Wrangled and Tangled (24 page)

When Tierney arched her back and thrust her fingers through his hair to hold him in place, he couldn’t wait to see her reaction when he went down on her. He switched to her left nipple, raking the tip with his teeth.

She rocked her pelvis, her hands gripping the couch cushions behind his shoulders. The friction of her ass grinding over his cock practically had him shooting in his Wranglers.

“Bed. Now.” Renner clutched her lower back, bowing her backward as he scooted to the edge of the couch. Balancing her body weight on his knees, he stood and clamped his hands on her ass as his mouth swallowed her surprised cry.

He moved them into the bedroom so fast he accidentally smacked into the wall, and Tierney broke their kiss with an, “Ouch.”

“Sorry.” Out of habit he slammed the door shut behind them. Her bedroom was a black hole. But he’d gone beyond caring. He’d spend time paying her naked body proper homage after he had her once.

The front of his shins hit the foot of the bed and they fell on the mattress. Somehow he managed not to crush her. Somehow he kept kissing her even as he fought to get his shirt off. He palmed a condom after he unzipped his jeans. Next he yanked her pajama bottoms until her smooth, bare skin rubbed against his. When he kissed her knee and let his lips follow the curve of her quad, Tierney shrieked and scooted across the bed away from him.

He laughed. “It’s a little late to play hard to get, doncha think?” He balanced on his haunches and put on the condom. Then he was trying to read her body position in the pitch dark. Ah. There she was. The warm, soft, female part of her.

His fingers gently traced her slit as he scattered kisses up her torso. “I wanna flip on the lights and look my fill of you.” He licked the indent of her solar plexus and nibbled the bottom curve of her breast. “Take my time and taste you everywhere. But I’m too damn impatient. Been waiting for this for so long, Tierney.”

“Me too.”

He growled. “I wanna fuck you. Feel you wrapped around me. Inside and out.”

She made a soft noise, which he took as a sign that she wanted the same thing.

Renner nuzzled her chest, her neck, her jawline. So soft. So sweet-smelling. So fucking desperate to have her now, he layered his body atop hers, parting her thighs with his hips.

But Tierney’s entire body instantly went board stiff beneath him. Legs clenched, her arms woodenlike by her side, her head turned away from his questing lips.

“Sweetheart?” he whispered, wishing he could see her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Just go slow, okay?”

“Sure. Anything you want.”

The tip of his cock nudged her entrance. She didn’t cant her pelvis or circle her legs around his waist. Renner began to push inside her. Although she was wet, she was extremely tight. That, coupled with the motionless way she lay there, tensed from head to toe, barely breathing, not touching him at all, gave him the impression she’d never done this before.

Don’t be ridiculous. She’s got experience. She sure as hell didn’t blow you like a woman unfamiliar with a cock.

Sexual pep talk aside, he forged inside her channel inch by inch, gritting his teeth against the temptation to thrust hard and fast and as deep as he could.

Jesus. She was so snug. And hot. And slick.

And not moving. At all.

Renner lowered his head and kissed the first piece of flesh his lips connected with, the skin below her ear. He murmured, “Sweetheart, help me out here,” and eased inside her to the hilt.

She gasped.

A groan left his throat. He counted to sixty. Then he rubbed his cheek over hers. The moisture on her face could’ve been from sweat, but he started to suspect another source. As he moved his mouth down, he felt the dampness on her jawline, the cool skin beneath his lips and the taste of salt. Not Tierney’s sweat. Tears.

He froze.

What the fuck?

Renner wanted the lights on right goddamn now. Wanted to know why in the hell she was crying while they were having sex, for fucksake.

Just as he was about to pull out and scramble off her, she turned her head, pressing her face into his throat, almost as if she were trying to disappear into his skin. “Sorry. I just didn’t know it’d hurt this much. It’s sort of obvious I don’t know what to do.”

“Darlin’, you’re confusing me. What do you mean you don’t know what to do?”

Her nonanswer was his answer.

No. This couldn’t be.
“Do you mean this is the first time in a long time you’ve had sex?”

“If by a long time you mean ever, then yes.”

“Ever,” he said slowly, “as in . . .”

“The dreaded V word. Yes. I’m one of those. Or, I was one of those until a few moments ago.”

Renner was so shocked he couldn’t think of a blasted thing to say.

“Please. Can we talk about this later? After . . . ?”

“After what, Tierney? After you get this over with?” What the hell kind of game was she playing?

“No. After you teach me what to do.” Her fingers tentatively moved up his arm. “I don’t have any hands-on experience in this either.”

“Why didn’t you tell me—”

“Because I didn’t want it to be like this. It’s not about me; it’s about us, being together as lovers. Show me how to be your lover. Please. Don’t stop. Renner. I want you or I wouldn’t be here. I just need a little . . . direction. And probably some patience. Lots of patience.”

Tierney’s bewilderment coupled with her curiosity did him in. He commanded, “Put your hands on me. Touch me.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

Her fingertips arced over the dip of his shoulder and slid down the length of his back. She paused; then her hands squeezed his ass.

Gooseflesh rippled up his back. “I love that. Now, I’m gonna move.”

“Move . . . how?”

Renner smiled at the panicked note in her voice. So Miz Brainiac was the play-by-play type. He pulled out halfway, then thrust home again. “Like that.”

“Oh.”

He paused, waiting for her signal. Damn, damn, damn, she was tight. Sweat beaded in his hairline and he gritted his teeth against the temptation to plow into her.

“Do it again,” she whispered.

He did it again. And again. “Angle your hips, baby. Rock into me like you did on the couch.”

Tierney gasped when that angle forced a direct connection to her clit. “I like that.”

“Thought you might.” He picked up the pace. The good thing about her being a virgin? She had no comparison for how long this was supposed to last.

Her hands roved over his body, making him tremble. She buried her face in his throat, kissing, licking and God—
biting
, holding on as his hips pumped faster.

Then he was in that suspended moment where his balls emptied as he thrust, harder, deeper, each spurt shooting out of his dick hotter, better and more intense than the last pulse, until he was wrung out and panting for his next breath.

As soon as he reclaimed his senses, he kissed her forehead. “Where is the closest light?”

“There’s a lamp on the nightstand to your right. But I think—”

“Don’t move.” It was a stretch, but he managed to find the button and click it on.

A dim glow erupted. They blinked at each other.

Framing her face in his hands, Renner bestowed a long kiss, then another. And another. Pulling back to ask, “A twenty-six-year-old virgin, huh? How the hell did that happen?”

Tierney squirmed. “You really want to do this right now?”

“Yep.”

“Get off me.”

“Nope.” He pressed his nose to hers. “The truth, Tierney. Now.”

How weird was it to be as close as humanly possible to Renner but also feel miles away from him? He wasn’t exactly a lightweight. He was sort of squishing her.

You like it. You’ve waited a long time to be squished beneath a man’s body.

“It ain’t exactly a hardship having you beneath me, but you oughta know I’m not goin’ nowhere until you talk to me.”

“I know.” Her shyness resurfaced when she thought of confessing her relationship ineptitude to this gorgeous, virile man who’d probably never had a problem connecting with the opposite sex.

He whispered, “Come on, sweetheart. Please. You must trust me on some level, because you trusted me enough to be the first man in your bed.”

Tierney blurted, “I stayed a virgin because I’m not exactly a guy magnet.”

“Darlin’, you couldn’t be more wrong.” He kissed her. “Keep goin’.”

“I never thought about it much when I was in my teens because I went to a private all girls’ school. A lot of my friends were still virgins our senior year—we were all academically motivated, not boy crazy. Then I went to college and focused on my bachelor’s degrees. And my master’s degrees. The club scene in Chicago just drove home the point I’m socially awkward. I’m not all that comfortable carrying on conversations with guys I don’t know. I can’t dance very well. I’m not spontaneous. I don’t have many hot, single girlfriends, so there was no reason for guys to look at me.”

“Are all men in Illinois blind and stupid?”

Her face burned. “You’re kinda smashing me.”

“Hang on.” He rolled until they were lying face-to-face. Renner kept their bodies close enough they might as well still be joined. He kept touching her. It didn’t soothe her though because it wasn’t a comforting caress, but a very possessive one. “So tell me, was it your big brain that kept guys away? Or did your daddy carry a big club?”

“A bit of both. I tend to stick with friends I’ve had for a long time, which limits meeting new people.”

“None of the douche bags you went to college with ever asked you out?”

How sweet that he was concerned that she hadn’t ever been properly pursued. “A few did. I went on dates. But I never got to the point I saw myself getting naked with any of them.”

Renner didn’t say anything. He didn’t look away, either. He just continued the gentle, erotic stroking from her bare shoulder to her wrist. “You weren’t keeping yourself chaste for religious reasons?”

Tierney shook her head.

“You weren’t abused at some point and have issues with sex?”

“Not at all.”

“You don’t fantasize about women instead of men, and thought if you hooked up with a studly cowboy I’d cure you?”

She laughed. “God, no.”

He smiled. “This didn’t happen just because I was handy and you wanted to get it over with?”

“You seduced me tonight, remember?”

“True.” He brushed his lips over hers. “Sweetheart, I gotta admit I’m confused by all this.”

“Why? It might sound strange in your world of cowboy studliness and uninhibited cowgirls chasing after you, but in my world, the opportunity for sex is limited. The longer I waited the weirder it got. So it morphed into this gigantic thing. At a conference in Vegas last year I mustered the guts to pick up a brochure for a male escort service, figuring a pro wouldn’t think my virginity was laugh-worthy. When I started to make the call . . . my father knocked on my hotel room door.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No. I worried I’d become the female
40-Year-Old Virgin
. After I moved here, I tried to remedy that . . .” She dropped her gaze to the sculpted muscles on Renner’s chest. Goodness. These differences between male and female bodies amazed her. And she was so glad she’d picked this sexy man as her foray into sex because he was a prime example of masculine perfection.

Insistent fingers tipped her face up. Renner’s eyes blazed. “That’s what you were doin’ that night in Buckeye Joe’s when I first kissed you. Picking out a cherry-poppin’ guy?”

Tierney blushed. “Yes. Not that it happened.”

“Goddamn good thing.” Then Renner’s mouth swooped down, commanding hers with molten kisses that set her whole body aflame. He rolled her to her back, batting aside pillows so he could pin her arms above her head. He hung above her on all fours. “Well, sweetness, I will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about bein’ my lover and then some.”

“So this isn’t a onetime thing?”