Torch

by Roxie Noir

  “I’m usually a much nicer girl,” she says. “No one’s ever ripped my underwear off in a bar bathroom before to eat me out.”

  I kiss her again.

  “Why do I have the feeling it’s not the last time?” I murmur.

  “Because it was so much fun?” she says.

  “Mandalay Bay!” the driver shouts, glaring in the rearview mirror.

  I tip well.

  We walk across the lobby and get into the elevator without saying anything to each other, then ride up with a family. The mom looks at the bulge in my jeans and glares at me, but Mae takes my hand and glares back possessively until they get off a few floors before us. Then she puts her arms around me, and I grab her ass.

  “Next time, just pee on my leg,” I tease.

  She wrinkles her nose and looks at me like I’m crazy.

  “To mark your territory,” I say, and Mae laughs.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  “Don’t be,” I say, and slide my hands under the bottom of her dress. “I wish everyone knew I was yours.”

  The elevator doors open and we walk into the hall.

  I look both ways, then pick up Mae and toss her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She squeals and kicks a little, but gives up too fast to actually be upset. From here I can smell her arousal, and I try to open my hotel room with a credit card instead of the key, it’s so distracting.

  Inside I toss her on the bed and she laughs, and then she’s sitting up, grabbing me by the belt and pulling me toward her, standing between her legs as she sits on the bed.

  “Get your shirt off,” she says, unbuttoning the bottom buttons.

  “Bossy,” I say, but then my shirt is off and she’s pulling me by the belt again, her lips hot and urgent on my stomach.

  “You make me crazy,” she says, her voice buzzing against my skin.

  “Why?” I ask.

  She undoes my belt and then unbuttons my jeans, then runs her tongue slowly along the indentation of my hip. It makes my cock twitch with anticipation, straining against the zipper.

  “Because you’re fucking sexy,” she says. “You make me feel like I’m a bottomless pit.”

  She kisses me again, and I think she growls.

  “I feel like I have an itch that won’t stay scratched, and it’s your fault,” she goes on.

  She pulls down my boxers and jeans all at once, then stands and pushes me backwards until I’m sitting on the couch and she’s kneeling on the floor in front of me. My cock’s at full mast, swollen and throbbing as if we didn’t just fuck in a bathroom two hours ago.

  Mae doesn’t tease me this time, just slides her mouth down my shaft until I groan, her tongue flat against the underside. She doesn’t go slow but she doesn’t go fast, and she makes these half-moan noises that feel like they’re vibrating up my spine.

  Her hair falls over her face and I push it away, the strands flowing through my fingers. She pulls back and looks at me, her lips just over the head of my cock, tongue swirling, and it’s so sexy that I have to hold my breath for a moment as her mouth slides back down, almost to the base of my cock.

  I think I might come. I almost tell her to stop, I’d rather fuck her, but it’s impossible to get the words out when it feels so damn good. All I can do is groan and watch her.

  At the last second, she stops and leans her head against the inside of one knee. Her hand curls possessively over the top, and she takes a moment to just look at me.

  Then she stands, her hands on my knees, and bends over me.

  “Tell me what you—”

  I grab the back of her head and lean forward and kiss her hard. Her mouth tastes musky, but it’s hot in a dirty kind of way. I push my tongue into her mouth and taste her deeper.

  “Ride my cock,” I growl, my hand on the back of her neck.

  She kneels over me and I kiss her again. I run two fingers over her slit, and her juices practically run down my hand. Mae moans into my mouth when I push them inside her, then take them out and slide them past her clit.

  Her dress is around her waist. I take her by one hip and hold the base of my cock with the other. She slides down in one long stroke, utterly enveloping me as I groan into her shoulder.

  “God, you feel so good,” she whispers.

  I unzip her dress behind her and push it over her head. She tosses it somewhere else and her bra follows. I kiss her neck and pinch both her nipples at once, and she moans as her pussy contracts around me.

  “You like that,” I say.

  “I like everything you do to me,” she whispers.

  Mae starts moving her hips and riding me, and I lean my head back against the couch and exhale. Her tits bounce a little as she moves, and I can just see my cock disappearing inside her, again and again.

  There’s no better view in the world.

  “You’re beautiful,” I say.

  “Especially when I’m riding your cock?” she asks.

  “Fuck yes,” I say. “I could watch you do this all day.”

  “I could do this all day,” she says, her voice low.

  She leans forward and kisses me, her hips still moving.

  “That good?” I ask, leaning forward and grinning.

  I hold her hips down, burying myself inside her until she groans.

  “Yes,” she whispers. “Jesus, Jackson.”

  Her pussy contracts around me again, her breathing ragged.

  “Go slow or I’m gonna come already,” she whispers.

  “What’s wrong with that?” I ask.

  “It feels too good to have you inside me,” she says, a slow smile spreading across her face. “I waited weeks for this and I want it to last.”

  “I promise not to come yet,” I growl.

  I have no idea if I can keep that promise. I still think I’m going to come every time I enter her, for fuck’s sake.

  “Just let me make you come again,” I say. “I love watching you.”

  Mae bites her lip, but she starts moving again, fucking me gently, her hands on my shoulders.

  “Fuck me as hard as you want, Lula-Mae,” I whisper. “I ain’t gonna break.”

  I pull her onto me a little roughly.

  “Oh fuck,” she says, steadying herself with one hand against the back of the couch and one hand on my chest. I grin at her.

  Mae rides me harder and harder. I’ve got my hands on her hips and I’m pulling her down onto my cock as hard as I can, the pure pleasure of being inside her shooting through my whole body.

  “This feels so fucking good,” she gasps.

  “Come,” I growl, leaning forward.

  “Just fuck me,” she whispers. “Please.”

  I push her hips onto my cock as hard as I can. I bite her collarbone and she moans explosively, her fingers digging into my shoulders.

  “You make me come so hard,” she whispers, and then she explodes. Her muscles tighten around me so hard I almost can’t breathe. There’s a moment when I have no idea whether I’m coming or not, as her nails rake across my back and I can feel every muscle in her body clench all at once.

  “Fuck, Jackson,” she says, nearly shouting.

  I love how she says my name when she comes.

  When she slows, I pull her face down to mine and kiss her. I’m still hard inside her, somehow. I move her hips against me and she gasps.

  “I kept my promise,” I murmur. “Even though you’re an insatiable monster.”

  “I’m not a monster,” she says.

  “You’re my monster,” I say. “I bet you already can’t wait for round two.”

  “What’s round two?” she asks.

  I don’t answer her. Instead I lift her off of me, stand, and toss her over my shoulder again as she squeals.

  “I can walk,” she says.

  I toss her on the bed and get on top of her. I’m so hard it feels like my dick might fall off, but I kiss her hard and she slides her hand down the shaft, already slick with her.

  “What do you th
ink round two is, Lula-Mae?” I growl in her ear. “Round two is we fuck again.”

  25

  Mae

  I was pretty sure round two was we fuck again. I’m still shaky and high from round one, but now there’s that light in Jackson’s eyes. The primal, animal, caveman light.

  He grabs me by one hip and rolls me over until I’m on my hands and knees facing the headboard, and he runs his fingers over my slit. I arch my back and look at him over my shoulder, because I feel like I’m in heat, and all that matters is fucking him again right now.

  Then he slides in and I groan, my hands clenching the bedsheets. I push back against him until every inch is inside and I hear him growl. I already came once, so I’m even more sensitive than usual. His cock feels like it’s completing a circuit in my body, every nerve suddenly electrified.

  “Is this what you wanted?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, pushing back against him.

  He grabs me by the shoulders and lifts me up to kneeling and then I’m bracing myself against the headboard on my elbows, bent over halfway as Jackson slides inside me again, a low rumble coming from deep in his chest.

  “I can’t do this for long, Lula-Mae,” he says. “You make me feel like a teenager, like I might come just looking at you.”

  “Don’t stop,” I say. “I need this, Jackson.”

  “I know what you need,” he growls. He pulls my hips against him, pushing himself deep, and I just shout.

  “Fuck, yes, please,” I gasp.

  He does it again and again, slow and hard and deep. I think my brain has stopped responding to all other signals besides the complete, overwhelming force of the pleasure building inside me.

  “I needed this too,” he says, into my ear. “God, I needed this.”

  “I know,” I murmur. “You think I don’t know what you need?”

  Slow, hard, deep.

  “You are what I need,” he says. “Here, outside, in a truck, against a sink. Drunk, sober. It doesn’t fucking matter, Lula-Mae.”

  Again.

  I can feel myself start coming apart, like I’m about to go to pieces.

  “Lula-Mae, I’m gonna come,” he whispers.

  “Come inside me,” I say.

  I’m right at that edge, teetering on the brink, and Jackson thrusts slow and deep one more time.

  “Yes,” I whisper, and I just come unraveled. It feels so fucking good that nothing else exists for seconds on end, just the bursts of pleasure exploding through me.

  Then Jackson growls and suddenly I feel him come inside me, his cock jerking deep inside me as he says, “Oh, fuck,” into the back of my shoulder over and over again. Tremors are still rattling through my body, and I’m still propped up against the headboard by my forearms, panting for breath.

  I turn my head and Jackson leans over me. He’s still inside me as we kiss, hard and slow. I’m still moaning and panting, and he’s urgent, like he has to do this right here, right now.

  After a while, he stops. We slide into the bed, under the covers and fix the pillows that we fucked up. I’m half on his chest, one arm slung over him, our usual position.

  We have a usual position, I think.

  I don’t realize that I’m tracing the scar on his chest until he puts his hand over mine and holds it still.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “For a girl who says she don’t wanna know about my scars, you sure mess with them a lot,” he says, half-teasing.

  “I don’t like knowing all the ways you could get hurt,” I say. “It gives me too much imagination fuel.”

  “It’s almost over,” he says. “One more ride tomorrow and then I’ve got six weeks to recuperate. And I already rode Crash once.”

  “Yeah, he’s a kitten,” I say.

  “He’ll be curled up in a sunbeam and purring when I’m done with him,” Jackson says, and kisses the top of my head. “I’ll be fine. This ain’t my first rodeo, you know.”

  “That’s not even a pun,” I say.

  “I believe it’s called a fact, Miss Guthrie,” he says.

  I sigh, and Jackson laughs. I roll onto him a little more, my chin on his chest.

  “What happens if you win?” I ask.

  “I get a really big belt buckle and eighty thousand dollars,” he says. “Plus the everlasting glory of being the first three-time world champion, et cetera.”

  “You only get eighty thousand dollars?” I say, surprised.

  “I think you mean I get eighty thousand whole dollars,” Jackson says.

  I pause.

  He shattered his sternum, and the one guy who wins everything only makes eighty grand?

  “You ain’t impressed?” Jackson says.

  “It’s just not a lot of money for a lot of danger,” I say. I try to sound diplomatic, but I don’t think I succeed.

  “No one is here for the money,” he says. “We’re here because we love doing it.”

  “I know,” I say. “There can’t be enough money in the world to make rodeo worthwhile.”

  I want to ask what happens to old riders or who pays your medical bills or what are you going to do after this, but I don’t.

  He laughs.

  “I live in a trailer on my parents’ ranch and drive a twenty-five-year-old truck,” he says. “My overhead is low.”

  “A jizz-covered trailer,” I say.

  “I told you, that’s just the kitchen table,” he says. “And it’s your fault.”

  “I’m not sorry,” I say.

  We lie there for a moment, both of us curled into the same part of the massive king bed. Jackson starts messing with my hand, sliding his fingers through mine. Matching up our fingertips into tents. Folding my hand into his and then unfolding it.

  “Do you need to go?” he finally asks.

  “I should,” I say without moving.

  He flattens my hand onto his chest again and puts his over top of it. I can feel his heartbeat under my palm, and it’s steady and reassuring, a slow thump-thump.

  “I don’t want to,” I say, quietly. “I hate pretending.”

  “It’s a couple more days,” he says.

  Thump-thump.

  “I just wish it was different,” I say.

  “Stay,” he says. “I’ll be up early, but I’ll set the alarm so you can get back in time.”

  I sit up, cross-legged, on the bed and look out the window, where Vegas is glowing. Jackson rests his hand on my knee, and I run my fingers over his knuckles. There’s a thick scar across a couple of them.

  “How’d you get that one?” I ask.

  “Thought it was a good idea to rope a steer without gloves on,” he says. “Rope burn.”

  I move my fingers down his arm to the long, thick one on his forearm.

  “I told you about that one in Oklahoma,” he says. “I got thrown. Compound fracture. I’ve got a metal rod.”

  My stomach does a flip, and I make a face. I turn his arm over and look at a thick white spot on his forearm.

  “I was helping a buddy brand his cattle and walked into the brand,” he says.

  “You didn’t notice it was there?” I ask.

  “I might have been drunk,” he says, and laces our fingers together again. “Most of the scars aren’t from bull riding, most of them are from me being a dumbass,” he says.

  “Is that because you don’t get hurt that much, or because riding mostly breaks bones?” I ask.

  He half-smiles and looks away.

  “I was trying to make you feel better,” he says, and I laugh.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Are you sitting up because you’re leaving?” he asks.

  “I’m just sitting up,” I say.

  He looks at me for a long moment.

  “I could visit you in New York next month,” he says. “Plane tickets are cheaper in January, and I could stay with you.”

  I look out the window one more time.

  Screw it, I think.

  I lie back down and snug
gle into Jackson.

  “You’re staying?” he asks.

  “I shouldn’t,” I admit.

  “Your favorite phrase,” he says.

  “Shut up,” I tease.

  I flatten my hand against his chest and feel his heartbeat.

  “What do you want to see in New York?” I ask.

  It’s two in the morning before we finally fall asleep, spooning in the middle of the massive bed. Jackson’s got his arms around me and I’m warm and almost blissfully happy as I drift off to sleep.

  It’s fine, I think as darkness takes over my mind. It’s just logistics. We can work anything out.

  I wake up to a voice saying my name, and I feel like I’m surfacing from the bottom of a deep, deep lake.

  “Mae,” it says. “Lula-Maaaae, wake up.”

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  I roll over, away from the voice.

  He laughs.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Jackson says.

  I roll over again and look at him.

  “Shut up,” I say.

  “Morning, sunshine,” he says, and grins. Then he holds up a paper cup. “I brought you coffee.”

  I blink at it, then at him. I sit up, slowly, pushing my hair out of my eyes.

  “It’s five-forty-five,” he says. “You should get going pretty soon if you want to keep fooling everyone.”

  He hands me the coffee and I take it. I look at him and take a sip, then another, longer sip.

  Then I lean forward and smoosh my face against his shoulder.

  “Why are you in a good mood?” I mutter.

  “Sun’s up, birds are singing, you’re in my bed, I ride today,” he says. “I got a whole list.”

  “Are you always like this?” I ask.

  I lift the coffee to my mouth. The angle’s not quite right, and I spill a couple of drops on my leg.

  “Ow,” I say, but don’t move.

  “Like what?” Jackson asks. “Awake before six?”

  “And happy about it,” I say. “We need some ground rules.”

  “Besides let Mae sleep in as long as possible and bring her coffee in bed?” he asks.

  He has a point.

  “We can talk about this later,” I say, and take another long drink of the coffee. “Thank you.”