Braving the Storm (Crimson Ridge #2)

Chapter 38

O ver the sharp, repetitive banging of nails being driven into wood, I hear a car pull up outside the barn. If it isn’t horseshoes I’m nailing into place, then I’m busy doing this kind of work that always seems to be in high demand around the various ranches that populate Crimson Ridge. Either way, for someone who spent half his life flung around on the back of a bull and thought that would be my entire career, I now spend a lot of my time with a hammer in my fist.

A smile tugs at my lips where I’ve got three final nails to finish securing this plank tucked in my mouth. The sharp tang of metal coats my tongue, and the faint scent of stored hay fills the air.

My eyes drift up to the open doorway of the empty space as I pluck one nail out and pinch my lips together to hold the others in place. Briar knows I’m working out here, or at least she’ll pretty quickly figure it out by following the sound of hammering.

I set to work, driving these last nails home, and by the time I’ve secured the third in place, her footsteps scuff and catch my attention.

Without fail, she always steals my attention.

Even in the short amount of time since this morning when I haven’t had her with me, nearly every thought has been full of Briar. How much I’ve fallen for her, wondering how best to convince this girl to stay with me, they’ve rolled around on repeat inside my brain.

Does Briar want to be with me? Does she want this life?

Putting all bullshit complications about what others might perceive of us being together to one side—because absolutely none of that matters to me in the slightest—does this girl have any idea how badly I want her to stay?

Our lives are already entangled, just like our clothes in the bedroom we share, the way our bodies find the ability to at any given opportunity, and all I can think is that she belongs in my life.

I’ve never had a reason to grow attached to anyone, and now I can’t imagine my days without her laughter, her sharp quips, her soft palm finding its home wrapped up in mine when it’s just the two of us.

All of that chaos crumbles into insignificance as she draws nearer.

My eyes devour what she’s wearing, openly staring because holy fuck, Briar Lane could make angels weep with how beautiful she is.

Her hair is pulled up into a high ponytail, with a silky-looking champagne-colored dress swishing around her knees. Cowboy boots hug her calves, making this girl look like she could be every rancher’s wet dream.

Wearing my goddamn jacket.

“A dress? Don’t want you getting too cold, little thorn.” Fisting the hammer in one hand, I drag the back of my other across my forehead. I’ve been out here fixing up the stalls for the past few hours and managed to work up a sweat even though a spring chill still lingers in the air beyond those doors.

Briar reaches where I’m standing and eyes me from head to toe with a hidden little smile. “Seemed more practical for what I had in mind.” Her coy shrug is cute and all, but it’s an act. I fucking love that she’s so much more confident in herself and knows how to ask for what she wants .

“Doesn’t look like you’re interested in getting your hands dirty.” I toss the hammer into my toolbox. “Maybe just your knees instead?”

Briar bites her lip. Those dark eyes glimmer at me and are once again my absolute undoing.

She hums, a gentle noise, something sensual and wonderful, and it makes me fucking ravenous for her. “Thought you might like to see what’s underneath…”

“Oh, you thought, did you?” Resting my ass on the edge of the wooden workbench I’ve set up out here; I drag my girl to stand between my knees.

As I tuck one hand into the small of her back beneath the loose jacket slung around her shoulders, using the other I hook a strand of her hair behind one ear. My girl looks up at me with a soft expression, and I’m so fucking done for. All I can do is steal the opportunity to kiss her pillowy lips because I damn well can and should be able to, any time, and any place.

Briar deserves that, and so much more. Sliding our tongues together, and drinking down her faint, gorgeous noises of pleasure, I want her to understand this is so much more than just sex.

While that side of our connection, my cuff, the trust she’s put in me, all of that is undeniable—I also need her to be assured that it doesn’t just begin and end there in my mind.

Kissing and nipping and losing myself against her mouth, my hands move of their own accord. The sight of this girl wrapped up in my clothes is indelibly grooved into my brain, but right now, I’m in pursuit of what lies beneath that outer shell. Once I’ve unfastened the jacket—one I’ve worn out riding, in the wilderness, on dirt trails, and through a thousand memories of life in these mountains—I take a moment to roam my palms over the contrast of Briar revealed beneath that heavy material.

How she’s wrapped up in a piece of me, but beneath that lies buttery soft fabric I’m pawing without stopping because she feels amazing, every curve and dip of her hips, her stomach, her navel, I can trace it all with my fingers .

It's an expensive, wafer-thin type of material. The kind I’m so unaccustomed to actually feeling beneath my calloused, work-worn fingers. Two minutes ago I was avoiding splinters and feeling the jarring thud of metal driving into wood, and now I’ve got her soft and pliant, and feeling like a delicate feather I want to stroke and caress. I want to inhale that unfamiliar, yet wonderful sensation all day long.

One last tug of my teeth, pinching her bottom lip until she whimpers for me, that’ll have to satisfy my craving for the moment. I want to look my fill. Using my palms, I slip over her shoulders to lift the jacket and peel it down her arms ‘til she’s standing between my knees without anything in the way of me enjoying the effort she’s gone to. Eyeing the wrap dress tied around her waist, the style of this particular garment puts her cleavage on tempting display.

Her stiffened nipples peek out at me.

Wrapping my palms around her ribs, I bring my thumbs up to those hard little buds and tease her tits through the fabric.

“No bra? Wonder what else you forgot to wear beneath this dress, hmm?”

My girl came here with a plan. She gives me a flirty little look, sinking her teeth into that kiss-bitten lower lip.

“Damn, woman, you’re tempting me into leaving everything and tossing you over my shoulder. I’m about two seconds from taking you home and not coming up for air for a couple of days.”

A strange expression washes over her face as I exhale heavily, gravel coating my words.

“Though… as much as I want to do that, Beau needs to talk to me in about twenty minutes or so, and if you let me get inside that pussy I’m gonna want to fuck and fuck and fuck.”

I keep thumbing her nipples and watch as her pupils blow. Her whimpers grow louder the harder I rub and slide my touch over her tits.

“Storm,” she moans softly.

“Darlin’, I lose control around you… I lose time, my morals va nish, every damn thing just ups and disappears because none of it fucking matters.”

Only you matter, I want to add.

“Use me then… in other ways.” Her voice is husky with desire.

My hands go still, pausing, I’m taking in the sight of her.

Taking in what I think her meaning is, but I can’t quite be sure.

Before me, Briar moves with surprising decisiveness. She quickly grabs the jacket I had set carelessly beside my hip, then folds it so she can sink to her knees and give herself something more comfortable to rest on than the hard ground.

“You said something the other night.” Her gaze rests on my mouth, and she runs her tongue over her bottom lip. “Something that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind.”

Her sensual touch roams up my jeans, up my thighs, coming to rest on my belt, nudging just below the cotton of my t-shirt.

“Might have to remind me.” I thread my fingers into her hair, and my dick is painfully hard at the prospect of what she’s offering.

“That you liked the idea of marking me.” Her elbows squeeze together and from this angle, looking down, that tiny action puts her flesh on display, rounded and full and threatening to spill over. It’s the sexiest damn thing seeing how confident my girl is in her body now.

Then she gives me her hooded, lust-filled eyes.

Jesus.

This girl is out here in the middle of the day, kneeling at my boots in a barn, telling me she wants my cum all over her breasts? Holy fuck, I’ve done a lot of wrong things in my life, so I’m not sure what has given me the opportunity of this particular gift to play with.

“You want me to fuck those perfect tits?”

She nods, gnawing on the swell of her bottom lip.

“Then you’re gonna have to get it nice and wet. Be extra sloppy for me.” I tug on her hair, drawing a gasp. “Undo my belt, darlin’.”

Briar fumbles a little, trying to hold my gaze, as she squirms and squeezes her thighs together. I shift my ass lower, spreading my boots a little wider to give a better angle.

“That’s it,” I murmur. Watching her intensely, as she frees my painfully hard cock and wraps her tiny fist around me. A couple of strokes is all it takes for me to swell and grow thicker beneath her touch.

“Well, you know what to do.” My growl drops out. “Spit on it.”

Her breathing shallows as she leans forward and drops a line of spit, before wrapping her lips around the swollen tip. That angle, with her mouth teasing the head of me, goddamn, it gives me the perfect sight of her tits and lips and dark eyelashes fluttering my way. A look that asks me if I like it. What I think. Wondering if she’s pleasing me.

Of course, she fucking does. Every time, it’s perfect with her, and I’m about two seconds from confessing it all when she sucks me in deeper. Hollowing her cheeks, she swirls her tongue and whimpers around my length.

“ Mmm . Made to swallow me like the good girl you are.” She’s more and more turned on the longer she’s suckling on me, and gradually dipping a little lower. As she does so, I feel her tongue running along the underside, tracing the veins and tasting my skin.

“You can do better than that. Don’t just lick. Spit properly.”

The moan Briar makes tells me everything. She draws back off me with a filthy, wet pop, a long line of spit hanging between my tip and her mouth. Swallowing for a second, her beautiful brown gaze darts between my face and then down to my cock, before she leans forward, and this time, lets loose a trail of saliva, coating me.

“Use me. Please .” Her voice is hoarse with desire.

Briar shifts her weight, keeping her eyes on mine without wavering, as she hooks her fingers into the fabric, concealing her cleavage. Then, tugs.

Her breasts hang free, and she presses them together, rubbing along the underside of me. I have to suppress a groan, because her soft flesh, now slick with spit, is being dragged up and down my dick as she moves and arches and then dips her mouth to wet my tip again. Holy shit.

That’s when I lose whatever thread was holding me back from just outright using her.

She asked me to.

As I slide my thick length back and forth and cradle the heavy weight of her breasts to wrap around me, breathy gasps and moans fill the air. My fingers knead the softness and roundness, and I can’t help the feral need for my girl that surges up from the deepest recesses of me.

“You want me to own you? Use you?” My grunts come out as I fuck her tits and squeeze them together, holding her tighter around my length. “This spot right here where I wrote it in red letters. Do I need to give you another reminder of exactly who you belong to?”

She nods and begs for exactly what I’m promising. “I do, I want that.”

“You get off on being owned, don’t you, darlin’.”

Briar’s so gone with lust, her mouth hangs open, panting and whimpering.

The tingling builds, and pressure coils, and I can feel the moment racing through my blood like a stallion in full flight.

“Stick out your tongue.” It takes everything in me to not just throw her to the ground and shove my cock inside.

I’m so close, my deep groan fills the air as she dutifully does exactly as I say, and I fist my dick. Aiming the head at her chin, on the next firm stroke, that’s when my balls draw up, and with a deafening rush of blood in my ears, I come so fucking hard. My cum shoots forward, surging across her presented tongue, her lips, perfect little chin, and drips forward onto her chest as my cock throbs and spills.

“ Fffuck .”

Every panting breath, each thump of my heart inside my chest, it’s hers.

Dragging Briar up to standing, I hold her steady in one arm, then swipe my fingers through the evidence of me painted across her skin. Then shove my hand below her dress, seeking out the slick center of her.

“How about you let me keep you forever.” I press two fingers inside, because just as I thought, Briar is bare beneath that flimsy fabric. “How about I leave that cuff on your wrist permanently, so I can bend you over and see just how wet you are for this all day long.”

My girl’s eyes glaze over as she swipes her tongue out to taste where I’ve painted her flushed skin.

“You’d let me, wouldn't you? I know how much you love having me inside your sweet little body. It doesn’t even matter where for you, does it? You’d beg me to fill all your holes at the same time if I could.” Curling my fingers, I plunge in and out, fucking my cum into her and pressing my thumb hard against her clit.

Briar gulps and shakes as her climax starts to build. She’s panting, begging.

I don’t even know what I’m saying. It’s filthy. Desperate.

Just like I am for her.

“Take whatever. Please. Please .”

“Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll shove a toy in your ass, and stuff your mouth with my fingers, while I bury my dick so far in your pussy you’ll be ruined for life. You’d be marked so fucking deep when I fill you with cum that you’ll never want to leave.”

She squeezes my fingers so damn tight. Convulsing around me as she falls apart.

“That’s it. My pretty little cum slut,” I murmur as she sags against me, a whimpering mess, looking gorgeous as hell.

It takes a while for us to both come down, as I draw my fingers out, and give them to her to wrap her lips around. Briar does exactly that, cleaning off the evidence of both of us with soft, little pleasured noises. I repeat the process a couple of times, gathering up the residue of my cum, letting her lick off the taste of me… and her .

“Goddamn. You’re the most perfect thing, darlin’.” My throat bobs a heavy swallow as I turn my attention to helping put her dress back in place and then tucking myself away.

Briar watches me do so, a softness in her expression, but doesn’t say anything.

As I reach for my belt, my girl makes a sweet little sound, then takes over. “Let me do it.” Her voice is quiet, but those gorgeous lips curve, and her eyes crinkle a little as she gazes up at me.

I lean back and watch, soaking up every second her fingers thread the leather on itself.

“Thank you.” She breathes.

Hooking my finger beneath her chin, I bend forward and press a soft kiss against her plush lips. Briar tastes like us, and I love that we’re both mingled just like this.

My damn phone starts buzzing, tucked somewhere in my own jacket pocket on the other end of the workbench.

“Go. You’ve gotta take that.” Her lips move against mine.

“Beau can fucking wait,” I grunt.

With a playful shove, she pushes against my stomach, and that smile brightens.

“I’ll see you at home later.”

With that, Briar leaves me to have to try and focus on things like work and whatever crap Beau is ranting on about on the other end of the line as I answer the phone in a daze.

As I walk to the barn doors and watch her taillights drive off, all I can think about is how goddamn good it feels to hear my girl say that word.

Home .