The Cattleman (Sons of Texas Book 2) (16 page)

She clasped his semi-erect penis, rose to her tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “I’ve been thinking of something even better. For Christmas maybe. Imagine this
”—she squeezed his penis—“enrobed with warm fudge and warm marshmallow sauce. Maybe a ring of pineapple. Whipped cream on top of that.”

His shaft made a little jerk in her hand. “No fun. You get all the goodies.”

“Nuh-unh. I share. I suck it off and transfer bites from my mouth to yours.”

“Keep it up and you’re not gonna make it to church.”

She giggled again. “Promises, promises, promises.”

He parted her labia and gently soaped her sex with his big fingers. “You sore, baby? Did we overdo it?”

Dumb question. Lately, they always overdid it. She felt bruised inside and out. Her breasts were tender to the touch, her nipples red and raw. Pic was a polite and well-mannered man, but he was an animal in bed. Earthy, sensual and uninhibited. A totally alpha male who paid little attention to traditional boundaries. With his naughty banter, soft husky voice, searing looks and knowing mouth, hands and fingers, he had aroused desires she had never known before him and coaxed her into doing things she had never done. He would go—or had gone, she was sure—much farther than she was willing.

“A little,” she answered softly, slithering her soapy hands over his chest and shoulders and on down.

“Damn. You know I don’t mean to make you sore, don’t you?”

She couldn’t criticize. She had been an enthusiastic participant in the almost non-stop sex Friday and Saturday nights. He would never deliberately hurt her, but he outweighed her by at least seventy pounds and was strong as an ox. In critical moments, when they both were so steeped in passion, they lost themselves and had no regard for the consequences of their activity. She couldn’t imagine how a woman who was less athletic than she was could ever keep up with him.
The fact that there had been some was something she didn’t want to think about.

“I’m not complaining, mind you.” She slid her hand down his front and gently soaped his genitals. His penis stretched and swelled. She rose on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his neck. “Are you sore?”

“Yeah. Up in my belly.”

“Are you too sore?”

He bent his knees, gripped her thighs just below her bottom and lifted her. She wrapped her legs and arms around him and hooked her heels under his butt and just like that he was inside her, filling her completely.

“Am I too sore for this?” he huffed, working her up and down, pumping in
side her. “Is that your question?”

The desperate need was already building low in her belly.
His thick erection slammed her clitoris with each stroke. Little sobs came from her throat.

“Come, baby…
Come hard….Give me something to take home with me.”

The convulsions came, hard and profound. She sobbed out and hung on as he
pushed up into her with great grunts, filling her again with his semen.

They held each other under the beating water for long minutes, until the water temperature became tepid. “We’re worse than kids locked up in a candy store,” he mumbled.

“The water’s getting cold,” she murmured against his chest. We should get out.”

He released her
bottom, her feet touched the shower floor and they gradually parted. They stepped out began to dry each other. “We’re gonna kill each other if we don’t get together more often,” he said. He lifted her breast, bent down and kissed her nipple.

Could be
, she thought. For sure, since the span between his visits had grown so much longer, the sex had become hotter and more erotic, as if they couldn’t cram enough emotion and sensation into the short time they had together.

“Hmm. That’s okay with me
,” she said. “I could get used to having you around, you know.”

“But what would we tell the PTA?”

“I’d have to think about that.”

They finished drying each other, with him teasing her with sexy threats, her giggling like a teenager and promising him another blowjob. Not only did she love him madly, everything they did together
, even drying after a shower, was fun.

She left him in the bathroom and hurried to dress. He soon
came out of the bathroom, his face and torso flushed from the hot shower, his hair still damp and combed back, his jaws freshly shaved. He wore nothing but his boxer briefs. Even in a relaxed state, defined pecs clearly showed under a dusting of brown chest hair that made a trail down washboard abs to the waistband of his knit shorts where his genitals were also clearly defined. Her body reacted instinctively. Renewed desire coursed through her. A tingle buzzed through her clitoris.
Stop it, Amanda. You are such a slut.

She sank to the edge of the bed and looked on as he pulled on the Cinch jeans he had worn yesterday. Then, fly undone, his package protruding naturally, he walked over to his duffel, dragged out a folded gray T-shirt and shrugged into it. “You’re
as beautiful as a Greek statue,” she told him, smiling and leaning on her elbow. “I love watching you dress.”

Tucking himself into his jeans and zipping up, he gave her that shy-little-boy look from beneath an arched brow. “Yeah? You wouldn’t be biased, would ya?”

She left her seat on the bed and walked to him, slid her arms around his middle, rose on her tiptoes and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I would be extremely biased.”

He chuckled and kissed her. “What would my poor
ol’ ego do without you?” He set her away and looked her up and down. “Is that a new dress?”

“Actually, it is. I bought it online
.” She turned for his inspection of the summery red and pink floral frock. “It’s my birthday dress. What do you think?”

“Looks good.
Not as good as your birthday
suit
, but hey…”

“You don’t say.
Well, smarty, I can hardly go to church in my birthday suit.” She plucked at the sleeve of the dress. “This is the one I use for going out in public.”

The birthday pendant lay on the dresser. She picked it up and held it for him. “Would you do me?”

“Darlin’, for the rest of my life, I would do you three times a day and twice on Sunday.”

Talk
like this kept her off balance constantly. He never said he loved her and never talked about their future. “Shh. I meant fasten my necklace.”

She gave him her back and he fastened the pendant around her neck. She stepped over to the dresser and checked it the mirror, touched it with her fingertips. “This is so beautiful. It looks great with this dress.
Everyone will be wondering what I did to earn it.

Standing behind her
, also looking at her reflection, he clutched her shoulders and bobbed his eyebrows “Just tell ’em you gave me the best blow job I ever had. Had me squirming and squealing like a stuck pig. That oughtta shut ’em up.”

He gave a heh-heh-heh, leaned down and kissed her neck. Playful Pic. She loved this part of him, too. And she loved his displays of affection.

“Hah. They’re probably already praying for me in church. They’d probably just pray louder. I wonder if the Aileen Johnsons and Charlene Martins of the world even know what a blowjob is.”

“Interesting question.”

He sat down on the edge of the mattress and pulled on his boots, seated each heel one at a time. Then he rose, reached for his pistol holster on the dresser and attached it inside the waistband of his jeans. Every time she saw him do that, a little anxiety skittered through her. He had been carrying it every time she had seen him since Drake and Shannon’s accident in April. The gun itself didn’t worry her. Pic was an expert with guns of all kinds. All of the Lockharts were. And at Blake Rafferty’s recommendation, they had all taken self-defense classes, even Bill Junior.

What kept her anxious was what was going on with the Lockharts. And now a constant reminder—even when Pic and she weren’t together—was the presence of those security guys in those black SUVs. The notion that by extension, the threat against the Lockhart family included her had come to her only gradually.

“Pic, I’ve seen those SUVs around the school when I’ve gone to swim and sometimes the one named Chris comes into the pool house. Do you think they’ll be hanging out there when my classes start?”

“They’re just looking out for you, baby.”

“I really wish he wouldn’t come into the pool house once school starts. He looks so dangerous. He might make some of my girls self-conscious.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“And besides my students, I don’t know what their parents are going to think.”

“The guy’s a military hero. He’s got multiple medals to prove it. What they oughtta think is that their kids are safer than they’ve ever been. But I’ll tell
him to stay out of sight.”

Only a small consolation. She would still know
he—or someone—was there. “I understand. It’s not about him personally. The whole thing makes me nervous.”

“We’re all a little nervous. Just so you’ll know, Dad’s already talked to the
superintendent about it, so he shouldn’t ask you any questions.”

“Oh, great,” Mandy said, not even trying to quell the sarcasm. “Now everyone in town will not only be wondering why I’m suddenly wearing diamonds and rubies, they’ll wonder why I’m being followed by mysterious people in dark cars.”

In the kitchen, she put coffee on to brew, then took toaster pastries out of the freezer. She had no time to cook a breakfast. “Looks like it’s fast food for breakfast,” she said.

“Don’t bother, darlin’. I’ll last ’til I get home.”

But she had already dropped two strawberry-flavored pastries into the toaster.

Half an hour later, they stood just inside the front door saying good-bye. Mandy’s heart hung heavy in her rib cage. That was the way saying good-bye to him left her lately.

Pic’s arms slid around her waist and he pulled her close.

She looked up into his blue eyes. “Thank you again for the birthday present.”

“Don’t forget to tell those biddies at church you earned it.” He chuckled.

They tried to keep their good-byes upbeat.
She tittered as if she were one of her students.

He kissed her, then pressed his forehead to hers. “See you Wednesday?”

July Fourth, and the Lockhart’s annual employee picnic. She had been invited every year since she had started seeing Pic again, although few outsiders were. “I’m planning on it.” They stood in silence, holding each other. Finally, unable to keep up the fun-fun-fun charade, she said, “I’ll miss you.”

“Me, too.”

They kissed again. Then he left.

She stood on her porch and watched him back out of her driveway. He stopped and waved. She wiggled her fingers at him. He changed gears, slowly moved on down the street and she watched until he disappeared from sight and the clatter from his pickup’s diesel engine faded away.

She continued to look down the empty street, pondering their relationship. She touched the pendant around her neck. She didn’t often buy good jewelry, but she did look at it when she was in a store that sold it. This pendant had to have cost a thousand dollars. Maybe more. But she shouldn’t think about the price. He was right. He could afford it.

And he had bought her expensive gifts before, like the diamond studs he gave her for her birthday a year ago. He had bought them, too, at Melville’s, the
Fort Worth store where Bill Junior had bought Betty a fortune in diamonds and other precious stones. Amanda didn’t know the karat weight of the earrings, but they were larger than a pencil eraser. So large, in fact, that she had told everyone they were CZs rather than endure the gasping and wowing she knew would come if she told the admirers they were diamonds. Never mind that everyone, despite what she told them, knew they were diamonds because they had come from Pic.

Then there was the pair of cowboy boots he had given her for Christmas, for which he had paid $1,200. Every time she wore them, she thought about
the irony of wearing $1,200 boots with her $19.95 Walmart jeans. She and Pic even joked about it sometimes, after which, he usually offered to buy her more expensive jeans. And they laughed about that, too.

During this visit,
they couldn’t have been more intimate, but the feeling that they hadn’t connected sat like a big black cloud inside her rib cage.

Frustrated and hot—the temperature was already pushing ninety—she sighed and re-entered her house. If she didn’t hurry, she would be late for church. As she straightened the kitchen, her thoughts traveled back to Friday. Pic had been in such a state when he had first arrived. The sex had been raw and desperate. Apparently, she liked raw and desperate because she had wantonly enjoyed it. After the pizza, they had gone back to bed, ostensibly to watch a movie, and made love off and on all night.

A sense of loneliness came over her, an emotion out of the ordinary. Until recent months, she hadn’t felt so glum after he left. They always parted on a pleasant note. She had numerous waiting chores that she neglected during his visits. And she had his next visit to look forward to.