Unbreakable

by Alison Kent

  “I know what you’re doing.”

  “I should hope so.”

  “You’re trying to distract me.”

  “Am I?”

  Her eyes drifted shut. Her head lolled to the side. “You don’t want me pointing out all the ways I know you.”

  “That’s because the only one I care about is you knowing what to do with my cock,” he said, bending to pull her nipple into his mouth, sucking on her, licking his way around her pebbled areola.

  She groaned, leaned into him. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Anything, sweetheart.”

  “I get wet when you do that. And when I’m wet I can’t wait for you to fuck me.”

  He laughed and licked harder. He couldn’t remember ever hearing Faith Mitchell utter the word fuck. “I’ve gotta get me one of those margaritas.”

  “I’m a total lightweight,” she said, pushing off his hat and scraping her nails through his buzzed hair. “I couldn’t make heads or tails of Cruz’s invoice.”

  “Sounds like a really good time to take advantage of you,” he said, his cock twitching, thickening, growing long in his shorts.

  “I agree,” she said. “But not in the kitchen. We did the kitchen at the ranch house. And the bathroom at the saloon. And the parking lot at the cafe. And both our bedrooms.”

  “Your choice, sweetheart,” he said, though the last thing he wanted to do was move. He was happy where he was, her tit in his mouth, her hands letting him know she liked having him there.

  Or she seemed to be liking it until she pushed him away. “The ballroom. The middle of the ballroom. Right beneath the spot where the chandelier will hang.”

  First he was hearing about a chandelier, but he didn’t argue. He didn’t even stop to snatch his hat from the kitchen floor, but let her pull him down the house’s long center hallway and into the first-floor’s grand room. This room held no memories. This room had remained empty and unused the years he’d lived here. This room wouldn’t strangle the air from his lungs the moment he shoved himself into her.

  He might talk big about doing her in every space, but the truth was a different animal. There were some corners, some closets, some hidden crannies where he wouldn’t be able to get it up, not with a thousand whores’ mouths trying.

  But Faith didn’t have to know any of that. And thinking about those places now was about the dumbest thing he could do—especially with the woman in front of him wet and waiting.

  While Faith stared up at the high ceiling and held her arms out to her sides, he jerked his T-shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. His boots followed, then his jeans. He yanked his belt from the loops to get the buckle out of the way, laying the denim on the floor, the cotton shirt on top, doing what he could to create padding between bones and hard wood.

  Coming up behind her in his socks and his shorts, he slid her jacket from her shoulders, added it to the makeshift bed. Next came her blouse, and while he got rid of her skirt, she did the same with her pantyhose. When he started to strip away her underthings, she stopped him.

  “No,” she said. “Not yet.”

  And then she backed away, her eyes wide and teasing, her mouth silently laughing. She spun, dropped to her hands and knees on his pallet, gave a toss of her hair and a look over her shoulder.

  Goddamn the woman was hot. Her ass all up in the air like an offering. Her tits dangling as she moved from her hands to her elbows, wiggling her backside and inviting him in, the fabric of her panties hiding little and showing off the rest.

  He was out of his shorts and on his knees, his cock sprung before he’d even taken a breath. He tugged her panties down her thighs, released the clasp of her bra to free her tits. He braced one hand on the small of her back, gripped his shaft with the other, and guided himself into her cunt, nearly losing his mind as he did.

  She was right about being wet, and it was a damn good thing. She was so hot and so tight he had to work his way in, spreading her juices with the head of his cock before driving himself to the hilt. Once there, he stopped, his hands at her hips, his hips flush to hers, and let his head fall back on his shoulders.

  He stayed there, throbbing, pulsing, his balls drawing hard into his body, his ass clenching as he held on to his load. This was crazy insane, the way she stripped away his control. The way she crooked a finger or wiggled her ass and he dropped what he was doing to pant after her. And he didn’t even care, didn’t try to stop himself. He just followed his dick, mindless.

  She did this to him. Faith. No woman before had looked into him and demanded so much from him and seen past his walls. She wormed and dug, and he gave it up. Around her, his resistance was gone. One of these days he’d looked into why, but for now all that mattered was fucking her, losing himself in her, giving her what her ass was begging for.

  He ground against her, scooting the pallet of clothing a couple of inches before anchoring it with his knees. Faith gasped, pushed herself flush to his groin. He clenched his thighs, his buttocks, his fingers on her hips, and began to thrust, slamming against her again and again, the flesh-on-flesh slaps like gunshots in the big empty room.

  Each time he hit bottom, she grunted. Each time he pulled back, she moaned. She moved her forehead to one wrist, and he felt her other hand at her pussy, playing with her clit, playing with him. He pumped, squeezed his eyes closed, pumped, opened them, pumped, knew there was no way he was going to last, and let go.

  She came up on her hands when he stiffened behind her, grinding her hips in a wicked figure eight and tugging him in all the right ways. He shuddered, grunted, then felt her contractions begin to flutter before she tossed back her head and cried out.

  They collapsed together, Faith on the pallet, he on the floor that had been recently cleaned, yet still smelled of mildew and rot. He nudged her to move off his clothes. “C’mon, sleeping beauty. You’re going to turn into a pumpkin.”

  Smiling, she rolled toward him, wrapped her arms around him, stared into his eyes. “You’re mixing up your fairy tales, cowboy.”

  “That’s because I don’t know a damn thing about making dreams come true,” he said more bitterly than he’d intended, and then he kicked himself when she let him go and the light went out in her eyes.

  NINETEEN

  FAITH WAS LOATH to get up the next morning, rolling against Casper to absorb his warmth, to smell the musk of him, to feel the dip in the bed from his weight, his skin that in certain places was just as soft as hers, but in others was dusted with coarse hair and baked by the sun.

  It was nice having him here. Comfortable. Comforting. And that was strange since she’d never felt uncomfortable here at all.

  She’d been sleeping in this room since returning to Crow Hill after college. She’d changed out her mattress once, her furniture a couple of times, and her decor a half dozen until settling on the current look that made her think of sweet magnolias and a summer breeze.

  It didn’t exactly fit with the hacienda-themed complex, but with the cane ceiling fan stirring the air and the gauze panels hanging from her canopy, she could shed the stress of her banking career and relax.

  Before Casper, she’d never brought a man to her bed. The very few…dalliances she’d engaged in had occurred elsewhere. A posh hotel room in San Antonio. Her lover’s home. A blanket under the stars when she’d dated a rancher from Gonzales for several months. Her most sexually adventurous years had been in college. Since then, she’d spent most of her nights alone.

  She didn’t mind, really. She wasn’t sure if she hadn’t yet met the right man, or if she wasn’t intended to be part of a couple. She was opinionated and insistent and sometimes rude, and she sure wouldn’t want those qualities in a partner—a thought that had her chuckling into her pillow because of the rude, insistent, opinionated man beside her.

  “Why are you laughing at seven o’clock in the morning?” he grumbled.

  This from the man who worked cattle at dawn? “Why are you still sleeping at seven o�
�clock in the…Shit! It’s seven o’clock?” A look at the bedside alarm confirmed it. The alarm she’d forgot to set because she’d been too busy trying to convince Casper dreams were overrated. She groaned. “I am so, so, so unbelievably late. And you are, too.”

  She tossed back the covers and flew through her morning routine, allowing herself no time to think what it meant that she’d slept so soundly because Casper had been sleeping beside her. Yes, Adelita’s large margarita had helped, but she remembered him being there, remembered pushing her foot toward him and settling her sole at his knee.

  Remembered thinking it strange that neither one of them dreamed.

  By the time she’d showered and dressed and was hopping into the kitchen on one foot, pulling her shoe onto the other, Casper was pouring her a travel mug of coffee. His face was scruffy, his T-shirt hanging at his hips instead of tucked into his jeans, one leg of those bunched up at the top of his boot.

  He held her gaze as he handed it to her, sipping his own, saying nothing though speaking volumes. His eyes took her in—her still-damp hair flipping on the ends, her lips bare of gloss, her suit jacket folded over one arm—finally shaking his head as he glanced at her legs and her pantyhose. That had her smiling as she took a swallow of coffee. She hated them as much as he did.

  They walked to the parking lot together, Casper following her to her car. She couldn’t help but wonder how many of the complex residents knew the strange truck parked beside her was his, or how many would’ve assumed the overnight guest to be hers. Not that there would be any doubt now, the two of them together, in public, when she’d sworn to be circumspect.

  Just her luck by the time she saw Boone later, he’d have heard where Casper spent the night. Last time he’d parked at a distance. This time they were side by side. It was too much to hope she could escape discovery a second time, especially with him standing there, so obviously with her.

  Great, she mused, sliding into her seat and wondering why in the world she couldn’t stick to her guns. This wasn’t a whole lot different from the near-public display at the Hellcat Saloon. She’d promised Arwen then the same thing she’d promised herself. She would not let things with Casper get out of hand.

  And yet here they were, both drinking coffee, neither of them quite put together, Casper barely dressed. Yeah. She was the queen of self-control, rolling her eyes as she turned the key in the ignition…and nothing. Nothing. The car was completely dead.

  It hadn’t wanted to start when she’d left Arwen’s after Casper had taken her back there from Mulberry Street, and it had been iffy after work yesterday, but she’d thought the drive home would charge it. Visiting Bandy’s Garage on her lunch hour had been the plan, but now…Crap.

  “Can you give me a jump?”

  One hand on her doorframe, the other on the top of the car, Casper leaned in. “You got cables?”

  “Good lord. Don’t you?”

  “In the flatbed. Not with me.” He straightened, held open her door. “C’mon. I’ll drop you off.”

  “I need my car after work to go talk to Boone.”

  “Then give me your keys,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll stop at Bandy’s and have Skeet bring you out a new battery. He can drop the car at the bank when he’s done.”

  Hoping it was just her battery, she gathered her things, locked up the car, and worked the key from the ring while climbing into Casper’s truck. When she handed it to him, he kept hold of her hand, and even when they reached the bank parking lot less than ten minutes later, he didn’t let her go.

  She tugged until he finally did, then reached for her jacket in the seat beside her, her purse on the floor, tucking her travel mug in an inside pocket. “Hold on,” he said, and the tone of his voice stopped her.

  She thought of her boss impatiently waiting for her to arrive, thought of today’s scheduled conference with Greg Barrett and Philip Hart, thought about waking this morning, spineless and at peace. “Casper. I’m late,” she said, but she didn’t open the door.

  “Then you’d better hurry up and pay me.”

  “Pay you?”

  “Cab fare. You didn’t think I was doing this for free, did you?”

  “Actually, I did.” She took in his look, the heat, the expectation, the little bit of resignation that he was asking for the moon. The moon that never came through for the Jaynes. A piece of her heart began to tear, and she stopped it by saying, “I guess you want to be paid with something besides cash.”

  He cocked back, his thighs spread and the corner of his mouth smug and hopeful. “Well, sweet thing, since getting you to fork over cash takes an act of God, or a ball-strangling legal agreement—”

  She cut him off before they got into another money scuffle. “What do you want?”

  “How ’bout a little kiss?” He pointed to the center of his lips. “Right here. All soft and warm the way you’re so good at.”

  “A little one,” she said, giving him a measurement with her forefinger and thumb and ignoring the ragged pull in her chest. “Pequeño. That’s it.”

  “C’mere then,” he said, and reached for her, his voice a low, raspy brush that brought gooseflesh to her skin. “You know I like it when you talk dirty.”

  “That wasn’t dirty. That was Spanish.” But she scooted across the seat and leaned to brush her lips over his.

  When she moved away, he held her shoulder and kept her there, extending the kiss, the press of his lips harder, then deepening the kiss, parting her lips with his tongue. She groaned and gave in, kissing him back the way she wanted even though she’d agreed to a much safer contact. She didn’t want to walk into her office wet from wanting him.

  It was too late, of course. Already her body was making room for his, opening, heating, growing loose and hungry. She leaned into him, wrapping an arm around his neck as he lifted her close, as he urged her into his lap, her back to his door as he leaned over her, bearing her down, sliding his hand beneath her skirt to her crotch.

  He growled when he met her pantyhose, dug his fingers into the fabric of the cloth panel, and tore, working his way through the opening he’d made to the one he wanted, the one hidden behind her panties, the one slick with her moisture and anxious. She shuddered, a breath of air touching her, teasing her. Telling her he was close.

  And then he was there, pushing his way through her folds and into her, two fingers, then a third, and groaning into her mouth. She curled her hands around his shoulders, digging for purchase and straining, clenching, contracting her muscles and wishing for his cock because of the way he fit her, the way he knew her.

  His tongue played with hers, sliding along hers, flicking and fucking until her skin felt too tight to hold the push and the pull of her need. She wanted to care that they were parked in front of the bank, that the tinted windows of his truck wouldn’t hide her from anyone walking by. Co-workers. Customers. The man who signed her paycheck. The man who signed his.

  But she was caught in Casper’s snare and helpless. He did this to her, made her forget how important her reputation was, how hard she’d worked to restore it. That she’d sworn to never again be put in a position to worry that her behavior would be her downfall, or the ruination of someone she couldn’t imagine not being a part of her life.

  And look at the position she was in now—her legs spread, her pantyhose torn and worthless, her skirt rucked up over her hips, Casper fingering her in the parking lot of the bank. What was she thinking? Or why wasn’t she thinking? Wouldn’t that be the question needing an answer most?

  But instead of pushing off his lap and shoving him away, she forced her conscience and common sense out of the truck’s cab, allowing only her lust to remain. She writhed against Casper’s hand, pushed her mound into his palm, grinding her clit and feeling the rise of his cock beneath her.

  And then his hand was gone, and he was forcing her to sit up, reaching for his belt buckle and button fly. He lifted his hips and shucked his jeans down his thighs, his cock thrusti
ng against his belly, his legs thick and muscled. She closed her eyes to let the tingles and electric buzz build to sweep through her body.

  She wanted to straddle him, to feel him inside of her, pulsing, bold and hard and insistent. Instead she leaned forward and took him in her mouth, tasting him, the salt and the smooth cap of his head. Veins stood rigid along his shaft, and she followed them with her tongue.

  He bucked up into her mouth, groaning, his hand holding the back of her head, his fingers threaded through her hair like fence posts through grass. “Goddamn, woman. All I asked for was a little bitty kiss.”

  She fought a smile and pursed her lips to suck him hard, pulling her mouth the length of his cock until she held nothing but the head. She swirled her tongue around him, using the end against the slit, then the underside seam, then the flat of the surface that was so tight she thought it might burst.

  He was hot, so hot, and so ready, moisture weeping from his tip, slick and sticky. She swept it away, spread it with her tongue, wetting him with his pre-cum and her saliva, her pussy throbbing as she remembered the feel of him inside of her, how tightly he fit, how he stretched her to near bursting, too.

  She was done. She needed him. She let him go, sitting up, hiking her skirt to her waist and tearing the hole in her pantyhose to make the room she needed. Then she straddled him, her knees on his seat at his hips, and reached between their bodies, taking his cock in her hand, sliding the ripe head through her folds to smear the moisture gathered there.

  And though she was ready and wanted this more than anything, she stopped because of what she saw in Casper’s gaze—an asking that had nothing to do with the size of the kiss she’d promised. He was staring, studying, looking for something she didn’t know she had to give him. Something bigger than sex. They’d agreed this was all they wanted—bodies and heat and satisfaction.

  Her pulse drumming in her neck, she squeezed his cock and said, “Don’t look at me like that.”

  He shook his head, and where she was expecting a grin, she got something else entirely. A something that seemed a hopeful kind of sad, breaking her heart when emotions weren’t supposed to be here. This was a reckless kind of sex, physical and dangerous, but it was not what he was asking.