Play It Safe (17 page)

He moved forward, shuffling me back, hands to my jeans jacket, he pulled it over my shoulders, down my arms and then it was gone.

My mouth went dry.

Then one of his arms wrapped tight around me, the fingers of his other hand drove into my hair, cupping my head, he tilted it, his slanted the other way and his mouth crushed down on mine.

His tongue was sliding in my mouth as I fell backwards, my arms automatically wrapped around him and he landed on top of me in his bed.

Oh yes, it was oh
my.

My breath went out of me taking his weight but he rolled instantly so I was on top even as he continued kissing me.

I didn’t care about my breath being gone. I was used to being breathless. Gray kissed me to that state all the time.

Then his hand left my head, both went into my sweater, up, my arms were forced up, my head jerked back and
whoosh!
It was gone.

I no sooner processed this fact before I was on my back again, Gray’s mouth on mine but his torso was angled away from me because his hands were on the buttons of his shirt.

I got lost in his kiss before he arched his back completely, whispering, “Help me out, dollface, I want to feel you skin against skin.”

Oh yes. I wanted that too.

But more, I wanted to see his chest again.

With shaking hands I started helping him undo the buttons on his shirt then they were undone. He tore it over his shoulders, down his arms and it was gone.

My eyes had a nanosecond to drink him in.

Just as I remembered. Fantastic

Then his mouth was back to mine, his tongue in my mouth, his warm, hard chest crushing my breasts, his hands on me, my hands on him and he felt so good, every inch, every centimeter.

His hands slid around my back, I felt the fingers of one at my bra then it was loose then he lifted up and it was gone.

Over the last week, Gray hadn’t avoided my breasts. When we were making out on his couch, he’d cupped one over the bra, his thumb gliding across my nipple and that was fabulous. And yesterday, in the haystack, his hands under my clothes, he paid them a considerable amount of attention.

But he’d never seen them.

Suddenly, uncertainty slithered in as he again arched his back, his eyes gliding down my body and he took me in.

It hit me then this was going fast. Really fast.

And I was a virgin.

I needed to slow things down.

“Gray –” I whispered, his eyes went from my body to mine and I clamped my mouth shut at the look in them.

It was blistering. It was appreciative. And it was carnal.

I was again breathless.

“Prettiest thing I’ve ever fuckin’ seen,” he whispered then he came back to me but did it by twisting his torso even as his hand slid up my ribs to cup the bottom of my breast, lift it and then his mouth was there and he drew my nipple sharply between his lips.

Heat shafted through me, my back left the bed and both my hands slid into his hair as I whimpered.

And that was it, I was lost. It was all mouths and tongues, licking, sucking, biting, hands roaming, nails scraping. I heard the zip go down on my skirt then it was gone then my tights with my panties. Then I heard the zip on Gray’s trousers and suddenly he was naked. I didn’t see it, I was too busy running my tongue up his neck, one of my hands gliding along the skin of his back, the other one over the skin over the defined muscles at his stomach. I heard his swift intake of breath as they trailed and then he adjusted. Jerking me with him until I was on my back, Gray’s weight on me, his hips were rolling. My legs opened automatically, his fell between, his hands raced up the back of my thighs, hooking the back of my knees, yanking them up and he drove inside.

My back arched and I cried out, not in pleasure, in pain as that surprising sensation seared through me.

Gray’s body went statue-still for a moment, still buried inside me then just his head came up.

My neck righted and my eyes opened as his hand framed one side of my face.

“Jesus, Ivey,” he whispered.

“I kinda…” I hesitated, “got excited and forgot to uh…” I paused again, “mention I was a virgin.”

“How the fuck did that happen?” he asked.

What a bizarre question.

“Um…when you don’t have sex?” I answered in a question.

He stared at me then his face got that near to tender look but he did it one better because he got that look even as his eyes warmed in a way I hadn’t seen before (and Gray’s eyes were almost always warm). In a way that made my body warm all over, his lips tipped up in a grin and his dimple popped out.

Sensational.

“Yeah, my beautiful Ivey, but how the fuck does a girl like you reach the age of twenty-two and not have sex?”

My belly dropped again but this time not in a good way.

“Like me as in a pool hustler?” I whispered and his thumb immediately slid out to stroke my cheek as his face got closer, his grin disappeared but the tender took over his expression.

“No, dollface, like you like the most beautiful girl to hit Mustang, fuck, maybe the entire state of Colorado in a century. Like that kind of girl.”

My belly didn’t drop with that. It flipped.

“In my life, I haven’t made a lot of connections,” I told him softly and the grin can back.

“You’re connected now, baby.”

I was. I definitely was. In a lot of ways.

All of them good.

I returned his grin.

His hand left my face, slid down my shoulder, arm, in between us and down.

“Wrap your legs around my hips, Ivey. I’m gonna take care of you so you can take me,” he ordered gently, my whole body trembled and his grin turned into a smile.

“My girl likes that,” he whispered.

“Yes,” I whispered back.

His thumb hit the spot, pressed in and rolled.

My eyes closed and my neck slightly arched.

“And my girl likes that,” he growled.

“Yes,” I breathed.

He kept pressing and rolling, I held on tight. He kept doing it, I held on tighter, lifted my face and shoved it in his neck. He kept doing it and started moving inside me slowly.

Oh
yes
.

That felt really good.

My head turned and I gasped in his ear, “Gray.”

He stopped.

My limbs clutched him and I gasped again, “Don’t stop!”

He kept going.

And going, thumb swirling.

Oh yes.

Yes.

“Gray,” I breathed in his ear.

“Right here, Ivey,” he whispered in mine.

Right there, as right there as he could be.

Instinctively, I lifted my hips, rocking them up with each of his strokes.

When I did this, Gray groaned, his strokes went deeper then they started going faster, harder, his finger pressing and rolling.

Yes.

More, faster, harder, deeper, I held on tight.

Yes. That felt really,
really
good.

“Gray,” I gasped.

“Right here, baby.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed then there it was.

My head flew back into the pillows, my fingers plunged into his hair and fisted, I cried out then moaned loud then just felt it, lips parted, no breath, experiencing the beauty as it washed over me.

Better than in the haystack.

Better than anything in the world.

The best.

When my body relaxed under him, his thumb left me and his hand pulled one of my arms from around him. His fingers lacing through mine, he lifted our hands and pressed them in the pillow beside my head. Lifting up on his other forearm that he was bracing his weight on in the bed, that hand slid up and his fingers tangled in my hair as his head came up, his eyes locking on mine and he kept thrusting.

I kept rocking my hips and taking him, digging my heels into him to do it, watching him moving inside me and he was so beautiful, it was arguably better than what he’d just given me.

Then he drove deep, his fingers laced through mine tightened, his other hand fisted in my hair, pulling my head slightly to the side and his face disappeared in my neck where he groaned against my skin.

I liked that. The sound, the feel, it was beautiful.

Okay, no.

That was better.

He stayed buried inside me and I held him close to me until his breath came to almost even and his mouth started nuzzling my neck, his fingers never unlacing from mine.

And there it was.

A week and a day ago I was a girl who owned a bag of stuff and not much of it was good.

And now, I was lying in a huge, masculine bed, on soft, dark sheets, wrapped around the most beautiful man I’d ever seen and I was a girl who had everything.

And at that thought, it came right out of my mouth.

“How can one day you have next to nothing and then a week and a day later you have everything?”

Gray’s head came up, my eyes went to his and it was there, that tender look as he lifted the hand he held, twisted it and brushed his lips against my knuckles.

That was so sweet, seeing him do it, feeling his lips, my heart skipped a beat.

Then he let my hand go, his came back to my face, his thumb moving out and gliding along my lip as he answered, “Don’t know, dollface, but feels good doesn’t it?”

Oh my.

He felt the same.

“Yeah,” I whispered against the pad of his thumb.

“Yeah,” he whispered back.

Then his thumb swept away and he replaced it with his lips.

I thought I had everything a moment before but just like Gray, wrapped around him, still connected to him, his mouth on mine, he gave me more.

King of Mustang

Two hours later…

Gray was wearing nothing but jeans. He was lying on his back in his bed, four pillows cushioning his head, shoulders against the headboard. He had a plate on his stomach that had a jumble of crackers, slices of cheese, a cut up apple and a handful of store bought cookies. On his nightstand were two freshly opened bottles of beer.

Lunch.

I was wearing my panties and his dress shirt, four buttons done up. I was lying on my side at his side, one of my legs thrown over one of his, my head in my hand, my elbow in the bed.

I had lazed in Gray’s huge, awesome bed while he did the taxing work of walking downstairs, cutting some slices of cheese and apple, dumping out some crackers and cookies and grabbing a couple of cold ones then walking it back up.

So he was right in what he told Grandma Miriam. He could feed himself and his girl.

After we had sex, we cuddled, we whispered then we fooled around some more. But Gray didn’t take it all the way.

“Coupla days, honey, don’t wanna hurt you again,” he murmured against my neck, his hands sliding soothingly along the skin of my back.

I didn’t want to wait a couple of days. Sex was fantastic. Or maybe just sex with Gray was fantastic.

Then again, I’d bled a little (which was semi-embarrassing and only stopped being that when Gray didn’t make a big deal of it) and it had to be said, I ached and I did it in a way that didn’t invite further attention to that area.

So we’d wait a couple of days.

I could wait a couple of days for Gray.

For Gray, I’d wait an eternity.

I reached to his belly, put a slice of cheese on a cracker and shoved the whole thing in my mouth.

Then I saw the plate tremble on his stomach, my head tipped back and my eyes (enjoying their journey) drifted up to him to see he was smiling but his eyes and the rest of his body were laughing.

“What?” I asked through a full mouth.

“Jesus, dollface, there’s more downstairs. You don’t have to stuff your face.”

I chewed, swallowed and told him, “I don’t want to get crumbs in your bed.

“I don’t care,” he told me.

“No one wants to sleep in crumbs,” I informed him.

“I’ll brush them out,” he informed me.

I scrunched my face. “Euw. No. In this room, they’ll never be swept up, you’ll be walking all over them, they’ll get in your socks and then you’ll get ants in the summer.”

He was still smiling but his head tilted to the side and he asked, “First,
euw?
”

“Yeah, euw.”

“No one says
euw.
”

“I just said it.”

He kept smiling at me when he replied, “I stand corrected. But I will point out that only a woman with a beautiful face and more hair, all of it gorgeous, than is fair to the rest of the female population on top of a fantastic body, who says my name breathy when she gets hot or she’s in the mood to be sweet, which is often, and sounds even hotter when she comes then gets an unbelievably sexy look in her eyes when she comes down can say
euw.
”

I stared at him actually
feeling
my heart swell.

Then I pulled myself together and noted, “That’s a lot of conditions.”

His eyes held mine and his reply was quiet. “I know.”

Oh my.

To hide the blush I felt creeping up at his compliment, I dipped my chin and reached out to grab a slice of apple.

“Second,” he started and my eyes went back to him. “The crumbs won’t get lost forever. Macy comes every other week to clean the house and do the laundry.”

I tipped my head deeper into my hand. “Macy?”

“My Uncle Olly’s third wife.”

There were only five words there but a lot to go over.

“Uncle Olly?” I prompted.

“Yeah, Uncle Olly. Oliver. Dad was the oldest. Oliver after him. Frank after him and then Charles. They’re all named after famous cowboys.”

Cool.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, Dad’s name is Abel after Abel Pierce. Olly after Oliver Loving. Frank after Frank Eaton and Charlie after Charles Goodnight. Their last names are my Dad and uncles’ middle ones.”

That was still cool even though I had no idea who all those people were.

“I don’t know any of those people,” I confessed.

“Not a lot of people do. Gotta be a cowboy to know cowboys and my Granddad was a definite cowboy.”

That was cool too.

“Are you?”