you?” he asked into the silence of their breathing and charcoal moving over paper.
Taylor looked up at him over the edge of the tablet, and her eyes went smoky at the sight of his large hand wrapping around his even larger cock, moving slowly from the wide base up over the thick, glistening tip. Up and down his hand went, her eyes greedily following its every movement, and she nearly swallowed her tongue.
He pulled his other hand out from behind his head and reached over for the oil, bringing it to the tip of his cock, spilling the gleaming liquid over the head until it dribbled down the sides of his shaft, syrupy and golden in the soft lamplight.
“N-n-no,” she stammered breathlessly, watching his hand working up and down, spreading the oil, pumping him bigger, fuller, until it looked like he’d burst at any moment. But his other hand gripped the base of his cock again, holding back the cum, and she just kept staring, finding the sinful sight too sexy to resist.
“Come here,” he growled, his deep voice biting with demand.
His hand pumped harder, his cock engorged on blood and lust, and she marveled at how that magnificent thing ever fit inside of her. Her pussy, already swollen and wet, began creaming between her thighs, demanding to be filled. And she knew exactly what she wanted to fill it with. Tossing pad and charcoal to the floor, she shrugged out of his shirt and went to all fours between his feet, perched and ready to pounce. “You must be feeling pretty lucky, Mr. Farrell. I don’t usually do this sort of thing with my models.”
“Come up here,” he grunted, “and I’ll show you just how lucky I feel.”
She went willingly into his arms, their bodies coming together with a keen anticipation for the joining of their flesh. It was a craving that grew each time, a hunger that demanded more each time it fed.
His mouth found hers, eating with a desperate, yet gentle avidity as he guided her charcoal-covered hands over his body, needing to feel her touch as strongly as he needed to touch her own naked flesh.
Her thighs parted for him eagerly as he moved her onto her back, and he slid between them, his cock probing then seeking entrance, working itself back into her with a ruthless possession, while his mouth never left hers. Long, slow drugging kisses that devastated her senses as thoroughly as the feel of his cock within her pulsing, liquid pussy—two unhurried and deep and deliberate penetrations. One hand curved around her hip, holding her to him, while the other stroked down her side, savoring the feel of her skin, the lean lines of her delicate body.
Jake wasn’t fucking her this time; he was making love to her. His body was a knowing instrument of torture, driving his point home with each grinding stroke of his hips against her own, with each exquisite thrust of his cock within her juice-soaked cunt. The bite of his fingers into her delicate skin told her of his need for her, the passion that raged in his blood for no other woman but her.
And all the while he held her eyes, the smoldering look burning there telling her everything she refused to hear. It was all there, staring her right in the face, demanding she acknowledge its existence until it became too much for them and they tumbled helplessly over the edge, grinding together in a release that was softer than those that had come before, but in no way less fantastic. It was a slow, burning, throbbing pulse of pleasure, and they drank down the other’s cries of ecstasy like fine wine, heady with sensation.
Somehow Jake managed to roll to his side, keeping her pinned to him, his cock still clasped in her slow pulsing sex, and they drifted into sleep sealed together. He awoke sometime later in the night, miraculously hard again, still inside of her, and took them both to the edge with a slow, gentle fuck that felt like hot, dripping honey.
Holding her hip, he moved her to her back without breaking contact, his ruthless cock digging inside of her, tearing low groans out of them both. Gathering her small body beneath him, they melted together, their mouths fused as intimately as their sexes. Her breasts crushed achingly against his chest, their hearts pounding one with the other.
Jake could just make out her delicate features in the soft glow of the moon. She looked beautiful and thoroughly ravished. “Hell, this has been a crazy time for you, hasn’t it?”
She loved him all the more for the worry and regret she could hear in his voice. Stupid man. Like he didn’t know he’d given her everything she’d ever dreamed of. Well, almost everything. He’d tried to offer more, but it just wasn’t in her to be able to believe. And as much as she wished it were otherwise, she knew Jake Farrell wasn’t a forever kind of guy.
Fighting back those dreadful tears, she smiled and said, “It’s been wonderful and you know it.”
Their eyes met. Held. His mouth twisted with a wry smile, and he murmured, “Did you ever feel this with Mitch?”
She stared up at him in the watery darkness, wondering why he wanted to know. For all the wonderfully possessive remarks he’d made during the long hours they’d spent together, she still couldn’t bring herself to accept that he actually meant any of it. So then why was he still so curious
about her marriage?
Trying to make light of the question, she forced a small laugh. “If he’d ever made me feel even a fraction of the way you do, Jake, I probably wouldn’t have had the willpower to leave him.”
She felt the slight tightening of muscle along his body, her breath catching as the next of his now grinding thrusts forced him impossibly deep, as if reminding her that he was the one buried deep inside of her now. Then he lowered his head and kissed her parted lips. “I hate the thought that he was your first. That he ever had you, because he never deserved you, Taylor. Never.”
She took a deep breath and did the unthinkable, unable to stop herself. “What was it like? The first time you made love to a woman?”
Color burned hot beneath his sun-bronzed flesh, the silky skin stretched taut over high cheekbones. His eyes glittered, as dark as infinite space in the moonlight. Green ice. She loved the crinkles at their corners. The grooves that bracketed his sinful mouth. All the delicious details that made him the man he was.
“This is it, Taylor.” His mouth pressed against her own again, then trailed kisses down her throat to
rest against the hollow at its base. “This is the first time I’ve ever made love to a woman.”
He pushed even deeper then, and she felt the passion, the need, rolling through him like a cresting wave; a ripple and flex of muscle and bone that could have terrified her if she didn’t trust him to keep her safe. Jake felt it surge through him and gave himself over to it for another first. They rode it together, letting it carry them through to its devastating rush of ecstasy and pulsating crescendo.
When they came, he felt tears fall hotly from her eyes, streaming down her cheeks. He licked them dry with the velvet rasp of his tongue, understanding their source because the same shattering emotions rocked through him as well. Sleep eventually claimed them again, in the quiet moonlight of the night—and in the morning, she was gone.
Chapter 16
The scraping wail of a siren was the last thing Jake wanted to hear. He was so fucking furious, he didn’t trust himself not to take it out on good ol’ Sheriff Mitch McCarter and beat the ever-loving hell outta him.
Taylor had run out on him.
He couldn’t believe it—couldn’t get his head around it. Fifteen minutes ago, he’d awakened to an empty hotel room smelling of sex and Taylor and cum. He didn’t know what the stubborn-ass woman was thinking, but she was out of her ever-loving mind if she thought they were finished. Hah! He was going to spend the rest of his life loving her silly and still not be finished with her sweet little ass.
He was so panicked he could barely breathe, wondering what hare-brained reason she had for ditching
him. Surely she didn’t think he’d gotten his fill of her. He’d told her he loved her—and he sure as hell
knew she loved him.
She always had.
The painful blare of the siren snapped his attention back to the moment. Jake flashed his eyes to the rearview mirror and smashed his hand on the steering wheel. Fuck, this was all he needed. He pulled to the side of the road and climbed out of his truck so they could get this over and done with and he could be on his way. As he watched Mitch climb out of the Bronco, he flexed his fingers, fighting the urge to give into his anger.
Mitch took off his mirrored sunglasses as he leaned back against the hood of the Bronco, staring out of lifeless, bloodshot eyes. Jake barely recognized him. His once golden head of hair was now streaked with gray, the rough features of his once handsome face now etched with tired resignation. Whatever spirit his childhood friend had possessed, Jake could see it had long ago shriveled up and died. Mitch looked far older than his years, as if he’d lived too fast in the beginning and was now buried beneath the backlash of time. Then again, he’d probably just gone sour on hate and bitterness.
After several tension filled moments, Mitch’s mouth curled with a sneer. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”
Jake had no intention of relaying any of the details of his and Taylor’s relationship to anyone. And it was definitely a relationship, whether the idiot woman realized it or not. She’d given herself to him and he was keeping her, end of story. To Mitch, he simply flashed a cocky smile and drawled, “Nice to see you too, Sheriff McCarter.”
Mitch’s long, lanky body vibrated with rage. His hands fisted at his sides, his shoulders bunched. “Cut the crap, Farrell. Wanda told me all about your little show the other day. You came back just to screw around with Taylor, didn’t you? Couldn’t wait to show up and fuck her the way you always wanted to.”
Jake took an aggressive step forward, pointing a finger in Mitch’s angry face. “I’ll take a lot of shit from you Mitch because you were my friend once and because you’ve become such a pathetic bastard now, but I’ll pound the shit out of you if you so much as mention Taylor’s name again. You got that?”
Mitch jerked straight, mottled with fury. “Who in the hell do you think you are?” he exploded, thumping his chest with his fist. “She’s my wife!”
“No. She’s not. You blew your shot, Mitch. You know it as well as I do. That’s why you’re so pissed. You had the best woman in the world and you threw her away. Tough shit for you, pal, because now you’re just going to have to live with it.”
Mitch snorted. “Hell,” he muttered, his voice thick with disgust. “I never had her to begin with. She was always so strung up on you. It made me sick, all those friggin’ paintings and crap.” He turned around, smashing his fist down on the Bronco’s battered hood. “Hell, she used to moan your name in her sleep at night. Drove me outta my fuckin’ mind.”
If Mitch thought Jake was capable of feeling any pity for him, he was sadly mistaken. Whatever hell
Mitch lived in had been of his own choosing. If he hadn’t meddled in their lives ten years ago,
spreading his vicious lies and trying to turn Taylor against him, they’d have been married for years now and Mitch might’ve had the chance to find someone who really loved him. But he’d tried to trap Taylor for his own, and caused the three of them years of misery in the process.
“I’m not gonna feel bad about that, Mitch, because you never deserved her. Even while you had her,
you treated her like shit, when you knew she was the best thing to ever happen to you.”
Mitch hung his head forward between his shoulders, his fists still clenched on the hood of the truck. Jake didn’t know if he was going to take a swing at him or not, and he really didn’t care. Yeah, it’d feel good to knock his teeth down his throat, but it wasn’t going to change things. And being stuck with the likes of Wanda Merton almost seemed like punishment enough.
Almost—but it’d still feel good to pound the crap outta him.
“So now what? You just gonna screw her till you’re through with her? Shove my face in it, is that it?”
“No. I’m going to marry her.”
Mitch took a deep, trembling breath, and then another. Finally he just stood up and walked to his door, pulling it open. With his sunglasses back in place, he turned to face the man who’d once been like a brother to him. “I always knew this shit was gonna happen someday,” he laughed, but the hoarse sound held more miserable regret than humor. “You always did get every damn thing you wanted. Wasn’t a girl in Westin who’d tell you no.”
“Yeah, but I would’ve traded every one of them for just one minute with Taylor. I love her, Mitch.
You know I always have.”
Mitch snorted again, then just shook his blonde head as he climbed up into his seat. Suddenly, he couldn’t understand how he’d ever gotten to this point in life. “You’re still an arrogant fuck, you know that?”
Jake flashed a cocky smile. “Yeah? Why else would we ever have been friends?”
The Bronco’s engine cranked to life. For a brief moment, the thought flashed through Jake’s mind that Mitch might be crazy enough to run him over. He laughed at himself as his muscles tensed, like he was going to have a chance in hell if Mitch went fucking nuts on him, but the Bronco pulled into the road and stopped. Through the open passenger’s side window, Mitch said, “I don’t suppose I have to tell you to get the hell outta town?”
“Shit,” Jake drawled, knowing this was Mitch’s strange ass way of saying goodbye. “Like you could