Taming His Wild Girl (Wild Whip Ranch Book 2)

by Lee Savino

  The feeling of being inside her for the first time… she was so tight around my cock, her sweet face grimacing at first, like I was too much to take. But then, her eyes flooding with pleasure as I sank all the way in. I wanted to give her as much pleasure she could take. To test her limits, and guide her to new levels of ecstasy.

  We’d snuggled on the couch for a while, then we ordered pizza and watched a movie together, and she sat close to me. Not snuggled in my arms as I’d hoped, but by my side. I’d assumed we’d sleep together in my bed, and I’d have her right where I wanted her. But she made it clear she was going to sleep alone. I had to respect her wishes, even though every nerve in my body wanted her around me. Wanted to keep her safe. She was as brittle and prickly as shattered glass.

  I still thought she was hiding something. I’d hoped talking about the sex thing would have encouraged her to open up to me. And in the moment when she orgasmed, her face was so vulnerable, it startled me. But then she’d shut right down again, keeping me out. She was going to be a hard nut to crack. But I didn’t care. I had all the time in the world for Isabelle.

  I threw back my covers and got out of bed. There was no way in hell I was getting back to sleep now. I got started with animals an hour earlier than usual. It would confuse the bejesus out of them, but they could deal with it. Then I’d make us both a nice leisurely breakfast. Usually I liked to treat myself on the weekends. The animals didn’t let me take off weekends, of course, so I always had to see to them, but I usually finished up early and made some time for myself. Then in the afternoons, I’d watch the game with the guys or go play ball. But this weekend, I was going to make Isabelle feel special.

  When I passed her room, I paused at the door and listened. I couldn’t hear anything. A burst of panic went through me. I pushed the door handle down and opened the door an inch. At last, I picked up the quiet sound of her breathing, and the sweet smell of her wafted back to me. She was still asleep, thank goodness. I closed the door softly and went through to the kitchen.

  I poured fresh coffee into the coffee machine and while it gurgled and hissed, an idea began to form itself in my mind.

  Isabelle

  Joel was in the kitchen when I got up, late again. There had been no bad dreams last night, and I even felt kind of refreshed. An amazing smell of cooking wafted from the stove, and Joel was busy stirring something in a skillet and whistling a Metallica song to himself.

  I stood for a moment, taking in his broad back and the low-slung jeans that hid his muscular buns. I still couldn’t believe we’d had sex yesterday. That Joel, the hottest guy in the whole universe, had been inside me, had kissed me, touched me, and told me I was incredible. And that he had this dark side, too, that understood exactly what I needed.

  “Hi,” I said shyly, as desire began to weave its way through my body again.

  He turned around and grinned, and my heart almost stopped at his ridiculous handsomeness. At the way he looked at me as if I was the only girl in the world.

  “Did you sleep okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I meant to be up earlier.”

  He shook his head. “No way. Your number one priority is catching up on sleep. You hear me?” His voice turned stern, but I knew he was kidding.

  “Okay,” I murmured. “What’s going on here? Thought you’d be busy with the cows.”

  He gave me a crooked smile. “You know what day it is?”

  I frowned. “Is it the weekend?” I didn’t really have weekends any more, and the days all blurred into one.

  “You bet it is. And you know what that means?”

  I shook my head, enjoying the silly game.

  “It means we take it easy. We do some work this morning, but we relax in the afternoon. And then this evening, I was thinking we could go out on the town.” He gave me a significant look. “Go dancing.”

  “Dancing?” My voice wobbled a bit. The word was a knife in my heart.

  “Yeah,” Joel said. I must’ve hid my pain well enough because he continued, “There’s a thing on at the town hall. It’s kind of old school—or ironic, depending on your take on things.” His eyes crinkled as he slowed his voice into an exaggerated drawl. “Some bebop-jive-line-dancing-what-not.”

  Despite the barbed wire strangling my chest, I laughed. “You don’t know what it is, do you?”

  He shrugged. “Nope, I’ve only got one dance anyway. I bust it out regardless of whatever’s going on in the background.”

  He was so ridiculous, I couldn’t help blowing out a breath and returning his grin with a small one of my own. “So this would be dancing,” the word hurt a little less this time, “for fun?”

  “Yeah, little one,” his voice softened, “for fun. You remember how to have fun?”

  “I’m sure I took a class on it once,” I quipped. “There was a quiz at the end.”

  “Is that so?” Joel played along. “Bet you got an A.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re an expert then.” He took the skillet off the burner and faced me, his big hands finding and squeezing my shoulders. “I think this will be good for you.”

  I looked away, ignoring the way my heart tripped at his touch. “Will there be a lot of people there?” I asked with a flicker of worry.

  He shrugged. “Coupla hundred familiar faces. No mafia though.”

  “You think I’m paranoid.”

  “I do,” he said seriously.

  I took some plates out of the cupboards and he filled them with eggs, bacon and home fries, and I brought them to the kitchen table.

  “You’re safe now, you know that?”

  I look down at my plate, my stomach shrinking.

  “Hey,” he sat down at the table and took my hand, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I know,” I said, not wanting to argue. I loved his touch.

  “So what do you say?” he asked lightly. “Shall we put on our glad-rags and paint the town red?”

  I snorted, knowing he was being dorky to make me laugh. “Okay, yes. But—”

  He rolled his eyes. “But you don’t have anything to wear, right? That’s okay. I foresee another trip to the department store this afternoon. Actually…” He loaded up his fork with home fries. “I was thinking we could go to the city tomorrow, get you some better stuff.”

  He’d drive me that far, just to get some clothes? My heart gave a silly jump.

  “I know this probably seems like Hicksville to you,” he continued before I had time to reply.

  I shook my head. “Not at all. It feels like… it feels like home.” The big city had always been about ballet and pressure. The two things were entwined in my mind.

  His eyebrows tugged together. “You’ll get sick of it one day.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  I started eating fast. It was all delicious. I never would’ve guessed that cooking would be his thing.

  “I’ll take you dancing in the city one day.”

  I shook my head. “Joel, I’m happy here, trust me.” When I looked up, there was an uncertainty in his eyes that I’d never seen before.

  “Okay.” He pushed back his chair and got his feet. Then he jabbed a finger at me and gave me a mock-serious look. “Let’s see if you’re still saying that after tonight’s hoedown.”

  While I washed up the breakfast things, I kept turning over his invitation to the dance. Trying to make it fit with his kindness and our kinky sex. It was like the time he took me to the rodeo, I decided. He was that kind of guy. He felt like he needed to show me a good time. I hadn’t danced, really danced, since the accident, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. The stuff I did in the strip club—turning around on a pole—was kind of athletic. But there was no beauty in it.

  And I hadn’t danced for the fun of it in my whole life. Maybe when I was real small. My parents had sent me to a few different types of lessons, but as soon as I tried ballet, that was it. They used to love to tell the story of my very first lesson, when my t
eacher, an elegant older lady who’d once been the prima ballerina of the Paris ballet, watched me and got tears in her eyes. How she’d said that she’d never seen so much raw talent in all her years. I never really believed it. Thought it was one of the things my dad cooked up to motivate me.

  But ever since that day, dancing had been serious. All about perfection. Only in the most polished of movements did I find freedom. In rigid control, relief.

  Dancing for fun? At a hoedown? I couldn’t picture it. Add in my fears about Anton finding me, and I was a mess. But Joel wanted to go. He was trying to cheer me up.

  For him, I’d do my best.

  At seven-thirty that evening, I slunk out of my room in a sleeveless black dress. It was about the only decent thing they’d had at Lowe’s department store, and I had no idea if it was appropriate for a hoedown. Joel had been sitting on the couch, scrolling through his phone, but at the sight of me, he jumped to his feet.

  “Wow.” He came toward me, his voice low and little hoarse. “You look… you look…” He lifted a hand and stroked my hair.

  “Not bad, huh?”

  He shook his head. “Exactly like it used to be.”

  I bit my lip. “You like it better?”

  “Hell, yeah.” His nostrils flared. “You look like yourself again.”

  I thought so too. Thanks to L’Oreal, my hair was back to its natural deep auburn shade, and I was so relieved. I’d never liked the way I looked as a blonde, but I appreciated the way it allowed me to hide my real self. To forget my real self.

  But now, with Joel back in my life, it felt like the right thing to do. And when I looked in the mirror, I saw a glimpse of the girl I used to be.

  To my surprise, he dipped his head and kissed me on the lips. It was the first time he’d kissed me today. We’d been together for the whole day, shopping, having coffee in town, having another riding lesson, and I’d been wondering why he wasn’t touching me, ordering me to take my clothes off again. I even started to wonder if he’d hated yesterday.

  But now he was kissing me with the tenderness of a boyfriend. For that one beautiful second, I allowed my heart to soar, and my soul to dream.

  “You look so beautiful, Isabelle,” he murmured.

  I fussed at my hair, my cheeks warming. “I’m gonna grow it back to how it was.”

  He nodded. “Looks nice in a bob. But when you’ve got such beautiful hair, it’s a crime not to have it long.” He ran his fingers through it, and tingles of pleasure raced through my body.

  He sighed. “I guess we should go.”

  I fought a flicker of disappointment. In that moment, all I wanted was for him to keep touching me like that.

  “Is my outfit okay?” I asked.

  “Very okay,” he said, his eyes raking me from head to toe, and coming to stop at my cleavage. “So okay, I’m wondering if we should leave the house at all.”

  I opened my mouth to agree, but he grabbed my hand.

  “Let’s get out of here before I change my mind.”

  The early evening light was yellow gold, and the trees cast long shadows on the road ahead. It looked dreamy and nostalgic.

  “Is this the road we took to the rodeo?” I asked.

  “Sure is.” He snuck a glance at me.

  “Good,” I said. It felt right that we were retracing our path from that night. As we drove, the old feelings flooded back to me—all the nerves, anticipation. I’d been so excited at being alone with Joel in the car that I could hardly breathe. I’d sat straight as a poker, unable to relax, my nostrils full of his spicy, outdoorsy scent, and my head empty, desperately wishing I had something witty to say. Something that would make him see me as a grownup and not a dorky teenager.

  Soon, we pulled into a lot behind an old-fashioned square. The dance was being held in the town hall, which was decked out with strings of lights and colorful banners. Country music was already pumping from the speakers as we went inside.

  Joel seemed to know everyone in the place. We’d barely passed through the entranceway when he was mobbed by a bunch of people, wanting to know where he’d been for the past few days, why he hadn’t come to watch the game this afternoon.

  He’d been with me, I thought, and got a little tingle in my tummy.

  Joel chatted in his usual friendly way, but at the first opportunity, he introduced me. “This is Isabelle, my…”

  My heart beat faster. How was he going to describe me?

  But it seemed like he hadn’t thought about it either.

  “A good friend of mine,” he said at last.

  Disappointment washed over me. It was silly, but there it was. How else was he going to describe me—his kinky sex partner? The girl he’d rescued from a fate worse than death at a strip club? A possession of the mob?

  No, I’d go for good friend. If all Joel wanted me for was kinky sex and friendship, I’d take it. It was a whole lot better than nothing. As a few pairs of envious eyes slid in my direction, I remembered arriving at the rodeo with him, seeing how many buckle bunnies had looked at him longingly. But he didn’t even seem to notice them.

  I caught his arm. “Get you a drink?” I said with a grin.

  He grinned back. “No, I’m taking you out tonight. That means I’m getting the drinks.” He made excuses to his group of friends, and led me over to a table full of liquor bottles and sodas, with beers in ice boxes on the floor.

  We got a beer each. “Here’s to being an adult,” I said.

  He clinked his beer against mine. “Cheers to that.” And the look he gave me was so intense that I shivered.

  I looked out at the dancefloor. Line dancing was just getting started. I’d never seen it before, but it looked like fun. All the guys were in cowboy gear, while about half the women were also in cowboy gear, and the other half were wearing dresses.

  “You remember the rodeo you took me to?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  I took a pull of my beer, mustering my courage. “What d’you think would have happened if my parents hadn’t turned up?”

  Joel’s head snapped toward me, his eyes filling with concern.

  “It’s okay,” I reassured him. “Sometimes it does me good to talk about them. For the first two years, I never mentioned them, but now…” I trailed off.

  He shoved at his cowboy hat, and I smiled at the familiar gesture. It had been in the dirt today, after a sudden gust of wind knocked it from my head while Odette was trying to break into a trot.

  He narrowed his eyes and stared off into the distance. His chest rose as he took a big breath. “I might’ve let it continue for another thirty seconds or so. Then I would’ve gently pulled away, and explained that I was too old for you.”

  I blinked as I absorbed his words. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “Are you saying you liked me then?”

  He kept staring out at the line dancers as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at me. “I always knew you were someone special. And that night at the rodeo when you let yourself go a little, it was—well, it was like magic. Nothing was going to happen between us. I was too old for you. But I remember thinking, imagine her in a couple of years’ time. She’s gonna stop traffic. And the guy who ends up with her will be luckier than me.”

  “I-I…” The words stuck in my throat. “I thought you thought I was just a kid. I mean, I liked you a lot. But I never thought… I mean, until the alcohol took over…”

  “Isabelle…” There was something unreadable in his eyes as he took a step toward me, and I stepped back.

  I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand knowing that there had been a chance for us in those days. That if I’d just gotten older, without getting screwed up, we could’ve ended up together.

  “Let’s go dance,” he said.

  I followed him on heavy legs to the back of the room.

  He’d been modest about his dancing abilities. He seemed to know all the steps. Or at least, he was good at copying the old lady in front of him, who was dan
cing up a storm.

  At first, I was slow and wooden, but Joel draped an arm around my hips, and made me move with him. It wasn’t so hard, actually. After the complex choreography of ballet, the steps were pretty straightforward, and soon I forgot about them and just had fun.

  When the line dancing ended, Joel and I looked at each other, and I laughed out of pure happiness.

  “Look at you, you’re glowing,” he said, and the approval in his eyes seemed to connect directly with my clit. He thought I was sexy, at least. That was something.

  We took a quick breather, then people split off into pairs. Joel turned to me, held out his arms, and I melted right into them. My face fitted into the crook of his neck and my nostrils filled with his scent—that woodsy cologne of his, mixed with a hint of fresh perspiration.

  Neither of us knew the steps, but as we glided around the dancefloor, I felt like I was dancing on air. I felt stupidly proud to be seen with him, with him holding me in his arms.

  The tempo got faster, and he had us doing twirls, leaning me right back, Dirty Dancing style. It was fun and kind of crazy and, by the time we’d finished, we were both panting. I couldn’t stop grinning.

  “Wooh, hot work,” I said, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand.

  “Having fun?”

  “I’m having the best time. I haven’t had this much fun since—well, ever.” I laughed. “Now, who sounds like a dork?”

  The look he gave me was full of affection. “You make an adorable dork.”

  He laid his big hands on my hips again and suddenly his face swam into my vision. His lips were inches from mine, and my heart beat fast.

  I pulled back. “Joel, I…” I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t get close to him. I needed to get off the ranch as soon as I could, and go into hiding.

  I needed to drive Joel away.

  “I need a drink,” I blurted.

  His brow furrowed.

  “Please, Joel,” I pleaded. “Just one more?”

  “Isabelle.” He blew out a breath.

  “Fine,” I spun away, my hair flying, “let’s just dance.”