I let you undress me and eat me out, or when I was sucking your cock?”
“When you were asking me about swimming in a class-five rapid,” he said.
She turned to him, anxious to see his face in the moonlight, but, as she turned, a piece of the bank crumbled under her, and she slipped backward. Not much, but enough that he pulled her against him.
“Be careful there, baby,” he said.
“I’m not crazy,” she replied, but she sounded a little doubtful, even to herself. “Although this is a pretty crazy night.” She pulled away from him a little.
“Just be careful,” he repeated.
“If I was going to be careful, I wouldn’t be out here with you in the first place, would I?”
She looked up at him, and he scooped her up in his arms and carried her, like a newlywed or an overgrown child, back up the slope of the riverbank. She put her arms around his neck, enjoying the grip of his hard, muscled arms clasped over her.
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
“I don’t want you to stop. Not tonight.” She closed her eyes. That way, if this was all a dream or something, she could keep it going.
3
D riving back to town, they were pushing it as far as they could, pawing at each other, wild. It was like they wanted a piece of each other to hold on to.
He lifted up her shirt and licked his fingers and rubbed them against her.
She stroked his thighs and then his balls, squeezing just a little, brushing her fingers up and down along his dick until she felt him throbbing and swelling between them.
They kept kissing and necking, leaving little love bites on each other’s necks and shoulders.
He took her motel-room key card, and they fell through the door; he already had his shirt off, and they were tearing at what was left of each other’s clothes.
They stumbled to the bed, leaving the door hanging open behind them. He pulled off one of his boots and threw it at the door, and that closed it.
They were lying on that lumpy queen-size bed in her motel room, a faint blue light reflecting from the pool just outside her drawn curtains, splashing over her body like she was underwater.
And she could’ve been, because moving under his touch, she felt as slippery as a pale fish.
He didn’t bother to take her shirt all the way off again; he just pulled it off her shoulders, with her breasts pushed up through the top, and he was licking them, keeping her nipples wet and hard.
Her skirt was bunched up around her hips, and he had his hand inside her—not just a finger, which he’d started with, but his whole hand now—playing with her, keeping her wet down there, too.
Her panties and bra had long since disappeared, the bra still hanging like a prize from the rearview mirror of his pickup truck.
She cried out again and rocked back and forth against his hand. Her feet, muddy from the river, left dark prints on the sheet. Her head arched off the mattress and then fell back. “Again,” she exhaled, panting.
He laughed, a wonderful laugh, muffled against her chest. “I never met anyone I could make come so many times,” he said.
“Top your record,” she gasped.
He ran his free hand through her tangled hair, moved his lips off her breasts and onto her lips, pushing his tongue between her parted teeth, both of them tasting of Cuervo and beer, of him and of her.
He was on top of her now, naked, his hard chest pressing against her, his strong legs pinning her down as he stuck his cock inside her again. She was so loose and open, and he just moved in and out and in and out, so slippery and smooth. He was hitting all the right places, his hips locked against hers.
His lips moved down to her tits again, and he nibbled on her, pulling up her nipples like bullets between his teeth. He put one hand under her ass and held it tight while he fucked her; she could feel his balls up against her pussy and her buttocks at the same time. The cheap bed creaked and sighed beneath them, and somebody’s TV hummed through the walls.
He flipp
ed her over, lifting her bottom off the bed. He did her from behind now; she could feel his long, powerful strokes, his dick coming out far enough to brush against her thighs. He put a finger inside her anus, and then another, and moved them with the same timing he was using on her pussy, so she felt like he was screwing her in both places at once.
With his free hand he was stroking her breasts as they hung down, pendulous.
Then all at once he pulled out, both of them gasping from the surprise of it. He tossed her onto her side and pulled her skirt off at last, throwing it on the floor, tugged the tank top off again, roughly. She felt the seams rip as he pulled it off her arms.
When she was naked, he started kissing and licking at her clavicle and moved down from the base of her neck, tracing her bones, her veins, licking her all over like she was ice cream, and she was sure melting inside when he lapped at her between her legs again.
Then he rose and took her by the arms and plucked her off the bed.
“What are you—” she began, but he had moved her against the dresser so they could watch in the mirror, his skin tanned and dark against her own white torso, his dick impaling her from behind, her body glistening with his saliva and their sweat, his blond hair dark with sweat. They bucked and rocked so much the bottom drawers in the dresser sprang open and hit their ankles and calves.
Then he had her down on the bed again, on her back, her legs spread wide. He lifted her feet until they were resting on his shoulders, and then he had at her, pounding into her deep, and she sucked on his shoulder, on his arm, on his hand, and she cried out with her lips buried in his chest, and then he cried out, too, and they both collapsed there on the damp sheets of their underwater bed, arms around each other, side by side.
He woke at ten in the morning to the maid knocking on the door. “Later,” he called out and the knocking stopped, leaving only his heart pounding in his chest.
He’d thought maybe he was dreaming Anna, but there she was beside him, her hair tangled across the pillow, her fine, firm, naked body curled against him in a square of sunlight. Like he’d told her, he’d never met a woman who could come so many times before. It was as if she’d been saving up just for him. He liked thinking that, anyway. He’d also never met a woman this wild before; she was like a beautiful, untamable mare; she was like the turbulence in a summer sky right before a storm, electric, exciting, and—he knew it damn well—unpossessable. Except he was possessing her now, and for now, that was enough.
Putting his arms around her, he slipped his dick inside her again.
“Oh,” she gasped, and that was how he woke her, moving in her, barely penetrating at first and then diving deep inside her.
He pulled out of her and rolled her onto her back. “Mornin’,” he said.
And she smiled. “It seems like a good one.”
“It’s gonna be.” He kissed her tits and her belly. “Wish I could keep you lying there like that, just lying there, all day,” he said.
She stretched and yawned and crawled down between his legs like a cat. “Why can’t you?” she asked.
Before he could answer, she had his cock in her mouth. He hadn’t dreamed her, but he might as well have—the world might end before he ever had it this good again.
He was pulsing inside her, trying to hold back. She raised her face to his, her lips all wet and open. “You like?”
“You have to ask?”
Time melted by, with the sun spilling in wider patches across the twisted sheets, and she kept on working him until he couldn’t wait any longer, and he shot off in her hot little mouth. She sucked him dry, did not lift her mouth from his dick until every last drop quivered out of him.
She slipped out from between his legs, then, and just fell back across the bed. “You believe I never sucked a guy off before?”
He laughed, “You’re a natural at it, then.”
He touched her lips gently with the tips of his fingers, wet them with his own saliva, and traced a moist outline around her mouth. He kissed her chin and her cheekbones and put his tongue in her ear and made her giggle, sucked on her earlobes and left little love bites along her neck. It was only fair; it was her turn now.
He put one of her nipples in his mouth and rubbed at the other one with his hand and then lifted his face and switched nipples. He slipped his free hand between her legs and rubbed at her until she contracted around him, shuddered against him, and cried out. Then he put his fingers inside her, got her off four or five more times just like that. He could feel his dick already starting to stir again. Maybe she was right; maybe they could just lie here all day and touch other, suck each other, fuck each other.
Except that he had to take a run down to the state fair in Green River, sign some autographs, shill tomorrow’s rodeo a little. He got paid for doing it, but when he’d agreed, it wasn’t for the money, it was for something to do between the Friday night semifinals and the Sunday afternoon final. Keep him from obsessing about the ride too much. He never thought he would have something better—something like this—to do.
He broke the news to her, couching with it the promise of breakfast and his fervent hope that she would enjoy coming along.
She laughed. “You have to ask?”
They shared the cramped shower, soaping each other. The hot water sent steam rising all around the bathroom, thick as fog.
She had given up all pretext of playing it cool—had she ever been cool? Maybe for a few moments before she started touching him, sucking him, wanting him so badly she felt like her head was going to explode, her heart burst right through her chest. Right now, for the record, she was done with any pretense of composure. She had wanted passion and adventure? She’d found them in him, and now she just wanted to make sure he found them in her, too.
She wanted to see just how recklessly far her desire would take her, what she would let him do, what she would do to him. She was sure there were endless possibilities.
She ran her hands over the hard muscles of his buttocks, the lean sinews of his thighs. She knotted her fingers through his curly wet hair, watched his beautiful smile spread across his face as he blew a soap bubble off her breast.
She found herself laughing out loud, and then he was laughing, too, hoisting her soapy hips around him. He knew just what she wanted. She knew what he wanted, too. The shower drummed down on her back as he fucked her, sliding her up and down against the slippery tiles.
It was noon by the time they left the steamy bathroom. They day was hot and still. Bouncing along the highway in his truck, she was glad she was wearing only sandals and a sundress, pale blue with thin straps, and a camisole under it.
They’d dressed up for each other. She’d put on lipstick and earrings and did her best on her hair with the anemic motel hair drier. He’d shaved, put on some sweet-smelling cologne, a crisp white T-shirt, and tight Levi’s that made her want to run her hands along the fabric, to feel his thighs pressing beneath the denim. His curly hair shone angelically golden in the sunlight. Still, she didn’t think of him as an angel, exactly, not when he already had her dress hiked up around her waist, and his fingers were stroking her thighs.
They swung east out of Cody, stopping at a roadside place called the Home-Style Café. It had a sign in front proclaiming BREAKFAST SERVED 6 TO 6—BEST PANCAKES IN WYOMING!
It was a little wooden cottage with ten red-checkered tables and a lunch counter in front, and, down a narrow hall, a bar with red plastic booths in the back. The place was empty except for a cook behind the pass-through window at the counter and a lone waitress, slumped on a stool, who looked bored with her chewing gum and her magazine. She told them they could sit anywhere, so they picked a booth in the back, carrying their own menus.
The waitress sighed over the long walk from her stool to the booth they’d chosen, but Anna noticed she didn’t look quite so bored when she got a good look at Grant. It wasn’t just how handsome he was—even though he was definitely hot—it was a certain reckless confidence in
the way he looked you right in the eye, appraised you, summed you up.
The waitress was younger than Anna, and she certainly had bigger breasts, but Anna knew Grant wasn’t interested, wasn’t even considering the possibility of being interested. She felt herself tingle, quite literally from head to toe, knowing that Grant had already appraised her, summed her up, and found in her all he wanted.
Grant ordered pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and coffee for both of them. Ordinarily Anna was more of a fruit-and-cereal or bagel-with-light-cream-cheese kind of person, but she was too hungry to object. The waitress poured their coffee and left them alone.
Anna liked just watching Grant’s long, strong fingers wrapped around his mug while he told her about the cabin he owned near the Montana border, how he was planning to spend the winter there this year, how beautiful it was in a high valley full of birches where the snow sometimes fell as early as October.
She told him in LA it usually rained in the fall, causing traffic jams on the freeways that made a fifteen-minute drive to work an hour or more. And then, without meaning to really, she admitted that she didn’t have to worry about driving to work right now, anyway; she’d lost her job. Before he could even sympathize, she blurted that her fiancé had just left her, too, but truly and honestly she wasn’t sure losing either one was that great a loss.
“The only thing is,” she said, trying to laugh it off, “I don’t really have any idea what I’m going to do next.”
Grant kissed her tenderly on the lips. “You must have some idea,” he murmured.
For now it seemed the best idea was just to keep kissing him.
The waitress came back, rattling a tray of condiments—pitchers of syrup and honey, packets of butter, and jam. They didn’t stop kissing until minutes later when she slapped down their plates.
They both tucked into their food, then, devouring their bacon and eggs.
“For a city girl I first saw in skinny jeans, you do enjoy a meal,” he said, amused.
The Cowboy Page 24