Worship the ground I walk on.
Shit.
We stared at each other.
"Look," he said, pissed. "Forget it. Take a break. Go back to the bunkhouse. If you want to be with me, come back. I'll wait. Go. Just fucking go."
I opened the door and went to leave, pausing in the door. I looked at my feet, willing them to move forward, to leave. Just like I always leave, like I move on.
Fuck.
I was pushing him away.
I was pushing away the guy who made my pulse run. Who made me more turned on than anyone. Who surprised me with his thoughtfulness. Who said more by his actions than by his words.
The guy who was raised by a double-amputee, Spanish-speaking mother, and opened up his home to disabled kids and kids who’d never have a chance to ride a horse otherwise.
The guy who turned down millions of dollars because it meant more to him to have a farm than to have a ton of cash.
Who swore to me every time he was with me that he wanted me more and more.
Who argued with me about my politics, but when it came down to it, he was right there with me, saving the world in his own way.
All of a sudden, the thought of spending the night alone came to me. A night not in Will's arms. No Will to ask me how I was doing. No Will to dance with. No Will to fuck. If I couldn't do it for one night, I couldn't do it ever again.
A breeze came in through the door and whipped around me.
No.
Fuck no.
I couldn't do it.
Stepping back into his house and slamming the door shut, I turned to him and burst into tears.
"I can't," I whispered. "I can't stay away from you."
I ran into his arms and he nuzzled his face into my hair. "I can't stay away from you either," he said gruffly, squeezing me tight. "What do you need, Marie? Go for a walk? Go for a drive? Something to eat?"
"I need you to make love to me. And mean it."
"That can be arranged," he said huskily.
Mirrors
ONCE IN WILL'S BEDROOM, he slowly walked over to me and leaned down and kissed me. Just a kiss, very gentle and very sweet, no touching me anywhere else, his hands behind his back. Releasing his hands, he reached over to me and tucked my hair behind my ears and ran his fingers down my face, wiping away the last of my tears with his work-rough hands. He leaned over and kissed the trails where my tears had been. And then he held me for a very long time, fully dressed, my head in his chest.
Once I’d relaxed in his arms, he loosened his grip and reached to the hem of my shirt, pulling it up over my head, and trailed his fingers down my torso, pausing at my dove tattoo, lingering over my bra, exploring the Noah's ark tattoo.
He took off his shirt and I returned the favor, exploring the lines of his chest, enjoying the feel of him.
Our pants came off. Will yet again had gone commando. My underwear and bra disappeared. His erection pressed into my belly as he hugged and kissed me and the contact intensified as I hugged and kissed him back.
He guided me to his bed, walking me backward, pressing into me, until my butt hit the bed. And then he helped me up and kept going, until I was lying on my back across his bed.
Holding both of my feet for a moment, he looked at me, his eyes hungrily examining my body. Then he moved his hands up the insides of my legs, lightly, just his fingertips, making me shudder. Once he got to my pussy, he touched it gently, and then climbed up on the bed.
"Spread more, darlin'," he said, and I obeyed as he pushed my legs out as far as they would go. He kissed and suckled his way up from one knee to the inside of my upper thigh, and then stopped and started with the other knee. This time, once he got to my pussy, he licked it, just once, but thoroughly up all of the available real estate.
Then he smiled, dropped his head, and attended to me, gently licking and sucking, manipulating my pussy with his fingers, over and over again, his dark curls bobbing between my legs. I felt him worship me, letting me enjoy the consuming pleasure of his tongue on my sex. Squirming on the bed, my nails raking across the sheets, I started moaning, and then I got louder and louder as the sensation grew and grew and I came, my body shuddering, the pleasure rippling through my body.
He stayed with me, riding out the orgasm on his face, until I had calmed down and I realized that he was hovering over me, looking at me, positioning his cock at my entrance. His eyes were so passionate, so fierce, it was hard for me to look at him. He put his head down as he entered me, one slow delicious inch at a time, until he was fully seated within me.
After a moment he started to move, very gently, very carefully, caressing me with his hands, his fingers running over my breasts and massaging them, then going down my side, then holding my hips on one side, and then repeating the process on the other. I ran my fingers across his cheek and down his broad back. His cock hit a divine place inside me and I bore down on him, trying to clench around him, and take as much as he could give. He kept going and going, gently thrusting as he made very sweet love to me.
Suddenly Will pulled out and I whined, wanting his cock in me, wanting the fullness, wanting the pleasure. "Come back," I complained. "I was close."
"C'mere." He got up, erection sticking out at an unholy angle, and pulled me up by my armpits. Then he took my soft hand in his large, coarse farmer one, and pulled me from his bedroom, down the hall, me padding after him, naked as could be.
"Where are we going?" I whined.
"Wanna try this."
He led me into a bedroom, smaller than his, which was furnished with only a double bed. It also had a closet with double mirrored doors. Stopping in front of one of the mirrors, he gently turned me to face it and came around behind me, putting his chin on my shoulder, pressing his cock into my lower back and holding me around my waist.
"What do you see?" he asked quietly.
"You and me."
"Put your hands on the mirror. Brace yourself," he ordered.
I did as he said and he spread apart my legs, positioned himself behind me, and thrust into me. Oh, yes.
My eyes looked down at the ground. "Lift your head. Look at my eyes," he commanded.
I did. I saw his eyes, dark and demanding, and totally focused. On me. Totally into me. He pulled my hips back so that I was sticking my butt out against him and he began to thrust behind me, my arms still braced on the mirror. He held me tightly, one arm on my hip, the other hand snaked down between my legs, and he started to rub my clit, to the same rhythm of his thrusts, a sensuous pressure, not too light, and not too hard. Every time he thrust into me, my full breasts jogged up and down.
"What do you see, Marie?" he asked as he did this, but his voice this time was more urgent.
"You fucking me," I exhaled, beginning to pant again.
"Look closer."
I did. I looked at his beauty—his dark brown hair and eyes, his high cheekbones and narrow nose, his square jaw, his full lips. I saw his strong arms holding me, veins popping out down the side, his chest flexing. I saw his height, his stature, his presence.
But then I looked at myself in the mirror, being fucked by this incredibly hot guy. And I liked what I saw. I saw a pretty bleached blonde, edgy, but with some softness in her brown eyes, and the height to match him. I saw how sexy it was for me to be receiving what he was giving out. I saw that we fit together. We looked right together. Sure, I had tattoos and an eyebrow piercing, but that stuff didn't matter. We looked right together. It looked like I was meant to be with him, like no one would question why Will was with me. All that shit about our politics and beliefs didn't matter.
We looked like we belonged together.
"We are mirror images of each other," I whispered.
"Damn right," he said. "Now, tell me this is going somewhere," he ordered, as he increased the pace of his thrusts, his cock making my pussy spasm every time it received him, and the speed with which he was massaging my clit.
I moaned in response, the orgasm on its way.
"Tell me this means something. That this is going somewhere," he said again.
"Stop manipulating me through sex," I gasped.
"Tell me this is going somewhere," he repeated, vehemently.
"No!" I yelled.
He kept going, increasing the thrusts, fucking me hard against the mirror, watching my eyes the entire time, not letting go of my clit, bringing the tension, the pleasurable tension in our bodies up more and more, until we had to have a release. We had to. We’d die if we didn't.
"Tell me this is going somewhere," he yelled.
"Yes! Goddamn you, Will!" I screamed, "This is going somewhere. I could fucking fall in love with you if I let myself."
And with that, he said in my ear, "So let yourself," and thrust in hard and stayed there, so that it set off my reaction, and I shook, my legs collapsing, Will holding me up. My body flooded with the pleasure of the release of that sweet orgasmic tension and this set him off. He thrusted into me hard and high up in my body, hitting my fucking womb or something, and came.
I don't know how he held me up, but he did, his muscles shaking, and then he gently pulled me backward and onto the bed with him.
"This is going somewhere," he whispered as he held me, and I nodded my head to agree.
Torture
"WILL?"
"Yeah, darlin'," he said in my ear, as he tucked in behind me in his vintage bed. We’d both showered after he’d fucked the confession out of me, and now dry but clean, we lay naked in his bed.
I wiggled into his warm body and let out a deep breath. This idea had come to me while we were showering and the more I thought about it, the more I had to do it, even if I didn't really want to. "I need something."
"Anything," he replied immediately, nibbling on my ear and making his way down to my neck, biting it gently, his hands tracing the curves of my side. I could feel him start to stiffen again behind me, even though he’d held me up in the shower not thirty minutes ago and fucked me against the wall until I had cried out, again and again.
"You're not going to like it."
He stiffened. "Tell me."
"Here's the thing. You're stunning. You distract me with sex. But I need to know that we can get along without it. As a couple, I mean. Because if it's only sex, then it needs to stay that way. If it's not, though, well, I need to know."
He looked at me curiously. "So what do you want?"
I took a deep breath and let it out. "I want you to date me."
He smiled in relief and hugged me close. "'Course, baby. I want to do that."
"No. I want you to date me and just date me." I rolled over on my other side, body to body, facing him, and looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
I got embarrassed for a moment and looked down to his chest. "No sex."
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me. "What do you mean, no sex?"
"I'm serious, Will. I want to go out on dates. I want to get to know you. Go to restaurants. Do couple things. Not just fuck."
He put a finger under my chin and lifted my head up to look at him; he looked confused. "Let me get this straight. We have the best fuckin' sex I've ever had in my life and you want to quit? What kind of fuckin' game is that?"
"It's not a game," I said, quietly and sincerely. "If it were a game, I wouldn't tell you what I wanted. I would just be playing you for no reason."
He shrugged. "Fair enough. Don't like it though."
"This is more like an experiment. To see if there is more to us than just physical compatibility. If we can get past the Will-is-a-Republican and Marie-is-a-Democrat shit. And if it works, then cool, we'll know. If not, well, then we'll know too."
He looked at me and winced. "I don't know if I can do that. After having a taste of you, fuck, I don't want to let you go."
That was sweet. "You're not letting me go. Not permanently. Just for a little bit. I want to see, you know, what it's like just to date you. I want to spend time with you. I want to find out how far apart we are on our issues. I want to sleep with you in this bed, just sleeping, not fucking."
"You want to torture me.”
"It will be torture for me too," I whispered. "But I have to know. I have to know if there is something more here than just physical attraction."
He blew out a breath. "Okay. For how long?"
I thought about it. "Two weeks? That's as long as I’ve known you, practically. Next week we have the kids from the ASD program and after that we have the kids from East Los Angeles. Then we have a week break. So after the L.A. kids go home?"
"I'm going to have the biggest fuckin' blue balls on the planet if we do that. I can't keep my hands off of you. You know that George Strait song? No of course you don't. Well, he has a song, 'I Get Carried Away.' That's how I feel about you."
I was going to have to listen to that song and think about what that meant, but I knew that I liked it. As I lay there, I had an inspiration. "What if I make you a deal?"
"Yeah?" He nuzzled my neck.
I said it all in a rush. "You make it just over two weeks with me spending the night here, and no sex, and you take me out and I take you out and we spend time together, and come Friday after the L.A. kids leave, if we still like each other and want to continue this, I'll let you do anything sexually to me that you want."
He drew back and stared at me. "Fuck."
Suddenly nervous, I felt like I needed to clarify. "Just don't hurt me."
"I'd never do that." He looked disappointed that I'd even suggest that.
I wiggled into him, my breasts pushing up against his chest, his dick in my belly. "Then, anything," I repeated.
He looked away. "Fuck. You probably want to start abstinence now, don't you."
Smiling shyly, I said quietly, "Not really, but I think we should."
He held me close, moving his lips to my ear, "Then there's no fuckin' way you are sleeping naked with me because that's just wrong."
I thought about torturing him a little bit more, but decided against it. "Okay," I agreed.
"What am I getting myself into?" he muttered.
"Me," I said, and he squeezed me tight.
"Okay, baby, you got yourself a deal. Two weeks from Friday, anything I want, and be prepared. Until then, we do it your way."
He released me and I got up and put on a t-shirt of his and my underwear, and he put on his boxers and we crawled into bed together. Because it was late, we both fell asleep quickly, but it was an uneasy sleep for me.
When I checked my phone the following morning, there was nothing from Amelia, so I texted her.
What is it about bossy guys? Why are they so hot?
Because they care. They are IN. TO. IT.
Yeah, I thought. Will cares. But I needed to know how I felt.
After breakfast, Will and I walked with a group of kids over to the corrals for their morning riding sessions. The kids were talking about the blockbuster movie of the summer.
When we were almost there, I heard one of the snobby girls, Emma, talking to Truc in a sneering voice. "Listen, Fob, have you ever seen a movie that wasn't a bootleg?" Truc immediately burst into tears.
Stunned, Tricia, the group leader, and a few other kids drew in their breath.
Tricia opened her mouth to start talking, but Will beat her to it, stopping Emma and asking, "What did you say?"
"Nothing," she said sullenly.
"What's that mean?" he asked Tricia.
"Fob means fresh off the boat. It's a nasty thing to say to another person."
Will's brows knit together and he looked at Emma. "That's not cool," he said in a low and dangerous voice. "You and me, we're gonna have a talk about prejudice. With everyone. Now."
He stopped the group and made them gather around.
"My mom's from Spain. She speaks Spanish. Marie's dad is Mexican. He was a migrant farmworker. That's how she grew up. We have people here from different countries, or their parents were from different countries, and we treat the
m all with respect.
"Prejudice is when you judge someone based on what they look like, not on who they are. We all do it. I do it myself. Do it all the time. I did it to my girl here, Marie, because I thought she was a lazy liberal." He smiled. "Turns out she's a caring, hardworking person who doesn't deserve to be judged like that. But words can hurt. Would you want to be called what you called Truc?" he asked Emma.
"No," she said quietly, but still petulant.
"Where you did you learn that word?" Will made a very good authority figure.
"At school," she said in the same voice.
"Do you think Truc likes to be called that?"
"No."
"Yeah," he said, looking at me. "People can prejudge each other. Words can hurt. I've done it myself. Let's make a pact, you and me, that we aren't going to call anyone names on my property. I'm not going to do it and you're not going to do it and everyone else here is not going to do it."
"Okay," whispered Emma.
"Okay," whispered Will back to her. Then in a louder voice, he asked everyone, "Are any of you going to call anyone names on my property?"
"No," the chorus came back.
"Good," said Will. And he came over to me, held my hand, and led everyone over the corrals.
Marie Got an Idea
FOR THE REST OF the week, the kids from Oakland rode horses, made crafts, took care of all of the different farm animals, and generally had a blast. After a rough start with the terrible campfire, the earthquake, and the overt racial slur, the group responded by bonding. I saw Emma talking with Truc several times at meals, James smiled at me once, and Enrique put his phone away in his duffle bag.
Both Maurice and Tricia came up to me and told me that they were going to do the program again next year. Success. Having no phones, no television, no distractions—except for friends to talk to and animals to take care of—really made it a place to put aside differences and make connections. I loved it. It felt like a perfect world. A utopia.
The Stars in the Sky (Giving You ... #2) Page 12