Untamed: (Heath & Violet) (Beg For It) (15 page)

We emerged from the
woods, the clomping of the horse, the shushing of the sleigh still
the only sounds in our world. Up ahead, I could see an old barn. A
family had lived on that land for generations, but it had lain vacant
for at least five years now. Buildings in Vermont needed nearly
constant maintenance, and the years had done their work. A large
patch had worn through in the roof and the door had blown clean off
its hinges. But I was fascinated by the decay, the havoc wrecked by
nature. Weather carved a more fascinating path than I ever could,
working new creations out of old every single storm.

I wanted to show it to
Violet. With a click and a pull on the reigns, I guided the horses
over on toward it.

“I want to show you
something.”

If she wondered what I
was doing, if she were nervous or questioned where we were headed,
she didn’t show it. She looked eager and up for an adventure. I’d
see if I could show her one.

I stopped the sleigh
outside of the big, old, abandoned barn and tied up the horse. Then I
helped Violet out, happy to see she was wearing some real winter
boots. Guess there was a little country in the woman after all.

We crunched our way
over toward the entrance.

“Can we go in here?”
she asked, her eyes lit up with excitement.

“Some say it’s
haunted,” I couldn’t help but tease her. “But I’ll keep you
safe.”

I’d taken her hand as
she’d climbed down from the sleigh, and she kept right on holding
it as we entered the building. With high ceilings and nothing inside,
no machinery, no animals, no tables or troughs, our steps creaked and
echoed in the silence.

“It’s like a movie
set from the wild west,” she marveled, her eyes wide. “I’ve
never been in anything like it,”

“No?” I asked.
“Nothing in L.A.?”

She shook her head. “I
think there’s a law that anything over twenty years old gets torn
down.”

“Out with the old—”

“In with the new,”
she finished, reaching out to explore the wide, worn planks of the
walls.

“This barn is almost
a hundred years old.” I touched the walls with reverence. “I’ve
made a few pieces with wood like this. I barely have to do anything
to it. It’s got such amazing texture and depth before I even touch
it.”

“Do you know what
you’re going to make before you make it?” she asked, looking up
at me.

“Not usually.” I
didn’t talk much about my work. I felt too pretentious doing it.
But she looked so interested. And so damn appealing in that silly
knit hat. “I sometimes have a general idea, but I usually just dive
in and follow along, see where the work takes me.”

She nodded, seeming to
understand. “Is it like that for you?” I asked. She looked at me
blankly. “You know, when you’re working on a show?”

She gave a dry laugh.
“Oh please. There’s nothing creative about that creative process.
Everything’s mapped out and orchestrated and branded right down to
the last second of supposedly unscripted dialogue.”

She hesitated and I saw
a flicker of vulnerability in her eyes. I guessed she must have
realized she just trashed the type of reality TV she was here in
Watson to sell. I could take a poke at her, exploit the opening she’d
given me. But I didn’t want to.

“Truce,” I offered
her, raising my free hand up. The other one I kept wrapped around
hers. “I know I’ve hazed you plenty. But I won’t do it any more
tonight.”

She smiled and agreed.
“Truce.”

“So, you’ve told me
what you don’t like about what you do,” I continued. “What is
it you would like to be doing?”

“With shows?” she
asked.

I shrugged. “Whatever
it is. What do you wish you were doing that you’re not?”

“Well,” she
hesitated, seeming to think it over before she spoke. Then she took a
deep breath and plunged in. “I’m an assistant producer, that’s
my title, but I feel like I haven’t made any product. I’ve got
nothing to show for what I do all day.”

“You entertain
people,” I offered. I didn’t find those kinds of shows
entertaining, but it was objectively true. She worked for a popular
network that made popular shows.

She shook her head. “I
work on shows that bring out the worst in people. We set them up and
make them compete with each other. We reward the most outrageous
behavior. The ones who act the brattiest, create the most drama?
They’re the ones we make stars.”

“But what I want to
do,” she continued, “is make something like your rocking chair.”

“My rocking chair?”
I couldn’t see the connection.

“I mean, not exactly.
But you’ve made something so real. It’s useful and comfortable
and looks beautiful. It makes people’s lives better. I want to work
on a show that doesn’t make me feel like I need to rinse off muck
every day when I get home. Something that makes people feel happy.
Makes them feel good. Like your chair.”

“You think my chair
does all that?” I took a step closer to her, my heart hammering
away in my chest. She looked up at me and nodded. That had to be the
nicest thing anyone had ever said about my work.

Her lips felt so soft,
so good against mine as I dipped down to capture them, sliding my
hands around her. Off, her knit cap tumbled to the floor as I wound
my fingers up into her hair. Like golden silk, I wanted to bury
myself in it, in her.

“I think you can do
anything you want to, Violet,” I murmured.

She pulled me closer,
kissing me urgently, sighing deep in her throat as I worked a hand
inside her parka, up underneath the back of her shirt along her skin.
So smooth and warm, I wanted all of her beneath me, wrapped around
me.

Gently, I eased her out
of her coat, bringing us down as I did it, down where I spread out
the parka on the floorboards and laid her down on top of it. She
wound her arms along my shoulders, clasping me around my neck, hungry
for my kisses. Her tongue danced with mine, searching, playing,
stoking the fire. My hands roamed her body, pressing her back up to
me, caressing her curves, her waist.

I didn’t know how
long we stayed there kissing. It could have been two minutes, could
have been twenty. Then she wrapped her long leg around my thigh and
moaned as I thrust against her. My hand found her sex and I ran a
finger along the seam of her jeans. I watched her face as I did it,
savoring how it made her eyelids flutter shut, her mouth open in
pleasure.

I needed more. Working
quickly, I reached up and unbuttoned, unzipped her jeans and tugged
them down, then the pretty lacy panties, too. She looked gorgeous and
sexy and sometime I’d stay and admire the view, but right now I
needed the wrapping off.

Man she was pretty. I
could see her pussy glistening in the moonlight filtering through a
big hole in the roof. So slick and wet for me. I brought a finger to
her sex, reverent, worshipping her.

“You’re so
gorgeous,” I breathed, loving the way she parted her legs for me,
the way she craved my touch. I leaned down, closer, kissing her inner
thigh, giving her sensitive skin a light lick. There was something I
wanted to do, needed to do, had been thinking about doing over and
over since I’d first seen her in that bar.

“Violet.” My
whispered word against her inner thigh made her shiver in the
moonlight. “I want to taste you.”

“Yes, oh, Heath,”
she moaned, turning her head to the side.

Gently, slowly, I
lowered my head. Just one, slow lick to start. She tasted like
heaven, so hot and sweet. I’d never done heroin, but I bet it felt
something like that, addictive, potent, making you forget about
everything else. Spreading her with my fingers, I licked and sucked,
coaxed on by her responses, her urgent mews and whines, the way she
grabbed my hair and panted.

There, right there, I
licked her swollen clit and she gasped, then I licked it again,
sucking it and she tensed right up. I could make her come, instantly,
I realized. Dizzy as that made me, I slowed down, savored her more,
letting her enjoy a slower ride right up to the top.

“Heath, oh! Please!”
she started calling out, tossing her head, fisting her hand in my
hair. “I can’t… I can’t take it! Please!”

I gave her a long, slow
lick. My woman needed to come. I played with her clit a little more,
pushing her thighs apart with my hands, wanting her wide open for me.
“Are you going to come for me, Violet?” I asked her, low and
wicked.

She panted and cried
out. “Yes, yes!”

“That’s good, baby.
I want you to come.” I dove back in, taking her sensitive bud into
my mouth and sucking hard, biting light, taking her right up to the
edge and then over as she shuddered and bucked and screamed. Licking
and loving her, I drank her in, mercilessly sucking and savoring
every last drop of her sweet, slick pleasure.

“Oh, that was so
good,” she groaned, sounding dazed and amazed. I wanted to hear
that from her again and again.

She still had on her
shirt, but through it I could see her hard nipples, stiff and aroused
against the fabric. Or stiff and cold? I looked over at the wide open
door, the windows with no glass, the roof torn clean off in one
section. She was probably freezing.

“You must be cold.”
I wrapped her parka over her.

“I’m all right,”
she insisted. But she was from L.A. She had to be freezing.

“Here.” I handed
her her hat and helped her up, kept her steady as she pulled up her
jeans. And there, I heard it, her teeth started chattering.

“You’re freezing!”
I exclaimed, helping her zip up her coat.

“Heath.” She
smiled, looking up at me. “Yes, I am now. But you have to know, I
was not freezing cold just a minute ago.”

I couldn’t help but
smile at that, taking pride in my work. But I should make sure she
stayed warm. It wasn’t windy out, but it had to be low twenties.

Back in the sleigh I
bundled her up, piling blankets around the two of us. This time, I
took the reigns in one hand and wrapped my arm around her to pull her
close.

We rode together in
silence. At first, it felt good. Then it didn’t.

What the fuck were we
doing? What was I doing? What did she think of all this? What did I
think of it?

We returned the sleigh
and hopped into my truck. And after all that silence, we finally both
spoke at the same time.

“Let me have your
number,” I said.

Exactly as she said,
“This can’t happen.”

We sat in silence again
for another minute. Until I said, “No, it can’t.”

And she said, “Give
me your phone.”

I glanced at it,
sitting between us in the cup holder. She picked it up and entered in
her phone number.

She set it down again.
“You have my number. But you shouldn’t call me.”

“It would be a bad
idea to call you,” I agreed, pulling up in front of her condo.

“No, don’t call me.
Don’t even walk me to my front door,” she said as she climbed on
top of me, barely waiting for me to put the truck in park before she
stuck her tongue down my throat.

“I don’t know
what’s wrong with me,” she panted as she kissed my throat, my
jaw, my ear.

“Same thing that’s
wrong with me,” I agreed, my hands around her waist, fitting her to
me tight. I pushed the hard bulge of my cock, straining at my jeans,
up against her pussy. Right where she was still wet, had to still be
sensitive from the orgasm I’d given her.

“You feel so good,”
she groaned, pushing against me, biting down on her bottom lip. “But
I have to go.” Abruptly, she reached over, opened my door and
practically tumbled out of the truck.

Her lips swollen from
our kissing, her hat falling off of her, she held up her finger in
warning. “Don’t come in.”

I watched her walk up
the stairs, open the door and close it behind her without looking
back. I shook my head and swore under my breath. Being around that
girl felt a lot like riding a roller coaster. I’d always been more
of a Ferris Wheel man myself, enjoying the views at a relaxed pace.
But with Violet? She had me hurtling up, down and all around.

Violet

Strange things were
happening to me in Watson. Part of me felt all mixed up about Heath.
I hemmed and hawed and stewed and simmered.

But something else was
happening, too. Crunching along the snowy sidewalk of Watson’s
downtown, sipping a steaming hot cocoa, I didn’t know when I’d
ever felt so relaxed. The pace of life moved so much slower in
Vermont. There wasn’t even a rush hour. The daily ebb and flow
stayed at a constant, lazy drift, people stopping to chat, ask after
someone they knew.

My pulse still raced to
the city beat, but I had to admit, I was enjoying the break. That
afternoon I had nothing on my schedule but a dance class. The yoga
studio/meditation center also hosted a modern dance workshop. I’d
always wanted to try the hiphop dance class at the gym I belonged to,
but I’d never worked up the courage to go. I’d peeked in the
window a few times and it looked like everyone was a professional,
waiting for their moment when they’d be chosen for a music video.
And they were right. Agents and talent scouts and other people who
knew people all belonged to that gym. It was a place to see and be
seen.

Here in Watson, I
figured I could make an ass of myself and it wouldn’t matter. The
stakes were pretty low. We hadn’t started filming. I could try to
bust a move and even if I busted a hip no one back home would ever
know.

“Hey, Vi,” a
shopkeeper greeted me as I moseyed into her antique store. I’d only
been in the town 10 days and already it seemed everyone knew my name.
It was a friendly place. Plus it helped that Marty the mayor had been
introducing me to anyone and everyone who’d give me the time of
day. He wanted this show bad.