by Virna DePaul
Instantly, the dots that meant he was typing a reply showed up on the screen, and Lexi swallowed down the little giddy bubble that had risen in her chest.
-Not quicksand. I promise. Consider it practice for your first few lonely weeks in L.A. You’re going to need SOMEBODY to take care of those needs. And by then I’ll be a thousand miles away. Nobody can get stuck in quicksand from a thousand miles away.
Lexi sucked her teeth and tried not to smile. It all came down to how much she trusted herself and Eric. Did she trust Eric to help her chase her dream at the end of the summer? Did she trust herself to know what she was doing?
Lexi signaled to Marina that she was heading for the bathroom. Flipping the lock, Lexi debated taking a picture in the mirror, classic selfie-style, but she instead held the phone over her head. She looked up at the camera, making sure that the lens got a great view right down her top. She leaned forward just a little, her breasts, which were on the larger side, crushed against her bra. At the last second, Lexi brought her thumb up to her bottom lip, pulled it just slightly down, and snapped the picture. She turned around her camera to see the image.
Bingo.
She looked sexy, turned on, and all kinds of bothered. She scuttled back out of the bathroom and sat on a bar stool. Tossing her hair behind her back, she took another long sip of her drink and pulled open her text convo with Eric.
And she sent the photo.
She couldn’t help but grin when she heard him coughing up a swallow of his beer behind her. Mission accomplished.
And then her phone buzzing with his reply.
J
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-You gotta warn a man, woman!
Lexi couldn’t help but grin.
-You got what you wanted and now you’re complaining?
-Hell no, not complaining. I’m in the process of bowing down to my new god. Well, Gods, I should say. Your breasts deserve a house of worship.
Lexi rolled her eyes.
-Your turn, she texted.
-To send a pic?
-Duh.
Within seconds, he was at her elbow at the bar, but he didn’t speak to her. “Marina! Another round for the boys, alright? My tab.”
He didn’t look back at her as he walked down the back hall.
Lexi picked up her phone. She needed to clarify one thing.
-No dick pics.
She heard his bark of laughter as he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.
Seconds later she received a picture he’d taken of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It showed him with one hand pulling up his shirt, revealing his six pack abs and the v of his muscles down into the waistband of his pants. The band of his briefs hung dangerously low on his hips.
Lexi’s mouth went dry. God he was so hot. And his face.
She stifled a groan. He wasn’t smoldering cheesily for the camera like guys so often did in sexy pics.
No, he was just smiling, but there was a definite message in his eyes. One that said he wanted to lick her from head to toe.
Lexi took a deep breath and another sip of her drink. When Eric emerged from the bathroom, Lexi lifted her glass and toasted him.
He winked and took a little bow.
Flirting, she told herself. Just some harmless flirting.
But even as the words echoed in her head, the fluttery feeling in her stomach—and in her heart—gave her pause. And made her wonder if of the two of them, Marina wasn’t the smart one, after all.
Chapter Seven
Eric and Lexi fell into a rhythm. A very sexy, thrilling rhythm, but a rhythm nonetheless. Work during the days, where they kept things professional. The bar during the nights, where they let themselves flirt, but only so far. A few days turned into a week and then a week turned into two.
It was at the end of her second week working at the hardware store that Lexi got her first check, and she immediately sent half the money to her father. But more than the money, she was enjoying herself. Work was fun, even more fun when Eric was around. The only times that weren’t so fun were when Miss Sarah Burn flounced her ass into the store and fawned all over Eric.
And unfortunately, right now was one of those times.
Eric was leading Sarah around the store, adding this and that to her cart. She was pretty sure that he was trying to hurry her out of there, but even that was annoying to Lexi right now.
After Sarah dropped $125 on crap Lexi was sure she didn’t need, she kissed Eric on the cheek and left. Lexi tried biting back her thoughts, but it was no use. She said, “I’ll bet all her panties match her bras.”
“Excuse me?” Eric said, one eyebrow raised, freezing in the act of hauling some seasonal items back toward the back room.
“You heard me. I’ll bet she never uses her toothbrush after the blue stripe is gone. That Daddy carves the thanksgiving turkey and someday, hubby will. But she’ll be too busy licking her lips at the pool boy to notice.”
“Wow.” Eric grabbed a broom from the back room and started sweeping up. “That’s quite the story you’ve spun there.” He paused. “Freaky accurate, too.”
“It’s a gift.” Lexi shrugged, marked two things off her inventory list. “I can make up a backstory for anybody I meet.”
“Anybody, huh? What about Mrs. Gunderson?” he challenged her.
“Well, that’s sort of cheating because she already told me about her rodeo days, but sure. I can fill in the rest.” Lexi leaned back and thought for a second. “Her daddy was a rich man, owned a mine, maybe. But the mine caved in and the money dried up. She had to learn how to bring home the bacon fast. She was young, pretty, and could ride a horse. She joined the circuit. She was good, but too feisty, the men wanted her and she wanted to be left alone. She quit, moved north, did something boring for a few years, just long enough to meet Mr. Gunderson. Sweet, calm, steady. He didn’t have much, but he knew how to work. Which in Mrs. Gunderson’s book, meant a hell of a lot more. They tried to have kids, couldn’t. So she made the town her baby. And she’s a bit of an overbearing mama. She likes to know who, what, when, where, and how. And for her, that’s enough.”
Eric’s mouth had dropped dead open. “Not far off, actually. I’m pretty sure her father owned a ranch that went under, not a mine. But your version’s more interesting.”
“Storyteller,” she pointed at herself. “I can make anybody’s life into a movie. Except for mine.”
“Anybody’s?”
She shrugged again. “Try me.”
“What about mine?”
Lexi put one hand on her hip and cocked her head while Eric dumped the contents of the dustpan into the trash and locked the front door of the hardware store, flipping the sign from open to closed.
“Hmmm…Well, Eric, I’d say you come from money.” She squinted her eyes at him. “Yeah, definitely. But it motivated you, not made you lazy. You have a good relationship with your parents. Closer to your mom than your dad. No brothers or sisters. Lately though, you’ve grown suspicious of the people in your rich bitch circle. You never know who wants you or your cash. You’ve come back here in search of the simple life. And you’re surprised at how easy it was to make the switch. It was hard to leave your folks behind but you didn’t have any close friends, never really had a girl who meant anything much to you, so you packed up and…”
Lexi’s voice trailed off as something dark flashed over Eric’s face. Something that looked an awful lot like pain.
He took a step backward and flipped off the lights in the store. Then he walked toward her in the dim light. “Wow, you’re pretty good,” he said in a tight voice.
“Eric,” she said quietly, hurrying around the counter toward him. “I was just messing around. Stabs in the dark. I didn’t mean—”
“No, no. You were mostly right. Except for a few things. I’m equally close to my pa
rents. And it wasn’t easy to leave my life in L.A. To come here. It was terribly tough, actually. I left behind my best friend in the world and a girl I’d loved for six years.” He turned to her and the dim light filtered over his face. “Don’t think they’ve missed me much though. And if they did, they have one another for comfort.”
She’d never seen him look like this. If it were anyone else, she would have thought that she saw rage in his expression. But not Eric. No. It was disappointment in himself that she saw on his face.
“Oh, Eric.” Unable to do anything else, she closed the distance between them, and banded her arms around his waist tightly. “I’m so sorry I said those things. I don’t know why—”
“No, it’s ok. You didn’t know.” He traced a hand over her hair and Lexi almost went weak with relief that he wasn’t pushing her away. “It just hit me, you know? Here’s Lexi, this woman who I think knows me pretty well already, and she’s telling me that I come off like I’ve never really loved anybody. And it just made me wonder what it is about me that reads that way. You know, was it the same thing that made Brianne turn to Gabe? Is there something about me that shuts people out?”
“No!” Lexi shook her head from side to side, staring up at him. “No, that’s not why I said that. You make it sound like it’s because you’re cold or unloving or something, but really it’s the opposite.”
“What do you mean?” He tried to take a step back from her, but Lexi refused to let go.
“I said what I said because you’re so warm. So loyal. So passionate. So…pure. I just thought that if you’d really loved somebody, it would have left a mark that showed forever. But just because I didn’t see it, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there. I’m so sorry—”
“You think I’m those things? Warm? Loyal? Pure?”
“Are you nuts? Of course! Dylan and Jake would lay down on train tracks for you. You’re the only one who loosens Marina up. Everybody lights right up when you’re around.”
“And passionate?”
Lexi held his gaze. Her stomach flipped and she felt a warm feeling of relief slide through her veins. He was getting a certain look in his eye that was telling her he wasn’t quite as hurt as he’d been a few minutes ago. “Of course passionate. I was there that night in the barn, remember? You’re skilled and hot and considerate.” She licked her lips. “Creative. You made me… react in a way I never had before. Lit me up.”
“Lit you up?” he asked, his eyes dropping to her lips where she traced her tongue over her bottom lip once more.
“Like a birthday cake with a hundred candles. And then when I couldn’t take it anymore, you blew me right out.”
Suddenly, Lexi was very aware that they were standing in a dark room, completely alone, and she was still holding him around his waist like she was terrified he might get away. Her breasts were smashed into his hard chest, which was made all the more obvious by her panting breaths.
“I was rougher with you than I usually am. More…demanding,” he said, so close that she could feel his breath on her lips.
She was dimly aware that he was walking her backward. That there were shelves at her back. He planted a hand on either side of her head, looked down at her with some unnamed emotion in his eyes.
“Did you hear me complaining?”
He stilled. Studied her face for a moment, his body like warm steel underneath her hands. A small smile softened his face for just a moment. “You liked it.”
She bit her lip and nodded. Found she couldn’t lie to him. “Yes.”
“You liked when I made you grab that beam.” He leaned down just a touch further. “When I made you come on my mouth. When I bent you over and took you from behind.”
“Yes,” she gulped, frozen, in his thrall. She knew there were reasons she’d avoided moments like this with him, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember them. Her life didn’t exist outside this room. All she had were these four walls and this hulking sex god leaning over her.
“You liked it when I fucked you on your hands and knees.”
“Yes,” she gasped, so aware of him surrounding her in every way. His hands on either side of her head. His strong body filling up all the space in front of her.
And then there was no more space between them. His mouth dropped to hers and she was swallowing down his kisses, moaning into his mouth. Lexi’s hands finally unwound from around his waist but only to tangle into his hair. She knew she was tugging at him too tight, but he only groaned and pushed her farther into the shelves behind her.
The last two weeks of abstaining from one another’s bodies had taken its toll. Every moment where she’d wanted to touch him and barely managed to stop herself was piling up and tearing out of her. Lexi moaned as her head fell back.
Eric lowered his mouth to her neck, sucking and nibbling at the exposed skin there.
Before she knew it, her legs were up around his waist and he was spinning away from the shelves, striding toward their little break room table where Lexi ate lunch everyday. Eric reached out with one hand and yanked the tablecloth, sending all the odds and ends on the table bouncing to the floor.
And then Lexi was spread out before him on the table.
* * *
Lexi was everything he’d ever wanted.
No, she was everything he needed right here and now.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Because that was all she could give him—this moment—so that was all he was going to take.
But he sure as fuck was going to take it.
With a few tight movements, he undid her jeans.
He tossed one of her shoes to the side and then the other.
And then he ripped her pants away.
Eric groaned at the sight of her blue cotton panties. Nothing fancy. Vaguely boyish. Sexy as fuck. Just perfectly Lexi. He grasped one of her knees and then the other. Leaning forward, he nipped her just hard enough on the inside of one of her thighs to make her gasp.
His eyes bore into hers. “Tell me you want this, Lexi.”
“I do,” she gasped, working her hips in the air as if she were searching for a release. “Please.”
“Please what?” Eric asked, devilishly tilting his head to one side.
He expected to see annoyance or frustration on her face; instead, all he saw was her need. Her willingness to submit to him. How much she wanted it.
“Please make me come.”
He didn’t waste another second. Yanking her panties to one side, Eric leaned in and devoured her. She was just as sweet as she’d been before. She was tight liquid heat on his tongue and he was addicted to her. He took his time, but when she began to whimper, plant her feet on the table underneath her, whip her head from side to side, Eric changed gear. He suckled at her clit, circling it and then soothing with the flat of his tongue when the sensations got to be too much. Lexi’s back arched, her fingers digging into the edge of the table.
Eric reached up and grabbed one of her hands, tangling it in his own hair so that she’d have something to anchor herself to.
She yanked and the bite of pain had Eric grinning, growling, and ruthlessly fucking her with his mouth. And when she was close, so close that she was trembling, Eric pulled away.
It was painful for him, physically painful to deny her, but he wanted, needed, to be inside her when she came. She whimpered at the loss of him, holding out one hand and giving him those eyes. Those eyes that nearly brought him to his knees, dark, lost in passion, needing.
The way she was looking at him, reaching for him, made him feel ten feet tall. He wanted to reward her for it. Make her come so hard she would never regret being with him.
Eric ripped off his belt and when it came through the last loops, the leather snapped against itself, the sound ringing out in the quiet room.
Lexi’s eyes blazed and her nostrils flared. She licked her lips and her expression grew ravenous.
Note. Taken.
But not now. He tossed the belt aside and t
hen shoved his pants down to his knees, his cock springing free. Eric found he only had the patience to slick the condom on. His pants and shoes were just going to have to hang on for the ride. Lexi’s eyes flared again. Just at the sight of him looming over her, cock hard and straining for her.
He climbed on the table, kneeled in front of her, and immediately dragged one of her legs over his shoulder, opening her up to him. It took everything he had not to plunge into her right there.
“Eric,” she whispered.
But her words fell away when his fingers found her core. He pulled her panties to one side and stroked and petted her, lost in the sight of his thick digits disappearing inside her. And when he’d stoked the fire again, brought her to within a whisper of the edge, Eric gripped her hips, tipped her up, and fed himself into her. Inch by torturous inch.
Lexi’s back arched completely off the table, her mouth falling open and her eyes wide and unseeing. Her pussy clenched in orgasm, and he prolonged it for her as best as he could, circling her clit with his thumb and pushing inexorably forward with his cock, giving her just enough friction to keep her coming.
Finally, her body fell lax and she went limp as a willow tree.
“Eric,” she whispered again.
“I’m right here, sweetheart,” he told her, holding her still against him. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” And then he pulled out, just enough to plunge back in.
She came alive under him. Her fingers clawed at his back, leaving marks even through his shirt. Her leg slipped from his shoulder and joined the other one around his waist. Her tongue found his inside his mouth and pushed, warred, took.
Eric found their rhythm, a full, relentless beat that shook the table underneath them and sent them both soaring. He tore his mouth away from hers and groaned. She felt too good. She was destroying him. Even though he was on top, she was taking him apart, stroke by stroke. He was torn between wanting to rise up and watch her and wanting to fall further down and feel her. He wanted both. He wanted it all.
Where Lexi was concerned, he wanted everything.
It was that terrifying thought that had him pressing himself harder into her. Because all they had was this moment. There was no future for them. Which meant that Eric had to get everything he needed out of this. And he had to give her everything she needed. He nestled his face in the crook where neck met shoulder and breathed in her scent. So clean, so simple. It drove him wild. He thrust and thrust into her, and Lexi clutched him close, grinding her hips against him, moans of pleasure escaping her lips.