Rodeo Riders (5 page)

This wasn’t simply sex. He repeatedly came at her as if determined to pound her into submission. She fed off his strength. Lifting her right leg as high as she could allowed him to close in on her even more, to spread a hand over her throat.

No fear. Nothing except the thundering in her temple, her melting, flowing cunt, crying out, raking her nails over his arm.

Every thrust threatened to knock her off her perch. As he drew back for yet another attack, she sucked in a breath and silently pleaded with him to hurry, hurry!

The pace quickened, giving her no time to prepare for the next assault. Movement and hunger flowed together. On fire, she grasped his shoulders. She strained for his mouth. He answered her plea by crushing his lips against hers, attacking, not kissing. Much as she craved the savage union, her neck couldn’t handle the strain, and she let her head fall back down, whimpering.

A deeper moan rolled out of him. Straightening slightly, he kept her open and exposed. He rode her like a strong, young cowboy with endless energy. The long, stressful day flowed out of her, and she became an animal, a bronc fighting for freedom.

Only she didn’t want to be free.

Much as she tried, her fingers only brushed his belly, but she kept after him. Touching and tantalizing him, like spurs rolled over a bronc’s sides, propelling him onto another level. He came at her, came over and over again, branding her. Flames consumed her, scorched her, shook her as she’d never been shaken.

“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit shit shit.”

“Got you. Doing you. Oh shit!”

A climax rushed over her. Always before, the downhill slide came fast on the heels of the explosion, but this time the fireworks hit over and over until, maybe, she passed out.

Spent. Worthless. Twitching. An accident victim trying to make sense of what had happened.

Cougar’s muscles trembled as he drew her into a sitting position. As long as he kept his knees bent, the union held, but then his cock grew limp. The thought of losing him unnerved her, and she wrapped her arms around him. He started to straighten, prompting her to lock her legs around his hips. Resting her head against his hot and sweating chest, she concentrated on his heartbeat, his breathing, his skin.

I love you, Cougar. I don’t know how long this feeling is going to last, but for this moment I love you as I never have.

Chapter Seven

She woke to the sound of Cougar’s faint snoring. Her first thought was that she needed to ask him what she was doing in his bed, but then she remembered.

While still in the barn, they’d thrown on what clothes were absolutely necessary. He’d asked if her rig had a shower, and she’d said it didn’t and they would have to use the grounds’ facilities, but he’d offered to let her use his. After dropping by her place for a change of clothes, they’d walked barefoot and hand in hand to the huge, gas-guzzling truck and sleeper trailer he hauled his bulls in.

A discussion about who merited the first shower had led to him flipping a coin. She’d won, which meant she hadn’t taken time to study his place until she was clean. She’d been envious of his larger refrigerator and decent storage space, and the twin recliners looked comfortable enough to sleep in. But what had held her attention had been the queen-size bed.

That’s where she was. In a bed that smelled of the man next to her.

It was just getting light, but although she tried to bury herself in sleep again, her bladder wouldn’t allow her to. By the time she’d finished in the bathroom, he was awake, propped up on his elbow, naked chest rising and falling. She hadn’t bothered with a nightgown.

“What are your plans until the rodeo gets going tonight?” he asked.

To make love with you, over and over again until we can’t move.
“I’m not sure. What about you?”

“Unfortunately, my day’s full.”

“Of course.” She sat on the edge of the bed and turned so she could look into his eyes. With every passing second, more daylight was slipping in. Knowing Cougar most of her life had conditioned her to his toasted complexion, but he seemed even darker.

“You’re smiling. What are you thinking about?”

“Never mind.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “Believe me, it isn’t worth sharing.”

He grunted and slid off the bed. Not looking back at her, he walked naked into the bathroom, which gave her the opportunity to study the smooth roll of leg and ass muscles. She’d long admired a horse’s muscled flanks, but her admiration centered around appreciation of how fast and long the animal could run. Cougar’s flanks spoke of another kind of staying power.

“I’d like you to trail along with me today,” he said when he returned. His cock was morning hard. “Watching the bulls sling snot and poop should go a long way toward dispensing any mystique they have.”

“You aren’t responsible for the head trip I’ve done on myself—if I have.” It felt unreal and wonderful to be sitting naked on Cougar’s bed while he, equally naked, leaned against a wall. “I don’t need a shrink.”
Just a hard kick in the butt every time a particular nightmare tries to latch on to me.
“And I don’t need you worrying about me, if that’s what you’re doing.”

“Worry? It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

When he held out his hands, she placed hers in them and let him pull her to her feet. There was a pillow crease on his cheek, and his hair needed to be combed and contained—something she’d love to do.

“I need to ask you something.”

She looked up at him.

“Do you think I chickened out?” he asked.

A chill ran through her. “What?”

“Because I didn’t get back on a bull.”

“You—you had a broken neck. How could you?”

“I’m talking about later.”

Much as she wanted to shrug off the question, she knew better. “Cougar, only a few men have ridden a bull—or tried to. That’s a hell of an accomplishment.”

“A lot of people would call me crazy.”

Was he aware that he was rubbing her arms? Although she wasn’t cold, a shiver shook her. If he kept up what he was doing, she’d be hard-pressed to carry on any conversation, let alone this vital one. “Bull riding is crazy, but it was something you wanted, or needed, to do. Has that changed? You no longer feel you have anything to prove?”

His hands stilled. A moment later, he pushed her back but continued to hold her. His gaze ran down her, but she wasn’t sure he was looking at her body. How strange. All those years of being ships passing through each other’s lives, they’d never had a serious talk. Now it was all coming at once—along with a physical attraction more powerful than anything she’d ever experienced.

“No.” He sighed the word. “I don’t feel I have something to prove.”

Although she was glad he’d found his peace, a part of her wanted to remind him that, damn it, she had gotten back in the saddle after her accident and decided to make coming to grips with her head trip her priority, her only priority. Her life’s goal, even. If she was that committed, that insane, he should be too. Shouldn’t he?

“You have problems with that, don’t you?” he asked.

“Damn it, Cougar! I’m not going to tell you how to live your life.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Were they fighting? And if so, why? “Fine. Fine.” Pulling free, she looked around for her clothes. “It’s better if people don’t dictate to each other.” Spotting her jeans, she sat back down and started pulling them on. Too late she realized she’d forgotten about her underpants. “I, for one, have enough to do running my own life.”

“What are you going to do?”

Darn him for asking such a complex question! And damn him to hell for standing there without a stitch on and his cock long and dark and jutting. Reminding her of how it had felt inside her.

“Today I’m going to catch up with some of my fellow competitors, compare horses and tell tall tales, that kind of thing.”

“Have you talked to any of them about what’s going on inside you?”

“What do you care?”

“Don’t.”

She’d stood up so she could attend to the zipper. Unfortunately, that brought her breasts—and the rest of her—too close to him. “Don’t what?” The moment she’d asked the question, she wished she could take it back.

“Push me away. Jordan, I didn’t have anyone to talk to when I didn’t know whether I was ever going to walk again. I’m offering you that.”

His gift included much more than his muscles, even his cock. When all the layers had been knocked aside, that’s what it came down to, didn’t it? He’d more than walked in her shoes. He’d taken the journey before she had, only his had been more dangerous, the outcome drawn out, his nightmares—he had to have had nightmares—surely more vivid.

“I don’t know what to say.” Leaning forward, she ran her lips over his chest, in part to give herself time to blink back her tears. “I downplayed what I was going through with my family, and although my brother kept studying me, he didn’t ask. In other words, you aren’t the only one who kept things locked inside.”

He was stroking her hair, soothing her, presenting her with his warmth, his life. Tears again burned her. “I don’t want you feeling sorry for me,” she said. “I don’t.”

“I didn’t either when it was me on the receiving end.”

Fine,
she nearly replied.
That’s noble of you.
But before she made that mistake, reality rolled over her. She wouldn’t call him the silent and stoic Native American; he was a macho man in a macho world. Hadn’t she seen riders throw up before getting on the bull or bronc they’d drawn? None of them talked about the fear clamped around their bellies—just as Cougar hadn’t told anyone he’d been afraid he’d spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

“It’s so complicated, isn’t it,” she said and straightened. Let him see her tears after all. “That’s why I’m going to compete tonight, so hopefully I can make things less complicated.”

Instead of pointing out that she hadn’t made any sense—which he had every right to do—he pushed her hair back from her cheek and planted a kiss on her forehead. “It’s all right if you don’t go out there again. That’s what I want you to hear, that I won’t think any the less of you.”

Instead of feeling strengthened by his words, he’d, maybe unwittingly, laid the most important thing on the table. He might not think less of her if she hung up her barrel-racing saddle and put her horses out to pasture, but she would.

And she wouldn’t be able to hold up her head around him.

“What is it?” he prompted. “Are we back to where we started? You’re comparing the way each of us faced our injuries?”

“I don’t know where we are.” Much as she wanted to be in a different hemisphere from the one he was in, even more she wanted to give his cock a home. “Darn it, it doesn’t have to be this complicated.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

He was bringing her closer, pressing her against his body and making her terribly aware of the fabric she’d placed between her sex and his. Maybe he knew what she was thinking—and regretting—because he ground himself against her, forced her to back up, forced her to deal with frustration.

“I thought you had a lot to do,” she managed.

“I do, starting with you.”

“Just like that?” Torn between trying to shove him off her and leaving him with no doubt of her powerful need, she clung to him.

“Yeah, Jordan, just like that. You came on strong last night. It’s my turn again.”

She, strong? On the brink of calling him a liar, images from the barn pushed past her barriers. He was right. She’d been the aggressor right up until when he’d placed her on the hay and taken her missionary style. “What do you want?”

“You. Damn it, you.”

Like him, she too was torn between the need that was taking huge chunks out of her sanity and the undeniable fact that they were taking things too fast. But when he lifted her and laid her out on his bed, nothing else mattered.

She reached for her jeans, but he grasped her wrists and placed her hands over her head. He stretched out beside her.

“You’re an incredible woman with an incredible body.”

“It’s standard issue.”

“The hell it is. The way you turn me on—” Rolling toward her, he closed his mouth around a breast.

He nipped, nibbled, licked and sucked. Within seconds, she was writhing on the tangled sheets. He took her breast into his wet, warm mouth. Lightning sparked from her mound to her pelvis. The sensation spread out, closing around her pussy and making her think of a wilderness storm with thunder booming, rain pounding down and lightning shattering the night.

What was it she’d always believed about needing lengthy foreplay? What was it she’d maintained about not being a cheap lay?

What the hell did either of those things matter?

“Cougar, Cougar, Cougar.” The chant echoed off the metal walls.

He released her wrists, but she remained as he’d positioned her, lost in the fantasy of being at his disposal. Pain in her captured nipple lifted her pelvis off the bed. But instead of trying to free herself, she arched toward him and offered him everything. He closed his lips-covered teeth around her nipple and drew on it. She regarded the pale and stretched breast tissue. There was a grinding sensation in her pelvis, and her fingers kept reaching for something, anything. Her head rocked and she sounded as if she were strangling.

When he released her breast, she cried out. He quieted her by pressing his palm over her wet flesh. Then he turned his attention to her other breast. His weight held her down, kept her where and how he needed her to be.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted. “Oh yes.”

Her other breast was subjected to the same mix of pleasure and pain as the first. He bathed her, chewed lightly, suckled, drew her so deep inside his mouth she half believed he was fucking her there.

“Yes, yes, yes.”

This time when he backed away, she found the courage and promise to wait with her body turned toward his and her vision rose-tinted.

Finally, yes damn it, finally, he removed the garment she’d foolishly put on. The disrobing seemed to take forever, slow inch by slow inch being revealed. He was a powerful man, strong in ways that went beyond muscle and bone. Next to him she felt like a feather when she’d always believed herself equal to any man. She didn’t want that. She wanted to be imprinted with his masculinity, to be allowed to house him and to hear his secrets.

To trust him with hers.

When he dropped her jeans to the floor, she thought he’d climb on top of her. Instead, he stretched out a few inches away, his cock rising above his body. She knelt and hugged herself.

“I have a condom in the nightstand.”

I don’t want to put it on. I need to feel you, to take your come into me.
But she did as he ordered. Once he’d climaxed, she’d lick his cock and taste his offering.

Wondering at the wanton turn her mind had taken, she sat back on her haunches and waited for the next order.

“Get on top of me.”

That she could do. Slow—as slow as she could manage, anyway—she straddled him with his cock resting against her belly and her ass kissing his thighs. She clenched her fists to keep from touching him.

“Put me in you.”

Just like that?

Yes,
she answered,
just like that.

Made uncomfortable by his scrutiny, she nevertheless sheathed his cock with her hand while she inched forward and up. Running his tip over her pussy nearly drove her crazy, but she did it again—and then once more. He was giving himself to her. She was presenting herself to him.

And nothing else mattered.

In the distance, a diesel truck started up. She heard the faint murmur of male voices so deep that the tones became part of what she and Cougar were doing.

“Now.”

Yes. Yes.
Her fingers around his base held him in place as she skewered herself on his cock. Despite the pounding need to rush the union, she took him slow and smooth. She cautiously lowered herself until her buttocks closed around his crotch.

He took hold of her shoulders and pulled her forward. His cock shifted inside her, pressing where it had only touched before, demanding she concentrate on the change.

Down, down, down he guided her, until she was afraid she’d hurt him, but his relentless hold brought her even closer. Her breasts brushed his chest. Then they were flat against him, and his hands were around her neck and she was reaching behind her ass and they were kissing—for the first time truly kissing.