Asha King (13 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Maybe I shouldn’t have been teasing him
.

He’d been in a mood earlier and after pushing and pushing him, she half expected he was going to leave her strung up like that, half naked and waiting. Some relief touched her when she heard the crackle of what she assumed was a condom wrapper—so he
was
going to fuck her instead of leave her there.

Dani looked straight ahead again, hands wrapping around the rope just above them. Of course, tugging did no good—it was made for horses who had a lot more strength than she did.

Just as her lips parted to snark at him, his hand came down flat on her ass.

The sound of the slap echoed in the dusty room. Her back arched and she gasped, hot pleasure-pain radiating.

He said nothing, waiting, perhaps to gauge her reaction, perhaps to tease her.

Dani grinned. “That all you got?”

Again, his hand came down on her other cheek. She moaned, pulling on her bindings and tipping her head back. Moisture pooled between her legs and her chest heaved, nipples pebbling and craving attention.

Three more slaps came, each seeming to send heat directly to her pussy and leaving her thrashing in ecstasy. She imagined her ass was red with palm prints crisscrossing her flesh. Sweat slithered down her brow, twining with her hair, as she waited.

Then she felt him against her, warm, soothing the stinging, soft. His cock pressed between the cheeks of her ass.

“How’s that, princess?” he whispered against her ear.

She moaned and panted. “I want you.”

Hands dragged around her front and her eyes closed, drinking in all the sensations. He lifted her shirt and bra, claiming her breast roughly as fingers descended to cup her mound. Her hips worked against his hand, rocking. For a moment he let her, doing nothing to assist as her frustration worked into a growl, then his hand glided lower, finger slipping between her folds. Her legs parted as wide as they could with the jeans around her thighs, and he took the invitation by thrusting two fingers inside her.

God, yes
. She bit her lip to stifle a cry, sucking in a breath.

He worked her breast with the same rhythm he used below, kneading her flesh, squeezing her nipple, and urging her into a frenzy. “You’re the one who assured me everyone was far away and busy. Why so quiet?”

“I-I told you...” A shudder rolled through her feeling his lips mouth her ear. “I can get loud.”

“Then scream for me.”

She did.

She let go then, allowing the rope that stretch her arms help keep her upright, and gave in to his every touch. When he abandoned her breast again to slap her ass, she screamed his name, not giving a damn who might hear. His thumb pressed against her clit, setting the tight bundle of nerves there alight, and she bucked wildly against him. Tingles built and she exploded, half crying, half sobbing, stars playing over her eyes and half certain she was about to pass out.

Just as her orgasm crested, he slipped his fingers out and plunged his cock in to the hilt, forcing her to ride the waves with him. She had no time to fall, no time to rest, when he was pistoning his hips against her. His hand came up to knot in her hair and turn her head. When his mouth met hers, she kissed him back, yielding, opening to him.

Perhaps sensing her weakness and exhaustion, he reached up to loosen the rope around her wrists and Dani sank against him, still feeling him thick and hard locked inside her. They fell to the floor, her hands bracing on the dusty cement, stray bits of hay biting into her knees. He grasped her hips, fingers digging deep, and pumped into her, again and again. She was satiated but still on fire, enjoying every stroke, forcing her hands and legs to keep her upright. His pace sped until at last he groaned loudly, holding her flush against him.

Adam dropped, pulling out of her and hitting the ground beside her, eyes blinking heavily. He grasped her around the waist before she could think to move, yanking her on top of him.

They lay in panting silence for several minutes. Despite the fact that she was half naked, with what little clothes she wore askew and likely filthy, she could’ve drifted straight to sleep.

“You okay?” he asked at last, his hand moving through her hair.

“Mmm, I’m perfect.” She snuggled in, happy when his arms came around her in an embrace. “That was hot and intense and I loved every minute of it.” Never did she think she’d believe it, but she loved her wrists lashed, loved his hand coming down on her backside, loved being pushed to the brink, loved—

Him
.

Dani blinked, suddenly alert.

She couldn’t be falling for him. Not
Adam
. Not out here, so far from her real life. She was just delirious with good sex, that was all.

Not that he wasn’t, in his own way, damn near perfect. Short tempered and normally orderly—bedroom activities notwithstanding—but otherwise generous, thoughtful. Drop dead sexy.

And so, so good with his hands.

But if that tightening in her chest and the fluttering in her stomach
wasn’t
her falling for him, precisely what was it?

“I think I might need to shower, though,” she said with a sigh.

“Right, it’s not
your
ass on the cold pavement.”

Dani chuckled. “Okay,
we
need to shower.”

“You want to join me?”

She twisted slightly to look up and found him gazing down at her.

He swept the hair back from her eyes as he studied her and trailed his fingers along her cheek. “You can say no.”

“You won’t brood and growl?”

“Nope.”

“Can we take a nap afterward?”

“Sure thing, princess.” He kissed her deeply and any strength she’d had left seemed to melt away.

Part of Dani almost wished they’d never catch her stalker so she could stay in Adam’s arms forever.

****

Their shower was long and mostly PG-13, as was the nap afterward. They took dinner with Gus, Dewey, and Carlee, and while no one said anything, Dani figured they had to know something was going on. Still, she appreciated the silence on the subject, and when Adam asked her back to his place afterward, she happily accepted.

By the time night came, they’d enjoyed a round of playful, slow sex, and afterward, they lay tangled in his bed, her head pressed to his heart and arm strewn across his stomach.

“Your alarm is set?” she said sleepily. “I wouldn’t want someone yelling at me because I missed helping Dewey at the crack of dawn.”

His arms were wrapped around her and he tightened them. “Always. I’ll also endeavor to stop yelling.” Breath was a warm spot on the top of her head, stirring her hair as he spoke.

“It’s okay. You’re uptight, I’m the wacky troublemaker. It’s to be expected.”
Match made in heaven.

“I’m not—”

Barking broke the silence outside, the loud, threatening
woof
of Jenny in the house. Adam tensed immediately and shifted, removing himself from her arms and climbing onto his knees to peer out the side window. Dani grasped the sheet, folding it around her torso, and joined him. His broad shoulders blocked most of the view but she peered past to see the house.

Jenny still barked like mad and a minute later the lights flicked on. Dani glanced from the window to Adam; he was still focused, staring. She reached for him, her fingers running up his bicep, finding him coiled tightly and barely breathing.

A figure appeared in the window and she recognized Dewey in boxers and a wife beater, waving up at them.

Adam sighed heavily and shifted, moving back to flop on the bed. Dani gazed a moment longer at the house before joining him. Little by little he relaxed, the tension leaving his muscles as she ran her hands over him.

“You were saying? Not uptight?” She grinned up at him but he didn’t reciprocate, staring instead up at the ceiling. “Adam?”

He expelled a deep breath, folding her in her arms. “Ah, hell. Why not.” His hands smoothed her back, her hair, as he seemed to contemplate things. “I have...issues. I worry about break-ins.”

That at least explained his freak out days ago with the room under his apartment. “Deep dark trauma?”

“My sister was murdered.”

Shit
. She squeezed him tighter and closed her eyes, as if that could somehow will it all away. “I’m sorry.”

“Chelsea...was home alone. Doing dishes in the kitchen—when the police got there in the morning, the sink had overflowed with water. Probably left the main door unlocked, since everyone around here always did.” His voice was tight with pain and she wanted to tell him to stop, to insist he didn’t have to tell her, but at the same time if he wanted to share this burden—if he trusted her—she’d accept. “The screen door was broken but that was it. Someone took a handful of valuables, cash...and he killed her.”

She thought of the smiling young woman in the photo on his nightstand, full of life and hopeful. His sister. She’d never heard mention of his family from anyone at the farm in the past week and a half—was she it? Had he lost everything with her death?

“Took her body and dumped it in the creek behind the house. Like trash. Maybe...maybe he thought it would buy him some time if it just looked like a robbery straight up. I don’t know. I had to identify her.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered again and pressed her lips to his chest. “So sorry. Did they catch...?”

Adam snorted and she felt him shake his head. “Her husband did it.”

“Jesus.”

“I mean, we all knew. Everyone in town. Cops even thought it was him. She’d kicked him out a month earlier, severed contact, but it wasn’t enough. No one could prove it and he left town.”

So this is what Dewey meant and why Adam needed help years ago when he ended up at Gus’s farm. He must’ve been a mess. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to find out your sister had been murdered and then deal with the killer being at large.

“I’m sorry,” she said for what felt like the millionth time, wishing there were some words sufficient enough but drawing a blank.

“It was a few years ago. It just...never gets easier.”

For once, her problems with a weirdo leaving messages on her phone seemed a million miles away—almost trivial. They said nothing more as Jenny ceased her barking at last and silence took up once more. The steady tattoo of his heart in his chest, thumping against her ear, left her drift off eventually into restless sleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Sure enough, Adam’s alarm blared at five-thirty in the morning. Dani muttered and groaned, brain refusing to start or get her body moving. Sleep had been difficult and she’d woken frequently to just reassure herself of his presence before drifting off again.

Adam moved before she did, casting the blankets over her and climbing out of bed. “C’mon. Stuff to be done.”

She groaned and flopped onto her stomach, squeezing her eyes shut and wishing she had a shotgun to deal with the damn alarm. “Don’t we ever get a day off?”

“Not with farm responsibilities, princess. It’s not like blogging.”

Ice blasted through her veins like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on her head. She blinked, fully alert, her heart thumping hard as she rolled over. “Excuse me?”

His back was to her and he already had boxers on as he rifled through the top dresser drawer.

Dani sat up, suddenly feeling exposed and off kilter so she grabbed the sheet to hold it over her breasts. “Adam?”

“I...looked up your video.”

Her dancing in her underwear? “When?”

“Yesterday.”

Yesterday when he’d been in a mood. The pieces shifted around in her brain. “And...you’re mad at me
now
because I’m a blogger?”

He stood straight and shoulders rose as he took a deep breath, then he turned around. “Just tell me, is this all some new thing to blog about?”

Dani blinked. “Um, what?”

“Did you just come here for a new story to talk about? ‘Dani Girl Does the Ranch’?”

Her jaw set, heat rising in her cheeks. “Or does the horse wrangler? Is that what you’re accusing me of?”

Adam sighed, dropped the T-shirt in his hands on the dresser, and walked toward her. She tightened her grip on the sheet as he sat next to her, fury threading through her veins.

“I’m just...” He dragged his hands back through his mussed up dark hair. “I’m worried the stuff I said about Chelsea is going to end up on your blog.”

Part of her longed to go to him. To wrap her arms around him, be cradled against his strong chest, and reassure him she’d never do such a thing—that this was real.

But the other part of her—the part she knew, the part
everyone
knew—seethed at the insult. “How
dare
you say that to me?”

He blinked at her, his shock at her snap melting into anger—lips pinched tight and eyes hardened. “It says
right there
in your last entry that you were going away and would come back with stories!”

“So you trust me enough to fuck me, have me in your bed overnight, but you think I just run my mouth off about people’s private lives?”

“Dani—”

He reached for her but she launched off the bed, promptly caught her feet in the sheet and nearly tripped, but fought to right herself. “No! If you can sit there and calmly accuse me—”

“Then
why
are you here?” he shouted as he stood.

“None of your business!” Dani stumbled around the room, scanning for her clothes. Jeans—check. Sleeveless T-shirt—check. Panties...ah, fuck ’em. Another casualty.

“None of
my
business? You sure as hell know a lot about mine—”

“Go to hell!” She gathered everything she could find, stacking clothing in her arms, and still not giving up the sheet. He shouted her name again but she ignored him, bursting out the door and thumping down the stairs, trailing his bedding after her. She discarded the sheet at the bottom, threw on her top, thrust her legs into her jeans, and unlocked the door to slip outside, bra swinging in her hand. Her chest hurt, something in it torn fresh and aching, and as she blinked she realized she was crying.

Her
. Crying. Over
him
.

Asshole.

Dani stepped out onto the porch. The farm had a blue glow, sun not fully risen but getting there, and the air was cool and refreshing, slightly damp. She strolled down the path from Adam’s house, her steps speeding up as a light flickered on behind her, casting a yellow square over the gravel. Her foot hit a particularly sharp stone but she kept walking—no way was she heading back for her boots. There were sneakers in her luggage somewhere she could wear to work.

She passed the truck in the driveway, looking nowhere but at the front door where hopefully sanctuary awaited. Adam might come after her, but like he said, there were chores to be done and once she had her shoes—and bra—on, she could get to work and ignore him. Just as she approached the porch, the front door opened and Dewey stepped out.

Dani lifted her head high, deciding not to give a damn about what she looked like or that she was carrying her bra, barefoot, with hair sticking up everywhere. “Good morning.”

“Morning Da...” He trailed off, frowning, and stepped off the porch, attention focused behind her.

Dani turned and looked, eyes widening as she stared at the side of the truck.

WHORE was scrawled on the side of the vehicle, scratched deep into the paint, letters sharp and jerky.

“Holy shit,” Dewey muttered, his steps scraping on the gravel. She followed his gaze to look in the distance where the rising glow of dawn highlighted the black spray paint across the side of Adam’s house.

WHORE

SLUT

BITCH

LIAR

Fear wormed inside her and the fine hairs on her arms rose, gooseflesh prickling her skin. She glanced at the truck again.

There was something white stuffed in the door handle and she took a few steps forward, staring, hardly breathing, narrowing her eyes in the dim light from the house as she tried to identify it...

Her panties, lost two nights ago outside the restaurant.

He found me
.