Too Wild to Tame

by Tessa Bailey

  “Tight, firm, and giving all at once,” he said through his teeth, mouth shoved into the curve of her neck. “You’ve got a triple threat between your thighs, don’t you, baby? I’m beginning to think you wake up like this. Dripping wet. Ready for me to take you down. Lap you up. Make me look at you and think of a dripping hot tongue fucking from behind while you whine into a pillow.”

  Aaron heard Grace’s labored breathing in his ear and realized how much pressure he’d dropped on her slight body. God, he’d lost all self-awareness, every shred of decency. How could he be decent when their connected bodies were the farthest thing from decent? His dick stretched her so wide, he could detect the strain to accommodate him. This high on pleasure, his base would be ruddy, his head so swollen, she would have to work to get her mouth around it. Yet she was wet as hell. Criminally wet. All but daring him not to bang the sweetness out of her. Begging for it.

  The temptation to hand the reins to his depravity, allowing his baser instincts to run the show, was right there, called to him, ordering him to claim Grace hard enough to make an impression that would last beyond one night. But when she wheezed beside his ear, Aaron’s heart constricted, a voice in the back of his mind calling him a monster. In a swift movement, he transferred his weight onto one elbow.

  “No,” Grace protested, banding her arms around his back, face glowing in the lantern night. “Press me down, don’t let me move. Take me hard. So hard. I want what you want. I need the same thing you need.”

  Time seemed to stand still, their mouths poised a breath apart, gazes locked on each other. And Aaron felt it. Felt the ground shaking beneath them, rattling the locked cages inside his chest, springing doors open and allowing emotions he didn’t recognize—didn’t know by name—to run amok. “Grace,” he whispered. “It’s a jailbreak.”

  A dazed smile formed, bowing her lips. She reached up and traced his brow with her thumb and he couldn’t think or move or get air into his fucking lungs. How was anyone so beautiful? How did the earth sustain the power of her? “It’s so much better—”

  “When I say things out loud,” Aaron finished for her, his tongue feeling thick. “I need you to say more things right now, baby. You’re so goddamn, out of this world gorgeous, my mind went blank.”

  She lit up like an entire city block after a power outage. “Thank you.”

  More words. More stupid, unrehearsed, dangerous words and promises tried to climb out of his mouth, but he blocked them in. “More, please. Say more.”

  Christ. Maybe Grace really did know exactly what he needed—a detour into dirty—because an innocent expression descended over her features, the walls of her pussy constricting at the same time. Hard. The unexpected contrast made the strength in his arms waver long enough to drop him back down, into the welcome softness of Grace’s curves, a groan rippling through his vocal cords. “When you came back from running today…” Her eyelids dropped. “When you stood a certain way, I could see the outline of your…cock.”

  She whispered the last word, as if in reverence, and Aaron had no choice but to bear down with the fat organ in question, shoving it deep into Grace’s pussy, taking his time drawing it back out. “Yeah? Did you think about how it would feel?”

  Her nod was vigorous. Earnest. That breathless honesty sent a renewed slide of lust to the hurting flesh between his legs. “I thought—”

  Grace broke off on a sharp moan when Aaron drove into her with increased force, the sopping wet panties beginning to tear. “You thought what?”

  “I thought I would like it…for you to come and take my hand, and lead me somewhere. Everyone would watch us leave, knowing. And when we got somewhere private, you would push me onto my knees and ask for my mouth.” Her voice was hypnotic, like someone in a dream state, even as it shook with each of his thrusts. “I wanted to taste the salt on you. Wanted to feel your sweat drip on my back, my head—”

  “That’s enough. No more.” His voice emerged deep and unnatural. “No more.”

  “Tell me.” She arched her back, spreading her thighs wider so he could press deeper, tighter, merging them into one machine fashioned from slick, greedy flesh. “Tell me you would have come to the cabin and led me here. It’s the truth, isn’t it? You would have come and gotten me. Right?”

  “Yes,” he gritted into her hair. “Yes, and if you’d gone home, I would have driven there and knocked on your fucking door again. Banged you against the entry wall in your nightgown. No one is going to make you off-limits to me, goddammit.”

  Too much. He was revealing too much. Presenting a weakness. Her. But he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t dam the flow of honesty when his body was in a state of pleasure or die, a plane he’d never thought existed. “No one can do that,” she moaned, her legs shooting together, toes curling against the flesh of his pumping ass. “No one can make me off-limits.”

  “You are, though, aren’t you?” Rage filtered in, teaming with possessiveness to increase his aggression, until he was pounding into Grace without restraint. “But I have the perfect alibi, don’t I, if someone questions me and I don’t want to lie?” Aaron dropped his touch between their bodies, stroking Grace’s clitoris, her inner walls quickening in response. “Sir, you have my word, her panties never once came off. They stayed up on her pussy and ass where they belong.”

  She hit her climax like nothing he’d ever seen. He could actually feel himself being milked between her thighs, again, again, tighter, again.

  “Oh Jesus, baby,” Aaron gritted out. “If that’s the kind of thing that makes you come, we’re going to get along just goddamn fine.”

  Her fingers raked down his back, finding his ass and rocking him closer, making a sound of pure unapologetic pleasure, grinding his cock into her clenching center until his own limit was hit, pressure building to the point of fucking agony and releasing. Releasing. Tearing growls of satisfaction from Aaron he’d never made before, turning his hips into a blur of flesh, desperate to wring every last ounce of perfection free. And still she rolled their bodies together, as if she didn’t want it to end. Neither did he. God, never. Why did it have to?

  “Grace,” he managed, his weight going dead on top of her sweaty body. Instead of complaining, she banded her arms around the breadth of his covered back, pressing her mouth into his shoulder, whispering words he didn’t deserve. Words of praise. Nonsense about white thermal T-shirts and sweatpants. Finally, when he could feel himself wanting to take advantage of the enjoyment she experienced at taking his full weight, Aaron eased to the side, holding his breath when she snuggled in beneath his arm, laying her palm on top of his chest.

  “Just say what you’re thinking,” she whispered.

  “I never took my shirt off.” He shook his head, mostly because the mundane observation sounded ridiculous after the intensity of what they’d done. “It just seems like a wasted opportunity to feel you everywhere.”

  God, he was fucking off the deep end. Why didn’t that panic him like it should have? Especially when he felt Grace’s mouth move into a smile against his shoulder. “Better late than never.” She took the hem of his shirt, urging him up and removing it. Then slowly, so slowly, they lowered back down into the sleeping bag, Grace taking her place once again up against his side. Her breasts were firm, but so sweet and soft, the hollow of her belly curving to his hip. “Better?”

  Better? Aaron’s pulse had slowed to a lethargic pace, while his heart had taken the opposite tactic of complete disarray. Weren’t those two things connected? Maybe his mind had hijacked his body. “Better,” he said in the century’s understatement. “Grace?”

  She yawned. “Yes?”

  Just say it. She liked when he said things with no forethought. Tomorrow he could go back to being the planner, the thinker, the action guy. “I would protect you from a bear. You’re safe from bears.”

  Her fingertips had been trailing up and down his stomach, but they stilled now, curled into her palm, dragged sideways, and pressed against her mouth. “T
hank you,” she whispered. “Good night, Aaron.”

  “Good night.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Grace hung back in the crowd, pulling on the strings of her hoodie to tighten the dark blue cotton around her face. If someone turned around and glimpsed her, they would surely be alarmed, since she went from blushing and smiling to despair in a seemingly endless cycle. Oh, and then pride would storm in and wipe everything clean, because there was Aaron, the lover in whose arms she’d slept last night, commanding a mass of people, all while cameras whirred and snapped shots of him.

  He’d been gone from the sleeping bag when she’d woken up, but there’d been a backpack full of her clothes, telling Grace he’d either woken up early enough to collect garments from her house, or arranged to have it done. The gratefulness had been eclipsed in short order, however, by one question. What now? Last night, she’d been chock full of bravery. Seduce this strikingly attractive, razor-sharp man and everything else will fall into place. By not allowing that physical connection, they’d been maintaining a barrier and she’d intended to knock it down. Had she?

  An answer wouldn’t be coming anytime soon, since Aaron was in charge of an army. An army sent to make her dream a reality. She needed to remember that. After coming out on the other side of YouthAspire, she’d tried so many methods to make the injustice of that day right. In her mind, building something positive over a negative was the only thing that made sense. Whether or not these volunteers and staffers knew it, they were there to complete a vision she’d thought would take a decade. Aaron led that charge.

  Had she really thought his leadership qualities a bad thing? She might have qualms with how he chose to employ his persuasive skills, but watching him hold the audience captive made her feel…proud. Had she ever felt that way about Ray Solomon or the therapist her parents had hired? No, she didn’t think so. There was a note of truth in Aaron’s words, as if he believed them. Would make the promises reality. She wanted to believe him so badly, especially knowing that, deep down, he lacked that same trademark confidence in his own character. A belief she’d helped further by letting the past intrude.

  Starting that very second, she needed to be grateful for the good happening around her. Aaron taking her words at face value last night and confining their relationship to one evening only mired her in self-pity. Especially considering he’d begun writing his name on her heart the night he’d tied ribbons into her hair and sealed the deal last night inside that tent. But she wouldn’t wallow if he decided to cut and run. No. She would just reverse tactics and try again. Now if only she had a club with which to smack him over the head. And a cave where she could drag him.

  As Grace took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, she couldn’t help begging Aaron silently in her mind to come through. For her. For them. And there was a them. That certainty sat in her belly like a cement. Even if they had to walk across a series of shaky stepping-stones to find out what they could be…she could ignore the rushing river on either side and hold his hand for balance.

  “We have bunk bed deliveries coming at noon, courtesy of the Pendleton campaign, so this morning is all about out with the old, in with the new.” The wind cascading over the crowd was all that could be heard, apart from Aaron’s rich, confident voice. “Cleaning. Now I know it’s not the best gig, but if we can get those cabins cleared by midday, beers are on the senator tonight.”

  A mighty cheer went up around Grace, accompanied by a moment of clarity. Yesterday, her attention had been diverted by Aaron, but here were the differences between them, coming home to roost. She looked around, noticing the volunteers were all young, their choice of clothing current, right down to their Pendleton campaign T-shirts, complete with a new #Respect Twitter hashtag she’d never seen before. Every word out of Aaron’s mouth targeted the demographic he’d been hired to seduce, the camera absorbing it like a sponge. His delivery was seamless and undetectable, until his gaze landed on her in the gathering of people and his speech faltered, his eyes clouding over. Just for a second, before he recovered.

  “Toward the back of the property, there is a recreation area with a pool, archery range, and stables. For those of you who don’t mind the cold, I suggest heading back there and clearing away some of that annoying foliage.” He smiled and a feminine murmur floated through the volunteers. “Any questions you need answered can be directed toward the volunteers wearing red shirts—they’ve all been briefed on the direction we’re taking, so please don’t hesitate. Let’s get this right.”

  “How is this project being funded?” a male reporter asked, directing his cameraperson to get a close-up of Aaron. “It can’t all be stolen campaign money.”

  Aaron laughed, along with the crowd. “That’s how it started. Now we have to keep the ball rolling. Overnight, we’ve raised thirteen thousand dollars through a crowd-funded campaign.” He announced the website, then repeated it. “The senator—who should be with us shortly to make a statement—wants this to be America’s project. Not just his. Respect starts at the ground level and we’re working to earn yours. Thank you. Now’s let get to work.”

  He clapped his hands, and like that, the crowd dispersed as if they’d been ordered by God himself, which probably accounted for Grace not following suit. Watching them go, she wrapped her arms around her middle, working to maintain the excitement of everything that would be accomplished that day. She was visualizing pristine cabins and a functioning kitchen when Aaron stopped in front of her, blocking out the morning sun.

  “Hey, hippie.”

  Why wasn’t he smiling? Shouldn’t he be triumphant after what he’d managed to pull together in one single day? The camp had gone from a sad ghost town into a hive of activity. “Hey back.”

  He was quiet, as if waiting for her to say more. But she didn’t know where to start. The dangerous what now question sat on her tongue like a spicy mint, begging to be spat out. And now, after having their differences reestablished, there were additional doubts trying to creep back in. If only he were wearing the white thermal and a beanie, she wouldn’t feel so thrown. His crisp blue suit made him seem to untouchable, a zillion miles from how he’d been last night.

  “Listen…” He slid his fingers along the inside of his collar. “Last night—”

  “It was a mistake,” Grace rushed to say. Even now when she thought about how inappropriate and downright reckless it had been to take Aaron inside her without a condom, she flushed to the roots of her hair. “I’m sorry.”

  Aaron’s face paled at her apology. “Right. No, you’re right. It was. A mistake.” He coughed into his fist, looking everywhere but at her. “You’d been drinking and I shouldn’t even have let you into the tent. I take responsibility for the…mistake.”

  “I…” A sharp, invisible object stabbed Grace between the ribs, forcing her to stop for breath. “I only meant the condom part,” she murmured. “N-not the whole thing.”

  His laugh was low and humorless, but his smile dropped so fast, it was a wonder she didn’t hear it hit the ground. “Huh.” They stared at each other for long moments, the wrenching pain in Grace’s side growing unbearable. Maybe she wasn’t fit to be around normal people. She’d preempted anything Aaron had been about to say by calling their night together a mistake. Now the words had been said from both of them and all progress had been obliterated. “Should we worry…” He stepped close, softening his voice. “Should we worry you might get pregnant? I was…God, I was leaking by the time—”

  “No,” Grace breathed, the tingle of arousal going a long way in decreasing her pain, but not all of it. “I’ve been on the pill since college.”

  Aaron nodded. “Okay.” He stepped away, turned around, came back. “Look, Grace. I don’t know what the fuck just happened here.”

  “Me either,” she said, gratefulness flooding her chest at his honesty.

  This time when Aaron laughed, there was a small note of relief, but his golden brown eyes remained hooded, guarded. “A shipm
ent of medical supplies came in for the infirmary. I think it’s a good idea to have the place stocked in case someone gets injured while working.” He glanced around. “We have a doctor on hand, but I’m not sure where he’s gone.”

  She noticed a tiny cut on his chin and realized he’d nicked himself shaving. And that little imperfection made her feel closer to him. Made him resemble the man he’d been last night. “You want me to help unload the medical supplies?”

  “You don’t have to do a damn thing,” Aaron answered, suddenly serious. “But I haven’t forgotten this is your dream we’re building. And I’ve just walked in and taken over, the way I do with every fucking situation. So please tell me what you want to do. I’ll give it to you.”

  “I want to unload medical supplies,” she whispered, overwhelmed in the face of his acknowledgment. Just him, in general. He was so present and perceptive and hidden, all at once. Couldn’t he tell she just wanted a hug?

  “Okay,” Aaron said finally. “Anything else?”

  She’d hidden the next request so deep, it had always been so far in the future, it took Grace a beat to unearth the idea, dust it off. “I want my name added to the list of campers who were there that day, when the fire happened. I don’t want it covered up anymore.” Her chest felt lighter. “It’s like I’m deserting them all over again.”

  Aaron was very still. “Don’t think like that. It’s not the same.” He waited for her reluctant nod, his gaze fixating on something beyond her shoulder. “I don’t know if I have the power to change something like that, Grace. I don’t know that I want to, either.” She glanced back to find several cameramen loading their equipment into vans. “They’d turn something good into a circus. I really don’t like the idea of that touching you.”

  Grace understood. She also knew her father had taken her name off the list of campers who’d been duped by Ray Solomon for the same reason. But good intent from those around her didn’t diminish the wish. Or make it any less valid. “I understand,” she told Aaron honestly, reaching out to squeeze his arm without thinking. When he only stared down at the contact point, Grace slowly removed her touch. “Thanks for what you’re doing. I’ll be in the infirmary.”