Saddles and Sin, page 10
“No, it’s what’s going to make us amazing,” he said, relieved when her lips curved slightly at the edges. “Grab a water from the cooler and hang out in the shade.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”
And then he turned and jogged to his ATV, knowing the only reason he would ever run away from Marisol was so he could come running back to her that much faster.
CHAPTER TEN
Fairytales didn’t begin this way.
The heroines of romantic stories didn’t spend their first date with the hero neutering cattle—working hard, sweating harder, and fending off flies. Happily ever after didn’t start with the princess covered in dust¸ or end with riding into the sunset on a four-wheeler.
Marisol knew all of these things, but as she clung to Robert’s waist, hanging on tight as he steered the ATV up a steep dirt trail into the mountains, it was all she could do to keep a goofy smile from her face. She didn’t care if they were both filthy, she loved the feel of her breasts pressed against his sweat-damp tee shirt, and his strong thighs nestled against her own. It felt so right to be with him like this, so good to give in, and stop fighting all the things she felt for him.
It felt better than good. It felt…magical.
The frightened voices inside of her were screaming that she knew better than to believe in magic, but right now all she could hear were the whispers from her heart that said there was no reason to be afraid. The way Robert touched her, the way he kissed her, the way he helped her off the four-wheeler once they’d stopped in a grove of live oaks, all communicated that this thing growing between them was something he intended to handle with care.
“You ready to get clean?” he asked, pressing a kiss to her cheek that sent a wave of longing shooting through her, tightening things low in her body.
Even his sweet kisses made her ache for more, and she seriously doubted their afternoon would be ending with anything as innocent as a shower. For the first time in two years she was going to feel her skin bare against someone else’s, feel warm, calloused hands roaming over her body, and look into a man’s eyes as he pushed inside of her. And that man would be Robert, the sexiest, kindest, most patient person she’d ever met, and she had no idea how to handle sex with a man like him.
She was used to men wanting her, but she wasn’t used to being handled with care or affection, and didn’t know how to respond to the warmth in Robert’s eyes. The jaded part of her wanted to tell him he shouldn’t look at her like that, because she wasn’t special enough to deserve it, but the hopeful part of her wanted to beg him never to stop. That part wanted to gaze into his eyes for hours, days, however long it took for her to believe he wasn’t crazy, and this fairytale was as real as all the nightmares she’d lived through.
“What are you thinking?” he asked in a hushed voice, when the silence stretched between them for long minutes, broken only by birdsong high in the trees and the rush of leaves rustling in the wind.
“I thought only women asked that question,” she said with a smile.
“I’m in touch with my feminine side.” His fingers dug into her hips through her jeans, sending another jolt of arousal zinging through her as she imagined what it would feel like when there were no clothes to separate her skin from his touch. “So are you going to tell me, or not?”
She licked her lips, wishing she were brave enough to tell him she was touched by the reflection of herself she saw in his eyes, but she wasn’t there yet. “I was thinking about that shower you promised. And how I doubt we’re going to find a bathroom in the middle of the desert.”
“Ye of little faith.” He smiled, that smitten grin that threatened to make the caterpillars spinning cocoons in her belly burst free and take flight. “Don’t you trust me?”
“More than I’ve trusted anyone in forever,” she said, the truth spilling out with an ease only magic could make possible.
Robert’s smile faded as he cupped her cheek in his palm, obviously understanding trust was a Very Big Deal in her world. “And I’m going to make sure you don’t regret it, starting with letting you go first in the shower.”
“I thought we were going in together,” she said, heart skipping a beat as he took her hand and led the way down a deer trail through the trees.
“I want to take care of you first.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I think you deserve a little pampering after all the hard work you did this afternoon.”
“I don’t know,” she said, nerves returning with a vengeance as they moved through the woods and presumably closer to where this shower—and all the rest of it—was going to happen. “I’m not really the pampering type. I wouldn’t even get manicures if I didn’t have to shake hands with people all the time.”
“What about massages?” Robert asked, ducking under a limb. “How do you feel about those?”
Marisol swallowed, the thought of his hands massaging her bare skin making her throat tight. “I-I don’t know. I’ve never had one.”
Robert grunted and cast a disapproving look over his shoulder. “Are you kidding me? What kind of assholes have you been dating?”
“Well, I haven’t been dating anyone for…” Her words faded away as they turned a corner in the trail and a pool of deep blue water surrounded by golden stones came into view. It was sheltered on one side by the sheer rock face of a bluff and most of the pool looked nature made, but the closest side had steps carved into the rocks leading into the water and a wide flat stone pulled to the edge that looked perfect for sunbathing.
Robert backed toward the pool, watching her face as he pulled her closer. “What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, skin prickling as she imagined how good it would feel to sink beneath the surface and feel all the sweat and stickiness of the day drift away. “Did you carve the steps?”
“No, my dad and his friends did back when they were in high school,” Robert said, setting the duffel bag down on the flat rock near the entrance to the pool. “But I rigged up the shower over there.” He pointed to a large plastic drum attached to thick wooden poles that had been hammered into the ground about ten feet from the edge of the pool.
“There’s another, smaller spring a little ways up the bluff,” he said, motioning to a narrow trail leading around one side of the steep rock. “All I have to do is climb up and divert the water so it flows into the drum, and in ten minutes we’ll have enough water for a shower.”
Marisol's eyebrows crept higher on her forehead. “I’m impressed. Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Oh, lots of things. Better not get started with that list or we’ll be here all day.” He shrugged, but she could tell he was enjoying the chance to show off his invention. “We used to wash up in the pool when we were out camping or on a drive, but soap isn’t good for the water, or the animals who drink here when there are no people around. With the shower, the soap gets washed off down the other side of the hill and doesn’t run back into the pool. Cole and John thought I was crazy when I first built the thing, but now they use it all the time.”
Marisol nodded thoughtfully. “So your family is open to change, even if they’re resistant at first. Maybe your mom will be okay with your music career, too. Once she gets used to the idea.”
“Maybe.” Robert nodded, but he didn’t look overly optimistic. “But right now, I’d rather think about your first massage. Why don’t you grab the beach towel from the bag and spread it out on that rock closest to the pool. I’ll run up and get the water situation sorted out and be right back.”
“You don’t have to give me a massage,” she said, heart beating faster. “Really, I—”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to,” he said in a husky tone. “Spread out the towel, take off as many clothes as you’re comfortable taking off, and get settled. I’ll be right back.”
Marisol watched Robert disappear around the side of the bluff, up another trail, a mixture of panic and arousal flooding through her veins. She stepped out of her boots and pulled off her socks, but panic won out as she reached for the hem of her tee shirt.
She craved Robert’s hands on her as much as she craved that shower he’d promised, but she was also anxious about an impending sexual encounter in a way she hadn’t been since high school. But then this wasn’t just a casual hook-up, or a way to ease the loneliness for an hour or two before it inevitably came rushing back. This was the first time with a man she cared about, someone she hoped would stick around after the role-playing was over and the blindfolds removed. And it had been ages since she’d been with anyone—long, lonely years that had made her as guarded with her body as she was with her heart.
What if her protective shell had calcified and there would be no breaking free? What if she would forever be denied a meaningful connection with another human being simply because she’d done too damned good a job at walling herself away in her tower?
For the first time since she and Robert left the ranch, Marisol could see this fairytale afternoon ending badly. The curse would never be broken, the princess would never wake up, and the prince would go on to find a woman with a less complicated back story and no skeletons lurking in her closets.
At that moment, with a wave of fear bearing down on her, Marisol stopped hearing the whispers of her heart. She stopped hearing anything but the voices that assured her this was never going to work, and it was only a matter of time before Robert figured out she wasn’t worth the trouble and the warmth vanished from his eyes.
The voices sounded like her parents and Shane and all the old high school “friends” who had called her a whore behind her back long before there was any reason for the gossip that followed her around school. The voices were so loud, so vicious, that Marisol didn’t realize she was crying until a tear fell to the dry earth by her feet, and didn’t hear Robert returning until he was standing in front of her, drawing her into his arms.
“Shhh,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asked, voice thick with tears as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his tee shirt. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But I obviously don’t know how to do this right,” he said, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back that helped her regain control. “I made you cry.”
“You didn’t make me cry.” She tilted her head back to meet his gaze, fighting to keep her face from crumpling all over again. “I made me cry. My stupid head and thoughts and…other stupid things.”
Robert smiled faintly as he brushed the tears from her face with his thumbs. “I hate stupid things. Tell the stupid things to give you a break.”
Marisol shook her head. “I don’t know if they will. And I don’t know if I can do this. I want to, I really do, but I—”
“And that’s all I care about.” Robert tugged gently at her hair band until her ponytail came undone, sending her hair falling around her shoulders. “You don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is relax, and let me do the heavy lifting this time around.”
Her lips parted, but before she could say a word, he’d leaned down and claimed her mouth with the same assurance he had last Saturday, the night everything between them had started to change. His tongue pressed against her teeth and she opened for him without a hint of resistance, because when it came to this man, the last thing she wanted to do was resist. She wanted to let go, let loose, and let hope sweep in and shove fear back into the corner where it belonged.
Now, with Robert close and his taste in her mouth and his hands skimming up and down her ribs, making her blood pump faster, she found the strength to push the darkness away. She dug her fingers into the thick muscles of his back and held on tight to what she wanted, what she needed so desperately that she was trembling by the time he pulled away to tug her tee shirt up and over her head in one swift motion.
Marisol sucked in a surprised breath as the fabric floated free, but before a coherent thought could form, she was back in Robert’s arms, being swept off her feet. He sat down on the rock beside the pool, stretching out onto his back, urging her on top of him as he moved. She was aware of the way the sun-warmed stones heated her bare arms and felt a momentary flash of concern for how uncomfortable the hard rock must be against Robert’s spine, but then he cupped her breasts in his hands and she lost awareness of everything but the electricity he sent coursing through her body.
Even through the thin cotton of her bra, his touch was enough to turn her insides molten and send a heavy, achy feeling spreading through her core. He popped the clasp and stripped her bra down her arms a moment later, making her nipples pull into tight points that begged for his attention. Then he captured her ribs in his big hands, and lifted her into the air, up to his mouth, and she could do nothing but moan as he made her feel things she’d forgotten she knew how to feel.
He pulled first one nipple into his mouth and then the other, licking and sucking and nipping at her flesh with his teeth until her womb contracted with sharp twists and heat rushed from between her thighs. She braced her hands on his shoulders and arched her back, crying out as he slowly drove her crazy, all while supporting the entire weight of her upper body with an ease that made her viscerally aware of how strong he was.
Robert had at least thirty pounds of pure muscle on any man she’d ever been with, but the way he touched her made her feel safe, sheltered from the world and anything that would try to hurt her. By the time he reached for the close of her jeans, her fear had faded to a dull drone, barely audible over the desire roaring in her veins. By the time he stripped her jeans down her legs, her fear had vanished and Marisol couldn’t get out of the last of her clothes fast enough.
She reached for the top of her panties, but Robert stopped her with a hand around her wrist.
“I want to undress you,” he said, rolling them over until she lay beneath him and the warmth of the wide stone soaked through her skin. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel the slightest bit of discomfort from the rock pressing against her shoulders and tailbone, but then again, she was too distracted by the sight of Robert drawing back to strip his shirt up and over his head to pay attention to anything but how breathtaking he looked half naked.
His chest was every bit as beautiful as her brief glimpses in backstage dressing rooms had led her to believe, but he was no cookie cutter hunk of man meat. He was unique, purely Robert, and she knew she would never forget this first glimpse of him. She reached up, running her hands reverently over his bare skin. One of his rounded pecs sat a little higher than the other, and where his abdominal muscles divided into sharply delineated segments, the slight asymmetry continued. He didn’t have as much hair on his chest as she would have guessed, but the slight dusting across his pectoral muscles felt delicious under her fingertips and she couldn’t keep her eyes from dropping to the trail of brown hair disappearing into the top of his jeans, where a thick bulge left no doubt as to the way she affected him.
“You keep looking at me like that, and I’m not going to be able to go slow,” Robert said in a rough voice that made Marisol’s nipples pull almost painfully tight.
“You don’t have to go slow,” she said, letting her fingers trail lower, raking her fingernails lightly over the hard ridge beneath his jeans, shivering when the movement summoned a groan from low in his throat. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
“I’m not even close,” he said, capturing her wrists in his hands and pinning them gently to the stone above her head. “I haven’t kissed you everywhere I want to kiss you yet.”
“I don’t need any more kisses.” She looped her legs around his waist, flexing her muscles until his cock rubbed against where she was aching for him. “God, you feel so good.”
“And you drive me crazy. Fuck, Marisol, you make me feel like I’m fifteen again.” He ground against her, hips rocking back and forth, fucking her through their clothes as he captured her mouth in a brutal, sanity-stealing kiss.
The denim of his jeans was rough against her delicate flesh, even through her underwear, but it felt too good to want to stop. She wanted more, harder, faster. Her tongue sparred eagerly with his as she bucked into his thrusts, the tension building inside of her tightening a little more each time they connected. Tighter, tighter, until she was gasping for breath between kisses, the world was spinning, and she was seconds away from coming without penetration, without his hand between her legs, without anything but the two of them dry-humping like teenagers.
“Yes, please,” she begged as she neared the edge, fingernails digging into the sweat-damp flesh of his back. She was seconds away from shattering into a thousand beautiful pieces when he pressed a kiss to the skin just beneath her ear and pulled away.
“No, please, I… Oh, yes…” Her protest became a moan of pleasure as Robert’s hand slipped down the front of her panties and his thick fingers drove inside where she was slick and aching.
He wasn’t gentle, but she was so wet she didn’t care. She relished the firm way he handled her, driving into her with long, demanding strokes, pushing deeper, harder, until he hit that place inside of her that sent her desire spiraling even higher. She cried out and he made a wild, hungry sound in response that made her blood pressure spike and the world spin.
“I love the sounds you make,” he growled against her neck, his voice deeper than she’d ever heard it. “I love the way you’re dripping all over my hand. I can’t wait to make you come so hard you forget anyone ever fucked you but me.”
Marisol made a desperate mewling sound, clinging to him as his tempo between her legs increased, shamelessly grinding against his hand, knowing he wouldn’t judge her, that he only wanted to make her feel good, beautiful, worthy of the pleasure he wanted to give her.
“Are you going to come for me, Marisol?” he asked, his thumb finding her clit and rubbing it in assured circles as his fingers continued to drive inside her. “I want you to come on my hand before I fuck you with my tongue. But you’d better hurry because I can’t wait to taste you, I want my tongue so deep in your pussy I can’t—”
