I nod. “It is.”
“Do you miss your dad?” I feel like it’s a stupid question, but I don’t know how close they were and that’s my way of knowing.
“Yeah, I do. He was sick for a long time so it didn’t come as a shock when he died. We knew it was coming. Still wasn’t any easier.”
“So you came back for the funeral then?”
“No. I couldn’t make it. I came back to sell the house and pay back your dad for his troubles. Where I come from, and how I was raised, you don’t walk away from something you owe.”
I laugh but only lightly when the motion sends a pain through my body. “That’s not a rebel thing for you to say.”
Callan’s eyes squint when he speaks. “I’m trouble, sure, but don’t define me with a term. I love and work harder than most will ever believe.”
“I believe that.” As soon as I say that, his stare leaves mine. Like he didn’t want to hear that at all.
I’m quiet, fidgeting with a straw of hay when Callan shifts his feet, the shuffle catches my eyes. He’s leaning against the side of the barn now, three feet away, but it might as well be three hundred at the loss I feel when he moves away.
“Why do you bother with Kasey?”
I shrug not wanting to admit that. “I’m not sure. He was a comfort at first, and now he’s just there. Making me think I’m something, when he treats me like I’m nothing. I think it’s a way for me to remember Jackson.”
“He’s nothing like Jackson. He’s an asshole and you need to stay away from him.”
“Why did you leave if Katie confessed to lying?”
I don’t like the way the conversations we have are always about me and what I should or shouldn’t be doing. There is a reason why he left town and I’m curious as to what his thoughts are about that.
Callan’s visibly shocked by the change in the conversation and the fact that I know why he left. “I was always going to leave. It really had nothing to do with her but she ruined our lives here. There’s never been anything to come home to.”
“So it wasn’t true?” I knew it wasn’t, but I want to hear his side. “You didn’t rape her?”
“No.” He narrows his eyes and watches me take in the information. “I’ve never touched Katie that way. Neither had Reed. Ty was dating her. They were both underage at the time and it was totally consensual.”
“Have you seen her since?”
“No. Neither has Ty. He’s living with me now in Decatur. They broke up right after that and he ain’t heard from her since.”
“So that’s why you wouldn’t touch me?”
“Yes. I can’t do that. She cost my brother a chance at a World title and me a suspension for six months.” He gives me another fleeting glance and then directs it at the field. I see that same look I saw the night I met him. “I wasn’t making that mistake again. As a bull rider, we don’t make money unless we’re on a bull. I can’t get suspended again.”
I get his reasoning. I do and it was probably better that way.
“I’m eighteen now.”
He nods as if he knows, but it’s not convincing. He knows I want him and I think he wants me too. He does. But it’s not that easy to move from what we’ve been talking about to something like that.
Callan lifts the clear liquid in his hand to his lips, tipping his head slightly to the right. “It hasn’t been easy to resist you.” His eyes find mine with a firefly love lasting feel. “Not easy at all. I got hung up that night and you wouldn’t let go.” He swallows and sets his beer down on the ground. “I think the hardest thing about bull riding is knowing when to give and when to take. Being patient and waiting for your time to make a move. It wasn’t my time to make a move, not sure when or if that time would come but I just knew that the time wasn’t right.”
“What about now?”
He shrugs, not answering.
I give him a look and he knows what I’m thinking. This isn’t me just wanting sex. This is me wanting someone who sees me through this haze I have around me, around my heart.
“What is it about me that you want?” Callan asks, his eyes give me that begging feeling like he’s dying to know. “You know I’m leaving tomorrow. I gotta be in Tulsa. Are you trying to bury the pain or believe I’m someone else? I’m certainly not Jackson. I don’t do relationships, my lifestyle won’t allow that. So why are you pursuing this?”
“You’re right, you’re not Jackson. And I’ve never thought you were or wanted you to be.” I say speaking from my heart for once. I lift my eyes to meet his. “I’ve never left this town. I’m not sure I ever will. Then one night I see a boy at a party and his eyes are lit by a bonfire, so bright they look like diamonds. They shine these sparks at me and give me hope as if something is finally looking down on the girl left behind. I’ve been used, given just enough to make me feel like that’s all I’ll ever have. But there are diamonds in me now. You’re not Jackson. You’re Callan James. Someone I was meant to see through this flat land that owns my soul.”
His head tips to the side, his eyes barely visible with the shadows his hat is creating. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why now? I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Because, I want tonight with you. I want to remember tonight.”
Taking a step towards me, he places his finger over my lips before I can beg again. “I can’t give you anything more than tonight. I’ve. . .I’m not in a place where I can really get involved with anyone.” He whispers under the wind, his voice so strong it takes me and holds me in place. His tone gives my heart a thump, gives me that hope I’ve been holding onto. He’s not saying no. He’s wanting me to be sure.
I’m sure. And not for the reasons I usually am. To forget.
This time I’m sure I’ll remember this feeling he’s giving me. The rush I feel at his touch. The way he makes me feel.
“I’m not asking for that. Just give me tonight.” I breathe against his lips. The shift in his demeanor reminds me he is a bull rider, all heart, all go with a confidence only they have.
“Don’t hate me for leaving in the morning. . .” his voice shakes as he speaks, never more vulnerable than he is in this moment, making sure I know what this is going to be. I do. I never went into this thinking it would be any different.
I stand, wanting to touch him. “I could never hate someone like you, Callan.”
He swallows, his breathing coming a little faster now, and creates distance between us. “I’m not having sex with you just because you want me to.”
“But—”
Callan shakes his head. “What I will do is show you that there’s more than just being with someone physically and getting off.”
“I. . .” I swallow unable to comprehend what he’s saying to me. “Uh. . .”
“You need to believe you’re worth it. Because you are.”
No one has ever said that to me. Even Jackson. But we were young when I was with him. We met when I was four and he was six. Took me on my first date at fourteen and became my first everything and then before I had a chance to really love him¸ he was taken from me.
Callan’s head is down, staring at the weathered wood when he pushes himself from the wall.
As he walks toward me, his hands are on the hem of his dark shirt, yanking it over his shoulders. My stomach jumps knowing that he’s finally giving into me. His shirt drops behind me on the hay bales, steady and sure palms cupping my cheeks accompanying a kiss so heavy I’m drowning in him and I never want to surface from this. I’m begging for his kiss and he’s finally not denying.
He takes my body in his hands, a slow descent to the floor of the barn. He sets me down on the hay bale where his shirt is and then kneels before me. I watch the muscles in his stomach and arms, flexing with each movement. His knees spread once he’s on the ground, sliding against the dirt of the floor.
His hands are on me, rough and wild, yet steady and patient like he’s memorizing a beautiful canvas before him. M
aybe this is how he’s going to show me there is more than giving my body to someone. I feel it because it’s an emotion, a feeling, something I felt long ago but forgot what it meant. His fingers move to the band of my jean shorts, sliding across my exposed skin to meet in the middle of the button. His touch burns, ignites my every nerve and makes my heart race as my eyes drift closed. But not for long. I can’t be denied his stare for long. I crave it just as much as his touch.
My eyes are on his but he’s not looking at me, he’s watching my body curve around his as if that’s exactly what he’s been wanting. To see and feel me like this. His jeans are still on—as mine are—when he grinds his hips into mine and I feel his arousal, hard and straining against his jeans.
When his mouth finds mine, it’s eager but controlled in the sense that I can tell he’s not just some overeager kid. I feel so much right then. Not just sexual frustration but something so much more when I kiss Callan. He gives his heart when he kisses me like this. Everything he says and does shows that. He’s giving now. There’s no teasing anymore.
I know this when he gets the button of my shorts undone with one hand.
Although I feel like everything is happening so fast, he’s not rushing; he’s slowly loving me like a slow country song. He moves both hands from my waist and lower to the backs of my knees hooking his hands around them. He brings both my legs to rest on his left shoulder. His head moves to the side pressing my calf against his hot ear. With a smile, he takes his hat off next with his right hand and puts it over my face, laughing.
It smells like him. Dirt and grass but there’s that distinct leather cowboy smell that melts me on the inhale. It’s everything I want to remember.
I remove the hat to see him staring at me. There’s a slight grin that hasn’t faded, but it’s more that intensity in his eyes that makes me nervous. It’s like the night I met him and there’s part of me that thinks at any moment he might stop this. It makes me want to rush through it but then that’s the last thing I want to do knowing he’s leaving.
Taking the hat in my hand, I place it on my chest covering my breasts. Callan smiles knocking it away and then puts his hands back on my hips dipping his fingers inside the waistband of my shorts. He gives me a wink and I lift my hips for him. Slowly he pulls them down and up over my thighs as his knuckles graze my skin. When they’re at my ankles, he tosses them near his hat on the floor.
I’m not sure what he’s going to do next, but his mouth is lingering on my skin over the bruise on my calf that’s forming.
“Does it hurt?” he asks, still looking at the bruise, and then giving it one more kiss.
“No.” I bend my knees, sliding my feet down his bare chest.
He stops, grabbing my ankles and spreading my legs for him.
“You’re trouble.” He says when my legs are spread and my lower half is now completely bare for him.
“You’re torture. . .” My words are a whisper, but I know he hears it.
Callan’s mouth twists, a half grin that fades quickly as his eyes drop, his fingertips moving and squeezing my upper thighs as he groans, a low, throaty sound I want more of. When his hands fall away, he leans in, supporting his weight with his arms beside my head. His buckle presses against me when he does this, the cool metal causes me to jump. Moving his right hand, he scoots my hips down to the very edge of the bale, both hands now on my hips.
He pauses, his eyes searching mine waiting to see my reaction. My hands move to his chest and then his hair wanting to fist that beautiful golden brown hair between my fingers. He lets me pull at his hair, trying to make him come forward, but then he stops, taking my wrists and pinning them down on the bale. Pressing forward, his buckle grinds into me again. The hard metal has bumps and ridges that outline a cowboy on a bucking bull and I never would have thought that could work.
But it’s Callan James we’re talking about. He knows his way around a woman’s body and I’m his sinning soul waiting for him. Just when I think this can’t get any better, his lips are on mine, his elbows holding him up while my wrists are still trapped in his hold.
“You like that?” he asks against my lips, his sweet breath blowing over me.
I can’t even respond because while he asks this, he doesn’t stop moving my hips against his buckle. I’m fucking a belt buckle worn by a world champion bull rider.
I’m not sure what it is about Callan and this, but everything is exactly right and the friction of the cool metal grinding against me is exactly what I want. Writhing under his hands, I begin to move my hips on my own will without his direction. When Callan comes forward, his chest is heaving with heavy breaths giving me another angle. I kiss his rough and tensed cheek, his jaw, and then his lips, anywhere I can access.
“That’s it. . .come for me, baby.” He says plunging his tongue into my mouth.
I never thought this was going to happen. I was giving up on the idea of Callan wanting me. Right now with him being this way with me, I’m beginning to think it’s more than wanting me physically. Look at him, he’s loving this. He’s just as into this as I was giving him a blowjob the other night. He’s more than those other guys I’ve been with and I know he’s feeling this too.
The warmth starts low and it’s sudden, first a slow burn and then stronger, like the pop of a firecracker. Nothing about this compares to what I’ve experienced before. It’s crazy to me that Callan has nothing on these boys from the south and he hasn’t even entered me yet. This orgasm is going to be the eight second ride of my life for sure, maybe longer.
Callan’s eyes are low, watching his buckle rubbing where it wouldn’t normally be touching me, moving me against him. When I start to shake against him, my heels dig into his ass, begging him to come closer, harder, anything to make this last longer.
He does, oh God, does he.
His breath comes out in short gasps, much like mine, when he sees me falling apart on him.
“Oh God!” I scream, my eyes squeezing shut as I throw my arms around his shoulders hanging onto him and clawing at his skin.
“That’s it, baby.” His rough voice is low and tense as he whispers to me. “There you go. . .fall apart for me.” One hand moves from beside me, wrapping around the back of my neck and bringing his eager kiss to mine. He’s excited and his kiss shows me, wild tongue and frantic gasps telling me how beautiful the sight before him is.
My attention goes to the clanking of his buckle and then the faint sounds of his zipper.
Oh God, he’s taking them off.
He smiles at me, dirty and wicked, when he sees I’m watching him. “You want me to take these off, right?”
I nod immediately knowing that me having an orgasm just off Callan’s buckle must have gotten to him more than he’s willing to admit. It takes him longer than I would like for him to get his pants off and then he’s searching for the condom in his wallet.
“That was so fucking hot.” He’s panting as much as I am, barely able to get the words out as he rolls the condom on.
“Have you done that before?” I’m still trying to catch my breath, but I can’t wait for him to get that condom on because I want more. So much more. I never want tonight to end. I wonder then if I’m really going to be able to let him go. It’s easy to think I would, but now I don’t think I want to. Not when I could feel like this again.
“No, never.” He doesn’t hesitate to answer letting me feel his hardness right where I want him. He slides forward but doesn’t slip in. I move slightly, but he holds me in place. “Stay there. I’m nowhere near done with you.”
He’s most certainly not.
His fingers trace my cheek bone and I know what he’s going to ask me. It’s in his eyes before his lips let the words pass through. “Are you sure?”
I slide my fingers over the hair on his chest. “I’ve had sex before, Callan.”
He gives me a long stare, searching for any regret. When he doesn’t see that, a grin appears. “Yeah, but you’ve never had sex with a b
ull rider, have you?”
Oh. Uh. Speechless. How do I even respond to that one? I want to say so many snarky things, but nothing comes to mind.
“No. . .” I stutter out. My heart starts hammering, the cool night washing over my body, heated only by his breath. I flinch when his warm palm finds my bare breast, his thumb brushing over my nipple.
“Are you sure?” he asks again sucking my nipple into his warm mouth. The feel of his soft tongue lapping at my breasts makes me shiver in his arms unable to control my body around him. “You have to tell me now.”
“I’ll never say no to you.”
His eyes raise to mine. “Maybe you should.”
My legs wrap around his waist a little tighter. “I’d be stupid to tell you no.”
He doesn’t seem convinced just yet, his eyes scanning the barn and our surroundings. I’m not sure, but it must dawn on him right then that we’re in a barn and we might want something a little more comfortable. None of that matters to me. I don’t need a bed or anything else. I just need him. “Should we go to your room?”
“My dad’s in there. . .”
He laughs, shaking his head. “The barn’s just fine.”
Callan doesn’t say anymore and though there’s still some hesitation, he’s giving in to me.
“Do you want to?” I finally ask, wondering if this is just for me. The last thing I want is for him to do this just because I was the farmer’s daughter who wouldn’t take no for an answer. I wanted him to want me in all the ways I wanted him.
“You have no fuckin’ idea.” He gives a nod, that same confident nod and it gets me, it’s as if he really is dying. When he presses forward, his mouth finds mine again. “Hang on, baby.”
Sweet Jesus.
He’s not waiting any longer, his patience gone as he enters me.
We both gasp when he’s in, breathing escaping me entirely, but all I can do is inhale a much-needed breath that I need to stay alive this close to him. It’s the sweetest relief, a slow kissing dream, fire-lit, soul healing kind of feeling I’d never believe would be possible except that it is. I’m feeling it right now.
Remember Tonight Page 8