Cocky Cowboy: A Second Chance Romance (Cocker Brothers of Atlanta Book 3) (5 page)

O
n a quiet moan
I beg him, “Don’t ask me that. I don’t know what I want.”

Lie. Lie. Lie.

But we all need to lie to ourselves a little, sometimes, don’t we?

Jaxson cocks his gorgeous head to hold my attention. “Rachel, I need you going into this with open eyes.”

“What about you? Are yours closed?”

He shakes his head just once and as he thinks of how to answer that, glances to the side and licks his lips. I want those on me right now even though I suspect if I were a better woman I should be on a flight to New York to try and mend things with my boyfriend.

The boyfriend who told me he wanted a break.

Then lied to my mother so he could start it right away.

After I asked him not to go.

“Jaxson,” I murmur, wanting to hear his answer. “Are you aware this is a disaster waiting to happen?”

“Yes, I am.” He cuts a quick glance to my parted lips. “I know you love him. And I can tell by your expensive dress and hot-as-fuck heels that you’re a city girl now. That means you don’t belong here. I also know that I have to kiss you and I don’t give a damn about what comes later.”

He’s on me, crushing me in a kiss so thrilling my knees start to buckle. His arm slips around me fast, and he holds me up as his jaw unlocks mine. Our tongues touch for the very first time.

The kiss becomes desperate until we’re careening across the room to slam into a wall. We don’t come up for air for a very long time.

He pulls away, catching his breath to stare at me a second with a stunned look on his face. I feel exactly the same way. But I’m here now and I’m not turning back.

To show him, I throw my arms above my head, holding his eyes while in this most submissive stance.

Jaxson groans and runs rough hands down my willing body, watching their travel down. He brushes his lips against mine then shakes his head a little. Moistened lips whisper down my panting neck as he grips my ass and pulls me against his stiff bulge. On impact he growls into my collarbone.

Our mouths lock again, moving and sculpting slowly, then fast, then slow again. As we kiss he pins my arms higher and grinds into me, sending an ache into me I’ve never felt.

With his knee and one hand he hikes the skirt of my dress up so that my panties become exposed. I feel the air warmed by the flickering flames and that heat reaches up the highest points of my thighs. I can tell he’s hung like a beast.

It feels so good I want to cry, or scream, or tear him to shreds.

“Come on,” he growls, lifting me up so that I’m straddling his hips as he carries me closer to the fireplace, kissing me the whole way. As he stands me up my legs are like wet noodles. Leaving me for the staircase, he looks over his shoulder and shakes his head like he can’t believe how badly he wants me.

He thickly rasps, “Stay here,” before he disappears upstairs.

Waiting I run a hand over my messy hair, my skirt still around my waist. I almost tug it down but decide I like it the way it is.

Reappearing a moment later with a white sheep-fur rug, Jaxson brings it over to lay before the fire. His eyes lock onto my silk and very wet panties. He licks his lips and my pussy clenches in response, begging for his touch.

Jaxson pulls me to lie on the rug, kneeling before me as my hair splays out. He’s watching my face as he rubs my pussy through the moistened fabric. I’m moaning and boneless as he caresses me with such skill it becomes obvious once more that I was right about him. The way he’s touching me, he’s gotten practice by being a talented lover for many women.

Many women.

Suddenly I’m jealous.

Like seeing-red jealous.

I am so inexplicably pissed and hurt that I rise up and slap him.

He freezes, staring at me, as shocked as I am.

My lips part. His form a grim line.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “You’re so good at that and I know you learned it somewhere else. And I…I…hate it.”

He’s panting softly as the flames trace red-orange light along the side of his sharp features. I stop apologizing because my explanation sounds stupid and makes no sense. It’s not like I was here and he chose them over me.

I’m the one who moved away.

I had no choice. I was just a kid.

But when that decision was made for me, I also lost my friend.

But haven’t we always been more than friends?

“I’m sorry I hit you, Jaxson,” I whisper.

He looks like he’s going to get up and leave me lying here.

Instead, he grabs my shoulders then fists my hair and kisses me hard, craning me back to deepen the kiss as I claw at his chest, feeling all the hills and valleys of his muscles through the denim shirt. We slip to the floor and I’m half-fighting him off and half-pulling him closer. I’ve never been like this before. I want to hurt him and I want to hold him.

“Rachel,” he rasps. “I know how you feel.”

One of my thighs gets lifted and he hooks my foot around his ass, halfway up on his knees, pulling my butt off the ground as he grinds into me kissing me like crazy. Low moans escape our gasping lips.

I know how you feel.

I’m on the verge of tears. A deep frown creases his handsome features as he notices but I shake my head and whisper to him, “Just don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

His nostrils flare on a decision and he pulls at my dress so violently it rips. I give his denim shirt a rough yank, and two buttons explode off it.

“Fuck, I can’t get close enough to you,” he growls, unsnapping his belt buckle as he lunges down and captures me in another amazing kiss.

I don’t have time to see what’s coming. I’ve felt it through his jeans, and now I’m going to feel it inside me before I even see it. He yanks my panties to the side and slides his cock into my wetness so quickly that I yelp at his size and dig my fingers into his back, my own sharply arching. A low moan tears out of my core as he stretches my inner walls quickly.

Jaxson groans and, gripping one of my thighs to pull me off the rug, drives his manhood in to the hilt. I yelp again.

“Am I hurting you?” he demands, his voice deep with lust.

“Don’t you dare fucking stop.”

“Whatever you say, Rach.”

We’re half on our sides and he starts grinding with long sure thrusts.

“You’re so tight,” he growls, reaching for my tongue with his, cock growing harder.

He starts fucking me like he’s making up for lost time.

“Oh God!!” I scream as a burst of pleasure tears through me.

“So wet,” he groans. “God, you’re so fucking wet!”

He changes rhythm, pulling almost all the way out and then sliding back in so slowly and deeply that I start to writhe. “Jaxson,” I whimper as my orgasm breaks and hums a steady beat.

Grunting through clenched teeth, Jaxson holds his own climax in check to fuck me in a way that deliberately stretches my orgasm into the most intense one of my life.

When after it wanes, I stare up at him, stunned and tingling all over.

He’s smiling at me. “You’re beautiful.”

Speechless, my eyelashes flutter as Jaxson Cocker traces my lips with calloused fingertips. He slowly pulls out of me.

“No,” I moan. “Don’t go.”

“Shhhh.” He slips my panties down my legs. “We’ve made a mess of these.” As he tosses them, I glance down. My eyes literally go wide.

I felt it. Oh boy did I feel it.

But seeing his gorgeous cock is an altogether more compelling experience.

He is fucking enormous, wet and glittering in the firelight.

Staring at it, I whisper, “You’re beautiful, too.”

Jaxson chuckles and bends to kiss his way up to my stomach, starting at my calves and slowly traveling. He takes my breasts in both hands and massages one while kissing and tonguing the other, his erect cock against my leg. My back arches on a moan as he arouses my nipples into painfully sharp points.

He sits back on his knees to slowly spread my legs so he can take a good long look at my naked, wet pussy. “Looks as good as she feels,” he smiles, dipping down to have a lick. “Slippery, tight little pussy,” he growls into my sensitive folds.

I whisper in awe, “Dirty talk,” because I never hear dirty talk and I’m surprised how much I like it.

As his tongue sharpens and flicks my clit like they should teach at colleges across America, I cry out and moan like I have never moaned before.

He’s found the right spot and pays it close attention, driving me to the point of madness until I scream, “I need you inside me! Please fuck me! I need it!”

He yanks me by my hips straight onto his cock without so much as a warning, filling and stretching me so quickly I gasp. He groans low and guttural as his head falls back under the pleasure as he pumps between my thighs. The veins are pulsing wildly on his thick neck, tattoos rippling on his chest and down his left arm.

I claw my way up his body, straddling his lap like I’ve just woken up for the first time.

I grab the back of Jaxson’s head and kiss him hard, our open lips careening into each other without shame. As we bite and lick each other he starts fucking me rougher and faster. I ride him like this until he roars. His girth fills to its fullest right before he shouts, “Holy fucking hell!” and explodes, his orgasm so primal I find myself falling over the cliff too, joining him, moaning into each other’s panting lips as we cum together.

When he lays us back down he easily stays inside me. Lazily sliding his hand over my hip, he pauses because the nearby fire was a little too hot against my bare skin.

“Here,” he murmurs, pulling the soft rug up against my reddened hip. “I didn’t know you were overheating.”

“Didn’t you?” I smile.

He laughs into my neck and presses slow caressing kisses there for a deliciously long time.

A
t the distant
crow of Hank, I wake in bed, blinking the lack of sleep away. I got maybe an hour. The blanket is covering Rachel. Even her creamy shoulders are hidden. Her hair is wavy from the shower we took together after a couple more rounds of reacquainting ourselves. The shower saw more action than it has in a couple years, too.

But it’s Sunday now, isn’t it?

Back to him.

My time with her is soon over.

In the stable I get relief from obsessing about this mess I’ve put myself in, with the familiar rituals I do every day of my life. Each of my twenty-two cows gets attached to the milking parlor, a row of machines designed to make this process time-efficient and easy for all involved. Starting at one end of the row, with the first cow done, I strain the warm white liquid into a stainless steel bucket and bring it to the milk tank where it stays at the correct cooled temperature until the guys pick it up for turning into whatever they like.

Connie moos loudly as I go to let them out.

Smiling, I walk over.

“Hey Con, did I almost forget to pet you? My mind is elsewhere, girl. My apologies.” Stroking her thick neck until she calms down, I comfort her with promises of good weather. “You ready for some sunlight? Looks clear today.”

She vocalizes her approval, the most social of my girls.

Strolling to the gate, I crack it open so they have to exit in single file where I can touch each one as they amble past me into the golden grey light of morning to graze on the three-hundred and forty acres I bought on a loan right out of college. When my grandfather passed he left all of us boys enough that I was able to pay that off.

I always wanted this life.

It’s a lot of work running a healthy farm, but it’s soul soothing for a man like me.

Lots of quiet. Lots of hands-on labor.

It’s the reason I was in shape enough to go all night with Rachel, since gyms bore the shit out of me.

Rachel.

Shading my eyes as I gaze west, I try to see her walking around through my bedroom window. She’s probably still dreaming.

I don’t know what’s about to happen, especially since I’m not altogether clear on what I want. Never planned this.

In Georgia you have screen doors because the bugs’ll try and fly away with you if you give them a chance. I’ve got two screens, one for the enclosed patio, the other for my house, which I have to get fixed. Missing the lever that is supposed to keep it from slamming, it hits the doorframe hard behind me.

With the noise having woken her, Rachel calls down in a sleepy voice from the bedroom, “Jaxson?”

“I’m here!” I reassure her. “I’m just gonna make some coffee.”

She calls down, voice losing steam, “Not yet. Come back.”

“Be right up.”

Washing my hands in the kitchen sink, I turn and set my cowboy hat on an antique, bare-wood chair. Staring out the window for about five minutes I obsess all over again about what comes next with us.

Fucking New York City of all places.

I decide to wait on coffee and take advantage of what little time I have left.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I find her back asleep. Her naked body is shifted toward me now. The blanket has slipped down, exposing a breast held softly by gravity. Her pink lips are open and as I watch her lightly snoring I cross my arms over my white tank, old jeans hanging low without the belt.

She looks like a fuckin’ angel, that’s the problem.

Tearing off my clothes I climb in with her.

She mews like a cat as my naked body enfolds hers.

She smells like my pine-scented soap, but her own smell is mixed in. Inhaling deeply, I close my eyes and swear inwardly that I am not ready for these feelings, especially not under the circumstances.

Maybe not ever.

Half in dreamland Rachel Sawyer presses her ass into me and murmurs something unintelligible. My cock has chosen to ignore my mind’s reservations. It only remembers the four times it was inside her. She moans, as my erection grows more urgent.

“I know you’re sore,” I rasp into her shoulder.

“You feel amazing, Jaxson. I’ll warm up. Don’t stop.”

Those words are an aphrodisiac to any man, but to me they’re a dissolving of my doubts, at least for the time being.

I flip her onto her stomach and slip my fingers slowly into her cunt until I get her wet and moaning with desire for more, angling her so that when I position myself behind her I can get in deep.

Slipping my cock inch-by-inch into her slippery pussy, Rachel writhes, moving like she knows what I like to see – a woman who loves what I feel like and how I move.

She grabs onto the hand that’s gripping her hip, her elbow bent high. Her fingers trap mine there and I squeeze back as I thrust slowly, loving the gorgeous view of her body.

She grabs onto my headboard and I keep moving slow and steady, knowing she’s sore, until her body gives in to me completely.

She cries out as we cum together. “Holy shit,” I moan as the pulses rack through our bodies.

We’ve done that all four times last night, even the shower. It’s taken me to a whole new level of confusion at how I’m going to be able to let her go. It’s not that sex is everything, it’s that this kind of connection isn’t common. I’ve never felt it before.

I’m good in bed. Anyone I’ve been with will tell you that.

Mostly, because I love it. All of it.

But simultaneous orgasms are not an ‘every time’ thing. Especially not the first night you’re with someone. Not unless something greater than just sex is going on. I feel that with her. There’s an energy between us that is tearing me apart and putting me back together.

In the aftermath of this slow morning fuck we kiss for a long time until suddenly her smile fades.

“I have to call my mom.”

“I know. Mine texted me already.”

Rachel makes a face. “Are you serious?”

“She thought I was going to stay the night in Atlanta. So did I.”

Laughing, Rachel asks, “So…you got us in trouble with our parents is what you’re saying?”

Stroking her naked body as I remain inside her, I say on a low laugh, “Yep. Guess no T.V. for a week.”

“Oh please! You never got in trouble. That was always me!”

“Parents are more lenient with boys.”

Rachel stares at my smile and reaches up to touch my nose. “I like how you’ve grown up.”

Like I’m going to say something sweet I lean in to whisper in her ear, “When did the braces come off, Jaws?”

She hoots at my reference to the bad guy in James Bond’s
Moonraker
. “You used to call me that! I forgot. That was so mean!”

Staring down into her smiling face, I ask the question that’s been gnawing at me, “When’s your flight?”

Her smile falters as she blinks at me. “You knew I was leaving today?”

“I do now.” I push a lock of sandy-brown hair from her forehead, tracing her skin. “What do you do there, Rachel? For a living.”

“I’m a writer,” she whispers. “Editorials for blogs and newspapers. I have a few non-fiction books out about travel, too.”

My eyebrows go up. “You’re a travel writer?”

“Restaurants, hidden places, but mostly I like to write about the people I meet, the quirky differences that make each place unique.”

We stare at each other and I know she’s thinking the same thing I am. We both know there isn’t much to write about where I live.

“Nice. They send you to these places you travel to?”

“My publisher does for the books. That’s how I eventually got to be paid for blogging when most aren’t. And I researched successful bloggers early on, building my own core audience until…” she trails off and shrugs her shoulders, misreading my expression for disinterest.

What she’s really seeing, I won’t tell her. “That’s good. I’d like to read some of your stuff.”

She searches my face. “I should go.”

“Rachel, I’m not sorry we did this.”

Something familiar is in her eyes, not from childhood but from other women I’ve been with.

She wants me to ask her to stay.

It’s occurred to me.

No…it’s haunted me ever since I first kissed her last night, and felt something I never had before.

But what could she achieve here? Interview my cows and give up everything she’s built in one of the greatest cities in the world? And by greatest, I mean size and impact.

I’ve been to New York, stopped off on my way to visit Justin when he was at Yale.

I saw the appeal, but only to visit.

Not a fan.

I’m a country boy blood and bone. Maybe that’s why this is so compelling – she’s so different from me. But I know deep down that’s not really why. Hell, I knew it all the way back when we were kids.

* * *

A
s usual Mrs. Connolly
shouted at recess, “Jerald and Jaxson Cocker! Get over here! Now!” We stopped chasing Cora and Heather and hit each other on the shoulder, laughing as we made our way back to enjoy our daily scolding.

“They called Jerald ‘cute,’ Mrs. Connolly, and you know that’s a lie,” I explained as my younger brother snickered beside me. I was nine. He was seven, but just an inch shorter. He was my best friend and followed me everywhere, trying his best to think of ways to outdo me.

She wasn’t amused. “How many times are you going to have to hear from me ‘no chasing girls!’ before I send you home?”

Jerald whispered, “Ten-thousand.”

“I heard that!”

Behind her I saw something I wasn’t expecting and my face changed. Rachel Sawyer has just walked out of the library with her arms full of books and her hair curled for picture day. It was normally bone straight.

I stood a little straighter because while we were friends and played after school, I noticed her that day for the first time as a girl, and not a gross-girls-are-stupid creature.

Mrs. Connolly was yammering on about whatever and I nodded like I was listening, but Rachel had just tucked a little of her curled hair behind her ear after a breeze misplaced it. As she did that simple gesture, she glanced over and caught me staring.

She froze.

I walked away from the teacher.

“Jaxson! Where are you going?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Connolly,” I muttered, glancing back over my shoulder. “Rachel’s books are heavy.”

The teacher’s mouth dropped in surprise. Jerald watched me, blonde eyebrows contorted with confusion.

Why would I help a girl with her books, they both wordlessly asked.

I continued on my journey.

Rachel was staring at me like there was no one else around.

I walked up and knocked the books out of her hands. “Oops!”

“Jaxson Cocker!!” Rachel shouted, and I took off running. She chased me. My brother laughed long and hard.

I got in trouble that day, but I don’t remember the punishment.

I only remember Rachel Sawyer’s bright blue eyes locked on me and only me.