He winces slightly.I guess I hit a nerve with that question.
“I don’t like disappointing people.”
He's told me that once before, but it’s all making a bit more sense to me now. The accounting job he barely tolerates, proposing to a woman he had no passion for, the way he begrudgingly came back to help Pops, his general asshole demeanor. Wes was fucking miserable. He’d spent his life doing what was expected of him for fear of disappointing someone.
“Fuck everyone else, Wes. And fuck their expectations. What doyouwant? What makesyouhappy?”
He gives me a sad smile. “I’m thirty-five, and honest to God, I don’t know what I want.”
I narrow my gaze. “Time to do some soul-searching, cowboy. This is your life. You’d better figure out what you want to do with it or else it will pass you by and you’ll be left with a whole heap of regrets.”
He grunts from the blanket next to me, his hands folded behind his head. The stars are winking into view in the twilight sky, and I bite my tongue to prevent myself from saying anymore as I lay down next to him. I don’t want to push him too far. Staying here and ranching would be a gamble. And Wes is far from the gambling type. If he doesn’t truly want to be here, then he shouldn’t stay.
My throat closes up at the thought of Wes going back to the city at the end of the month. I’m not sure how he’s wiggled his way into my life so quickly, but being around him has swiftly become thefavorite part of my day.
“This is a good spot for soul-searching,” he says, pulling me closer as he spreads the second blanket over our legs.
I hum contentedly, tucking myself close to his side. His body heat is doing a good job of keeping the fall chill from nipping at me, and I think I’d be happy to stay right here with him, staring at the stars twinkling in the sky all night as the rest of the world beyond this moment slips away.
Wes' hand finds the inside of my thigh underneath the blanket, and his fingertips draw lazy circles over my jeans. It stirs the embers still glowing, kicking up sparks and making my breath hitch as his fingers inch closer to my apex.
I let out a shaky laugh and seize his wrist in my hand before he can reach where I'm aching for him. "I don't think this is conducive to soul-searching."
"On the contrary," he says, his voice a rough whisper in my ear. His palm presses between my legs, cupping me over my jeans. "Thisis the best way to do soul-searching. I frequently ponder life's most important questions while we do this."
His teeth graze against my ear, making goosebumps spring up on my skin and my nipples pull tight under my sweatshirt.
"Oh, yeah? What questions are those?" I'm breathless already, simply from the way he's looking at me right now, like he's never seen anything more beautiful than me laying on a blanket under the stars, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, my hair in a simple braid and not a stitch of makeup on.
He hums in thought, shifting as he rolls on top of me. "Questions like how you got to be so prettyhere." His fingers press against the seam of my jeans, dragging a slow path up and down. "Or whether your eyes are closer to the color of the sky or the ocean." He brushes a stray hair behind my ear. "And what pictures could I make if I connected the dotsof your freckles? Would they spell my name?" The ghost of his touch on my stomach draws a sigh from my lips.
His fervency has my mind spinning and my heart warming in my chest. My walls are crumbling under the weight of his sweet words and light touches.
His thumb pops open the button on my jeans and my breath hitches in my throat as he tugs them down my thighs. "And what is it about you that feelssodamngood? "
Cool air whispers over my heated flesh, and I shudder like a leaf in the wind. His fingers hover over my center as he continues, his voice a low rumble in my ear. "I wonder which part of you I love most. Your sharp tongue on my cock or the way you look when you take all of me, stretched around me and dripping."
His fingers areright there. He's torturing me with mere brushes of contact when he knows it's nowhere near enough.
I let out a muted whine, unable to stop myself. "Or," he muses, drawing out the word, "is it those frustrated little sounds you make when I don't give you what your body is begging me for fast enough?"
My disbelieving laugh is cut short by a gasp as his fingers finally slide inside me.
"Or maybe," he continues, voice rasping, "what I love most is how you're always so wet and needy for me. Like you need this just as much as I do."
"I do need it," I admit in a hushed whisper, my fingers tearing at the button of his jeans.
He groans as he shucks them off and rolls on a condom as the confession slips off my tongue again. "I need you."
His movements still.
He pulls back, studying my face with a look that makes my stomach flutter in anticipation.
"How'd I get so lucky?" he murmurs. And then he slams home.
I cry out, nails biting into his skin as my body clenches around him. He holds still, giving me a moment to adjust, but I arch against him, desperate formore.Deeper. Rougher. Harder.
He begins to move, a slow, dragging thrust that's both gentle and unrelenting. He fills me so perfectly that it steals the breath from my lungs. He hits a place deep inside me that sends sparks flaring, and my vision goes hazy, the stars overhead turning blurry.
