The next morning, I wake up in bed with Callan and though I want to have sex with him, he’s running late. I give him a pouty face I thought for sure would work, but he sighs.
“Remember when I said bull riders were always running late?” He’s throwing clothes on and then his boots and reaching for his hat.
I nod, sitting up in the bed, completely naked and pushing the sheets away so he has a good view of everything he’s leaving behind. His eyes travel over my body and he groans. “I wasn’t lying. I’m late. Again.”
I look at the clock to see it’s nearing noon. “I thought it didn’t start until tonight?”
“It doesn’t. But I have an appearance to make and then I have to go to the arena.”
“Oh.” I’m kind of disappointed he wouldn’t be staying in bed with me but then again, I knew this, coming here, that it would be this way. He has obligations.
He seems sad. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you at the arena though?”
I nod again as he kisses my forehead, my cheek, my lips, neck, and then pulls away when he starts to climb on the bed. “Fuck. . .you’re too sexy.”
And then he turns and walks away.
I’m sad when he’s gone and think about what I’m doing here. The thought reminds me that I need to call my mom because I totally forgot to last night.
“Hi baby!” She answers on the first ring, knowing it’s me.
“Hey mama. Sorry, I didn’t call last night.”
“That’s alright.” She breathes a sigh of relief. I know she won’t say it, but she was worried about me.
“How’s dad?”
Mom laughs lightly, the sound almost musical. “He’ll get over it. He threw himself into showing that Kaden boy around the farm.”
I chew on my nails. “Is he mad?”
“No.” She’s lying and I know it. “How was the rodeo?”
“It was amazing! They have another round tonight and then the short go. Callan got a ninety-five last night.”
“That’s good, right?” And then she laughs. “What’s a short go?”
I laugh. “Yeah, he’s leading right now so we’ll see how he does tonight. The short go is a round that only the top fifteen riders from the preliminary rounds compete in and he's leading right now so we’ll see how he does tonight.”
Mom sighs and it’s a loving sound like she’s happy for me. “Are you happy, Alanna?”
I think about it, wondering if this was what I wanted, the freedom I’d been dying for. “Yes. I am.”
I am, too. I most definitely am.
I spent the day with Jessie by the pool at the hotel, where she tells me everything that happened last night, in detail, and then we go to the rodeo that night. It was all very similar to the night before but Callan was on a bull named Tank and managed to score a ninety-two and then in the short go scored a ninety to win the round in Tulsa.
Seeing him that excited over the win was worth not seeing him all day.
After the rodeo, we are standing in the parking lot and I’m torn. What now?
He said meet me in Tulsa and I did but we never talked about what would happen after that.
Callan leans into my side watching Jessie and Ty flirt, a longneck bottle in his hand. “Ty has a thing for redheads.”
It’s late, around midnight and we probably should get some sleep, but it seems they’re ready for anything with wild eyes and bright smiles. I guess riding a bull will do that to you.
I look over at Jessie and smile. Jessie told me this morning they slept together and it was the greatest night of her life. And for Jessie to say something like that, I’m assuming it had to have been. “Jessie has a sudden fascination with bull riders.”
Callan nods and leans back into his truck giving another nod to the door. “I’m assuming Jessie’s okay with Ty riding with her?”
Jessie and Ty hear him say that, both acting nonchalant about it, but it’s clear they both had a good time last night. “I’m okay with that,” Jessie says.
Callan laughs and removes his hat to toss it inside the truck when he opens the door. “Alright, follow me. And if you get lost, Ty’ll help ya out.”
I turn around, unsure what’s happening when Callan grabs my hand. “You’re with me, darlin’.”
I wish that were true in a hundred different ways.
“Where are we going?”
He arches his eyebrow when I step up into his truck. “You wanna come to my place, right?”
I try not to squeal. “Is there a bed there? Because I’m disappointed that we didn’t try one out last night or this morning.”
Before I turn in the seat, he stands between my legs, his hands on the door frame as he leans in. “I have a bed there, yes, and I promise. . .” His lips part and find mine, the sweetest tempting kiss is laid upon me but it’s different from his kisses before. Sure there is tenderness there but it’s passionate and promising too. “To make it up to you.”
“I’m holding you to that, eight seconds.”
The drive is quiet, mostly flat dry land, not a taillight in sight as we head back into Texas, but it’s nice that Callan’s truck has air conditioning. Though it’s around three in the morning when we get across the state line, it’s still in the eighties.
It’s fairly clear that Jessie must have driven in her usual attire of her bra and underwear because they hadn’t been behind us for miles.
Callan looks over at me, his eyes dancing over my legs propped up by my bare feet on his dash and then my face and lips. “Come a little closer.”
I slide over the bench seat, my body pressing into his side. I definitely don’t need much of an invitation when it comes to him. Nods work. Winks work but when he says come closer, I do that too.
Callan surprises me when his arm moves around my shoulders and pulls me even closer. Raising my right hand, I hold his hand that’s dangling over my shoulder. He’s holding me. Never making an attempt to do more.
It’s perfect.
His body shifts and he leans in closer, the motion giving me a wave of his scent. Breathing in deep, I want that smell forever with me.
In a simple gesture, a tender one, a sweet and endearing one, he kisses my temple, lips lingering as a sigh escapes him.
At that moment, I desperately want to know what he’s thinking.
I see the sign for Decatur and get a little excited. I’m curious to see where he lives, but I don’t want to appear too excited.
There is not much said between us when we get to his house. It’s completely dark, not a light on and I wonder if Jessie and Ty will ever make it back.
Callan smiles. “Ty sent me a text that they’d be another hour or so.”
I try not to grin when he grabs my hand. “How about I show you my bed?”
“I think I’d like that.”
He reaches over, his hand rising to cup my cheek and then he winks and drops it into my hand to pull me forward. We both get out on his side and then approach the modest brown home. It’s much like any other home in South Texas, surrounded by a few trees and wide open land.
When we get inside, it’s clear that a pair of cowboys lives here. Callan doesn’t give me a chance to look around before he’s picking me up and taking me down the hall to what I suspect is his bedroom.
He sets me down in front of a bed that’s just a mattress on the floor. I don’t even care at that point. “It’s not much,” He rips his shirt off and tosses it on the floor. Then he goes to take off his boots. “But I don’t think it matters at this point.” When he’s barefoot and just in his jeans, he takes a step towards me, his hands on my hips. “Does it?”
“It’s perfect.” I mean that on so many levels and I think he sees that.
With strong hands, he raises my dress over my head when I slip off my boots. My bra’s next, panties, all of it and then he’s laying me gently on the bed, only he still has his damn jeans on.
“Take those off,” I say, wrapping my legs around his.
He grinds
his hips into me, staring into my eyes intently. “I said I’d make it up to you and I meant that.”
Oh. That’s all my brain is able to register as he slides down my body. Believe it or not, I’ve never had anyone go down on me. Probably because it was always Kasey I was messing around with or some other random guy and it’s their pleasure they’re concerned about. Not mine.
Callan is different.
As he makes his way down my body, his hands splayed over my hips, he looks up at me and waits for my reaction. I have no reaction but a stunned look on my face.
He settles on the mattress, his head between my legs. “Has anyone ever done this to you, Alanna?”
He must have sensed by my look that I had never trusted someone to. “No.”
He smiles, his hands moving to my thighs as he lowers his face. With one last look, he licks his lips and then kisses my inner thigh, softly.
The moment his kiss touches my center, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The pleasure, the sensations, the feeling of losing control with someone in this way makes me glad I never let anyone do that before. I’d never want to be this vulnerable.
Because that’s what I am right now.
Completely vulnerable for him.
Maybe because it’s Callan. I’m not entirely sure. Just that I’ve never felt anything like this before and I never ever want it to end.
With each pass of his tongue, I’m left weak. With every groan he gives me and the way he grips my thighs so tight, I know he’s just as helpless.
He doesn’t spare anything while doing this, his fingers and tongue working together to make me feel what he has to give. My desperate pleas for him to never stop are greeted with his just as needy, grunts and growls.
“Jesus baby, you’re so fuckin’ wet.”
I throw my hands over my head, arching my back as the wave hits me all at once, like a punch to the gut. When I’m moving around too much, he puts his hands on my hips, pinning me to the mattress. I look down at him, his shoulders flexing as he grips me so tightly I think I’ll have bruises. I don’t care. I’ll take anything he gives.
When I’m finished shaking, he moves up my body, his buckle digging into my sensitive center. I laugh, squirming away from him.
He does the same and then moves back down the mattress to remove his jeans.
This is what I’m talking about.
“I’d say, hang on baby but I think maybe I should hang on. . .” He’s looking into my eyes, seeing how much I want him.
I nod. “I think you better.” I grab him by the shoulders and twist him so he’s lying on the mattress. It’s my turn for a ride.
I straddle him, much like the other night. My stare goes to his, the early morning sun peeking through his windows and lighting the side of his face. He’s beautiful. The way he watches me, that makes him even more beautiful.
“Condom?” I ask before easing myself on him. “I think I have some in my bag.”
“That’s okay.” He says, urging me forward. “I don’t think I can ever go back after feeling you the other night.”
He pulls me forward, needing my kiss and I don’t deny. I need it just as bad. So bad that I don’t care that I taste myself on his lips. It’s completely fine with me if it means I get his lips on me. His hands move from the mattress over my back and then thread in my hair, deepening the kiss and giving me his tongue.
I move my hand between us and position his erection at my entrance and then ease him inside of me. We both moan at the sensation it sends through us.
Drawing back, I move so I’m sitting up on him. His hands move to my hips, rocking me back and forth, his head tipped back against the pillow and the tendons in his neck straining. I watch the muscles in his chest and arms flexing while his body tenses and relaxes with the pleasures coursing through him. I love that I’m making him feel this.
It’s sometime after my second orgasm when Callan takes a hold on my hips. “I had to stare at your ass for days in that barn.” And then he sits up making me move to my knees. “I’m dying to see it.”
Oh. Again. My mind is so blank when it comes to him.
Before I know it, he’s entering me from behind. I don’t mind this position. I think it’s erotic because you can’t see the other person’s face and it leaves something to the imagination. I also love how deep he can go and the feeling of him driving himself into me.
I turn my head over my shoulder. “Was it what you were imagining?”
His head falls forward and denies me his eyes. “Not even close. So much better.” He grunts, driving into me again, this time hard enough that I feel him hitting my cervix. “Baby. . .I’m gonna come.” He says just before I feel his entire body tensing, pulsing inside of me, and then his movements still completely, no words are uttered but the growl that emits from his chest is so fucking good.
My body relaxes as he slumps forward on me. The weight of him collapses me flat on the mattress. I love the feel of him on top of me like this.
“Sorry.” He rolls off me and to the side when he thinks his weight is too much for me, pulling out as he does so. “Was the bed worth it?” He asks, pressing his lips to my shoulder. I savor the scrape of his jaw against my skin and the way his arms feel wrapped around me. I’ve never felt this before.
“Definitely.”
“I want to show you something,” Callan says to me the next morning after he asked me to go for a drive with him.
We’re driving down an old country road with weeds grown up over the road by a river. We go about another mile and turn again onto a dirt road.
That’s when I see it. A house still under construction tucked away behind trees in a clearing. His house?
It’s different out here, but I love it. I can see why he likes it here. Why he’d want to build a house here. “Is that your house?”
I scan the land, it’s vast with overgrown grass but you can tell it’s a work in progress for him.
Callan nods to my question and I see a bit of tension in his eyes. “I started building it about a year ago.” He says, moving his hands from the steering wheel and then to his lap and back to the steering wheel, fidgeting, as though showing me this was making him vulnerable.
We both get out at the same time. When we meet in front of the truck, he reaches for my hand and walks me up to the door. It’s still in the framing stage and no roof. “I’ve done most of it myself when I can.”
“When you have time?” I laugh.
He shrugs leaning into a wooden beam in what he says will be the family room eventually. “I have some time, just, not a lot. I need to leave on Thursday for San Antonio.”
The thought of him leaving, or me leaving, whatever it is gives my heart a jump. A reminder that the longer I’m around him, the more I feel.
“Will Ty live with you?” I ask looking around. Callan follows me, his boots scraping against the wooden floor behind me.
“He might. We just rent that house right now. Reed used to live with us but when he and Kayla got married they bought a house in Dallas.”
“Why Dallas?”
“She’s from there.”
Clouds roll in, the sky peppered with blue and gray, some dark, some lighter as mist of rain falls. It’s accenting every detail of this country road and the overgrown grass. “It’s about to pour on us. . .we should probably go.”
He reaches for my hand again and I smile. “Nothing like sex in the rain,” I say, trying to tease him a little. Though we did it two more times this morning, I just can’t get enough of him.
He draws in a whistled breath watching me get into the truck. I sit down on the bench seat as he gets in, shaking his head with his eyebrows raised, as if to say, I’m screwed. “You shouldn’t say those things to me.”
“Why?” I ask giggling.
“Because I have no control when it comes to you.” His hand goes to my bare thigh and higher until it reaches the edge of my jean shorts. “I can’t deny you no matter how hard I try and I’ve
only known you a month. I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“Don’t believe in love at first sight I take it.” I blurt out, wanting to slap my hand over my mouth. I feel completely stupid for saying that and immediately realize I said love in that sentence and want to take it back. Only I don’t.
I wait.
I want to see what he’s going to say next.
He turns his head and he stares out the windshield. “I don’t believe in love at first sight. I think that’s just a fairytale for romance novels and movies.” He waits, and then asks, “Do you?”
“Do I what?” I’m stalling because I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to answer that. Do I? When I said it to him, I was teasing, making light of the situation.
“Believe in love at first sight?”
“No.” My nerves jump a little that I’m talking about this with him in his truck. “I guess maybe I don’t. I think people throw the word around too easily these days. They wanna say it as soon as they lay eyes on someone and it doesn’t work that way.”
He nods, understanding exactly what I meant by that. “You loved Jackson, right?”
“I did.” The corners of my mouth tug into a half smile thinking of that feeling I got when I knew I loved Jackson. The scary part was, I knew that feeling so well because it’s what I feel now. “But I had also known him since I was a child. I fell slowly, over time and then it was consuming.”
He nods, taking in my confession. He has to have known I loved Jackson. Everyone knew.
“Did you love Kayla?”
“I figured she told you.” He says and then his eyes find mine, again, wanting to see my reaction. “I did.” He presses his lips together, weighing his response.
“You figured she’d tell me or you loved her?”
“I loved her. . .”
Before he can say anymore, I ask, “Do you think in another time, another place you could have made it work with her?” It was something I had always wondered about. I mean, by the way she spoke of them they were totally in love and ready to get married or something and then she’s with his brother? That never made a lot of sense to me.
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