Cowboy Valentine (3 page)

After a little while, Cora opened her eyes. The sky began to lighten a little bit on the eastern horizon, and the frogs at the watering hole went quiet.

And still he continued to tongue her, keeping the same steady rhythm. She combed her fingers through his hair, then rubbed and squeezed her own breasts until her nipples were tiny pips.

His rhythm was as steady as a freight train. His fingers delved deeper into her, and after a while she felt only pleasure from them, no pain. Soon she felt the back of his ring finger stroking at her slick perineum, and the tip of his little finger pressing against her tight asshole. She gasped, and he curled his fingers inside her, hitting a sweet spot that fired spikes of pure pleasure into her brain.

“Holy shit,” she rasped.

He quickened his tongue on her clit, playing the tight bud until all she saw behind her closed eyelids was white light. He began to fuck her hard with his fingers, so fast that she heard the wet smack of his knuckles against her stretched pussy lips. He curled his fingers even more, and at once she felt herself begin to lose control of her body.

“Caleb,” she gasped. She opened her eyes. The last of the stars were still visible. He pushed the tip of his finger into her ass.

She came at once. Her back arched and her mouth flew open. Her screams cut through the silent darkness and echoed through the hills like the whoops of the coyotes once they got hold of their quarry. Her whole body seemed to contract around his hand, her pussy and ass thrown under wave after wave of mindless pleasure. Caleb had released with his tongue and fingers eighteen years of sexual tension, and now she was drowning in it, gasping for air.

As she rode out the last jolts of her orgasm, he began to stroke himself back to life.

“It has to be now, sweetheart,” he gasped. His lips were slick with her juices.

She nodded, still in shock.

He reached into the pocket of his jeans for a condom and rolled it on quickly. The smell of rubber reached her nose, a strange note in the cocktail of smells from her body, his skin, the dry, sweet grass and the night air of Oleander.

He lay above her, a big shadow kissed by starlight. His skin was smooth and feverish. He leaned down to kiss her, hard, and she tasted her pussy juices coating his tongue.

Distracted by his lips, she suddenly felt him push the head of his cock into her. Her slick pussy lips strained around it. With the tip of his thumb, he drew tiny circles on her clitoris, and she felt the heat begin to build again. She put her hands on his rock-hard buttocks, which he flexed as he made tiny thrusts into her, chiseling into her flesh.

She looked down and saw that his eyes were shut and his brows were drawn as if in concentration. He gave her one inch, then two.

Through the layers of pleasure he had built inside her, she felt the pain begin to surface, rushing at her. She had nowhere to go.

He was halfway inside her when he broke their kiss and looked her in the eyes. To her surprise, he looked angry, even though his words were spoken in a whisper. “Are you all right?”

She was half-impaled by his massive cock, on her back with her legs in the air, in his ’87 Silverado with a four-inch lift. The night sky was licking dew all over them. She felt the weight of the world in the weight of his body, and she knew he was about to break her and brand her. She licked her lips and tightened her hold on his hips.

“Do it,” she said.

At once, he straightened his legs and pushed himself forward with his feet, thrusting his cock balls deep into her virgin pussy. He groaned deep in his chest.

She made no sound except for the rush of air that escaped from her lungs as he tore into her. The pain was intense. Hot tears welled in her eyes and ran down her temples, soaking her hair.

Eyes closed tight again, Caleb supported himself on his big arms, then began to fuck her as though she weren’t a virgin, as though her pussy wasn’t stretched raw around his cock. He thrust back and forth, his sinuous body undulating above her, beads of perspiration bleeding into a thin sheen on his torso.

When she twisted under him with the pain, he shifted his weight and put a hand behind her knee, pinning her to the bed of his truck while he took his pleasure. The smell of hot rubber and the earthy tang of blood filled her nose and she breathed deep, trying to will the pain away.

“God gave you one tight pussy, Cora,” he said, looking down at her. She was mesmerized by the lean functionality of his body. He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his forearm against the sweat on his upper lip.

“I need to come,” he gasped. He grabbed the base of his cock and pulled slowly out of her.

The pain disappeared at once, replaced by a throbbing ache.

He moved back onto the tailgate. “I want to fuck you from behind. Turn around. Get on all fours.”

Shaking, she crawled into position, facing away from him. Even in the darkness, she could see faint streaks of blood on the insides of her thighs and on the front of his.

Caleb grabbed her hips and dragged her backward towards him. He pushed on her upper back and she went down on her forearms, her ass thrust in the air and tipped up toward him like an offering. She felt powerless. The tears were still running down her cheeks.

He rubbed the head of his cock over her swollen pussy lips, then grunted once as he thrust back into her, all gentleness gone. He grabbed her right hip and put his opposite foot flat on the bed of the truck, his leg bent at the knee and his inner thigh pressed against the left side of her body. He began to ride her hard, all muscle and meat and urgency.

She felt the suspension of his truck bounce with the force of their fucking. In a haze, she felt her body give way to him. Something inside her seemed to rupture, and the pain, less sharp, became something different. Lust. Need.

He began to murmur endearments mixed with filth. He sounded like he was speaking in tongues. “You want this cock?” he whispered. “You want this cock in that virgin pussy? You want me to fuck your beautiful, fresh little cunt, Cora? Is that what you want, sweetheart?”

Right on the precipice of his own orgasm, he slammed into her, again and again, pulling out almost completely and sliding himself back in, the plump head of his cock kneading hard against the inner walls of her pussy. Her tits were hanging down, jiggling with each thrust. He reached forward and cupped them possessively, squeezing them and pinching at her nipples until she whimpered with both pain and arousal.

She reached back and felt the shaft of his cock sliding into her, coming out slick with her juices. She began to rub her own hard clit, and the ache began to build as he drove into her with mad hunger.

In a moment, her mind fell away, and all she became was her body, her tits in his hands, her tender cunt stretched and distended by his cock. Their bodies, slick with sweat and cold dew, crashed together in a single, powerful orgasm that crushed and shook them like prey in the jaws of a wolf.

Cora’s body jerked and bucked against his, no longer under her control, pleasure and pain knifing through her nervous system and tearing it to shreds. In desperation, she reached back and held on to his hips, feeling his muscles contract as he shot long, endless spurts of come.

When it was over, he collapsed onto her back. Her arms trembled under his weight.

“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Oh my God.”

He fed her. Eggs and toast and coffee at a truck-stop diner thirty miles from town, where they prayed no one knew them. The windows of the diner were painted with hearts and cupids.
Ask Us about Our Valentine’s Day Specials
, said a sign on their table.

Caleb was back to his gentlemanly self. He’d helped to wash off her legs by holding the water bottle while she scrubbed the blood away. The water was cold and they’d laughed about it. She didn’t have a comb with her and was afraid to look at her reflection in the shiny napkin dispenser.

They sat in the booth on the same side, his arm slung lazily over her shoulder. He’d set his cowboy hat on the seat opposite them.

“When do you leave?” he asked.

“August.”

He drank his coffee black. “February to August is a long time.”

“Boyfriend’s the last thing I need,” she said automatically.

Caleb smiled. “We’ve got something in common, then. I ain’t in the market for a boyfriend neither.”

He drove her home and dropped her off at the corner so that her grandma wouldn’t see his truck.

“What’ll you tell her?” he asked.

“That I had to stay late and I slept in the back room.”

“Will she believe you?”

Cora smirked. “Probably not.”

“Hide her machete for me, then.”

She got out, and he kissed her once more through the driver’s side window. He’d rolled up his sleeves. There was a small tattoo on the inside of his right forearm that she hadn’t seen in the dark. She reached into the truck and pulled his arm forward to look at it in the light. The ink was dark and new.

Heartbreaker.

“What time do you get off work tonight?” he asked.

Cora looked up at him. In the morning sunlight, his eyes were bottle green. There was danger in every single beautiful thing about him. “I’m leaving soon. We shouldn’t see each other.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “What time?”

She sure as hell didn’t want to fall in love, but the dull, unfamiliar ache between her legs began to throb like a heartbeat. As soon as she opened her mouth, she realized that she wanted to see him again. Badly. For once, she considered the possibility that the good girl and the rebel inside her sometimes spoke with the same voice. “Eight thirty.”

Caleb reached forward and stroked her cheek with the back of his thumb. “See you then, sweetheart.”

She could feel him watching her. As she walked up the driveway of her grandmother’s tiny clapboard house, she heard Caleb start up the truck. His souped-up engine roared and shook the ground under her feet, sending sweet vibrations up her spine.

Chapter Two

The Last Time

“Every day I wonder how many things I am dead wrong about.”

—Jim Harrison

Merle Haggard’s “Workin’ Man Blues” buzzed from busted speakers as Caleb pulled up the long driveway of his family’s ranch. His mother reached over his snoozing father to crank the window closed against the rising dust. Without air-conditioning, the truck cab sweltered in the summer heat.

Caleb stopped at the front porch, and his mother squeezed his father’s arm, just above the faded Navy tattoo that said
Heartbreaker
.
Caleb had gotten an identical tattoo one drunken night out alone after he’d found out his dad’s cancer had returned.

“Dale, we’re home,” his mother whispered.

His father woke up slowly, blinking and confused.

This round of chemotherapy had left the burly man weak as a newborn deer. No one hated being feeble more than Dale MacKinnon. When Caleb got out of the truck to help, Dale ignored him and grabbed the handrail instead, each step slow but steady.

His mother, holding his father’s jacket, smiled gently. “We’re okay here, Caleb. Why don’t you put the truck in the garage and get on with your day? We’ll see you at dinner. Six, as usual.”

Caleb nodded. He parked Dale’s ancient Chevy C20 in the garage, climbed into his own Silverado and turned the ignition. The familiar roar of its engine drove away the restless, angry feeling in his chest. He tore down the driveway and headed into town.

California’s Central Valley in August—the smell of drought-loosened soil filled Caleb’s nose. He slipped his sunglasses out of the glove compartment and slid them on. The metal frames burned his skin. He checked his watch. Three on the dot. Just in time.

He parked across the street from the community college. Cora, in jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt, dashed around his hood and jumped into the cab. She stashed her backpack and gym bag on the floorboard, slid over and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Hey,” he said. A familiar mixture of horniness and contentment settled over him. He felt it whenever she was near.

“Hey, yourself.” Her dark hair was in a messy ponytail and her cheeks were flushed. Besides cherry ChapStick, she didn’t wear makeup to school. She didn’t need to.

“What time do you need to be at work?”

“Five today,” she said.

“So where do you want to go?”

She smiled. “Asshole.”

“What?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “I just want to know where you want to go.”

“You know where.”

Twenty minutes away, the almond orchard on the northern edge of his family’s property butted up against a wide irrigation channel. Where the guardrail ended, Caleb turned off the asphalt highway and bumped down the sandy road that ran between the water and the endless rows of trees.

“Are the almonds ready to harvest yet?” Cora asked.

“Almost. Couple weeks.”

“After I leave?”

He nodded. He didn’t like to think about that.

The water in the channel mirrored the blue-gray sky and the slanting sunlight above. Caleb drove until the highway disappeared in the distance behind them. Privacy wasn’t hard to come by in Oleander. All you needed was a truck and a dirt road.

When he was satisfied they were far enough away from passing cars, he turned down one of the shady rows and stopped the car. Here, inside the orchard, the temperature dropped a few degrees, and a thick silence surrounded them as soon as he cut the engine.

She took a little plastic baggie of carrot sticks out of her backpack and munched on them as she scrolled through the texts on her phone.

He took off his seat belt, removed his sunglasses and turned to stare at her. She bit her lip as she texted, smiling to herself. At her hip, he noticed a small hole in her jeans. Her maple-sugar skin shone through the white threads. Through the cotton of her shirt, he could see her bra—pale blue, lacy at the tops of the cups. He felt his body tighten.

After a moment, she looked up. “What?”

“Don’t let me rush you or anything.”

She turned back to her phone and smiled. “I won’t.”

Sassy thing.
“Whatcha got there?”

She held the bag out to him. “Here. Eat.”

He took one. It crunched between his teeth. “Bunny food.”

“Ain’t I your bunny?”

“You get it on like a bunny.”

In response, she turned off her phone, put it back in her bag. With a smile, she took off his hat and put it on the dashboard. He slid out from under the steering column and she climbed into his lap. She hung her arms on his shoulders.

His hand fit perfectly on her hip. “Pictures from the prom came out in the
Oleander Oracle
. Why didn’t you ask me? Ain’t we going steady?” Even when he teased her, he was careful never to say
boyfriend
or
girlfriend
. Those words always got her hackles up.

“First of all, I couldn’t take you. You’re old. Ancient.”

He took offense at that. “Twenty-two? Since when is that old?”

“Second of all, since when do I have that kind of money to burn? Dress. Flowers. Tickets. To hell with that.”

“I would’ve bought it all for you.”

She smirked. “How about you? Did you go to your prom?”

“Sure did. Unforgettable night.”

“Who was your date?” she demanded. “She give it up?”

“I’m a gentleman. I don’t kiss and tell.”

“You’re lying. You didn’t go.”

“I did too. Spiked the punch and everything.”

Her brown eyes took on a devilish expression. She reached down and cupped her palm around his hard-on. “When I think about all the places this thing has been, I get a little grossed out.”

He kissed her neck and whispered, “You saw my test results. Clean as a whistle, sweetheart. I’m careful.”

“All the same.” She began to rub him the way he liked.

His shaft twitched against his fly. He flexed his hips, pushing his cock into her hand. “Be nice to me.” He licked her earlobe. “This dick’s gonna make you feel good this afternoon. Must be all the practice it’s had that makes you come so hard.”

“Must be.” Her eyes fluttered closed and she pressed her lips to his.

Her mouth was cool and sweet, like the carrots she’d been eating. Gently, he pulled her ponytail back, tipping her chin up so that he could deepen their kiss. He slid his tongue against hers. She groaned in her throat and pressed her hands against his chest. In no hurry, he kissed her slow and deep. Her panties got soaked whenever he did it this way.

When he slid his hands underneath her clothes and up the smooth, warm skin of her back, his fingertips glided over the slight ridges of her backbone.

Eyes wide, she broke their kiss and peeled off her T-shirt. He unhooked her pretty blue bra. She leaned forward and slid the straps off her shoulders, releasing the sweet, erotic smell of her skin.

At once, his mouth was on the first nipple he could reach. He sucked it hard and loud as she squirmed in his lap. He twirled her other nipple between the calloused pads of his fingers. She hissed between her teeth. He squeezed her tits in his hands and feasted on the sight of her.

“Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful,” he murmured.

She kissed him once more and, with an impish smile, slid off his lap, back onto the seat. He watched as she undid his belt buckle and fly. Her nails were neat and clean, no nail polish. But she had blue pen marks all over her hands—notes and random squiggles. He figured she doodled on herself whenever she was bored in class. He’d seen her notebooks—they were pristine.

He lifted his hips and with a mighty yank, she pulled his jeans and boxers down to his knees, releasing his throbbing hard-on. It swung sideways and softly slapped his thigh. Cora made an O with her thumb and forefinger, gripped the base of his cock and gave him a few gentle strokes, milking a clear drop of precome from him as he rested his head back and groaned.

“Do you like it when I go down on you, Caleb?” She tucked a loose strand of black hair behind her ear.

He stroked her bare back. Goose bumps rose on her skin. “Sweetheart, I like everything about you.”

She licked her lips until they were slick then dipped her head down over his lap. She popped the crown of his cock between the tight ring of her lips and slid her mouth down his shaft. Heat gripped his body as she squeezed him with her hand, turning her wrist clockwise as she sucked his shaft and tongued the head.

One hand holding the edge of the seat, his other hand resting on the back of her neck, Caleb focused on taking deep, slow breaths. Pleasure coursed through his bloodstream.

In six months, Cora had soaked up everything he taught her. Everything seemed to turn her on. She loved to come. She loved to make him come. She was his most intense wet dream come to life.

“Yeah, girl,” he whispered. “Goddamn.”

A day after they’d started sleeping together, she’d demanded he drive her all the way up to the clinic in Visalia. “Gimme the industrial-strength birth control,” she’d said to the nurse. She insisted Caleb get tested and demanded to see the results. “I’m not getting pregnant like my mom did,” she’d told him. “And I’m not getting stuck in godforsaken Oleander for the rest of my life.”

He agreed with her wholeheartedly about not making a baby just yet. But when she said things like that—about getting stuck in Oleander, about it being a godforsaken place—he felt a stab of pain in his chest. He didn’t feel an excess of love for their hometown, but he didn’t hate it either. And he definitely didn’t want to see her leave.

Especially not when she did things to him like the thing she was doing right now.

Now at full length, he was long and hard enough that she could wrap both her fists around his shaft as she slurped on the head of his cock. She moved her wrists in such a way that made him see stars—in opposite directions, clockwise and counterclockwise. This move she’d learned on her own—on the Internet or something. He hoped to God she didn’t have any other tutor in this subject but him.

“Come on up, sweetheart,” he said, stroking her back.

The door of the truck squealed open and
ding
ed until he took the key out of the ignition. She climbed out of the truck, kicked off her sneakers and shimmied out of her jeans and panties. When he reached forward and pulled the elastic gently out of her hair, her dark hair tumbled down. Standing barefoot in the soft dirt, sunlight filtering through the trees onto her naked skin, she looked pure and lovely and perfect.

Confident that none of the farm crews would be coming by this afternoon, Caleb stripped off his clothes too. Shirt, boots, socks, jeans, drawers. He threw everything in the cab of the truck and shut the door with a
bang
, enjoying the look on her face as she ogled him.

His brothers had put a set of weights in the attic of the old farmhouse. Nowadays, Caleb went up there after work to blow off steam, but also for his own vanity—he liked the way Cora looked at him. He liked that he turned her on.

“Come here, cowboy,” she said, reaching for him.

Locked in another passionate kiss, she wrapped her legs around his waist and he carried her. Her ass cheeks were firm in his hands. She held on tight as he lowered the tailgate with one hand and pulled a pile of blankets over it to make a soft bed for her. He sat her down on the tailgate and she leaned back on her elbows, her legs hanging off the edge.

A sunbeam shone through a break in the trees, illuminating the piece of heaven between her legs. Shadowed by a small patch of dark hair, her pussy was swollen and lustrous. She flexed her inner muscles and her delicate flesh flared at him in invitation.

He smiled. “Spread your legs.”

“You gonna go down?” she whispered.

“You bet your ass I’m gonna go down.”

He pulled her to the very edge of the tailgate. She opened her legs and he stared at her sex in the bright sunlight. Delicate caramel lips framed her shell-pink core. He made a V with his thumb and forefinger and gently spread her wide open. He stared at her for a long time, memorizing every velvety fold, the shape of the delicate petal that covered her clit. Gently, he blew on the hot-pink keyhole opening of her pussy. It contracted at once. No wonder she always felt so tight—she was tiny.

“You always stare.” She smiled, reached forward and ran her fingers through his hair. Her other hand twirled her nipple. She looked so enticing that in the shade of the tailgate, his cock jerked hard, screaming for attention.

“I’ll never stop staring at you. You’re gorgeous.” He stuck his middle finger in his mouth, wet it and with the barest pressure, skimmed his fingertip along the tender lips of her pussy. She was silky with her own arousal. When he lowered his lips to her and drew circles on her clitoral hood with the tip of his tongue, her toes curled and she moaned, long and deep.

Caleb closed his eyes and fell into a trance. Her smell, her taste, her softness enveloped his senses. He kissed her pussy like he loved kissing her lips—slow and deep. He kept track of the rhythm of her breaths and the slight tremors beneath the surface of her skin.

Her tissues began to swell and her clit, that sweet, vulnerable bundle of nerves, hardened like a BB pellet beneath his tongue. He created a seal over her with his lips and strummed her clit with a steady, unhurried rhythm. Slowly, he slid his index finger deep into her, turned it and drew it out. He repeated the motion, opening her up bit by bit. When her breathing quickened and became shallower, he added his middle finger. She groaned and gripped him like a vise.

When the time was right, he curled his fingertips against her G-spot. Her clit began to vibrate with tension. Her legs trembled. Caleb stole a glance at her—her head thrown back, her lips parted, she was pinching her rosy nipples with the sexual abandon of a woman who knew her body and loved sex. When he felt her take a deep breath and hold it, he unleashed his tongue, savaging her clit until she began to lose control.

At once, Cora threw her arms wide and dug her heels against the edge of the tailgate, lifting her hips so that he could tongue her deeper. When her orgasm broke at last, she shut her eyes and her face twisted up in ecstasy. Hot, sweet liquid filled her pussy, drenching his chin and making it easier for him to piston his fingers in and out of her, extending the climax that shot through her like a rocket.