Chapter Two
Bella locked the flower shop and laid her forehead against the warm glass front of the door. The second she stepped outside, perspiration broke out across her body. The heat was bad but the moisture in the air was oppressive.
She’d been dreading the clock striking five, dreading the walk home even more. She should have asked Travis if his offer of a ride earlier would have extended to taking her home. Oh well. There was nothing for it now. She turned and—
“Travis?” She couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice to find him leaning against his truck in the front parking spot. “I thought we decided on Friday?”
“We did. Figured maybe you could use a ride home.”
“Oh. That would be … You don’t have to do that. It’s out of your way and—”
“C’mon.” He cut her off and waved her forward. “I don’t mind.”
Bella stood at the edge of the curb, uncertain what to do. Travis was a secret, a wet dream, a fantasy she’d never be able to have.
“I won’t bite,” he teased and Bella laughed. They’d never had a real conversation before. Or any conversation for that matter. Laughing. Teasing. She’d lusted, wanted, desired. But all together? Mind-blowing.
“From what I remember hearing around town, you like biting.” As soon as the words were out, she clamped her hand over her mouth. She glanced around to see if anyone was within hearing distance.
Travis grinned when she met his gaze again. He gave a slow wink and shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. The move pulled the denim tight across his cock and that did things to her insides she’d only dreamed of experiencing with the hotter-than-hell mechanic.
“I’m so sorry,” she rushed to say. “That was out of line.”
Travis waved a hand through the air. “No need to apologize and no need to stand on polite ceremony with me. There were stories about you too, so don’t go thinking you’re any more innocent than I am.”
Bella groaned and hid her face behind her hands. “Hush,” she urged, when she’d pulled herself together. “This isn’t the time or place to discuss any of this. We shouldn’t even be discussing this at all.”
“You started it.”
“I know and I’ve already apologized for it.”
“Which I accepted. But …” He leaned casually against the front quarter panel of his truck and chuckled. “If I recall the rumors right, you liked your sex a little rough and tumble.”
Bella blushed “You heard about that?”
“Nothing you did was a secret in this town. Those private-school jocks you dated from down in Knoxville? They weren’t worth shit when it came to keeping their mouths shut. Word traveled fast. You were a naughty girl, Arabella Drake.”
Oh dear God. Had her parents known? Her brother? She wanted to look away. She wanted the ground to swallow her whole, but she wouldn’t hide from who she’d been. And she wouldn’t hide who she’d had to become.
She kept her gaze leveled at Travis. “Were being the operative word.”
“Pretty and perfect on the outside,” he continued, “never a hair out of place. But behind closed doors, seems like you were something else altogether.”
Bella could only imagine what exactly the rumors were about her. “Lord, Travis. I don’t think anyone has ever been so bold, so … direct. Especially someone I hardly know.”
“I told you. There’s no standing on polite ceremony with me. If you and I can’t be real with one another, then it’s going to be a very quiet drive out to your place.”
She studied him. He’d changed out of his work coveralls and replaced them with well-worn, faded jeans and a tight black t-shirt. The shirt hugged his chest and arms while the jeans hung low on his hips.
He made her mouth dry up and salivate at the same time. She licked her lips with a parched tongue. “So this is you being real?”
“Part. Yes.”
His eyes were steady on hers and she couldn’t read what was in those dark orbs. He didn’t shun or shy away from her and he spoke with a forthrightness she appreciated.
Damn. Her greatest temptation was offering her a ride home and melting her from the inside out.
“That’s all in the past.” More’s the pity. “I’m completely respectable these days.” Or trying to be. Too much time spent in Travis’ company and everything would go up in a pile of smoke and ash. Settling down. Being sensible. Earning trust.
“For real?” At her nod, he clucked his tongue. “That’s a damn shame.”
They should get off this topic. “Why?” Of course, if she kept asking questions, they never would.
“Why, indeed.” He pushed off the side of the truck and opened the passenger door. “Let’s get you home.”
“People will talk if they see us together.” Regardless of sexual overtones or blatant conversations, his offer to take her home was kind. Heck, it would be the highlight of her week, but … “I mean, as we’ve said, gossip is rampant around here. I don’t want to cause any harm to your business. Guilt by association isn’t fun.” Of course, she had firsthand knowledge of that and she wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
But, that was only one of her objections to accepting a ride from him. Her other was the sheer fact that it was Travis. She wanted his hands out of his pockets and on her. She wanted his cock out from behind his zipper and inside her. She wanted to toss away the respectability she’d been attempting to cloak herself in and get nasty with him the way she’d always fantasized.
If she rode in his truck, mere inches from him, could she trust herself not to reach out?
“Don’t you worry about that. I can handle myself and anyone who may have issues. C’mon now. In the truck with ya. It’s fuckin’ hot out here.”
Bella couldn’t find any other way to argue with him. She stepped off the curb and climbed inside the truck. Once in her seat and strapped in, Travis closed the door and joined her from the driver’s side. She stared straight ahead until they turned the corner between the seed store and vegetable stand on the edge of downtown.
“Why are you being nice to me?” she asked when the silence became too much for the small cab of the old truck. Her entire body and all her senses were aware of him. Dirt, sweat and grease assailed her, but underneath it all was the scent that was nothing but Travis. He’d always had dirt under his nails and oil smudges on his clothes and arms, but he smelled like the country. Fresh-cut grass, hay bales, freedom. It all went against the look of him; hard, inked, pierced. He’d had the tattoos and the ear piercings for as long as she could remember, though. It seemed there was some new piece of art on his body each time she saw him, but he still smelled of spring and summer all rolled into one.
“Why shouldn’t I be nice to you? You didn’t do anything to me.”
His tone was conversational. His posture relaxed with his hands loose around the steering wheel and his eyes focused on the road ahead.
His comfort in her company somehow gave her permission to loosen up, too. “No, I didn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that my name is Drake.”
“You’re not your brother or his actions.”
At the stop sign, Bella met Travis’ gaze. His eyes were as unreadable as before, even though there was a slight tilt to his lips. She nodded, once again grateful for his straightforwardness.
They headed north on the two-lane road that lead out to her house. Wildflowers in red, yellow, and purple sprouted in the ditches, but open fields soon gave way to trees and shrubs and the lake beyond.
She lived on the quiet, often deserted end of the lake. “You know, I never thought I’d like solitude.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“I was so used to noise and city life. Nashville was awake and I always had something to do. I didn’t sleep late or go to bed early.”
“I can see where there’d be an adjustment moving back here.”
“There has been. When I lived here before, I thought it was too quiet, then when I first went off to college, I thought that was too noisy.”
“Change can be good.”
“It can,” she agreed. Out the passenger window, the lake glistened under the late-afternoon sun. She’d gone swimming in it when she was younger, along with the rest of the county.
Floating docks dotted the large body of water where the girls would swim out to sunbathe. The boys, including Travis, would waterski or fish or swing out and jump in from long ropes that dangled from tree limbs.
Her guilty pleasure had been watching Travis. She’d done it as discrete as possible. She’d been in awe, fascinated by him, and crushing on him so hard. She’d thought growing up, moving away, and living in Nashville society would cure her of fairy tales filled with hot, sex-in-a-pair-of-jeans Prince Charmings. She’d been wrong.
Several minutes later, the curve of her crescent-shaped drive came into view. Travis veered to the right and Bella tried to quell the pang of disappointment that the ride was over.
He was magnetic, completely at home and yet out of place in this little country setting. Global warming had nothing on the heat of Travis’ thick Southern drawl and the crazy things it did to her.
He pulled to a stop and before she could thank him for the ride, Travis had the truck in park and the engine off. She gaped at him, but he didn’t look at her, only got out and came around to open her door.
“Thanks,” she said, hopping down from the cab.
Travis inclined his head and gave a small smile. “My pleasure.”
She edged around him and was on the second step to the screened-in porch when Travis cleared his throat. Bella turned to find him leaning against the same front quarter panel as he had earlier. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and his feet at the ankles. Arrogance and heat lit his eyes. She couldn’t mistake the latter because it matched her own. Finally, something discernible in the deep-blue irises.
The arrogance made her shiver with uncertainty. “Travis?”
“Sleep with me.”
Bella wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. She wanted to think she had, but … “I’m sorry?”
“Sleep with me. You owe me over two thousand dollars. You can’t pay it, not by Friday, at least. You said you don’t have ready access to that kind of cash anymore, so …” He left the words hanging in the air between them.
“So … Sex in exchange for having my car fixed? Or sex in exchange for you holding my car for me until I can pay you?” she managed to say while blood rushed in her ears
Travis shrugged at her questions, unrattled.
In truth, she wasn’t as bothered by the suggestion as she supposed she should’ve been. “That’s extortion.”
“Is it?”
He wasn’t stupid. She knew that as sure as she knew her own name. Her gaze raked his body, from the top of his head to the toes of his work boots. There was a light sheen of sweat on his inked arms and a bulge in his jeans. He might want her to think he was nonchalant about it. He might want her to think he couldn’t care less, but she’d bet every last dime that he wanted her to say yes as bad as she wanted to say it. “It is.”
“Kind of ugly when you put it that way.”
“Then how should I put it?”
“As a proposition. As an offer of pleasure.” He swung his arms wide and grinned. Shivers of a different sort coasted through her. “Fantasy come true. Pick one, any one.”
Bella laughed and the sound wasn’t as strained as she thought it might be. “Whose fantasy? Whose pleasure?”
“Mine. Yours. Ours. Does it matter? You want me.” His voice was full of cocky confidence. He took several steps forward until he was standing eye level with her, his breath fanning her face. “And I sure as hell want you.”
She might have wondered if he’d been drinking before coming to pick her up at the flower shop, but she knew he hadn’t. He was serious. “How do you know? That I want you, I mean.”
“The way you’ve always looked at me. It wasn’t hard to get a clue.”
“Of course,” she said. “Like the secrets I thought I was keeping. I didn’t mean to be that transparent.” There was no reason for her to be embarrassed about her high school transgressions now. It was ancient history, and the one good time she’d never had was standing in front of her, offering himself.
Travis stroked her cheek and she trembled at his touch. Her nipples tingled and tightened. Her pussy drenched her panties. This was the first time he’d ever touched her, and she wanted nothing more than for him to keep on touching.
“Transparent is good,” he muttered against her lips. The kiss was quick, barely there at all before his hand dropped away and he pulled back. He betrayed nothing he was thinking or feeling. She chanced looking down, but he chuckled, drawing her gaze back to his. “Yeah, I’m hard.”
Bella flushed again, then whipped around and opened the porch door. She had to get herself under control. She had to put a small bit of space between them. If she didn’t, he’d be against the front wall of her house with her climbing his body like a ladder.
Years of pent-up want, months of stress and frustration, and she needed an outlet. Travis was offering to be exactly that.
The house was cool, thanks to the newly repaired air conditioner, but it did nothing to quell the heat flowing through her.
Travis followed her inside and the door closed with a soft snick. Her belly flipped and flopped and she thought if she set about doing normal things—hanging her purse up, toeing off her sensible loafers, then grabbing a couple bottles of water from the fridge, she might feel as though she wasn’t walking around in a haze of sexual need and confusion.
She set a bottle on the counter for Travis and walked toward the back of the big, bright open common area. It combined the living room, dining room, and kitchen. There were also two bedrooms and one bathroom that rounded out the house.
Despite the horrid shade of purple on the outside, the inside was soft sea green and pale blue with accents the color of sand and surf. Sliding glass doors on the back wall of the room let in natural light, and the home seemed at one with the outdoor surroundings. A deck connected to the house had a path off it which led down to the lake.
She loved the cavernous feel of the house, but Travis’ presence and unblinking stare made everything seem small and tight. “How long?”
“I’d say it’s negotiable.”
His footsteps echoed on the wood floor and her heartbeat kicked up a notch. His heat seeped through the back of her shirt as he came to stand behind her. She took an unsteady breath. Negotiable. Is forever too long? “Can I think about it?”
Travis laughed. The sound, followed by water sloshing in the bottle she’d left for him fixed an image in her mind of his Adam’s apple working in his throat as he swallowed the cold liquid, and of his tattoos moving with the motion.
“Seriously? You need to think about it? You need time to consider whether you want to fuck me or not?”
He didn’t sugarcoat anything and damn, she liked it.
Travis was the one man who’d always been out of reach. Now he wasn’t. She turned. She wanted to see his face when she answered his question. He took another drink from the water bottle, his gaze boring into hers, unreadable but heated.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Because there’s nothing to think about right this minute other than sex and if you’re going to take it.”
A split second passed and Bella gripped the front of Travis’ shirt. “Yeah. I’m going to take it.” She jerked him forward and their lips met halfway. He rewarded her enthusiasm with a gasp when she slipped her tongue into his mouth.
He backed her into the glass doors and in an instant had one of her legs hitched around his hips. Frenzied and hot, she started to come undone with a simple kiss. Nothing had prepared her for the onslaught of feelings coursing through her body. He overwhelmed her. She’d intended for it to be a short meeting of lips and tongue, but it was so much more.
“Too many goddamn clothes,” he muttered against her lips. With his free hand, he ripped the buttons on her shirt. The pinging as they hit the floor filled the silence between them. Cool air breezed across her chest and she sighed into his mouth.
He lowered his head, sucking on the exposed skin of one breast above the bra cup. Heat suffused her. “Travis …”
“Want you, Bells.” He pushed her tits together and wedged his tongue into the tight valley he’d created. His hands slipped to her hips next and his mouth found the pulse in her throat. “Where’d your curves go, baby? God, so damn hot.”
“Life,” she said, confused, yet so turned on that a man like Travis would have liked her with a few more pounds.
“You were like a pin-up, full and lush. Wanted you so bad. Still do. Right now.”
“Too many clothes.” She repeated his words, shoved up his shirt until he let her go enough to shed it. She didn’t have time to register the canvas that was his chest and torso covered in bright ink.
Dear God … Pierced nipples. One ring. One barbell. The surprises kept coming. Exploring his body was going to be a treat. Tasting him, teasing him, trailing her fingers over the tattoos around his torso.
She leaned forward to indulge her desires, but Travis stopped her. “Later.”
He spun her around. Their reflections in the glass were hazy, but she could make out his darker, leaner shape behind her paler, full-figured one.
Travis’ fingers worked her bra free and she moaned when his scratchy hand slid up and down her bare spine. When he reached under the cups, she didn’t dare breathe, but she couldn’t hold it in. Her stomach trembled, and her thigh muscles clenched against her arousal. Sensations she never knew existed swamped her until she was feverish. Fulfillment at having him so close rocked her. Anticipation for what lay ahead soared through her body. Travis’ naked chest pressed to her back and his palms coasted over her breasts. His fingers pinched tips and she sucked air through her teeth, then dropped her head back. It connected with his and he turned, burying his face in her hair. It had been so long for her, for sex in general, and for rough sex—and that edge-of-pain sex—even longer.
“Oh, you like that,” Travis muttered into her shoulder. She shivered, hips twitching in a suggestive manner that he could never mistake.
He wanted her for sex; sex in exchange for her car. She wanted him for sex, too. But for no other reason than the fact that it was him. Travis.
Her parents and her ancestors would roll over in their graves if they could see who she was doing the nasty with. She’d kept her crush on him as secret as possible during her high school years, but dear God, the feel of him so close …
“I’ll get you off soon enough, Bells. I promise. Damn, as hot as it’s going to be … Summertime has nothing on us.”
As he talked, he pinched her nipples harder, grazed his teeth over the side of her neck and her shoulder. He licked the top of her arm before sinking into a bite. She wriggled against the glass and grasped for purchase where there was none. He never let go of her nipples, and the suction of his mouth on her arm drove her mad. If he sucked her like that anywhere else there’d be nothing left of her but a puddle.
“Please.” She couldn’t say more than that as he licked away the sting of his bite. A muted red mark would be visible by morning. Damn, she’d missed that. Her nipples smarted when he eased up on the pressure. And drifted his rough mechanic’s hands down her stomach, to the button of her sensible khaki pants.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you like this, Bella?”
“As long as I’ve wanted you.” She rested her head against the cool glass. The sooner he got inside her, the better. The sooner his warm hand got between her legs …
“Mmmm. I wanted to wait, to drag this out, take my time with you, but we’ll try that the next go ’round.” His arm circled her waist with the hair tickling her skin. “Bend over, baby,” he instructed.
He tugged her backward, her pants at her ankles. Her hands slid down the glass, squeaking along the surface. His fingers entered her then, testing her depths, stretching her tightness.
“Now … I remember hearing something about …” He slapped her pussy with the flat of his hand. Bella jolted but Travis held her that much tighter. “Oh yes. I heard right. And fuck, you’re smooth. You definitely know how to kill a man.”
He slapped her again and again until her clit was on fire and the razor’s edge of orgasm hovered. Even air blowing against her made her moan.
That she was smooth and waxed to perfection … That she made sure every inch could be touched, smacked, tugged, and nibbled on? Well, there’d been no complaints before and she didn’t think there’d be any complaints from Travis either.
Travis pressed his chest against her back and feathered kisses down her spine. “You’ve got the hottest ass. I should take a belt to it.” To make his point, he dragged his hand up to one of the globes of her bottom and squeezed hard enough to make her gasp. “I’d like to see pretty red stripes on your pale skin.”
“H-how do you know I won’t be sunbathing naked?”
“I don’t, but I’ll have to find a way to convince you otherwise.” Travis’ hand disappeared from her ass and she heard the metal scrape of his zipper followed by a groan. Foil ripped and his grumbling about condoms being from the devil made her giggle. Though, when he pressed the head of his cock against her opening, the giggle died on a gasp.
“Shall we?”
He pushed inside before she could say yes or no. Truth was, she’d never considered resisting or asking him to wait.
He kept her steady with an arm around her waist, but she still had a hard time staying on her feet. The power behind his fucking … With his other hand, he slapped her ass, pulled on a tender nipple, then wrapped his fingers in her hair and twisted.
“Tight and so fucking hot, Bells. That reputation of respectability is gonna fly right out the window.” He screwed his hips against her body. She couldn’t nod given his hold, and she couldn’t speak given the dryness of her lips and tongue, so she did the next best thing. She tightened her cunt around his cock. She squeezed and the sensations that shot through her drove her mad.
And he was right. Respectability wasn’t near as important as the cock fucking her at that moment.
Her breasts swung with the force of him driving into her. She lifted her gaze and looked out at the lake. No one was on it that she could see, but she wouldn’t have cared. She had Travis. She finally had tattooed and pierced Travis. She didn’t want to draw any undue attention to herself or to him, but she damn sure wanted to shout it out over the water to anyone within hearing distance.
“I could stay inside you for a week, baby. God.” Travis pulled out and Bella whimpered in protest. He spun her around and forced her to her knees. “Take me,” he ground out. Lust fired in his eyes and flushed his skin. She raked her gaze up his body.
“W-water,” she croaked. It wasn’t a pretty or sexy sound, but she couldn’t help it. Every ounce of moisture in her body centered between her thighs.
Travis grinned, picked up the bottle and unscrewed the cap.
With fingers twisted in her hair again, he tilted her head back. She opened her mouth and he slanted the bottle to the side and water flowed. She swallowed what hit her tongue and shivered at what slid down over her throat, chest and belly.
“Fuck.” The one word, short and hard, had Bella meeting Travis’ stare. He stripped off the condom and pulled her forward. “Now. Suck me.”
He didn’t give her any choice or much time to contemplate the ring pierced through his tip. He thrust, forced his length into her mouth. Bella hummed her pleasure and closed her lips around him. She savored the feel of his head, slick skin and steel, the fantasy come true as he’d said earlier.
She tested the sensitivity of the tip, tugged on the ring. The skin around the shaft was tight and the vein on the underside throbbed beneath her tongue. She gripped his hips and dug her thumbs into the grooves above his hipbones. His lower body tensed, and his hold on her hair became painful and unyielding.
“Fuckin’ A. Stop toying with me and swallow me whole or that belting I want to give you won’t be as pleasant as you think it might.”
Bella smirked around his cock, then sucked in her cheeks and pulled off him, only to do exactly what he’d told her to do. She swallowed him back in again and repeated the move. She’d rather have been sucking her taste off him; hers mixed with his musk, rather than the taste of condom.
When she pulled off a third time, she took a chance and buried her face against his balls. Musk and sweat assailed her, but she only had a moment to tease the tight sacs before he pulled her away. He thrust his cock back between her teeth.
She gave herself up and over to his use. He fucked her mouth without finesse, without mercy. He stretched her lips wide and the only thing she could do was hold on. Her pussy ached with need and smarted from the earlier spanking. And, much as she wanted to get off right then, she wanted that orgasm to be at his hand or mouth. She didn’t care how he did it, so long as he did it soon.
“Where do you want it? One blink for yes. Two for no. Understood?” Bella blinked once. He moved slow and easy over her tongue. “On your chest?”
Two blinks.
“Later for that one. All over your beautiful face?”
Two blinks.
“Again, later, but likely not. Down your throat?”
One blink.
“Naughty girl. But that’s my preference too. Want my cum flowing through you, a part of you?”
Bella moaned at the visual. It was a kinky one and she loved it. She understood safe sex and the need for condoms, but the feel of a lover’s cum down her throat, inside her pussy, or ass? It was hot as fucking hell. And it had been way too damn long since she’d felt that kind of freedom with anyone.
But with Travis? Oh God, yes.
“Look up at me.” His voice was like gravel, rough and uneven, and she lifted her gaze. Their eyes locked as he picked up the pace. Frantic, unsteady, unmeasured. His thrusts tested the depth of her mouth and her ability to stand on her knees. He forced himself past her gag reflex and the light in his eyes held her mesmerized.
The first spurt hit her tongue on the downward plunge into her throat. She held him against her face, his pubic hair tickling her nose. He grunted and poured himself into her.
Swallowing around the head of his cock awarded her an extra tug on her hair.
“Damn, woman.”
Bella smiled inside and loosened her hold on his hips. She licked him clean, held him in her mouth until he began to soften.
“I know you need to come,” he began as he removed himself from her lips, “but we’re going to wait, see how long you can hold out.”
Bella’s eyes widened. “Trav—”
“This part isn’t negotiable, baby.”
“Mean.”
“You’ll thank me in the end.” He helped her stand and slipped his hand into the V of her thighs at the same moment he kissed the top of her head. She leaned toward him, started to spread her legs, but he shook his head. “No. How ’bout we have dinner? I’m starving.”