Page 24 of Peacocks

I licked and sucked, enjoying his hitched breaths and deep rumbles of satisfaction and appreciation.

“You sure are eager to make an impression,” he gasped when I took his cock as deep into my throat as I could and subsequently gagged on it.

“Fuck my mouth,” I muttered, reaching around to grab his ass.

“Jesus fuck, Lane.” He thrust into my throat and tightened his grip on my hair. “Not gonna last. So fucking good.”

My own cock ached, so I reached down to open my pants and stroke it. Sucking Jay off turned me on. Imagining what we looked like in the dimly lit closet with me on my knees and him thrusting hard into my throat made my orgasm come barreling on.

I choked on his cock, stroking us both quickly and irregularly. Jay’s hand cupped the back of my head as he guided me. “That’s it, baby. You’re doing so good. Gonna make me come.”

My release hit seconds before his did. His hot spunk landed on my face as I pulled back with a gasp and sucked in a breath. The sounds of our groaning, the scent of his cum, and the possessive feel of his hands on me were all fucking amazing.

“Lane, what the fuck?” he murmured as he tried catching his breath. “Get up here. C’mere.”

I stood awkwardly and tried tucking myself back in, but Jay shoved my hands away and cupped my face instead to meet my eyes. “That was fucking amazing. Thank you.”

I preened at the praise, feeling my chest puff out a little. I’d wanted to please him, wanted to impress him with my skills and my strong attraction to him.

Most of all, I wanted to make him happy.

I leaned in and kissed him long and hard before pulling back. “I’m in the mood for spaghetti. What do you think?”

Jay’s face widened into a grin. “Do you one better. I made Italian Gentleman. It’s in the oven already.”

My chest filled with fluttery strangeness. If this man wasn’t careful, I was going to want to tie myself to him with something way stronger than wisteria vines.

Chapter Six

Jay

Through the month of March,I took every opportunity to touch and kiss and suck Lane Desmond. To care for him and pretend he was mine.

I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking he actuallywasmine. Not really. There were about a billion reasons why he wasn’t and could never be—as many reasons as there were degrees on his walls and vocabulary words he knew that I didn’t, and those thingsmattered, even if Dunn and Tucker said otherwise—but I sure enjoyed pretending.

I rolled out of my bed quietly, one hand on the bed frame to keep it from creaking under my weight. Spring was arriving in the Thicket slowly but surely, which made getting out of bed in the morning a little bit easier… not that you’d know it to look at Lane.

The second I left the bed, he rolled into my warm spot and immediately pulled the covers around him, half his face buried in my pillow and the other half catching the pale morning light. The poor man’s hair stuck up in every direction, like he’d been fighting a hard battle… and I supposed he had since it was the start of calving season, and Alva had called him for an assist at Dunn Johnson’s place last night.

I leaned against my doorjamb for a second and watched him sleep like the creepiest creeper to ever creep. The man needed his rest, and I didn’t want to wake him… butdang, I really liked looking at Lane.

Even a couple of months ago, he’d carried himself like he was holding something back. For a man who always knew what to do when it came to animals, Lane had been nervous as a jackrabbit around the people of the Thicket. More and more these days, though—in these quiet moments when he was tangled up in my blankets, or when we sat on my couch drinking a beer, or even sometimes when he was out and about in town, chatting with Cindy Ann Johnson and some of the other ladies about Thicket happenings—he looked calmer.

More peaceful.

Happier, maybe.

God, I really, really hoped he was happy in the Thicket… and with me.

I shook my head at myself. “Don’t get used to it, Jay,” I muttered under my breath. “It’s not forever.”

Lane had made it clear that he wanted casual—light and easy, with no strings—and I was fine with that.

Iwas.

Completely fine.

Except…fuck,I really wasn’t.

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