Authors: Kimball Lee
“How does it feel? Tell me, Scarlet, I need to hear and I need to fuck you. You’re three orgasms up on me, I fucking want to know if you like the fucking rope.”
I suppress a smile at the frustration in his tone, he wants me to like it, to love it the way he does, and he’s held back while he made sure I was more than satisfied, time after time.
“Come here,” I say lifting up to grip his bulging biceps. I lie back down and show him exactly where I want him—not inside me quite yet—but above me, blocking out the rest of the world, straddling my chest with his cock just touching my lips.
“Fuck, beauty, I swear to God I won’t last. You sure? I wanna come in your mouth, but I want to be inside you, too. Fucking hell!” He yells when I lick my lips and twist my tongue intently around the flared head.
His cock is diamond-hard and more than ready for this, the veins stand out against the shaft, ropey and pulsing. My skin is tingling from the rope, every nerve ending is on fire, he looms over me, presses his hands against the headboard to steady himself. He curses and I can tell he’s fighting not to just let go, to hold my head still and plunge into my mouth.
“This is too much, my cock on your velvet tongue, careful, careful Scarlet, I swear I’m close!”
I gaze up at him and he groans as he watches me, like this is the most amazing thing he’s ever witnessed. He’s in love with what he sees—the rope marks on my skin, his cock against my swollen lips, my eyes wide with satisfaction at the feel and taste of him. He’s so close to falling over the edge that his expression can only show me the truth, it’s a study in adoration for me.
His eyes fall closed and cock jerks, but he pulls out and moves down my body before he’s done. He leans up once more, tangles a hand in my hair, kisses me with tender yearning. His lips brush butterfly wings over my skin, down to kiss the imprint of the rope on my belly. His fingers slide over my clit, circling, probing my swollen lips before he rips open a condom package, and gives me what I’ve been waiting for.
He steadies himself on the bed with one hand and guides his cock to my entrance, I arch up as he thrusts, and that’s it—we are done with fingers and lips, done with any action that doesn’t involve
him
inside
me
—this is all about the fucking.
He curls those big hands around my waist and I lean into his grip, holding his wide shoulders, pulling him down on top of me. I want his weight, his dirty words—
So sweet, your pussy is so fucking sweet! It fits like a glove. I’m close, fucking wait and let’s do this together, Scarlet!
—his hips flexing, my hands on his ass, gripping, grinding him into me as he pumps, sweat trickles off his forehead and falls on my breast and he licks it off, sucks my nipple into a hard, painful bud, and we move together, sticky with sweat and my fluids. He fucks rough and hard, moving my body to suit him, he lifts my thigh and kisses it, then places it on his shoulder and I fucking lose it when he slams into me. I’m clenching down hard and flooding his cock, rocked by spasms as he throws his head back and roars his release, pouring into me as if he will never stop.
Afterward we lay spent, spooning together as the night sounds filter in through the wavy-glass windows. Locusts chirp, doves coo, coyotes howl at the full moon, and a pair of javelinas pause beneath the window snorting and squealing. I say they sound like they’re in pain, and Holt laughs and says they’re mating, and most certainly not in any pain.
“Why did you finally give in and use the rope?” I ask when he rolls over onto his back and I lay my head on his chest. I could lie like this for hours, content to hear the steady
thump thump
of his heart, the best sound in this primitive part of the world.
“I couldn’t use the rope before, you didn’t know me. You were a visitor in my house, an innocent girl.”
“I knew you, Holt Corrigan, from the very first time we met. And I’m twenty-two, old enough to make my own choices, you’re only five years older than I am, it’s not like you’re an old man,”
“I am an old man, always have been. Every motherless boy is born old and grows up fast and hard, especially with a sadistic father who lays all the blame at his feet.”
I take his hands in mine, turn his palms up and kiss the scars that slash across the calloused skin. “Did he do this to you, your father?”
“Yep, but only once, I was seven years old and he was drunk and mean, as usual. I raised my hands to stop him from “flicking me with his knife” as he called it. He never cut me deep, but that time he did to teach me a lesson.”
“To teach you a lesson?”
“Right, and it worked. I learned never to try and defend myself against him again.”
*
The next morning we stop for breakfast at Lupe’s in Tallulah on our way to the Corazon Perdido fishing lodge.
Holt doesn’t even open the vinyl menu, just points out his two favorite breakfast entrees on mine as I try to make sense of the names.
“What are you having, and how do you pronounce this word? Are those fried eggs covered in some sort of chili sauce? Is this for real, does it come with a side of Alka Seltzer?” I ask, looking up from the menu to his highly amused face.
“I’m a creature of habit. Only two logical choices for breakfast and it just depends on what I’m in the mood for. Huevos rancheros or chilaquiles, and no, I’m not sounding that out for you. I’m telling you, beauty, you gotta learn the lingo, Tex-Mex is
necessary
for a quality life. Let’s both have the chilaquiles, I’m telling you it’s the best thing you’ll ever put in your mouth.”
I widen my eyes and bite my lip when he says that, and his pupils dilate and he leans across the table to kiss me.
“Hmmm, are you trying to seduce me before I’ve even had my coffee?” He asks, tracing my bottom lip with his thumb.
“You’re the one who brought the subject up, and I suppose I could become a creature of habit, too. I do like certain things in my mouth, and I’m discovering new obsessions all the time,” I say, running the tips of my fingers over the faint shadows the rope left on my arms.
Holt looks like he’s ready to say ‘to hell with breakfast’ and throw me over his shoulder, but a waitress appears at the table smiling and shaking her head.
“Where’re your manners, boy?” She asks, removing Holt’s cowboy hat and ruffling his thick, dark hair. “You all wrapped up in this pretty girl so as you forgot you’re in this here fine restaurant? But that’s your workin’ hat, so this must not be a fancy ‘morning after’ social call!” She laughs and winks at him, pretends that she’s joking around, and although she’s old enough to be his mother, I can tell she’d be tickled pink to have a ‘fancy morning after’ with Holt Corrigan.
“Hey, Lena, que paso?” Holt says and she gives him a peck on the cheek and then fans herself with her little ticket pad and blushes.
“Not a damn thing happenin’ around here. How ‘bout you, what you been doin’? You headed out to the Corazon?”
“Yes ma’am, this is Scarlet O’Neal, from Atlanta. She’s the designer who’s gonna make the fishing lodge beautiful.”
“Well isn’t that somethin’? Atlanta, Georgia? Hmm. Is that your real name, darlin’, Scarlet O’Neal, just like in the movie? That’s the prettiest name I ever heard. So you’re just workin’ with Holt, huh? Whew, glad to hear it, there’d be plenty of local gals madder than a wet hen if Holt was to fall in love with a foreign gal!”
“I doubt anyone would be upset,” Holt says, handing her our menus. “I’m on my way to Montana for a project pretty soon, I can’t think of a single soul who’ll miss me.”
It feels like a small chunk of my heart is missing when he mentions Montana—he’ll be leaving and I’ll go home to Atlanta to begin the rest of my life. Without Holt. It just doesn’t seem right.
We finish breakfast, and he was telling the truth—the chilaquiles are one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.
“Come on beauty, we have to buy you a good pair of boots. You’ll love Bree and Martita, y’all can get acquainted and you’ll want to order furniture and… whatever else you need to make the fishing lodge hospitable,” Holt says kissing me full on the lips for Lena and the rest of the diners to see, which makes my bruised heart feel a little better.
The minute we walk through the doors of
Ranches and Rhinestones
two young women about his age squeal and smother him with hugs and kisses.
“Holt Corrigan you dirty dog, where in the hell have you been hiding? We never get to see you anymore! You want me to fix you a Bloody Mary, or maybe it’s not too early for margaritas?” The tall, pretty blonde says, laughing and kissing every inch of his face before turning to me and hugging me like we’re long-lost friends. “Hi, I’m Bree and you are
gorgeous
!”
“Damn! I didn’t think you could get any better looking, Holt, what’s going on, boy? Have you gone and got yourself an honest-to-goodness girlfriend? Wait, lemme check the weather channel and see if Hell has frozen over!” Martita says, she hugs Holt and slaps him on the ass, laughing a hearty contagious laugh as she grabs both of my hands, holds them out to the side and looks me over appreciatively. “Good job, Holt, this girl’s got it as bad as you do, when’s the wedding?”
“Scarlet, these are two of my oldest and dearest friends, and as you can tell, Martita’s mouth has no filter. She just says whatever pops into her pretty head.”
“You got that right, mijo! It’s my hot Latin blood, words just bubble up in my brain and jump right off my tongue. If somebody doesn’t like what I have to say, they can kiss my ass, which is better than Jennifer Lopez’s ass, verdad?” she says, smiling and smacking the back of her jeans so that I swallow hard and glance up at Holt. He tilts his chin down and runs a hand across his mouth to hide a smile.
“Pleeeezzz don’t inflate Martita’s insufferable ego,” Bree says, rolling her eyes and slipping her arms through mine and Holt’s to lead us through the coolest Hollywood-meets-Texas-gypsy-hippie-chick-urban-cowgirl store I’ve ever seen. “I know without you saying a word what you’re here for, baby doll, we need to get you into a pair of respectable boots this very minute!”
“You’re such a bossy puta, Bree, like you have some kind of psychic powers! I like her gringa boots, and I bet she got them at Niemen Marcus.” Martita says dragging me over to a bar that’s covered in rhinestones, river rocks, and fossilized wood, it should be gaudy, but it’s not—it’s extraordinarily beautiful. “Let’s all have a margarita with a splash of tomato juice, that way it’s like a breakfast drink! Now, what do you need, mija? Clothes, furniture, anything covered in the skin of a dead animal? A stuffed road-kill armadillo with a faux-diamond collar and a stupid smile on its face? We have it all!”
“I do need boots,” I say, loving the banter between these two girls. It makes me lonesome for Gigi and Penn, and I wonder if we’ll stay close now that college is over and we are officially grownup. “I’m doing the interiors of the McCauley’s fishing lodge, Holt and I are on our way out there now. Do you have fabric swatches? I know I’m gonna want several of those leather chairs you have in the window, not sure how many. I’ll have a better idea once I see the lodge. It’ll have to be masculine and clubby, lots of leather and deer heads, I would imagine.”
“Oh, you can bet your ass it will have to scream ‘testosterone overload’,” Bree says, rolling her eyes and grimacing. “You know the motto of every man in Texas, and especially Campbell McCauley. If it has four legs and runs from you, shoot it and hang it on the wall, if it has two legs and a very short skirt, fuck it and carve a notch on your belt.”
“Si, that pendejo, Campbell! He broke up our She-Musketeers sisterhood, but only after Holt let him steal Emma-Lee away. Then that sorry
cabron
broke her heart! But guess what? You can be our new bestie, Scarlet! Trust me, we are the only beautiful girls in the entire State who love your man like a brother and have never slept with him. Isn’t that right, Holt?”
*
The fishing lodge was a rundown ruin before I got here, but under Holt’s skilled hands it’s been reborn. It sits on the edge of the San Antonio River, beneath a canopy of towering cypress trees, crafted from lodge-pole pine with a green metal roof sheltering its many gables and long rows of dormer windows. I think it’s grandly charming, and it has a romantic history. It was built at the turn of the twentieth century by the widow, Tallulah Campbell, as a wedding gift for her only son and his bride, who according to legend, conceived their first child, under this very roof.
I measure the rooms and windows, and work out furniture placement and design simple drapery treatments in my head. Holt works outside mostly, now that the interior walls have been rebuilt, with the logs polished, windows re-glazed, bathrooms and kitchen updated. He works with a crew of ranch-hands, they cut and haul away loads of creeping vegetation, and I find myself leaning out windows from every room, unable to get enough of his awe-inspiring physique.
The man has been blessed by the gods in face and body, and kissed by the sun many, many times, to great effect. How did I ever think I could marry Corey Baumgartner when a man like Holt Corrigan was alive and breathing and about to rock my world? Holt stands outside sharing a laugh with the other men and although many of them are tall and nice looking, they look insignificant next to him. He’s shirtless, wearing that sexy sweat-stained cowboy hat pulled low over his hypnotic green eyes. His huge chest is sun-bronzed and his washboard abs glisten with sweat. His jeans hug his muscular thighs and cradle that beyond-magnificent ass, and even from a distance my eye is drawn to the maddening bulge below his fly. I’m in love with him, he’s the only thing I can think of, the only thing that matters, and I’m not sure what we—I—am going to do when our time together ends. My parents, my sister, my career in Atlanta, Gigi and Penn—I love and miss them, but I want Holt to be part of that—part of my life.