Chapter Fourteen
Troy checked his rearview mirror for the hundredth time since they’d hit the road this morning. Damien, who’d read everything rodeo he could get his hands on since Big Spring, was sitting shotgun, reciting some stats. Troy was only half listening, eyes fixed on the tiny glimpse of Joss who was driving the car behind. He’d just lived through the most intense eleven days of his life with her and it felt odd to be so far apart.
They’d decided to take both vehicles to Lubbock for convenience of getting around and because his pickup, while it could technically sit three, wasn’t ideal for two full-grown adults and a practically fully grown teenager especially on a longer trip. Although Troy wouldn’t have minded been squashed up against Joss.
He’d have found it difficult keeping his hands to himself though, which would have been a problem with Damien in the car. God alone knew how he was going to keep his hands off her at the hotel for two whole nights after having an all-access pass for the last ten.
He’d stupidly insisted he’d get a room big enough for them all to bunk in together when Joss had said she’d book a separate room. He’d wanted to create a shared experience for them all. Damien had been excited about this trip for two weeks, excited to be hanging out with Troy and Troy was happy to indulge him.
But he should have thought it through a bit more.
They’d have no privacy now. At least with a second room it opened up a few more possibilities. Like her sneaking into his room once Damien was asleep.
Like she’d been doing the last eleven nights.
He flexed the fingers of his left hand around the steering wheel, reminding himself how inappropriate it was to be thinking naked thoughts of Joss while her fifteen-year-old son sat not three feet away. But it had been hard to think of anything else since that night she’d knocked on his door.
Knowing she was coming to him the next night and the next night and the next had kept him in a permanently heightened state that not even working shoulder to shoulder with her father-in-law had been able to dampen.
Determined to banish the thoughts, he gripped and released his fingers experimentally. His left arm had been aching a little since Joss and the PT had given the all clear to take it out of the splint yesterday—not that he’d admit it to either of them.
He was still not used to seeing his arm out of the bloody thing, its paleness strange next to the nut brown of his other arm. It felt strong though, despite the ache and, thanks to sticking squarely to his exercise regimen, he had almost full range of movement through his elbow.
There were some more investigations he’d have done once he was back on the extreme circuit but for now he was just pleased to have full use of his arm back. For bull riding and for other kinds of activities.
Like being able to slide both hands onto Joss’s ass last night. Being able to palm a breast in each hand. Being able to support himself on both elbows as he’d sunk into her and pushed them both into the abyss.
And…he was back to naked Joss again.
*
The motel was the standard, basic motel that fit the budget of most pro circuit riders. Troy had wanted to book a hotel in the city heart but Joss had insisted that they stay wherever he normally would so they’d ended up where most of the cowboys were staying.
But he had booked their best room—a suite.
The suite wasn’t exactly up to the Waldorf’s standards but she didn’t seem to mind as she surveyed the room—and given that Troy would have more than happily slept in his pickup, a bed was a luxury.
This room had three.
A queen, a single and a couch that converted to a bed.
He glanced at the queen bed longingly then at Joss who chose that moment to look at him, longing in her gaze too. They didn’t say a word; they didn’t have to. Her eyes roving over him in a long slow lick said it all.
His dick twitched. He was going to miss her tonight.
“Let’s go get something to eat,” she announced, dragging her gaze away.
“Yes please,” Damien said, oblivious to the undercurrent. “I’m starving.”
Troy was starving too but not for anything he could order off a menu. It was going to have to wait though. Until after the weekend. Until they returned to Plainview.
But he hoped she knew he wouldn’t be letting her out of his bed until he’d eaten his fill.
They found a steakhouse in the main street. Troy and Damien loaded up with ribs and rump while Joss stuck to a Cobb salad. They chatted as they ate, mainly about tonight’s event. Damien steered the conversation, which at one stage was interrupted by a customer who had recognized Troy and wanted an autograph for his kid.
“See, Mom.” Damien nudged her. “Total legend.”
“Total,” she agreed, a small knowing smile parting her lips as her gaze ate him up.
Troy’s dick did more than twitch this time: it went to full boner in seconds as he imagined pushing it between those wicked lips.
“Can we get cobbler?” Damien asked.
Troy ordered peach cobbler in a voice that hopefully did not betray the slew of dirty thoughts running through his head all involving eating cobbler off Joss’s body, which did not help the erection situation.
She shook her head at both of them as they finished their desert and Troy immediately ordered a huge ice-chocolate each to round the meal off.
“I can’t believe you guys can possibly fit another thing in.”
“Easy,” Damien said, burping loudly then laughing at his effort.
Troy locked his gaze with hers. “I have a big appetite.”
“Yes.” Her cheeks pinked a little.
Yes indeed. She knew that intimately. “I’m very hard to satisfy.”
She knew that too. No matter how much naked time he spent with her, it was never enough. Her cheeks pinked a lot as her gaze slid to her son who was studying the menu, then back to him.
“I’ve noticed.”
Considering he kept finding ways to keep her in his bed each night, it’d be hard not to.
“Hey, Mom, did you see all these different ice teas they have? You should get one of those.”
She held Troy’s gaze for a beat or two before turning her attention to Damien. Troy adjusted himself under the table. It was going to be a long three days.
*
When they got back to the hotel Joss headed for their room with Troy following close on her heels, his gaze glued to her ass.
“Oi,” Damien called.
Troy stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “You oi’d?”
Damien grinned. “You said you’d shoot some pool with me in the games room.”
Fuck. He had? Jesus. He didn’t remember. His brain had suffered from a severe lack of oxygen for at least fifty percent of their time at the steakhouse so he wouldn’t be surprised. He sighed. He had a few hours to kill before he had to be at the arena and he supposed playing pool beat the mental torture of having to watch Joss in the same room with three beds and not being able to lay her on any of them.
“Right, sorry. Yes.”
“You want to come too, Mom?”
Troy glanced at Joss hoping like hell she’d decline. He only had so much self-control and watching her bend over a pool table with her legs parted would be testing his outer limits.
“Nah.” She shook her head and smiled at her son. “You guys go on and have some fun.” She flicked her gaze to Troy. “I think I might have a shower. Wash my hair. Shave my legs.”
Troy narrowed his eyes as his erection returned to full mast. She was so paying for that.
*
It took Troy an hour to extract himself from the games room. There was some kind of irony that salvation finally came in the shape of a girl.
Damien’s eyes had stuck out on storks the second she’d entered the room with her two brothers and it had taken little maneuvering on his part to get them all introduced and teaming up. Damien didn’t object when Troy made a lame-ass excuse about equipment checking.
Hell, Damien barely looked up from the girl.
It took Troy less than thirty seconds to be standing at the door to their hotel room.
Have a shower? Wash her hair? Shave her legs?
Man he’d played the lousiest pool of his life imagining her all wet and slippery. In fact his hands were shaking so hard it took three goes to slide the key card correctly into the door.
He almost kissed the bloody thing when it finally flashed green and the lock whirred open. The door gave under his shoulder and he pushed it inward to find an empty room. His dick, however, as stiff an insistent as a divining rod, knew exactly where to find her.
He stopped only to put the chain across before he crossed the room, yanking his wallet out of his back pocket as he went, fishing out a condom before tossing the thin fold of leather on the ground near the bathroom door.
He didn’t doubt for a moment the closed door would be unlocked and he didn’t bother to knock. He just yanked it open, his pulse thundering, catching her as she stepped out of the shower, her wet hair hanging in damp strips over her shoulders and down her back, a towel wrapped securely under her arms.
She startled slightly before letting out a shaky breath. “Troy.”
He pulled the door shut. Locked it. Threw the condom on the vanity. Reached for the tail of the towel secured at her cleavage and tugged.
It fell to the floor.
She didn’t cover herself. She didn’t tell him to get out. She just returned his hungry gaze, the tempo of her breathing as ragged as his.
“Christ.” He grabbed her arm and hauled her close, his hands landing on her ass. “I missed you.” He’d been inside her less than twelve hours ago but knowing it was going to be another two days until he got to be with her again made him crazy.
He turned her, pressed her into the wall next to the vanity and kissed her, deep and hard. Kissed like he hadn’t kissed her in the longest time, one hand urging a thigh up, the other tangling in her wet hair.
“Wait, stop,” she said, panting heavily as she placed a hand on his chest. “Damien?”
“Playing pool,” he dismissed, dipping in again to reclaim her mouth.
“Which means he could be back any moment.”
“Trust me, he’s with a girl. He won’t be back anytime soon.”
She blinked. “A girl?”
“A very cute teenage girl with two brothers in tow. She’s fifteen; they’re seventeen and eighteen. They’re visiting from Florida. Good enough?”
“I suppose.”
She supposed? “I’ve just played some of the worst pool in of my life thinking about you in this bloody shower so if there’s anything else, speak up now, because next time I kiss you, I’m not stopping.”
She smiled. “Don’t you have some kind of rule about no sex before a ride?”
Troy laughed. Her voice was light and teasing and his heart just about melted out his toes. “Honey, do I look like some dumb jock to you?”
He didn’t give her a chance to answer, just picked right up where he left off, swooping in to claim her mouth, groaning as her tongue greeted his.
Her hands got busy then. Really busy. Somehow his shirt was off and his zip was down and her hands were inside his jeans, pulling his erection out, squeezing it, palming it.
“God,” he muttered, leaning in to her, pressing his forehead to the tiles beside her head, panting hard. “That feels so good.”
“Bet I can make it feel better.”
Her breath was hot on his neck and he laughed as she groped beside them for a moment before producing the condom, tearing it with her teeth and rolling it on.
“Lift me up.”
Heat flared in Troy’s groin—he didn’t need to be told twice. He slid both hands to the groove where her ass met her thighs and boosted her up the wall until the head of his cock nestled into the slickness between her legs.
Her wet hair was plastered against her neck and her chest and even the tiles behind her. Her cheeks were flushed and her mouth was red and full from their kisses. She took his breath away.
“God you’re sexy,” he said, leaning in to kiss her quick and dirty before whispering, “Hold on, baby.”
He thrust then, a decisive buck of his hips, pushing all the way to the hilt, kissing her to smother the cry ripped from her throat. Kissing her until she was moaning and she’d relaxed around him.
“You okay?” he murmured.
She didn’t answer for a beat, just locked her ankles around his ass. “Again.”
Troy withdrew almost all the way and thrust again, her head bumping against the wall, her breasts bouncing enticingly. His mouth watered at the sight.
“God yes.” She rotated her hips. “Again.”
He went again, bending his head to a nipple. She gasped and arched her back in invitation and he switched to the other breast as he withdrew and thrust again.
She arched her back more, bowing right off the tiles, wrenching her nipple from his mouth, forcing him to take a step back. Just her head and shoulder blades were pressed into the wall now, the lock of her ankles and the thrust of his hips the only thing supporting the rest of her body.
Troy had never seen a more magnificent sight. Her body strung taut between him and the wall, his big hands branding her hips as he thrust in and out, her breasts jiggling with every pump, her nipples dusky-pink and steepled in arousal. He dropped his head to one and she gasped, sinking her hands into his hair and holding on tight as he rolled it around his tongue.
She held him to her all the way to the end, pulling him off occasionally and dragging his head in the direction of the other nipple, demanding with nothing more than an urgent whimper that he service that one too.
And Troy was more than happy to oblige.
He met every one of her demands, not lifting his head, just sucking and thrusting, sucking and thrusting, harder and faster and more urgent as heat and tension and sensations built deep inside his belly, twisting and pulling.
Troy’s legs shook and his chest was too tight for his lungs and his pulse hit stroke levels as the first, “Yes!” was ripped from her throat, her internal muscles clamping around him as she bucked in his hands.
He gripped her hips tighter, thrust harder, flicking his tongue quicker over the taut peak in his mouth as his own orgasm boiled from the depths of his balls. It seeped into his ass and the backs of his thighs and the bundle of nerves at the base of his spine, shooting down to his feet and all the way to his skull.
“Ohhhhhh God,” he muttered against her breasts as everything inside him imploded and his knees threatened to buckle. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop licking and sucking or thrusting and pounding, stoking their orgasms, wringing every last ounce of pleasure out of it.
He didn’t stop until he was spent and Joss was limp in his arms.
“I sure as hell hope that girl is as cute as you reckon because I’d hate to have to explain the noises coming from the bathroom to Damien if he’s just outside.”
Troy chuckled, kissing the side of each breast. Red blotches covered her chest from the scratch of his whiskers. A possessive streak he didn’t know he owned rumbled appreciatively inside him at having marked her.
He shifted slightly, boosting her back up the wall, pinning her there with his chest and the intimate join of their bodies. He pressed his face into her neck, trying to settle his spinning head and catch his breath.
He inhaled the clean soapy scent of her skin, a feeling of utter contentment settling over him. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Joss Garrity.”
She laughed, her body still pliant and relaxed against his, obviously amused by his confession. “I’m pretty sure that’s endorphins not love.”
Troy laughed too. It was totally mad but he couldn’t shake the feeling that had been building since he’d first met her on the roadside. “I know it sounds crazy.”
“It’s just the sex talking.” She kissed his temple.
“Nah.” Troy dragged his forehead from her neck, capturing her gaze with his. “It’s not. I’ve had a lot of sex. This is different.”
It wasn’t something he’d said on a whim. Or hell…maybe it had been but the sentiment behind it was real this time. It wasn’t coming from his balls.
It was coming from some other place deep inside him.
It felt like he was a jigsaw piece finally finding the puzzle to which he’d always belonged. He’d never really fit anywhere. Not at home trying to make himself simultaneously small and big to survive. Not even Forrester’s Landing.
Not really.
Yes they’d saved his life and he would be forever grateful to them but there’d always been a part of him that had felt an outsider. Like he didn’t really belong there among the Forrester family that had run the land for generations and the Aboriginal stockmen whose bloodlines and connection with their land ran back another forty thousand years.
Holding Joss felt like…belonging.
“It’s been three weeks, Troy.” She laughed again, still obviously not taking it seriously. “And you’re twenty-seven.”
He nodded. “I know. Crazy right?”
“Well…yes.”
“Look I don’t want to make it a…thing. I don’t expect anything from you. I know that’s not what we’re doing here. I don’t need reciprocation. I just…I don’t know, had to say it.”
She blinked. “Oh. You’re serious.” She tensed. He felt it through her arms and legs and through the tightening of muscles currently cradling his semi-hard cock. “But it’s…”
“Crazy?”
“I was going to say absurd.”
Troy ignored her dismissive choice of word. “Really, Joss?” he whispered. “Are you that unlovable?”
He kissed her then, slow and gentle, taking his time, loving her mouth as he’d just loved her body—thoroughly. He gave it his all, baring his soul to her. So much of their coming together had been rushed and frantic and he wanted to show her there was more to him than that.
More to them.
More than some wild eight-second ride.
He pulled back, pleased to see the heat glazing her eyes, to hear the catch in her breath. He pushed a wet strand of hair off her shoulders. “I’m pleased I met you, Joss Garrity.”
“Oh yeah? Have you forgotten how we met? You dislocating your elbow?”
“Have you forgotten we’d already met twice before that?”
She grimaced. “I preferred the third meeting where you were the helpless one for a change.”
Troy gave a brief laugh, his gaze roaming over a face that had come to mean so much so quickly. “Something out there sure was determined to get us together.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m pleased I met you too, Troy Jensen.”
Troy’s belly squeezed at the admission. It was a start. “Because of all the hot cowboy sex?”
She laughed. “Definitely. But…” She sobered. “For Damien most of all. I feel like I have my son back and a lot of that’s because of the example you’ve set and how good you’ve been with him. Your assurances that he’s going to be okay have meant a lot to me. I owe you for that.”
Troy tightened his arms as a sudden jolt of pride and accomplishment shook his chest. It felt better than a gold buckle, a big fat check and a room full of women all dedicated to his pleasure. It felt like he’d come full circle. That he’d finally paid the Forresters’ kindness forward.
A thick block of emotion lodged in his throat and pricked at his tear ducts and for a crazy moment he thought he might actually cry. Troy hadn’t cried for a very long time and he sure as hell wasn’t going to do it now.
He buried his face in her neck and breathed her in, once, twice three times, calming himself. “I have a way you could pay me back?” His voice was muffled but her laugh confirmed she’d heard him clearly enough.
“Oh really?”
He pulled away a little. “Fancy another shower?”
She kissed him, quick and hard. “Yes. But no.”
“I promise to do really bad things to you.”
Heat shimmered in her gaze for a moment before she said, “Damien…” and wriggled to get down. He eased out of her and slid her to the floor, getting rid of the condom as she picked up the towel and wound it around her body.
She surveyed him as she knotted the towel at her cleavage, her gaze lingering on his junk, which was surprisingly still semi hard despite the fact he’d just had an orgasm that had nearly blown his head off.
“Better make it a cold one,” she murmured before stepping out of his reach and sashaying out.