by Miley Maine
“How quiet do I need to be?” I asked. The last thing I wanted was to be interrupted because we woke her kid up. It was an uncomfortable thought, but at least my father and Mary would know to steer clear of Bree’s room.
“They all sleep like rocks,” she said.
“Good.” With my working arm, I pulled her shorts down her smooth legs, exposing her core to me. She lay with her knees open, letting me look. I lifted her leg and kissed the calf.
“Glad I shaved,” she said.
“It wouldn’t have mattered to me.” I inhaled the scent of her skin, still lemon-fresh along her legs. My want for her was nearly intolerable, but I refused to rush this, in case it was the last time.
“You say that now, but you’d be saying something else if my legs scratched your face up.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “I’ll take you any way I can have you.” I knelt on the floor by the bed and tugged on her body, turning her so she lay on the edge of the bed. My cock throbbed. I wanted nothing more than to bury myself inside her body, but that would have to wait. “Spread your legs,” I said. “I can’t wait to taste you.”
She ran her hand over my head. “Go for it.”
With her legs open, her pussy was ready for me. I kissed the inside of her creamy thigh until I reached her core. I’d done this with a few casual partners over the years, but Bree was the only woman who’d ever turned me on like this. As I leaned in, my heart sped up. I flattened my tongue and licked over her clit.
“James!” she gasped. She bucked against me, pulling my hair.
I waited until she lay back again. This time, I pushed the tip of my finger into her pussy while I licked her clit. “If I could use my other arm, I’d hold you down,” I said.
“Oh, God,” she said, writhing against my hand as I pushed a second finger into her body.
I put my mouth back on her sex, this time sucking on her clit. Her thighs tensed as her pussy clenched around my fingers. I flattened my tongue and put more pressure on her clit, beginning to make small circles around her rigid flesh.
She pulled on my hair again. “James, I’m close.”
“Go ahead and let go,” I said. “I can get you there again.” I crooked my fingers, finding her sweet spot and rubbing back and forth against it as I sucked harder on her clit.
She moaned loudly, then grabbed the pillow and pressed it over her face. Her pussy clenched, hugging my fingers in waves as I kept licking over her sweet skin. As she came down from her climax, I tugged her body back so she was lying near the middle of the bed and crawled to lie next to her. I pressed a kiss to her shoulder, resting my forehead against the bed while I tried to get a handle on myself.
It had been five years since I’d been inside Bree’s body. I’d had more experienced partners, partners who’d shown me a thing or two, but not one of them made my head spin the way Bree did.
As if she were reading my mind, she spoke up. “You’ve learned a trick or two.”
I rolled on my side to look at her. I didn’t want to talk about other women. She lay on her back with her arm thrown over her eyes. If we did this again, I vowed it would be at the hotel, where I wouldn’t have to hold back.
I traced my hand over the delicate curve of her hip bone. Her feminine body looked so petite next to mine, but she was tough and capable of hard work. She dropped the arm from her eyes, rolled onto her side, and stared at me. She pressed her hand against my chest. “How’s your shoulder?”
Her fingers felt like fire against my heated skin. “Doesn’t hurt at all,” I said.
“I’m sure you’d say that no matter what.”
I kissed her on the nose. “How do you know me so well?”
“Hmm,” she said, trailing her hand lower. “I have met you,” she teased. She skimmed over my abs and down to my cock. She wrapped her hand around my erection. “I’m ready to feel this inside me again.”
At the feel of her warm hand on my cock, static filled my head and buzzed through my ears. I had to take a deep breath to keep from erupting right then.
She rose up on her hands and knees, crawling over to straddle me. She slid down my body, kissing my stomach on the way down. “Nice abs,” she said.
My face flushed. I’d been lean in high school from all the ranch work, but I hadn’t had time to lift weights.
“I’m going to be rusty at this,” she said.
“That’s fine,” I managed to say. She’d only gone down on me a few times, but her skill level didn’t matter to me. As she knelt beside me, she peeked up at me through her hair right before she licked a long stripe right up my cock.
My eyes rolled back in my head. I squeezed my hand into a fist and willed myself to keep from thrusting up into her mouth. I grabbed a pillow and shoved it under my head so I could see her bent over my cock. Just in time, too, because she didn’t lick it again, but sank her mouth down over my cock, going about halfway down and then up again.
My lungs had to work overtime to keep up with my heaving chest. The few times she’d done this before, she’d been hesitant. Now she went for it with bold licks and a lot of pressure that went straight to my head. She pulled off and brought her hand up to hold the base of my cock while she licked the head.
My entire body tensed as I fought to hold off on finishing too quickly. I sucked in a deep breath and ran my fingers through her hair. “Bree. Stop.”
She grinned at me. “Good?”
“Very good. I won’t last.”
“Do you have a condom?” she asked.
“Yeah, in my bag.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“We all carry them,” I said, which was true.
“I think I can remember how to do this,” she said. She ripped the packed open and rolled it over my cock.
A primitive satisfaction rolled through my chest. She’d had every right to date other men and sleep with them, too, but I was very glad she hadn’t.
She gave me a gentle shove, pushing me onto my back. “I’ve let you run the show up until now,” she said. “But you have one arm out of commission. Now I’m calling the shots.”
“Is that so?” I put my hand on her hip. “What if I say that I’m in charge?”
She pressed her hands against my pecs. “Doesn’t look like you’re in charge. Looks like I have you pinned.”
“Feels pretty good from down here.”
She leaned over me, letting her breasts brush over my chest. “It’s about to feel even better,” she said as she sat up straight, holding her body over mine, and slowly lowered herself onto my cock.
“Christ, Bree.” The walls of her warm pussy gripped my cock. If I died right now, I’d be happy.
She rolled her hips, rocking against me. Electricity sparked through my body, lighting my nerves up until I was on a razor’s edge.
In the past, every time we’d made love had meant something special to me, but it had never been like this, and I never wanted it to end.
13
Bree
I had forgotten what it was like to sit on James’s cock, what it was like to have it slide into my body and fill me up.
We hadn’t done it many times back when we were together. In high school, I’d been too scared—scared of people talking bad about us, scared of getting pregnant, scared my mom would flip out.
Once we’d graduated, we’d taken that leap and made love all through the month of June and into July, until the summer day when James proposed. And then that was it, except for the few times he came home, and then the time four years ago when I got pregnant with Ian.
Tonight, he paid attention to my body in a way he never had before. I wasn’t naive; I might not have been with anyone but James, but I knew how he’d gained those skills and it wasn’t from reading magazine articles. With his hands and his mouth, he’d built up the tension in my body until the moment when he’d sent me crashing again.
After my first release, a languid ease had washed over me until I noticed James, lying there patient
ly, not pushing me even though his cock had to be aching. He might be an arrogant know-it-all sometimes, but in bed, he was a true gentleman.
His hand came up to cover my breasts and he pinched my nipples. I lifted myself, savoring the feel of his cock inside me. It had been far too long, but I’d had no interest in sharing myself with another man in this way. I’d never once been tempted.
“I’m close,” he said. “I need to fuck you.”
“What do you think we’re doing?” I asked.
He sat up and wrapped his arm around me, leaving us still connected. He turned, still holding onto me, and laid me on the bed, pulling out briefly before he knelt over me. He guided his cock to my entrance and pushed back in with one slow slide. He held himself up with his good arm and started thrusting.
I let my eyes close as the rhythm of his cock in my pussy pushed me close to the edge again.
“I can’t believe I’m fucking you and I can’t use my other hand,” he growled. He grabbed my hip and pulled, tugging me to the edge of bed, where he could stand and still fuck me. “Now I can touch you,” he said. His fingers glanced over the spot where his cock was inside my body, gathering slick.
He rubbed his wet fingers in tight circles over my clit while he made short, sharp thrusts into my body. The combination of his perfect thrusts and his hand on my clit sent my brain into white-out mode. Pure pleasure zapped through my veins. I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his waist. “James,” I said. “Fuck me. I’m so close!”
He bucked his hips, shoving his big cock into me, hitting the exact right spot just as his fingers gently squeezed my clit.
“Come for me again, Bree,” he said in that low voice.
“James!” I screamed as my core pulsed around his cock. He put his hand on my stomach, holding me in place as my blood sang and my body crested again and again.
Eventually, my legs went limp, dropping back to the bed.
He got rid of the condom, then he pulled me back near the center of the bed and stuck a pillow under my head. He pulled the covers over me and then crawled into the bed himself, snuggling close. “Told you I’d get you there,” he said.
Unable to whack him as hard as I normally would, I poked him in the stomach. “Don’t take all the credit,” I said. Burrowing into the covers, I closed my eyes. “You wore me out,” I said, and his warm body against mine was the last thing I remembered before I drifted off.
When I woke up, James was still cuddled up next to me. Before he got shot, we’d never gotten to spend the night together. Sure, we’d snuck a few naps together here and there, and once he snuck into my sleeping bag on a school camping trip, but we’d never laid down together, gone to sleep, and woken up together in the morning.
So, here I was, twenty-four years old, with a ranch, a part-time job, and a four-year-old child, and I’d never slept overnight with a man in my bed. It sounded pretty weird when I put it like that.
Behind me, James stretched. “Good morning,” he said.
“Hi,” I said back to him, covering my face with a pillow. The room was already flooded with sunlight. “What time is it?”
“Eight am,” he answered.
“That’s two days in a row I’ve slept in.”
James shifted and sat up against the headboard. “You must have needed it.”
“I always do. I just can’t fall behind on the ranch work.”
“My arm’s fine. I’ll help you.”
Where was this coming from? My scalp tingled as James ran his fingers through my hair. “You hate working with the cattle and the horses.”
“It’s not what I wanted to do every day for the rest of my life, but that doesn’t mean I hate it,” he said.
I pulled the pillow from my face and glared at him. “Don’t lie. You loathe cows.”
My glare didn’t last long. James sat bare chested against my headboard. He’d ditched the sling and the neat row of stitches looked good. His hair was tousled and his mouth was curved up in a half-smile. He was unfairly gorgeous, and I couldn’t look at him for another second without jumping on him. But I did not have time for that right now—not to mention I could hear Ian banging around downstairs in the living room.
“I’ve gotta go. My cows are waiting for me.” I forced myself to the edge of the bed, but before I stood up, James reached out and grabbed my wrist.
“I enjoyed last night,” he said.
Okay. We were talking about this now. “Me, too,” I said.
“Go out with me tonight,” he said.
“Not to be rude because that sounds fun, but why? What would be the point?”
“Because we were best friends for a long time before we were together. I miss you. I’d like to hang out with you. If it’s just as friends, that’s great. If not, then that’s great, too.”
“You think we can just forget everything that happened?” I asked, and I wasn’t being snarky.
“It worked last night.”
“Okay, sure. Last night worked. Now we can see if we can do something normal and not come to blows.”
“Feel free to bring Ian,” he said.
My heart sank as reality came crashing back down on me. There was no path to friendship for James and me. He’d broken my heart, and then I’d lied to him.
The longer he was around, the harder it was to justify my decision to keep Ian from him. It was clear that I was going to have to tell him the truth. But when? Selfishly, I wanted to enjoy a few days with him first. But I also didn’t want to distract him from his work. I didn’t want my decision to be the reason he missed something in the case.
I promised myself right then and there that once the case was solved, I would tell him. Now wasn’t the right time. “He can stay home tonight. Maybe next time we can bring him.”
“Listen,” he said. “I don’t want you to struggle. Even if you won’t let me help with the ranch, let me help with Ian. My father told me you needed money to send him to preschool.”
Hearing that was a knife through my heart. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll think about it.” There was no way in Hell that I’d take his money without telling him that Ian was his son. And once he knew that, I had a feeling he’d still want to pay, but that payment would come along with a request for a whole lot more than I was prepared for.
I gave his hand a squeeze and got out of bed. I had to get out of there before the guilt swamped me and the truth just started flowing out of my mouth.
“This is amazing; I’m glad you suggested it,” I said as I took a sip of my merlot.
Just as he’d promised, James had helped me with the cattle all morning. Then he’d gotten dressed in his suit and tie and gone to meet the rest of his FBI team. After we were both done with our work, he’d shown back up at seven pm and whisked me away to a Dallas suburb for a fancy bistro dinner at something called “New American Cuisine.”
Instead of his usual white shirt and black tie, he had on tailored jeans, a blue shirt with no tie, and a black sport coat. The wine wasn’t the only thing making my mouth water. Every part of James was striking. More than one woman, from the age eighteen to seventy, had turned her head as she walked past him.
“This is divine,” I said as I bit into the grilled artichoke.
I almost never went out to eat. Occasionally I took Ian out for pizza, but going to a real restaurant was mostly out of the question. Most of our meals at home were chili, hamburgers, or meatloaf during the times when the ranch was doing well, and when the income was less, we ate canned food and what we grew in the garden. Mary clipped coupons and I bought what was on sale, which usually ended up being canned corn and beans.
“Hey,” James said. We’d kept our conversation light all through dinner, but now the playful look had faded from his face. “How well do you know Dr. Smith?”
“Not that well. I keep his horses when he goes on vacation, which is a lot.”
James paused in eating his shrimp cocktail, so this must have been serious. “I want you to be car
eful,” he said. “Don’t go to his house alone. Don’t go to his clinic alone. If you’re sick, take my dad or stepmother with you.”
Now I dropped my fork. It made a little bit of a clatter, even on the thick tablecloth. “What? Why?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I’m still working from a hunch. But I’m afraid he’s connected to the power grid suspects.”
I pressed my lips together. “That’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t even know Dr. Smith that well, not compared to how well I knew Lacy, or Walter and Mary, or about a dozen other people in town. But I didn’t care for James breezing back into town and immediately deciding Dr. Smith was a terrorist. “Because he’s a doctor. He’s boring and he’s old.”
“There are a large number of older male criminals. Don’t discount him from any plot,” he said.
“I don’t think so. He’s been here for years. I’ve been in and out of his house with and without him there.”
James leaned back as the waiter placed a wedge salad in front of each of us. “Humor me?”
“Tell me why,” I said. I might be pissed, but watching James pick up his fork and eat a salad with goat cheese was truly delightful. I don’t like to stereotype, but I’d never met a guy in Laurel Bay who would eat a salad, much less one that looked like this. James was smoking hot, sitting there in his button-down shirt and his square jaw, looking far more sophisticated than I could reasonably handle.
My stomach turned over, the same kind of fluttery feeling I had when I was a teenager and I had finally started seeing him as more than a friend.
“I shouldn’t say more, but I wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for you.”
“So he’s a suspect because of me,” I said. Damn James for being so hot. I had to look away from him. Sitting there, confident and in control, he could rival any movie star.