33. Bull

33

Bull

I hauled up my boxers and jeans and buckled my belt, doing it all by feel because I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. God, she was beautiful. Her near-naked body shone in the shafts of sunlight, her magnificent chest rising and falling as she recovered. She put her hand down between her thighs, feeling what I’d done to her, and that made my cock swell all over again.

Even near-naked and just-fucked, she managed to look classy. She looked like one of those society girls, the kind you see in movies riding around in Mercedes with blacked-out windows, about to inherit the family fortune. But there was something about her looks that was slightly different. Exotic. I hadn’t picked up on it before because her skin was so pale, but was there a trace of Spanish or…

Italian. That was it. Italian. An Italian-American princess.

She’d gone very quiet, so I strolled over there. “You okay?” I asked, unable to keep the dumb grin off of my face.

She lay there for a second, staring up at the ceiling. “What did we just do?” she asked, horrified.

I smirked. “What I do best.”

She sat up, shutting her thighs tightly. “I’m not like that,” she said firmly. She was staring off into the distance, as if she was speaking to herself.

“Hate to break it to you, Lily, but yeah you are. You came in here damn near dripping for it.”

Her head jerked around to glare at me. At the same time, her hand whipped across my cheek. Not a very hard slap—she definitely wasn’t used to doing it. I let it bounce off my cheek and laughed.

“Shit!” she gasped. “Sorry. I just—” Then she frowned. “Stop laughing! It’s not funny!” She ran a hand through her hair. Little bits of straw fell out. “I can’t believe we just did that. Did we really just do that?”

“Oh, for the love of God,” I muttered, and kissed her, which felt damn fine and quieted her down. When I pulled back, her breathing had slowed a little. “Stop thinking like a damn city girl,” I told her sternly.

“I am a city girl.”

“Not anymore.”

She looked down at herself, as if she’d never seen her own body before. Then, for some reason, she touched that gorgeous, softly-smooth stomach.

I leaned close. “I’d love to fuck you again,” I told her. “Or just lay down in the hay with you and hold you. But sooner or later, someone’s going to come looking for me, and they’re going to see you all laid out there….”

She yelped and tried to pull her t-shirt back together, then realized it was useless. She dived for her jeans and I enjoyed watching that ripe ass wiggle its way into them. Then I threw her my t-shirt. “Here,” I said. “I barely wear it anyway.”

She caught it and stared at me for a moment, as if I’d just given her a Gucci dress. Then fastened up her bra and pulled it on. The t-shirt was ridiculously big on her, but at least she wouldn’t have to suffer the other guys gawping at her.

I walked over to her and took her hands. “Now, I don’t know how you do it in the big city,” I told her, “but out here, this means we gotta get married.”

She looked up at me, eyes huge.

“Joke,” I told her.

Her face relaxed and she sort of shook herself, like, of course it was. But for just an instant there, I’d thought I’d seen a flash of... disappointment? Shit. I’d misjudged her again. She always seemed so distant, pushing me away—I’d just been kidding around, letting her know I wasn’t some hick who’d get all clingy, and it had backfired.

“But you’re not going to do your disappearing act again, are you?” I asked.

She shook her head, but in a very doubtful way.

“ Lily,” I grated. “Don’t run out on me again. I got a lasso and I know just how to use it.”

“I have to go,” she muttered, and pulled away.

I grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up short, then dragged her across the floor towards me, her sneakers sliding on a bed of hay.

I pulled her into my arms, lifted her up off the floor and kissed her. After a second of resistance, she opened her lips and allowed it, and then I felt her melt. I relaxed. Everything was going to be okay. I hoped .

“I’m serious,” I whispered in her ear. “You run off again and I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”

She squirmed against me and nodded. Then she was sliding down out of my arms and hurrying out of the barn.

I stood staring at the door for a long time after she’d gone. In theory, I should be celebrating. The sex had been the best ever, just how I’d imagined it. And if she wanted to keep it casual and just show up for sex and then disappear...wasn’t that what I wanted? Wasn’t that what every guy wanted?

But something wasn’t right—about the way she’d reacted, after the sex, and on a deeper level, too. Something in her past. Something that kept scaring her away.

I was worried about her.

I couldn’t remember when I’d ever worried about a girl, before.