40. Lily

40

Lily

Falling for me ? Oh God. That was too much... way too much. My carefully constructed plan to control the relationship had just veered off of a cliff.

“Lily?” he asked. “What the hell?!”

I stumbled backwards towards the door. “ Falling for me?” I croaked. “You can’t fall for me!” It was exactly what I’d wanted to hear...and it was terrifying. I didn’t deserve someone like Bull falling for me.

“I can’t—” I shook my head. “This was a bad idea.”

I turned back towards the door and put my hand out to grab the handle—

There was the sensation of something falling around me, then a high-pitched whine and a snap. My legs shot out from under me and I landed, face-down, in the hay.

I lay there stunned for a second and then rolled over onto my back. I went to get up and discovered I couldn’t...because my ankles were roped together.

He’d just lassoed me!

He began to wind the rope around his hands .

I opened my mouth to speak, but his voice came like a bullwhip. “Don’t you say a fucking word,” he commanded.

I shut my mouth.

He took up the slack and kept winding the rope. I began to slide on my ass across the hay.

“You goddamn, over-thinking, Gucci-wearing, latte-drinking city folk,” he muttered.

My feet met his. I stared up at him and he glared down at me.

“Bull—” I started.

“Shut up.”

“Bull—”

“Quiet!”

“B—”

“You say one more thing and I swear I’ll take you over my knee.”

I went quiet. A dark heat rippled outward from my groin.

He crouched down by my feet, the muscles of his legs bulging. He looked even bigger, looking up at him like this. “Now for once in your life, Lily, shut up and listen.”

“But I—”

“It ain’t all about you!”

We stared at each other. I completely underestimated him, I realized. This man was an unstoppable force...and I’d tried to control him, to put him in a convenient little box. For the first time, I saw how frustrated he was. Not just about the sex but on a much deeper level.

“What happened to that guy I met in Lucky Pete’s?” I asked. “The one who just wanted to fuck me? ”

“He stepped out,” Bull growled.

We stared into each other’s eyes and something about the way he was looking at me made my heart lift and pull like a balloon that wants to be released. I felt my eyes grow moist.

“You’re Bull,” I protested. “You’re not meant to—You shouldn’t be falling for anyone!”

“Yeah, well, I never met anyone like you,” he muttered.

The barn was incredibly still. I could feel the words bunched up inside me, jostling for space, eager to come out...but releasing them was the hardest thing imaginable. “I think...I’m falling for you, too,” I said at last. And that admission changed everything. It reverberated through me, leaving me humming like a tuning fork. My resistance began to crumble.

Bull’s hands slackened on the rope. “There,” he said. “That wasn’t so fucking difficult, was it?”

I put my hands to my face and shook my head. “I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve...you.”

“Well now you’re just being dumb.” He hunkered down further and stared right into my eyes. “I’ll tell you what you deserve, Lily, and it’s a goddamn prince in a fairytale castle.” His voice softened. “But will you settle for me?”

I nodded, choking up a little. I was just starting to realize what an idiot I’d been. And how much I’d been denying myself any chance at happiness, ever since Annette died. “Sorry,” I said quietly. I don’t think I’ve ever communicated as much in two syllables as with that word.

He leaned down and brushed my hair from my cheek with a finger. “I’m sure we can figure out a way to punish you.” His smirk had come back and I felt my heart lift and tug, rising a little higher as I relaxed. It felt incredible. I shifted a little and the rope rasped at my bare ankles. I really was tightly bound.

Helpless.

He reached down to the rope, his big hands warm on my bare skin. I drew in my breath.

He looked up at me. “Relax. I’m just going to take the rope off,” he explained.

Our eyes met and held. We stared at each other for a few seconds. He tilted his head questioningly to one side.

I wriggled, a whole new sort of delicious, dark heat winding upwards through my body. “Rhinoceros,” I whispered. “That’s what I want my safeword to be.”

“Lily!” He sounded stunned, but there was a note of dark lust in his voice, too. “I didn’t know you...”

I swallowed. “I didn’t know either,” I blurted, blushing.

“Rhinoceros?” he asked, considering.

“Rhinoceros,” I confirmed. My heart was hammering. I felt as if I was standing at the very top of a long, sweeping hillside, about to roll all the way down. I’d never done anything like this before. You’re supposed to only do this with someone you really trust…..

I really trusted him.

I nodded again, confirming that it was really okay.

He knelt down atop me, straddling me, his knees like tree trunks either side of my hips. Then he planted his arms either side of my head and I was completely caged in by him, trapped. I let out a soft little moan as he leaned down to kiss me again, my head sinking back into the soft straw as we pressed and moved and his tongue slipped into my mouth .

It felt different, now. You wouldn’t think you use your feet, to kiss, but I couldn’t seem to stop moving them. I kept twisting them and trying to jerk them apart, just so I could feel the rope tight around my ankles.

The heat started to build inside me, throbbing outward from my core, and it was different, too. Darker, somehow. Before, it had been clean and bright, like the Texas sunshine. Now it was roiling, oily smoke rising up from ruby-red, smoldering coals. And I could feel the same darkness in Bull, too, a side of him he’d only hinted at before. With every passing second, we were burning hotter, growing darker. It was even more powerful because relinquishing control was such a completely new experience for me.

I realized I’d never trusted anyone enough, until now. That’s why I’d never even thought of doing this with the few boyfriends I’d had.

I felt his hands on my tied shirt, undoing the knot with expert fingers. He went to pull the two sides apart and I reached up and caught his wrists. I’m not even sure why I did it, because I wanted to feel myself naked against him more than anything.

He stared down at me...and then grabbed one of my wrists. I went unexpectedly squishy inside at the feeling of his muscled fingers gripping me. So big. So strong.

He pulled my wrist up above my head and pinned it to the hay-covered floor. That feeling inside doubled in strength. I made little pushing movements against his hand but I might as well have been pushing against an iron band. Then he grabbed my other wrist and pinned it down alongside the first, and took them both in one big hand so that he had a hand free .

He opened one side of my shirt, laying the fabric out to the side of me. Then the other side, and I was panting and exposed, my breasts throbbing in their bra. I looked up at him, pleading with my eyes.

Pleading, but not to be let go.

He took a penknife from his pocket, an old scarred thing with cracked casing. A thing that cut barbed wire and tightened the bolts on gates. A working tool. Somehow, that made it even better. Everything—the rough scratch of the hay against my legs, the burn of the rope around my ankles—it was all real and raw.

He moved the knife towards my bra. Slid it between my breasts and underneath the strap that connected the cups. The blade lifted and the strap lifted with it and then there was a snapping sound and the cups fell away to either side of my body. My breasts were revealed, milky-white, moving with each breath, their nipples already hardening from the sudden kiss of the air.

Bull’s eyes were locked on them as he put the penknife away. He leaned down over me, his face coming closer and closer. I panted up at him, faster and faster, until—

Ah! His mouth engulfed my hardening nipple and my back came up off the floor. I tried to buck and move in response to the pleasure, but with my wrists pinned and my ankles bound all I could do was twist and writhe. That made my other breast slide against his hand, the nipple rasping against his palm, and I felt it grow harder with each contact. Then he captured it with his hand and squeezed, just roughly enough. I gasped.

He was working my nipple with firm strokes of his tongue, spiraling around and around. The other breast he fondled, his thumb rubbing across the nipple. Then he trapped the little pink bud between finger and thumb, just as he lifted his mouth and looked up at me to see my reaction.

He pinched. All the air in my body seemed to leave me in one hot gasp as pain and pleasure twisted together into a rope and lashed down to my groin.

He released his fingers. Pinched again. Released. Pinched again. I was sucking in air through my nostrils, now, my out breaths shuddering pants. He stared into my eyes the whole time. Then he ducked his head and took the nipple into his mouth, bathing it, and his fingers went to work on the other one. I groaned and thrashed, rapidly losing the ability to think.

He bent and kissed me again. His tongue met mine and it was as if the dark heat inside us was combining and mixing, becoming stronger than either of us could control. I felt his free hand snake down the length of my body, passing over both breasts and then over my stomach. His fingers brushed the waistband of my denim skirt.

I was aching for him to touch me. I could feel how wet I was. But my hips jerked to the side, trying to evade him, prolonging the chase. His fingers followed me, sliding under the denim and then under the elastic of my panties. Every touch felt magnified and the newly-smooth skin down there was extra-sensitive.

“You feel different,” he growled. His fingertips rubbed over the new, smaller boundaries of my hair. Then he pushed his hand further under my skirt, the size of him stretching the waistband until I thought the button would pop. His fingers slid through the soft curls, then brushed my aching clit. I cried out, a high little oh!

He grinned.

His fingers slid deeper, two of them tracing the line of my lips and then hooking to spear up into me, finding me wet and ready. I groaned as they slid inside. He started to pump them and, with my ankles trapped together, I was tight around him. I could feel every knuckle as he thrust and twisted, the pleasure rippling out in frantic waves. “ God!” I hissed.

He released my wrists because he needed another hand to undo my skirt. But as soon as I was free, I found myself sitting up, pushing him away with both hands. It wasn’t unconscious, exactly. I knew I was doing it but I didn’t know why. I didn’t want to escape but I had to try.

So he could stop me.

Capture me.

Possess me.

You can’t be chased if you don’t run.

He growled and put a massive hand on my chest, pressing me back down to the hay. “Oh,” he grinned. “It’s like that? I gotta tie you up to stop you moving?”

I stared up at him, my eyes huge and my heart thumping. I’d never felt like this before. It was like being on a rollercoaster, fear but with the certainty of safety. I trusted him completely. I knew he’d release me, the second I said “rhinoceros.”

He grinned...and grabbed something from a hook. Not a rope, I saw, but a long brown strap—part of a set of reins, maybe. It passed close enough to my face that I could smell the tang of the leather. Then he crossed one of my wrists over the other and started to bind them together, wrapping it around and around them. I craned my head up to look, staring at my pale skin and the hard, dark leather.

In seconds, he was finished. Now I was bound wrist and ankle, unable to move. He stood for a second, staring down at me, enjoying the sight of me. And I stared up at him.

Standing above me like that, one foot planted either side of me, he looked like a colossus. He slowly stripped off his t-shirt and I was hypnotized by the way his chest rose and fell, solid slabs of tanned, hard muscle. I twisted, grinding my ass against the straw. The heat inside me was raging, the dark smoke completely impenetrable now. I was out of control. God, he’s so big and I’m lying here so…powerless.

I had to get away. I mean, I had this overwhelming urge to try to get away. I started to heave myself along the floor like an earthworm, making an inch of progress at a time.

He shoved his foot between my calves, so that my tied ankles caught on it and stopped me. And he grinned.

My eyes locked on the bulge in his jeans and I just went weak inside.

He bent and unfastened my skirt, tugging it down my hips inch by inch, taking my panties with it. With each tug of the fabric, I felt myself getting hotter and hotter, the heat turning to moisture as it soaked down to my bared groin.

He left my skirt and panties bundled around my bound ankles. Then he ran both hands down my body, from my shoulders to my calves, taking in all the treasures along the way. I gasped and panted under his touch. Then we stared at one another and I could see the raw lust in his eyes. God, I’m doing that to him. Me!

I waited to see what he’d do next. Obviously he couldn’t fuck me like this, with my ankles tied together, so he’d have to cut the rope or—

He turned me over onto my face, straw prickling against my naked breasts. Then he hauled my hips up so that I was on my knees, and I understood.

I got my bound hands under me a little and lifted my head enough that I could crane around and look at him. He was getting to his knees behind me and lazily undoing his belt.

My eyes locked again on that bulge in his jeans. He grinned when he saw me looking.

I watched him take out his cock, already hard and ready. I watched him guide it towards me, felt the soft breeze of the room on my moistened lips...and then jerked as the head of his cock brushed me there. The blood was roaring in my ears. I could feel how soaking wet I was.

His hands gripped my hips, hauling me back towards him. I gasped and panted, my breasts pillowed against the floor, my nipples throbbing as they stroked against the hard fibers of the straw. I felt the shape of that naked, satin-smooth head opening me up—

I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted it so much.

He plunged into me, filling me with one long stroke. I felt every inch of his size, my bound ankles making me tighter than normal. The dark heat had taken me over completely now, thought giving way to raw sensation. He groaned as he slid inside me, a slow groan that spoke of hours, days of frustration finally released. I could feel each vein, each bulge—God, he was shockingly big, stretching me deliciously. “ Jesus,” I whispered.

His fingers squeezed my hips hard and he drew himself from me like a sword from its scabbard. I hissed in air through my gritted teeth, it was so good. So tight, so wet. It felt as if my whole being was wrapped around him, a gleaming, gossamer membrane shot through with silver. For a second, I existed only where I touched his cock.

Then he slammed back into me again and the force of it jolted me forward a little on my arms, reminding me of the leather strap that bound me. My feet twisted and pulled but the rope held them fast. He was straddling my lower legs, I realized, his shins either side of my ankles. This time, he went even deeper and my eyes opened wide as I felt myself stretch and open to accommodate him. “G—God!” I moaned.

He plunged into me again, holding me completely still as his hardness slid past my sopping walls, curving up inside me, making me jerk and gasp at how deep it went. Pleasure fluttered up from each millimeter of his stroke, overwhelming me. I pressed my cheek to the floor. “Ah!”

He pulled back again, wrapping his hands around the sensitive creases at the front of my hips and holding me rock steady against him. Then he thrust into me again and I couldn’t move away even an inch. I thrashed with my bound hands, kicked with my ankles. It did nothing to free me, but I didn’t want to get free. I just wanted to release some of the insane pressure in my head, to gain some space from the pleasure. And then I felt the wiry hair at his groin press against my lips and the soft slap of his balls against my clit, and he was in me as deep as he could be .

He stopped moving, then. The sensation of him there, so hot and hard inside me, kept the pleasure radiating out in waves, even with him still. My eyes were wide and staring—I was off in my own little world, for a second. Then I felt his hand slide across to my groin, fingers toying with the soft curls of hair and then moving down. Seeking out my clit….

I closed my eyes and groaned as he touched it, brushing my soaking lips to gather moisture and then using it on the sensitive nub. He didn’t touch it directly. He rubbed two fingers in a Y either side of it, trapping it, using my own skin to touch where his calloused skin would be too rough. I shuddered as the first tremors of an orgasm started to roll in, like the smaller waves that precede a huge one.

I started to pant through my nostrils. My bound body began to twist and arch. He was doing very little, just a tiny back-and-forth movement of his fingers, simple and exquisite. I needed friction, needed him to fuck me, and I started to hump back against him, feeling my body move around his length.

Only after a few seconds did I realize what he was doing to me. He was making me fuck him . Making me show him how much I wanted it. The dark shame of it lashed through me like rain in a gathering storm, and it only seemed to spur me on. I started to buck against him harder, faster. It was okay, because I was tied up and helpless and I couldn’t control my own body and—

I started to twist my hips, circling them, and he rewarded me by rubbing me faster. “That’s it,” he breathed in my ear. “You can be a good girl when you want to, can’t you?” The words soaked into me, adding to the heat. “Next time, you can show me what else you can do with that smart mouth of yours. And another time….”

His other hand left my hip and stroked across my ass. Following the curve of it inward, between my cheeks—

My eyes opened wide as he touched me there. A jolt went through my body, as if he’d touched me with a live wire.

He chuckled.

And then he started to fuck me. Really fuck me. One hand gripping my hip to hold me firm against him, the other rubbing faster and faster at my clit. I could feel the orgasm approaching, could feel it roaring towards my shores, engulfing everything in its path.

With every thrust, his groin slammed against my ass, making a slapping sound that reverberated around the barn. Each time, I arched my back in response and my breasts dragged along the straw, making me tremble.

I didn’t think it could get any better but, as he sped up more, it did. It became a hard, pounding rhythm, one that melted away everything else in my brain except for him and me and that delicious friction. As the trembles became shudders, I croaked, “ Yes!”

His cock was as merciless as a machine, pumping into me, drawing me towards orgasm whether I wanted it or not...and I did. Oh, God, I did. “Louder,” he grunted.

“ Yes!” I was almost vibrating with the force of the approaching orgasm, now, fully in its shadow.

“Scream it for me, Lily.” His voice had gone tight with the effort of holding back. “Scream my name.”

“ Bullllllll! ”

With a final grunt, he rammed into me—and it was only when I felt the first thick spurt of him inside me that I remembered how he was taking me. Naked. Bareback. That threw me headlong into the orgasm, all sense lost as it consumed me. My whole body went rigid and I felt myself tightening and squeezing around him. He groaned in response, shooting again and again, and that made me twist and grip even more... God!

The climax washed over me for long seconds, completely immersing me. I couldn’t breathe or speak or even think. And then finally, it drained away and my legs quivered, unable to support me anymore. Bull carefully let my hips down and laid me down on my stomach, drawing himself from me.

I lay there almost naked in the straw, face turned to the side, throbbing from head to toe. He lay down next to me, propping himself up on his elbows, and for a few seconds we just lay there panting. “Goddamn, I love fucking you,” he said at last. “I don’t care how much work you are.”

I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. “I’m a lot of work?”

He gave me a look.

Okay, he had a point.

“I didn’t know you were into that,” he told me.

“ I didn’t know I was into that,” I said, flushing. “I’m not...I mean, I don’t think I want to do that every time.”

He chuckled. “Calm down, girl. Plenty of other ways I can ride you.”

I squirmed. Then we just sort of stared at each other. I got the sense he was thinking the same thing I was: what now ?

“Come with me to the fair,” he said.

I blinked. It was so completely out of the blue. “What?”

“The town fair. Come with me.”

“The town fair?” I was dimly aware of something about a fair, round about this time each year. I’d always stayed hunkered down in the bus when it came around. I’d presumed it was very Texas and very country—beer and cattle and cotton candy and not my thing at all. That was probably completely unfair. If I was going to be with Bull, I should try to come to this stuff with an open mind. “What’s it like?”

“Oh, you know. Beer. Cattle. Cotton candy. You’ll hate it. It’ll be great.” He reached back and ran a hand over my naked ass cheek.

I drew in my breath. “You don’t want to go with one of your local girls? Someone more... Texas?”

“I’m with you now.” He looked at me questioningly. “Right?”

I nodded. “Right.” And the thought of it, of being with someone after so long, made my heart swell and rise and finally break free of everything that had been holding it down. It soared high into the air. I grabbed him and kissed him, partially because it felt so good and partially to prove to myself that it was real.

He kissed me back, long and hard enough to convince me it was.

I looked at him and, for the first time in years, I truly smiled. I was happy—shell-shocked at what I’d just done, but happy. And at least some of it was because I was allowing myself to be happy.

I hadn’t realized, until he’d made me admit it, just how much guilt I’d been carrying. I’d thought I’d been hiding myself away out of fear of getting someone else hurt, but at least some of it had been to punish myself.

Maybe, just maybe, this could work. I had to try, or I was going to die in that bus all on my own. And this town fair was the perfect place to start. A nice, normal thing for a newly-country girl and her boyfriend to do together. I was already looking forward to it.