by Hazel Parker
It didn’t take long for Dean to understand my intention. Strong fingers pulled at my shirt, freeing the buttons with force. There was no ceremony to his actions, just lust fueled movements that left me topless and wet and needy. He jerked the button free on my jeans and yanked them down, but didn’t finish the job before pulling me back in for another round of bruising kisses.
I knew for certain that my bossy man was back when my efforts to pull up his shirt were thwarted by his strong grip pinning my hands and his chest, pushing me back until I stopped at the wall behind me. He held me there, lips seeking my chin and neck and lower. Eventually he had to release my hands to crouch in front of me, his mouth sucking at my tits and his hands pushing my pants down the rest of the way.
Lust burned a path from his grazing teeth on my nipples down to my core. I could feel how wet I was, and I would give anything for Dean to feel it too. As he stood back up, one hand at the button on his pants, his other hand granted my wish and ran up the seam between my legs. My legs quivered and threatened to give out, but I willed them to keep me upright.
With that cocky grin that I loved, Dean stepped back and out of his pants and pull off his shirt. When he touched my pussy again, it was with his firm erection in hand. The smooth skin circled my clit, grinding a maddening path before dipping into my wet heat. With a steady push, he entered me fully, his free hand pulling my leg up to his waist. My body buzzed with his touch.
My hands wrapped around his neck and I held onto him while the small of my back touched the cool wall behind me. I raised my other leg around him, desperately holding myself to him. His hands slid down my back and supported me against him while he began moving with a steady pace. His actions were strong and measured, not hurried, but executed with such a wicked force that I gripped tight to him.
I closed my eyes and took in the rhythmic thump of my body knocking the wall and our labored breaths filling the room. I took in the tremors that shook my body when he pulled all the way out only to fully sheath himself again. I took in the feel of his mouth on my shoulder and neck. This man was sending my senses reeling. I cherished every second until his gentle voice cut through my lust haze.
“This isn’t right.”
His words made me open my eyes and Dean’s thrusting hips slowed. He brushed his lips against mine with a look I didn’t know how to comprehend before gripping my ass in his hands and pulling us away from the wall. The question on my lips died as I clutched at his shoulders and hung on. With him still pulsing inside me, Dean walked us down the hallway and to my room.
The bed dipped as he sank to his knees and laid me down. Hovering over me, he kissed me softly once more, his lips eliciting a sensation that his rough thrusts couldn’t. I moaned against his lips as he started driving into me again. This time his movements were slower, deeper.
I finally understood what he meant, what he wanted. This closeness, this intimacy that neither of us had ever had before, filled our kisses and permeated our movements.
Between the intimacy and the glide of his cock over my sensitive skin, my body was drawing ever tighter. Despite my efforts to the contrary, my breathing became shallow and a persisting quiver wracked my legs.
I willed myself to hang on, to not give in to the sensations just yet. It worked for a moment until rational thought started fading and my body took over. I couldn’t hold back the sounds coming from deep in my throat and the way my walls clamped down around Dean’s cock. Soon our lips tore away from each other and Dean’s deep groans mixed with mine. We were both fraying at the edges, holding tight to this new feeling we found. Too soon, though, our bodies gave in and our mingled sounds grew louder.
Orgasm burst through my body, warming me all the more and contracting my muscles. My legs clamped hard around Dean, fingers digging into his shoulders. I could feel my pulse beating throughout my body and I cried out.
As the tightness started to fade into lax muscles, Dean’s body went rigid above me. My eyes were finally able to focus on him and I saw that he had been watching me shatter, had been holding on until I rode out the sensation. But his face told me that he couldn’t hold out any longer, and I braced against the jagged thrusts and the weight of his pulsing body. The sound of him coming reverberated against the walls of my tiny room.
With heavy motions, Dean ducked down to press a final kiss to my lips before collapsing beside me. We lay on our backs, breathing hard until Dean rolled to his side and wrapped an arm around me.
In the quiet of my room, with the sweat cooling my body and the weight of Dean’s arm on my waist, I looked up at him. He was watching. He’d been watching me ever since he’d found me on the boat. The only time he didn’t have his eyes on me was when the doctor kicked him out of the examination room, and even then it was begrudgingly.
“Tell me what you’ve got going on in your head. You’re always so quiet.”
He smiled down at me, more relaxed now. “I’m just sorting some things out.”
“Care to share?”
“Earlier I was so confused. I didn’t know why I was so out of control back at the marina. Even when I’m following a lead and full of adrenaline, I’m calm. Things don’t usually get to me. But I was a wreck when I saw you there and all the shit that came afterwards. And initially I figured I was mad at you. Mad that you left on your own and got in trouble.” I looked away, the guilt of that decision and the danger it put us both in still fresh. Dean hooked a finger under my chin and turned me back to face him. “It took some time, but just now I figured out that it wasn’t that. It was so much more.”
I licked my lips and swallowed to wet my dry mouth. “It was?”
“Yeah. I now know that it was because I felt so much for you. That I loved you.”
I felt my eyes go wide with no way to stop them. Dean didn’t seem like the kind of man to admit that if he wasn’t sure, but I had to ask him anyways.
“You can’t be so certain.”
“Sure I can. I know what I want and how this feels. I’ve never been more certain.”
I smiled at his confidence, at the conviction in the decisions he makes, even those of the heart.
“I wish I could be as self-assured as you sometimes.” I said, settling back against his chest and snuggling into his embrace.
“You’re not sure about us?”
“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head and looking up at him. “Not that. I knew I loved you the moment you pulled me from the brink of a panic attack just by looking at me. I mean about everything else.”
“If you’re sure about love, what else is there?”
Those words spoke volumes to me. Everything I had done in the past months had been out of love. This time, though, that love didn’t trap me in fear or uncertainty: it set me free.
Bucked Bad Boy
Chapter 1
Even as happy fans cheered for the cowboys parading around the rodeo arena in front of her, all Camille Starr could think about was how she was so bored. Leave it to white cowboys who didn’t season their chicken to come up with the most yawn-worthy sport of all time. Rolling back her shoulders in a stretch, she mentally took note of the fact that she was the only black woman—black anyone—in the whole damn place.
Forget just the white cowboys—leave it to her white boyfriend, Jackson “Wannabe Spurs” Wilkes, to drag her off to north-of-anywhere Minnesota because he wanted to go country. She hadn’t known there was anything in Minnesota except for trees and snow. But as it turned out, she’d gotten laid off from managing payroll for a restaurant chain in Atlanta in June, and in July Jackson just happened to have gotten enough time off from his startup gig to check out a couple properties for sale. Their long-ass cross-country car trip got the go-ahead, and they’d been crashing in a motel in Smiley, Minnesota—More Cows Than People! the welcome sign had boasted—ever since.
Maybe she should be grateful; the rodeo was the first halfway fun thing they’d done so far. And anyway, she loved Jackson. They’d always had good times tog
ether, even if they were hard for her to remember right then; she was sure he’d get over this cowboy phase soon, and then they could go back to Atlanta.
Lost in thoughts of shopping malls, Camille almost didn’t notice the smoking-hot cowboy riding by the barrier only a few feet in front of her—but her eyes jerked up to meet his when he flashed his brilliant-white smile right at her. Lord have mercy, she thought, an embarrassed smile immediately springing to her face. The man had muscles everywhere, rippling in his neck and visible under his deliciously skintight rodeo shirt. He had the kind of honest tan you only got from working outside, and the rugged scruff on his cheeks left her imagining how it would feel if his lips ever got the chance to meet hers. Beads of sweat collected on her forehead and she had to press her thighs tight together in embarrassment when she felt telltale warmth down there.
Get it together, Cammy, she instructed herself as her heart beat faster. You’re on vacation. And taken. Get your mind out of the gutter!
Thankfully, the cowboy rode on past, and she let out a sigh of relief. She didn’t know what had come over her. She didn’t like to look at other guys; she really loved Jackson. She thought hard to the good times. The frat party, she thought. We both got wasted in college. He walked me home, I think. And the sex might have been good…
As another rodeo event began—they seemed intent on working those poor horses to death—she stood up from her seat and decided to go back to the truck for water and to check on Jackson, who had said he’d be taking a nap and not to worry about him. She felt eyes following her as she left the bleachers, and was glad her dark skin hid her blush. She and Jackson planned to drive back to Atlanta in two weeks and it couldn’t come quickly enough.
She walked towards the truck, which was shiny and blue and had been Jackson’s twenty-fifth birthday present from her, purchased just before she’d been laid off. Jackson was supposed to have been taking a nap, but as she got closer to the truck, she realized that it was…rocking?
Oh Lord, she thought, suddenly damn sure of what she was going to find. Don’t tell me…I knew he was getting real friendly with that girl selling beers.
Marching her high heels through the mud towards the cab, she saw that both of the nice leather seats up front were empty. The sun was starting to go down, and lamps over the arena flickered on behind her. The field where they had parked was deserted except for other vehicles—and some very suggestive moans.
“Oh, Jackson!” a woman cried out ecstatically, and that woman was most definitely not Camille.
Stomping forward even faster, she looked in the bed of the truck and saw the unmistakable form of two bodies rolling around beneath a blanket. She thought about covering her eyes before cussing them out—she didn’t want to see him with some blonde, stupid country girl!—but the desire to make Jackson sweat bullets overcame her. Creeping quietly towards the truck, she yanked the blanket right off.
Just as she’d suspected, Jackson was naked as a newborn under there, and the girl he’d been fucking was just as much of a cowgirl bimbo as she’d expected. The girl leaped off Jackson’s male member with a shriek, and as soon as Jackson caught sight of Camille’s furious face, his erection shriveled up like a prune.
“Baby, baby! I can ex-explain!” he stuttered.
“Just how dumb do you think I am?” Camille shouted. “You said you were taking a nap and I find you doing the nasty with a white girl? How are you gonna explain that?”
Jackson squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pull the blanket back over him, but his blonde bitch had already grabbed it to cover herself. The girl’s blue eyes fixed on Camille.
“Your girlfriend is black?” she whimpered to Jackson. “What’s she going to do to me?”
Jackson didn’t say a word to defend Camille. They had been dating since college, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed what a coward he was in nearly five years.
Disgust made Camille curl her lip and turn away, grabbing her duffel bag from the passenger seat of the vehicle. “I’m not gonna do anything to you,” she said as she walked away with the bag. “Or to Jackson. My chickenshit ex-boyfriend is all yours, sweetheart. But, for the record, he never made me cum.”
Chapter 2
As Sawyer Adkins stepped out of the rodeo arena triumphant in bareback bronc riding yet again, he sipped from his canteen then poured some of the water over his face. There was nothing like the feeling of a vicious mare bronc between his legs, and the feeling of danger—and power—the sport brought him. He was accomplished in nearly every area of rodeo, but bronc riding was his favorite: finding the rhythm of the horse as she bucked and as he grasped the strap at her withers for dear life. It was a hell of an aphrodisiac.
Smile fading from his face, he wondered how the reading of his father’s will had gone that afternoon. His family had come unhinged when his father died of a heart attack two weeks before—and that’s why he’d decided to go to the rodeo instead. Let his nose-to-the-grindstone brothers figure out the details. He knew they couldn’t cut him out completely, and he didn’t want to see his father’s legacy tarnishing more every day. Hal Adkins had been a great man—he’d built the Adkins West Ranch from the ground up, and had provided for his family like a real man should. Why couldn’t everyone remember that instead of bickering over every penny?
Of course, he wouldn’t be opposed to there being some pennies left over. Okay, a lot of pennies. Jetting to South America isn’t cheap.
Sawyer heaved his saddlebags into the bed of his truck, still lost in thought, but mood improving. What girl would he bring to Argentinian rodeos and wine tastings this time? He was running out of eligible Smiley women, but he’d seen a few new faces while he rode today. He hadn’t seen any black women out in this part of the boondocks for a while, and it had been clear the woman in the bleachers was not from around here. She’d had city clothes and city makeup and a city manicure. She’d also looked disinterested.
So what if I don’t have a chance with her? I got her to smile, at least, and there are plenty more women around…
Sawyer stood still when he heard a woman crying. He couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from, but it was late at night and most of the rodeo crowd had cleared out—the field was nearly empty of cars.
“Hello?” he drawled. “You okay?”
The crying stopped.
“I’m fine,” the woman said shakily, in an accent that was not from around Smiley.
“Where are you?” Sawyer walked toward the source of the voice, by a port-a-john near the edge of the field. “Are you, um…busy?”
“Really, I’m fine,” the woman said.
Sawyer stopped in front of the door and knocked gently. “Please, ma’am, I’m worried about you. You come here with anybody?”
With a sigh, the woman unlocked the door and pushed it open. “I did, but it’s a long story. You don’t wanna hear it.”
Sawyer smiled when he saw that it was the woman from the bleachers, just as he had hoped. “I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,” he said, but he didn’t sound very sorry. “Can I give you a ride anywhere?”
“Do you know where I could get cell service anywhere around this stupid place?” she asked. “Sorry if you’re from here, I guess.”
“You can get a bar or two downtown, but it’s dicey. I usually go to the next town over.”
The woman’s lip quivered and it looked like she was going to cry again. He leaned forward and extended his hand.
“I think you’ll feel better if you come out of there,” he said.
The woman nodded, dabbing at her eyes in a futile attempt to save her mascara before taking his hand. Her skin was very soft, and when she squeezed tightly, her purple, manicured nails dug into Sawyer’s own rough palm.
“Thank you,” she said. “My name is Camille. I think I saw you ride in the rodeo.” She looked away shyly, but he could tell by the firm set of her jaw that this woman had grit.
“You did,” he chuckled. “I’m Sawyer Adki
ns.”
Camille nodded, but he could tell his name didn’t mean anything to her.
He helped her to her feet and rested his hand on her shoulder for a little longer than necessary. He realized that she was very warm, and probably dehydrated.
“You want some water before you go?” Sawyer said. “If you don’t have a ride or anything, I can take you to town, but you should cool off first. I have air-conditioning in my trailer.”
“You have a trailer?” Camille asked, raising an eyebrow.
Sawyer shrugged. “I do a lot of rodeos.”
“Apparently,” she said, but didn’t protest as he locked his truck and headed toward his trailer. He had been planning to go back to the ranch, but with a chance at a woman this gorgeous, the ranch could definitely wait.
Sawyer turned on the generator before they went inside the trailer. The loud rumbling faded as they entered and he closed the window, turning on the air conditioning and the lights. Camille stood by the door, her expression unreadable.
Sawyer grabbed a glass of water for her, and a can of beer from a cooler for him. “You want to sit down?” he asked.
Camille took a seat at the dinette table. “Thank you for doing this,” she said. “I…don’t really have a plan. I’m from Atlanta.”
Sawyer nodded and waited for her to continue.
“My boyfriend drove me out to this stupid place, and we came to the rodeo today, and he cheated on me. He cheated on me! I can’t believe it.” She stared into the glass of water as if it could tell her where she had gone wrong. “And I was just so angry at him that I stormed off with my stuff. I bet he took the damn truck, too. I bought that truck!”
Sawyer reached across the table to brush his fingers across the back of her hand. He saw goosebumps rise on her ebony skin, contrasted against his tan tone. She looked away again, whether from embarrassment or leftover anger at her ex he couldn’t tell.
She slumped back in the dinette, kicking her duffel bag in defeat.