“Nice bloomers.”
Ugh! I shifted from foot to foot trying not to look at him. I failed.
My eyes glanced at his tight black T-shirt stretched taut over his rippling muscles. The fabric was thin enough to show off every perfectly defined peak and valley of his chest and biceps.
Clint pointedly glanced at a pair of red satin and lace panties before he again met my eyes. This time he grinned wickedly.
I acted as though I was unaware of the fact that my face had turned a brighter crimson than the panties, but my embarrassment did spur me into action.
My fingers unclipped the garments at record speed.
Clothespins flew left and right, here and there—I’d find them later.
Shay, for goodness’ sake, you’re not some blushing virgin. What is wrong with you?
“Lemme help.” Clint reached up, his masculine scent teasing my nose. It was so overwhelming, I switched to mouth breathing.
“I got it.” Why did my voice sound so small and shaky? I prayed he couldn’t hear the tremble in it, but judging by the smirky half smile, he knew the reaction my body was having to him.
“I insist.” When he reached for the red satin and lace panties, his arm brushed mine, sending tingles of pleasure vibrating through me. Damn.
“You okay?”
“Just really hot.” My voice came out as a hoarse whisper. Then I realized what I’d said. “I mean…not me…I didn’t mean I was hot, as in look at how sexy I am. I meant the weather. The weather is making me hot. Not the sexy kind, the rising temperature kind. I’m gonna stop talking right about now. Yep. I’m just going to shut the hell up. Shut up. Yet I’m still talking, aren’t I?” I let out a high-pitched, strained giggle.
Clint chuckled softly. I closed my eyes. So much for avoiding awkwardness.
“Your panties are wet.”
“Uh-huh.” Yes. Yes, they are.
“Should I leave them here or you want to take them in anyway?”
“Huh?”
He waved the red satin in front of me. “The panties. They’re not quite dry yet.”
“Oh! Uh, I’ll take them.” I quickly snatched them out of his hand and tucked them in my pocket. “I’ll just hang them over the chair in my bedroom.”
When I met his eyes, he was grinning like a Cheshire cat, but there was also an intensity in those blue eyes that felt far too…erotic.
Standing next to Clint while he was admiring my sexy lingerie was making me act like a crazy person. I bit the inside of my cheek when he reached out, removed a bra from the line, and examined it. Was he picturing me in it?
“Why so shy? I would think we’d have moved on from that. I mean after last night. Which, by the way, I enjoyed very much. Did you?”
Did I? I don’t think I’ve ever come so hard in my life. “It was okay.”
“Okay?”
I shrugged.
“OKAY?”
I giggled. “Alright, it was pretty good.”
“Gimme another chance.”
“What?”
“Gimme another chance. Okay and pretty good are not gonna cut it. Not for my wife. I’m aiming for spectacular…earthshaking. I want another chance.”
Even though I was only about a foot away, Clint opened his arms in invitation, allowing me to choose whether to go to him or not. I fell into his chest, my arms snaking around his neck.
He dipped his head and brushed his lips against mine for just a brief second before hoisting me in the air as though I weighed nothing. As he carried me toward the house, I curled my legs around his hips, feeling his muscles rippling with every step.
He took us straight to the bedroom—his. When we reached the bed, he stopped walking but didn’t release me. He held me closer, squeezed tighter, and crushed my mouth with a kiss that curled my toes. He ground himself against me. He was so hard—all of him, his whole body, firm and hard.
His lips trailed from my mouth to graze the shell of my ear. “Tell me you’re ready for this. Tell me you’re ready to consummate our marriage, Sam.”
I shivered and nodded. “I’m ready.”
He looked as though he was about to devour me, to take me hard, fast, and rough, and I wouldn’t have minded at all. But he didn’t.
He carefully laid me down on the quilt, bent his tall frame over the bed, and pecked one more kiss on my lips, this one tender and sweet.
Then he backed away, lit a candle, and stepped out of the room. I heard him cross the living room. Then a second later, an old, slow country tune started playing on the record player.
When Clint returned and his gaze raked over me, his eyes held passion, heat, and reverence.
“This will change things, Sam. After tonight, I’m not going back to being the guy in the other room. If we do this, you’re sleeping here with me, in my bed, from now on.”
I swallowed hard, and since I didn’t trust my voice, my response was a nod.
Stripping his T-shirt over his head, he revealed a chest that truly was a landscape of perfect male musculature and tan skin. A sprinkling of blonde hair formed a line below his navel that dipped into his pants. His hands fell to his belt and I watched him unbuckle his jeans. My lungs seemed to forget how to inhale. Clint undressing was the hottest thing I’d ever seen, and I found myself squeezing the bedding in my fists.
His pants dropped and he kicked them off, along with his boots and socks before tucking his thumbs in the waistband of his briefs. Slowly, he pushed those down and off, standing bare in front of me, his cock long, hard, and prominent.
Holy mother of god. The man gives the term “well hung” a new meaning.
Tingles of electricity tore through my body, collecting at my core. The wetness of my arousal flowed between my thighs. Clint’s physique was amazing, but nothing compared to the scorching gaze he held fixed on me. That alone set me aflame. His blue eyes almost glowed.
He climbed in next to me, the bedsprings squeaking in protest, then held his arm out to me. “Come here.”
I scooted closer until my thigh touched his and I faced him. He undressed me slowly, kissing, tasting, and exploring every inch of my skin as he uncovered it.
My nipples pebbled. Goose bumps ran across my flesh. My chest heaved. I was aroused and excited, but still nervous, as I lay completely exposed to him.
He drank in every curve and crevice of my body.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful.” His voice was hoarse and ragged. My body trembled under his teasing touch and his scorching gaze. Clint had a raw, animalistic power that my body desperately ached for.
I blew out a breath I’d been holding.
“Nervous?”
I nodded.
“Don’t be.” He ran his fingers up and down my thighs. “There’s no need to hurry. We have the rest of our lives.” As I started to relax, his caress traveled slowly upward.
His finger ran lightly along the sensitive folds of my sex and I shivered in response. I watched as he brought the same finger, now slick, to his lips. He inhaled, his eyes closing as though the scent was the finest perfume, then slid it into his mouth and sucked it clean. As he did, his erection, hard and thick, twitched.
“You are delicious.”
He resumed softly tracing between my legs with his wet finger, exploring, his eyes watching my face for responses. My clit tightened and hardened as the tip of his finger traced it gently, and my entire body quivered.
Holy crap! This man is killing me. I didn’t know how much more I could take before I exploded.
Parting my legs wider, he slid me farther up the bed and, nestling himself between my thighs, began to pepper kisses lightly up my inner thigh, closer and closer to my center. Instinctively, I moved toward him, desperate for more.
But his torment continued as his tongue flicked gentle, teasing little flicks against my clit. I gasped, dizzy with pleasure. The sensations were so teasing, so barely there, which made them all the more overwhelming.
Then, his tongue licked the leng
th of my pussy, one firm, long swipe, and my whole body responded, from the tingles in my scalp to the curling of my toes.
He groaned and lapped my juices with his tongue—long, firm licks that set off sparks in my lower belly. As the waves of my orgasm started, intensified, then engulfed my entire body, he pressed deeper, his tongue burrowing into my folds and his mouth clamping tightly over my sex.
Shivers took a violent hold over me.
I heard myself crying out his name, over and over.
Clint continued to tongue me, but slower, his pressure lessening as I descended from the cloud I was on.
Weak and orgasm-drunk, I languidly opened my eyes to Clint’s face above me wearing a dirty, wicked grin that fluttered my stomach.
“How ‘bout now? Tell me that was better’n okay and pretty good.”
I nodded groggily. “It was. I’d rate that at ‘not bad.’”
I giggled as Clint slapped my ass playfully. “I’ll give you not bad. I ain’t done yet, sweetheart.”
But Clint sat back on his heels and I leaned up on my elbows.
The sight of him kneeling at the end of the bed, his erection long and heavy and proud was mouthwatering. The tip of his cock glistened with a drop of his seed.
“My turn.” This time I crawled to the end of the bed. “Stay right there. Better yet, lie down.” Before he protested (like, really, would he have protested?), I nudged him. Following my prompt, he lay down next to me, and I licked the tip of his engorged erection, causing him to groan. I glanced up, gauging his reaction. His teasing, playful grin was gone, and now his expression was one of full-blown lust.
I slid my lips over his length, wrapping my mouth around his girth, tasting his salty warmth in my throat, thrilled at the heady feeling of having this powerful man at my mercy.
I felt his heart rate accelerate wildly as I slid my mouth up and down his shaft. He entwined his fingers in my hair and balled it in his fists, spurring me to suck harder. A moan escaped his lips and he pulled away.
“I don’t want to finish like this. I want to be inside you.”
I fell back on the sheets, my body temperature about a thousand degrees.
With his cock slick and coated in my saliva, he gently pushed at my opening and at the same time took my nipple between his teeth, teasing it with his tongue as inch by inch he slid himself inside me.
My body stretched to accommodate him, his thickness and length filling me completely so that when he moved back out and slid in again, the delicious friction elicited a moan from my inner depths.
“You okay, sweetheart?” His eyes were full of concern and controlled passion.
“God, yes, don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He pushed inside hard and fast, then very slowly pulled back out. The rhythm drove me crazy. Hard and fast in, then out very, very slowly. My legs wrapped around him, my heels dug into his hard, sculpted ass. He buried his face in my breasts, and a low growl—raw and sexy and primal—arose from somewhere in his chest.
Our rhythm increased, growing faster, intensifying. A deep yearning spread through my veins, and my muscles clutched him, driving him deeper.
As I felt the waves of another climax building, Clint grasped my hips and drew me upward to meet his downward thrusts. He drove me to an orgasm that set off every nerve ending in my body.
I might have screamed, I wasn’t sure. A second later I felt his throbbing pulses as his seed filled me.
I didn’t know how long it took for my heart rate to slow or my breathing to normalize, but after a time, I found myself in Clint’s arms as he kissed my temple, the side of my head, my cheek. “How about now? Tell me you enjoyed that.”
I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t even tease him.
“That was…spectacular…earthshaking.”
Chapter 17
Clint
Memories from the night before crowded out the hazy lull of slumber creeping under my lids and stretched a smile across my face.
I turned and reached for Sam. When all I got was empty bed, my eyes sprang open and looked around. She was bent over, naked, reaching for her shirt.
Spines on a cactus!
“I could get used to this view.”
She jumped and spun. “Hey!”
Laughing, I crooked my finger to summon her closer. “Get over here.”
She bit her lip. “I was going to make us breakfast.”
“Breakfast can wait.”
She climbed back under the quilt and molded her body to mine. Her lips pressed against my chest, and her arms wrapped around my waist. She sighed contentedly. “You’re so warm.”
I pulled her on top of me. “And you’re so beautiful.”
“You’re so big and strong.”
“And you’re so small and soft. Everything about you is perfect. Every part of you.” I leaned up and nipped the tender skin of her earlobe. “How you feelin’?”
“Well, when I said ‘big’…” She grinned, looked down at my lips, and chuckled. “I’m not too sore.”
An hour later, we were in the kitchen cooking breakfast together. I fried myself bacon while Sam made vegan flapjacks. She was barefoot and wearing only my T-shirt. I was in low-slung jeans with my arms around her waist from behind, nibbling the back of her neck as she flipped a flapjack. I didn’t want to let her go. She was fast becoming my whole world.
Sam wiggled her ass against my groin, giggling as I continued to kiss the back of her neck. She flipped another flapjack into the air and caught it expertly before leaning her head back. “My dad used to be the pancake maker in our house growing up. He could flip a pancake six feet into the air.”
“That’s impressive. What was he like?”
She leaned more of her weight back against me and her hand came up to rest on her chest. She clutched the pendant that hung from her necklace. I noticed she almost always wore it.
“He was the best. He was funny and kind. My mom was a teacher, and he was a coach for the local high school football team. He always dragged us out to the Friday night football games, and he’d have the team run by and slap our hands for good luck before the game started. It made me feel so special.”
I smiled in her hair. I had no idea what it must have felt like to have a family like hers, with a mom and a dad, but she made it sound nice.
“This is them.” She opened the pendant which was, in fact, a locket and showed me the tiny likenesses of her parents. The smiles they wore looked friendly and kind, and Sam resembled both—she had her mother’s delicate features and her father’s large eyes.
“Dad was the soft one, oddly enough. Maybe because I was a girl, he never got angry with me. Daddy’s little girl—I got away with murder. My mom was used to controlling a classroom, though. She was quick to set me straight.”
I kissed the side of her head. “They sound like they were really good parents.”
“They were. Even when I was a typical bratty teenager, they were the best. Dad would just sit me down and say, ‘Now, Shay, you know you can’t do that or your mother is going to scold us both.’”
I frowned. “Shay?”
Her entire body went rigid against mine, and I watched the side of her face as her cheek turned bright red. She stuttered and pulled away from me, crossing the kitchen quickly to bury her head in the fridge. “Uh…um, yeah. My full name is…Samantha Shay Jackson. My dad sometimes referred to me by my middle name.”
Another lie. I sighed. “Sam…”
She turned to face me, her face contorting in anger. “What? Jesus, Clint. Not everything is some big police investigation you need to get to the bottom of!”
I raised my eyebrows and took a step back. She resumed her position at the stove. What the hell was with all the lies? And why so defensive? I was so fucking sick of it.
“Fine.” Shaking my head, I retreated to the bedroom to get a little space. Once there, I realized I was seething with confusion and…anger. Yes, I was angry. My own wife wouldn’t talk to me.
She refused to trust me!
Worse, we were legally wed, and we’d just consummated our marriage, yet my wife was still lying to my face. I hastily threw on clothes. I needed more space from her than this house allowed.
I thought that maybe she’d be more open with me now that we’d been intimate, but clearly I’d thought wrong. I was good enough to marry, good enough to work the ranch for her, good enough to fuck her, but not good enough for her to share whatever it was she was hiding.
I shoved my feet into my boots and marched back out into the main room. “I gotta run to town for a spell.”
“You’re skipping breakfast?” Without looking at me, Sam just nodded. “Okay, then.”
I shook my head and stormed out of the house, letting the door slam shut behind me.
The wheels spun out as my truck sped away from the ranch. I was letting my emotions get the best of me, I knew that. Frustrated and angry, yes, but mainly I was hurt. The swift mood change from making love to Sam and being deliriously happy to…whatever had just transpired in the kitchen was like being doused with a bucket of ice water, and I hated it.
I could admit that I was partly to blame, and maybe I needed to get a tighter rein on my anger and use a gentler approach, but, damn, I’d never given her a reason to distrust me. How the hell did she expect a marriage to work without communication and trust?
I drove through town and straight to the hot springs. It was my favorite place to relax, unwind, and let go of stress.
Settling in, eyes closed, I allowed the hot water to work its magic and ease the tension from my body. As my emotions evened, I was able to think more clearly. Sam was hiding something, that was a given. But what? Now I was skeptical that her name was even Sam. Was it actually Shay? And if so, was she the true heir to Pappy’s ranch?
If not, who was she and why was she here in Rattlesnake? How big was this secret of hers that she couldn’t trust me enough to tell me? It sure was tough to love someone who kept an entire part of herself closed off.
The Moose Shifter's Fake Wife: A Steamy Shifter Rom-Com Page 10