by Cat Porter
She smirked. “Oh, so caring. Anything else, your majesty?”
I hooked my arm around her neck and pulled her close, kissing the side of her face. “Not just yet, but I’ll think of something.”
She pushed against my chest. “I think I’m going to go help out in the kitchen.”
“Oh”—I tugged her back in—“one more thing?”
“Now what?”
“Watch out for the old ladies. They might be all smiles with you at first, but don’t trust ’em—at least not yet. And stay completely away from the other women. Remember, to them you’re the new bitch on the block.”
“Right. I’ll keep that in mind.” She strode off, her bare legs in those heavy brown cowboy boots, her hips swaying slightly in her wrinkled skirt.
I lit a cigarette.
Within minutes, she came back out, holding a tray of sodas. She was yakking with Dee, Judge’s old lady, as the two of them headed for the tables. The girl could make friends with anybody.
“How’s the little romantic reunion going?” a raspy voice snarled behind me.
I rubbed my chest as I exhaled a thick stream of smoke and grinned at Vig. “Fucking amazing.”
“Ain’t that sweet?”
COME MONDAY MORNING, I was exhausted.
It wasn’t the late nights and hard partying. It was Grace.
Since I’d decided that fucking her was not going to happen, we had taken our time, and we had done a hell of a lot of other things that I hadn’t really ever taken so much time with. Before, all these little bits had been quick snacks or obligatory fixes on the way to the main event. But with no main event on the horizon, we’d spent a lot of time exploring each other’s bodies with our mouths, our tongues, our fingers. I’d really enjoyed every nerve-jolting, blood-rushing, skin-blistering moment. I’d begun to enjoy the biting sensation that I was going to explode out of control, and when I had exploded, it had been fucking good.
Grace had gotten good at reading me and taken care of me every time, never hesitating, sometimes asking for direction. We’d sixty-nined it, played with friction in a lot of interesting positions—with and without objects I’d slid over her, inside her—and I’d found her special quiver-spot up in that beautiful pussy. She’d opened her legs high and wide for me on command, gotten on all fours for me, raised up that fantastic ass, trusting me with previously unmarked territory. She’d trembled in my arms, her range of moans and cries becoming my favorite soundtrack of all time.
“Can we take a break?” she’d sighed from the pillow.
I’d swatted her luscious ass and then bit it hard. She’d let out a shriek.
“Famous last words,” I’d said in a melodramatic menacing tone against her skin.
She’d laughed, and I had gone back to licking her and nudging my fingertip inside her rear, my other hand stroking her clit to distract her. She’d been helpless in my hands.
That was beautiful.
She’d come hard—yet again.
Fuck, I’m addicted.
“Dig!”
The way she’d gasped my name filled me with pride and a surge of joy as she curled her body into mine and plastered my chest with kisses. We’d talked in hushed tones about what we liked most and why. She’d experimented on me, on herself, her eyes searching mine for approval. I had given Grace plenty of fucking direction and plenty of approval, telling her in dirty detail how it all turned me on. That had turned her on even more. She’d shown me how much, and I’d shown her right back. The girl had an appetite.
Yes, I loved knowing that I had woken her up to it; that she’d found it with me, her body coming alive with mine. Did that make me a selfish, self-centered bastard? Maybe. But I was a man hot for the woman in his bed, and by Sunday morning she had stopped blushing altogether.
Her hands clutched mine as they kneaded her breasts. “You always keep your rings on?” she’d said, her voice low, throaty.
“Always. You like ’em?”
Her head had fallen back against my shoulder. “I like everything about you, Dig.”
That blazing heat had flared inside my chest again, and I’d slid a hand between her legs. She’d jammed her face into the pillow. I’d stopped what I was doing and smacked her ass hard, my own hand stinging. She’d turned her face to me and blinked, her lower lip jutting out.
“You think we’re the only ones getting busy under this roof?” I’d asked. “Can’t you hear all the groaning and the shouting? You want me to take you out to the main room right now and show you? I promise you, none of ’em would even notice we were naked.”
Her eyes had widened, and she’d wiped the hair from her sweaty face.
I’d rubbed her ass where I’d hit her. “You wanna stop?”
“No,” she’d whispered.
“You gotta give it to me loud, baby. I need to hear it.” I’d rolled her over onto the mattress and raised myself up, my hands planted on the bed, my dick pressing into her clit, stroking it back and forth. “You loud makes me hard. You want me hard for you, don’t you?”
Her lips had parted, and she had taken in a deep breath. She’d angled her hips against mine, and a moan had heaved from her. She’d kept her eyes on me and expressed herself freely, easily, loudly.
“Fuck yeah,” I’d muttered.
My hips rocked against hers until she had blown, and I’d shot my cum all over her stomach. Fuck, what a sight. Marking, claiming in the jungle.
I’d never wanted to watch a woman come before or look them in the eye while fucking her. Never even occurred to me. With Grace, I not only wanted to watch her. I wanted to learn how every kiss, touch, or angle I offered her affected her pleasure. Even when she had me in her mouth, I was compelled to watch. I wanted to know.
I needed to know.
We’d laughed a hell of a lot together on that bed, too. And she wouldn’t take five hours in the bathroom, and she wouldn’t mind when I opened the door without knocking and took a leak while she washed up or brushed her teeth. Some women freaked about that shit. Not Grace. She would just keep yakking, picking up a previous conversation. She’d even pulled me into the shower on one occasion.
The fatigue had started wearing on me the more thought I gave to the fact that Monday was fast approaching, and I was going to have to take her home and leave her there and all this behind. I would continue watching over her just as I had promised Ruby I would, but this little sex adventure—or non-sex adventure, I guess—had to be done with. I’d really thought if I had her all to myself for an entire weekend, I’d get over my fascination with Little Miss Fresh. I had done everything I could, short of putting my cock inside her, to do that, to take my fill. But it hadn’t worked. My fascination had only grown, intensified, harshened.
But I needed to focus on business, and she needed to focus on school, her job, her house, her friends. She had the real world. I was on the fringe of all that, and we both knew it.
She had experienced a slice of club life when her sister brought it into their house. She knew what we were about, and it wasn’t all good. It wasn’t good for a girl like Grace. Now that connection to us, to me, was about to be broken.
She shoved the key in that old bolt on the front door of her house and turned the knob. The door creaked open, and a whirlpool went off in my chest, spinning there.
The Seeds had left. Vig’s hostile stares and the Ruby bullshit were all finally resolved. The Jacks were headed to the Hippie Hole for a daylong swim and a picnic to relax after the crazy weekend. I didn’t mention it to Grace because her gig was done, and that was for the best.
The masquerade ball was over. Everyone eventually went home to take off their costumes and then closed the door behind them. The end.
I could breathe easy now, right?
But I had barely been breathing the whole seven-minute ride over to her house from the club. Her arms squeezing around my jacket, her legs brushing mine—Jesus, it’d felt right, solid.
She had gotten off my bike and amb
led to her front door.
Shit.
I’d followed her. What a fucking gentleman.
She had taken out her key.
The one thing I wanted to cling to at this very moment, which suddenly seemed more important to me than even my own bike, was about to shove through a portal of no return, seal it closed behind her, barring me forever. Grace took that one step up, past the front door, into her house, and an ache twinged in my chest.
I clamped my jaw shut. My last chance at this fix to my new, all-consuming addiction was fizzling before me.
“Get your bikini. We’re going to the Hippie Hole for a swim.”
Just one more day. Just one.
Now that the pressure was off, now that it was just us and my brothers and we no longer had anything to prove to anybody, would things between us be different? Would they be better?
She stilled, turned her head, and smiled at me, those beautiful hazel eyes brightening for a moment. “Oh, okay.” Her breezy voice hung in the air.
Christ.
I stepped inside her house behind her and let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding on to. We moved past the kitchen to get to her room.
I froze. “Peanut, what the fuck?”
A tornado had blown through the kitchen. I stepped in the center of the room, my feet crunching over thick shards of broken glass and plastic on the frayed linoleum. What was once a clock dangled from the wall, mangled and destroyed. Cabinet doors had been flung open and were now gaping wide. Most of the shelves were empty. Icy needles pricked my spine. Had someone broken in over the weekend—that someone being Vig?
“Oh.” She shrugged and let out a sigh. “I had a spaz before I came looking for you at the club on Friday night.”
I stared at her. Her lips were pursed, her fingers tugging at the hem of her blouse, as her eyes darted over the mess she had created. Yeah, there had been thieves here. Rage and despair were the thieves, and they had had their way in this house, a house now broken into and broken. A house where she could break. Her instinct had had her fighting back, and she’d refused to give in. Damned if I was going to let those thieves have their way with her, change her, take control of her—like they’d had with me.
No fucking way.
I’d gotten out, and so could she. I knew I couldn’t leave her here, all alone. I was as sure of that as breathing. I wanted to make it better for her.
Had to.
Here she was, hurting inside, but a fucking realist through and through. She’d wallowed, she’d raged, she’d spoken her piece, and she’d moved on. Standing there, across this field littered with empty shells and casings, she kicked the debris underfoot with that little shrug she gave me. She was me. My pulse hammered in my head and screeched to a grinding stop.
If I hadn’t invited her to the Hole, if I hadn’t walked in here right now—
But I had.
I had been kidding myself all weekend by not fucking her. Her cherry had been a convenient loophole, a way to duck out. I’d been convinced I was being a responsible stand-up guy, not marking her, not taking from her for her own good. But she and I were linked. It wasn’t DNA, but a chain of pain and a molten core of resilience. I recognized the smell. Here we were, standing on her insides, and it reflected up at me like the hot glare of the summer sun on the surface of the lake.
I was done playing, sidestepping, pussyfooting.
Done.
“What?” She swallowed. “What is it?”
Her eyes were round and glassy. I only wanted to take her in my arms, protect her. Get lost in her sweet scent once more. The scent of certainty sprinkled with relief, hope.
“Come here,” I said, my voice tight, low.
She closed the distance between us, crossing the kitchen, her eyes on me, her boots crunching over her debris. I took her in my arms and lifted her, and she easily hooked her legs around my waist, wrapping her arms around my neck. I gently kissed her, and a small moan escaped her lips, making my heart thunder in my chest.
My thumb rubbed across her lips. With that kiss, I brushed my boot over the line I had drawn in the sand between us and erased any trace of it. The taste of her mouth and the perfect press of her body into mine only confirmed what I had known deep down inside for a long time but had denied.
I was hers.
“This shit’s over for you, baby. You’re with me now. You got that?”
A slow smile lit up her face.
And she was mine.
We messed around in her room. She wasn’t shy or hesitant with me anymore, and we were both pretty damn enthusiastic. I almost did her right there on that goddamn daisy quilt, and she wanted me to, but no, I had a better plan in mind. I intended on blowing her away for her first time—today, within hours.
Riding through the Black Hills to the Hippie Hole with Grace on the back of my bike was an unexpected pleasure. Both of us were riding on a new route on the same old road map. It was a road I had driven thousands of times, but now, I rode it with a degree of relaxation and self-possession I hadn’t been conscious of before. Handling the smooth curves through the dense green and rocky woodland made me fucking smile at the rush filling my veins.
We ate up the road, the stony sloping hills stretching out before us, thick with tall evergreens flashing by, taking us in. My blood pumped through every cell. I felt alive—not tied up, not tied down. I did a mental check, and nope, no traces of buyer’s remorse. It felt damn good—Grace scrunched up behind me, pressing into me, holding on to me. How could being attached set you free? It did for me right then, right there. It sang in my blood. I decided not to question it but to trust it.
Once the gravel road ended, we parked and dismounted. Grace was speechless, caught in a high, a goofy smile on her face after her first long ride on a quality bike. She curled her fingers into the belt loops of my jeans, and we hiked to where I knew our group would be. The steep trail started downhill but eventually turned flat. Two red-tailed hawks flew off the branches they had been perched on and soared in the sky above us. A white mountain goat appeared on the jagged rocks across from our path, curiously observing us, and then tracked away. We continued along Battle Creek until we got to the Hippie Hole, a rock wall with a waterfall dropping into a deep pool.
Everyone was a little surprised to see Grace. Boner gave her a kiss on the cheek and took the bag of food we’d picked up on our way here out of her hands. He grinned, jerking his chin at me. We swam, acted like idiots, ate, got high, and fell asleep on our blankets in the shade. Now, it was time for my plan.
“Grace is something less flashy, more…sincere, like handpicked flowers.”
I took Ruby’s advice. I didn’t want to have sex with Grace for the first time back in my room at the club where so many others had come on that mattress. My own hole in the wall in town was a mess, and I didn’t want her first time to be in her broken house that was full of other memories. I wanted it to be somewhere new and sweet for her and for me, where we could take our time. Since when had I become such a fucking romantic? All I knew was I wanted to give her something unique, something that would make it worth her waiting, as if I were offering her some kind of long yearned for and very deserved prize. She was giving that part of herself to me, that part she had never given nor shared with anyone else, and it mattered to me. I was determined to make it good for her.
Over the weekend, our bodies had gotten into a kind of wild sync with each other. Her body was fucking calling to me right now as we lay in the late afternoon sun, trying to take a nap. I couldn’t get any sleep if I tried. I was too worked up. Earlier, while swimming, she had let me suck on her tits, her legs hooked around my waist, her body rubbing against mine. Her laughter had drifted over the water. That detonating sensation of wanting her drove through me now, making me hard as hell.
I woke her up, packed up our blankets, and dragged her on another hike. We arrived at the spot I had scouted earlier where the trees hung like a green canopy, and there were a ton of wildf
lowers. The blue ones. I liked the blue ones.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
I took off her bikini and then my cutoffs. I thought she was going to cry, but instead, she threw all that emotion into kissing me hard. I laid her on the blanket, and like some sort of jackass, I tore off the flowers from their stems and threw them over her naked body—every inch, bottom to top. So beautiful, like a fucking nature goddess. She was all laid out for me, my Black Hills nymph, twisting with need for me. All for me. A feast for a hungry man.
We kissed. A greedy wild kiss. I licked a trail down her body to her thighs, her legs falling open for me. I ate her pussy as if it were the very first time—great big licks, hard sucks—making her come for me, getting her ready and desperate for my cock. I held her gaze as I positioned myself and slid inside her as gently as I could.
Holy shit. Fucking finally.
I inched in deeper. A frown passed over her face, her brows furrowed, and she clenched up. I couldn’t move. I was going to explode.
“Open up for me, baby,” I whispered against her skin.
I touched her in all the right places, and she got excited all over again and finally relaxed. I moved inside her slowly and finally buried myself inside her. We watched each other, moved together, clutched at each other, moaning. New sensations marked her face. I got her there again. Something new seared my insides and took over, rendering me speechless.
She murmured words and phrases I could barely understand through her erratic breathing. But I knew what they meant.
I knew.
“WHY DO WE ALWAYS HAVE TO SIT IN THE BACK?” Creeper shoved his chair to the side of the table, his greasy fork and knife clattering on his ketchup-smeared plate.
“I like to see what’s going on, who’s coming in and out at all times.” I scanned the restaurant filled with families and couples and waitresses bustling between their tables, carrying huge trays of burgers, steaks, and potatoes.
Not having eaten earlier, we’d stopped for a big lunch in Sidney, Montana, before crossing the border into North Dakota.