I laugh and we end up kissing. He pushes his hand between us again and starts rubbing against my clit, and I kiss him with more heat. I rock into him, feeling so full, so stretched. Then I rock away. I rock into him and rock away. Every time I feel like he’s too much, I pull away a little. Then I try again and it feels good. It feels so good.
“I love this,” I whisper as I make my way to his ear then kiss and lick his lobe. When I bite, he gasps and grips at my hips, pulling me down.
He’s deeper now. There’s a slight awkward feeling inside me. Not painful. And awkward might not be the correct word, but uncomfortable isn’t right either. It’s just really different.
“Sorry.” He tries to pull out, but I push my hands against his, stilling him.
“No. Let me adjust.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Every single one of his words of concern fills me, like he is. Suddenly it feels good. Pleasure is radiating through every pore of mine, desire in my veins. My sex feels like it’s glowing. That might sound weird or even gross, but it’s like what Ryder and I are doing is divine. Spiritual. And so sexual. He’s a part of me now.
And I know I’m a part of him.
“It feels good, Ian. So good.”
“Sure?” He shakes his head. “If I hurt you, I’ll—”
“I’m not hurting.” I smile. “It’s so—fantastic.”
I rock my hips, taking a little more of him and pulling back. More and less. More and…more. Closing my eyes, I focus on the way he feels inside me, how the friction is so sweet, so pleasurable, how beautiful this feels.
“Ian…this is wonderful.”
“Good, baby. I’m so glad.”
I open my eyes and look down. “Are you sure this feels good for you too?”
He shakes his head. “No. It’s so much better than wonderful. You feel like…like you were made for me. Like we were meant to do this.”
“Oh,” I whisper, his sweet words falling into my heart, making it shine.
I’m shaking as I kiss him and keep rocking. I’m taking more and more of his length. There’s a gradual sense of being completely filled by him. I have to look. I’m too curious.
Lifting a little away from him, I glance down at my body.
“Oh my god. You’re really inside me now.” I glance up, ecstatic. “We’re having sex. Real sex.”
He smiles and nods. “Yeah, baby. I’m inside you.”
“I want you on top now. I want to know what that feels like.”
He swallows, looking nervous, slightly shaking his head. “I don’t know. This is so good.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“But I can.”
I blink. “I’ll tell you if you do.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to have to tell me that. Ever.”
I caress his cheek, wanting to comfort him. None of my romance books features a man like him. A man not willing to hurt me. Not even a little bit. So I’m not sure what to do. I thought men accepted the fact that they could hurt a woman during sex for the first time. I mean, sure, physiologically there’s not really a good reason why. It’s more of a cultural thing, where it’s expected for a virgin to bleed. But most women have a lot of their hymen worn away by the time they’re adults. Or if they have a septate or cribriform hymen, their gynecologist can help them so menstruation, tampon use, and even sex can be pain-free. Yeah, it’s a cultural thing for virgins to be in pain their first time. And it’s so ubiquitous I assumed Ian would be okay with the possibility that pain might happen.
Here’s this huge, hulking man. A man’s man, he’d be called. An alpha. Doctors follow his orders. He’s intimidating and tough. And he won’t hurt me. The thought of it is tearing him up, I can tell. It makes my heart—oh, my heart—aches with how happy I am.
I smile down at him. “You won’t hurt me because I’m too turned on. Everything you do is so good. I’m so close to orgasming but I want to feel your weight on me, what it feels like with you thrusting inside me.” He’s not quite convinced, so I tack on, “Please.” I rock against him again. “Please.” I lift up and settle down on him. “Oh god, please.”
He growls and grabs me by my hips, rolling us around, making me giggle in glee, especially when he’s over me, looking down at me, his massive shoulders the perfect perch for my hands.
He lowers to an elbow, not moving but takes his finger and is back to circling around my clit, making me arch my head back, moaning. He’s not moving but kisses one of my breasts, making me arch my whole back. Soon I’m rocking against him, not able to control my hips, needing the friction, the feel of him moving inside me.
He’s making it so my orgasm is closing in, making everything feel even better. That’s when he, finally, thrusts. He’s matching my rocking motions, but his cock is moving so much more than anything I can do.
“Oh, Ryder.” I clutch at him, lifting my legs, which makes it almost impossible to keep rocking against him, but he’s taking over the rhythm. “Oh god, that’s so…yeah…so good.”
“Yeah?”
“So good, baby.”
He finally smiles, and I lift my legs more. I’m not sure what I’m doing. I’m just going on instinct, like our first almost-sex time. I have to hold one of my thighs, pulling my knee close to my chest. He adjusts so I can rest my calf on his shoulder, while he’s still thrusting and it’s so good. This is why people get addicted to sex. This is why people want to have sex so much. This is why. This is so fucking good.
“Ian…”
“Yeah, baby.” His voice is strained. “You close?”
“Hmm-mm. You?”
“Just holding on until you come. You feel so good, Asha. You feel so good.”
He adjusts my other leg to be on his shoulder and the noises coming out of me are so loud and sexual. I didn’t know I could make noises like this. But I can’t help it. This feels so, so good.
My orgasm is threatening, but I have to ask him something, even though this could be, perhaps, the worst time in the world.
“Promise me, Ian. Promise me that we’ll do this again and again. I want to do this for—I want to do this forever.”
He smiles, looking down at me. “Oh yeah, baby. We’re doing this for a long time to come.”
“A few weeks won’t be enough. I need months.”
“Fuck that. Years and years, and I still won’t have my fill of you.”
I smile while I’m shaking, trying to stall my orgasm. “Deal.”
He actually chuckles while he’s still thrusting. “I lo—I—Jesus, you make it so I want to say things to you. Things I shouldn’t say this early on.”
“If you say it, I’ll say it back.”
“I shouldn’t say it now. Should wait for a time when you know I mean it.”
“Maybe I want you to say it now. Maybe I’ll know you meant it.”
He lowers his head beside mine on the pillow, groaning, his thrusts getting harder and faster. “Asha…baby…oh god, Asha.” He keeps repeating my name. Until he’s trembling all over. He lifts and looks down at me, his face red and tense, veins standing out. “Asha, I love you.”
And I orgasm. Just like that. While I’m spasming, I utter, “I love you, Ian.”
He groans and I feel his cock contracting, something warm and wet inside me. He’s coming. He’s jerking and thrusting and getting even redder while he holds his breath and keeps looking at me.
“Love you,” he whispers and collapses on me, kissing me in a frenzy, barely letting me say I love him too. After a long moment, his kisses turn sweet.
He releases my legs and I wrap them around him, locking my ankles behind his back, folding my arms around his neck, holding as tightly as I can.
You know the greatest part about making love to Ian? I don’t feel normal. I don’t. I feel worshiped and cared for, adored and admired. I feel gorgeous and more beautiful than ever before. I feel like I can trust a man. I feel loved. And I love him.
&nbs
p; This was so much more than sex. This was Ian and his giant heart that healed mine.
Chapter Twenty- Seven - Ryder
Northern Cheyenne Fourth of July Powwow in Lame Deer, Montana
She sees me.
Asha’s dancing in her pink suede dress, the elk’s teeth rattling, her hair in two long, long braids to her waist, and she smiles.
I love her. So fucking much.
I’m in the crowd of men and children who watch the women dance. She’s with Lona, dressed similarly but her dress is blue, and Bit is trying to learn the steps. Asha laughs at something her sister says, and my heart is beating so hard against my ribs. They dance in a huge circle in the dry grass, the sun beating down on all of us, making us sweat and glisten. Yellow rays capture my girl, they radiate a halo around her, all white and lavender, making her look as angelic as she really is.
She’s mine. She lives with me now, and I’ve talked about marriage a lot. She always smiles and says how great it sounds. So I spoke with her brother then her father. I took clandestine trips to Lame Deer and met with the elders. I asked if she could be mine for life. And all of them are in on the big secret.
I’ve never been to a powwow. Asha’s right, I had no clue how the drums would beat into me, beating through my skin and into my bones. My heart. I didn’t know I could eat so much fry bread. And I didn’t know I could ever be this happy.
My sister’s moving here with Neil. Asha says she loves me every day, and I no longer feel like I’m fucked up inside. I don’t know if it has something to do with Asha or if I simply outgrew the need to feel like a fuck up. Yeah, it probably has a lot to do with Asha.
The drums and singers stop and an elder is given a microphone.
I glance at Hon, who’s smiling at me, giving me one of his big grins that settles my nerves.
“That’s your cue, man,” he says.
As the elder speaks, someone is translating in English, so everyone can understand. The old man with gray braids is talking about how two people can find love. He nods at me and I approach Asha, shaking, hoping to god she’ll think what I’ve done is romantic and say yes. The crowd erupts with clapping and cheers as I get closer to the woman I love, her dark eyes huge, one of her dainty hands over her mouth.
The elder talks about how special finding love can be, how it can change you, turn you into someone else, a better version of yourself. How love can be a mirror, reflecting what you don’t want to see, but what makes it true love is when you’re willing to change, to grow. And even better, when the person holding that mirror, accepts you for who you are really are. Scars, tattoos, and all.
Then the elder addresses Asha, saying how I spoke with them, but the choice is ultimately up to her.
I’m in front of her, my beautiful Dr. Asha Whitetail. Tears have formed in her dark eyes and if I’m not careful I’ll catch them too. Her sister’s already crying, Bit wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
I’ve never liked talking. Until Asha. I never liked saying what was on my mind. But she’s patient and listens, really listens to me.
So, I talk. “Asha Isabell Whitetail.”
Her hand moves to her heart. “Ian, what are you doing?”
I get down on one knee and the people of the powwow are going crazy, cheering and clapping.
“Oh my god, what are you doing?”
I smile and catch her hand, holding it, swallowing the lump in my throat. “From the moment I first saw you, I knew you were the one. I just didn’t think I had any chance.”
A tear surfs down her cheek, and I smile as my own eyes smart.
“I’m the luckiest man in the world because you did take that chance on me.”
“Oh, Ian.”
I take the black velvet box out and open it, showing her the diamond and sapphire ring her sister helped me pick out. “I’m going to make a bargain with you, Asha. If you marry me, I’ll do everything I can to make you happy for the rest of your life. I’ll cook for you and teach you how to cook, but only if you want.”
That makes her laugh, because she thinks Chef Boyardee is good eating.
“I’ll take care of you when you’re sick.” I continue. “I’ll listen to you and fight for you and try not to fight you for the remote too much.”
She chuckles again, but another tear streams down her pretty face.
“I’ll be your protector; although, I doubt you need it, you beautiful, fierce woman. And I’ll be there with you every step of the way, holding your hand through good times and bad. If you just marry me.”
I’m not sure, but I think three hundred people are holding their breath as we all wait on Asha.
She kneels in front of me and caresses my cheek and jaw. “You beautiful man.” She kisses me and someone cheers, but someone else mentions the fact that she hasn’t said yes yet. All of it makes Asha, my gorgeous woman, smile and giggle, looking at me with so much love in her dark mischievous eyes.
Finally, she says, “Deal.”
THE END
Want to read more by Red L. Jameson? Turn the page for a tempting tidbit from Shine, Book 1 of the Wild Love Series...
Chapter One
So, yes, yes, I’ve decided Paul will become my lover.” I wait for Bethany, my best friend and only confidante to say, “It’s about fucking time,” like I expect her to. We’re in our favorite bar and grill that’s quiet with an older staff who knows our names and gives us extra cheesy nachos with wide smiles. It’s our Wednesday tradition after work to meet, have drinks, eat greasy food, and laugh. In the pub, it’s dark but not dreary. Just enough warm light to remind me of a campfire. Of sparkling orange ambience, which when I was a child was what I thought love would look like.
Bethany’s been pushing me to find a new man for the last two years, and sometimes the pushing is a lot like bullying.
Still, I know she loves me, is looking out for my best interest. And it is about time I give up the ghost of my husband and start to live a little. Even if I’m only mildly interested in Paul Reddick. He is, however, the best out of the lot, which is a small lot since I live in Laramie, Wyoming—small town, Americana-style. Besides, he’s an English professor and poet. Can’t beat that, right? Dark crazy hair, slightly reminiscent of a saner version of Poe, dark intense eyes that seem to see right through my clothes. I like that about him. He acts like he owns me, and I should hate it. But it makes things easier. I don’t have to guess if he’s into me or not.
Bethany chokes.
I roll my eyes, thinking she’s making fun of me and my Victorian ways, as she calls them. It’s not entirely my fault I have crazy virtues, the kind women a hundred and fifty years ago had, wanting to hold out until marriage to make love. And, yes, I’ve always called it making love. At least, out loud. In my head’s another thing…
I’ve tried my best to shake free from my fanatic background. I mean, it’s not every day a girl is proposed to by her uncle. I was fourteen. After escaping my past, I was left with the delightful question of what to be.
I’m an academic like Paul. An anthropologist. We teach at the University of Wyoming. And it’s hard to be anything but open-minded when looking at young faces five days out of seven who want to experiment and find the answers to life. But some mind fucks are hard to shake. Like the idea that a man will never want me if I have sex with him before marriage. Lord, I’d love to shake that right out of my mind. But I never do.
It haunts me as much as my husband. And, yeah, I’d waited until marriage to have sex with him. I thought it’d mean something; I thought he’d notice the offering I made for him. I’d been young and innocent and so goddamned naive it now hurts my teeth to think about.
My husband, Tim, had taken my virginity in stride. And who knows how many others he’d taken after we were blissfully wedded. The fairy tale ending I expected was not for me.
It’s not nice to think ill of the dead, I remind myself for the millionth time. That day.
That’s when I focus more on Bethany. Her usual
cheerful pink cheeks are darkening, blooming a color close to purple. Her quietness should have alerted me sooner.
“Are you okay?” I finally ask.
She grabs at her throat, tearing along her skin as if hoping to find a rope there that she could pull away.
Jumping from my stool, I race behind her, angry it took me that long to figure out she is really choking. My best friend is in need and I was absent-mindedly thinking about taking a lover and my dick of a dead husband who I really shouldn’t call a dick, even if only in my head. He’s dead. He can’t defend himself now.
Vaguely I hear our waitress, Nan, yell for someone to call 911 as I reach around the one woman who’d seen me through the tangled mess of what was my marriage. She stood by me when I found out Tim was cheating and how often, how he’d been funneling our money into a separate bank account, how he’d been getting ready to divorce me and steal my money, and when he found out that cough of his was cancer. I waited on him hand and foot. The obedient wife, even though I never said that in my vows. I took him to his appointments, shaved his head and my own after the chemo. I cared for him so he wouldn’t need a hospice. I loved that son of a bitch so fucking much. Then he died. He just died, but right before he told me he didn’t deserve me, begged me to forgive him, and whispered so sweetly how he did love me after all.
I’m a thirty-two-year-old widow. I’ve only made love to Tim. And I’ve only loved him.
Bethany knows all this and she loves me anyway. She doesn’t pity me as others do. I am a doormat. I know. I’m an idiot for my husband. My dead husband. But Bethany has always encouraged me to be more. She thinks I have it in me to do anything I want. Like take a lover, although I know I won’t marry Paul. And I’m scared out of my skin he’ll call me a slut after. No, I’m more scared he’ll look at me with disgust. Is there anything as painful as a man’s disgust? There is. His apathy. When he looks at you with as much interest as a piece of tissue he’d used to mop up his masturbation mess.
I find Bethany’s notch under her ribs, right where the bones knit together. She holds my arm in a tight grip. My mind takes a picture of her hand on me—her beautiful bronze skin against my paper-white flesh. She’s always teasing me that being the anthropologist I am I know more about her aboriginal background than she does. I need her teasing; I need her friendship. Terrified, I thrust my fists into that notch. Push back and up. Push back and up into her stomach.
Bad Medicine (Wolf Love Book 4) Page 23