Tough Luck Hero (23 page)

He looked down and noticed that Lydia still had her shoes on. “I have to put you down.”

He set her down gently, then set about to putting his pants back in order. He made a quick trip into the woodshed, where there was a wastebasket, to deal with the condom.

When he returned, he half expected her to be gone. But she wasn't. She was standing out there in the dirt, looking completely incongruous. Tumbled, and yet somehow still as sleek and polished as ever, a refined little thing in the middle of nature.

“I know we agreed not to do this,” he said. It wasn't an apology. He wasn't sorry.

“I was going to tell you that I changed my mind anyway.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

“Yes. I was going to seduce you, actually. It's just that you kind of jumped the gun.”

“I guess I kind of did.”

“I'm not complaining.”

He cleared his throat, crossing his arms over his chest. “So, you were going to seduce me.”

Lydia wrinkled her nose. “Do you think we should go inside to have the seduction discussion?”

“It doesn't matter to me either way.”

She sighed heavily, walking toward the fence that corralled the horses. She leaned up against the rough wood, looping her forearms over the top of it. “I think that this is a losing battle. Actually, I'm not really sure there's anything for me to say, since you just proved my point so handily.”

“What exactly was your point going to be?”

“We can't resist each other. Like, can't. At all. I walked up to you, and then you kissed me, and now we've had sex again. That easily. And, now that we have, I realize how ridiculous it is that we thought we had before. When we obviously hadn't. Because now that we have...I haven't been able to do anything all day but think about last night. Do you have any idea how impossible it was for me to be at the office? I felt like everyone could read my mind. And my mind was very dirty today, Colton. And I'm rarely dirty.”

“That...” He moved where she was standing, copied her pose at the fence. “That seems like it could be a problem.”

“I work with a bunch of octogenarians. I feel like they're even more insightful than most when it comes to matters of the...pants.”

“Matters of the pants?”

“It's not a... This is not a heart feelings thing. It's feelings located in a much different place.”

He laughed. “Okay. I guess I should be flattered by that.”

“You should be. This is kind of uncharted territory for me.”

“Me too. I guess we were sort of stupid. Thinking we were somehow immune to this thing that seems to eventually get everybody.”

“What thing?”

“Sex madness. People have affairs with unsuitable people all the time. They break up marriages, destroy careers... And I've never once thought that I could even remotely understand why someone would do it. So, I'm wondering if we were just naive.”

“I'm not sure that's it. But, maybe we have behaved a little too well for a little too long.”

She laughed. “Okay, maybe that's it.”

“How are you feeling?”

She sighed heavily. “Why do you always have to ask about my feelings? I don't want to think about my feelings.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Okay, how's your body?”

She tilted her face upward, the waning sun washing over her features. She was glowing. He would like to take credit, but he had a feeling that was just Lydia. “Satisfied.”

“I like that.”

“I think that while we're married, while we're living together, there just isn't any point in us resisting. But I think this is perfect. I don't want a relationship, Colton. I know that you were on the verge of getting married, but I wasn't. I have too much of my own stuff to figure out before I ever get involved in a relationship.”

“Is that why you broke up with the dusty museum guy?”

“Yes.” She looked down, picking at a splinter on the top rail of the fence. “He wanted things that I didn't know if I could give.”

“And you still don't know?”

“No, I still don't know. Because unlike you, I tend to think that if I ever get married I want it to be because I'm crazy in love with somebody. And I just never have been.”

“And I still think that love is overrated.”

It was a strange thing to have a conversation about love with a woman he had just screwed senseless up against the side of a woodshed. He felt kind of like a jerk, saying he didn't believe in love right then. But it was also a much more honest conversation than he ever could have had with anyone else.

They were bolstered by the fact that there were no expectations between them, by the fact that they weren't even supposed to like each other, but seemed to be beginning to understand each other.

“
Sex
is a little less overrated than I thought.”

“Now,” he said, leaning toward her, brushing a strand of hair out of her face, “I am glad to hear that.”

“Then it's settled,” she said, licking her top lip, a motion that he felt all the way down in his cock. “You and I are going to have a reckless, physical-only marriage, which we will conclude after the election. Sex only. No judgment, no feelings.”

The words gripped him tight, settled down low inside of him. Yeah, he wanted that. He wasn't even going to hesitate.

“Lydia Carpenter,” he said, reaching out and wrapping his fingers around hers, shaking her hand gently. “You have yourself an affair.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A
GREEING
TO
AN
affair was one thing, but actually dealing with what that meant was another. It reminded her a lot of when she had first moved into Colton's house, and everything had seemed simple until she was hungry and wondered who exactly would be paying for the food.

So many things had been left unresolved. So many hairs left unsplit. She didn't like that. She needed to split hairs. She needed to know the details. The nitty-gritty. The bottom line.

But they hadn't discussed it. They'd just...shaken hands like they'd embarked upon the world's most torrid business deal, and then he'd asked her about work.

She had no idea what happened next.

Now she was hungry, metaphorically, and wondering exactly how often she would be allowed to eat in this little arrangement. Metaphorically.

They had already
done it
, out at the woodshed earlier, and then they had gone inside and had dinner, and Colton had claimed to have work to do after that. So he was outside somewhere being rugged and cowboy-esque, and she was pacing the halls.

She didn't exactly want to reveal herself as a sex-starved maniac. But she was basically feeling like a sex-starved maniac. Before Colton it had been years since she'd been with anyone, and it had not been anywhere near as good as being with Colton was. He had opened up an entire new world of pleasure to her, and now she just wanted more. It was like discovering the existence of cake. Or peppermint mochas.

Either way, it was all she wanted now.

But she imagined that if he wanted to have sex again, he would come to her room. Yes, she would wait for him in bed. She scampered back to her bedroom, looking in the closet for something that wasn't too dowdy.

She emerged with a nightgown that wasn't exactly lingerie, but it was silky, and it did just barely cover her butt, so she supposed it was better than flannel.

She slipped it on, then climbed into bed, tugging the covers up to her chin and waiting.

Sometime later, she heard the front door open, heard Colton's heavy footsteps downstairs. She held her breath, waiting. And she kept waiting. And waiting. He didn't come.

“Oh good, you're the woman and of the two of you, you're the one who wants sex every couple of hours.”

She threw her arm over her face, her stomach twisting tight. The longer she lay there, the more she felt...the more she felt completely and totally put out. They had begun an affair earlier today, the first thing he should have done was storm into her bedroom and take her like a marauding outlaw. Otherwise, really, what was the point of hooking up with a rough country boy. Okay, so he was one of the more sophisticated rough country boys around, but still. He spent his days working construction and chopping wood, he should be a testosterone-laden man-beast who could scarcely contain himself around delicate women such as herself. Especially when they had verbally agreed not to contain themselves anymore.

She huffed, rolling over onto her side and curling her knees up to her chest. She was fine. She did not need him to come in here. She did not need him at all. She had spent the past four years sex-free, and the past thirty years Colton-free. She was fine. She did not need his hands, or his mouth, or his...

“Wargh!”

She let her own frustrated scream get absorbed by her pillow.

She was fine. This was fine.

So fine, that she found herself getting up out of bed without fully thinking the action through. So fine, that she found herself opening her bedroom door and pattering down the hallway. So fine that before she knew it she was poised in front of Colton's bedroom door, ready to knock. And then she just decided to hell with that.

To hell with everything.

All she did was tiptoe. All she did was knock and behave appropriately. The only person she had ever broken apart for was him. And she wanted to keep doing it, again and again, as long as she could. It was safe. The first safe space she had ever found to act on those secret places inside of herself.

So, she opened the door, and she barged in. Colton was standing at the foot of his bed, and he was completely naked. She was not going to apologize.

“I expected you to come by my room.”

He turned to face her, most of his body a dark shadow in the unlit room. “I didn't want to hassle you.”

“I thought we agreed that we were going to hassle each other for the foreseeable future. No judgment. No feelings. Concern over hassling me is a feelings thing. Stop it.”

“A man doesn't like to feel like he's forcing himself on a lady, Lydia.”

“Was there something about my enthusiastic response to all the sex that you found ambiguous or confusing?” she asked, sounding every bit as exasperated as she felt. “Was my orgasm a source of consternation for you?”

“I don't...”

“You were
supposed
to come into my room and take me, because you couldn't wait another second,” she said, advancing on him.

“Was I?” There was a thread of dark humor in his voice, laced with heat and something that was undeniably Colton.

She moved closer, sliding her hand up his chest, the hair there scraping against her palm. “Yes,” she said.

“It seems like I've come after you an awful lot, peaches.”

She tried to swallow, but her throat was too tight. Why did that stupid nickname on his lips make her whole body
want
in ways that she hadn't known were possible?

He was perilously close to making her like a fruit she would have said grew on the trees in hell only a few short weeks ago.

The man was a problem. But right now, he was her very own, very big, very muscular problem.

“I mean... I don't... A woman wants to be wanted.”

He leaned in, his breath fanning over her cheek, his whiskers rough against her skin. “You don't think a man wants the same?”

“I...I...”

“You were lying there aching for me. Wanting me. And now I forced you to come after me.” He nuzzled her neck, his skin so hot she was ready to go up in flames. “It must be hard to have to show how much you want me.”

She realized as soon as he said the words, that he had been the one to pursue all of the encounters between them. That she really had managed to protect herself. Even today, when she had intended to let him know that she wanted things to progress between them, he had been the one to ultimately take the last step. She had been spared.

“If you want me now,” he said, his voice as rough as that delicious stubble on his jaw, “you have to tell me, peaches.”

She took a deep breath, and she felt like something cracked in her chest. Something she kept buried, something she tried to keep hidden. She was shaking, and it had nothing to do with the sex. Sex with Colton, at this point, didn't intimidate her at all. It was what he had just said. Showing him how much she wanted him.

She lifted her other shaking hand, brushed her fingertips against his cheek, against the rough stubble on his jaw.

“I want you,” she said, testing the words out, waiting to see if she would feel completely stripped, completely bared for having spoken them. She managed to survive them.

He caught hold of her wrist, drawing her hands down, and pushing them behind her back, tugging her forward so that she was pressed hard against his chest. “Do you?”

“Yes,” she said, the word coming out in a rush.

“Tell me,” he insisted, “how much you want me.”

Her stomach tightened, and she tried to pull away, but he held her fast. “A lot.”

“You can do better than that, Lydia. I know you can.”

“I... It aches. It hurts. How badly I want you.”

“And?”

She looked down, even though it was dark and she knew he couldn't see her face anyway. “I'm...I'm wet for you.”

“I'm going to have to check that.” He put his hand between her thighs and she gasped as he slipped his fingers through her slick flesh. It felt so good. It felt better than anything had a right to. He made her want. He made her want so badly she could scarcely breathe, scarcely think.

“You are,” he said, his voice husky. And if she weren't so turned on she was ready to collapse, she might have laughed. Because this was the same man who she had once imagined was high-handed and uptight in the worst ways. Well, she still thought he was high-handed, she just enjoyed it in the right context. And uptight? He had done such a great job of unraveling her, there was no possible way he could be uptight.

She fought the urge to let her head fall back, to sink into his touch and surrender to him. She didn't want to simply follow. Didn't simply want to give herself up. She wanted to give as good as she got. She wanted to make him feel what he made her feel. Even if it was only a portion of the ecstasy he brought to her.

While he stroked her, she leaned in, angling her head and scraping her teeth along his neck lightly, then retracing the line with her tongue. He jerked beneath her touch, and she could feel him, hard and insistent against her hip.

That made her bold. The simple fact that he wanted her to. That he was as close to the edge as she was.

She slipped her hands down to the front of his chest, down over his abs, skimming her fingertips across his rock-hard thighs. She drifted inward, teasing his sensitive flesh, then moved to grip his shaft, squeezing him until his breath hissed through his teeth.

“I want you,” she said again.

She felt bolder now, stronger. More excited. She squeezed him again, and he grabbed hold of her wrist, flipping their positions so that her legs were backed up against the mattress.

“I'm not convinced,” he said, grabbing hold of her hips and lifting her up off the floor, depositing her back on the bed. “I'm going to have to make absolutely certain.”

He dropped to his knees, gripping her hips even more tightly and pulling her toward him, draping her legs over his shoulders.

She felt panicky. A fluttery sensation spidering all over her chest like a terrified creature. She felt completely powerless. At his mercy. And more than a little exposed in spite of the darkness of the room. More than that, she was fascinated. Desperate. For what came next. For it to be over. For it to never end. She was a mass of contradictions and want, and she knew that only seeing this through to the end could solve that.

Or maybe it couldn't. But it was better than not being satisfied.

“Damn, baby,” he said, the words rough and unfamiliar. Unfamiliar to him, too. She could tell. Could tell that this wasn't him any more than it was her. Could tell that this madness was something he'd never experienced before, either.

That got her even hotter, which she would have said wasn't possible if asked. Truthfully, if asked, she would deny all of this because good girls didn't marry strange men and then agree to stay married for a political campaign.

Good girls also didn't engage in physical-only affairs with their fake husbands, she was pretty sure.

So if asked, she would probably deny everything. But no one was asking now. No one else was here.

He leaned in, drawing his tongue over her sensitized flesh.

“Oh, Colton,” she gasped, grabbing for him, and coming up with air. She moved her hands to the bedspread, curling her fingers around the fabric, gathering handfuls, trying to do something to root her to the mattress.

“I like you like this,” he said, his voice rough. “Mindless for me. Begging for me.”

“Yes,” she said, “I'll beg. I'll do whatever you want. Just please.”

“Please, what?”

Heat spread over her skin like a rash. “You know what.”

“Maybe I don't. Maybe I need you to tell me, peaches.”

“Now you're being a jerk,” she said, gasping as he flicked his tongue over her clit.

“Tell me what you want,” he said, his mouth hovering just above her core.

“I need to come, damn you.”

“Say please, Lydia.”

“Bastard.”

“Never,” he responded. “I'm an upstanding citizen.”

For some reason, that got her even hotter. For some reason, it was the one thing that made her want to actually give in to his demands. Because it was true. Because he was normally the most upstanding citizen in town, other than her. Because he would never normally torture a woman like this. That made her special, in a weird way. Just like he was special for her. Because no other man had ever made her feel this way. No other man had ever made her want like this. It was dangerous, but it was intoxicating. Lydia had never wanted dangerous. She had never wanted intoxicating. But she was neck deep in it now, and she didn't regret a thing.

“Please, Colton. I need to come.”

He chuckled, low and deep and wicked in a way that he almost certainly never was. “That wasn't so hard, was it?”

Then she felt his hot breath on her, just before he leaned in and began to pleasure her again with his mouth. She was lost in it, in him. Surely, this made her some kind of extraordinarily wanton type woman. They had done this earlier. She should be satisfied. At the very least, she shouldn't be so desperate. But, God help her, she was desperate. In ways she hadn't known she could be.

She arched her hips up off the bed and he held her tight, bringing her in even more closely, forcing her to submit to his devastating sensual assault.

He tasted her until she was shaking, until she was boneless, until she could not have gotten up and walked away from him even if she wanted to.

One last deft flick of his tongue over that sensitized bundle of nerves and she lost herself completely, gave herself up to her pleasure. To him.

And for some reason, somehow, she still ached. Still wanted more. Still needed more. She needed to be joined to him. Needed him buried deep inside of her.

“Please,” was all she could say. But the light in his eyes had changed, and she knew, instinctively, that forcing her to say please had been letting her off easily.