Bourbon & Backroads (Lucky Spurs Ranch Book 1), page 14
I pad into the main living space, and—did I hit my head? Because there's no other explanation for what I see. Colorful cellophane wrapping glitters under the overhead lights, enveloping delicate yellow roses and baby's breath. I pick up the bouquet and inhale a deep breath of delicate floral scent.
The lovely smell of the roses mingles with the unmistakable aroma of breakfast. Taking the bouquet with me, I continue into the small eat-in kitchen. Laid atop the table is an impressive spread of breakfast foods. Crispy bacon, the moist tops of blueberry muffins, waffles next to a cruet of rich maple syrup, and a pitcher of orange juice.
I circle the table taking in all the choices and a bubble of unrestrained glee bursts through my lips. One of the chairs is pulled out, and on the seat is a pink gift bag with fluffy white tissue paper sprouting from the top. I shamelessly pick at the tissue paper trying to get a peek of what's inside the bag when I hear Reid clear his voice from nearby. My face is split wide with a huge smile and my eyes are watering, but this morning the tears are of the happy variety.
“I have no excuse for missing your birthday. When I realized, I knew I needed to do something to show you how special you are to me.” He comes around to my side of the table, watching me intensely the entire way. He runs his weathered hand down his beard a couple of times, eyes burning into me.
“I don’t know what this is between us, but I hope you feel it too. I’ve already fucked up so many times and I’ve only had you in my life for a couple of months. I know this doesn’t make up for my actions, but I hope it shows you that I do care about you. I don’t know how to do any of this. I’m good at pushing people away. But I hope it’s not too late to pull you back to me.”
I'm speechless. I can’t believe he did this all for me. In what possible hours did he accomplish all this? He extends his arm to pluck the gift bag from my chair. It dangles from his index finger before me.
“Happy birthday, sugar.”
He moves the bag an inch closer to me in a gesture to take the gift. I'm feeling a bit lightheaded and wobbly on my feet, so I take a seat in the now empty chair and place the gift bag in my lap. I look up into Reid’s handsome face and he nods at me once in encouraging confirmation. I pluck each piece of tissue out one by one and unceremoniously drop them to the floor.
My heart soars at what I find in the bag. I pull out a pocket-sized sketchbook and a roll of multicolored pens tied with a bow. I’ve never gotten flowers from a man, let alone a gift.
I look up to find Reid rubbing the back of his neck looking sheepish.
“It’s not much but I thought you could keep it in your purse or something for when you have ideas. I’ve seen you light up when inspiration strikes and you draw on napkins, placemats, sticky notes, any paper you have access to.”
I can’t stop smiling. This man. This broken, closed off, grumpy man did all this. I don’t think he realizes how much this means to me. Aside from my sister and my best friend, no one has gotten me a birthday present since I was a tiny kid. Birthdays stopped being relevant to my parents twenty years ago. With the sketchbook in one hand and the roll of pens in the other, I barrel into Reid with a ferocious hug, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing every inch of my body into his. I nuzzle my face into his neck. His beard tickles my ear, and I inhale his clean, masculine scent.
Lips against his scarred neck, I can feel his throbbing pulse as I whisper, “This is everything. Thank you so much.”
He wraps his strong arms around the small of my back, pulling me in tight, and places a kiss to my temple. “You’re welcome, sugar.”
Early evening, a craving hits and I know that nothing will satisfy me except for a slice of greasy cheese pizza. I do a quick internet search and place an order online from a pizzeria in town.
I’m in the bathroom when the doorbell rings, so I come out to find Reid adamantly telling the cowering delivery kid that we didn’t order pizza. I slip under Reid’s arm which is propping the front door open and hand him a cash tip and take the pizza from his shaking hands.
“Thank you! Have a great night! Sorry about him,” I say hiking a thumb over my shoulder to Reid.
Armed with paper plates and napkins, we each take an end of the sofa and set the pizza box on the center cushion.
“I hope you don’t mind pizza for dinner.” I shoot at him with a wink. “You scared that kid half to death” I laugh.
Opening the box, he gives me a curious wrinkle of his brow and shakes his head in amusement.
“Just cheese on your pizza?”
“Why mess with perfection?” I retort.
He takes an enormous bite of pizza, cheese stretching between his teeth and the slice. Mouth full, he says, “Indeed.”
Why is that sexy? That shouldn’t be sexy, right?
Over dinner, our conversation turns to past relationships—of which I have none. But Reid tells me about a couple of high school girlfriends, and a couple of women he loosely dated in his twenties. He speaks about dating and sex with such ease, it makes me burn with embarrassment.
“What’s that look for?” Reid asks, noticing my discomfort. “A beautiful woman like you has to be beating guys off with a stick. I’m sure you’ve dated and broken a few hearts.”
I twist my mouth to the side, unsure of how to broach the subject of my complicated relationship with intimacy. We’ve had the best day, and I don’t feel like trauma dumping on him on my birthday redo.
The pizza box has long been discarded on the floor, and we’ve drifted closer and closer to the center of the sofa. His arm is draped over the back of the couch, and he’s absentmindedly touching the ends of my hair. Tingles prickle my scalp at every touch.
His actions today make me feel like I might be able to trust him. And if something is to ever blossom between us, he deserves to know about my history.
“It’s pretty obvious that you’ve heard the rumors about me.” His eyes blaze with shame. “It’s ok, I earned my reputation. Just not the way you think.”
“I don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with being a sexual woman, Isabelle. I’m not going to slut-shame you,” he assures me.
“The funny thing is the only reason people believe I'm a slut is because I let them believe it. I never snuffed out a single rumor. The town wrote me off before I ever had a chance to prove them otherwise.” A humorless laugh escapes me.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend. Hell, I’ve never even been on a date.” Reid looks justifiably confused.
“Let’s just say that everything you’ve ever heard about me is probably a big fat lie. Hard to be a slut and a virgin at the same time.” I give him a wry smile and shrug my shoulders.
Reid takes what feels like an eternity to process what I’ve told him before he speaks.
“I’m so fucking sorry, sugar. How are you a virgin? You're the most stunning woman I’ve ever met. I wasn’t joking when I said you probably beat men away with a stick. How has no man ever seen how incredible you are?”
“I don’t have an answer for you, Reid. A bad reputation follows you around like a dark shadow. You can’t escape it, and it grows under the bright light of attention.”
We sit in silence, both lost in thought. I'm jarred back to the present when Reid curls his warm, calloused hand around the nape of my neck and holds me firmly where he wants me.
Leaning in, his beard scratches against my cheek as his deep, sensual voice caresses my ear.
“If I ever had a chance to be with you, to be the lucky bastard who you give yourself to for the first time, I’d treat you like the queen that you are.”
And with that bombshell, his lips graze across my temple and gently kiss my forehead as he stands from the couch. He clears our plates and the pizza box before I hear the back door open and shut. I peek out the window to see him pacing in the snow. Mind reeling from his declaration, I float to my room and get ready for bed on a cloud.
Tucked in the small twin sized bed, I can’t hear a thing in the townhome. The silence encourages my mind to wander and gives me the courage to imagine what it would have been like if Reid had been the first man to touch me.
I wince at the flash of memory of what happened to me, but I push it away. I won’t let that prick keep intimacy from me any longer.
My eyes close and I revisit the sensation of Reid’s beard against the side of my face, his soft lips against my temple and then pressed to my forehead. The feeling of complete submission to his firm grip on my neck. I shiver at the thought of him bringing that hand around to the front of my neck and collaring my throat. My hand involuntarily moves to softly grip my neck where I imagine he’d touch me.
I settle into the fantasy as he trails kisses down my face to my jaw, nipping at the tender spot below my ear. His grip tightens and he holds me exactly where he wants me. The loss of control is intoxicating.
He takes my mouth in a punishing kiss, commanding my body with every sweep of his tongue. He drags his hand down from my throat, across my collarbones, down my sternum between my breasts, fingertips trailing off at the top of my panties. My sex clenches at the feather light teasing touch.
Both of his rough hands come up underneath my sleep shirt to reverently cup my breasts. His calloused thumbs flick back and forth across my peaked nipples. His eyes darken when he realizes they're pierced.
“Off,” he demands as he rips my shirt over my head, leaving me bare beneath him in only panties soaked with my arousal. He turns feral as he grips my breasts, almost painfully, and tugs on my nipples using the titanium barbells pierced through them. Each pluck to my nipples sends a bolt of arousal straight to my clit.
I rub my thighs together, trying to ease the ache at my core. “Touch yourself,” he commands. Straddling my hips, he braces his arms on each side of my head. He replaces the ministrations of his hands with his glorious, hot, wet mouth. He alternates sucking my nipples into his mouth and tweaking the piercings between his teeth.
Obeying him implicitly, my hand trails down my stomach and my fingers dip into my panties. My middle fingertip barely grazes my throbbing clit…when I hear Reid come down the hall of the townhome and close his bedroom door.
I'm panting, arousal coursing through my veins.
“Holy shit,” I say to the ceiling.
He hasn’t laid a hand on me, and I already know Reid Andersen has ruined me for all other men.
25
Following Isabelle’s mind-blowing revelation that she's in fact not the town harlot, but a fucking virgin, I’ve been stumbling around like a fool.
I’ve been falling hard and fast for her since the Dreamhouse trip. Our time together is effortless—a comfort I’ve only experienced with my family. We have more in common than I ever could have guessed. She's simply incredible.
We’re on a final push before the holiday break and the backroads are complete shit by the time we ease the truck up to the cabin. It’s near whiteout condition, and it was fucking dangerous to push through but it’s not like there was anywhere we could have pulled over or stopped.
The blizzard stopped overnight, but the wind created steep snow drifts up the sides of the cabin and feet-deep snow outside. I spend most of day digging out the best I can before the next storm front comes in. Wishful thinking has me shoveling through the snow drift partially overtaking the covered back patio where the hot tub is.
Always knowledgeable about the properties we visit before we arrive, Isabelle had expressed her excitement for the hot tub on our drive up here. I get it turned on and it steadily heats up, so I replace the cover and head inside to thaw myself out.
We share an early dinner in front of the fireplace in companionable silence. Isabelle stretches her lithe arms over her head, revealing a creamy strip of skin between her top and her leggings. My arms burn from restraining from reaching out and touching her there.
“If it’s alright with you, I think I'm going to take advantage of the hot tub before it gets dark. Thank you so much for getting it all set up. I’m sure you had to do it for your maintenance check-off, but I’m going to pretend you did it just for me,” she says with a wink.
She has no fucking idea. At this point, she could say jump and I’d bungee off a cliff for her. I clean up after dinner and settle back in front of the fireplace.
I feel her approach before I see her, my body all too attuned to her presence. I can’t resist a peek, my eyes are drawn to her like magnets, as she comes into the living room wrapped in a towel. White strings stretch up her collar bones and tie behind her neck.
Dear lord, please let her be in a bikini.
She scurries past me, being as modest as she can and heads outside. Possessed by a horny demon, I follow her path a few moments later once I'm confident she won’t catch me. Thank whoever built this cabin because I have a clear shot of the hot tub if I stand off to the side of the window above the kitchen sink. I’m shrouded in shadow and the angle is such I don’t think she'll look this way.
Just as I take my position, she drops the towel and drapes it over the edge of the hot tub. I swear, every single blood cell plummets from my brain to my cock. I sway on my feet at the sudden drunken feeling that washes over me.
She's wearing a white string bikini that covers next to nothing. I send a silent prayer to the chauvinist clothing company that sewed together the scraps of fabric currently covering her body. My cock is already throbbing and straining against the fly of my jeans. I readjust myself and tuck the head of my dick into the waistband of my boxer briefs.
She sinks down into the water up to her chin, the ends of her bright hair touching the bubbling surface. Sitting up on a tall ledge in the tub, her delicate hands skate back and forth across the hot water.
A knot forms in my chest as she looks around with a look of wonder, taking in the bright white snow and the monstrous trees lining the property. Shielded from the sky by the covered patio, the setting sun casts a pink glow over her. It’s a mental painting I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. She’s everything.
Isabelle does a quarter turn in the water and holy shit. There are her tits. Right there. Out on display, just for me.
Perky breasts are straining against the now translucent white triangles of her bikini top. My dick throbs as I greedily take in the rosy pink of her nipples showing through the soaked fabric. The outline of those fucking piercings is faint, but I zero in on them. What I'd give to get my mouth on her perfect, perky tits.
I must’ve done something right in a past life because Isabelle leans over the side of the hot tub to inspect something over the edge. Her magnificent ass is completely visible from my position. The nearly nonexistent bikini bottom has molded to her ass cheeks like a second skin.
And holy mother of—the sheer material has drawn up between her legs. I might as well be looking at her naked ass with as much as I can see.
I can’t fucking take another second of my painfully hard erection. Like a teenage boy who’s never seen tits before, I frantically unbuckle my belt and pop the button on my jeans. My dick is so hard and heavy, it starts to unzip my jeans from the pressure it’s exerting through my briefs. I can’t be bothered to lower my pants below my ass, so I pull the waistband of my briefs underneath my aching balls.
I firmly grip my cock to relieve the rapidly building pressure, but it does me no good. Because Isabelle bends further forward over the edge of the basin to fiddle with the control panel, and I can see the edge of her pussy lip peeking out from the crotch of her bikini.
Pre-cum beads on the throbbing head of my dick. Lightheaded, I brace my other hand against the kitchen counter and tilt my hips back to give me enough room to furiously jack myself off.
She resubmerges into the water and moves to the opposite side. Now unknowingly facing me, she sits up onto the underwater ledge. At the sight of her nipples straining through the fabric, my teeth ache to bite down on them. I pump my hand up and down my cock one, two, three more times and I come all over my fist, blood roaring in my ears.
I’ve never come so hard in my entire life, and she didn’t even touch me. My uncharacteristic voyeurism and the huge load I’ve blown that’s dripping down my forearm tells me one thing.
She’s mine.
The storm passed the town we're in, but it’s heading directly for Swiftwater. Travel advisories glare from my phone warning drivers to stay home if at all possible, and that the highway we would’ve taken is closed due to a small avalanche.
Isabelle lays out the leftover muffins and fruit from yesterday. I fucking should’ve known better when I packed the food for this trip. The damn company pays for it so it’s not like I was trying to be cheap. I underestimated the storm and figured we’d be on the road this morning. What kind of man can’t feed his woman?
“Sorry, I know it’s not much. Maybe we can go into town for some supplies?”
With a curt nod, and more bite in my tone than I intend, I say, “We can take off after breakfast.” Hurt flashes across her face, and I backpedal. “It’s my fault we don’t have enough provisions. I’m not mad at you, Isabelle. I’m mad at myself.”
Taking my seat, she playfully bumps my arm with her shoulder and passes me a muffin. I'd chop off my arm to be putting her muffin in my mouth instead of this one. I bet it’s just as sweet.
Now is not the time to imagine eating Isabelle’s pussy!
Our trip to town is easy enough, and I substantially over-buy food and supplies to compensate for my failure as a provider. The afternoon passes lazily. After a delicious homemade lasagna dinner, we melt into the couch by the fireplace. Isabelle crickets her feet together with toasty satisfaction.
She leans her head back onto the cushion and turns her beautiful face towards me. The firelight dances across her features, making her even more irresistible. For a moment I want to hide my face. Surely the fire is casting shadows across my scars making them look more horrific. But Isabelle watches me with such adoration, I resist. I’ve got my arm slung over the back of the couch, our bodies turned in towards each other, making a cozy little alcove.
