Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Gunner

“This is a little insane.” Cash’s eyes are wide on the windshield of the Roadster as we make our way along the cliffside road.

“Everything I do is a little insane. It’s part of my charm.” I wink at her. She looks good nestled in the passenger seat of my car like she’s meant to be there. The girl is so beautiful that she takes my damn breath away, and women rarely turn my head. “Besides, if you haven’t seen the sunrise from the top of a mountain in a classic sports car, you haven’t lived.”

“Is that so?” She looks out her window, worry tracing her features.

I rub a hand absently over my chest because her uncertain look cuts straight to my heart like a knife. The emotion is foreign because, other than my mother, I’ve never cared how a woman felt in my entire damn life. My transactions with them have been brief, two people mutually agreeing to use each other to scratch an itch. I want to scratch every part of Cash, but I also want to know everything about her. What makes her happy, and what makes her tick.

“We’re almost there,” I say, tempted to pull over and fuck her until the only thing in her pretty little head is the afterglow of a mind-altering orgasm.

“Oh, my God.” Her mouth opens, and her eyes widen as we turn into the eastern horizon. The clouds part, and the first streaks of morning light peek through, settling on the planes of her face. I pull into the first spot and turn off the ignition.

“This is stunning.”

“The most spectacular view I’ve ever seen.” My eyes are on her. “Come over here.”

Her head turns to me, surprise turning to a smile as she realizes I’ve brought a few warm blankets and throw pillows from my apartment. “I’ve seen the sun rise plenty of times, but I’ve never had a morning date before.”

Pleasure warms her voice and sends lightning bolts of desire to my dick. I’ve had trouble controlling my body’s reaction to her from the second her eyes landed on mine, but having her so damn close in my space is another kind of hell entirely. A fucking sexy kind. If I don’t fuck her soon, my balls may go from blue to purple to withering right off.

“Glad to pop your morning cherry.”

“It’s the only cherry you’ll be popping,” she says with a wide smile on her striking face. Her skin turns a shade of pink as she giggles uncomfortably and swats at my chest. “Why are you up so early, anyway? Didn’t you close the bar?”

“Do it every night. Or morning.” I shrug, playing with a strand of her hair. “Haven’t slept yet, actually. Most nights, I watch the sun come up with a cup of coffee and a guitar in my hand. I write best at night.”

“You write music?” Her voice lifts in surprise.

“Have since I was a kid. Kind of hard not to when your mom is Loretta Shaw.”

“Do you sing too?”

“Not if I don’t have to. I can hold a tune, but I don’t have that performer gene Mama has. Writing music is where my talents lie. It helps me decompress and figure out my life. I guess you could say it’s cheap therapy. I also don’t have a television or an iPad or anything like that, so—”

“Wait, you don’t watch TV?”

I shake my head.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who doesn’t own a television.”

“When you aren’t stuck in front of a television, you learn to appreciate genuine beauty,” I say, looping my fingers through hers. “Trust me, there are so many better things in life than technology. Besides, I’ve spent a good chunk of my life hating reporters. Fuckin’ bloodthirsty leeches.”

“It must be nice,” she murmurs, moving her fingers away and clutching her water bottle.

I snag her wrist, pulling the underside to my lips and lavishing it with tender kisses. She shudders softly, and somehow, every sensation running on a current in her body jumps into my veins.

“Damn, if it doesn’t seem like we’re connected somehow…” I slip a thumb down the angle of her cheekbone. “Every look you give me shoots electricity through my system.” My lips press closer to her ear. “You’ve got me thinking about so many sinful things. I should’ve brought some holy water to cleanse my mind of every sinfully decadent thing I want to do to your body.”

“Oh?” Her one-word reply is soft and wispy.

I trail my fingertips up her arm, and she relaxes under my caress. The scent of her is fucking intoxicating. My mind spins. A feral need to ravish and possess her rises within me, to bury myself so deep that neither of us will know where the other begins and ends. “I’m a vigorous man, Sparrow. A man who prides himself on discipline and control, but when I’m with you, I’m like a wild animal. I don’t want to just fuck you, Cash. I want to consume you. Have you under me begging for mercy. It’s fucked up.”

“Gunner,” my name slips from her lips like a moan.

I trail my hand down her body, pulling her shirt down with her bra to expose her full tits. I pull back, my knuckles whitening as I grip the steering wheel and gaze at the horizon. “You need a safe word.”

“Fever.”

She responds so quickly that I’m taken aback. People usually ask what a safe word is or look confused, but not my sparrow.

I tilt my head, focusing on her pretty face. “Do you know what that is?”

“A safe word? Yes.”

My body relaxes. This won’t be a drawn-out conversation. “What are your hard limits?”

“No golden showers, no scat. Not into knives and don’t want to be shared. No vomit. I mostly like to be degraded, and I have fantasies...” She trails off and lowers her gaze.

“What fantasies?” I coax.

My hungry gaze devours her as she adjusts her bra and covers herself. I don’t like it. I hate it.

“I like rough sex.” She rubs her hands on her jeans and takes an audible breath. “How do I say this?”

“It’s okay.” I raise my hand in the air. “I’m a judgment-free zone.”

“I have rape fantasies. I need to be fucked like I don’t want to. Rough. I love being called names. Degradation is my favorite. Marking and biting is a favorite. Well, I assume it will top my list. I’ve never done that before. I wasn’t allowed to mar my skin, but I’m open to trying. No, not open to it. I would like to be bitten.” She gazes at me quickly before looking away. “It’s a lot. I totally get it if that’s not your thing. Vanilla is okay, but I won’t come that way.”

My cock is going to burst the fuck out of my pants. I lunge for her throat, using it to pin her to the car door. “Remember your safe word, Sparrow.”

Her heavy breathing pushes her big tits up and down. I tear off her shirt like an animal, exposing her pretty black lace bra. Her nipples pebble, making my mouth water, desperate for a taste. “I want to bite your nipples, Sparrow. Leave my mark on your skin.”

She arches her back, presenting her tits to me in an invitation.

It fucking kills me how responsive she is. How she looks at me with those intensely gorgeous eyes makes me want to drop to my knees and promise her fucking everything.

“Does the idea of me fucking you here like an animal make you hot?”

“Yes.” She nods, and her eyes shutter closed as her breathing picks up.

“I can make all your dreams come true, Sparrow. Take you here, your head pushed into the dirt, my cock aggressively spearing your wet cunt until you cry. I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Sparrow?”

“Yes,” she pants.

“Beg. Tell me what kind of worthless little slut you are and how the only way you’ll be worth a damn is if you have my cock in your wet, worthless cunt.” My thumbs are at her throat, caressing her soft flesh, needing her to say she wants me as badly as I want her—like I need my next breath.

Her hands frame my face. “Please, Gunner.”

I push down on her throat, and her eyes roll back. “I think you can do better than that, Sparrow. A girl like you who wants to get fucked like a common whore must know how to beg.”

Cash moves her hand down my body, and her fingers brush across my crotch momentarily.

I grab her wrists and slam her arms above her head. “If you want me to dick you down, you’re going to have to ask. Nicely.”

“I want you to fuck me, Gunner. I want you to fuck me hard and fast. I want you to take me whenever you want, however you want. Please, do what you want, but just fuck me,” she begs.

Her guard’s down as she trains her eyes on anything but me. I catch her chin, forcing her gaze to settle on mine. “Look me in the eye when you say it this time.”

She huffs a small breath, resentment coursing through her irises as she wages some sort of bullshit war with herself. She knows what she wants. Cash has zero issues with confidence. The girl exudes it. But here she is, denying what she wants.

“Gunner…this morning has been amazing, but I don’t think you know what you’re in for with this. I’m complicated. Really fucking complicated.”

She appears so broken down with concern like I’ve just crawled on board a sinking ship. I recognize the look in her eyes. My mom had it for years. Punishing herself for choices others made for her. Never able to live her life the way she wanted to. A pawn in a world run by older, corrupt men who wanted to use her and discarded her when they were finished with their new toy.

I have no clue what Cash has been through before she found herself in my bar. But it breaks my fucking heart that she’s shutting down something that could make her happy before it even starts just to keep herself safe.

“We’re all complicated. My life isn’t perfect. It’s a pretty mess. But I’m not a piece of china that will break if you look at me funny. If you’re game to see where this goes, so am I.” I slip my palm down her neck, wrap it in her hair, and level with her. “I’ve got a clear idea of what I’m getting into with you, Sparrow. Do I want to make love to you? Yes. Would I love to eat your cunt for hours and make you come repeatedly? Yes. But I also want to hunt you like an animal, chase you into the woods back there and fuck you when you least expect it. Use your body until you’re a quivering mess on the forest floor, begging me to stop. You came here to find something. You stumbled into my life. Now that you’re in it, I won’t let you run from me unless it’s to be fucked, hard and fast.” I place two tender kisses at the corner of her lips.

“You don’t even know who I am,” she whispers.

“Three-time Grammy winner Cash Leigh. Pop sensation. Billboard Top 100 Artist of the Year. You’ve won a ton of other awards, but I’m not sure if they matter to artists.” I smile, thinking that my mother called them fluff awards. She always said it wasn’t worth a lick if it wasn’t a Grammy or a Country Music Award.

“My MTV award mattered very much, thank you,” Cash says with a huff and a smile. “I thought you didn’t have a television.”

“I don’t have a TV, but I have access to the internet. I live in a small town, but we know what modern technology is.”

She freezes. Her pretty, warm eyes appear shocked and frozen. “I wasn’t implying that you didn’t. I’m sorry.”

I pull back, searching her eyes. “Whoa, whoa, who’s accusing you of being insulting, darlin’.”

Cash looks away for a second before returning her pretty eyes to me. “Sorry. It’s just that I’m constantly apologizing these days. It seems like it’s a force of habit. I don’t even mean it for half the shit they’re accusing me of.” She shrugs. “Well, I guess they’re not accusations if they’re true, but I’m not hurting anyone. There are vultures in my business that feast on innocence until nothing is left, but the paparazzi would rather go after me than them. At least my shit was with consenting adults, not some dirty old man with a beer gut and a wide-eyed fourteen-year-old girl.”

I pull back from her, giving her space to talk to me without being crowded. She swallows as if trying to push back the words that want to burst from her lips or maybe find the courage to tell me her truth.

“I came here to find myself, not to fall into the first guy I meet. Not to mention that guys got me in this situation in the first place. I haven’t even figured out what my future looks like. I’ve just been writing songs and trying to get back to that feeling of falling in love with music again. My manager is breathing down my neck to make a decision, but the truth of it is… I’m not good at that. I let everyone else decide my career for a long time, and they created Cash Leigh. I want to find Cashleigh Wilson again. The little girl who sang country songs on the front porch with her grandparents. That girl dancing up on stage and lip-syncing in the music videos isn’t me. That’s the pop princess they created to stuff down the radio waves. I’m messy with dark cravings and a broken, battered soul, but the only thing the world has ever seen is a sunny girl with a wide smile. The truth is, Gunner, I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“I know exactly who you are.” I land a protective hand on her thigh and squeeze. “You’re a strong, passionate woman who’s been kept in a cage. Your beauty is so captivating that those around you haven’t been able to handle its full force, so they’ve had to dim the light you radiate. Besides, if you write music half as well as you sing, you’re the next Patsy Cline. You were born with a gift, and you need to let it shine for the world to see.” I shrug, trying to lighten her mood. “It rattled me for a minute when you sang my mother’s song in the bar. Don’t tell her, but I think you may have better chops than she ever did.”

Cash’s sadness evaporates, and unexpected laughter rings through the car. “I swear, Gunner Shaw… I don’t know if I’m coming or going with you”—her eyes sparkle up at me as a dark cloud lifts from them—“but damn if I don’t like it.”

I nod, catching her face in my palms. As the sun breaks the horizon, I kiss her. It doesn’t matter that we’ve only just met. My cock has been raging like a monster since she told me she’s as kinky as I am. Every fiber of my body screams that she’s mine. I’ll do anything and be anyone she needs.

It’s not every day you meet the girl of your dreams.

Her hips grind softly against my thigh, so softly she probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. But I sure as hell do. I feel fucking everything when this girl’s around. She’s a fast, furious, and wildly beautiful tornado waiting to blow me away.

“Anxious, are we, little sparrow?” I pull back, my breath taken away by her radiant beauty in the early morning light.

“Call me jaded, but when you said meet me at the copper gates at sunrise, I wasn’t expecting this.”

“What were you expecting?” I shuttle her close to my body, liking how she fits perfectly against me.

“More…pancakes, less romance, maybe?”

“Not sure calling you a slut off the bat is all that romantic.”

She tries to pull away, but I grip her waist and hold her close. “Do you know everything about me?” She pauses, and her eyes flutter away. “Do you know they plastered my face on all the major news rags, telling the world I have a sex addiction?”

I know the story. As soon as she left the bar, I went on the computer in my office and read everything I could about her like a crazed fan, down to her kid siblings’ interests.

I sure as hell watched the little porno she made with the hooker. My cock was hard as steel as she was degraded. Mascara ran down her cheeks, and pretty pink marks marred her delicate flesh. I didn’t even realize I’d pulled out my dick and started stroking, wishing it was my spit dangling from her lips. My dueling emotions confused me. I wanted to rip the hooker’s heart out for touching her as I jerked my cock. I pretended it was my dick buried in her perfect wet cunt as I slapped her sexy face and called her my pretty little whore.

“I know more than you think,” I say, kissing her forehead. “But there is one question I couldn’t figure out.”

“What is it?”

“You’re a sexy-as-sin celebrity. Why did you need to hire male prostitutes?”

Cash groans and buries her head in her hands. “This is much more embarrassing than knowing most of America has seen my tits getting whipped.”

I pull her hands from her face before cupping her cheeks and looking deep into her eyes. “Never be embarrassed around me. I want to know all of you, including the parts you want to keep hidden.”

I wipe away the lone tear that springs from her eye and offer a gentle smile. Cash nods and takes a deep breath but says nothing. We sit, eyes locked, letting the silence of the morning cocoon us.

I want to demand her emotions and have her confess her hidden secrets without hesitation. But life doesn’t work that way. We don’t get what we want simply by closing our eyes and wishing with all our might. I learned that lesson at a young age before I stepped foot into a school.

So, against my better nature, I hold her and move at her speed.

Cash’s chest distracts me as she takes a deep breath, and her perfect tits rise and fall. “I don’t trust men. Things always get complicated if you take a random guy home after a show. Remember Lucy Maties, the rock star? She left a show with a random groupie, and a bellhop found her in a dumpster the next day, chopped up into pieces.”

I laugh, lacing our fingers and easing into my place with her at my side. “Not sure if I should feel flattered or insulted that you don’t think I’m dangerous enough. I should’ve picked you up on the Harley. Chicks dig the bike.”

She bats her long, dark eyelashes at me before lightly punching my arm. “Murder isn’t funny.”

“Of course not. I’m not laughing at what happened to that poor woman. I find it interesting that you’re here with a man you hardly know but assume that all your male fans are potential murderers.”

Cash abruptly pulls away from me, a coy smile on her full lips. Her hand clasps the door. “Gunner, I reckon you’re absolutely right.”

“What are you doing, Cash?”

“I’ve made a terrible mistake. Being here in the middle of nowhere with a strange man. You can do all kinds of horrible things to me. I’m just a naïve little girl. A powerful man like you can take control of my body so easily. Take what you want and ignore all my cries for help.”

Oh, the little minx. Cash is deflecting conversation by offering me herself on a platter. If I were a stronger man, I could resist and force her to get naked without removing a single piece of clothing. But right now, my brain’s shut down, and I can only contemplate with my dick. So, instead of shutting down her little game, I do what any red-blooded man would do. I play along.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to run when confronted with a wild animal?”

She opens the car door and walks backward in the direction of the lush trees of the forest. “Yes. Back away slowly.”

“When I catch you, Sparrow, I’m going to fuck you so hard that you won’t be able to think straight for a week.”

She smiles. “Only a week? Well, that’s disappointing.”

“Hope you like red because that’s all you’ll see when you face the mirror and look at your skin.”

“Gotta catch me first!” she yells before disappearing into the woods.