by Kate Sheperd
Karissa realized that he was sorting through things and that, in reality, his concern, in that moment, was for her. Though the question was a little bit too direct, it was a sign that Buck Kaufman was, once again, trying to be his old self. “Things could have been better for me too.”
Buck’s mind was beginning to catch up to the conversation. He wasn’t sure how she wanted him to proceed from that point forward, but he knew that he had to step up to the plate. He struggled with how to tell her that. “I, uh, I… I’ll take responsibility and do right by you.” The words came out hollow and he knew they weren’t the right ones, but they were the only ones that he could put together in that moment.
“I guess I don’t know what I was expecting you to say,” she replied. “But that wasn’t it.”
“Jesus, Karissa,” he began, and then softened his tone. “I’ve spent the last several weeks staring down the neck of a bottle while I tried to kill the ache of losing the ranch. There aren’t a lot of things in my future or even my present that are very clear to me right now.”
She knew he was speaking the truth. Maybe she had expected too much from the meeting. Over the past several weeks, she had sorted through her feelings about him and about the two of them. She had realized that, though they came from entirely different worlds and she was just beginning to understand his, she had grown to love him. The release of her pent up passion on the leather sofa of her office had been an enormous surprise to her, though, throughout the following weeks she had begun to see that it was inevitable.
Though things had become strange between them, she had understood that he was going to need some space and time to get over the enormous loss that he’d suffered. In reality, she too needed some time to work on her own guilt for being a part of that loss. Her hope had been that once they’d both settled things for themselves, they’d come back together again. She had been tossed into her own brand of confusion when she’d discovered that she was pregnant. It hadn’t come at a very good time for either of them.
She decided to make an attempt at doing what she’d seen him do so many times. Maybe it would loosen things up between them. “Hell of a time for me to be getting’ pregnant, huh?” she ventured. She knew that she’d said the right thing when she saw the corner of his upper lip twitch into a grin.
“I don’t suppose there’s ever a good time.”
She decided to answer his question. “I’ve been okay; neither good nor bad. I guess I’ve just forced myself to keep going, but I haven’t really been happy. Is that what you’re asking?”
“After a fashion, I suppose.” He looked up at her for a long moment without speaking. The emptiness that had been in his eyes was slowly filling up with life again. Being in the light wasn’t hurting as bad as it did before and being in her presence had provided some sort of healing power to him. The man who had crawled inside the bottle was coming back out and trying to stand up again. “You look a hell of a lot better than I do.”
He looked down at his filthy, sweat-stained t-shirt and jeans. He was suddenly aware of his own stench as well. As long as he was looking and smelling the way he was, he really couldn’t expect himself to really make the turn around. He was ashamed of himself. His failures had been a heavy load to bear, but to have collapsed under their weight the way he had was suddenly a hundred times worse to him. He couldn’t stand to continue sitting with her as long as he was in that condition.
“Can I as a favor?” he asked.
“Sure,” she responded, wondering what he could possibly want her to do for him.
“Can I ask you to get the hell out of here and let me clean up? This is embarrassing.”
Realizing how she would feel if their roles were reversed, she stood. “Jesus, Buck, I’m sorry. Maybe I should have called first.”
“No, you did the right thing,” he replied. “Just, let me get myself together and then I’ll come join you for dinner later.”
She took a step toward him to give him a hug, but he stepped back, refusing her. “Not right now.”
Disappointed, but fully understanding, she turned away and took several steps. She heard the screen door on the porch close behind her. She stopped and turned back. “Buck, I’ve fallen in love with you.” With that said, not waiting for a response, she hurried to her car.
VI.
Her words as she was leaving him out at Charlie’s place had struck him deeply. He’d never imagined that she’d felt that way about him. He’d felt similar stirrings of his own, but he’d denied allowing himself to feel them given his circumstances and the way that he had reacted to his loss. Cleaned up and in a better frame of mind, they had met for dinner, picking up casual conversation in almost the same place that they had left it before the court ruling and the weeks of hell that had followed.
The week that followed found the two of them recovering their relationship, though it was done more in her world than in his. There were no horses, no wide open spaces and no gentle breezes to set the tone, but they discovered that those things were no longer necessary. Without the divorce lingering over their heads, they felt liberated from the trappings that had surrounded them before. When Karissa invited him back to her place, it was a signal that they had finally come full circle and were beginning to see a future together for the two of them.
Buck hadn’t forgotten the words that he’d heard come from her mouth and pass through the screen door of the bunkhouse, neither had he forgotten the response of his leaping heart and quickening pulse. He’d buried every feeling he’d had in the bottle of a whiskey bottle and, until that moment hadn’t allowed them to surface again. When Karissa set aside their glasses and took his hand to lead him toward her bedroom, he pulled back against her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, watching his eyes for some signal of what was going on in his mind.
“You said something to me when you were out at Charlie’s place a week or so ago,” he replied.
Karissa could remember the entire conversation, but there was only one thing that she had said that had really stuck out in her mind since that day. Was it the same thing? She waited silently for him to tell her.
“You pulled me up out of the hole that I’d dug for myself. Hell, had you not come along, I might have ended up dead. Though I didn’t know it at the time, the moment that I saw you standing in that doorway and heard your voice…” He paused for a moment. “I knew that I was in love with you too. With my mind clear, I know that I still am.”
“Cowboy,” she grinned, pulling even harder on his hand as she tugged him along behind her. “I already knew that. If you don’t get me back in that bedroom and get rid of these clothes so that we can make love right this instant, then I’m the one who is going to wind up dead.”
The passion that had come upon them on the leather sofa had returned and they had already started to shed items of clothing on their way to her bedroom. Once they arrived in the room, shucking the remaining clothes was a matter of desperation and they tended to it as quickly as they could, but then the pace slowed as he stepped toward her gazing deep into her eyes.
Where they had rushed in blind passion before, Buck took his time to examine her body and caress her smooth skin. It appeared to Karissa that he was memorizing every inch of her and drinking it all in for some later time. Little did she know that he’d endured fantasies of seeing her before him in that way and had kicked himself for not having taken his time before. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
The feel of him caressing her was only intensified by the way his eyes would meet hers and sparkle with hints of his delight as he explored and enjoyed certain areas of her flesh. When his mouth and lips tenderly came to her, she felt her knees begin to weaken and was afraid that she might collapse. She took several steps backward and pulled him down onto the bed.
Though he might have taken her in that very moment, he continued to linger, kissing, caressing and exploring her body, just like he had been doing before. It was torturously s
low. She was aching with desire to feel him inside of her, yet his delicious touch was sending so many electrically charged tingles throughout her body that she couldn’t bear stopping him.
The ache inside of her continued to build, especially when his mouth found the smooth mound between her thighs and then began to work its magic on the erect bud that was throbbing with desire below it. Her ache grew at the mercy of his mouth until an explosion of pleasure that radiated throughout her body forced a growl of pleasure out of her throat.
Encouraged by her climax, Buck moved up between her thighs, moving as slowly and tenderly as he had before, but Karissa was having none of that. Reaching between her thighs, she grasped his rigid erection and guided it inside of her, gasping at the feeling of fullness that it provided.
He began with long, slow strokes that allowed her to feel every inch of him, but soon increased the pace and the strength of them until the two of them were rushing toward a climax together. It would be the first of many that they enjoyed that night. Between them, they continued to caress each other and kiss while gazing into each other’s eyes until the light of dawn began to spill in through a slit in the curtains.
“I guess you know that I don’t have a lot to take care of you and the baby,” he confessed as they were, once again, trying to catch their breath. “It isn’t much of a start, but like I told you before, I’ll do my be…”
“Shhh,” she said, pressing a finger to his lips. “I had some money and made a substantial investment earlier this week.”
“You don’t mean?” He sat up and stared at her with an astonished look on his face. It seemed to be too good to be true.
“I do mean,” she laughed. “But I think I’d rather call it Karissa’s Spread.”
“You can call it any damned thing you want,” he replied before pressing his lips against hers.
Sealed with a Kiss
I.
Well, maybe it wasn’t one of the smartest things that I’ve ever done, but it was one of the most amazing nights I’d ever spent with a man. That amazing night; however, had left me with a problem; a very big problem. I had a baby SEAL growing inside of me. Not the marine animal, obviously, but the highly-trained, savage animal of the United States Navy’s Special Forces Unit. The lean, aggressive and overly arrogant bad boy had, along with a few too many tequila shots, gotten me stirred up, we’d gone in search of a hotel room, found one and spent the night doing things that still make me tingle. The bigger problem is the fact that the guy is a complete jerk and I’ve got to track him down.
Typically, hunting for a navy SEAL is no easy task. They’ve been thoroughly trained to blend in and disappear into their surroundings. This particular one, however, was a newly retired SEAL living not far from the Mexican border south of Tucson, Arizona. I’d once heard a joke about SEALs operating in various places throughout the world and being a long way from water. Dan Sexton’s ranch was a very long way from water. It was a very long way from anywhere, really.
As I headed down I-10 south of Phoenix passing Exit 219 for Picacho Peak Rd, I couldn’t help remembering exactly how I’d gotten myself into the predicament that I was facing. What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but that isn’t always true, sometimes what happens in Vegas follows you home. In my case, it followed me all of the way back to Fresno, California.
Alisha, Valerie and myself had decided that the three day weekend that we all had together needed to be celebrated in a way that was a little out of the ordinary. It was so rare that at least one of us didn’t have to work, so on Friday evening, we spontaneously started on a road trip going south. L.A. was the initial destination, however, someone got the bright idea, might have been me, to take a left at Bakersfield. By Saturday morning, we were checking into the Mirage Resort and Casino on the Vegas strip.
If you turn three, attractive ladies in their mid-twenties loose in Sin City, crazy things are going to happen. We were no exception to that rule. After closing the curtains and recharging all day Saturday from our overnight drive, we were ready to stir things up. Saturday night was a blur of action and I never remember laughing so hard or being so totally smashed off my ass since I’d become of legal age. Letting off steam had been exactly what the three of us had needed and we’d pulled out all of the stops. Surprisingly, none of us had hooked up on Saturday night; sort of an unspoken, girls-night-out pact. However, since Monday was a holiday, Sunday and Sunday night started out as a repeat, except for one major difference; one that I had begun to regret.
Numerous Crown and Cokes and far too many tequila shots into Sunday night, the three of us had wound up in Bally’s. We pooled some cash together and elected Valerie as our designated roulette player, though, she was obligated to follow whatever numbers and colors the two of us called out. Surprisingly enough, she was doing pretty well and we started celebrating each win with a tequila shot. Consequently, our celebrations got louder were beginning to cause quite a scene. Our scene had attracted the attention of a number of bystanders, which is always the case in Vegas. Everybody wants to be hanging around the winners. That was the first time I saw Dan.
There were two, v-shaped studs in t-shirts and jeans with closely cropped hair with whiskey tumblers in their hands and amused looks on their faces among those gathered around us. One of those in particular had the brightest, most penetrating blue eyes I’d ever witnessed in my life. Along with those blue eyes was a reckless, half-smile that weakened not only my knees, but my resolve as well. I’d sworn off the bad boy type, knowing that along with that rebel attitude typically came all sorts of extra trouble, but, like I mentioned before, my resolve had already been weakened. I smiled at him.
The way the corner of his mouth moved up just a little bit and the way he cocked his eyebrows was all the encouragement I needed to abandon Alisha and Valerie. Maintaining eye contact, a strolled casually toward him, “How’s it goin’?”
“Can’t complain,” he replied.
His buddy nodded in my direction and twitched an upper-lip in place of a smile as well. There was no mistaking that I was talking to two badasses.
“Had any luck?” I asked.
“Depends on what you mean by luck.” His deep voice sent a tingle up my spine. The way his bicep flexed as he lifted the whiskey tumbler to his lips didn’t make those tingles stop. In fact, from that point forward, the tingles only multiplied. “Looks like your friend is doin’ alright.”
“That’s just ‘cause Alisha and I are good luck,” I laughed. I could tell by way that I laughed and the level of my voice as I spoke, that I should probably be cutting back on the shots. Just as the thought entered my head, Valerie hit another winner and Alisha called out to me. “Another shot,” I giggled as I started back to the roulette table and the glass extended toward me in Alisha’s hand.
Dan and his friend, I never did get his name, or maybe I forgot it, decided to tag along behind me. After downing the celebratory drink, I turned back toward him. “See,” I slurred. “Good luck.”
The next win had everyone around the table taking a shot, as did the ones that came after that. My interest, however, had started moving away from what was taking place on the spinning wheel and toward Dan.
“I’m Sara, by the way,” I said sometime later, extending my hand for the requisite handshake that went along with introductions. I’d already made plenty of contact with him before that moment, grabbing onto his firm, meaty biceps on several occasions as I shared my excitement over another of Valerie’s wins.
“Dan,” he replied, again, twitching the corner of his mouth in what served as a smile.
That bad-ass attitude and his relative silence was sucking me in deeper by the second. He was dark, mysterious, arrogant; the complete bad boy package, wrapped in all sorts of muscle and eyes that made my insides flutter whenever I looked into them. Needless to say, with my inhibitions weakened by booze and those eyes, I became more friendly as the night went on.
“What do you say we find a place th
at’s a little bit more private?” That’s the line that got me into trouble. Evidently, he wasn’t averse to finding somewhere private, because we soon abandoned the roulette table and the casino. We strolled out away from Bally’s flirting with each other and wound up on the other side of the strip in front of the famous fountains of the Bellagio. His kiss stirred all sorts of aches and desires in me, but it was that firm body and arms of steel wrapped around me that did the most damage; not that there hadn’t already been enough damage done.
“Are you like a bodyguard or something?” I asked when we paused for a moment.
“Navy SEAL,” he replied. “Well, was. My buddy and I just retired. We’re having one last go before we head home.”
“No way!” I squealed. “You, a trained killer? I don’t believe you.”
“Up to you,” he shrugged.
“Do you know how many bullshit lines guys use to pick up girls?”
“I do.”
“You know that’s one of them, right?”
“Do you want me to kill somebody and prove it?”
“That might be a little much.” Then I did the only smart thing that I’d done that whole night. “How about showing me your navy I.D.?”
“They don’t print S.E.A.L. on them, you know,” he chuckled as he produced his wallet and his navy I.D. card.
I snatched it away from him and retreated several steps trying to get the dim light to hit it just right. “Dan Sexton. Hmmm… does that mean you have a ton of sex?”
“I do alright,” he grinned.
“I’ll bet you do better than alright, SEALman,” I purred, moving back into his arms for another long, passionate kiss.