Hanging on (Jessica Brodie Diaries #2) (42 page)

“Those people don’t realize that those things don’t actually matter. Hooking up with something you believe in, does. And thank you for the great things you said about my family’s company, by the way. I think my father likes you more, if that were possible.”

“Hmm.” I was glowing.

The truck stopped and I looked up to see we were still outside of town, off the road in a pull out area. There were no cars in either direction.

“Are you going to kill me now?”

He cupped his hand beneath my chin and lifted my head so he could kiss it. He kissed me tenderly but deeply, exploring my mouth with his tongue. He backed me away and looked at me. His eyes were luminescent from the trucks console lights. He looked intensely into the depths of me, pulling me to him with his charisma.

“I was lucky to have found you,” he whispered.

“I am lucky that you wanted me.”

No seriousness lost, he slowly shook his head. “You will be mine, someday. I’ll never give up hope you’ll say ‘yes’ to forever.”

I felt my eyes overflow with tears. He kissed them away with soft lips, and kissed my mouth again. On the radio the Alison Krauss song, ‘
When you say nothing at all’
came on.

William gently kissed down my neck as he took off my shirt. His hands found the clasps of my bra and removed that as well. His rough hands turned to velvet as they slid over my breasts, paying attention to my nipples.

I removed his shirt so I could feel his robust chest and powerful shoulders. His hands were at the buttons on my pants as I was reaching behind him to feel his smooth, muscled back. He was softly moaning as he kissed me, sucking slightly to intensify the connection.

I got into a kneeling position, which was not easy in the cab of a truck, so he could work my pants down. I then sat down and put my legs out awkwardly so he could get them off. He hadn’t caught my underwear with the pants, unfortunately, but he just worked around them.

He tenderly pushed me back on the bench seat of the cab, spreading my legs so he could take a loving taste. He spread my lower lips, licking the length of my slit. His mouth slid up to my clitoris as he inserted two fingers, starting to work them back and forth.

Spidery arms of pleasure spread through my body. I arched, then swung my hips up to meet the dive of his fingers and mouth, touching the back of his head as he worked. His tongue explored me thoroughly, tasting the salty, sucking in all the right places. His fingers worked furiously until I was taken higher, my nerves frazzling. My head going light. My body strung out.

I exploded in delight, my skin catching fire. Warm shivers wracked my body, glistening from the exertion of indulgence.

William lifted my body up so I was sitting again. He had his pants unbuttoned and around his thighs, his rigid manhood sticking into the air.

Without thinking, I bent my mouth to him. Taking him fully, working to control that insubordinate gag reflex. I used my hands to stimulate and pet his shaft and
cojones
. Speeding up gradually, taking him along the path toward completion.

He stopped me at the precipice. I looked up at him startled, thinking I did something wrong.

“I want to be inside you, Jessica.”

He lifted me by my shoulders, giving me a second to tuck my legs around his thighs.

I was so wet I was dripping, my core aching to be filled. I angled my opening above him, feeling the prod of his velvet tip, silky and sensuous.

I sat down with all my weight.

“
Oh!”
William gasped, clutching my butt, letting his head fall back. He sunk in to the hilt.

You feel so good.” He opened his eyes, connecting with me. The most handsome man I could ever imagine, dirt and sweat crusted and all. “You are so beautiful Jessica. I found the best God had to offer. He’s rewarded me with you. I’m not sure I deserve it, but I will gladly open up to it.”

“Hold me tight, William.”

He wrapped me in his arms firmly, rocking my body against his own. I laid my head on his bunched shoulder, feeling his hard body against mine, his chest muscles against my soft breasts.

The intensity of our motion increased, as did his hold on me. I felt his power inside and all around, drinking in the manly quality of it, assured of safety and well-being. I let myself go, as I did so often in his arms, and let the pleasure overtake me.

He reached deeply inside me with his hard cock, pressing me to his unyielding strength. His embrace got harder still as we climbed upward together. My arms were balled along the side of him and I grabbed on to him, huffing and crying out in love and euphoria.

At climax I screamed his name, breaking my hands free to put on his shoulder.

As we were coming down I looked into his eyes, remembering so long ago when we were standing outside his trailer and his eyes first reached into me and took hold. I smiled slightly and bent to kiss him long and deeply.

We stayed there for a while, kissing tenderly while he was still inside me. Neither of us wanted to break the connection, both knowing we would have to eventually. He whispered sweet nothings as I walked down memory lane, noting all the times he had that blank face when he looked at me, hiding his want and desire. All the times I thought he didn’t care about me, but all the while he being desperate to shed his obligations and tell me how he felt.

“It is me that is being rewarded from all the karma I have paid out. You are just an innocent bystander,” I said in his ear quietly. “I
will
say ‘yes’, eventually.”

He pulled me back and looked into my eyes with such elation my heart surged. This time his eyes got glossy, but he blinked it away profusely.

Men
! I thought warmly.

I snuggled into him, stealing comfort and love from his body. We had a giant future looming in front of us, some with rough patches that would grind me down. But he was my pick, so there was nothing for it—I’d just have to hang on and ride it out.

THE END

~*~*~*~

The story continues in the next installment of the Jessica Brodie Diaries.

A Wild Ride, Book 3

With forever on the line, Jessica wants nothing more than to settle down,
finally¸
and continue on with her life. The only problem is that, since she’s moved to Texas, she has been fraught with problems. Despite a narrow miss when her home gets broken into, this time it isn’t her that’s in danger. When William has a tragic bull riding accent, it is up to Jessica to play hero.

Alongside Jessica’s personal problems, her friend Lump is also trying to find her way. One bad, violent date after another and she is left broken and spent. The one man that is perfect for her, is out of reach.

EXCERPT:

Chapter 1

I walked into William’s house with my butt bare and my pants draped over my arm. We’d just had a love-making session in the car on the way back from bull riding practice in which I admitted that he was the
one.

I was under no illusions that I was mature enough to marry yet, so I gave him a promise. Like I was in grade school. I had the guy of the century, I was so happy my face hurt half the time from smiling , and all I could offer up was a promise.

I should just punch myself in the mouth right now.

At any rate, that’s where matters stood. Plodding along. It was a comfortable pace since I still worried about his social status versus mine. I still worried that he would realize a girl from the other side of the tracks—or so his mom thought—was too much work to fit into his snobby society of wealth and power. And sometimes gaudy taste.

Halfway to the shower, William asked, “What is the deal with the dirt and smell?”

I started laughing. “I assume you mean me?”

He laughed, also. “I meant to ask you earlier but never got a chance.”

“I need Lump’s help on something. Unfortunately, she is going through a pre-adult crisis at the moment, and made me shovel hay with her in return.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. As a heart attack, which I almost had. So I spent the evening helping Adam, and his new ranch hand Lump, bail hay. It was not the most fun I have ever had.”

William laughed and kissed me on the head. “It’s good for you.”

“That reminds me, when are you working on your ranch next?”

“Tomorrow, why?”

“Can you save some stuff until I get off work? I want to watch you.”

“You want to watch me work?”

“Yeah. Without a shirt, preferably.”

He laughed again and shook his head. “Is it worth you being put to work helping?”

“Only if I get a happy ending.”

“Deal.”

William lived up to his promise. The next evening he was shirtless, sweaty, and working in the evening sun. I watched him for a good while, admiring his play of muscles, his powerful strokes, the sun glinting off those powerful shoulders—he saved the most manly task for last, chopping wood.

When he was sufficiently embarrassed, he made me start carrying and stacking the wood into piles. Without my shirt.

That night I was living in a country song, though I decided taking a sexual hay ride was way overrated. It was scratchy and itchy, and I had to
thoroughly
wash my lady bits to make sure I was hay free. But laying with William, watching the setting sun through the barn door, was dreamlike.

Time started speeding up as we got nearer Christmas. I had talked in length with Adam about an attack plan for William’s bull, which was the item William most wanted and couldn’t have because the guy wouldn’t sell to a Davies. I was
convinced
I would get that little sucker. If I had to dress like a slut and prance around, I would.

Unfortunately, I would also make Lump do it. It was unfortunate because in order to agree, Lump made me work with her on Adam’s or William’s ranch three days a week. On the days I danced I got a fur-low. Lucky me.

Lump was the big glitch in my happy life. My long-time friend from L.A. was not finding her groove. She was violent, temperamental, and most of all, unsettled. Worse still, she didn’t know what the problem was. She didn’t know how to fix the issue.

So she lost herself in hard work. And since misery loves company, guess who had to sweat way more than she wanted to? Exactly, my ass.

As opposed to me, on the farm she worked hard and quietly, rarely saying two words to anyone. She had her music in her ears and occasionally sang along with a perfectly pitched voice. William or Adam would stop what they were doing to listen. I stopped, too, just for the break. Which embarrassed Lump and cut off the singing.

One evening, when we were at William’s ranch, he had to go deal with some cow problem, leaving Lump and I to finish nailing a new fence to the fence posts. I was getting pretty good at this farm stuff, but I still would’ve rather pushed buttons on a keyboard than do it. Lump was in one of her reflective moods, listening to her music and getting lost in the physical exertion.

At one point she straightened up after hammering in a nail and said, “You know Adam really well.”

Any excuse to stop was a good one. I leaned against the post and said, “Yeah. Why?”

“He always watches to make sure you don’t fall over your own feet and hurt yourself. When we were at his ranch he helped you over the animal paddock but didn’t help me.”

“Uh…” I didn’t know if she was mad, glad, jealous—what? To hedge I said, “I’ve fallen over it before and landed on my face. William got mad at Adam for not helping. No one seems to realize that I’m dense, not incompetent!”

“I was there for that, idiot. Willie wasn’t mad. But anyway, you need help because you are a klutz, albeit a graceful one. When you trip you hurt yourself. I don’t, generally, because I rarely fall on my face. I also don’t like getting help, and you don’t mind it.”

“Uh…” I was lost. I returned to hammering nails. It was less confusing.

“Adam knew that.”

“Knew what? That I’m a klutz? Everyone knows that.”

“No, you moron,” Lump said, getting impatient because she wasn’t making her point, “Adam knew I didn’t like help, and he let it be. He helped you, but didn’t reach out for me. He didn’t even watch. He walked on before I got over.”

“Yeah, probably because you’d get mad at him if he fawned all over you, and he didn’t want to deal with it.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay… so why is this noteworthy?”

She shrugged. “He respects me.”

“Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?”

“I just never really thought he respected women.”

Lump and Adam both had an interesting background with violence. Both of them had fathers that lost their cool and hit. Adam’s dad had been far worse, forcing Adam to grow up protecting his mother and sisters, and finally fighting back, nearly killing his father. It set him up for a life of playing super hero to any damsel in distress. Which meant, he’d been looking after me since the first night we met when I nearly got raped at the rodeo.

The problem was, Adam had a rage in him that occasionally slipped his control. Lump had seen it, which made her untrusting and suspicious of his character, being that her father had had the same rage. She was only now starting to realize he was mostly good. He was exactly the man I thought him, which was dependable, sweet and honest. Also, William’s best friend.

“You heard why he has a protection complex,” I said, stopping again. “It doesn’t mean he hates women. I’ve always thought the opposite, in fact. He cares a great deal for his mother and sisters—so much so that he—“

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that. I just—I don’t know. He just says things that sound like he doesn’t think women can fend for themselves.”

“That’s you not listening,” I moderated, nailing in another nail. “He doesn’t think they should have to, not that they
can’t
. Obviously he knows you can. And me, sometimes. I beat on the guy all the time. He’s said how hard I hit.”