Page 71 of The Brave and the Reckless

“No-ah,” I whined, reduced to pure petulant need as his finger circled my nipple, closer and closer, but never touching, never giving me that rush of heat I craved.

“Not yet,” he chuckled.

Pushing one foot in between mine, he nudged my legs apart. Just enough for me to feel the soft air against the wetness at the crest of my thighs and between my legs. God, I was covered in it, Noah’s cum mixed with my own resurgent arousal.

Torturing me, his fingers kept mapping my breasts, as I stood, exposed and open and desperate for more.

Apparently, I had to do it myself if I didn’t want to die from sexual frustration. I dropped a hand, but before I could touch myself, Noah snatched my wrist. He tugged my arm behind my back and locked my hand at waist level. Not only was he denying me my own pleasure, but his grip just made me want him more, made me want that muscle strength on top of me again. I let out a frustrated groan. He responded with another chuckle.

Fine. I could be mean, too.

I rose to my tiptoes and writhed my hips against him,shimmying until I felt his cock align perfectly between my cheeks. Noah moaned and bit my shoulder.

That seemed to have done the trick. He eased me forward, walking us toward the bed without releasing me from his embrace.

“Anything else I should know about before I screw you six ways to Sunday, princess?”

I knew he was really asking whether he needed to change the way he touched me. Whether he needed to be more careful. I loved that he didn’t ask like that though. He made it clear that he still had every intention of thoroughly fucking me. “Don’t go gentle on me now, Young. I’m perfectly capable of letting you know if I’m uncomfortable with anything. Don’t hold back.”

“All right. Get in bed, down on your hands and knees.”

I narrowed my eyes at him as his grip loosened around my wrist. “Stop telling me what to do,” I hissed.

He heaved a sigh that was so perfectly raspy and grumpy that I couldn’t help but grin. “You’ll tell me if I hurt you?”

“Yes.” I rolled my eyes at him just to drive home the point that he was hovering. “And if my mouth is somehow otherwise occupied, I’ll flip you the middle finger, okay?”

He nodded and dipped his face to me. His lips skimmed over mine and my mouth readily fell open, but before I could close the kiss, he grabbed my waist and picked me off the floor. Noah tossed me up like he’d done many times before. This time, however, he let go. I was suspended in the air just long enough for panic to surge through my chest, only to land in the softest cloud of a duvet. My heart still racing, I tried to rise on to all fours, but Noah’s weight came over on the back of my thighs, and his largehand pushed against the small of my back, holding me down.

“You look so fucking perfect in my bed,” he groaned, pushing the thick head of his cock into the narrow gap between my thighs, barely deep enough to find my entrance. “I think the only way you’d look better is covered in my cum.”

I moaned and buried my face in his sheets. I grasped the fabric with both hands. No part of me had ever expected to be turned on by a man wanting to come all over me. It seemed so lewd, almost degrading, but Noah was coaxing new cravings from me. Whether he yanked my skirts up during our breaks in Ace Ryder’s hideout, fucked me in the mud, or tossed me into his bed, Ilikedbeing at the receiving end of this sexual desire.

It was freeing to let myself want his filthy words and all the indecent things he could do to me…

There wassomeof the aforementioned mind-blowing sex, but we spent more of the night talking than anything else. Noah told me about working summers in the park when he was younger, and Renee offering him Ace Ryder after his dad passed and he couldn’t keep the ranch running. I told him about my parents wanting me to go to Yale and how I couldn’t fathom spending any more time in lecture halls if it wasn’t medicine. We kissed and touched and dozed and talked more, about Wild Fields, about Manhattan, about the logistics of running a therapy ranch, the strangest park guests we’d encountered and stars we could spot through the window once the clouds cleared up.

Chapter Nineteen

ARMADILLO ICE CREAM PARLOR

When you need to cool off from the heat of adventure, treat yourself to a delicious scoop of our traditional ice cream, served in a freshly baked waffle, cup or cone, or find refreshment with one of our creamy milkshakes or floats.

NOAH

Esra was going to occupy my mind no matter what. I could try fighting it, try and be nothing but her live-in co-worker, get annoyed at her laundry forever being left in the washer– but why bother when the alternative meant getting to drag my tongue all over her body while she lay in my bed solving crosswords in old newspapers? I accepted my fate. I was done. She was sinking her claws into me, figuratively and literally, and I was going to say thank you and ask for seconds.

After that night at the ranch, Esra spent more time at the stables. Not only did Crumble walk a lot smoother than Tornado, but she was also smaller in every way, which meant Esra was physically more comfortable, and by extension less nervous.

Even with her newfound interest in learning how to ride, part of me had expected her to show up every other day, get on the horse for thirty minutes, and then run off to go about her life. Instead, she stuck around the stables. She asked me about feeding schedules and brushing manes, and I overheard her asking the other people working with the horses about saddle types and horseshoes and the difference between ponies and horses. She didn’t shy away from physically helping out either, though after she twisted her wrist when trying to lift the wheelbarrow, I assigned her to grooming and cleaning tack– both of which she accepted without protest.

I managed to pull her aside for quick kisses, but the stables were generally too busy and too open for more than that. We still had our “seven minutes in heaven”– as she called them– every day, but they got more frantic as we tried to make the most of the limited time we had to ourselves. There always seemed to be way too many people around.

“… so it’s cool that you’re technically a mutant, but it’s really nothing you should be worried about,” she told Cookie while brushing his mane. I leaned against the stall door and watched her. I’d cleaned Crumble’s hooves in the next stall over and had listened to Esra educate the horse onheterochromia, the condition that meant he had one blue and one brown eye. Her interactions with the animals were so goddamn pure. She’d gone from recoiling and calling Tornado a cow to treating my horses like her best friends. I could have watched her braid manes and ramble about everything and nothing all day, and I’d end up with facial cramps from smiling. Her lightheartedness was becoming intoxicating like that.

“Night, guys! Turn off the lights when you leave, okay?” Hector called from the front of the stables.

“We got it.” I waved and nodded at him. Once he was gone, I turned back to Esra, who had stilled with the brush mid-air, eyes on me.

---