You want my bare cock to pour its molten steel into you, striking something beautiful in your forge, a little gift for you and I?”
My lips opened in a pleasurable grimace. He'd released my clit, shallowly orbiting it as he increased his pressure.
I'd been exposed. Rather than feeling mortified, I felt a massive weight lift off me, and the new emptiness could only be occupied by one thing.
I came hard. Vigorous energy slithered up my back, biting in my brain stem like a sudden shock.
My body lurched and I kicked in his hands. Ethan rubbed harder, drawing his face to my breasts to suckle and nip, sending me careening into that abyss I loved so well.
Even in the ropes and his arms, I swore I was floating. The sky above me opened in dense fire, and the only sounds in that hot, silent place were screams of pure pleasure.
Slowly, haltingly, I recovered. His hands weren't pressed in my aching cleft anymore, but gently wrapped around my body.
Ethan had climbed up on the bed, right between my legs, while I was deep in bliss. His pants were off and he was naked.
“I can give you what you want, little Cat. Maybe not tonight, but soon. Let's have a taste of your desire, sticky and sweet. Let's taste it together.”
Before I could answer, he covered me in a fiery kiss. My wet mound arched up and felt his naked erection.
His body shifted over me, covering me, giving no time for second thoughts as he wedged it at my opening. He slid into me without a condom.
The realization almost left me senseless. With only a few jerks and a grand explosion, he had the power to get me pregnant, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I imagined my belly growing with his seed, his essence, conquering me from the inside out.
The raw heat the visions brought my blood swelled everything. My lips, my nipples, my
clit...everything was on fire.
I stretched my legs wide for him, until the black ropes tugged angrily at my feet. Having the rubber skin stripped away made an incalculably awesome difference.
He penetrated deep, letting the swollen head of his bulge tease the opening to my womb. I sucked in his breath as we kissed, wishing I could melt into him, sticky and oozing together at both openings.
The bed springs sang loudly as we rocked together, drunk on our cocktail of love and risk. I didn't think his deep strokes could feel even better than before – but then I hadn't had him or any other man bare before.
Ethan thundered on, grunting as he buried himself in my wet softness, thundering with every thrust and snorting like an animal. He wrapped his hands beneath me, clawing at my ass, pulling me onto his rigid shaft.
Holy shit. He isn't giving me any choice. He's going to shoot off deep inside me, and I'm going to have his baby.
His baby...
The pleasurable thought made me wince. It was all too much.
Our loins smashed together in harder, faster strokes. I swallowed him all the way to his heavy balls, feeling his neat crop of pubic hair grinding against my clit.
The delectable friction went several orders beyond any heat I'd ever known. He rampaged faster, wildly tearing at me from the inside out, setting my deepest nerves ablaze like a vast forest fire.
I came, alarmed at the way my body sucked so violently at his erection. Somehow, it knew exactly what it wanted, and how close it was to taking his seed.
Ethan screamed with me. “You're...you're so fucking tight! What is this?”
His voice hitched and he punched into me one last time. I don't know how he pulled out just in time.
My rolling eyes cracked open and saw him scream, foaming with reluctant pleasure. He gripped his cock in one fist and held it above my mound.
Oh, no. He's leaving me when he was so close. He's still got his reason while I've been reduced to carnal madness...
His seed sprayed out in rushing jets, a torrent of burning cream. The jets hurtled across my stomach, landing on my breasts. And they kept coming and coming, as if they were synced to my own climax's intense waves.
It was only as the pleasure dissipated that I felt the terrible burn in my limbs. I'd really done a number on myself fighting the restraints.
I collapsed in a tired heap. Ethan wasn't far behind, but he held himself up, sliding off the bed and wandering across the room for a wipe to clean me up.
“Did you really mean what you said?” I asked. My wrists flexed happily as soon as he freed my hands.
“I'm not the kinda guy who says what he doesn't mean. One of these days, I will get you pregnant Cat. You're not the only one who's itching for a baby in these parts. Good women are hard to find out here in the country. And beautiful, perfect women – well, that's another story altogether.”
Outside, the humid morning air reminded me of his kiss. The long walk had drenched my jeans and panties in sticky wetness, and not just from my body desperately cooling itself.
I remembered our sex, how close we'd come to making what any normal person would've thought was a terrible mistake. But to me, in that moment, I wanted his baby more than anything in the world.
It was right to me. I didn't care what the rest of the world thought.
I steeled myself as I rounded the spot near Pa's memorial. The silvery cross had sunken sadly into the moist soil.
My heart grew heavy, and I moved quickly toward it, intending to straighten things up. But as I got closer, I soon noticed it wasn't just the cross that was out of place.
A bleached white object with a tiny hat sat beneath the sunken cross. My stomach did a loop, and I bent myself to catch my knees when I was only a couple feet away.
There was no mistaking it. Someone had thrown the heavy skull of a cow near his grave, and capped it with a miniature straw hat – the very same shape and color he used to wear.
I turned into the weeds near the side of the road and heaved.
I didn't lose my breakfast, but I came dangerously close. Thank God for small favors.
What the hell is going on here? What kind of savage fucking lunatic would do something like this?
My nausea waned, replaced by seething anger. I aimed my boot and kicked the skull as hard as I could.
The new boots were thick enough to block out any pain, but I felt the harsh recoil through my leather.
The big mass of bone rolled a few inches, tipping its hat to the ground.
“Pa...God, I'm so sorry.”
My hands dove into the mud. I felt for the base of the cross and struggled to get a grip. Finally, it began to rise, catching the faint sunlight straining its way through the clouds.
When it had grown several inches, I stood, satisfied for now. The skull – the warning? – lay halfway on its side.
Sighing, I picked it up, despising the leaden weight in my hands. I retreated to the house and dropped it in the garbage can outside.
Back in the kitchen, using pumice soap to strip the dirt off my hands, my knees buckled. I grabbed for a towel to dry my hands, but ended up using it to blot away the uncomfortable sweat pouring off my throbbing head.
I barely made it over to a chair near the table before I collapsed. It was like some evil spirit had sucked all my energy, leaving me a walking shell of a woman.
Shell shocked, I thought, recalling the term from a European history class I'd taken to satisfy an arts requirement in college.
Widespread panic attacks among soldiers in the First World War had made psychologists sit up and take notice for the first time.
It's okay. You need to breathe.
It took nearly a full half hour before I could rise again. When I was on my feet, I leaned across the table, reaching for the phone.
I started to dial the police, but stopped halfway through. Lips tense, I slammed it back into its place, only to pick it up again several seconds later.
The man I needed to deal with this didn't wear a uniform or keep regular hours. Ethan answered after about ten rings. I smiled, knowing he was probably sleeping in a little
after our long night together.
“Ethan, it's me,” I said, the stutter in my voice betraying me right away. “Something's happened. I really, really need you to come over here and take a look at this.”
V: Survival Instinct
I'd never seen him so angry before. As soon as he looked at the skull grinning in the dark garbage can, he flushed red, fished it out, and hurled it at the cement steps leading up to my house.
The bone clattered loudly to the ground with a new hole punched in its side. I patted his shoulders cautiously, urging him to take deep, slow breaths.
Jesus. And here I thought I was the one who needed calming down.
“What's up with you, baby? Why are you acting like this?”
“You can't stay here now,” he said simply, grabbing my hand and leading me inside. “Sit down.”
We plopped down at the kitchen table, staring across at one another. He must've seen the messy confusion in my eyes, just as I saw the inexplicable outrage lighting up his.
“If I were you, Cat, I'd call up my closest relatives and pay them a visit for a good, long while. This isn't good. This isn't good at all.” He unfolded his hands and cut through the air, giving added emphasis to words that really felt like overkill.
“That's crazy!” I burst out. “I can't leave this place now that things are finally running. And with all that money up there –“
“Yeah, the money. I'd bet every dime to my name that it's the number one reason you had this skull show up on your poor father's site. They know it's here somewhere, and they will be back.”
“Okay, Ethan. I need you to tell me right now who they are. What the fuck is going on here?” I stopped, balling my hands into fists and not unclenching them until I filled my lungs completely full of sorely needed oxygen.
“There's active drug runners around here. Some cartel or something that's using nice, out of the way places like this as a staging ground on the last leg of their trip up to Canada.” He paused, watching my face wrinkle.
“Damned police won't admit to it. It's been like this for a couple years now. I wanted to say something sooner, but you were still reeling from your Pa's death.” He looked up, eying my face cautiously.
I exhaled sharply. Part of me, I knew, should've been angry.
Or at least irked that the one man who could've given me all the information after Pa's murder hadn't been totally forthcoming. But then, he had a good point.
I shook my head slowly. It was a lot to take it.
“I'm not mad. I just need to know what you do. Please, tell me the rest. All of it.”
“There isn't much more to know. I bought myself a newer shotgun last winter. The cold months are pretty dead for them – they don't come around. But as soon as Spring hits, the bastard are back, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna end up like Mister Nichols.”
“I'm not either. And I'm not leaving!” I slammed my fist onto the table, reinforcing my determination the only way I knew how.
“I don't want you to go, little Cat. God, I don't.” He took off his hat, running one hand over his forehead through the short crop of hair. “But you aren't safe here. Hate to point out the obvious, but your Pa was involved with those bandits somewhere along the line.”
“He wasn't a criminal!” I snapped.
“I know. Nobody said he was. These guys thrive on blackmail sometimes. Could've been as simple as forcing him to store their loot here, maybe even their drugs. Do you see now, Cat? We're decent people, and it's a battle just to understand anything about their world. How can you be safe if you don't even know your enemy?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He got me.
“I just...I can't leave this place. It's all I have left. If I need to, I'll burn every last fucking dollar up there. I swear that I will. I won't be forced off my family's ranch.”
Ethan stared at me in cold silence. When he moved again, he reached across the table, grasping my hands tightly in his.
“I understand what it's like to be bound to your land. This ranch is your home in every sense of the word. You feel it even now, don't you?” He watched me tilt my face, questioning what he meant.
“Blood and soil. All the generations that have lived and died here. All the men and women who came before you, probably facing down greater problems than a bunch of crack slinging degenerates.”
I was too lost in his words to speak myself. His hands felt good, though.
He grounded me when the world had thinned, and it felt like I'd simply drift away. But not while I was tethered to him. All I could do was increase my hold on him, the only thing that kept me from losing myself.
“If you won't leave, then let me help. I won't sit idly by a couple miles away and let something horrible happen. Please, Cat. Let me be your protector.”
I swallowed hard, feeling my heart swell up several sizes. No one had ever offered to put their life on the line for me.
After several years in the city, I didn't even think such a thing was possible. The urban boxes of glass and concrete have their dangers, but they're easily forgettable just by hopping off to the nearest bar or lounge.
Out here, people still defended themselves, and they took everything dead seriously.
“Okay. I can deal with that,” I whispered.
“I'm going to spend more nights here with you. Even if I gotta get up at dawn and haul ass back to my own place. Last thing I'd do is step on your toes running this place during the day. It's really the night where you're gonna need my help.”
He wasn't lying. My father had been murdered at night and found in the morning. Somewhere in the mysterious blackness cut with rain, the skull had appeared too, as if from a dream.
“And what am I supposed to make of that head out there?” Part of me didn't want to ask the question, but a bigger part of me forced it out. I had to know.
“You don't know?” He echoed, eyes wide. “It's a warning. These gangs might be violent savages who deserve the nearest grave, but they do have a certain...code.”
Ethan hesitated. He lowered his hands from mine and grabbed the edge of the table, close to tipping his chair several inches off its legs.
“I don't understand.”
“They give people fair warning, Cat. Fair in their minds, anyway. I don't really get it myself, but it's the way they run. Obviously, they know the money's still here, and they're giving you another chance to turn it over.”
I filled the long silence between us with my thoughts, struggling to digest it all. If either of us smoked, somebody would've lit up during the anxious and heavily pregnant stillness in the air.
“What if I just give it to them?”
“You kidding? You can't negotiate with animals like this. Yeah, part of it's probably theirs, as much as a thief and a murderer can own his wealth.” His knuckles bulged as his fingers tightened on the table's edge.
“Even if you gave it up, there's no guarantee they wouldn't do something anyway. That's the kind of guys we're dealing with. Soon as you give them what they want, they'll put a bullet in your spine just for the fun of it.”
An icy loop ran up from the base of my spine. The way he said do something sounded like the most general phrase in the world, but I knew it was filled with a hundred painful possibilities.
“You're right. I can't take the coward's way out,” I said. “Pa must've been cut in somewhere along the line for storing their crap here. Right or wrong, that money belongs to me now. It's the way he would've wanted it.”
Ethan smiled and nodded. “That's right, little Cat. You're really starting to get it now.”
We said our goodbyes for the day and he promised to return by sundown. By the time he pulled out, the first guys were starting to arrive.
Jimmy came up to the house and asked about the smashed up skull he saw beneath the stairs. I laughed it off as a prank Ethan had brought by to cheer me up.
No need to let anyone else know about this. This is your fight, and yours alone.
That wasn't strictly true, of course. I'd certainly involved Ethan, almost without any choice in the matter.
But I needed him. No one else on the ranch, perhaps no one else in the world, could give me the kind of strength I needed to face down the storm about to settle over us.
I worked on the ranch's supply reports and financials until nightfall. Ethan's truck appeared on time, just as the evening devoured the last of the sun's light.
He brought beer, big steaks, and fresh asparagus for dinner. We cooked them up together and ate quietly.
His presence alone was enough to send a happy glow arcing through me. I'd been alone in the house so long I'd missed having someone else around outside the bedroom.
Halfway through dinner, a shrill howl ripped through the half-open window, followed by several loud barks.
I dropped my fork, startled. Then I listened closely, tuning my airs to the distant, chipper yelps.
“Coyotes,” we said in unison.
I smiled. I hadn't heard their trademark night song for years. Not since Pa and I shared similar dinners, or sometimes when we took his antique telescope outside on clear nights to gaze at the moon's craters.
“They're getting to be pretty rare in these parts. My grandfather always told me there were a lot more of them in his heyday.” Ethan looked past me toward the window, as if he were trying to spot the animals through miles of darkness.
“Yeah, Pa said the same thing. Guess they've been run off over the years by too many farmers guarding their fields. Least it's one less thing to worry about.”
“Sure, but you know what? I'd take the coyotes any day over the dangerous animals we've got rolling in now.”
The distant animal howled again, and this time it wasn't so comforting. It was a sorrowful, feral sound, a shrill music that contained the wild loneliness of the plains.
We cleaned up and I wrapped my small arms around his waist, steeling myself in his hard strength.
“Guess we'd better get upstairs,” I said.
The day had been too taxing to leave me with any surplus energy for sex. Part of me was surprised he didn't make a move when he laid down together.
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