She rested her chin on my shoulder, and her breath tickled my ear. “Oops.” She slid her hands down where they’d been, and lower. “That, you mean? It’s too close? Making you uncomfortable?”
I chuckled. “Oooh, you saucy little minx. You know I’ve been hard as a fuckin’ rock all damn morning? Now you’re teasing me?”
She sighed. Moved her hands back where I’d put them. “Sorry.” Another sigh. “I’m sorry about this morning. I swear, I didn’t mean to—”
“Hey, wasn’t blaming you. Shit happens, I know you weren’t tryin’ to do nothin’ like that. I just meant I gotta ride right now, and if I’m thinkin’ about how fuckin’ bad I want your hands on my cock, riding will be impossible.”
“Just my hands?” She breathed.
I growled, my cock throbbing at the sultry promise in her voice. “No, Charlie. Not just your hands.” I drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Been daydreaming about the ways I want to get nasty with you, and I’m trying like hell to not do any of ‘em right here, right now.”
“You’ve been daydreaming about me?” Surprised, aroused.
Fuck, this conversation was not helping. “Yeah, babe. Want you so bad it hurts. Literally, the pain I’m in ain’t even funny.”
She lifted up, peered over my shoulder down at my groin—which was bulging painfully as my cock tried to unfold but was stuck bent in half. “You’re in pain?” The worry, the concern…god, it was too sweet, too much. She was soft and tender, and ready to do anything to make me all better.
“Darlin’, I was literally seconds from blowing my load when that flat popped. A few more seconds and…” I groaned. “Having to stop, and leave you naked in my bunk, and spend the rest of the day around everyone else when all I fuckin’ want to do is bury my dick into your sweet, hot little mouth? Fuckin’ hell, Charlie. I’m so swollen, so achy and fucking throbbing all over it’s a wonder I don’t just explode. Can barely think straight, honestly. Ridin’ this bike with you pressed all soft and sexy up against me, whispering that seductive shit? Fuck, babe. You don’t know what you’re doin’ to me.”
Her arms squeezed around me. “I want to fix it,” she whispered. “Where can we go?”
I laughed, a dark, amused, aroused growl. “Babe, not sure you know what you’re askin’.”
She clenched her thighs around me, pressed against me, ran her hands over my bare chest, down, close, close, then back up. “Crow, you’ve made me want things I didn’t know I was capable of wanting. I’m not sure I know what I’m asking for either, all I know is…” her voice lowered to a breathy hot whisper against the shell of my ear, “I’m horny as hell, and the single thing I want most in life right now is to make you come as hard as you made me come last night…and this morning.”
I sucked in a deep breath, clenched my handlebars until my knuckles pulsed with pain, forcing myself to not snag this woman off the bike, carry her into the grass on the side of the road and have my filthy, depraved way with her right there. Instead, I hung my head, steadied my breathing.
“Charlie, give me a chance to put some miles between us and that bus, and I’ll find a place we can be something like alone, and I’ll give you all the time in the world to do anything and everything you can think of, and then some.”
“How many miles?” She breathed.
I laughed. “A few. I plan on makin’ you scream almighty goddam loud.”
I kicked the starter, and on the third kick the motor caught with a snarl. I gave it throttle, and the bike purred, and Charlie pressed her nose to my back. “It vibrates,” she said in my ear. “Like, whoa.”
“Yeah, you’ll get used to it.”
She wriggled against me. “NO, I mean…I like it.”
I chuckled, patted her thigh. “Then just you wait till I open her up a bit.” I put it in gear, let out the clutch and nudged the throttle, easing off gently for Charlie’s sake. “Ready?”
She squeezed tight, nodded against me. “No. Yes. Yes.” Clinging, terrified.
I just laughed. “Relax and enjoy the ride, honey.”
I pulled away, feet skimming until I was balanced, and then propped my feet up. Checked over my shoulder, pulled off the shoulder and onto the rural highway. Slowly added speed, feeling Charlie still tense.
“Open your eyes,” I yelled over my shoulder.
She shook her head, but then I felt her slowly relax, a breath of wonder. “Ohhh…oh wow.” This was more felt than heard, this expression of wonder. She sat up a little straighter, still clinging to my midsection with a death grip, but she was looking around now.
The rural highway sped past us, cows and fields, trees, billboards, the yellow and white lines keeping us company.
As the miles sped past, she relaxed her grip a little, her seat loosening until she was comfortable on the bike. Breathing easy, and I could just feel the ear-to-ear grin she was wearing.
Being on the road on my old Chief eased my tension, gave me something to do besides stew on my boiling need to mark Charlie as mine. That was a whole separate worry, the need to mark her, the sense of ownership. Not in a chauvinistic way, just in a territorial, possessive way. This woman is mine.
But she wasn’t.
She was going to Alaska.
I was on tour with Myles, and we still had…I counted and realized we were almost at the end. Denver, Albuquerque…a couple others which eluded me, El Paso, and then the last stop, our sort-of home base city, Dallas.
What then?
Myles hadn’t decided. He had a notebook full of lyrics; I had a head full of melodies. We might take time off and record, he’d said. But we may just take time off. We’d been touring nonstop for several years now, only pausing in Nashville long enough to lay down an album every year or so.
Now, with his thing with Lexie, it may be break time for real.
Which, shit, meant I could possibly explore things with Charlie.
If that was what I wanted. If that was what she wanted.
If that was possible.
Was it?
Did I?
Did she?
God, I had no clue.
I just knew I wanted to fornicate with the woman in the worst way. Maybe that’s all it would be, some good old-fashioned sex.
I tried to believe that, but couldn’t.
Still, I’d been alone for so long—alone in the romantic sense, I meant; Myles and I had been touring and writing and playing together in one capacity or another since we were eighteen. Ten years. It was all I knew.
But shit, and hellfire. Charlie was sparking something hot and deep inside me. Something that made me hunger for…
I couldn’t put my heart there. Couldn’t.
I had no permanent home.
Not anywhere.
And I barely knew the woman, after all.
And there was shit she sure as hell didn’t know about me.
Deal breaker, make her run for the hills kinda shit.
I’d tell her, though. Let her run. But, no matter what, I would tell her.
First, though, I needed just one more taste of her sweetness. Needed to know what her softness was like. What all that thick black hair felt like draped all over my chest as she rode me to completion. What it would be like to have a woman as good and kind and sweet and real and smart as Charlie Goode, even if just for a little while.
I was under no illusions about the kind of man I was. I had a past that a woman of such refined sweetness and light like her wasn’t meant to touch. It would be like a mechanic’s grease-stained hand pawing a pristine white wedding dress.
Like sin darkening the perfection of an angel.
I could dally with her, but I couldn’t be with her, not really.
I could taste her, though. Just once more.
Charlie
What—a—day.
He’d been right: after the initial terrifying rush of air and speed and the road humming inches from my feet, and nothing around us…I was able to relax and just enjoy i
t. And god, I enjoyed it.
The rumble of the engine growling between my legs, the clear blue sky overhead, the warm air against my face, the wind in my hair, Crow’s broad back a pillow for my cheek, his muscled torso a firm wall to cling to, warm skin under my hands as his leather vest flapped. It was intimate and wild; a sense of freedom I never knew was even possible.
My heart just…sang. My soul rose, brightened. No matter what else happened, these hours on the bike behind Crow were a gift I’d never forget. He’d given me so many gifts already.
He’d made me feel safe, protected. Taken care of.
Listened to.
Appreciated.
Desired.
Needed.
Sexy, beautiful.
Powerful.
This morning, with him in my hands, watching him lose control under my mouth and my touch, I’d known power. He’d given it to me, surrendered it willingly. I understood it, then, the allure of that particular act. It can be used to dominate and degrade, yes, but so can many things. Done the way we’d done it, it was him surrendering to me. Honestly, it had been beautiful.
And, oh god, so unbearably erotic. His size, all for me. His body under my hands, his gasps, his stomach tensing, curling in, his thighs bunching powerfully, his head thrown back and then craned to watch me take him to the heights of pleasure.
And now this gift: freedom. Exhilarating, primal freedom.
I wanted to finish what we’d started, but there was just one problem: I was ravenously hungry. My stomach was growling loud enough to be heard over the roar and rumble of the bike. I kept one arm around his waist and with the other, I curled my hand up under his armpit, clinging to his shoulder to draw myself closer to his ear.
“Crow!”
He turned his head to the side, nodded. “Yeah?”
“I’m hungry!”
He nodded. “I’ll find something.”
We were in Colorado, by now, well into it. We rumbled another twenty minutes down the freeway before we found an exit that was marked as having food. He seemed to hesitate, and then the roar quieted and we leaned to angle off the freeway. The exit wound around, and I felt Crow lean into the turn, and the angle and the speed and the gravity were suddenly very real and very scary.
“Lean with me!” he shouted. “Look over my left shoulder!”
I tried to do so, to move with him, mirroring his body movement, but my heart was thundering, pounding, palms sweating against his chest, which I had a death grip on. Then we were stopped, idling at the red light.
“Okay?” He tossed over his shoulder. “Shoulda warned you about the turn earlier. Freaky for a first timer.”
I nodded, slowing my breathing. “It was scary, but I’m okay. I hope I didn’t throw you off at all.”
“Nah, been doing it long enough. Just gotta remember to trust me, and just lean with me. Look over my inside shoulder and lean a little bit, and it’ll be fine.”
I nodded and looked around. “The sign said there was food at this exit, but…I’m not so sure.”
There wasn’t much, just a rural highway extending left and right, late afternoon sun golden-red on the trees, and a few billboards, a gas station, small and desolate and aging. Not much to see in either direction except trees.
The light turned green, but he hesitated. “Sign said left in a couple miles. Could be a dump, but you never know. Wanna try?”
“I’m really, really hungry. Plus, my legs ache, and have to pee. So yeah?”
He nodded. “Okay. Here we go.”
Off we went, and this time I leaned with him like he’d instructed, and it wasn’t as scary the second time. Slower, now, at a sedate highway pace, fifty or so. Slow enough to enjoy the scenery, the wind, and the lowering sun. In a couple miles, a building appeared in a clearing.
It was small and squat, no windows, lit with red and green and blue neon signs advertising beer and liquor and food. We pulled into the parking lot, which was fairly packed, surprisingly. There was an even mix of motorcycles and jacked-up pickup trucks—it was clearly an establishment that catered to…a certain sort.
My heart clapped erratically, but my bladder was suddenly screaming, and my legs were screaming, and my back hurt, and I was vibrating all over, and my stomach was yawning with rumbling hunger.
Crow had stopped in a parking spot, but hadn’t shut the bike off or put the kickstand down. He twisted to glance at me over his shoulder. “Kind of a rough place, babe. Wouldn’t bother me none, but a sweet little filly like you…might be a little sordid for your taste.”
That put my back up a little. “Can you protect me from any unsavory elements?”
He chuckled. “Babe, anywhere we go, I am the unsavory element.”
“Is that a yes?” Sweet little filly, my ass.
“Yeah, babe,” he growled. “Walk you through hell itself, and the devil won’t lay a finger on you.”
That warmed me, more than a little. Because damn, I believed him.
“Then let’s go, before I piddle in my sweet little filly underpants.”
He chuckled, eyeing me. “That irritated you, did it?”
I swung off the bike, and my legs wobbled—his hand caught me. “A little,” I said, finding my land-legs, so to speak. “I understand calling me darling and sweetheart and things like that are just how you talk, but calling me a sweet little filly is…condescending, at best.”
“I apologize.” No excuses, no justifications, just the apology. How extraordinary.
I took his hand and smiled. “It’s okay. Just be glad you didn’t say that to Lex. She’d skin you alive for a comment like that.”
He snickered. “Wonder how Myles is making out with her, then, because he’s worse about that kinda shit than I am.”
She made a face. “Eek, not well, I’d imagine. She doesn’t like being called smarmy pet names. At all.”
He turned off the bike, put down the kickstand, unclipped his helmet and slung it off the handlebar. I unclipped mine and handed it to him. He took his time swinging off the bike, stretching, cracking his back side to side, flexing his legs.
I danced. “Not to be a problem, but I really, really have to pee.”
He snickered. “Come on, then.”
He took my hand and I power walked to the entrance. He opened the door and ushered me in, and I was blasted by smoke and noise and laughter and music and beer smell and man sweat and leather. It was dingy, low ceilinged, dimly lit. The air was fogged with smoke, despite the statewide nonsmoking ban which was common in most states, nowadays. Music thudded from speakers—"Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” Brooks and Dunn. The crowd was a raucous, rowdy, carousing wall of broad shoulders, leather and denim MC cuts, camouflage, beards, and hard eyes; the barroom full of laughing, yelling, swearing men was seamed through liberally with bottle blond and red hair, massive cleavage whether natural, pushed up by a bra, or surgically enhanced, along with tall boots and short shorts, and more than one lower back tattoo.
Yeah, no way I’d have gone in here on my own.
As it was, I suddenly wondered if maybe I could hold my pee a little longer.
Nope.
My eyes were turning yellow, as my dad used to say. I spied the ladies’ room and made a beeline for it, pushing my way through the tumult, and probably not making any friends with the elbows I was throwing. I made it to a stall, sat down, and was nearly thrown off my pee game by the graffiti on the stall walls. Heinous, evil shit. Like, seriously, who even thinks that stuff, never mind writes it on public property?
Finished, I washed up and exited the bathroom, stopping just outside the door to scan the crowd for Crow. I found him at the farthest end of the bar, bellied up to it with one boot up on the rail, big hard fist curled around a bottle of domestic beer, eyes roving the crowd, assessing. He saw me, lifted his chin, and jerked his head to indicate that I should join him. Well, duh. Like I’m going to join the crowd of booty-scootin’ boogiers? Nope.
I had to cross through the crow
d, but this time I used about…oh, 85 percent less elbow. I still drew a number of dirty looks, mostly from the women if I appeared to be nearing too close to their man.
The men looked at me as I passed, mind you, but their looks were…well…equally dirty, but in a whole different sense of the word.
A giant of a man—six and a half feet tall easily and every bit as broad in a circumferential way, head shaved and tattooed with the likeness of a grinning skull that had a bright yellow serpent slithering between the eye sockets and gaping, grinning mouth—stepped in front of me, halting my progress.
“Hey now, sweet tits, where you goin’ in such a hurry?”
Want to make me see red? That’s how.
“Hey now, frog butt, why don’t you get the fuck out of my way?”
He snorted, amused. “Frog butt?” He looked around, a gesture meant to indicate his ownership of the bar. “You in the wrong place to be talkin’ smack like that, missy.”
“Only smack that’s happening is my hand across your face.” I glowered at him, hoping like hell my backup was on the way to enforce my ballsy shit-talking.
He guffawed. “You just try that, sweet tits.”
One thing to know about all of us Goode girls is that Mom taught us to not ever, ever take shit from men. A man gets in your face, you get back in his. He talks shit, you talk shit right back. Give as good as you get, and then give more. Most men are actually just cowards, and if you get in their dumb faces and make it clear you aren’t taking their crap, they’ll back down.
Some…won’t.
This guy wasn’t.
Mom prepped us for this, too.
I put my face in the big guy’s face, gave him my most evil, cut-you-to-pieces stare. “Call me sweet tits again, thunder dick.”
He bent to tower over me, trying to intimidate me with the extra foot of height and the well over a hundred pounds of weight he had on me. Here’s the thing. Doesn’t matter how big they are, their nuts all still smash the same.
Therefore: I kneed him in the big fat sac. Once. Twice. Reached up, grabbed him by the neck and leaned close, and put all my weight and momentum into a third upward scythe of my knee into his balls.
Not So Goode Page 16