Texas Kissing (9 page)

...and yet I hadn’t stopped thinking about her in three days.

I kicked the fence, being careful not to spook the horse. I still couldn’t believe I’d pushed Kirsten away. Was I
nuts?
Kirsten, with her tight little body and that way she had of riding me, circling her hips like a goddamn belly dancer and gripping me between her thighs like I was a bronco trying to throw her off. We’d go like that for hours, out in the barn of her dad’s huge ranch, both of us bathed in sweat and her hair gleaming in the evening sun. Just the thought of her cute, perky breasts was enough to get me hard.

Or it had been, until Lily. Now, Kirsten didn’t interest me. I’d always loved that toned, tanned stomach with its little silver and diamond navel stud, displayed so proudly in crop tops and tied shirts. But now all I could think about was uncovering the creamy curves under Lily’s clothes. I wanted to strip her, slowly and carefully, exposing her inch by inch until she was nude. And then I wanted to run my hands all over her, cupping her shoulders, rubbing up and down her spine, stroking the outside and then the inside of her thighs until I knew every damn part of her, until she trembled and moaned under my touch.

I sighed at the horse and pulled the rope taut between my hands. “Now, are you going to cooperate?”

The horse stared back at me. If it could have raised an eyebrow, it would have.

Lily sure as hell wouldn’t cooperate. Part of me wanted to teach her a lesson—tie her and pull her over my knee and spank her ass until it glowed red and then roughly fuck her into submission. But she’d have to be into it, of course.

God, imagine if she was. The world stopped for fully five seconds as my mind turned over the possibilities.

No. She was way too innocent for that kinky shit. And right now, I’d take missionary position with the lights off, I was so hard for that girl.

I climbed up on the fence and put a comforting hand on the horse’s jaw. “How about we start over?” I said. “I’m Bull. I’m going to ride you. We can do it the hard way or the easy way, but I’m going to break you, no matter what.”

Dealing with horses really isn’t that complicated. Gentleness and force—it’s just a matter of using the right combination. Too gentle and you don’t make any progress. Too strong and you’ll scare them.

I stood there staring at the horse for a moment. It’d been three days. Maybe it was time to try again with Lily...but this time, with a gentler approach.

I don’t do
gentle.
Not with women. Some guys are all poetic:
starlight
this and
tranquil
that. I’ve never been much good with words.

But maybe it was time to start.

I pointed at the horse. “Don’t you go nowhere,” I warned. And pulled out my phone.

Lily

I’d spent three days making passports and determinedly not thinking about him. Then, that morning, the air conditioning had gone on the fritz, so I was busy fixing it. I do my own maintenance, not because I enjoy it or I like the challenge but because I can’t have a maintenance guy poking around the bus and discovering tens of thousands of dollars worth of fake documents.

Because fixing the air conditioning meant digging into the bowels of the bus, from the inside, in July,
without a/c,
I’d taken most of my clothes off. I had the blinds drawn anyway to keep the worst of the sun out, so I figured it didn’t matter.

That’s why, when the phone rang, I was inside a claustrophobic crawl space, on all fours in my bra and panties, trying to keep the sweat out of my eyes while I tightened a loose hose. I listened to the ring tone and frowned, confused.

I have several phones on the go at any one time, “burners” I can use for business and periodically throw away. I color-code them with electrical tape.

Except this wasn’t the green phone I used to call the Mexicans, or the red one I used to call the Japanese, or even the blue one I used to call the Russians. This was the plain, boring one without any tape on at all. The one I kept for my normal, non-business life.

The one that never rang.

I backed out of the crawl space and grabbed the phone, expecting it to be a telemarketer. “Hello?”

“Been thinking about you,” said a deep Texas rumble. I almost dropped the phone. “How did you get this number?” I said when I’d recovered.

“Well now
there’s
a story. I had to do a whole heap of calling around. Eventually, I got it from Greta, at the library. I figured you probably read.”

“She shouldn’t have given that out! That’s confidential!”

“I threw myself on her mercy. I told her I wanted to woo you.”

“
Woo
me? That’s what you call it?”

“She’s eighty-three, Lily. What did you want me to say, that I want to rip off your panties and fuck you until you bite my shoulder?”

The phone slipped out of my hand and I fumbled it three times before I got it to my ear again. “Why are you calling?” I asked, my face scarlet.

“I wondered if you wanted to drop by the stables?” he said. “See the horses?”

“I don’t like horses,” I said.

“Who doesn’t like
horses?”

I tried to put into words why I didn’t like them, but it sounded stupid in my head. So I just said, “Me.”

“So don’t come for the horses.”

“Why else would I come?”

Silence. A deep, hot, throbbing silence. I swallowed.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “What are you wearing?”

That goddamn voice—dust and sweat and whisky-raw heat. It twisted deep into my mind and made me go mushy inside.

I looked down at my bra and panties. I was still on all fours. “I’m baking cookies,” I said. “Double-chocolate. And I’m in a summer dress.”

“I
love
cookies,” he said. “Bring some with you.”

“Oh no, I’ve irretrievably burned them.”

“I don’t think you’re baking at all.”

“I have to go. I have work to do.”

“You want to know what I think you’re doing?” he asked.

“Not especially.”

“I bet you’re still in bed. Lying on your back.”

I looked down at my tools and oil-covered hands. “Not even close.”

“On your knees, then. No, wait—on all fours.”

I swallowed. “No.”
Goddamn, that voice.

“I bet you’re thinking about me.” Each word was like dark, sweet molasses. “My hands on your hips.”

“No.”

“Rubbing you with my thumbs. Drawing your panties down your thighs….”

“I’m hanging up the phone now,” I said, not hanging up the phone.

“Pushing your knees apart a little, so I can get my head between your thighs.”

I stopped talking.

“Can you feel my breath on you right now, Lily? My hot breath right on your pussy?”

I bit my lip.

“Are you getting wet for me? Ready for me? Are you touching yourself?”

I jumped to my feet. “Goodbye, Bull.”

“Come to the stables,” he rumbled. “The Hollister ranch.”

“
Goodbye!”

I ended the call and just stood there for a second. I was panting and flushed, my hair sticking to my forehead. Well, the air conditioning was broken. That’s all it was.

Then I spotted it in the mirror—a big, dirty oil mark on the front of my panties. I looked down at my oil-covered fingers.

Goddamn
that man.

Lily

By the time I’d showered, changed and driven out to the Hollister ranch, it was late afternoon but the temperature had barely dropped. My car had air conditioning but, outside, I knew the hood was probably hot enough to burn skin. The bone-dry weather had left the dirt road billowing with dust. My Toyota was reliable as hell but I still winced at the amount of sandy grit that was getting into the engine. I needed my car to work and not just for going to the store. At the back of my mind, there was always the knowledge that, one day, I might need to run.

I kept telling myself that this was just something friendly. That it was to stop me turning into a hermit, and was nothing to do with the oily finger marks on the front of my panties, or the dream I’d had about him. I’d see the goddamn horses, chat with him and leave. That’s it.

When I pulled up outside the stables, a ranch hand was leaning against the wall. A good-looking guy with soft, black hair and snaking tribal tattoos visible under his shirt sleeves. “I’m looking for Bull?” I said as I got out.

The ranch hand nodded with just a trace of a smirk.

“He’s a friend,” I said quickly. I didn’t want him thinking I was one of Bull’s casual flings. Would he think that anyway? I didn’t look like those girls I’d seen at Lucky Pete’s….

But the ranch hand just nodded again. “Inside,” he said, nodding towards the gloomy interior. “Have fun.” And he started to amble off.

“Thank you,” I called after him.

“Don’t get too sore,” he threw over his shoulder.

“W—
What?”
I felt my face go beet-red.

He stopped. “Don’t get too sore,” he repeated.

I just stared at him in horror.

He frowned. “You can get sore, you know, if you’re not used to it. Some girls come out here and they can barely walk the next day.”

Jesus Christ!
I was going to kill Bull! Had he boasted to everyone that he was going to—”I’m sure I’ll be fine, thank you,” I told him.

“Oh. Okay.” He grinned. “Just that Bull said he thought it was your first time.”

I lost the capacity to speak. I knew guys boasted to each other about sex, but we hadn’t even done anything yet. And to just presume that I was a—

I snapped.

“I am
not a virgin!”
I said loudly. “I’m quite experienced and I doubt that Bull’s as big as everyone claims so I’m sure I’ll be just fine,
thank you.”

“Your first time
on a horse
,” said the ranch hand, straight-faced. “Bull said he was taking you riding.”

I flailed around for a response but I knew there was no hope. Inside, all my hot anger was evaporating while my humiliation doubled,
tripled.
Only now, I couldn’t blame it on Bull.

Wait...yes I could. This was completely his fault. He’d dragged me out here to this place and seeded my mind with filth—all those wisecracks about the size of his cock and that phone call and...he’d as good as forced me to jump to the wrong conclusion.

I nodded a stiff
thank you
to the ranch hand and marched into the stables...and stopped in my tracks.

Bull was there, stripped to the waist and leaning over a horse trough as he washed himself. It was dim, inside the stables, most of the light coming from tiny cracks in the ceiling and walls that sent a hundred blades of gold through the room, freezing dust motes in midair. Water cascaded down his naked torso, freezing mountain streams winding down his sun-warmed body. They flowed around the smooth, hard hillocks of his shoulders and biceps. They rippled over the angled ridges of his abs and followed the lines down towards the bulge between his legs, the water falling like rain just before it reached his jeans.