Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hailey
Later That Evening
We had an easy dinner — just Cuban sandwiches that I heated up in the oven with some homemade potato wedges — cleaned up the kitchen, and took our companionable chat out to the couch, snuggling together in front of the cold fireplace instead of sitting across from each other at the dining room table. It wasn’t quite cool enough to use the fireplace, but Cash promised it would be before I was due to leave sometime in October. I still hadn’t decided when I would pull the trigger on this trip. Right now, I was in absolutely no hurry to get back to the city and my empty, sad little apartment. The slow country life was growing on me. There was also the matter of the drop dead gorgeous cowboy relaxing with his arm around me. I was in no hurry to leave him behind, either.
“I still can’t believe you were able to loosen up enough to have fun last night,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Cash asked, bushy eyebrows lifting when I looked back at him. I had to laugh at how surprised he looked.
“You’re usually so uptight about cleaning up. I can’t believe you left the kitchen a mess long enough for us to be together.”
He smiled at that. “I haven’t bothered you about being a slob in weeks. I’ve just let you be.”
That much was true, even though I was sure it was still bothering the hell out of him. I’d tried organizing that room, but my stuff had always been pretty resistant to order. Paige used to make fun of me when we were growing up, all the time I spent trapped in my room under orders by our parents to clean up while she was free to play with friends or watch TV. Organization just wasn’t one of my gifts.
“That’s true, but I was still surprised.” I poked him a little in the ribs, and he laughed. “I noticed that the kitchen was clean when I got up this morning though. So, you aren’t quite a recovered neat freak.”
“Hell, I cleaned that last night after you fell asleep.”
Giggling, I looked back up at him again. “Are you serious?”
“Of course,” he said, looking offended before a smile broke out over his handsome face again, his green eyes gleaming. “I can’t sleep with a mess in the house waiting to be cleaned.”
“How have you slept since I’ve been here?” I was sure he’d glimpsed the mess I had hiding behind the closed guest room door at least a handful of times.
“I haven’t.”
I laughed again and pushed him a little. “Seriously, you need to relax a little. Not necessarily as relaxed as I am about things, but enough to be comfortable enough to let a mess sit until the next day.”
“I’ve just always been this way,” he said. “I like things in order. I like to know what’s gonna happen and how I’m gonna react to it. If I could plan out every day for the rest of my life, I’d do it and be happier for it.”
I let my smile fade as the conversation took a sudden turn for the serious. “Did something happen to make you need that kind of order and control in your life?”
He shrugged against me, his buoyant expression long gone, a more pensive one in its place. “I was always neat and tidy. My mama’s that way. But I noticed a change in myself after I fell off a horse as a young teenager. I was hurt pretty bad. My mama says it left a scar on the outside and one even bigger on the inside. I’m not sure why keeping things in order helps, but it does.”
“Can I see the scar?” I hadn’t even noticed it in the bedroom the night before, but the light had been low and I’d really only had eyes for what was between his legs. Just thinking about it started the yearning in my sex, the heat and the wetness ready for him again. I might have to do something about that soon. I’d wanted him all day, a slow burn that was quickly building into an inferno. I saw absolutely no reason to deny myself now.
He sat up and pulled off his shirt, dropping it next to him on the couch. The scar was only slightly darker than the rest of him, starting just under one rounded pectoral muscle and stopping just below his ribs. I traced it with one finger, imagining the seriousness of the injury that could leave behind such a mark so many years later.
“This looks like it hurt,” I whispered.
He grinned a little. “All I remember is falling from the horse. I woke up in the hospital after surgery, in pain but okay. I couldn’t ride for a while after I got home. But I could clean things up, so that’s what I did. And I put every piece of my life in order, from morning ‘til night, making up lists and schedules while I was trapped in the house. I’ve been doing it ever since.”
That explained a lot. I stowed that away for later—the handsome, brooding cowboy with a tragedy in his past that infected the way he faced the future. I smiled a little, trying to think of a way to lighten the mood. I thought I had something, and I was sure he’d play along once I got the game started.
“So, what you’re telling me is that you need some help being spontaneous?” I asked.
He smiled a little, looking uncertain of the prospect. “I have never been spontaneous a day in my life, not even before I nearly died falling from that horse.”
“I think I can assist you with that.” His eyes widened, and I kissed him before he could speak, but chastely, no open mouth and no tongue. But what I did next was the opposite of chaste. I slid down the front of him, letting my hands stop at the waist of his jeans while the rest of me kept going onto the floor, my body pressing between his legs so he had to open them. I unbuckled his belt and then unbuttoned his pants, grinning up at him as he looked questioningly down at me. But his body knew what I was doing. I could see how hard he was, the long length of him growing beneath my fingers. Maybe it was a result of just being around me—my own body turned up the heat whenever he was around, the hot place between my legs getting wet all on its own. I reached into the front of his boxers and pulled his cock free. It was hard as a rock.
“How’s this?” I asked, closing my fist around his thick length and stroking it gently while I watched his face contract with desire. Before he could answer, I leaned forward and took him in my mouth. He moaned, his hips shifting as I moved my head up and down over the long shape of him, sucking hard, my tongue working busily over his shaft. His hips moved into me as I worked him, taking his cock so deep I could feel the head of it at the back of my throat. My insides were on fire, I wanted him so badly, but I kept up that steady motion, teasing us both. He made a strangled sound, and I smiled around his cock, loving this power that I had to get him so excited.
I stood, reached under my dress, and pulled off my panties as he watched, his eyes steaming hot as he watched me kick them off of one foot. He moved slightly, tugging his pants down over his hips to ready himself for me. I straddled him, taking his cock by the base and sliding it inside me as I sat down, impaling myself on him. I didn’t want to wait. I just wanted him as deep as I could get him. We both groaned together as I sat on his lap, grinding my crotch into his, my clit rubbing into the wiry hair at the base of his cock. I rocked back and forth, getting him deeper, my hands clenching the back of the couch for more leverage. I kept my eyes on his face, letting that heat build inside me, that delicious pressure that would drive me out of my mind until it exploded inside me, just wanting to see the way his face tightened with pleasure as I rode him. I pressed my hips into him harder, lifting my knees to get him deeper. His hands found my hips, and he pulled me over himself more roughly.
He was so deep, and I was so hot for him. Watching the desire in his eyes undid me. I couldn’t hold back the shivering orgasm when it came, and I cried out, breathless, my heart racing in my chest. But I kept up that motion over his lap, pressing his cock as deep inside me as it would go, just wanting the pleasure to keep blooming in Cash’s cheeks, that rising heat in his eyes mingling with the wet heat inside of me, both of us burning together. He growled behind clenched teeth as he came, his hands tightening on my hips. He pressed me down hard onto himself, his hips rising as I cried out and collapsed onto him, cradling his head and breathing hard.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, my heart beating out of my chest. “That was fantastic.”
He turned his head to kiss the side of my face, his hot breath caressing my cheek. “If that’s how it feels to be spontaneous, I need to be doing that more often.”
I laughed, still mostly breathless. I sat up to look him in his ruggedly gorgeous face, those emerald eyes enough to make me melt all over again.
“I told you being messy was fun.”
He smiled, and so did I.