Big Bad John (Bigger in Texas Series) (7 page)

She tasted beer and spice, and lightning shot up her spine.
Their first kiss.
Any men she’d kissed before him disappeared. There was only John. Always John.

His hands dropped to her thighs, pushing up the short, loose skirt she wore, and his fingers curled around her plain, white cotton panties, tugging them down until they were tight against her knees, stretched by the spread of her legs on either side of his body.

He swore against her mouth, and her eyelids fluttered open when his lips left hers and his head lowered. He gripped her thighs and, lifting her with strong hands, ducked beneath her underwear and in between her bare thighs.

“Have to,” he muttered. “Fuck, I have to.”

Alone in her bedroom Trudy spread her bent legs, bracing her feet against the bed as she thrust her hips upward, the delicious hum of the vibrator satisfying as she pushed it inside as deep as it would go, lost in the memory. He’d made her come twice that night with his mouth, his hands always returning to her breasts. And when she’d thought she couldn’t take anymore, when she was close to her third and strongest climax, desperate for it—he’d moved away. Stood beside the bed and undone the remaining buttons on his jeans. She’d wanted that. Been waiting for that. For him to take her. Finally.

But that wasn’t what he’d planned. He’d told her to get up on her knees.

“Show me,” he’d murmured hotly when she obeyed, stepping closer to the bed, his erection in his hands as he guided it toward her lips. “Show me you really know what you want, little girl. Take it.”

She’d been so lost in pleasure she hadn’t hesitated. How many nights had she wondered what that would be like? What he would taste like? If she could even fit him in her mouth?

Her lips had stretched wide as they skimmed over the head of his cock and down the thick shaft. Salt. Heat. Man. Her tongue tasted the ridged flesh and she shivered. Perfect.

John had gripped the ponytail she’d wrangled her curls into earlier and wrapped it around his fist, guiding her…gently at first, easily.

“Yes. Baby, yes,” he muttered as she explored him, experimented with how much she could take.

She couldn’t stop, addicted to him, but she was empty. Aching. She needed to find release again. Her hand dropped between her bent knees and her arousal soaked her fingers.

“No.” John’s tone was hard. She heard the clink of glass and then he was pressing her long-necked beer bottle against the back of her hand. “Use this.”

She paused and blinked up at him in shock and confusion. “Take it, Trudy. I want to watch you take it. For me.”

God, no one had ever…she’d never. But she did. She lowered herself onto the neck of the bottle, the cool glass stretching her, rocking against it as she whimpered against his erection.

“You are a natural, aren’t you, Trouble?” John sounded pleased and his grip on her hair tightened. “I had a feeling you would be. That you wanted…
Yes
, like that, but take more. Breathe out and take me deeper.” His hips jerked against her mouth. “That’s my good girl. Keep fucking that bottle, baby. You want it bad, don’t you? As bad as I do.
Fuck, yes
.”

She’d nodded, tears flowing down her cheeks as she taken him deeper, the head of his erection hitting the back of her throat. She felt strange. Turned on to the point of madness, shaky and confused. She’d never heard him speak so much. Never heard him talk this way. She’d never heard anyone talk this way. But his words brought something deep inside her to the surface. Something that was willing to beg for more. That would do
anything
for more.

Trudy came back to the present as she grabbed the pillow beside her and covered her face to muffle her screams of release. Her body went lax and she turned the vibrator off, shivering.

How different would her life be if they hadn’t been interrupted? If her grieving brother hadn’t called over to the bunkhouse to find out if John had seen his sister? If John hadn’t stepped back and called a halt before he’d found release, sending her away and telling her before she left his room that she should think about staying…for Jefferson’s sake.

She threw the pillow across the bed and sighed. She’d have more fodder for her fantasies, that was all. She still would have left, she told herself firmly. Gone back to California and found someone else to satisfy her needs.

Only no one ever had. Not completely. Not the way she knew he could have.

Two weeks. John wanted her for two weeks, with no strings attached. Could she pack every fantasy she’d ever had about him into the next thirteen days?

It was too tempting a challenge to resist.

“Spill it.”

At Caroline’s command, Trudy choked on the tea she’d been sipping through a straw and glanced up at her across the narrow diner table. She’d taken her to Frank’s. It was a small restaurant on the square that kept changing ownership and names, but for as long as she’d been alive, the locals had called it Frank’s. Sixty years of habit was hard to change. That should be the town motto.
Just Say No To Change
.

“Spill what?” she asked after she’d quit coughing.

Green eyes glinted and Caroline ticked her nails against the tabletop. “I know you, Trudy Adams. I have seen you in your undies on your knees after you let Dred Payne spank you with his favorite paddle for an hour. You’re all floaty and soft and distracted in a subbie way. What happened last night and why haven’t you told me yet?”

Blushing, Trudy looked around to see if any of the seventy and older crowd who’d joined them for lunch had heard that. No glares. Good. Maybe they all had their hearing aids turned off for a change. “Caroline, keep your voice down. We’re in the Bible Belt for crying out loud.”

Caroline shrugged. “Tar me, feather me, I don’t care. I might even like it. As long as I know what you and the Big Bad were up to while I was alone playing Dragons on my iPad.”

Trudy’s lips twitched. If there was one thing no one could hide from Caroline, it was a juicy piece of gossip. Especially sex gossip. The woman had a nose for excessive pheromones or something. It was a gift.

She had to tell her. She had to tell
someone
, talk about it, so it might as well be her best friend. “Nothing much, really. We might have negotiated a two-week thing.”

Caroline leaned forward, her shimmering lips lifting into a wicked smile. “A thing? As in one of my things? A kink thing? I knew it! He has that air about him. All caveman and quiet power. You have to tell me everything now, since you’re already on thin ice for keeping your feelings for him a secret from your best friend…was it Big Bad who taught you the ropes?”

“No.” Trudy was blushing again. “No, that’s called growing up on a ranch. I practiced on trees and our livestock, making halters and bridles for horses, never on people. John was …I mean we barely…”

Caroline nodded sagely and swirled the ice in her water glass with a spoon, smiling at the stone-faced waitress who plopped their plates down abruptly. When she was gone, Caroline lowered her voice. “So something
did
happen between you two. Good enough that you said yes last night. I could sense it. What I’m wondering is, if he’s been here all this time and it was
that
good…why didn’t you come home for a visit sooner? Because of your mom or because of John?”

Trudy bit her lip and shrugged. “Mom was part of it. I mean, to fight against small town gossip when you believe your cause is just is one thing…but when you know they were all right? It’s harder to face. Especially when they said the same things about me.”

Caroline reached out her hand and covered Trudy’s. “Don’t even think that. It’s not the same thing at all. Growing up and moving on is a lot different than abandoning your kids.” She raised her voice. “And people who waste their time talking trash have tiny minds and need to get a life.”

Trudy smiled but she knew what she knew. Her mother had been the town trollop, and she’d run away and made every possible mistake, destroying her life and leaving her family in the process.

Was Trudy really that much better? Sure, she hadn’t made choices so bad she couldn’t come back from them, but she’d made her share of mistakes, run away—and now she was about to dive in head first into an affair that already had an expiration date. Not exactly the actions of a good, wholesome girl from La Grange.

“Listen to me.” Caroline was using her napkin after taking a bite of her BLT. “I’ve known you for years and it has always amazed me how you have never allowed yourself to let go.” Trudy opened her mouth to argue but Caroline shook her head. “No. You’ve dated. You’ve come to the club and played. But you’ve never really let go. Not when you were a demo bottom for the rope workshops. Not when you dated that yummy bass player whose proposal you turned down. Twice. You never let your guard down. I always thought you were waiting to find the right person. The right chemistry. The guy who’d remind you how much fun being Trouble can be.”

She smiled and Trudy chuckled. “I haven’t been that girl for years.”

Caroline picked up her sandwich and winked. “I think there’s more of her in you than you know. Obviously John sees something he likes.”

They ate in silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. Caroline spoke first. “I’ll take your brother to the doctor and keep an eye on him for a few days so you won’t have so much on your plate.”

“No way,” Trudy protested. “You didn’t come here to be groped by Jefferson. He’s my responsibility. All you have to do is get ready for next week’s interview. I have to make sure my brother’s okay and that he doesn’t ruin his life doing something too reckless.”

“The show you were telling me about?” When Trudy nodded Caroline sighed. “In my experience when you tell a man like that he can’t do something, it makes him that much more determined.” She shrugged. “It might be good for him. Most people tell me once their fifteen minutes are up, the fall is spectacularly instructive.”

Trudy leaned her head into her hands and sighed as well. “I don’t understand why he’s doing this. He’s successful. He’s handsome.”

“He’s bored.”

“What?”

Caroline’s cheeks flushed enough to be noticeable. “I’m just guessing, Trudy, but from everything you told me about this place, it isn’t exactly action central. Why do you get to be the only one in the family to have an adventure? And look what you’ve done with it. All your hard work is finally paying off. Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

She didn’t understand, no one did, not even John. Jefferson always got everything he wanted…everything but the thing he wanted most—to have their mother back. Losing her had been hard on him, almost as painful as it had been for their father—and it had broken Matt Adams and left his pieces at the bottom of every bottle he could get his hands on.

For a long time Jefferson had been angry, yearning for her. While Trudy had—at least for a while—been proud of her mother for escaping what she’d always seen as a prison of a town, and sought to emulate her, Jefferson had pretended not to care. Trudy was the only one he’d confided in, and only when he couldn’t hold it in anymore. He’d blamed his father, he’d blamed himself. Never the woman who left. But he’d never given any indication that he wanted to follow her. He was too proud.

He didn’t know the truth. And if he went off on his own to learn it, it might break him too.

“He can have all the adventures he wants. But I think this one is a mistake.” Trudy studied Caroline, wondering at her support of the harebrained scheme. “So, you believe setting my brother loose on the female population of Los Angeles in front of cameras is a good idea? What won you over? His lack of inhibition or his willingness to break his leg for the cause?”

Caroline was avoiding eye contact. “I’m trying to ease your mind, Tru. He’s your brother. You know him better than I do.”

Oh hell. Trudy knew her friend, too, and after nearly a decade, she also knew that look. Jefferson wasn’t in trouble…Caroline was. She
liked
him. What the heck had happened in that bedroom? “Caroline?”

Caroline pushed her plate aside and reached for the check, beating Trudy to it as she pulled a neatly folded wad of cash out of her purse and set it on the table. “Let’s focus on you for the moment, shall we?” she dodged artfully. “Specifically, your clothing issue.”

“Clothing issue?”

She stood and slipped her purse over her shoulder, grabbing Trudy’s hand and practically dragging her out the door. The bell jingled loudly as they left. “As in, I know you didn’t pack for this particular reunion. Personally, I always come prepared, but you’re more a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-everyday-jeans kind of gal. What is your panty situation? And does this town have a salon? I think a manicure is in order.”

Trudy didn’t think John was going to be paying a lot of attention to her nails, but if being friends with Caroline had taught her anything—and it had taught her so much—it was a woman had to treat herself the way she expected to be treated. 

“Yes, though nothing like the salons in Hollywood, I’m afraid,” she said. “And don’t talk about anything that you don’t want spread across nine counties. Nothing is sacred here. You’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“I am the queen of gossip, Trudy. I can handle my people and have a little fun while I’m at it.” Caroline laughed. “But speaking of Oz, my dear Dorothy, it’s time to slip on those ruby slippers and remember there’s no place like home. Especially when the Big Bad has been right here waiting for you the whole time.”

This was really going to happen. With John. What would he do to her? What wouldn’t she let him do? She wanted to race home and wait for him. To go to him and beg him to begin the sweet torture. To finally have him.

“I think I know where we can get those manicures.” She needed more time to calm her jittery nerves. And he’d waited this long…it wouldn’t do to seem too eager.

Caroline’s smile was knowing. “I have nothing left to teach you, Grasshopper.”

If she only knew.

***

Where the hell was she? He was losing his mind.