by Kristi Gold
Bobby growled and then went in search of Mitch’s keys, running his hands up Stella’s blouse like a security guard doing a strip search. Stella squealed and said, “You brute!” but didn’t put up one ounce of a fight.
And just like that, Bobby and Stella were kissing and groping like a couple of horny kids, as if all were forgotten, especially that Tori and Mitch were standing there, playing witness to their foreplay.
Tori turned her back on the disgusting scene and told them, “Get a room.”
And they did, running hand in hand into the bedroom adjacent to the living room, slamming the door behind them. Tori stared at the closed door, mouth agape and totally shocked into silence.
“Which one of us is going to get my keys?”
Tori turned to Mitch and shook her head. “Not me. Not on your life. You should have put them in your pocket.”
“That’s the last thing I wanted, Bobby rifling through my pocket.” Mitch ran a hand over the back of his neck. “What do you propose I use to get home?”
“Stella’s car?”
“You have any idea where she keeps her keys?”
Tori visually searched the room. “In her purse, which is probably in the bedroom with her and Bobby. So I guess you can either call a cab, walk or wait.” She really hoped he’d choose the last option.
“No cabs in Quail Run, and no way am I going to walk twenty miles in forty-degree weather.” He sauntered over to the floral sofa and set his long, lean body down on the cushions, easy as you please. “I’ll wait.”
Suddenly very warm, and very thrilled, Tori slipped out of the black leather jacket and hung it on the hook by the opening leading to the kitchen before facing Mitch again. “You know, it could take a while.”
“Probably not. Bobby’s pretty drunk. I’m not sure he can even get it…” He rubbed his shadowed jaw. “Get anything done.”
Tori had no doubt Mitch could get it done, and quite sufficiently, drunk or not. But he wasn’t drunk, and neither was Tori, except she felt rather woozy seeing Mitch leaning back on the sofa, his raven hair shining in the light since he’d left his hat in the truck, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his large hands clasped over his board-flat belly, right above the big gleaming silver-and-gold belt buckle, and below that, the big….
Tori forced her gaze back to his eyes. “Bobby’s been here the past two nights. From what I’ve heard, he’s rather…determined.” So was Tori, determined not to faint over the sheer maleness of Mitch Warner.
“Don’t mind me,” he said. “You can go on to bed.”
Don’t mind me? How could she possibly ignore him? “You’re sitting on my bed, Mitch.”
His grin arrived slowly, bearing down on Tori with the force of an eighteen-wheeler hell-bent for the border. “Oh, yeah? I thought Stella had a spare room.”
“She does, but it’s full of boxes and furniture ready for the move to the ranch where Bobby works.”
“Bobby works for me.”
Another shocking revelation. “She didn’t tell me that.”
“Well, he does.” Mitch patted the seat beside him. “Come here. We can talk while Stella and Bob take care of business.”
Tori thought it might be better if she suggested they sit at the dinette, not on her makeshift bed, in case she found it difficult to behave. But she was so drawn in by Mitch’s diamond-blue gaze that she moved toward the sofa as if he were pulling her forward with an invisible lasso.
She dropped down beside him, keeping a decent berth between them, in case she did forget herself and tackled his fine cowboy bod.
They remained silent for a few moments while Tori worked up the nerve to tell him what she did for a living and then ask him for an official interview. But before she could open her mouth, the trouble commenced, beginning with an “Oh, baby,” then an “Oh, Bobby, oh, Bobby, ohhhh….” The thumping against the wall behind the sofa sent both Mitch and Tori off the couch simultaneously.
“Get your jacket and let’s get out of here,” Mitch said.
Tori complied and met Mitch at the front entrance. “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere but here,” he said as he opened the door.
They walked to the truck but when Tori headed for the passenger side, Mitch said, “I locked it.”
She faced him again. “No one locks their vehicles in Quail Run.”
“I do. I never know when some reporter is going to get it in their head to rummage though my glove box, looking for family secrets.”
Tori swallowed hard. Maybe now wasn’t a good time to tell him she was a reporter. She’d wait and do it tomorrow night, after the wedding, since she assumed it was still on. The honeymoon obviously was.
On the brink of freezing to the sidewalk, Tori pulled her jacket tighter around her. “Okay, so now what do you suggest we do? Go for a walk?” She nodded toward the closest neighbor’s house, which happened to be one pasture over. “We could beg the Wilsons for mercy.”
Mitch strode to the back of the truck and pulled the tailgate down. “We can get back here for the time being. I have some hay and a couple of heavy blankets. That’ll keep us warm until Stella cries uncle. Or, ‘Oh, Bobby!’”
Tori had no doubt that being under a blanket with Mitch Warner would keep her very warm and could get her into serious trouble. But that didn’t stop her from saying, “Okay. Guess it’s the best we can do for now.”
Mitch stepped up into the pickup’s bed and held out his hand to help Tori up. Turning his back on her, he crouched down and pulled a wire cutter from the built-in metal toolbox backed up to the cab, snapping the string of wire binding the hay bale while Tori stood on the tailgate and watched.
After scattering some hay and laying a blanket over it, he sat and again patted the spot beside him. “Soft as a feather bed.”
As dangerous as one, too, Tori thought. But her teeth were about to chatter right out of her head if she didn’t get some heat.
She slipped down beside Mitch where he covered them both with a red-and-black plaid blanket that smelled faintly of hay and oats, their heads propped against the partial bale of hay padding the toolbox. They stared straight ahead, the silence broken only by the occasional gust of wind whistling around them and rustling the leaves in the nearby maple tree. The lone guard light and a sliver of the moon high in the sky provided the only real illumination in the clear, dark night.
“I really can’t believe that just happened,” Tori said, the heat of her blush offering some relief from the biting cold.
“Me neither. Didn’t know old Bobby had it in him.”
“Obviously he does since Stella’s pregnant.”
Tori could feel his gaze lingering over her, caressing her as did his deep, seductive voice when he said, “I wonder if they broke the bed.”
“If they haven’t by now, it’s a pretty sturdy bed.”
“So you’ve had to put up with that every night?”
“Yep, every night. And every time Stella started with the Oh, Bobby, I rolled my eyes and said, ‘Oh, brother.’” She turned her head and found he’d turned to his side to face her. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, isn’t it?”
He smiled, giving the moon and stars some hefty competition. “Which part? The moaning or the fact that they’re that passionate about each other?”
Tori rolled to her side, bringing their faces so close she could feel the whisper of his breath against her forehead. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just jealous. My boyfriend never said, Oh, Tori! during…you know.”
He frowned. “I thought you didn’t have a boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected. “We broke up a few months ago.”
“What went wrong?”
Everything. “He stayed in Oklahoma City when I moved to Dallas. We tried the long-distance relationship for a while, but it didn’t last.”
“Did you try phone sex?” he asked in an amused tone.
“A guy who considers reading a stock market report as for
eplay isn’t inclined to having phone sex.”
“Yeah, well he must’ve been a real idiot.”
“Honestly, Mike was a nice guy. Just not all that romantic.” And not all that easy to love.
“Does that interest you, having someone talking to you during sex?”
Tori shivered at the way Mitch had said the word “sex” as if he literally knew all the ins and outs. She trembled from the way he studied her with those heavenly blue eyes that made her want to sing a tribute. “I can’t really say what I prefer since I haven’t had that much experience. I’ve only had the one boyfriend.”
When Mitch pulled the blanket up under their chins, Tori remembered he didn’t have on a jacket. “You must be freezing since you’re only wearing a shirt.”
“Two shirts, and I’m pretty hot-natured.”
He was simply hot, Tori decided, and shivered again.
“But you’re cold, so let me give you some of my heat,” he said in a low, slow-burn voice. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, doing exactly as he’d promised—giving her his heat. And Tori absorbed that heat in some places that were more than adequately covered.
Noting his lip was beginning to swell more, she carefully touched the corner of his mouth above the cut. “You should really make Bobby pay dearly for this.”
He surveyed her face for a long moment before his gaze came to rest on her mouth. “Yeah. Bobby owes me for a lot of things, especially for his damn interruption back in the bar.”
“No kidding,” she said, surprised at how winded she sounded. Even more surprised when Mitch kissed her forehead, her cheek, then rested his oh-so-warm lips against hers.
Tori pulled back. “If we do this, your mouth is going to hurt.”
“Not if you kiss it and make it better.”
Oh, jeez. Oh, gosh. Oh, my, Tori’s final thought when Mitch parted her lips with his tongue, slipping it inside her agreeable mouth.
He tilted his head to avoid touching the slight cut to her lips, but he had no trouble at all kissing her completely, moving his tongue against hers, softly, painstakingly though he didn’t appear to be in any pain. Tori was. She ached like the devil from wanting him, knowing that only he could make her particular ache all better.
As the kiss went on and on, deeper and deeper, hotter and hotter, Tori reasoned that the tension that had been building between them in the bar, the sounds of Stella’s and Bobby’s lovemaking, the sex talk, had added kindling to the campfire. The combination was proving hazardous, threatening to drive them to a possible point of no return. Unless she stopped Mitch, and soon.
But Tori didn’t stop him. She didn’t want to stop him. Not when he kept kissing her until she thought she’d go up in a blaze of glory. Not when he tugged her sweater up and slipped his hand underneath to cup her breast through black lace. Not when he worked the front closure of her bra, opening it with ease.
She gasped when he contacted her bare flesh.
“I’m sorry my hands are so cold,” he murmured in her ear, but kept his callused fingertips working her already rigid nipple.
“Your hands are wonderful,” she said, prompting him to kiss her again, this time more deeply, more ardently, more suggestively as he moved his tongue back and forth, imitating the act foremost on her mind.
The next thing Tori knew, she was on her back on the blanket-covered hay and Mitch was partially on top of her, still kneading her breasts with finesse, first one, then the other. She didn’t care that they were in a truck bed, not a real bed. She didn’t care that it was cold as a well digger’s shovel. She didn’t care about anything when Mitch lifted her shirt completely, burrowed his way beneath the blanket, and replaced his hand with his lips.
His mouth was definitely hot and so was his tongue that flicked across her nipple before he suckled her with an unyielding tug that made her want to cry, Oh, Mitch!
Tori totally abandoned any arguments against this as she slid her fingers through his silky black hair. She’d never felt so carefree in her life, so totally consumed by a man with a mouth that should be registered as a weapon since it was shooting holes in her common sense.
She was keenly aware of Mitch’s erection pressing against her thigh, the movement of his hips grinding against her, telling her exactly what he needed without saying a word.
Mitch lifted his mouth from her breasts, came up from beneath the blanket and kissed her again, still off-centered but still as effective.
He broke the kiss and whispered, “I want you, Tori, so tell me to stop.”
Stop! her mind called out as he worked the button on her pants. Stop! sounded again as he tracked her zipper down. Stop! filtered into her hazy brain as he pushed the leather pants and her panties down her hips to her thighs.
Don’t stop! was the voice she chose to heed when he sifted his fingertips through the covering of curls, finding the source of all that need she desperately needed him to satisfy. And he did, with small circular motions, coming nearer and nearer until he hit the mark, causing her hips to rise abruptly from the jolt.
Mitch muttered, “Easy, babe,” before kissing her again, not once halting his slow, deliberate ministrations.
“Easy” would describe Tori at the moment and what Mitch probably considered her to be, but again she didn’t have the will or wherewithal to stop this, stop him.
She moaned against his mouth when he fondled her with the pad of his thumb and slipped a finger inside her, then another. Such a sweet invasion, such a skilled man, her final grasp on reality before the climax completely took over all reasoning with a pulsating rhythm and sharp, succinct spasms.
But it simply wasn’t enough, and wouldn’t be until she had all of Mitch. She pulled his denim shirt and T-shirt from his waistband as he had hers, reached up beneath both and glided her palm down the flat plane of his abdomen, over the slight spattering of hair at his navel that thinned when it reached his waistband. It took two hands to loosen the buckle, and two seconds for Mitch to halt the kiss and suck in a deep breath when she released the snap and lowered his fly. He pulled her against his chest and tucked her head beneath his chin. But that didn’t prevent her from going forward, going all the way.
He exhaled slowly when she opened his jeans and tugged at his briefs, freeing him. She worked her palms beneath his shirts once more, over the taut terrain of his broad chest, pausing to touch his nipples, then back down, back up again, heating her palms from the friction, sufficiently warming them up so she could do some exploring of her own.
But she didn’t have that opportunity since Mitch rose up on his knees, threw back the blanket, pulled her pants and underwear down to her ankles, pushed his jeans and briefs down to his thighs and then pushed inside her before she could draw her next breath.
“Oh, man,” Mitch said.
“Oh, wow,” she murmured, now totally, completely addicted to the feel of his weight, his tempered thrusts stoking the fire, burning away the last of the cold with his body. Big body…every bit of it.
She ran her palms over his muscled back then down to his buttocks to feel the power as he moved, a little faster and harder each time.
Amazing, Tori thought as he slid his hands beneath her bottom and pulled her fast against him. Incredible was another thought when he whispered sexy words in her ear—words that would send a proper Southern mother for the soap. His breath came in sharp gasps at her ear, hers came in soft puffs as he stroked her with his body and his hand again, and again. Thrust again and again and again…
The second orgasm hit Tori like a tidal wave, knocking her back into oblivion. Mitch’s body went rigid in her arms and he stopped moving altogether.
Everything seemed to stop then as Tori shuddered from the impact and Mitch released a long hiss between his teeth, then collapsed against her.
After a time, the stars came back into view, the world started turning again, the cold nipped at her nose and rode out on a fog from her parted lips. But Tori knew that although everything see
med to be back to normal, except for her heartbeat, she would never, ever be the same again. Never.
* * *
This wasn’t the first time Mitch Warner had made love to a woman in the bed of a truck, but that had been years ago when no other options had been available. It was the first time he’d totally lost control to the point he’d felt like he’d had an out-of-body experience. And the first time that he’d been so tuned into a lover that he’d failed to use a condom.
He thought he should probably move off of Tori, offer some lame excuse for his carelessness, but he didn’t have the strength. The cold night air bit at the back of his bare thighs and if he didn’t at least cover himself, the tails of his shirt might freeze to his butt. If he didn’t roll away from Tori, they might freeze this way only to be discovered by the sheriff tomorrow morning, still tangled together, not such an unappealing prospect. But if he didn’t get Tori back in the house, he would be tempted to go at it again, not a great idea considering he’d already screwed up once in the protection department, and he hated to think what the consequences might be. Stella and Bob would be the first ones to tell them that unprotected sex leads to unplanned pregnancy.
“I guess this is probably a good time to tell you I’ve never done this before,” Tori said against his shoulder.
Stunned, Mitch raised his head and stared down at her beautiful face. No way would he have not known she was a virgin. Mary Alice had been one all those years ago, but then so had he. He sure as hell wasn’t a novice now. He would have known. “I thought you said that you and your boyfriend—”
“I meant I’ve never had sex with someone I’ve just met. Ever.”
Mitch couldn’t lay claim to that, but for the past decade, he’d settled for convenience and comfort with Mary Alice instead of hot, unrestrained sex with a virtual stranger—hot unprotected sex—until tonight. Until Tori.
Finally, he rolled away from her onto his back, reached down and pulled the blanket back into place, not only to keep her warm but also to keep the temptation to make love to her again corralled.
After they pulled their clothes back into place, redid and re-snapped, they resumed their original positions staring at the sky, not touching, not speaking, until Mitch couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to know exactly how dire their situation might be.