The Stars in the Sky (Giving You ... #2) (8 page)

I was in no state to argue with him.

"But what about you?" I asked. "Let me return the favor."

"Tonight.”

He handed me my bikini bottom and I put it back on and adjusted my top. I can't believe I came in public. On the beach!

Exhibitionist.

Will carefully lay down next to me, staring at the sky, until my breathing regulated, and then he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "Do you want to go back with me now or are you going to stay here?"

"I'll stay here for a while.” I needed to think about what just happened.

"'Kay," he said, getting up. "Come get me at the ranch house when you want to go to dinner. Let's leave around six, ‘cause it's a drive."

He kissed me, and I could taste my arousal on him. Then he put his hat back on, ambled over to his horse, got on, and took off up the bluff.

I lay on the towel, feeling sated and warm, and looking forward to a date with Will.

Soup

I'D NEVER PICKED UP a guy on a first date before, I realized, as I headed up the steps to Will's farmhouse, wearing a sleeveless, long, navy blue sundress that reached my ankles, and rope espadrilles. Sure, I’d picked up guys before, I’d asked out guys before, I’d initiated sex with guys before, but this felt different and more intimate—to walk up to his home from my room and get him for dinner. This wasn't a normal date.

Although I bet he asked me to come over because it was more convenient than him hanging around the bunkhouse, I thought that it reflected the strange balance of our relationship. I mean, I met him when he was naked and angry and then he immediately saw me almost-naked. He made the first move on me by making it clear what he wanted to do to me, but I made the actual first move by kissing him. There was a teeter-totter aspect to our new relationship, whatever it was—he didn't have all of the power and neither did I. I wasn’t the type of woman who wanted him to be in charge of everything, make all the arrangements, and come to my door with flowers, sweeping me off of my feet.

He’d already given me candy, though.

And was taking me out to some unknown place where he’d made the arrangements.

Hmmm.

Not gonna think about the feminist thing right now.

Having learned my lesson to not barge in on the first day, I lifted up my fist to pound on the door, but it opened and Will stood there, looking down at me. Fuck me, handsome boy. He was wearing a dark blue, plaid, western-style shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, but on him the clothes looked like they belonged, rather than a costume. His biceps and shoulders filled out the shirt, and he smelled fresh out of the shower.

Setting aside the politics, I was so amused to be dating a cowboy. I wondered where his hat was.

Before I could do anything, he grasped my wrist firmly, but gently, pulled me in the house, closed the door, pressed me to the wall, and kissed me, the whole length of his body pressing into mine. Naturally, I kissed him back and it was
yummy
.

"Hello to you, too," I laughed, when I could breathe again. He smiled and kissed my forehead and then took an evaluating look at my face.

"Did this hurt?" he asked, tracing my eyebrow piercing.

"A little," I said, "but it was also a total rush. I understand why people get all sorts of things pierced, because it feels like a high."

"I get the idea of pleasure mixed with pain, darlin'" he responded, looking at me closely.

I shivered at his words.

He traced his finger along the tattoo down the inside of my arm, and then continued, "Let's go get dinner before we don't make it out of here."

We walked over to his truck, which was now clean. I felt honored that he'd washed it for me. He opened my door and helped me up, Gentleman Will on display. Trixie came bounding up to go with us, and he let her up into the truck bed. To add to the list of new experiences that I was compiling this evening, I could now add that I'd never been on a first date with a guy
and his dog
before.

As we drove down the bumpy dirt road to the freeway, I filled him in on the parts that he'd missed with the kids from last week. He especially wanted to know how Clarissa liked everything and he seemed to really care that they all had a good time.

I didn't notice where we were going until we pulled up to a restaurant in Buellton, a small town near the ranch.

"Pea Soup Andersen's?" I asked, incredulously. A kitschy traveler's mecca, it had been here for decades, and advertised by signs with a couple of cartoon mascots who were splitting peas for split pea soup. Will gave Trixie water from a bottle and tied her to the side so she wouldn't go anywhere while we were eating.

"The soup's vegan.” And he gave me a look, kind of triumphant for having already thought of it himself.

Ohmigod. He could really be sweet.

We walked through the tacky tourist shop and made our way to the old school diner in the back.

Consistent with the theme, the hostess was attired in a pseudo-traditional, Danish outfit. She seated us at a dark, naugahyde booth, old fashioned water glasses were placed on our fake wood table, and we ordered—me, soup and beer, him, pot roast and beer.

While Will was not a chatterbox by any stretch of the imagination, he was interactive, attentive, and polite, and I relaxed into a fun date. We ate, we talked, we laughed. Will paid, and we left the restaurant, giving Trixie attention before we headed back to the ranch in the truck.

Well, it
was
a fun date until he made an asinine comment, as we pulled in the compound, about the upcoming Presidential election, showing that he liked what a potential candidate—and coincidentally, a
complete idiot
—was saying.

And then he revealed that he voted for Bush. Twice.

Excuse me? How could he?

There was
no way
that anyone sane would agree with this candidate and no way that I could be with someone who voted for Bush.

It was a litmus test and Will failed.

What was I doing with this guy?

I was letting down the cause. I was an idiot for thinking that I could do this.

Had I been blinded by his body?

Clearly. We were such polar opposites. This wasn't going to work.

"I can't believe you would listen to anything that moron says," I snapped. "He's the worst thing ever for our country," and I stalked out of the truck. He let Trixie out and walked over to me and looked at me. "You believe in all the wrong things."

"I could say the same thing about you," he said sharply, with amusement under the edge in his voice.

I looked up at him, masculine and beautiful in the moonlight. And I was pissed. We had such a good date. But now I’d come back to reality and he was still the guy who called me names with whom I'd never see eye to eye. Finally, I spoke. "I don't know what we're doing. We shouldn't date. We don't have anything in common." Even though I knew it was true, saying it hurt for some reason.

"Oh no? I think we do—" he started to say, but I interrupted.

"Just don't talk to me," I snapped, and started to walk back to my room. "I don't want this to go any further. We're never going to get past it. I'm never going to agree with you on basic stuff that matters to me and that matters to you, so why should we bother?"

He hustled in front of me and stood there, blocking me, stopping my progress, holding up his hand, eyes on mine.

"We talked about this, Marie," he said in his low voice. "You're not gonna agree with me on a lot of things, and I'm not gonna agree with you. So what? Take it out on me," he invited, lifting his chin with his half-grin.

I paused, exasperated. "I'm not going to hit you, Will, even though you deserve it for voting for that imbecile and thinking the way you do. I'm a nonviolent tree hugger, remember?"

"That's not what I'm talking about," he rumbled, his eyes boring into me, his burly presence overshadowing me. He paused. Then he continued. "This is the part where we have angry sex."

Reverse Cowgirl

"ISN'T IT WEIRD TO do this position the first time we fuck?" I moaned.

"Nope," he panted. "Just do it."

To back up.

At Will's words outside, I decided that, yes, I needed angry sex and I needed it right fucking now. I needed to get laid. I was going to take out my frustrations with him being an asshole Republican, and an asshole generally, directly on him. Now. Almost before he finished his sentence, I whirled around and ran to his house, him hot on my heels. He had his keys in his hand by the time we were at front door, unlocking it quickly, pushing me in, and slamming the door shut.

Immediately, I got to work, unbuttoning his shirt, fumbling with his belt buckle, reaching for the button fly of his jeans, trying to do this all at once and kiss him at the same time and getting nowhere.

"How the fuck does this work?" I yelled, during the time I was trying to unhook his I-am-a-cowboy-so-I-must-wear-a-dinner-plate belt buckle, not at all trying to keep my voice down. He was going to learn that I'm a very loud fuck. He took pity on me and whipped his partially-unbuttoned shirt over his head, somehow got his belt and belt buckle off, and started unbuttoning his pants. At this, I noticed something. No waistband of his underwear.

Holy shit, Will went commando.

Before he got his pants unbuttoned more than two or three buttons, however, he leaned over and pulled off his boots and threw them on the ground. I heard them hit the floor with a clump, and then another clump. Meanwhile, I reached for the hem of my dress, sailing it over my head so I was only wearing my navy blue satin thong, a matching bra, and my espadrilles, which had flat, dark blue ribbons criss-crossing up my ankles. He took a step back, stared at me, taking my long-legged body in, as I panted, staring at him, equally taking in his epic body, since by now he was only wearing halfway-unbuttoned jeans and clean white socks. Fuck, he was stunning. We both breathed in and out for a moment, just looking at each other, not touching.

Then.

"C'mon," he grunted, and pulled me to the stairs, holding my hand, letting go once we got there.

Not even taking the time to look at my surroundings any better than I had the first time, other than noticing that it was a very old house, I ran up the creaky wooden staircase after him, breathing hard—for a variety of reasons—by the time I got up to the top.

Apparently I'd taken too long getting up there because he hoisted me up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, jogged down the hall with me shrieking, went into a room, and threw me down on a bed.

And then his big, warm body was on top of mine, his lips on mine, his cock hard through his jeans, and all of this feeling like it belonged there.

But still, I wanted to be on top.

Our kisses were like we were battling with each other for who was going to prevail, and there was quite a bit of wrestling for position going on. Given his muscles, I figured that he was holding back, because, finally, I wriggled and pushed until I was straddling him, him looking up at me, eyes wild, wavy hair mussed, breathing hard.

I'd no idea what I looked like and I didn't care.

Now on top, where I wanted to be, I took a second to glance around at what must be Will's room. I was in an old-fashioned bedroom with tall, whitewashed walls, several small old-fashioned black and white agricultural pictures on the walls, and a huge, dark wood, antique four-poster bed with a handmade, red and white quilt on top. There was a pile of clothes in the corner and loose change on a dresser top, but otherwise the room appeared neat.

Will immediately interrupted my inspection of his interior design by snaking his hand around my back and expertly unhooking my bra so that my breasts sprung free, pulling my bra off of my arms. And then he let out a breath. Knifing up, he did some sort of twist maneuver so that I was back under him again, and he was kissing my lips, then my neck, then my nipples.

"Goddammit Will, get my fucking shoes off and take off your fucking pants," I yelled.

He laughed, and reached back to untie the ribbons on my shoes, while I sat up and went to work on his pants, again fumbling in my anger and frustration. My shoes were off, one, then the other, and Will got up, looked at me, pulled off his socks, and undid the rest of his pants, letting them drop to the ground.