Page 21 of Rolling Thunder

She scrubbed the dirt from under her fingernails. She dug through her closet. Way in back, past the barn clothes, which were simple and utilitarian, she had a collection of skimpy clothes that sparkled and drew attention. Her stomach clenched at even the sight of them, and she went and poured herself another glass of liquid courage. It was everything she was trying to get away from, yet she deliberately put herself right back into it. What choice did she have?

By the time she was dressed and made up, she’d come to a simple decision. She couldn’t stop thinking of Evan. He’d tantalized her by offering the possibility of protection, respect, and hot sex. When he touched her, she felt better. She felt alive for the first time. She wanted one night of a free life, with a real man, where she wasn’t branded by her past. That, she decided, she was going to take for herself. Before Evan, she’d slept with a few guys because it was the closest thing she could get to feeling like she mattered to anyone. She had only her worth as a sexy woman to bargain with for any physical contact. She usually went numb before it was over. She didn’t even do it for an orgasm. Just the fleeting feeling of being close to someone. Most of the time, she was so, so alone. She would have one night with Evan, and then never see him again. It was too complicated to live a double life, and it never worked to tell the truth.

EVAN

A hesitant knock at Evan’s door sent Abbey into a fit of barking. Not that she was particularly ferocious or convincing as a watchdog. He couldn’t imagine who was at his door. People didn’t just come to this little shack of a house on the edge of the swamp and thousands of acres of nothing but alligators and mosquitoes. It wasn’t a neighborhood that invited random visitors. He contemplated getting his gun, but he saw Kayla’s truck in his driveway.

“Shut up, Trouble,” he said to the dog, and opened the door. She looked different from usual. A lot more eyeliner. Dark, smoky. A slinky, silver tank top that accentuated her very fine feminine form and showed off her wiry, muscled arms. She wore skinny jeans that looked like they’d been painted on and high heels. The dog wagged her tail, then darted out and ran off into the night.

If he’d thought Kayla was sexy in her regular farm wear, she absolutely stole his breath like this. She was…sex, and she was standing on his porch, looking at him with wounded, desperate, longing eyes. He could feel the lust singing off her, as if he could smell the pheromones. He knew without a word what she was here for, and he hoped she didn’t change her mind, because the way she looked right now, he was ready to put her up against the doorjamb and fuck her senseless.

What was that look, though? Why did she seem so…lost? He couldn’t imagine, but he knew why she was here, and he thought there might be one way to chase the shadows out of her. He was just the man for the job. Reaching out, he took her by the wrist, not even so friendly as by the hand, and drew her inside, toeing the door shut and then putting her up against it. She went willingly, with the vapid feel of a woman ready for anything. He heard her suck in a sharp breath, and as her lips parted, he covered her completely, took her mouth, pressed into her until there wasn’t an inch untouched. Her throaty moan was like a shot of adrenaline straight to his heart, and his dick jumped up triumphantly.

He felt her hands deftly unbuckling his belt and unzipping his jeans, and then it was almost as if she melted out from under him. Before he could even react, the sucking wet swirl of her mouth was on his dick, and he nearly collapsed from the shocking pleasure. What the fuck was this girl doing to him? He looked down at her. Those long black lashes fluttered up at him as she sucked him unbelievably deep. He cursed, grinding his teeth to keep from coming right then like a teenager. This wasn’t like any other sexual encounter he could ever think of. He was pretty controlling, and this girl was just undoing him. As she worked him over with incredible skill, he caught her with a gasp and pulled her back. He didn’t say a thing. She looked at him and knew. He had to save some for the main course. He pulled her back up to her feet and held her at arm’s length for a moment, trying to decide what to do with her. He wanted her in every way imaginable, all at once, and for hours. Where had this sex kitten come from? Every time he’d kissed her before now, she’d seemed nervous and hesitant.

He couldn’t ever remember being so in lust with a girl that he was too dumbfounded to know where to start. The slinky silver top was enthralling, the way it outlined her breasts, but it had to go. He suspected, and found he was right, that she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath it. Her breasts were small, but a lovely dash of femininity with her otherwise lean and muscular build. That had to be the farm and the horses. He knew she didn’t work out, and yet her abs were like a washboard below those perfect breasts.

He tossed the shirt to the couch. He almost ordered her to get out of her jeans, but then decided words now would spoil the otherwise primal exchange they had going on. Instead, he made swift work of the button and zipper and peeled them down her legs himself, exposing a lacy thong that hardly counted as its own garment. That could stay for the time being. He wasn’t ready to stop looking at her in it and imagining all the ways he could pull it this way and that to drive her crazy.

He spun her around and bent her over the arm of the couch, his hands on her ass, kneading it, then spreading it, then pulling her hips up higher so he could spread her farther, dragging the thin strap of lace across her. This earned him another moan from her that shot straight to his dick, which he already thought couldn’t get any harder. He reached around to work her clit. Her response was nearly a scream of pleasure, which became a keening cry when he slipped two fingers inside her. She was already soaking wet.

He felt the tension build in her and worked her harder. She gripped him harder, her back arching wildly. He knew she was seconds away from an orgasm, but something in her shifted and cooled. It was as if she’d deliberately derailed herself. Why would she do that?

Regardless, the bedroom was better suited for this. And that was where the condoms were.

Her legs didn’t seem to be working too well, a fact of which he was proud, so he lifted her into his arms and turned around, carrying her down the hall into his bedroom.

KAYLA

She’d expected the fucking. She’d come here for the fucking. He’d completely taken her out of herself, and that was what she wanted, needed. She hadn’t expected him to carry her down the hall. When he lifted her off her feet, he threw her so mentally off balance that she felt that exposure again. A timid, wounded little hidden part of her heart that wanted to curl against him and be held rather than fucked. The tenderness and the sensation it brought were more than she could bear, and she sought to release the animal in him again. That, she knew what to do with. For a second, she stood before him, unashamed of her nakedness.

While he ripped open a condom, she turned away, crawling onto his bed on all fours. With a flick of hair over her shoulder, she looked back at him, telling him what to do. She could make him act the way she wanted him to. This was the only semblance of control she’d ever had over herself or any man she had been with.

He grabbed her hips and drove into her with one long stroke that was still utterly shocking even though she’d invited it.

First, he held her by the hips and fucked her hard and fast. He dragged sounds from her that she’d never heard herself make. Then he wrapped his body around her from behind, overwhelming her. His hand went to her hair, pulling her face to the side so he could kiss her mouth while he ground into her deep and slow. No man had ever handled her with such dominant skill. She had no choice but to surrender to it completely. She was breathless, boneless, and when he reached around and rolled her clit in his fingers, she nearly exploded. The shock of it took her completely by surprise as she clenched around the length of him. The explosion of pleasure was closely followed by the blanket of darkness that was her only constant companion. She never orgasmed during sex. She kept this invisible secret from every lover she’d ever had. Most of them didn’t notice or care. It was just one of the ways she stayed detached from the act, from the man.

She craved the attention, the admiration, the momentary feeling of value that came with the pursuit by a man for her body. Now, she would sink into the liquid numbness that protected her and evaporate back into the shadows where she belonged. The rest didn’t matter. She might as well have been floating somewhere else, watching from the corner of the room. Vacantly, she thought of Rocket’s training schedule this week. Whether she should give her a day off tomorrow.

She totally underestimated him, however. She’d barely felt him turn her over, but he had. And he kissed her mouth softly, nudging her chin with his fingers to angle her gaze to meet his.

“Where’d you go? I lost you for a minute.” She stared at him. There was a sheen of sweat where their skin met. She had the strange sensation of her stomach rolling like it did when an elevator dropped, and she reentered her own body beneath him. He was still touching her face, watching her. He had just stopped mid-fuck because he actually noticed she’d mentally checked out. It was an old, well-practiced coping mechanism. And he’d caught her. Now, he was looking at her. Really seeing her, not the sexy show she put on for him. She shot him a coy smile and leaned up to kiss him. It wasn’t the truth. It was just the only response she knew how to give.

He kissed her back for a moment, and then eased himself down her body, pulled her knees up to expose her, and took her in his mouth. This was not what she had in mind. This was not what she wanted him to do. Once again, she’d lost control of the situation, of him. The loss of control sent her hurtling back toward the dark cliff where she would drop off and dissociate.

But pinpricks of light and sensation danced through her body and behind her eyelids, yanking her back into herself again. The floodgates opened. She gasped, arching involuntarily, so desperately filled with need that she couldn’t shut it down again.

The orgasm was an unstoppable tsunami that rushed through her. It clenched every muscle in her body and then shook in tremors as the pleasure rippled through her. Somehow, he managed to almost imperceptibly transfer the stroking of her clit from his mouth to his thumb as he rose up and entered her again. As he filled her and fucked her, she heard his guttural yell and felt the urgency in each thrust as new waves of her never-ending orgasm milked every last ounce of his.

Still as hard as a rock, he stroked her hair from her face as he drove deep into her, meeting her gasp with his kiss. He kissed her face, her neck, her breasts, without missing the rhythm he maintained inside her. But these kisses weren’t the same. No longer searching for gratification, his own or hers, he touched her like he cared. He kissed her like he cared.

At last, he rolled onto his side and pulled her against his chest, strong arms wrapped around her. He hadn’t used her and tossed her to the side. Once the wild fucking was over, he touched her with tenderness. Somehow, the push and pull of her trying to maintain her numb protection during sex had totally crumbled. She could fake a decent little orgasm that satisfied everyone else. Evan had seen right through it just like he seemed to do everything.

It was what she’d craved so deeply when he’d left her kitchen the other night. She’d wanted him to hold her just like this and never let her go. The void inside her that was cold could be made warm. All the secrets she’d been keeping her whole life were now prisoners clamoring at the bars of their cells, demanding to be let out and heard. In his arms, she feared them less. In his arms, she could almost believe that there could be real safety with a man.

He had cast a spell on her, and she had lain in his bed for almost five minutes when the sex was over.

Coming here had been a huge mistake.

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