Crash Into You (18 page)

             
“You’re learning,” he said.  He tied up her horse, then grabbed two bottles of water out of the small panniers.   They walked from the shade of the huge conifers to the flat meadow in front of the clear blue creek.

             
Lauren sat down, opened the water bottle, and took a long swallow.  Placing the bottle to the side, she leaned back on her hands and lifted her face to the sun.  

             
“How’s your ribcage?”

             
“Fine,” she answered dreamily, her eyes shut.

             
Mark lay back and shut his eyes.   The last days of full summer were here; he could feel the edge of autumn in the breeze.   Labor Day was just a week away, which meant if he was going to get anything done at the cabins, he had to do it fast, before the snows came.

             
He felt a light, spiderlike touch on his hand, and opened his eyes.   Lauren was tracing the veins on the back of his hand.  He felt a peculiar electricity forming at the slight touch of her fingertip and coursing through his chest.  It was almost like the onset of panic, but pleasant.   Calming.  

Lauren looked at him with an enigmatic and strangely sad smile on her face.

              Mark didn’t dare move. He watched.  She lay down beside him on her side, her head propped on her hand.   She stared goggle-eyed, like she was considering something important and vexing, like he was an unfathomable quantum engineering problem.   Her eyes were very green; wild as the jungle.

             
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.   She was so close, close enough to see the yellow flecks in her eyes.

             
He pulled her to him.  She almost fell against his body.

Her soft, silky lips brushed against his, and then with a little whimper of surrender, she melded against him.

It was sweet beyond belief.  Delicious and so, so sweet. He tightened his arms around her, holding her trembling body tight against the heated plank of his chest.

She was definitely a dangerous woman, a massive, no-holds barred fuck-up to his fledging equilibrium, but he didn’t care.  He had to have this.  Had to have her.

She crawled on top of him, straddling him.  He hugged her closer.  Just this felt so unbelievably good.  He felt starved for the contact of his lips, her body.   His mouth wanted to search out her taut curves and lick and taste her cool, smooth skin, those succulent pointy nipples, all puckered up and ready to be kissed.  His hands roved down her back to her perfect little bum.  Slowly she grinded against the undeniable bulge in his pants in a slow, innocent rhythm.

With a little dazed sigh, Lauren lifted her head and looked into his face.    “I’m sorry, am I too….”  

“You’re perfect,” Mark said, wrapping his arms around her softness, wanting all of her, all at once.   He flipped her over so she was beneath him, her legs tangled with his.   He kissed her then, ravenously.   Her hands drifted down his sides, then wedged between their clamped, trembling bodies and fastened around his cock.

“Oh wow,” she breathed against his neck. 

He groaned with mingled pleasure and agony.   The tender squeezing, the curious stroking, it was all driving him crazy.

“Baby, if you don’t stop…”

She met his gaze brazenly, her panting breath soft against his cheek.    “What?”

“You’re killing me.” Some vestige of civility clawed to the forefront.  He clamped his hand over hers and pried it off his cock.

Her huge round eyes blinked.   “Did I hurt you?  Did I…”

“No.  I want to …”   Words vanished out of his head.    His mouth covered hers.  He kissed her neck, lifting her t-shirt and then nuzzling into the sweet curves of her breasts.    He lifted the cup of one, taking in the beautiful pink nipple against her smooth French vanilla skin.   Bending his head, he clamped the piquant little nipple between his lips. 

Petal soft and so sweet.  He slid his hand down the smooth expanse of her belly and into the band of her yoga pants and the thin layer of her cotton panties.    He felt a wisp of sable soft hair then teased his way inside the damp seam, swirling his finger inside the syrupy slickness.  His thumb glided around her clit, searching for the spots that made her shiver and moan.

Her plush, juicy sex felt incredible, clutching and releasing with her upper thighs.   Head thrown back, eyes closed, she looked even more beautiful.

Need clawed at him, but he was determined to make her come.  He was losing his mind; the desire for her was so intense it was almost unpleasant.   Almost.   He kissed her neck, hearing her sighs and moans, and he could feel she was about to come.  He could feel it building in her body, in her trembling sighs, in her flesh squeezing against his hand.

“Oh God,” she cried out as ripples of ecstasy licked and lapped over every nerve.

They rocked together as she rode out the pleasure.   He felt her nails dig into his shoulders, her breath heaving in his ear.  Then with a little hiccupping gasp, she slowly came back to earth in his arms. 

She looked completely undone with her flushed cheeks and trembling lips.    

Mark pressed his forehead against hers, trying to collect himself.    He felt her hands go to his cock again, and this time he didn’t stop her, couldn’t stop her if he wanted to.  She buzzed down his zipper then reached into the black cotton boxer briefs.

Her cool fingers wrapped around his thick girth and she began to slowly milk him.   Each stroke sent a shudder through him.    It was enough to make the air in his lungs turn viscous.

“Can I…?” 

“What baby?”

“Can I suck it?”

“If you want to,” he answered, knocked over by the request.

He felt her hot breath against him, then the slick softness of her mouth covering the head of his cock.   Holy mother of God.  The hot contact was enough to shock him.  He fisted her soft hair in his hands.   She slowly slid her hand down the long shaft, following her mouth as she sucked and swirled her tongue over the sensitive head.

             
“Baby… Lauren… stop, I’m about to come.”

             
Instead of moving away, she speeded up her sensual rhythm, to the point of no return.    The climax tore through him, twisting and wrenching pleasure out of every nerve cell as he milked helplessly into her plush mouth.

             
When the last tremors died away, she flopped down beside him.  

“Oh my God, Lauren….”  He reached for her hand.

He looked at her face, and was pleased, and rather surprised, that a beatific grin was pasted over her lips.   They lay for a moment gathering their wits, their hands entwined. 

She turned her head to look at him.   “There is something you have to know about me.”

              He sat up, glancing down at his still-hard cock.   What she did to him.  Trying to get his junk back in his pants, he lazily zipped and buttoned up.   “I’m all ears.”

“My name is Aimee.”  She sat up and sheepishly met his eyes.   “Spelled the French way, Aimee.  Lauren is my middle name.  And my last name is Baxter.”

“Oh.”   The world refocused and recalibrated for a moment.   Aimee.  It sounded sweet.

“And I’ve never been to Idaho.”

“I kind of guessed.”  

“I’m sorry I lied.  I don’t want there to be any more lies between us.   Not now.”

Mark stood then helped Aimee up.    Strange, thinking of her with a different name.   Aimee did seem to fit her better somehow.

He silently studied her outrageously pretty face for a moment, the glossy thick brown hair that spilled over her shoulders like silk.   Her eyes were so earnest, pleading with him, expecting some horrible fate to befall her.   He hated that she was ready to get the shit kicked out of her.   

“You have nothing to be sorry for.  You were trying to protect your fragile newfound freedom.  I get it.  Plus, in case it matters, I rather like the name Aimee.  It sounds pretty and happy.   And you look like an Aimee,” he said, cupping her face.   “It suits you.   It’s a summery name.”

“You have a poetic side,” she said lightly.

Mark kissed her then gathered her in his arms, enjoying the closeness of her.   “Thanks for telling me.”

She gripped him close.  “Are you mad?  I’m sorry to make it awkward.”

He shrugged.  “It isn’t.  And I’m not mad.  Why would I be mad?  You told me repeatedly you were afraid of your ex-boyfriend finding you.  It makes sense you’d try to make sure he couldn’t.”

He stood there a moment, enjoying the new honesty between them and the feeling of her body in his arms.   He felt like they’d done something worthy of respect and contemplation.   After a moment, Aimee pulled back and  suggested they return to the ranch.

Mark helped her mount Millie.  Once she was settled, he mounted Bess and  led her back toward the ranch. Mark led the horses into the paddock and shut the gate.   Aimee walked quietly beside him to the front door, and he thought her silence meant she might be upset, regretful.   Mark let May outside to relieve herself and sniff around.    Aimee stood beside him in front of the house, looking out at the mountains.

He felt grateful to her.  He’d been burying himself in a life of nightmares, isolation, indecision.   Suddenly he was freed from all that misery.   It might just kill him when she left, but he wanted her every minute she was here.  He wanted her to be really present, the way she said – with no lies.

May ran over to them and they went back inside.

Aimee hesitated in the entryway.  He looked at her then, drilling her with those piercing grey eyes. He was intuitive, like he could read her mind, and she wondered how much she was really capable of hiding from him.   Their gazes held and she felt bare, certain he could perceive the desire that still ached in her chest and diffused over her body.  But his gaze not predatory, she realized.  Not taking.  Offering.

             
He was inside her mind. She could feel him, feel his thoughts, his wild intentions.  And he was trying to reach something precious inside her.    Her soul.

             
His face was unfathomably beautiful in that moment, both fierce and gentle.  

             
She felt something shift into alignment.    After what happened by the creek, she couldn’t hide anymore.   The polite friendliness was gone forever, replaced by the raw undeniable attraction.  She wanted to hide, but couldn’t.  She was fixed to the spot by the sheer force of his gaze, and a wanting that was so strong that it frightened her. 

He gently released her hands, then bent his head to hers.  His body pressed against her own, his hands on her face, his sensual lips parting just a hairsbreadth from hers.  Nothing could have prepared her for the touch of his lips on hers.  She felt it zing all the way to her toes.   The taste of his mouth, the scent of his body penetrated her psyche like nothing she had known.

              Slowly he coaxed her mouth open, taking her tongue as she melded against him.   Mark cradled her jaw with his palm, his thumb caressing her cheek as he deepened the kiss.

             
Aimee sank against him as if she had no stamina of her own.   His arms came around her waist, pulling her right up against the bulge in his pants, which made her head swoon and her inner muscles flex.

             
She felt actual desire, a monsoon of desire.  She felt swept away in the luxury of it.   Something twisted open inside her, painful and luminous, and needing to be touched.

             
Mark dragged hot kisses down her neck, and she let her fingers run through the rough silk of his hair.   He took her lips again, swallowing Aimee’s little whimpering moans and fisting her hair in his fingers, tilting her head back so he could angle his mouth more firmly over hers.  

             
“God… Aimee.”   Mark pulled back, pressing his forehead to hers as his hands cupped her nape.   His breath was as ragged as her own.   The question gleamed in his mysterious eyes.  All she had to do was say yes or no.  

             
She searched his face while his warm breath teased her lips.  He was offering her an easy way out.   He wouldn’t pressure her for more.   She could simply put some space between them, say “Sorry, it was a mistake,” and be on her way.

             
But she didn’t want the easy way out.  Not with Mark.  She took in a ragged breath and almost imperceptibly nodded.

             
Mark led past the darkened living room, up the broad staircase.   His bedroom was flooded with the low amber light of dusk.                               

             
She sat down on the edge of the bed, suddenly shy.    His fly was suddenly at her eye-level.  Her gaze froze on the huge bulge in the worn jeans and reality lunged through the fuzziness that cocooned her.   She had loved sucking him, loved the hugeness, the thickness, the sweetness.   And even the power – which surprised her.   She felt in control of his pleasure.

She tried to swallow but her mouth had gone dry.