The Cowboy

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

  “Come on me,” she said.

  “Yeah?” His voice was thick.

  “Yes, all over me,” she insisted, and she kept on rubbing her soft breasts and those pebble-hard nipples against him until he shot out on her chest.

  She pushed herself back up on the pillow beside him and rubbed his semen across her skin so that it glossed her arms, her breasts, her belly.

  “I’m drinking you in,” she said. And to prove her point, she lowered her lips to his cock again and sucked out the last few drops of cum. He realized they were long done with the peppermint-flavored raincoats, and he wasn’t quite sure when they’d given up playing it safe. Maybe when they started painting themselves with pancake syrup. Maybe when they knew they were it—they both knew they were absolutely it—for each other.

  “Sit up here on my pillow,” he suggested.

  She curled up so he could reach inside her with his lips and tongue and make the little sucking circles he knew drove her wild. She gave the cry that woke the coyote and the park ranger over at the lake, and he wondered if anyone was hearing her now through the motel walls.

  “I knew I could do it,” he crowed.

  Laughing, she rearranged herself on the bed and rubbed his shoulder. “I knew you could, too. You’re damn good at doing it.”

  “I meant the ride, baby,” he said, because his mind had flashed back to the rodeo ring. He felt the sweet ache of triumph wash over him again.

  Anna nodded like she had known what he meant all along. “Sure. I didn’t have a doubt there either.”

  “You get it, don’t you, why I love the thrill?”

  “I do,” she said. “Although I never felt it myself. Except now, with you.”

  Man, he liked this woman. He squeezed her hand.

  “I’m still wired,” he said. “You mind staying up?”

  She yawned. “No.”

  He tickled her along the inside of her arm, and she giggled and stopped yawning. He grabbed the remote, they watched a black-and-white gangster movie until it ended, and then he flipped around and found some stupid infomercial about yoga. The positions this one guy and girl got themselves in gave him the idea they should sixty-nine, Anna’s mouth on his cock, his lips on her clit, and Anna was, as ever, game. It was in that wonderful, ludicrous position that they fell asleep.

  When he woke it was full morning, but he was ahead of the maid. Tentatively he flexed his chest; he was stiffer and sorer than he’d been the night before, but nothing hurt too badly.

  He ran his fingers across his ribs and more gingerly along his side. He’d always been a fast healer, and the lure of great sex sure took his mind off his injuries.

  The infomercial was still playing; apparently the same thing played over and over on that channel. Just like he was on continuous play, too, he went right back to licking at Anna until she woke up, and she played along and sucked him, her teeth grazing his cock a little each time she came, and she came a lot before he lifted his dripping face and kissed her.

  With no further regard for his accident, he thrust her legs wide apart and pounded into her, and since she was upside down on the bed, her feet thumped against the headboard over and over like the beat of a drum. It made him happy just to hear that banging while he was banging her. It was like the sound of a parade coming, some kind of celebration. He bet even Buffalo Bill had never had himself a celebration any finer than this.

  And, it was safe to say, as he collapsed against her, he was no longer feeling anything remotely like pain.

  “With this money in the bank, we can go on up to my cabin, lay back all autumn. I wanna do the big rodeo at the Vegas convention center New Year’s Eve. Purse is even bigger there. Get a lot of hotshots from Australia, New Zealand. Doesn’t mean I can’t win it, though. Missed the last couple of years, working another guy’s ranch, but this year—I’m gonna rock it. Then we can go on back, just watch the snow fall.”

  They’d packed up and checked out of the motel, grabbed coffee and doughnuts, picked up her car. When she saw the mechanic’s tab, she had an expression on her face almost like the one he must’ve had when he saw that horse wheel back around and kick.

  But she shrugged it off and followed him over to the arena, the plan being he would pack up his gear and follow her down to Salt Lake so she could return the rental car and then head up to his place, maybe stop for the night at some motel along the way.

  He realized he’d never officially asked her if she wanted to spend the next four months at his spread. He just took it for granted that if he wanted to her come, and he did, she would go. She’d done everything he wanted to do up until now, anyway.

  The parking lot was empty except for his truck. Everybody else had been and gone, he supposed. He called to the cleaning crew sweeping up in the stands, and they unlocked the tack room for him.

  It was stripped bare except for Grant’s gear, his saddle and blankets, stirrups and bridle, ropes and hat. There were a couple of notes tucked under his hat. One from the doctor, a prescription refill on the pain pills Grant wasn’t even taking, a request from the ESPN2 reporter for a full interview, which made Grant smile, and one he crumpled up—from a girl suggesting the kind of nursing care Anna was already providing.

  He took a quick look at her to see if she had noticed it, and if it was bothering her at all, but she was busy folding one of his blankets and was seemingly sanguine. He couldn’t wait to get her up to that cabin, couldn’t wait to take her riding and fishing, couldn’t wait to ride her all over again. He was ready to do that right now. But he collected himself and started in on coiling his ropes.

  Anna saw the girl’s note, but she wasn’t jealous. She knew she wasn’t in competition with her. What she would have to fight was the rodeo itself, the thrill of the ride Grant lived for.

  Not that she wanted to fight the rodeo, because if she did, and she won, and Grant lost that thrill he loved so much, he wouldn’t be the same; he wouldn’t be the same man she wanted so much.

  She had to accept it. His passion was the rodeo; hers was—him. The question was, could she hold on to him the way he held on to those wild horses, live for him like he lived for the rodeo, just because she loved the ride with him?

  Here, right now in the empty, dusty room that smelled of horses and sweat and cigarettes, she thought she could.

  She felt her breath catch in her throat and a melting heat welling up inside her, just watching him coil those ropes.

  He looked up at her like he could sense what she was thinking, and apparently he could. Flashing that smile of his, he uncoiled the rope he’d just wound. It was lassoed at one end, and he tossed the loop over her and gently reeled her in.

  She was wearing the tank top and jean skirt she’d worn when she first hooked up with him at the bar. She remembered how wild he had made her feel from the first moment he’d touched her on the small of her back. It was like he’d found the secret spot that unlocked everything she’d been holding back inside. Maybe she wasn’t the only one remembering because he was touching her there now, she could feel all her doubts dissolving. Maybe this was enough; maybe it would always be.

  “Just ’cause I missed a lot of the celebrating around here last night,” he whispered, “doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate now.”

  He lowered the lasso around her hips, drew it tighter. “We don’t need,” he said, “to throw confetti. We’ve got other things.”

  Holding the end of the rope in one hand, he stripped off her tank top with the other hand and tossed it away.

  “Boy, I like seeing you trussed up with your shirt off,” he told her, licking his lips.

  She licked her own and leaned in close, pressing her mouth against his.

  Deftly he unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor. He stopped kissing her, bent to run his tongue quickly across both nipples. She felt them harden just at the proximity of his breath.

  He unzipped her skirt, and it slid off her hips, and she stepped out of it. There she was in just
her panties and heels, his rope scratching not unpleasantly against her belly.

  He dropped down on his knees and looped the rope around her thighs. He knotted it, and threw the end down.

  “Can’t leave now,” he said.

  She didn’t want to.

  He pushed his fingers inside her panties. Just as she was coming, he shoved the fabric aside and sucked on her. She dug her hands into his shoulders, bunching up his shirt in her fingers.

  “Oh, we liked that,” he said.

  She laughed “Well, I sure did.”

  From outside they could hear the conversation of the cleanup crew. Grant strode over to the tack-room door and threw the bolt closed.

  He unzipped his jeans and circled her, his cock enormous. He brushed it against her buttocks, thrust it between her bound legs, rubbing it against her twisted panties until she came again.

  “Doesn’t take much,” he noted.

  “Just you,” she agreed.

  He kissed her again, and she kissed him like she would swallow him up if she could; she kissed his lips, his cheeks, his neck, and back to his lips again, pushing her tongue between his teeth, locking on.

  He had her breasts in his hands, twirling the nipples between his calloused fingertips. Just that touch made her come again.

  Pleased with himself, he moved his hands between her legs. “I love it when your panties get all wet,” he said. He wriggled his thumb inside her and pulled it out all slippery, rubbed her cum across her tits.

  “You’re gonna have to untie me now,” she murmured.

  “Why’s that?”

  “’Cause you gotta take off my underwear and fuck me before I fucking explode,” she gasped.

  “Not quite yet,” he said.

  His saddle was lying on the ground, and he led her over to it, tossed a blanket on the floor, and lowered her down so that her head and shoulders were resting on the saddle, her hips on the blanket. She closed her eyes, absorbing the heady aroma of their bodies, the leather and oil of the saddle, the wool of the blanket, the warmth of the sunlight through the dusty tack-room windows.

  He tied the free end of the rope that bound her around the saddle horn and stepped back.

  “Oh, the things I can do with you now,” he said.

  He knelt down next to her. She raised her head just enough to take his dick in her mouth.

  He rubbed at her through her panties and probed her beneath them until he could fit all four fingers inside her. She arched back against the saddle, and when she came that time he took her breasts in his mouth, first one and then the other.

  He lifted a bridle from the pile of his gear near the saddle. He unhooked one leather strap. Lightly he wrapped it around her wrists and fastened it, binding her hands.

  Anna was so turned on she could feel herself coming again. She was in his control now.

  “I can see it on your face when you get off. You open your mouth just a little, and then your cheeks get…all flushed.”

  He sounded almost awestruck, like he was watching falling stars.

  She was trembling all over, just trembling.

  “You gotta fuck me,” she said.

  “Yeah, now I’m gonna explode,” he agreed.

  She thought he would have to untie her to remove her underwear, but instead he reached up and just ripped her panties off her right hip, left them hanging there, damp against her left thigh.

  He touched her inside with just the head of his dick, rubbing it against her, barely probing her, and then pushed deep, rocking her from side to side, pulling out and then driving inside her. Oh, yeah, she thought, he’s going for the perfect ride again.

  When at last he did untie her, they were both shaking; it was that good. Before they dressed again, she kissed his ribs, his side, his hip, all the places with the bruises and the tape.

  “I don’t want to leave this room,” she said, and she meant it, too.

  “Could just tie you over my saddle, and ride you off into the hills.” He grinned. “But taking our vehicles would be a lot more practical.”

  With her suitcase already in the trunk of the rental car, it was easy enough to change her clothes and reapply her makeup. It was much harder to regain her composure, harder still to say what she felt she had to say.

  Grant had his truck packed up, and he was leaning against the driver’s side, one foot on the running board, cool and relaxed, waiting for her.

  To look at him, she couldn’t tell he was sporting broken ribs; to look at him, she couldn’t tell this man was the wild man who’d bound her and consumed her on the tack-room floor. But, then, to look at her, nobody would know she was the wild woman begging for more, either. There were probably many things neither one of them could tell about each other just by looking.

  She walked over and stood next to him in the shade of his truck.

  “Ready to roll?” he asked.

  She wasn’t. She wasn’t ready at all. She shook her head.

  “It’s already two. If we’re going to make my place by—”

  “I can’t.” The words just slipped out before she wanted to say them. But, then, she really didn’t want to say them ever.

  “You can’t.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, and there wasn’t even that much surprise to it. “Here it comes, I guess. I thought you were different; you sure seem different, but I guess you want me to settle down, give up the circuit—”

  “Grant. I don’t want to change you, I want to change me, my life.”

  “Your life. Why?”

  She struggled to explain. “I told you last night. Nothing’s ever meant to me what riding means to you. Until now. Now you—you could easily become kind of what I live for.”

  “That’s a bad thing, I take it?”

  “Bad for both of us. It’s asking too much of you and not enough of me. You see that, don’t you?”

  He shook his head. “I see a lot. I see how good we are together, how absolutely fucking fantastic we are, how we’ve just begun to explore the depths of our desires, and I believe they go pretty damn deep. We have a little cabin up in the woods, just waiting, where nobody’ll care if you cry out so loud you wake the coyotes. I see you want to go there just as much as I do, but you think throwing me over is what you want. Or what you should want, anyway.”

  “I’m not throwing you over,” she insisted.

  “You’re not so different from those broncs, are you, baby? I feel so good just claiming you for a while, and I guess it makes you feel good to buck me off.”

  “No—” she protested, but he overrode her.

  “I’m not faulting you. It’s an instinct. Remember, a bronc doesn’t buck because it’s afraid. No, baby, that horse’ll throw you because he can, because he wants to. I ride as well as I do ’cause I work with that instinct; I convince that mount he doesn’t really want to do what he thinks he does. I didn’t realize I had to work you the same way.”

  “I need to go back to LA. I’m out of work, I have rent to pay—”

  “LA isn’t going to disappear on you. Maybe you can find something you want to write about without even being there, anyway. And I bet you could pack up everything you really need from your apartment in an hour.”

  “Don’t make it harder. I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to get in that car and put distance between us. I want to be able to just reach out and touch your arm. Kiss you. Put your cock in my mouth.”

  The mood lightened between them. He smiled.

  “And I want to be able to put my fingers in your hot little pussy,” he said. “And my tongue deep down in your—”

  “But I need to go, Grant,” she said as firmly and resolutely as she could. Still, there was a catch in her throat, and he heard it.

  He looked at her for a long time beneath the shadow of his Stetson. He lifted her chin, wiped away the tears spilling from the corners of her eyes with his fingers.

  “There’s no such thing as knowing how long you can take a ride. Sometimes you just
have to hold on as hard as you can, and see what happens,” he told her.

  “It has to be more than just a ride. For me, anyway.”

  He shrugged. “In my experience, life never stands still long enough to harness long-term.”

  “Will your life stand still long enough that I could come visit you in that cabin of yours?”

  “I’ll be there, yeah. I’m not changing my plans,” he said, and he took her hand in his and just held it.

  “And New Year’s—you were talking about Las Vegas. That’s only forty-five minutes on a plane from LA.”

  Grant kissed the top of her hair. “You’ll be with me, but on your terms. That about right? At least until I can convince you that we don’t need terms at all?”

  She managed to nod. He released her hand.

  “All right, then. Might’ve busted a few ribs, but I guess I’ve missed getting my heart broke. By a narrow margin.”

  He reached in the backseat of his truck and plucked a rodeo flier and a pencil from the heap he’d made of his belongings. He scribbled on the back of the flier. “That’s the address. That’s the phone number of the bar I go in for a beer or two every Saturday night. I don’t have a phone up there at the cabin.”

  She snatched the pencil, wrote her own phone number on the bottom of the paper, ripped it off, and passed that piece back to him.

  “Don’t lose it,” she said.

  He tucked it inside his jeans. “I won’t. Don’t you lose that—that virginity of yours.”

  “Virginity?” she raised her eyebrows.

  “You’re still pretty untouched by this love business. Keep it that way till you see me again.”

  She kissed him, and he returned to her a sweet, soft kiss. He let his lips trail down her neck and onto her bare shoulders, but there he stopped.

  “Better not get started. You won’t leave. We can’t have that. Gotta make sure you leave so you can come back again.”

  “If I call you at that bar—say, next Saturday—will you be there?”

  “Yeah. Lookin’ at the pretty girls.”

  She glanced away from him.