Shine Not Burn (40 page)

“I feel terrible.”
 
My heart ached for both of them and their parents.
 
I could tell they were all suffering for it.
 
It made me so sad to know that I had something to do with it.

“Why do you feel terrible?
 
It’s not your fault.”

“It is too.
 
If it hadn’t been for me, you would have been with them all night and then there wouldn’t have been a rumor.
 
No rumor, no upset fiancée, no funny business in the back room.”

He turned to face me, pulling my shoulder around so I was facing him.
 
“Oh, so you’re like a spider who lured me in to her web and I had no choice in the matter?
 
I can tell everyone I was just an innocent victim?”

When he said it that way it made me feel silly, but I still wasn’t ready to walk away without taking any of the blame.
 
“Yes, that’s what happened.
 
I lured you into my web.”
 
I stepped closer and hugged him to me.
 
“I wore booby-pusher-uppers that night and that tight dress and heels.
 
You fell right into my trap.
 
You had no choice.”

He hugged me back tightly and leaned down to inhale the skin of my neck.
 
“You’re right about that.
 
Once I saw you, I had no choice.
 
I was done for good.
 
You’re the last woman I ever want to be with.”
 
His hands slid down my back and squeezed my rear end as we lifted our faces to gaze at each other.

The combination of his touch, his words, and the way he was staring at me with love shining out of his eyes made my whole system go haywire.

“We’re going to have sex again, aren’t we?” I asked softly, the wetness building in an instant.

He gave me a wicked smile.
 
“Hell yes, we are.”
 
And then he lowered me to the ground.

Chapter Thirty-Five

THE WEIGHT OF MACK’S HEAVY body pressed my back into the soft earth beneath the blanket. His breath was sweet and his mouth insistent, the scratchy surface of his shaved upper lip giving me a thrill as it slid across the sensitive skin of my lips and neck.
 
His hat tipped off and fell into the grass next to my head.

“What if someone sees us?” I asked, feeling his growing need pressing into my leg.

“No one’s out here except you, me, and the horses, and they don’t care what we do, so long as we let them eat in peace.”
 
His lazy smile arrested my heart.
 
“Just relax and let me love you.”
 
He dipped his head down and kissed the hollow of my neck, pulling the neckline of my t-shirt down to expose my skin and kiss there too.

I closed my eyes and ran my fingers up and down his back, loving how the muscles bunched up and relaxed as he covered me in his affection.
 
He was such a strong man.
 
I felt safe with him.
 
Turned on just at the thought of him.

“Do you like this?” he asked, nuzzling my ear and giving me chills.

“I like everything you do,” I said softly.
 
“Everything feels amazing.”

He came back up to my face and kissed me on the mouth hard before pulling away.
 
“Get up.”

“What?”
 
The fog that had started to take over my conscious mind quickly dissipated, leaving me confused.

“Stand up and take your clothes off for me.
 
Strip, sexy girl, I want to watch.”

I giggled. “Get out of town.” My face flamed at the idea of him seeing me in the broad daylight like that.

“No, I’m serious.”
 
He leaned down and pressed a kiss against my lips, forcing them apart and pushing his hot tongue inside.
 
My nipples went rock hard.
 
I reached for him blindly as my eyes slid shut, but he pushed my hands gently to the side and pulled away.
 
I opened my eyes and pouted.

“Nope.
 
I want to see you naked,” he insisted.
 
He sat up and bent his legs at the knees, letting one leg fall to the side and leaving the other upright so I had a perfect view of his jeans-encased crotch.
 
He rested his forearms on his knees and winked at me, lifting his chin in a gesture of encouragement.
 
“Go for it.”

“I want to see
you
naked,” I responded, challenging him with my grin.

“You first.”
 
He moved his eyebrows up and down in a promise of future play.

I felt energized for some reason.
 
Daring.
 
I got up from the blanket and stood a couple paces away.

“What should I take off first?”
 
My cheeks were still burning with embarrassment and anticipation, his focused, serious gaze causing a flush to come over my chest and neck too.
 
He was so gorgeous, sitting there in his jeans and t-shirt, looking so carefree and oblivious to his charms.
 
His hair was rumpled, curling around the edges from the heat and sweat.
 
Keeping my hands off him took monumental effort.

“Shoes,” he ordered.
 
“Take ‘em off.”

I kicked the ugly moccasins off and they went flying over his head.

He grinned.
 
“Shirt off.
 
Show me what you got.”

I pulled the t-shirt up from the bottom and let it slide down my arm to drop at my feet.
 
An answering wetness started between my legs when he reached down and put his hand on his crotch, pulling at it a little and adjusting it.
 
I’d never before been turned on by the idea of a man touching himself, but yep, it was happening now.
 
Big time.

“Bra.”
 
He dropped to his side on the blanket, one hand propping up his head and the other stroking the front of his jeans.
 
The bulge underneath was impossible to miss.

I raised an eyebrow at his command.
 
I thought for sure the shorts were going to be next.
 
I shrugged.
 
If he wanted to see me naked from the waist up, who was I to argue?
 
Reaching behind me, I unclasped the only thing keeping my naked breasts from being exposed to the whole world.
 
I’d never been without clothes in public before and I expected to hate it, but as the air touched my skin, I suddenly felt wild and free; like I was taking a risk and loving every minute of it.

“Jesus, you have a nice rack.”

I laughed.
 
“A nice
rack?
 
Wow, that’s sexy.
 
What am I, a deer?”
 
It
was
kind of sexy, having my womanly parts referred to in such a man’s way.
 
I reached up and put my hands underneath them, pushing them up a little and rubbing the last vestiges of heat away.

“Better stop doing that,” he said, his face going dark, his hand stilling its movements on his jeans.
 
The muscles in his jaw tensed, and he looked like a lion considering whether to attack its prey.

My hands froze.
 
“Why?”
 
I asked the question, but I already knew the answer.
 
I just wanted to hear him say what his expression was already telling me.

“Because I’m not done with the strip tease, but if you don’t quit doing that I’m going to tackle you.”

I couldn’t stop smiling.
 
“Fine.”
 
My hands fell to my hips.
 
“What’s next?”

“Shorts.
 
But turn around.
 
I want to see that ass.”

I spun, losing my balance a little and giggling as I worked on the button and got my feet back under me.
 
Once they were unzipped and on their way down, sliding over the roundest part of my rear end, I looked at him over my shoulder.

He was hypnotized, staring at me with his hand rubbing his crotch slowly.
 
Maybe I should have been shocked at his blatant male behavior, but instead, I was turned-on beyond rational thought.
 
To think that he was getting so turned on just by seeing my naked body was blowing my mind.
 
I’d always gotten undressed in the dark, self-conscious about my flaws.
 
Here with him in this bright meadow, I felt like the goddess of sex.

The shorts hit the ground at my feet and I stepped out of them.

I was facing away from him again, wearing nothing but my panties.

“What’s next?” I asked, my voice carrying out into the clearing in front of me.

I heard a rustling, and before I could react, he was behind me on his knees.
 
His face was against my lower back, kissing me while he held onto my hips with his strong hands.
 
My legs trembled as his thick fingers hooked into the top of my panties and slowly dragged them down.

“I want…
 
I want…” I tried to use words to express my desires, but they wouldn’t collect in my head properly.
 
Every time I attempted to form a coherent thought, he licked my skin and then kissed it - sometimes with a feathery lightness and other times with a strong suction that would leave a mark - leaving me senseless once again.

“What do you want, sexy girl?”
 
He turned me around by the hips, forcing me to face him.

I looked down at his face, burying my hands in his hair at the sides of his head, running my fingers into the thick, sweaty, wavy mass.
 
“I want … you.”
 
My face was flushed with passion.
 
Seeing him down there and fully dressed with nothing between his mouth and my naked lower body was enough to make me have a heart attack.

He moved closer, wrapping his arms around my backside and leaning in towards me.
 
I gasped as his tongue touched my folds, going right inside without hesitation to sear me with its wet heat.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, looking down at his head, feeling it move under my hands as he worshipped my body.
 
My legs shook and I went from holding on for pleasure to holding on for support.
 
I would have fallen without his strong shoulders to keep me up.

I moaned as his tongue found my most sensitive places and my folds became swollen with need. Slick wetness gathered, prompting my desire to feel more of him between my legs.
 
“Mack … please.”

He leaned back and spoke in a dangerous voice.
 
“Lie down.”

My breath hitched as I realized things were about to get real.
 
This is what my body needed … to feel him inside me, filling me, taking me on the ride that would end with me screaming and lost.

I gathered what was left of my wits and did as he said, walking around him to lie on the blanket. I reclined onto my back, my breasts relaxing down towards my ribs.
 
I opened my legs and bent my knees a little, waiting to see what he would do.
 
My hand moved to my folds where I touched the wetness he had caused.

He stood and pulled off his t-shirt in one quick move, revealing the rippling, lean muscles beneath.
 
He didn’t say anything.
 
He looked angry, but I knew it wasn’t that emotion that was going through his mind and heart as he stood before me.
 
Passion looked a lot like darkness on him.
 
It made my blood run hot.

His boots, socks, and pants came off next.
 
That’s all he’d worn to our little picnic and now in the bright sunlight I was finally able to fully appreciate the man I’d married in all his muscled glory.
 
Shadows from the curves of his muscles highlighted their dense structure.
 
Even without the hard physical work he did on the ranch, he’d still have a body to die for, but with all that cattle management came a big payoff, and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world to be enjoying it right now.

And my luck didn’t stop at his totally built physique.
 
His cock was a marvel too, its length and breadth something that shouldn’t have worked; how it was able to fit inside me was some kind of miracle.
 
It stood out in front of him, making it perfectly clear what he wanted to do with me.
 
I spread my legs a little farther and ran my fingertip over my clit, making it burn with need.

“I like it when you do that,” he said, his voice husky.

“I like it better when you do it to me,” I said, never breaking eye contact with him.

He pulled a condom from his pants pocket and put it on.
 
When he was finished, he walked over slowly, his hard length swaying with every step.
 
Bending down, he grabbed my wrist, pulling it away from my wetness and moving it to a spot over my head.

“I’m going to make love to my wife now,” he said, his voice deep and soft, a sexy promise I was ready to beg him to keep.

A thrill ran through me to be called that word …
wife
… and to be promised that joy, even though it was wrong.
 
Even though I shouldn’t have encouraged him to see me that way.

“We shouldn’t,” I said, one weak, last-ditch effort to help him let me go.
 
I was so terrible at doing the right thing.
 
My heart just wasn’t in it.
 
I wanted it all; I wanted to have him for mine and live just for this moment for the rest of my life.

“Bullshit.”
 
He let my hand go and angled his cock up to enter me, using his hand to guide it.
 
Once in position, he put his hands on either side of me and stared deeply into my eyes.