Parker struggled to slide his jeans down. His cock strained against the gray boxer briefs as he managed to pluck a condom from his wallet and shove down his underwear, all the while still holding me on his lap.
My thighs shook from the dance workout as I lifted myself just far enough for him to roll on the condom. My pussy ached with slick moisture as I waited for him to finish.
I laughed. “Saddle up already, Rodeo, I’m ‘bout ready to come just watching you.”
He groaned with frustration. The second he finished, he grabbed hold of my hips and guided me down over him. He watched my face as I swallowed up the entire length of him. There had always been something so raw and sexual about Parker that as his fingers dug into the flesh of my ass, I found myself already at the edge of an orgasm.
He moved his hips to push up deeper inside of me. “You still like it wild and hard, baby?” he growled as his mouth pressed over my breast.
“Only when it’s you,” I whispered into the cool air of the room. “You know everything I like.” My pussy was close to tightening around his cock as he impaled me as deep as he could go. “Slow down,” I moaned as my head tilted back and my eyes drifted shut. “I want to keep feeling this. Shit, Parker, I’m a million fragile pieces ready to fucking explode. Why is it always so easy with you?”
“Cuz I know every inch of you. I’ve got that fucking pussy of yours memorized, baby.” His movements slowed, and he lifted himself against me, seemingly touching the very core of me.
His hands slid down and he held my ass tightly as I writhed against him, making sure to rub my tender clit against his hard body. I was back there again, back in the fields behind my dad’s farm, lying in the grass with him while he touched and teased and kissed me into ecstasy under the blue Montana skies.
I couldn’t hold it together any longer. He sensed it. “Yeah, baby, come for me long, hot and hard just like you used to. Damn, I’ve missed your sweet pussy.” His words were all I needed.
“Fuck yes, yes!” My entire body trembled as thunderous waves of ecstasy rolled through me. I held tightly to him for support. As my pulse slowed and the room stopped spinning, I braced my hands against his chest. His eyes were glossed and unfocused, and his fingers dug into my flesh as he held me over him. I lifted my body and came down hard and fast, milking his cock. Each thrust filled my tender pussy with pleasure. I could have stayed there straddling him, holding him deep inside forever.
A low groan rolled up from his chest, and his head dropped back as one final thrust brought him to climax. “Yeah, that’s it, baby. Hold me tight.” His voice was hoarse and barely audible.
We both released long breaths as I softened against him and rested my head on his shoulder. The tattoos were the only thing about being in his arms that was unfamiliar. I reached up and traced my finger around the black flames on his shoulder. “I think I could get used to all this ink. Makes me kind of hot.” His arms tightened around me. “Not that I needed it since I was in a pretty cold shower and all I could think about was walking out here and climbing onto your lap.”
“Damn, Sayler, I can’t believe how badly I missed this—us. You should have come to find me sooner. I needed this. Sometimes I feel like I’ve finally got my life together and then something like this happens and I realize there was a big fucking hole in the middle of it all. I thought about you all damn night. I should’ve taken you with me when I left Montana.”
He caressed my back with his callused palm. Just that simple touch sent warmth through my body and made my chest tighten. I blinked back the tears that it seemed I’d been holding for the last two years. My marriage had gotten to the point where my tears were meaningless. They had become a sign of how vulnerable I was to Kurt, and I’d worked hard to control them. But with Parker, when everything felt so right and real again, they threatened to fall. My throat ached, and I snuggled closer to him, never wanting to climb off his lap.
“For two years, I’ve felt so alone. I had no one to turn to. No one to trust. No one to just hold onto like this.” My voice drifted around the empty room. “I know you’re not happy about this job of mine, but I’m really glad you walked into the club last night.”
“You’re not alone anymore, Sayler. Whatever problems you’re having, I want to help.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. A trick I’d perfected to stop tears. “Parker, I’m in so much damn trouble. I don’t want to drag you into it.” I took a deep breath, sat up and looked at him. “I could never forgive myself if something happened to you. It was just another major misstep in a long line of missteps, only this time I’m not sure how to keep myself from falling.”
“Shit, Sayler, what is it? Tell me what’s going on.”
I shook my head. “Not now. I just want to sit here with you holding me and not think about stuff. I promise I’ll tell you once I work up the courage to talk about it out loud.”
Chapter 6
Rodeo
“It feels good to be sitting on a horse for a change. Even a slow, plodding one like ole Ranger here.” I reached down and patted the gelding’s neck.
Blue winter skies in California could bring either a chill or unseasonably warm air if the Santa Ana’s kicked in. Today was a perfect mixture of both. Not too hot. Not too cold. And the recent flash thunderstorm had dropped enough water on the semi-parched landscape to add some crisp green color to the place. The rolling hillsides we rode between were striped with the skeletal remains of the grapevines, now dormant for winter.
I pushed my legs against my mount, and he snorted in protest at the idea of moving his feet just a little faster. Sayler’s small paint horse had slightly more juice in his step, and she was holding him back as she tried to stay even with me.
Her light blonde hair rippled in the breeze as she lifted her sunglasses and stuck them on her head.
“Those eyes. I don’t think I ever stopped thinking about those brown eyes of yours.”
She was holding back a smile, and it was obvious she wanted to say something.
“What?”
“I was just wondering when you turned into such a romantic,” she said.
“Told you, I grew up. Actually, that’s a lie. I haven’t grown up all that much. Not sure what’s gotten into me. Guess I’m feeling sentimental because all of a sudden I have the best of my old life mixed in with the new. Hell, I’ve even got a horse sitting under my ass at this moment. Makes me feel a little homesick and at the same time relieved to be away from home.”
Sayler looked over at me. I’d forgotten what a completely flawless picture she was. No matter where she was or what she was doing, she always managed to steal my breath.
“So I was one of the best parts of your life back in Montana?”
“Come on. You know you were.”
“I could easily say the same about you.” She glanced ahead to the long stretch of dirt road separating the vineyards. “Where are we heading?”
“Thought we could ride by the place I live. I’m not sure if Cole and Denver are out practicing, but we’ll be riding right by the back wall where we have a ramp set up for practice. I want to introduce you.”
Her horse swung its head toward a patch of tasty weeds, and she yanked up on the reins to get him moving again. “Technically, they’ve already met me.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll just start fresh.” I’d had to constantly push her job out of my head.
She grew quiet, and I knew we’d stepped back into a touchy subject.
“If you’re embarrassed about me, then I’d just prefer not being introduced . . . afresh.” There was more hurt than anger in her tone, and I wanted to kick myself.
“I’m not embarrassed about you. Fuck, Sayler, you know me better than that. I just hate the idea of other men gaping at you, touching you when they put money in your costume.”
I
lifted the reins and shifted them to the right. The horses turned toward the wilderness area that ran between Cole’s property and the Modante vineyard.
She rested her hands on the pommel. “When I first got to California, I had nothing. I’d been completely unprepared for Los Angeles and how damn expensive everything was. But I figured the weather and the job opportunities would be my best chance at surviving on my own. Only everyone else seemed to have the same idea as me. Minimum wage jobs were the only thing available, and, as I’m sure you know, you can’t really survive on that in L.A.. There were a few weeks when I was sleeping at the bus station. Then I got lucky, and I use the term lightly. I met an elderly woman who needed me to run errands for her. She didn’t have much either, but she let me crash in her back bedroom. It was her sewing room.” She laughed. “I can’t tell you how often I stepped on needles on the way to the bathroom at night. And then there were those nights when she couldn’t sleep so she’d just come on in, throw on the light and start working, almost as if she’d forgotten I was sleeping there on the mattress in the corner. That was the highlight of my life in Los Angeles.” A group of birds fluttered up from nearby shrubs sending her horse skittering sideways. “Silly horse.” She reached down to hold her stirrup while she pushed her foot back into it.
We pushed the horses into a jog. “I think you should just come stay with me while you find something else.”
“Damn, Parker, you are still so stubborn. It’s not that simple. As I was about to tell you, before the terrifying flock of birds scared the horse, at the time that I was living in a sewing room, I met someone who offered me good money, really good money, for a job. It worked out nicely for a month, and I’d almost saved enough to rent an apartment. But then my usual streak of shitty luck found me, and I screwed up. Now I owe that person money. And my perfectly nice seeming boss turned out to be a dangerous, vengeful monster. I seem to be really good at attracting them.”
“A job? What kind of job?”
She shook her head as if that part of the story was unimportant. “I was a courier.”
“Oh shit. A courier? You were carrying drugs?”
“I didn’t know it at the time.”
“Damn, Sayler, how could you have gotten yourself into that?”
She pulled the reins, swung her horse around and kicked him into a lope. I turned Ranger around to follow, but kicking him into a lope took a lot of effort. Once he got going, I leaned down over his neck and pushed my heels against his sides, prodding him into a gallop with the perceived threat of my invisible spurs.
A cloud of dust kicked up behind Sayler’s horse.
I caught up to her. “Whoa,” I said sharply. Both horses gladly slowed back down to their usual snail’s pace. “I’m sorry, Sayler. I might have grown up some, but one thing’s for sure, I just keep saying the wrong damn thing.”
I hadn’t noticed that she was crying behind her sunglasses until she sniffled. “I’d been a naive country girl, who had just come out of a marriage where merely the sound of my husband’s truck pulling into the driveway sent waves of terror through me. I was lonely, hungry and scared that I’d end up on the street. I didn’t really ask questions. The man, Chambers was his name, seemed perfectly legitimate. I knew the money was too good to be true, but I thought as long as I didn’t ask questions and got the backpack to its destination, I’d get paid. Then I’d have enough to live on until I found something better.” She looked over at me. “What I don’t need is to be reminded that I’ve screwed up in just about every aspect of my life, especially not from the one friend who I could always trust to support me no matter how badly I fucked up.”
“You’re right. I won’t say anything else.”
“Seems like I’ve heard that before.”
We were already heading back in the direction of the rental stables. I decided to ditch the idea of stopping by the house. I’d screwed up the mood of the day with my Aunt Frannie judgment session. I couldn’t seem to help myself or stop the overwhelming need I had to protect her.
“We’ll take the horses back. Then I’ll buy you that hot dog I promised.”
“I should probably get home. I’ve got to go back to the club to work in a couple hours.” She didn’t look at me as she spoke.
We rode back in silence. I was feeling like a shitty jerk for screwing up the day. We were both hardheaded with quick tempers and strong opinions. We were so much alike, we tended to bump heads a lot. “Guess this was why we could never make us work.” My throat tightened around the words. I’d been so fucking thrilled to have her back in my life, but she was dealing with her own stuff. And it seemed she had no interest in adding me to her list of troubles.
Her quiet sadness made my chest feel heavy with regret.
The afternoon blue skies that had been wide open just an hour before felt as if they were closing in on me. I had a tendency to let everything roll off my back, a trait that Cole and Denver kidded me about, while at the same time saying they wished they could do the same. That attitude had always helped me get past the many disappointments in my life. This wasn’t going to roll off easily though.
The barn came into view, and for the first time during our ride, Ranger picked up his lazy feet and trotted.
“Damn, look at the energy these two have now that they’re heading back to the hay, instead of away from it,” I quipped hoping to lighten the mood.
There was only a faint smile on her beautiful lips. She was obviously dealing with some heavy shit, and I was going to have to find a way to help her without being an asshole.
Chapter 7
Sayler
Parker looked completely disappointed. I was feeling pretty bleak myself. But I knew it was just my totally silly sense of pride that had ruined the day. The truth was, I was embarrassed as heck that I had done so many stupid things in the past few years. It seemed, much to my annoyance, that Parker, who’d always been just as wild and reckless as me as a teen, had managed to grow up and pull his life together. I, on the other hand, had only managed to mess mine up more. And the long line of screw ups just kept going, including today when I’d overreacted to his questioning about how I’d managed to sink low enough to become a courier for a drug dealer. It was my innate sense of shame that had taken over, making for a crappy end to an otherwise nice day. I was always best at sabotaging my own happiness.
Parker pulled his truck into the shabby mobile home park and coasted down to the pathetic trailer at the end. Just looking at the dusty cracked windows and rusted siding made me feel sad.
I opened the truck door but didn’t hop out. “I guess my moving to California is just another choice I can add to a long list of bad choices.”
He didn’t say anything. He was obviously done listening to my pity party, and I couldn’t blame him. I was getting pretty sick of myself too.
“Parker, I’m really glad you’ve found your way out here in California. You are one of the coolest people I know, and you deserve to be happy.”
“And you don’t?” He pushed his glasses up on his head. A thin layer of dust and suntan made his pale eyes stand out brightly in his face. “Trust me, darlin’, I still make a lot of bad fucking mistakes. Nothing in life is ever smooth. And none of us can ever predict what the hell will happen next. You couldn’t have predicted that Kurt was going to turn out to be an abusive motherfucker when he sucked down whiskey.”
“You tried to warn me.”
“I tried to talk you out of it because I never liked the guy, and I knew he wasn’t good enough for you.” He faced forward, and that little muscle in his jaw that always twitched when he was upset was flicking back and forth. “And I was jealous. Even though I knew we’d never end up together, I sure as hell didn’t want anyone else to have you. Especially an undeserving asshole like him.”
“You were jealous?”
He lift
ed a brow at me. “Yeah, like you weren’t already aware of it. Or did you forget about the time I pounded Alex Evans because I caught him kissing you after the homecoming game? Earned myself a four day suspension, and my old man clapped me on the side of the head so hard I saw stars. Guess old habits die hard.” He reached over and took hold of my hand. “This man you owe the money to, are you in a lot of danger?”
My throat dried up just thinking about it. “On my last drop, I was supposed to meet the contact in a busy mall. For some reason, there were dozens of cops and security guards patrolling the mall. Turned out later to be a missing kid, but I didn’t know it at the time. I panicked. I raced into the ladies’ room and hid the backpack in a stall. I locked it and climbed out. Then I went out to wait for the police to leave. By the time I went back into the restroom, the backpack was gone. The contents were worth ten grand, or at least that’s what Chambers claimed. He told me I had a month to repay him.”
“Or what?”
It was my turn for the brow lift.
“Shit. How much longer before the month is up?”
“The month was up two weeks ago. I fled L.A. and hoped that I could hide out here and make enough money to pay him back.”
“He hasn’t contacted you yet?”
I shook my head. “No, but I’ve no doubt that he’ll make good on his threat if I don’t have the money by the time he finds me. There. Now you know it all. The last thing I want is to get you involved in my sordid little existence. Seeing you again has been the best thing to happen to me in a long time, and once I straighten this out, I hope we can still hang out together.” I pushed the door open. “The tips at the club are good, not great, but they’ll get me closer to that ten grand.” I leaned over, kissed his cheek and climbed out of the truck.
He still hadn’t driven off as I opened the door and stepped inside. I walked to the sink to clean up the dishes I’d left dirty. The door flung open, and Parker filled the opening with his broad shoulders.