Shine Not Burn (13 page)

“A little,” I admitted, wondering if I should be ashamed about anything I’d done.
 
I didn’t think so.
 
Anything that felt this good couldn’t possibly be wrong.

Weird feelings rose up to smother me.
 
My life plan felt really, really stupid and empty.
 
This man would never fit into it, but now I wondered how I could ever go back to guys like Luke when I knew they could never make me feel this way.

Feeling his heavy body on mine, wallowing in the afterglow of the best sex I’d ever had, I questioned for the first time what the hell I was doing with my life.
 
I tried to laugh at myself, having these thoughts during a one-night stand in Vegas, but the humor wouldn’t come.
 
This was real.
 
This connection with this cowboy wasn’t just a
thing
.

“What are you thinking right now?” he asked, sliding off to the side of me, his mostly limp cock sliding out of me and resting damply on my leg.
 
He pulled the used condom off and put it on a piece of paper on the nightstand.

“Nothing.
 
My brain isn’t working yet.”
 
Hell-to-the no way was I going to tell him what was on my mind.
 
He’d run for the hills and I’d never see him.
 
Do I want to see him again?
 
Yes.
 
I think I do.
 
No, I know I do.

“You’re lying,” he said, running a finger gently from my forehead to the end of my nose.
 
“I can tell by the way you wrinkle up your little nose that you’re lying.
 
Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Oh, so I’m Pinnocchio now?” I tried to play it off, distract him from trying to get inside my head, but he wasn’t falling for it.

“Please tell me.”

He sounded so sincere, it made my heart skip a beat.
 
How could a guy that good in bed and this gorgeous be so
nice?
 
Doesn’t it defy the very laws of Nature?
 
Maybe he was an evolutionary mutant.
 
I turned my head, our faces only an inch or two apart.
 
“Why do you want to know?”

“Because.
 
I’m thinking lots of stuff too, and I’m wondering if you’re thinking the same thing.”

“You go first,” I said, my heart picking up its rhythm for some stupid reason.
 
No way were we thinking the same thing.
 
But wouldn’t it be cool if we were?

“Luceo non uro,” he said.
 
“That’s what my dad always said.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, pretty sure that even though I was still pretty drunk, he wasn’t speaking English.

“It means that if I want to get lucky with you, I should just take the risk and tell you what’s on my mind, because failing would be worse than never trying.”

I grinned.
 
“I’m pretty sure you already got lucky, but if you’re looking for kinky sex, you’re going to have to work to convince me it’s a good idea.”
 
For him, I was pretty sure I’d do anything, but there was no way I was going to make it that easy by just telling him.

“It’s not about the sex,” he said, going all sober on me.
 
“Well, okay, the sex might have been a little icing on the cake, but that’s not it.”

“You’re being very mysterious,” I said, now nervous as hell.
 
I really liked this cowboy.
 
Mack
.
 
But I didn’t know a single thing about him other than the fact that he doesn’t wear underwear and he’s got a big cock-a-doodle doo that he definitely knows how to use.
 
Yee haw.

“I don’t mean to be mysterious.
 
I guess I’m not as bold as I’d like to be sometimes.
 
Thing is …” He paused and then rolled onto his back, resting his hands under his head.
 
“…I have something on my mind, and I want to say it to you, even though I know it probably won’t make a difference and I’ll probably never see you again.”

The idea that we’d never be together again made me literally sick to my stomach, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t the alcohol, even though the bed was spinning with its effects.
 
Really, really spinning.

“Just say it,” I urged, my words slurring a little. “You go first and then I’ll go.”

“Chicken,” he teased, easing his arm under my neck.

“Guilty.”
 
I nestled in close to him, turning on my side so I could rest my head on his chest.
 
I knew it was stupid, but in that moment, I felt cared for.
 
Something I’d never truly experienced with the man I’d so recently wanted to call
Husband
.
 
This was a very sad state of affairs, indeed.
 
I was falling in lust with a man from Oregon, and I lived on the opposite end of the country.
 
Our situation couldn’t possibly be more complicated.

“Okay, well, here it goes.
 
And if you want me to leave after I say it, then so be it.
 
I’d rather say it and take the walk of shame than not say it and miss out on something.”

“Alright already, say it.”
 
I faked a loud yawn. “I’m about to fall asleep over here.”

He tickled my ribs with his free hand.
 
“You’re ornery.
 
I like that about you.”
 
He leaned over and kissed my neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark.
 
I probably should have been mad, but when my nipples went rock hard over the sensation it created, I had the opposite emotion coming over me.

He left my neck and laid back down.
 
“What I have going through my mind is that I don’t want this to end.
 
There’s something about you that’s just lassoed my heart or my common sense or something and I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to get it back until you let it go.”

My heart seized in my chest.
 
The beats just wouldn’t come.
 
And then I gasped, the need for oxygen too overwhelming.
 
I’d been holding my breath without realizing it.
 
“Really?” I croaked out.
 
No one had ever said anything even remotely similar to me before.
 
Even men who’d claimed to love me.

“Really.
 
Does that make you want to run to Mexico?”

“Mexico?”
 
I giggled.

“That’s the farthest place from here I could come up with.
 
Give me a few more minutes to sober up and I’ll come up with something better.”

I put my elbow up and rested my head on my palm.
 
“Maybe it’s just the beer talking.
 
Maybe I’m not as awesome as you think I am in the sober light of day.”

He pulled me against him and kissed me soundly.
 
“No. It’s not the beer.
 
I might be a little out of it, but that doesn’t make me deaf, dumb, or blind.
 
You’re something special.
 
Didn’t you feel it?
 
The way we fit together so perfectly?”
 
The expression on his face was vulnerable.
 
Like this was important to him.

“Yes,” I whispered, so thrilled to be hearing these things come out of his mouth that I couldn’t speak properly.
 
I couldn’t even think straight.
 
Bells were clanging and alarms were going off in my brain.
 
He likes me!
 
A lot!
 
He really likes me!
 
And he’s hung like a horse!

“I’ll tell you what …,” he said, pulling me on top of him, “…right now I want to do two things with you, but I can’t decide which one to do first.”
 
He grinned up at me mischievously, my hair hanging down to create a curtain around us.

“What?
 
Anal sex?” I asked.

He laughed loud and long.
 
Then he spanked me on both cheeks before rubbing them and squeezing them gently.
 
He pushed his hips up towards me, causing his semi-hardness to push into my folds.
 
“No, you crazy girl, that’s not what I was thinking.
 
I’ll take a raincheck on that, though.”
 
The dimple in his cheek came out for the first time since we played blackjack.

“Okay, so what were you thinking, then, if it wasn’t the booty love?”
 
I rubbed myself just slightly along his length and was surprised to find that the idea of another round of sex so soon wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
 
In fact, it was quite the opposite.
 
He got harder with every passing second.

He reached down between us and angled his erection up, the tip teasing at my lower stomach.
 
He said nothing; he just waited to see what I would do.

I positioned myself over him.
 
Moving my hips in small circles, I eased the head of his cock into my warmth.
 
I came down slowly, pushing past the opening to take him all the way in.
 
I only stopped when I was fully impaled, his head pressing against the end of the road.

“Damn, girl,” was all he could manage.
 
He tipped his head back and closed his eyes as his hips moved in a rhythm that instantly threw all ideas of conversation out the window.

I was still sensitive and swollen from our last session, so it didn’t take long for me to get close to orgasm.
 
But the sensations were different this time.
 
Sharp.
 
Wild.
 
A lot out of control. I needed speed and pounding, not soft and gentle strokes.
 
I moved up and down his length, landing hard to give my body the ache it desired.

He met me thrust for thrust, his erection so firm it felt like steel.
 
I screamed out a few times in my frustration, not able to get what I was seeking.
 
Something … something … I didn’t know what.
 
It stayed just out of my grasp.
 
I needed it but I didn’t know what
It
was.

He growled once loudly and sat up, flipping me over onto my back on one smooth movement.
 
Then he pulled out of me and turned me onto my stomach.
 
“Put your ass in the air,” he ordered, grabbing me under my hips and jerking my rear end up.

I complied without a sound.
 
I wanted this.
 
This was
It.

He pulled my folds apart with his thumbs and buried himself in me once again.
 
Scooting his bent knees in slightly under me, he used the top of my thighs for leverage as he pounded into me, heaving my body into the pillows at the head of the bed with every thrust.

I was angled up so far, I could feel his balls hitting my clit.
 
Just the slight tap, tap, tapping was driving me wild.
 
It wasn’t enough.
 
But his harsh thrusts were exactly what I’d needed, even though I hadn’t known it until just now.

“Yes!
 
Yes!” I screamed, not caring that they’d hear me out in the hallways and possibly on the floor below too.

“God, I love fucking you,” he said between gritted teeth, the sound of our bodies slapping against one another echoing out into the room.

“Yes, fuck me, please, fuck me!”
 
I was begging shamelessly, but it just felt so right.
 
I wanted to be his, to be taken by him every single night of my life.
 
I felt like I hadn’t truly lived as a woman until this moment.

I was riding the crest of a wave I didn’t understand.
 
I was getting satisfaction from a hard fucking, something I’d never liked before.
 
Where was this pleasure coming from?
 
It had to be the most base, animal part of me.
 
The passion was savage, carrying me away to another place and making me think and say and do things I never would have thought I was capable of.

“Aaaaarrrrhh!” he shouted, sounding like a wild man sending out his war cry.

“Aaahhhh!” I screamed.
 
I was so close, so
close!

He collapsed on top of me, trapping his hand under my body.
 
His finger came up to rub my clit as he pounded into me with jerking motions, grunting and growling with every thrust.

That simple touch.
 
Those two fingers barely touching me in the most inelegant way while he filled me completely.
 
That’s all I needed to disappear into myself, to fall into the passion that threatened to overwhelm and swallow me whole.
 
I spread my legs as wide as I could, angled my ass back as much as possible, and rode the wave as high and as hard as I could, screaming the entire way.

He came inside me for the second time that night, and I experienced an orgasm like I’d never even dreamed of having, even with my very vivid imagination.

Minutes later, or maybe it was hours, Mack slid off me and fell to his side next to me.
 
I looked up at him, my hair in a tangle over my face.

“What are you looking at?” I asked in a smartass tone.

“A beautiful woman who makes me think I can fly.”

“So what’s next?” I asked, fearing the answer.
 
It was past midnight and Candice was sure to be back soon.

“I have a really wild, really crazy, really stupid idea.”

“What, like having condomless sex?”

He grimaced.
 
“Sorry about that.
 
Is it… going to be a problem?”