The truck bounced and lurched as the dirt road up to the ridge grew more narrow. Ford knew the terrain should've been familiar. He'd brought girls up there dozens of times when he was a teenager, and yet it all felt strangely new and untainted.
Callie was almost buzzing in the seat beside him, and he loved getting to show off the outskirts of Holder County for someone who still appreciated all of its eccentricities. Low tree branches painted the windshield of his truck as he pushed them deeper into the woods.
"I'm so excited," she squealed. "This is perfect."
And it was. Since it was a Tuesday night, there were no kids up there. They were entirely alone to watch the sunset over the ridge. He couldn't have planned anything more perfect if he'd tried.
Her mind fascinated him just as much as those sinful curves of hers. The way she'd take off on an idea without any careful planning, without wondering what people would think if she asked for what she wanted. It was so refreshing he swore she was baptizing him anew.
Two yellowtail hawks circled over the ridge as the sky tinged pink silhouetting the surrounding trees.
He put the truck in park and tried to remember if he'd ever had any moves worth using. Probably not. Never dating as an adult put him at a distinct disadvantage. But when she turned to him with that come-get-me grin and those killer eyes, he knew he never would've been able to use moves on her anyway. She was just too real, too authentic in a world that wasn't.
"I haven't just not been up here. I've never been parking anywhere." She scooted a little closer, and he swore his breath disintegrated in his lungs. "But I think this is the part where we kiss."
"Come here to me," he summoned on a low growl. "But I'm going to give you the same warning I gave you last night at the bar. Once I start, I might never be able to quit."
"Good. I don't want you to quit."
"Back to me being a possessive asshole, but it's a fucking turn-on that I'm your first for this."
"I told you I must like possessive assholes."
"So fucking beautiful," were the last intelligible words he made before he dipped his head to hers and drank in her kisses like good whiskey on a cold day.
When Ford's fingertips tracked down over her breasts almost cautiously, Callie arched into his hesitant caress. She swore her boobs had swollen to the point of being painful trapped in the dress. She prayed he'd take the offer. Her body knew he could bring her relief. And he did. Jerking the cups of the dress down on a low growl, he revealed her. Her nipples throbbed out their appreciation.
"This dress," he groaned before he swirled his tongue around one nipple and then the other. "Damn thing has been driving me to distraction all night." On his next pass he suctioned his mouth to her and sucked with fervor. Releasing her, he panted out, "Is that what you wanted, doll baby? Did you intend to drive me wild?"
"What if I did?" she challenged on a half breath.
"If you did, then I'd be of a mind to brand your tits with my mark, so you wouldn't be showing them off for other men."
"Oh god." She shuddered. "Do it."
He straddled her over his lap. The long skirt portion of the dress rucked up her legs, granting her pussy access to the promise of the steel-hard ridge centered at his zipper line. For most of her life, she'd believed that you couldn't ever do things for the first time again. But something about that cowboy who was visibly struggling to figure out what he was allowed to touch in his truck that night changed the things she'd been so certain of. She swore she was sixteen again. The interior of that truck in the middle of that sunset ridge became her whole world, the past and the present.
A harsh shudder tore through her as he began to punish and then forgive the skin of her breasts with his wicked tongue. Those massive hands of his gripped her ass holding her at his mercy. God, she loved the aggression just as much as she loved that she was the one who made him lose control like this. That aggression became a requirement, a necessity. Screw water and air. Those hands, his mouth, his still-trapped erection behind his Wranglers—that's what she needed to survive.
Unable to remain still, she ground against him desperate for pressure and relief. When he finally released her breast from his mouth, his head fell back against the seat. He gasped for breath and stared at her, like he wasn't quite certain what to do next.
"Ford, please," she urged.
"You make me so fucking hard. Christ, do you have any idea how long it's been since I've been like this? I was...worried."
The devastation in his voice drowned a little of her fervency. She cradled his face in her hands and gave herself the length of one breath to revel in the scrape of his stubble on her palms. "There's nothing wrong with you," she soothed. He'd been grieving a marriage that ended long before it was officially over, but she didn't want to point that out just then. Her reproductive organs wanted much less talking and much more fingering. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since anyone made me feel this way?" She gestured to her own crotch under the messy folds of satin and lace.
He locked those steel-blue eyes on hers, and with delicate precision let both of his hands ascend slowly under the dress. He never dropped his eyes. He only watched her as his roughened fingertips explored her thighs. Gradually. A scant inch at a time.
A shiver quaked through her. She'd had two other boyfriends in college before she'd gotten caught up in Derrick's world. But never had anyone ever actually taken their time with her. Half of her was appreciative. The other half was frantic for him to move faster, to press his fingers where she was swollen and soaked, to ease the empty ache that seemed to have carved a path all the way through her soul.
With that same hesitancy, his thumbs circled the wet patch of lace between her thighs. She shook with a need she didn't recognize, the kind that gripped her with such force she wasn't certain she would ever recover.
"Baby, you're drenched," he pointed out the obvious. Her breaths stuttered as they attempted to escape her lungs. "Is that all for me?" Disbelief tore the ragged edges of his tone. She heard the echoes of her own question to him from the night before. Her hatred for Meritt increased tenfold.
"It's all you," she readily assured him. "Please, I need...I need to come with you inside of me."