Big Bad John (Bigger in Texas Series) (6 page)

“What are you doing?” she gasped softly when his breath puffed against her lips, though he didn’t move in to take what she knew he wanted.

“Waiting.” His reply was just as soft. “For you to admit what you want so I can give it to you. Right now, when your friend could come down at any moment. Right here, where anyone could see.” He skimmed her lips once more with his and groaned. “Prove me wrong, Trudy. Tell me you don’t want to know.”

Every word he uttered was a seduction, and every struggling breath she fought to take was one more step toward succumbing to it. She
did
want to know. Wanted to know if a decade of fantasy could be topped by the real thing. If her memory had made it into more than it was.

Her hands fell onto his shoulders and she wrapped her legs around his thighs, pulling him closer. “Kiss me then. I want you to kiss me.”

“There’s Trouble. Good girl.”

After that it was hard for her to think. His mouth was on hers, claiming her the way he had years before, when she hadn’t been ready. Hadn’t known that no one else would ever come close. Their tongues tangled and she tasted sweet barbecue and spice…and John.

She wanted more.

Her fingers reached for the buttons on his shirt but he stopped her, his hands reaching up to grip her wrists and lowering her arms until they were behind her back. Until her spine was arched and her breasts were pressing hard against his chest.

Oh God, she didn’t want to stop touching him but…
oh God
. How did he know? How could he know that what he was doing was only making her want him more? Pushing all her buttons. Turning her on. Arousal washed over her and the heat made her tighten her thighs, desperate for more contact. For the pressure she knew could help alleviate the ache inside her.

John leaned back, away from her questing mouth and chuckle roughly. “A kiss, Trudy. That’s all you asked for and all you’re getting tonight.”

“What?” 

She struggled in surprise but he didn’t loosen his grip on her wrists. Didn’t stop smiling. “What the hell is this?”

“This is a taste of what’s coming. And a challenge.”

He knew she could never resist a challenge.

Damn it.

“I’m listening.”

“I hope you are.” His grip tightened momentarily on her wrists, making her gasp…making her wet. He bit his lip. “I don’t see the point in denying it when it’s clear we still have something between us. Unfinished business. You still want me. I still want you…”

And it was still an impossible situation. “John, I—”

“Hush,” he reprimanded lightly, leaning forward to bite her chin in a gentle warning. “Two weeks, Trudy. You’re here for two weeks. I know you feel the need to sort Jefferson out and you want to help your friend get her story. All while you get ready for your life to change forever. But other than that, for as long as you’re here…say you’ll be mine.”

“Yours?”

He nodded. “In every way. You’ll come with me wherever I want to take you. Do whatever I ask you to do, and unless you draw a line or tell me to stop, I’ll be asking for a lot.”

This sounded… “John, are you
negotiating
with me?” How did he find out? Had he talked to Caroline when she was with her brother? “Are you…are you asking me to…?”

“Give in. Submit.” His expression was hard and resolved. His free hand slid up her ribcage and caressed one heavy breast, as if he couldn’t help himself. She pushed into his hand instinctively. “I’m not asking for strings. This ends the day you leave and without any regrets. I’m asking you to give yourself to me, Trudy. The way we both know you’re dying to.”

Cocky, arrogant—irresistible. “Just sex?”

His smile was dangerous. “Oh no. This is going to be so much more than just sex, Trouble. I think you know it. The question is, after all these years, are you still brave enough to say yes?”

If someone had asked her how she expected this visit to go, she’d never have imagined this in a million years. Quiet John had turned into a sexual, smooth-talking Dom. Big Bad John. What would he ask her to do? What were his fantasies?

How many times had she thought she’d give anything to know?

“Two weeks? And you’ll stop whenever I say?”

“As long as you mean it.” His murmur was rough with passion. “Yes. And I promise you, Trudy, you’ll more than enjoy what I have in mind.”

Her sex was clenching, her body restless. She needed release. Was aching for his touch. The ache made her bold. “Make me come, right now, and I’ll say yes.”

“Practicing to be a demanding diva already? That’s not usually how this works.”

She licked her lips, nodding. “I know.”

His eyes flared with dark blue fire. “If I agree, afterward you’ll only come when
I
allow it. And whenever I ask. You know that right?”

She gasped for breath. “I know. Please, John.”

The hand that was on her breast lowered, skimming her stomach over her shirt and reaching for the top button of her shorts. He slid the zipper down and slipped his fingers inside her soaked lace panties. His lips were less than an inch away from hers when he moaned. “As responsive as ever, I see. Fuck, you’re so hot.”

One thick finger pressed against her clit and then thrust deep inside her. No teasing. No foreplay. Trudy bit her cheek hard to stop herself from crying out.

“Keep quiet, baby. We don’t need company for this.” He released her wrists from his grip and placed his now free hand on her lower back. “Wrap your arms around my neck.”

She did as he asked, grateful for the support that allowed her to rock against his hand. He eased in another finger and she moaned, loving the stretch as he filled her. Imagining more.

He growled against her temple. “I feel like a damn teenager, copping a feel while your parents are asleep upstairs.”

The hand on her back slid inside the denim of her shorts, one finger pressing against the sensitive skin between the cheeks of her ass. “Oh, God.”

“That’s right,” he groaned, still pumping his fingers inside her sex. Faster now. Deep. “That will belong to me too. Every inch of you, mine to touch. To taste. To fuck. I’ve had a lot of time to imagine what I want to do to you, Trouble. And I’m going to do every damn thing I can before our time runs out.”

Everything. Whatever he said. Whatever he wanted. The idea was as arousing as his touch. His words were bringing her closer and closer to the edge. “John.”

“I need to hear you say it, Trudy. I want your yes. Tell me you’re mine. That you’ll give yourself over to me. Anything I want.”

She was coming so hard she saw stars. She tightened her arms and pressed her cheek against his, moaning softly into his ear. “Yes. Oh yes, that feels—
yes
John. Anything you want.”

Her head was still spinning when his fingers left her and he lowered her back to her feet, adjusting and re-buttoning her shorts as if she were a child. She looked up into his dark eyes, stunned when he kissed her gently on the forehead and stepped back.

“I’ll be going now. Get some rest. You’re going to need it. I’ll be back early to help with Junior. Oh and Trudy?” He paused to make sure she was listening. “I want you to use one of those toys I know you have in your room tonight and think about me. I want you to think of me and then I want you to come so hard and loud you’re afraid someone will hear you. I’ll expect you to tell me about it tomorrow. I might even ask you to demonstrate.”

And then he was gone. Out the kitchen door on his way to his place, leaving Trudy weaving and shaking in the kitchen. She was still reeling from what had happened. What she’d agreed to.

John’s challenge rocked her to her foundations. She hadn’t expected it.  After so many years she thought he’d put her in his rearview. That she’d imagined, or he’d forgotten, the chemistry that always sizzled between them. 

He hadn’t forgotten. Worse, everything about him was better, more irresistible than she remembered. She hadn’t been here eight hours before she gave in. But she didn’t think any woman alive could blame her.

She wrapped her fingers around one of her wrists, still feeling his firm grip, so sure and strong it made her shiver.  Some part of her had always known how it would be with him. That he was naturally dominant. And even all those years ago, Trudy had responded. Wasn’t that why she’d sought out the club in the first place, because no ordinary man would do? Because polite, politically correct and overly vanilla sex had never really done it for her? Had never turned her on the way that one momentary lapse of judgment in the bunkhouse had?

Trudy walked up to her bedroom in a daze, not even bothering to check on Caroline or her injured brother. She was still too needy, too swamped with memories and the possibilities of tomorrow.

She closed and locked her door, barely glancing at the room that was the perfect time capsule of her girlish teenage dreams. Posters of girl bands framed by lyrics she’d written on the wall, much to her father’s dismay. Stuffed animals on the butterfly quilt her grandmother had made before she was born. It was a child’s room, full of memories and hopes and dreams. But she’d grown up since this room had been hers. She’d changed in so many ways.

The only thing that hadn’t was how she felt about John Brown.

She stripped off her clothes and tugged the quilt off the bed, slipping beneath the cool sheets with a groan.

John
.

The first time she’d seen him coming up the drive next to her father, she’d known. He was different. Dangerous. He emanated sex and power. Even at seventeen she’d recognized it. Responded to it. Flirted with it.

It was embarrassing to remember how shameless she’d been. How she made a point to brush against him when their paths crossed. How her hips took on an extra sway when she knew he was watching her. She practiced her wiles on all the men who did odd jobs on her father’s ranch, but none as much as this man. Most of the time he resisted her. Twice she’d pushed him far enough to get a response, and both times she’d been the one to back away.

The first time had happened a week before she left, only a few weeks after her nineteenth birthday. It had been hot and she’d impulsively decided to go skinny-dipping in the pond. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, though usually she saved the forbidden treat for Sundays. After a few hours of listening to preaching about sin and the Devil, she loved the idea of getting away with something a good girl wouldn’t do. It wasn’t until she got to the edge of trees that surrounded the water that she realized someone had beaten her to it. Big John.

He was coming out of the water when he looked up and saw her watching him. He didn’t say a word, but his hand lowered to grip his hardening erection, drawing her gaze to his impressive body. He was big…everywhere. Hard everywhere.

He began to stroke himself, deliberately, sensually, and Trudy had an overwhelming desire to join him. To slip off her clothes, spread her legs and touch herself. To let him watch. She’d pressed her hand against her pounding heart and opened her lips on a gasp, and John had stiffened, taking one step and then another toward her.

She’d run.

Trudy lay in her bed, remembering, her fingers pressing against her clit.

Her toy.
He wanted her to use her vibrator. How he knew she had one, or that she’d bring it on this trip, was beyond her. She didn’t care. He knew.

She opened the bedside drawer she’d placed it in and pulled it out, measuring its thickness with her fingers and wondering if she’d gotten it because it reminded her of him. How big and thick he’d been, fisted in his own huge hand.

How hard he’d been against her the day after the funeral, in that rundown bunkhouse.

She turned on the vibrator and whimpered as it thrummed against her swollen, sensitive clit, closing her eyes and recalling every detail. She’d spent the previous week with a knotted stomach, a heart full of regret and the knowledge that she’d never have the chance to apologize to her father. Never be able to show him that, even though the last few years away had been hard, she was determined to be a success. To make her leaving mean something.

She’d been crying and walking aimlessly with her third bottle of beer in her hand, knowing the sun was down, knowing she should go back to the house. She’d found her way to the bunkhouse instead.

When John had opened the door that night, shirtless and with his jeans unbuttoned, she hadn’t questioned propriety or her actions. She’d thrown herself into his arms and let her tears soak into the skin of his chest, loving the way he didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her, to pull her inside and lean against the door as he rocked her. Gentled her.

When he set her on the low bed and knelt between her legs, still rocking her, the embrace had changed. John had taken the half-empty bottle out of her hands and set it on the crate he used as a nightstand, staring at her through hooded eyes.

All she could think of was how blue his eyes were. How strong he was. Regret and shame were replaced with need and hunger. The kind of hunger she hadn’t experienced in all her twenty-two years.

She’d slipped the straps of her tank top over her shoulders and pushed it down until her full, heavy breasts were revealed to him, pleading silently for what she knew, in this moment, only he could give her.

He’d gone so still she couldn’t tell if he was breathing, his gaze blue fire as he studied her hard, dark nipples. After a long moment without response, she shifted as if to cover herself, a blush staining her cheeks, but before she could, his hand lifted to cup one breast, his thumb scraping the tip of her nipple roughly, making her gasp.

Neither one of them said a word, as if both were afraid of shattering the intimacy of the moment. The pure, raw lust of it. And then he bent his head, his mouth closing over her other nipple, tongue flicking the tip before he closed his eyes and groaned. They both shuddered at the sensation, and she slid her hands into his hair, arching her neck when he opened his mouth wider, sucking at her flesh as if he were starving. As if he would never get enough.

When his mouth left her breast, she barely had time to moan her disapproval before he was kissing her lips, his tongue tangling with hers, exploring her. Claiming her.

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