Long Time Gone (Rough Riders) (13 page)

Kimi ducked into the bathroom first. She took a moment to check her makeup. After living in the backwoods and dressing for warmth and comfort—in that order—she feared she looked like a lumberjack. She peeled off the flannel shirt and shoved it in her purse. That left her in a sleeveless T-shirt. At least it was low cut so she didn’t look like a guy.

She removed the band from her hair and fluffed it up. It fell nearly to the middle of her back. Most days she just pulled it back into a ponytail to be done with it.

As she applied another coat of mascara, she wondered if Cal would recognize her. With the longer hair and more angular lines to her face and neck. Hard physical work had melted the baby fat off her.

Two women burst into the bathroom, laughing and drunkenly holding on to one another.

Kimi washed her hands and would’ve tuned out their high-pitched chattering, but one word stopped her cold.

Cal.

“Who’s Cal here with?” the blonde asked with confusion as she puckered her lips in the mirror.

“Oh. I don’t know. Seems like he’s with a different one every weekend.”

She didn’t consider that it might be some other guy named Cal. She knew it was him.

If that jerk was rotating girls every weekend after he’d sent her the edict a month ago…she’d gut him just like she threatened to do to his brother.

After exiting the bathroom, she started her search for him down the farthest side of the bar. Her pulse pounded in her neck and her ears, giving her a slightly buzzed effect that sharpened her senses. Or maybe she was delirious from hunger.

A guy grabbed her elbow and said “Hey, sugar, you lookin’ for someone? ’Cause I can be anyone you want.”

His drunken friends laughed.

Kimi smiled at him. “Yes, actually. I’m lookin’ for Calvin McKay.”

Another guy butted in. “Afraid you’re too late, little bit. He’s already made his choice tonight.”

“Sure wish I could cherry pick ’em like he does,” another man grumbled. “Seems all he’s gotta do is say his name and the ladies spread their legs.”

The first guy elbowed him. “Don’t be crude.”

“I appreciate your help, but is Cal still in here?”

“Yep. In the middle booth.” The guy looked at her suspiciously. “You ain’t from around here. What’d you want with him?”

“I’ve gotta give him something.”

“What?”

“A knuckle sandwich,” she said sweetly.

Kimi threw her shoulders back and weaved around the bar. After she stepped around a group of women, she had a clear shot of him.

Her heart leapt, her stomach flipped and her breath caught. The man was such a stunner. That midnight black hair. Those captivating blue eyes. The slight curve to his lips. That square jawline. That damn dimple in his chin. He wore a black cowboy hat and a white shirt that set him miles above the rest of the guys in this place. When he lifted his beer bottle and drank, she shamelessly watched the muscles in his throat move as he swallowed. She remembered the feel of those muscles beneath her lips. The taste of his skin in that spot. His fingers tapped his beer bottle with agitation—a nervous tic she hadn’t seen before. Her thoughts rolled back to how those thick, rough-skinned fingers felt trailing over her body. Then Cal smiled at something the person across from him said, and Kimi went hot all over.

Mostly under the collar.

Tempting to buy a drink so she could toss it in his face. But she’d handle this the mature way.

Kimi knew the instant Cal noticed her. He squinted as if he might be seeing things. Then he froze. She slowed down her walk, enjoying every moment of his confusion.

The anger that flared in his eyes surprised her. He lowered his beer to the table.

She managed to keep the quiver out of her voice when she said, “You didn’t really mean
come home now
, did you?”

Without taking his eyes off of Kimi, he said, “Move,” to the woman sitting beside him.

“Are you always this rude?” she complained.

“Get out of the booth, right fuckin’ now,” he snarled at her.

Kimi couldn’t move even if she’d wanted to.

But the woman realized Cal wasn’t kidding and scrambled away from him.

Cal slid across the bench seat as quickly and efficiently as a predator stalking prey. He loomed over her, his gaze locked to hers. He lifted his hand to her face. The instant his fingers touched her skin he growled. “About goddamned time, woman.” Then he captured her mouth in a kiss that started out sweetly exploring, but became desperate.

Everything faded but the heat of Cal’s body, the hunger in his touch and in his kiss. Kimi clung to him, feeding his desire with her own.

Finally when someone yelled, “Take it outside, McKay,” they broke the kiss. But they didn’t move very far apart.

Cal clutched her hand tightly. “Come home with me.”

“What about your date?”

He frowned. “What date?”

“The woman sitting next to you.”

“She’s a friend of my brother Charlie. She just plopped herself down and I don’t even remember her name.”

“Good. Because I was getting ready to launch myself into a hair-pulling fight for you.”

Cal traced the line of her jaw with the backs of his fingers. “While the thought of you in a girl fight over me turns me on, there’s no need to get into a titty slappin’ match to prove anything. You own me.”

She kissed the dimple in his chin. “Prove it.”

He draped his arm over her shoulder and steered her through the crowd and out the door.

In the middle of the parking lot, he stopped and pulled her against him, clamping one hand on her ass and the other around her jaw. “Why didn’t you tell me you were comin’?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“Did you really think after I sent you the wire demanding you get back here that I’d be out with another woman?”

She twisted her head out of his hold. “You
were
sitting with a woman, Cal.”

“I explained her.”

That was all the explanation he gave—and all she really needed.

“We’re leavin’.” Then Cal grabbed her hand and led her across the parking lot almost at a run. Her shorter legs had a hard time keeping up with his longer strides. But the man was on a mission and he didn’t stop until he reached his pickup.

He pushed her against it and kissed her like she was everything in the world he needed to survive. When he finally released her mouth, they were both breathing hard. Kimi was surprised they weren’t already naked.

“Get in the truck or I’m going to fuck you right here, in the parking lot, Kimi. Where anyone can see just what you do to me.” He nuzzled her ear. “And how goddamn much I missed you.”

“That sounds like a threat, cowboy.”

“No, sweet darlin’ mine. It’s a promise.”

Kimi loved that Cal was so forthright in what he wanted. She knew the instant he put those big hands on her, she’d be putty. So she needed to remind him that she could make him weak-kneed too. “Cal.”

“God, you smell so good.” He kissed the hollow below her ear. “I didn’t change the sheets on my bed for a solid month after you left until they lost the scent of you. Of us.”

His sweet talking—how she’d missed it.

“Over the past five years, I started a list of the things I’d do to you when I saw you again.” Cal’s lips teased hers with barely there kisses. “For the longest time the top fantasy was your legs spread, that hot pussy bared to me as you sat on the tailgate of my truck.” He moved his lips across her jawline to her other ear. “I’d be on my knees, eating my fill of your wet cunt, feeling your sweet little clit pulsing beneath my tongue as I made you come again. And again. And again.”

Kimi trembled when his hot breath drifted across her neck.

“The goddamn taste of you,” he growled, “was so vivid in my mind that just thinkin’ about swallowing your sweet juices made my cock so fuckin’ hard that I shot my load without even touchin’ myself.” He rested his forehead in the crook of her neck. “That’s what you do to me.”

If she liked his sweet talking, then she flat-out loved the way the man dirty talked. Her head was awash in the sexy images he’d painted, but this one time, she wanted to lead the charge instead of following his. She turned her head until her lips connected with his ear. “If you’re tryin’ to get me hot and bothered, Cal McKay, it’s workin’. But I’ve been that way since the moment I saw you tonight.”

“Jesus. Can we stop talkin’ and start doin’?”

She laughed. “I had my own list of what I wanted to do to you when I saw you again.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” She blew in his ear and smiled when he shuddered. “Wanna know my top fantasy?”

“You’re killin’ me here.”

Kimi reached down and undid his belt buckle. “I’d rather show you.” She dropped to her knees and scraped her fingernails down his erection as she unzipped his jeans. After she yanked the tight denim down his muscular thighs, she slid her hand into the opening of his boxers and pulled out his cock.

“Brace your hands on the truck, Cal.”

He hissed out a breath and said, “Fuck, woman,” but he did what she asked.

The man wasn’t an idiot.

She didn’t see a reason to tease him—this time. She craved his surrender and she needed to know if the passion between them was as overwhelming as she’d remembered.

The moment she pulled his rigid shaft into her mouth, all the way to the root, Cal’s taste and scent consumed her. That’s all it took. She knew she hadn’t imagined the explosive need. She wanted to give him everything of herself and to be everything that he needed.

Curling her hands around the backs of his thighs, she drove his cock in and out of her mouth. Sucking hard. Using her teeth and tongue. Losing herself in the heady taste of him. Working him over unleashed something primitive inside her. Her world became the wet sucking sounds of her mouth. The hard throb of her nipples that matched the tightening pulse between her thighs. She reveled in his harsh grunts. The rocks digging into her knees. The firm muscles of his thighs clenching beneath her hands.

Every bob of her head, every deep stroke when his cock hit the back of her throat, she silently chanted,
you are mine, Calvin McKay. Mine.

One of Cal’s hands dropped to her head and he grabbed a fistful of hair. “Kimi. Please.”

She hadn’t been holding back, but that gruff plea…god. She almost came from his admission of need.

Tightening her lips and speeding up with shorter strokes sent him sailing over the edge immediately. Hot, thick, salty bursts of his seed saturated her tongue and she swallowed greedily.

Cal loosened his grip on her hair. He absentmindedly stroked her face as he tried to level his ragged breathing.

Kimi slowly eased back, letting his semi-hard cock slip from her mouth. As she stood, she kissed her way up his body, over his clothes. She paused for a moment, letting her cheek rest against his thundering heart.

They remained like that for several moments. Not because it was awkward, but because they both needed the connection.

Then Cal forced her head back and took her mouth in a blistering kiss. By the time he finished proving to her that the reins were firmly back in his control, she could hardly breathe.

“Understand one thing,” he said directly into her ear as he pulled his jeans up.

“What?”

His belt buckle jangled when he refastened it. The noise was strangely sexy in the silence between them. “It’s not gonna be sweet, sweet lovemaking the first time.” He sank his teeth into her earlobe, sending a delicious spark of pain through her. “I’m gonna fuck you hard.
Hard
,” he repeated, just in case she’d misunderstood.

“You think I’m gonna say no?”

His deep chuckle against her neck vibrated straight to her clit. “I think you’d better get in the damn truck.”

“I’ll follow you.”

Then Cal was right in her face, those blue eyes flashing impatience. “Kimi. After five years I don’t think I can be away from you for five goddamned minutes. We’ll come back for your car tomorrow.”

“Cal. Everything I own is in my car. And after waiting five years for me, the drive to your place will pass in a heartbeat, won’t it?”

He rested his forehead to hers. “I don’t think my heart was beating at all until the moment I saw you again.”

Lord. She promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Not right away. “I can’t handle sweet right now with you. Give me rough. Give me hard.”

A slow, devious grin spread across his handsome face. He smacked her butt hard enough that she yelped. “Sweet darlin’ mine, I can do rough. And I already warned you that’s it’s gonna be hard. So with that in mind…you’ve got ten minutes to have this sweet little ass parked in my driveway. I’ll be waitin’.”

Chapter Eleven

When Kimi woke up naked the next morning, sore in all the right places, she wasn’t surprised to see Cal’s side of the bed was empty. But since Gigi slept at the foot of the bed, hopefully that meant Cal hadn’t left to do ranch chores yet.