Chapter 4: Autumn

The shock on his face was evident, and I really couldn’t blame him. The butterflies were flying so hard through my stomach that I thought I was gonna heave all over him, but when I saw the advertisement for the rodeo, I just knew he would be here. Some of the advertisements showcased the fact he was riding, but some of them were just handouts, and before I even knew he was riding, I just knew I had to come.

I had to see him again.

I stared at him for a long time and couldn’t help but notice how wonderful age looked on him. His dark brown hair held the very first hints of gray at his temples, and his green eyes still sparkled with that independence I never could figure out how to wrangle. He had been impressive on the back of that bull, and I knew when he trotted off behind the stadium that I had to find him.

I had to talk to him.

“Come on in, Autumn,” he said slowly in a low voice. For the briefest moment, I thought I saw a shadow of something unusual flash across his face, but it was gone instantly, making me know that I had just imagined the whole thing. Then again, he had always been like that. I supposed that was one of the things that had intrigued me about him so much. There was some kind of mystery to him that I could never put my finger on, and it had always driven me crazy, in a good way.

He stepped aside, and when I brushed passed him, I couldn’t help but relish in the warmth his body temporarily provided. I eyed the couch and decided I’d sit there, hoping that maybe he’d sit down beside me. But when he shut the trailer door and turned around, all he did was stand on the steps.

The silence hung heavily in the air, impregnated with so many unanswered questions. I knew I personally owed him a lot of answers, and there was no doubt that he had probably been wishing for those answers for years. What I’d done to him in college was wrong, but I knew if I would’ve told him about the job in Paris, he would’ve figured out a way to make me stay. A guy like him didn’t belong in a city like Paris, and a woman like me didn’t belong in a town like this. I knew I would have never been able to get him to understand that, and he would have tried to talk me into staying, being by his side and working in one of the boutiques in town. Maybe he would’ve encouraged me to open a shop and sell my own fashion line for the rest of my life, but I wanted something else.

Something bigger.

Something more.

I knew if I had told him about the offer, he would have talked me out of it, and worse, I would have let him. I would have given up on my dreams for him, and deep down, I probably would have never forgiven myself for it. So I knew back then that I couldn’t allow myself to do that. I couldn’t have done like my mother had, giving up a dream for a man.

I eyed Dallas carefully and watched him looking back at me. He’d always been a good- looking boy, but what was now in front of me was a burly and handsome man. The stubble on his cheek burned the inside of my thighs, and his sea foam eyes raged with the confusion he was probably feeling. He had been a lanky boy in college but riding bulls and raising his own animals had now etched his body well. His broad shoulders now held a rigid and chiseled chest that my fingertips wanted to sink into. His hips were strong, and his legs were taut. I felt my entire body begin to shiver on the couch.

My god, he’d filled out his body well, and it took all the energy I could muster not to stare.

“What’re you doing here, Autumn?” he asked with a guarded tone to his voice.

“Well, uh…I’m visiting my family, and I saw the advertisements for the rodeo,” I answered lightly.

“Having fun?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?” he asked.

“Well, I just…was really hoping I could see you.”

“Mission accomplished.”

I nodded my head and swallowed hard. For the first time since I’d sat on that couch, he darted his eyes away from me and looked around the trailer. I knew all the questions flying through his head, and I wished he would just ask them. He deserved to know the answers, and I honestly wanted to give them to him. I’d built up a decent career for myself after the fashion scene in Paris took me under its wing, and I was being offered the chance to create my own fashion line to debut this year at fashion week. I wanted to tell him all about it--about the dresses and the pant suits and the flamboyant shirts. I wanted to tell him that I was bringing cowgirl-chic to the streets of the biggest fashion city in the world, and I wanted him to tell me he was proud of me.

I wanted Dallas to be proud of what I’d accomplished.

“How long you in town?” he asked.

“A week.”

“A week...”

“Yeah…” I sighed. “Do you, um…do you still ride often? That was a hell of an impressive turn you did out there.”

“Nah. First time I’ve been on a bull in years,” he murmured.

“Really? That’s impressive. Why did you stop?”

“My heart just isn’t in it anymore. Not since college,” he admitted. “Now, I raise the rough stock for the rodeos and train new riders who have the same fire. If they ain’t got that fire, I don’t train them. People get killed when they don’t have that fire.”

“Not… since college?” I asked.

“Yeah. The heart hasn’t been in it since then.”

“But you were riding after-”

I watched his flaring eyes pan towards me, and every single fear I was hoping didn’t exist was confirmed. He’d stopped riding after graduation, after I left him that morning for Paris. Bull riding was his passion, the one thing he was doing to help pay for his college. And he was damn good, too. There wasn’t a session he rode that was under six seconds, and he was the only rider in the entire state who never had to do a re-ride because of faulty equipment. Hell, even when the equipment did fail, he still held on and completed his ride.

If there was any human being on this planet that was born for bull riding, it was Dallas.

And he’d given it up when I left.

“Oh, Dallas, I’m so sorry…”

I put my head in my hands, feeling tears crest my eyes. I had never meant for him to stop, and I had never meant for him to get hurt. I knew how badly I panicked over him riding and knew that it got on his nerves, and I figured he would just continue riding without some woman worrying over him in a trailer.

“I never thought you would’ve stopped riding,” I said.

My palms caught my tears and my neck flushed, all the embarrassment of showing up at this damn rodeo to see him flooding to the forefront. I felt like an idiot for thinking I could see him. For thinking he would just listen to the answers I had for him and that everything would be all right.

I was an idiot to come here.

Before I could get off the couch, it dipped down beside me and a warm sensation began to trickle over my knee. I sniffed and lowered my hands, seeing Dallas’s hand sprawled out on my skin. My jaw began to tremble before I felt something underneath it. My face turned sideways, my puffy red eyes connecting with his emerald green ones, while tears ricocheted down my cheeks. Through my blurred vision, I thought I saw it again, that flash of something mysterious lurking beneath his expression.

“I’m so sorry, Dallas,” I apologized once again. “I never meant-”

“I know,” he said, cutting my apology short.

I sighed heavily, a piece of hair falling into my face. Dallas brushed it across my cheek before tucking it slowly behind my ear. My body hummed with electricity while my eyes watched him, his gaze connecting with mine. Unable to stop myself, I looked down to his lips. They were slightly chapped, just as I remember them, and they started traveling closer to me before I felt his body weight shift.

I closed my eyes and braced for impact, and when those familiar lips I’d dreamt about for years encapsulated mine, I knew right then and there that I’d made the right decision back in college.

How easily my body yielded to his. How wanton it was to sink into him…

He pushed his body towards mine, sinking me into the couch. My legs fell off to the sides, wholly accepting his thick frame before his tongue raked across my lips. I gladly allowed him entrance and moaned when his tongue brushed against mine. His hands braced beside my head before he pulled back and looked me square in my eyes. There was a look of pure greed and hunger, slightly dangerous, in his eyes that made me want to shiver from head to toe, but increased my yearning nonetheless.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he reared up onto the couch, throwing my body onto his lap before he stood to his feet. My legs latched onto his waist and my lips peppered his neck with kisses. Before I knew it, I was descending onto a bed. His lips crashed onto mine and his hands pawed at my body. I rolled him over before latching my lips onto his neck. I raked my teeth across his pulse point and felt his hips buck up into me. Quickly losing control, my entire body began to warm.

His hands flew up my dress and gripped hard onto my hips. He lurched my body forward and I slammed my knees beside his head. I felt his hot breath pulsating on my pussy, and when his fingers hooked into the fabric of my panties, I leaned forward and braced my hands onto the headboard of the bed. I trembled with every kiss he placed between my legs, his stubble causing me to twitch before he slowly lowered me onto his succulent lips. His tongue parted my folds, and my juices ran along his nose. I couldn’t help but rip my dress over my head while my hips bucked into the stubble on his face. Oh god, how I missed this with him.

“Fuck, Dallas. Oh…right there. Yeah.”

His grip on my hips tightened while my body began to rock quicker, and I felt the pleasure churning behind my hips while his stubble raked along my inner thigh. His bold green eyes stared up from between my thighs, and I couldn’t help the sentiments pouring from my lips as my body relinquished itself to him.

“Oh, god. Yes. You just…God, you’re so good. How do you-... oh, fuck!”

Rearing my head and arching my back, and I choked out his name like a desperate prayer while my body shook on top of his face. I felt a light sheen of sweat gathering on my back, and my body collapsed just before he sat up and caught me in his arms. I laid my forehead against his and reveled in my scent on his lips, and when I captured his mouth in a long sensual kiss, he slowly rolled me over and laid me down onto the bed.

He stood in front of me and slowly began to undo his shirt. When he pulled the fabric from his body, my eyes finally got to take in the rippling muscles he had developed. A deep, rigid chest from hauling hay and training animals; rippling arms from cutting wood and helping birth rough stock into the world. I watched as he stepped out of his jeans and boxers, his thick erection springing to life. I had no hope of hiding the fascination I had with his body.

The lanky boy I had loved in college had morphed into the carved man he was today, and the smirk that donned his face when he slowly crawled up my body was nothing short of predatory. I’d always known that stare, the one that was charting everything he would do to my body before rendering my movements useless. Like a cat ready to play with a mouse before enjoying and devouring every ounce of it.

I felt him line himself up with me while I reached up to cup his glistening cheeks. I captured his lips in a kiss again as his erection pushed inside my body as far as it could go. I groaned into his lips and he sighed against mine, the rolling of his body ricocheting tremors of electricity that puckered my nipples against his chest. Faster and faster he thrusted, skin-to-skin sounds bouncing off the walls of the trailer that was soon rocking up and down with our movements.

As I flung my hands to his back, I could feel my juices dripping down the crack of my ass. Every detail I had ever memorized about his body came flooding to the forefront of my mind. I raked my fingernails down his back, causing a groan to escape from his throat. My impending orgasm built in my back. I wrapped my legs around his waist and flipped him over, planting my hands on his strong and swollen chest as I bounced my pelvis up and down his shaft.

“Oh, fuck, Autumn. Good god… yes. Jesus look at me... ugh.”

I slammed down onto his pelvis and pushed him deeper inside of me. His hips bucked into my body while my hair splashed around my face. My back began to twitch, and my bounce began to stutter. Just when I thought my body was going to give out on me, Dallas ripped himself out and tossed me down onto the bed.

“All fours, now,” he commanded.

I lifted my ass up into the air and dipped my cheek into the bed before he lined himself up and quickly buried himself in me. He laid down onto my back and reached his hand around, his fingers parting my lips and finding my swollen nub, letting me know I no longer had control of the situation.

I never really did with him, anyway.

“Dallas. Yes. Just like that. Oh… oh, my god. I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna cum. I’m go-”

My walls squeezed down onto his dick as he growled into my ear and sank his teeth into my shoulder while my body trembled in his wake. I reveled in the pleasure and pain as his hips began to stutter, his thrusts becoming more languid. I smiled into the bed when I felt his dick pumping me full of his juices. He panted hard into my back as we collapsed. I felt myself trickling out onto the sheets as we laid our sweating naked bodies in the middle of his bed.

“Oh, Dallas,” I sighed.

And all he answered me with was a kiss between my shoulder blades and something that sounded suspiciously like a purr.