Texas Kissing (12 page)

“It’s beautiful,” she said as the sun sank below the horizon.

It’s the second most beautiful thing I’ve seen tonight.
I wanted to say it so much my damn chest ached.

But I couldn’t, even though it was true. It’d sound like I was teasing her again or, if she realized I was serious...I’d have no idea what the fuck to say next. I’ve never been any good with words, except when I’m kidding around. That’s what I am—
who
I am.

I’m called Bull, for Chrissakes. What do you want?

So instead, I pulled out my phone. “Let me take a picture of you,” I said.

She twisted around to look at me. “What? Why?”

“So I have something to come up on the screen when you call me.”

“Who says I’m going to call you?”

I sighed. “To remember you by, then.” I nodded at the sun. The last sliver of it was just disappearing. “C’mon, it’ll look great - you on a horse, the sunset behind you—”

She shook her head. “I don’t like people taking photos of me.”

“Why?”

She didn’t answer, just tossed the reins. Caliope started the long walk home.

I shoved my phone back into my pocket, annoyed. Was this because she was a little bigger than other girls? She seemed
self-conscious about her size...but this felt like something more. She’d looked almost scared.

She barely spoke as we rode home. The sky darkened to blue and then to black and a thousand pinpricks of light started to appear overhead. But my eyes were firmly fixed on Lily as she rode ahead of me. My frustration started to build. There’d been so many
almosts,
that afternoon, so many moments when something had nearly happened...but she’d backed away at the last moment.

Well, no more. I’d tried taking it slowly.

When we got back to the stables, playtime was over.

Lily

I was getting used to the horse. Part of me was wondering,
what was I ever scared of?

And part of me was wondering that about Bull, as well. I’d seen another side to him. One that went beyond the teasing and cocky arrogance. One that I liked.

For a moment, when we’d been watching the sunset side by side, I’d had the overwhelming urge to stretch my hand out towards him to see if he’d take it. And then….

And then what? Suddenly, the past rose up out of the blackness to meet me and all of my childish, happy dreams were rammed aside.
And then he’d kiss me and it would be cherry blossoms and fireflies? Is that what you thought?

I closed my eyes for a moment and cursed myself for being a selfish bitch. I’d been dangerously close to making an awful mistake. Jesus, we hadn’t even kissed yet and already he wanted to take my picture! What secrets would he find out in a day or a week or a month? And even if I could keep him oblivious to my past and my work, that didn’t put him in any less danger. Just being with me meant that, one day, he could wind up like Annette.

The memories came swimming back. Her eyes. Those beautiful cornflower blue eyes, pleading with me—

I gripped the reins harder, trying to control my breathing.
One one thousand.

The pills rolling around in her mouth—

My vision swam with tears.
Two one thousand.

Water spilling down her chin—

Three one thousand.

The counting trick finally worked and I managed to force the memories back down into the depths of my mind. But I knew they could come swimming back up at any time.

The problem with having no life is that there’s nothing to fill your head up with—no friends or laughs or pizza or running jokes about cats. Just a void. It acts like a vacuum, sucking at the door to your memories.

I tried to keep that void filled with work and staying organized. Being the best at what I did. But sometimes it was barely enough.

And now there was someone,
right there
, who could be in my life. Someone who seemed to like me, even though he barely knew me and I was being cagey as hell with him.

I felt myself wavering again. A tiny, stubborn part of myself screamed that it wasn’t so much to ask: to wake up in the middle of the night because you heard a noise and
just once
not to be all on your own.

And then I clamped down on the feelings, sniffed and rode on. I figured the night air would dry my eyes by the time we hit the stables.

***

I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, as we rode the rest of the way home, that I didn’t notice the change until it was far too late. Not until we’d dismounted and he was showing me how to brush Caliope down.

His hand closed over mine as I held the brush, taking me through the brush strokes, and suddenly my heart was in my throat. I couldn’t think, could barely breathe. He kept his hand on mine for far longer than necessary. When he looked up and our eyes met, I went weak inside because it was obvious he knew exactly what he was doing and what effect it was having.

That’s when I became aware of it. There was a feeling in the air like just before a storm. It was thick and charged with emotion—every word was loaded, every glance powerful.

I tried to remember how I’d felt on the ride home. How determined I’d been to politely say goodbye and head home, to end this whole thing right then and there. Suddenly, it didn’t feel that simple.

Bull went to brush down Apollo, watching me over the horse’s back the whole time, and I just stood there, my hands knitting together nervously. It was the perfect time to walk away. But I stayed there, rooted to the spot.

He finished up and slowly walked towards me. The air was almost crackling, now, every little hair on the back of my neck standing to attention.
What’s going on? Why am I suddenly…

And then I worked out what it was. Before, when I’d found him annoying, that had helped to hold back the other feelings. Now that I liked him, now that we were alone, in this dark, private place….

There was nothing to hold me back.

My brain told me, firmly,
no.

But I swallowed and stayed right where I was.

Bull marched past me and over to the door that led outside; a big wooden thing with an old-fashioned iron bolt. “I should close up, now,” he said.

We stared at each other. I went to say
goodbye
but the word died in my throat. I tried to take a step towards the door, but my feet wouldn’t move.

He tilted his head to one side. “Don’t play fucking games with me, Lily,” he said. “You’ve run away from me enough times. Don’t start what you can’t finish.”

I swallowed.

And nodded.

And watched as he closed the door and bolted it, locking us inside.

When he walked back towards me, he seemed even bigger—a giant. The crunch of the hay under his boots was shockingly loud. He came right up in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body. My breathing grew high and tight.

“Lily,” he said, the word just a low rumble in his throat. The sound vibrated against my mind and then sank all the way down my body leaving a trail of heat behind it.

I have to do something. I have to do something right now or this is going to happen and that’s going to be a mistake.

He leaned forward.

“I can’t,” I croaked.

“I don’t care,” he said simply and moved in again.

“I can’t get involved with you,” I said quickly.

Suddenly, his big hands were on my face, cupping my cheeks. He gazed down into my eyes. “Lily,” he said, “if you give me one more goddamn excuse I’m just going to kiss my way right through it. Do you understand me?”

I just looked up at him, open-mouthed.

He moved in again.

“But I—”

His lips crushed against mine and the next word turned into
mmff!
And then I forgot what I was going to say anyway.

It was as if I’d touched a live wire. I wasn’t ready for the raw, hot throb of it, shooting down from my lips to right where I lived. It made me arch my back and gasp, sucking his mouth even more firmly against mine. This wasn’t like any kiss I’d known back in New York. This was Texas kissing, hot and wild and rough, his lips pressing,
demanding,
taking what he damn well wanted. He twisted and pushed and then his tongue was plunging into my mouth and his possession of me was complete.

I staggered backward—not because I wanted to get away but because my legs started to give way beneath me. It felt so fucking good, all the better for having been missing from my life for so long. He moved with me, his hands grabbing my waist to hold me up. One step, two steps
,
and then my back hit the hard wood of the wall and he had me pinned against it, my head tilted up to meet his.

He kept one hand on my waist, the heat of his palm throbbing into me through my blouse. The other he slid up my body...over my stomach, up to—
Jesus—
up to my breast. I went up on my tiptoes, groaning through the kiss as he cupped my breast through the thin cotton, squeezing it gently. I could feel the slow, wonderful ache as my nipple hardened under his touch.

When he broke the kiss, my breath came out in a long, drawn out moan. I blinked up at him helplessly. The look he gave me sent a whipcrack straight down to my groin—naked, raw lust, as if he was barely able to keep himself under control. Jesus, was
I
doing that to him?

He captured my mouth again, tilting my head up even more, kissing my upper lip, and then sucking it into his mouth so that I was left open-mouthed and panting. He used his kiss to keep me against the wall while his hands roved over my body. They started at my hips, stroking the curves of them, then over my sides, making me tremble and gasp, before sliding under my breasts. He took both of them in his hands and, this time, his thumbs rubbed roughly over my nipples. I groaned into his mouth.

When he lifted his mouth from mine, his eyes were heavy-lidded with hunger—he looked almost drunk with lust. I’d never had a man look at me that way before and something about it sent a new wave of heat through me, pooling at my groin.

My brain was still fighting a valiant rearguard action, despite every other part of my body having surrendered. “We shouldn’t,” I said, my voice sounding very far away. “We mustn’t—”

He leaned in closer and just
looked
at me.

I swallowed and my protests died away.

His mouth came down on me again, tasting me and then devouring me utterly. One hand slid like a knife blade between my thighs and I shrieked in surprise and squeezed them shut...then slowly let them open. He pressed upward until the edge of his hand met the softness of my pussy lips through denim and cotton. And then he rubbed.

I grabbed at his arms with both hands. My fingers closed on biceps that felt like rock, and I let out a little moan and went weak again. Every grind of his hand against my groin sent dark heat rippling through me. I could feel myself getting wet, on the other side of the fabric.

He twisted his hand and drew it up over my crotch and I arched my back and pressed helplessly, wantonly against him, desperate to maintain contact for as long as possible. He lifted his mouth from mine as his hands went to my shoulders. He started massaging them, squeezing and releasing with his powerful fingers.

It took me a couple of seconds to realize that he was doing it to help him hold back. He was occupying his hands to prevent him...

“Undo your goddamn blouse,” he panted.

...to prevent him from ripping it off!

My fingers felt as if they were made of wax. They kept slipping on the buttons, but I managed to push the first one through its hole, then another and another. I felt his eyes on my breasts, drinking in the sight of them as they appeared.

I was arching my back a little, unconsciously grinding my hips in response to him touching me. So, as I unfastened the buttons, my bra-clad breasts jutted through the opening, my skin pale in the stable’s dim light. Bull groaned as he saw the soft upper slopes. A tremor went all the way down my body.
What if he doesn’t like me?