Mated To The Mountain Lion Page 3

  “Fuck, Dallas. Oh…right there. Yeah.”

  His grip on my hips tightened while my body began to rock quicker, and I felt the pleasure churning behind my hips while his stubble raked along my inner thigh. His bold green eyes stared up from between my thighs, and I couldn’t help the sentiments pouring from my lips as my body relinquished itself to him.

  “Oh, god. Yes. You just…God, you’re so good. How do you-... oh, fuck!”

  Rearing my head and arching my back, and I choked out his name like a desperate prayer while my body shook on top of his face. I felt a light sheen of sweat gathering on my back, and my body collapsed just before he sat up and caught me in his arms. I laid my forehead against his and reveled in my scent on his lips, and when I captured his mouth in a long sensual kiss, he slowly rolled me over and laid me down onto the bed.

  He stood in front of me and slowly began to undo his shirt. When he pulled the fabric from his body, my eyes finally got to take in the rippling muscles he had developed. A deep, rigid chest from hauling hay and training animals; rippling arms from cutting wood and helping birth rough stock into the world. I watched as he stepped out of his jeans and boxers, his thick erection springing to life. I had no hope of hiding the fascination I had with his body.

  The lanky boy I had loved in college had morphed into the carved man he was today, and the smirk that donned his face when he slowly crawled up my body was nothing short of predatory. I’d always known that stare, the one that was charting everything he would do to my body before rendering my movements useless. Like a cat ready to play with a mouse before enjoying and devouring every ounce of it.

  I felt him line himself up with me while I reached up to cup his glistening cheeks. I captured his lips in a kiss again as his erection pushed inside my body as far as it could go. I groaned into his lips and he sighed against mine, the rolling of his body ricocheting tremors of electricity that puckered my nipples against his chest. Faster and faster he thrusted, skin-to-skin sounds bouncing off the walls of the trailer that was soon rocking up and down with our movements.

  As I flung my hands to his back, I could feel my juices dripping down the crack of my ass. Every detail I had ever memorized about his body came flooding to the forefront of my mind. I raked my fingernails down his back, causing a groan to escape from his throat. My impending orgasm built in my back. I wrapped my legs around his waist and flipped him over, planting my hands on his strong and swollen chest as I bounced my pelvis up and down his shaft.

  “Oh, fuck, Autumn. Good god… yes. Jesus look at me... ugh.”

  I slammed down onto his pelvis and pushed him deeper inside of me. His hips bucked into my body while my hair splashed around my face. My back began to twitch, and my bounce began to stutter. Just when I thought my body was going to give out on me, Dallas ripped himself out and tossed me down onto the bed.

  “All fours, now,” he commanded.

  I lifted my ass up into the air and dipped my cheek into the bed before he lined himself up and quickly buried himself in me. He laid down onto my back and reached his hand around, his fingers parting my lips and finding my swollen nub, letting me know I no longer had control of the situation.

  I never really did with him, anyway.

  “Dallas. Yes. Just like that. Oh… oh, my god. I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna cum. I’m go-”

  My walls squeezed down onto his dick as he growled into my ear and sank his teeth into my shoulder while my body trembled in his wake. I reveled in the pleasure and pain as his hips began to stutter, his thrusts becoming more languid. I smiled into the bed when I felt his dick pumping me full of his juices. He panted hard into my back as we collapsed. I felt myself trickling out onto the sheets as we laid our sweating naked bodies in the middle of his bed.

  “Oh, Dallas,” I sighed.

  And all he answered me with was a kiss between my shoulder blades and something that sounded suspiciously like a purr.

  Chapter 5: Dallas

  The sun broke through the ratty curtains of the trailer, and I stretched my arm out to pull Autumn close. Her aged scent on my stubble wafted through my nose, and I figured it could use a little polishing off. After all, who doesn’t like waking up with a nice orgasm?

  But when I felt the cool sheets of the bed beside me, I peeled my eyes open to a familiar sight. The sheets were crinkled, the pillow was mussed, and Autumn was nowhere in sight.

  “Fuck!” I yelled before I grabbed her pillow and threw it against the wall.

  I couldn’t believe I’d gotten sucked into her again. She had the balls to knock on my trailer door, donning that whole ‘innocent me-broken heart’ act, and I fucking fell for it. But a part of me still held onto hope that maybe she was in another part of the trailer, so I planted my feet on the floor and walked the small span of the encasement. I checked the bathroom to see if she was cleaning up, and even peeked around into the kitchen to see if she was eating a bowl of cereal on the couch, but all to no avail. When I realized she was actually gone, all I could do was rear my foot back and kick the table, permitting the deep and angry growl building inside of my throat to escape from my mouth.

  I was an idiot to think she had sought me out to reconcile. With her big doe eyes and her wispy blonde hair, my body was fucking weak to her. When she sat on my couch and started crying, I’d thought she wanted to fix things between us and to start over to see if we could figure something out. It was obvious she had been nervous and distraught, but had it all been just an act? If so, why the hell did she come here in the first place? Just for sex? As beautiful as Autumn was, she could get that shit anywhere.

  Besides, she wasn’t that kind of girl. And even though it had been five years since college, I refused to think she had turned into that kind of girl. Whatever she’d been doing and wherever she’d been doing it, I wasn’t about to think she’d just put on an act to get it in with someone.

  Autumn August was the love of my life, and when I ripped that trailer door open yesterday, I realized I had never stopped loving her despite all the years that had passed since I last saw her. Seeing her standing there in that pale-yellow dress with her beautiful honey hair wrapping around her neck, my heart had fluttered the same way it did when I first laid eyes on her on that college courtyard. And she had been so supportive of my bull riding. Yeah, sure, she worried over whether or not I’d get hurt, but what woman wouldn’t? Her worrying didn’t keep her from sitting in the stands and watching. And every single time she was in the stands, I would manage to stay on the entire eight seconds.

  Every rodeo, and every practice run or professional run, if she was there, I stayed on. It was like she was my good luck charm, the magnet that kept my ass attached to that damn saddle. It was incredible, and everyone around me thought so. They called me unbeatable and told me it took a bull to ride a bull. Soon, the nickname stuck, and I was being called Dallas ‘Bullheaded’ Rawlings.

  Autumn always said that I was bullheaded for other reasons, but I always told her I was just headstrong and knew what I wanted, and what I wanted was her.

  The truth was that if the rodeo ever became too much and she asked me to quit, I would’ve given it up in a heartbeat. I loved that woman more than I ever did the rodeo, and if there ever came a point where I was hurt, or her nerves were fried, I’d stop just so she would be all right. Having her in the stands was what kept me on that bull, and it was what kept me in control of my other nature too. She gave me the confidence I needed to keep going, even when every joint in my hand was being ripped from its place and I felt like my body wanted to explode into its alternate form just for the chances of getting some relief.

  When she left, it was like I lost my grip. My practice ride times got shorter and shorter, and pretty soon, bulls were dropping down and bucking me off their backs in two seconds flat. Initially, I’d always suspected the bulls were someone frightened by me, sensing my nature. But in Autumn’s absence, so much of the fight had gone out of me that the bulls began to see me as no more
frightening than an agitated house cat.

  After she left, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t keep my grip, and I couldn’t ride anymore. So I stopped.

  I never signed up for another rodeo and reporters tracked me down for weeks, trying to figure out why I was no longer riding. Rumors flew that I’d been hurt in a practice run, and from there, stories about me having concussions, mental issues, and losing fingers flew into the local tabloids. But I kept to myself and helped take in the rough stock being retired from the rodeo, and those rough stocks began to breed and have calves. Pretty soon, I had me a fresh batch of rough stock that the rodeo was interested in, and when I officially established my ranch, young men soon began tracking me down to asked if I trained riders.

  I’d shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?” And from that point on, my rodeo business was born.

  But that’s when I realized something. Yesterday was the first time since my college days that I’d stayed on the back of a bull for the entire eight seconds. I couldn’t begin to explain why I decided yesterday was the day to ride. But something in my gut had told me it was time to get back in the saddle.

  And unbeknownst to me, Autumn had been sitting in the stands watching.

  “Shit,” I breathed before I ran my hands over my face. That woman really was my good luck charm. Sitting in the stands and cheering me on to the full eight seconds without me even knowing she was there. Unbelievable.

  What the hell was I supposed to do now? Her smell permeated my fucking trailer, and it threatened to swallow me whole while my mind sprang back to the memory of what it felt like to have her entire body on my face. How good it felt to feel the meats of her thighs against my cheeks.

  I refused to let that woman take me down the way she did five years ago. I refused to lose myself in my anger and my sadness. I refused to continue asking myself why the hell she never stayed, or what the hell I could’ve done better so she would have stayed. I was a damn good man with a damn good business, and any other woman would’ve considered herself lucky to be by my side.

  Every woman except the one I wanted, apparently.

  Well, no more. No fucking more. I had work to do back at the ranch, and I was already late.

  I strode over to the bathroom, threw the small door open, and squeezed myself into the shower. The first order of business was getting her tainted smell off my body, and then I needed to pull my clothes on and get on back to my animals. I had training sessions scheduled throughout the day and a pregnant heifer I was watching for a friend who was out of town for another rodeo clear across state lines.

  I’d built a good life for myself, and if she didn’t want to be a part of it, then she didn’t have to be.

  I let the hot water flow over my body and wash the remnants of her away as I ran my schedule for the day through my head.

  Chapter 6: Autumn

  I had forgotten how crisp country mornings were, and the skin on my legs and arms puckered with every step I took towards my house. It was a hell of a walk, over five miles to be exact, but I’d hitched a ride to the rodeo yesterday and didn’t have any other way of getting back. The wind blew and kicked up the fabric of my dress, and I ran my fingers quickly through my hair in a desperate attempt to make myself look presentable. My stomach had felt physically nauseous when I woke up that morning and realized I’d overslept because I knew if my parents realized I hadn’t come home last night, they would have sent the police force out looking for me.

  Granted, I knew I was doing to Dallas what I’d done all those years ago, but didn’t know what to do about it.

  So I had gotten up, crept out of bed without waking him, pulled my dress on over my body as silently as I could, tip-toed to the bathroom, and wet down a washcloth before slathering some cheap soap on it to clean myself. I had been able to smell him as the crust of our juices crinkled on my leg and needed to clean myself before making the five-mile walk of shame back to my house.

  Was I really ashamed though?

  No.

  Never of Dallas.

  But it was a small town and people had a tendency to talk, so I knew rumors would start to fly and my walk of shame would somehow wind up with me being pregnant and Dallas asking me to have a shotgun wedding just before he went to ride his bull off into the sunset. And while the idea of having children with Dallas wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, he sure as hell wouldn’t want to have them in Paris. He was a country boy through-and-through, and they didn’t need ranchers in a city like Paris.

  By the time the sun began to break through the tree line, my house finally came into sight. The sprawling plantation rose above the flowers my mother kept meticulously cultivated in our front yard, and the massive trees that stood on either side of the house shaded the driveway as I tiptoed up the cement. The white house with the towering columns loomed over the town, like the beacon of a lighthouse over the treacherous shores of the sea.

  My parents raised horses and bred them for the derby, and when they weren’t tending to breed some of the strongest race horses together, they were running summer camps for children and teenagers. When I was growing up, people came from other states to enroll their children in the camp my parents ran, but when my dad got sick, the doctor told him he had to slow down some. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and promptly had a pacemaker put in, but he couldn’t keep up the schedule he was used to. My mother and I tried to pick up the slack as much as we could, and even Dallas jumped in for a time while we were in college to help during the summers. But the three of us couldn’t pull the weight my dad used to, and the camps had to close themselves down around the time I graduated.

  My mother kept breeding and raising the horses, and my father helped her with the feed and repaired the stalls when they needed repairing, but his health was slowly deteriorating, and with that deterioration came less and less he could do. Last summer they sold the back half of their ranch to help pay the bills. Twenty-eight acres of land sold back to the city so they could cultivate more living areas for the growing community college. Granted, they still had twenty-eight acres of land between them and that construction going on, but it was the hardest decision my father had ever made, and to this day, I think my mother regrets it.

  I stood in the shade of the porch longer than I should have, and it wasn’t until the sun began to shine around the column that I realized I’d probably waited too late to walk in. But I figured my parents would just now be stirring awake, so if I could get up the steps before they actually came out of their room downstairs, I’d still be home-free and could dodge all the questions they would have. Sure, they’d known I was going to the rodeo, and I’m a big girl who can stay out all night if I wanted to, but it wouldn't take them long to put two and two together once they realized Dallas ‘Bullheaded’ Rawlings was being featured during the bull riding event, and I wasn’t ready for the questions they would inevitably throw my way.

  I dug out the spare key from underneath the mat and slowly slipped it into the lock. I opened the front door and it dumped me into a high-ceilinged foyer. When I turned to place the key back underneath the mat, I locked the door and breathed a sigh of relief; I’d made it into my house without anyone suspecting me. I smiled when I shut the door behind me and leaned up against it.

  “You should’ve used the back door.”

  I jumped when I heard my mother’s voice waft from the kitchen. I cursed underneath my breath and closed my eyes for a second. I knew I had been cutting it close, and it was my fault I’d got lost in my own stupid memories while I standing out in the driveway.

  “Hey, Mom,” I smiled meekly. I slowly padded down the hallway and stuck my head in the kitchen, seeing my mother sitting there. If there was ever a woman that exuded country sophistication, it was her: back straight, shoulders rolled, hair neatly pinned, and her stud earrings she wore as part of her nightly appearance shone from her ears. Sure, the wrinkles of time and work had etched themselves into her skin, but her voice was light, her legs were always cro
ssed at the ankles, and she always used her manners no matter the situation or person before her.

  “Why don’t you come have some coffee?” she offered. Her body slowly rose from the chair and she placed her coffee cup on the table.

  I knew when she asked that question, I really didn’t have a choice; my mother, always phrased commands in the form of a question to make herself appear unthreatening when really, she expected you to obey every word that poured from her lips. I never did figure out how to mock the grace and poise she had when I was a child, but my father always told me I wasn’t something to be harnessed.

  “No, your father isn’t awake yet,” she said lightly, sensing my thoughts as only a mother could.

  I heard her pour the cup of coffee before a spoon began clanking around the ceramic. She padded back towards me and placed the cup down in front of me. Even though I sat back into the chair and tossed my wild hair back, she sat with her back straight and curled her delicate fingers around the jovially-colored mug.

  “Where were you last night?” my mother asked.

  “Went out with some friends after the rodeo,” I said before bringing the mug to my lips, hastily taking a sip of coffee that was too hot.

  “When will I convince you that I wasn’t born in a barn, Autumn?”

  I sighed into my mug and closed my eyes before the question that spewed forth from her lips graced my tired ear drums.

  “Were you with Dallas?”

  The mere mention of his name fluttered my heart, lurched my gut, and made tears form behind my eyelids. Attempting to distract myself, I took another large swig of my coffee, not caring how hot it was. I then took a deep breath and answered, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did you have a productive… conversation?”