Undeniable (4 page)

He stared at her hand, watched her move from snap to snap, rubbing, circling, yet never popping a one. Her movements seemed almost involuntary, as if her mind was elsewhere, and not on the food she’d described.

But his thoughts were giving him trouble enough, so rather than wonder about hers he enjoyed her touch, her fingers slender, nimble, her nails short and polished clear. He pictured them on his bare chest, thought they’d look damn good ringed beneath the head of his cock.

A burn caught fire at the base of his spine, and like he’d just eaten the dirt floor of a corral, his voice scraped its way up his throat. “What’ve you got in the way of dessert?”

“Every sweet thing you could want,” she told him, her lips flirting as she worked her way to his belt.

His breathing hitched. His cock followed suit. His balls tightened, and his heartbeat brought up the rear. “Then I say we skip the stuff that’s good for us and go straight for the bad.”

“I like the way you think,” she said, grabbing his belt buckle and tugging him close.

Oh, yeah. This girl was going to be fun.

He reached for her hands, shackled them in the small of her back. Her breasts were full and firm where she pressed against him, the tips pierced with dangling rings. He wanted to taste the salt of them, to flick them with his tongue, tug them with his teeth. He wanted to feel the metal warm from her body’s heat. He wanted her above him, dragging them down his chest.

Pretty damn close to strangling, he let her go and lifted her to sit on the ice chest. With his hands on her knees, he spread her
legs and stepped between them. She did that thing with her mouth again, half smile, half
gotcha
, and when she looped her heels around his hips, he ground himself on her fly.

She made a sound, a sigh or a muttered sort of curse. He couldn’t tell, but he didn’t need to. Even with two layers of fabric between them, he could feel she was ready. It drove him beneath the hem of her shirt to her skin. Shivering, she pressed her mouth to his neck, kissing him, licking, nipping as he reached the rear clasp of her bra and released it.

That sound again, rising from her chest, and lower, from her belly, as if he’d stirred something there to life. The thought primed his cock further. He was full and aching. Later, he’d play with her mind. Later, once they’d extinguished this fire.

It was consuming him, devouring, burning his skin to cinders, and Arwen was just as hot. He palmed her ribs, sliding his hands up her sides until his thumbs felt the weight of her breasts. She let go of his shirt and leaned back, her fingers spread on the ice chest, her eyes closed, and she wet her lips, waiting.

God, but she was gorgeous. Lush and ripe, her mouth, her tits, her ass that he couldn’t wait to get his hands on. He hooked an arm behind her and she arched further, nearly begging. He bent, lifted her T-shirt, and buried his face.

She smelled like citrus and clean air, sweet and fresh and female. The skin between her breasts was damp with perspiration, her arousal salty, musky, warm. He wanted her naked. He wanted to taste her, to push his tongue inside her. He wanted to wrap his hand around his cock and watch her take it to the back of her throat.

This time the guttural sound was all his, his spine tingling, his balls heavy. Her chest rose and fell with her short, rapid breaths. He caught the ring dangling from her nipple, tugging her into his mouth. She cried out, threaded her fingers into his hair
and cupped his skull to hold him. Then she began to rock, her hips moving back and forth, the rhythm timed to the beat of the music rattling the saloon walls.

Dax tongued and sucked, her nipple, her pebbled areola, the plump flesh that filled his hands. It wasn’t enough. He knew it. She knew it. And he was already retreating when she pushed him away. She held his gaze while she fastened her bra, adjusting herself inside the lace cups. He shifted his stance to relieve the strain behind his buttoned fly then stepped back to give her room to hop down.

She did, hooking two fingers around the necks of the beer bottles and offering them like bait. Her hair was mussed, her T-shirt wrinkled and bunched at her waist, her pupils as black as a wide-eyed calf’s.

“We can go in for a burger,” she told him, her voice labored and low. “Or we can cross the yard and finish this inside my house.”

A
RWEN HADN’T TAKEN
but five steps into her kitchen when Dax grabbed her wrist and tugged her to the door. He’d closed it, locked it, and now he pushed her against it, reaching for her jeans once he had her restrained. He popped the button, lowered the zipper, slid his hand into her panties and his tongue into her mouth.

She thought she just might die. A gorgeous death. A beautiful death. The lust of her life doing her in. And that’s what got to her the most. This was Dax Campbell. His hands, his mouth, his fingers sliding through her folds, teasing, tormenting. Dax Campbell.

The man she’d swore to work out of her system was taking her apart.

She’d had sex. She’d had orgasms. When without a partner, she had no trouble taking care of herself. But oh, what a fool she’d been to think she could file Dax away in the same box of toys. This was
so
far beyond her experience with physical pleasure; this was bliss, and it crawled inside of her, and her heart raced to escape the emotions clutching and scrabbling with greedy fingers.

She had no idea what he’d done with the longnecks, only that her wrists were crossed and pinned over her head. The hand not shackling hers urged her to spread her legs, and then a finger was inside her, two fingers, stroking her pussy while his tongue slid over hers like a cock, possessing. Claiming, and oh
God
, she was in trouble. So much trouble.

She had to shut down, close the door on everything but what he was doing to her body. She couldn’t think about who he’d been and who she’d been. She couldn’t think at all.

She struggled. She wanted to touch him, to get rid of her clothes and his clothes, to make them equal, but his thumb was on her clit, pressing down, pulling up, playing her side to side and robbing her of control. This wasn’t what she wanted, yet it was everything she wanted; Dax Campbell in her house, owning her.

His mouth bruised hers, and she let him. His fingers stretched her channel as if checking the fit. She wanted his cock there, filling her, banging bottom, impaling her and lifting her from her feet. She’d dreamed of this so long, and it was happening, but it wasn’t enough. She bit down and caught his lip to tell him.

He laughed, the sound deep and earthy, a hungry sound, as if she had no idea what she was asking for, or what she just might get. He pulled his fingers from her pussy, slid further between her legs and toyed with the bud of her ass.

“You bite me, I’m going to bite back,” he said, pushing the tip of a finger into her tight rear hole.

She squirmed, wanting less, wanting more. “You call that biting?”

He let her go, his eyes dark, dangerous, his gaze smoldering as he dropped it to the skin of her belly bared by her open fly. “Get rid of ’em. I’ll wait.”

She was wet and swollen, but no matter how desperately she wanted him, she wasn’t going to make it that easy. She had to control this or she wouldn’t survive.

She stood on one foot to tug off a boot, stood in her sock while she pulled off the other. She knew he was waiting for her take off her pants, so she took off her T-shirt instead, stretching her arms slowly as she lifted the hem, shaking her head as her hair freed the fabric.

Dax’s hands were at his hips, his erection thick behind the denim of his jeans. He still wore his hat, the brim pulled low, his pulse beating in the hollow of his throat. She wondered about the veins on his shaft, how blue they would be, how distended, and she reached for the rings he’d tongued earlier, lifting her nipples from the cups of her bra.

The words he bit off were raw and dirty, words polite people didn’t know, didn’t speak if they did. She was glad he knew them, that she inspired them, that he said them with no apologies. That he was driven to jerk at the snaps of his shirt, the buttons of his jeans, because this is what she’d wanted.

Sex. Bodies. Skin on skin.

Covered by white cotton, his cock filled the V between the denim gap, the capped head set off by its thick ridge. She thought he would reach for her then, would lift out his cock and fist it, but he reached for one of the longnecks on top of her refrigerator instead. His gaze held hers and he pulled a long swallow, backhanding his mouth when done.

“I’m still waiting.”

The hat shadowing his face. The shirt hanging open. The fly of his jeans open, too. He was her fantasy, and he was here, and she would deal with the repercussions later. She skinned down her jeans and kicked them away, wanting to do the same with her panties, but wanting more to be stripped by him. This was her dream, her indulgence. She held her lower lip with her teeth, standing her ground, having her way.

The corner of Dax’s mouth turned up and he shook his head, lifting the beer. He swallowed again, his throat working, a powerful mix of emotions simmering in his eyes. And then he was there, one arm behind her, his hand manacling her wrists in the small of her back, the empty bottle hitting the floor and rolling across the black and white tiles.

He nudged her legs apart with one knee, and she let him, surrendering, closing her eyes as his lips found the base of her neck. He breathed her in, nuzzling her, kissing her, his tongue swirling against her skin. Between her legs, he breached the elastic of her panties, used the long side of his index finger to open her outer lips. His hips pressed forward, and the head of his cock swept against the inner… and stopped.

“Arwen.” He whispered her name, the single word torn free, a caress, a curse. “I don’t have a condom.”

Her eyes slammed shut. God, where was her brain? She knew better. She
knew
better, yet she’d almost gone forward without this much-needed conversation because she’d wanted him for so long.

He drew his tongue along her collarbone to her shoulder, then back to the hollow of her throat, wetting her, branding her,
was that what he was doing, making her his?
He soughed his next words against the corner of her mouth. “It’s been a while since
I’ve done this, and I’ve tested safe. But we can wait, or we can improvise. I’m good with whatever.”

She wasn’t good, and she knew he was lying about putting this off. “No waiting. No improv. I’m clean and on the pill.”

She held her breath, waiting, anticipating, her clit extending in response to the butterfly strokes of his tip. The plum-full cap was delicious and ripe, moisture seeping from his slit as he prodded, tested, in and out, in and out,
sweet
sweet
lord
, in and out. And still he held her immobile. And still she couldn’t touch him, and she wanted more than anything to touch him, and
why wouldn’t he let her touch
him?

He tucked his cheek to her chin, his quick shallow thrusts giving way to full penetration, opening her, filling her. And that’s when he finally bit her back, sucking on the skin above her collarbone and catching it between his teeth. He’d warned her. But, oh, she’d never expected this, the slide of his shaft in her pussy, the slide of his tongue healing the bruises he’d left on her flesh. Bruises she’d see in the mirror later.

Bruises reminding her to be careful what she wished for.

The pressure built, and she gripped and released his unyielding cock, her muscles pulling him deeper, her moisture creating a hot, slippery lube. She tugged free of his hold, digging her fingertips into the balls of his shoulders and moaning, aching, coming up on her tiptoes to pull him with her, squatting to hold on when he eased away.

He laughed at her desperation, and he fucked her, and he was a dangerous man, and she couldn’t get enough. The hand behind her slid down to her ass, spreading her cheeks, his thumb finding her hole, pushing in. She clenched around him, drawing another wicked laugh, the sound cocky and victorious and in need of a check.

Letting go of one muscled shoulder, she slid her hand between their bodies, beneath his shirt, circling a nipple, then his navel, then the base of his shaft, where she squeezed and released as he thrust.

The groan that rolled from his gut shattered her, the hunger, the need, the toll of the years spent away. She wasn’t sure she had what he was looking for, or if she wanted that sort of involvement when it went against her reasons for bringing him home. But it way too risky to ask, and it was too late for her anyway, and then it was too late for him.

She came apart, shuddered, his semen pulsing, hot, coating her walls. The vibrations rocked through her, through him, through her. His shaft was still hard when he finally slipped free, his cock sticky and dripping cum down her thigh. She sank against the door, aching, sore, tender and used, wrapping one hand around the knob to keep from falling.

Dax collapsed against her, his breath hot on her neck, and a sound she swore was a purr rattling with it. They stood there, breathing, calming, Arwen waiting for the room to quit spinning so she could find something in the familiar that made sense. Wondering if she ever would, or wanted to.

Putting a name to what had passed between them was beyond her, but she was pretty sure what she
hadn’t
done was work Dax Campbell out of her system for good.

T
HROWING ROOSTER TAILS
of gravel as he braked in front of the bunkhouse, Dax steeled for the ass chewing he knew he’d be walking into—and knew he deserved. It was a weekday. It was a workday. He’d gone to town to pick up an order at Lasko’s, and come back to the ranch sex drunk and needing a five-hour nap.

The burgers and six-pack he’d brought with him were as much an apology as lunch, but judging by the scowl on Boone’s face and the shake of Casper’s head, buying his way off their shit list was going to take more than Angus beef and imported beer.

His friends had spent the morning pulling his share of the workload along with their own, having only a couple of part-time hands for help. That after ironing out a legal three-way split just last week that included the division of duties around the ranch as well as the ownership. The ass chewing would only begin to cover his sins. He had every bit of whatever hell they threw at him coming.