Grump’s City Girl (Boots and Heels #2)

10. Cassie

Chapter 10

Cassie

F luttering my eyes open, I found him looking at me.

My vision was blurry, and my body was awash with bright, euphoric pleasure. I didn’t know how to tell Beau he had given me the most intense orgasm of my life.

I didn’t know if I should.

I heard the soft lap of water, felt his soft breath on my skin, the cool air blowing over the water, the whistle of it through the trees… but my body, Jesus. I felt… high.

“That was…” My words were breathless, and they trailed off. I couldn’t find a word to describe what I was feeling. “…Jesus.”

He laughed softly. “High praise, sweetheart, but I am just a fallible human.”

“With a fucking magic tongue.” I reached for him and indicated that I wanted to slip back into the water, and he obliged.

The cool water calmed my overheated body, and while I was coming to grips with how my world had been rocked, I knew he still had to be aroused. As much as I wanted to relieve him, I pressed myself to him. He wrapped his strong arms around my waist and held me tightly to him.

I pushed so close to him that this was making the hollow place between my legs ache. In another lifetime, if I had met Beau as a normal woman, I would have taken every chance I’d gotten to become something with him, to be with him as I was craving.

I wanted to know everything about him.

I wanted to feel him.

I wanted to be with him.

It was insane to indulge in such a silly romantic fantasy, but I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined. The hard muscles of his solid body, the masculine scent of his aftershave, the tickle of his hair, the roughness of his beard… they were all sinking beneath my skin.

It all felt like a dream. Sliding my hands up to his neck, I pulled his head down so our lips were close… My pulse quickened while I twined my legs with his.

I couldn't figure out why the pull of this man was so magnetic, what entranced me about him. Was it his guileless simplicity? Was it how he didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t?

Without another thought, I closed the gap and let my mouth meet his; it was feather-light against his, but it counted.

For years, I’d been in what I counted as a proper relationship with a guy who checked all the boxes my tax bracket required, only to realize I’d been duped, and now, here was a man who made me feel so much that Vigo never did.

I pulled away, still feeling his erection on my belly. “Don’t you want to…”

His lips twitched. “Have sex with you? Yes, but—” Beau’s mouth pressed harder against mine, and he slipped his tongue into my mouth. When our tongues entwined so lazily but seductively, I felt I was seconds away from spontaneously combusting—even while neck-deep in water. “—this is enough for now.”

Beau’s rough hand slid up and fixed a possessive grip around the nape of my neck while his tongue explored my mouth expertly.

This man was seducing me only with his mouth, and I was damn near melting in his arms. From the way he owned me, just with his tongue—no touching anywhere, my breast, my clenching pussy, nowhere—I knew that if we were near a bed, Beau would throw me onto it… and I’d let him do it.

“No…” I whispered while reaching for him. “It’s not enough for now.”

I wrapped my hand around his hard, cut cock. His skin was hot and silky smooth, and he was so thick that my fingers couldn’t get all the way around him. I shuddered with the thought of how he would feel inside me.

A rough moan left Beau’s mouth, and the grip he had on my neck didn’t falter. The deep masculine sound only made me even wetter. I moved my hand up and down, stroking him, and his hips jerked forward, his cock twitching in my hand.

“Fuck, Cassie,” he gasped. “That feels so fucking good.”

I smiled and leaned in, flicking my tongue over his earlobe. “Wait till I get my mouth on you.”

His lips collided with mine, and he pushed his tongue into my mouth greedily, kissing me with an unsettling desperation. His control was slipping, and whatever that meant for me, I didn’t know.

My grip tightened, and I pumped him harder, making sure to swipe my thumb over his sensitive head.

“God, yes,” he moaned. “Just like that.”

His groan spurred me on, and I started moving faster. Soon, his hips were jerking, and he was gripping my hair almost painfully tight. I could tell that he was close, and the thought made me even hotter. Knowing that I was the one who was bringing him to the edge was almost enough to send me over the edge, too.

He was fucking into my hand now, again and again, until my name was falling from his lips in ragged cries, and he came. Hot heat coated my palm for a second before the water whisked it all away, and Beau’s breath was hot in my ear.

“I don’t know if I can stay away from you after this,” his voice was rough, and I shuddered. “The others are gonna know.”

Wrapping my arm around his middle, I rested my head on his chest while soft wind fluttered my hair. “They can ask, but we don’t have to tell them.”

“Yeah,” Beau kissed my temple. “Let them keep guessing.”

I walked into the breakfast room to find a few of the other guys and girls suspiciously coupled up, except Ryker and Danielle.

His hair was aggressively streaked acid green today, and while he sipped his coffee without a care in the world, Danielle was just as aggressively trying to burn a hole in the side of his head with her glare.

“Cassie!” Nelly called me over to her table, where she was sitting with Amy and Greer.

I headed to them, but at the table, I paused to search for Beau. He wasn’t there yet, and I was surprised at the sinking sense of disappointment that hollowed out my stomach.

“Earth to Cassie?” Greer laughed. “Do you come in from the space station?”

I rolled my eyes and took a seat. “Can it be with the space jokes.”

Cocking her heels up on a nearby seat, Amy smirked. “I don’t think we will. It doesn’t matter anyway because we all know you’re still in love with Cowboy Beau.”

“I was,” I said while mixing my coffee. “ Was being the keyword here. Beau was a jackass a few years ago.”

“Oooh,” Nelly leaned in and cocked her head on her fists, her eyes glimmering with mischief. “Do tell?”

“Nope,” I popped the ‘p’. “Go get your kicks somewhere else.”

“Aw,” Greer sunk into her seat. “C’mon, give us something—” she sat up and leaned in. “—how did you meet anyway? You seem… so different.”

“We are different,” I said while fixing a fruit plate, “We met by coincidence too. I was studying at UPenn?—”

“Ivy League.” Nelly nodded sagely as if nothing else would be best for me.

Looking at the cup, I allowed a smile to play on my face. “I was in a hurry that day. I don’t remember what I was late for, a meeting with a professor or class, maybe, but I’d stopped to grab a coffee.

"I was heading out the door, and bam, coffee went flying. Beau didn’t know what had hit him.” I shrugged. “After he got cleaned up— another long story, don’t ask—he told me he’d been up there for a rodeo and asked for my number.”

I looked up from my cup to see Nelly and Greer exchange a look. Amy looked crestfallen, and her shoulders slumped. “I… suppose I was waiting for something more.”

“Like what?” I laughed. “He came swooping in on a flying horse to rescue me from a burning car that’d crashed into a spaceship?”

“Well, yeah,” Nelly nodded. “Something more va-va-voom.”

“I’m sorry,” I snickered. “You get hot coffee, a spoiled T-shirt, and a first date at a rodeo and boardwalk.”

Amy’s eyes flicked up above my shoulder, and a shiver ran over my skin before Beau’s rumbly voice washed over me, “You forgot the part about you falling on your ass.”

I craned my neck. “You had to tell them that?” His smirk made my heart flutter while I forced a scowl on my face. “Jackass.”

Beau dipped his head and smacked a kiss on my cheek. “I’ve been called worse.”

He went off to meet the other guys while I sipped my coffee, unaffected. The other girls were hardly as calm, though, and grinned manically. Danielle had wandered over to us and folded her legs yoga-style on a spare chair, a cup of tea in hand.

“Funny enough, the guys and I were wondering if we should just drop out and let you and Beau have it,” she gave us a tired smile. “I am pretty sure after my fuck up at the snagging the flag and our middling date, we’re on the chopping block.”

“Not after me,” Danielle cut in, her head shaking. “Our date was disastrous.”

“Ouch,” Nelly grimaced.

Danielle slumped over and caged her neck with both hands. “I’m just frustrated, I suppose. How are we going to avoid getting kicked off soon? I’m not even going to fool myself into thinking we’ll win when there is nothing I can say to get to him.”

“During our date, all that doucheface did was go on and on about his band and his fans. Ryker is so conceited I am sure he does jerk off to his reflection.”

“Hey!” The man in question’s head snapped up, irritation marked all over his sleepy face. “I am right here!”

“So?” Nelly shrugged. “No one cares, dude.”

“I do.” Ryker dropped his cup and pushed his chair back so fiercely the screech made me wince. He strode over to us, face blistering with anger. “You think you can talk shit about me and I won’t clap back at you? I’m not fucking deaf, and I’m not the loser you think I am either!”

Danielle was paling, her hands trembling slightly, and the air had gotten so tense a cleaver couldn’t cut it. From the corner of my eye, I saw Beau get alert, Quentin looked apprehensive, and Rome got to his feet.

And, of course, the cameras were rolling.

Ryker was on a warpath. “I know all of you think I am some joke, some conceited jerk with his nose up his ass, thinking his shit smells like cotton candy.

"None of you know shit about me! I came from nothing, a fucking slum on the wrong side of Chicago, and had to fight to stay off the fucking streets or end up in a gang, on drugs, or in a fucking casket! Do you think you know me?”

“I had to build myself from the goddamn ground, so what if I’m proud of myself and how far I came from? What is there to be ashamed about? You’re so fucking judgmental that I can’t walk two steps around this place without someone sneering at me. You know what, fuck all of you.”

Rome stepped in and grabbed Ryker’s shoulder. He shrugged it off, but Rome was not having any of it. Forcibly placing his body between Ryker and us girls, he said, “Walk it off, Ryker.”

Giving the room a scathing glare, Ryker spun on his studded boots and stomped off—only to get herded by one of the assistants on set into what had to be a confessional moment.

The tension began to creep out, but the others still looked tense. Danielle was still visibly shaken, and Nelly gently pried the cup from her fingers. “You okay?” she asked Danielle.

“No—um, yeah,” she shook her head, “Yeah, I am. I didn’t know he would blow up like that.”

“You can’t keep poking a bear and not expect him to snap at one point,” Emory said as he strolled over, orange juice in hand. “I never expected that from Ryker, though.”

Emory and Micah joined in, and we were all clustered around our tiny table.

“Which one? That he was a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks or that he had the sense of self to get out?” Micah asked.

“Both,” Danielle replied with a hapless shrug. “I just thought he was some stuck-up rich kid.”

“Dani,” Beau nodded to her, “Heads up.”

A black-clad assistant came over and asked her to come with them, another confessional, I guessed.

“I don’t think they’re the first to go,” Sissy piped up. “I mean, you two almost got the flag, right? That had to count for something.”

Nelly shifted on her chair and asked, “How did you get so good riding? And in heels, too?”

“Oh,” she sat up. “I went to boarding school in England, where they taught us how to ride, astride, and sidesaddle. They had these days when we would dress up like women from, ummm, Jane Astid days?—”

“Austen,” Amy corrected.

“—and we would be in those pretty dresses and ride in parks,” Sissy replied. “It was fun. I know Polo, too.”

A hurricane could have blown through the room. An earthquake could have split the floor in half, and a volcano could have erupted—and no one would have noticed.

After we all collectively recovered, a few had to pick their jaws up from the floor. “So… you’re the spoiled one in the bunch?” Danielle added.

“Yep,” Sissy nodded.

Incorrect on her being the only one, but let’s leave that for another time.

Micah shook his head. “What a weird day.”

Grunting, Beau stood and fixed his hat. “I’ll say. I’ll be heading out. Those damn bulls ain’t gonna round-up themselves.”

I considered following him but stopped; we’d already given the rest—and the sneaking cameras—enough for today. Maybe when we saw what would happen tonight, I’d get a chance to talk with him.

I turned to Sissy. “Tell me more about this school.”

By nightfall, we were all summoned to the backyard again, where we’d done the first game. This time, six sets of seats were in the middle, and the rest were in a semi-circle around it. It was elimination time—but Beau was absent.

“Please, Emory and Greer, Micah and Amy, Ryker and Danielle, take your seats in the middle,” Sutton directed, his blue-black hair almost merging with the night air. “The rest of you, please sit in your pairs in the back.”

As Ariana came forward, her sky-blue dress was the complete antithesis of Sutton’s, and a crane dropped a large TV or projection screen behind her. “Welcome, everyone. I see we’re missing a person, but he’s got the memo. I am sure he will be along soon. Anyway, as lovely as this week was?—”

“Sorry,” Beau ran in, hurriedly tugging a shirt over his head, and damn, the man was cut .

His chest was all slabs of muscle and thick hair, tan skin rippling over his six-pack, and a happy trail ran under his navel and disappeared into his pants. “I’m sorry. Lost track of time. I didn’t mean to be late.”

I don’t think anyone cared, not after he had shown them that .

He took the seat next to me and kissed my cheek, but I didn’t even react to the dark stubble covering his chiseled jaw. “Did I miss something?”

“No,” I sighed out, brows lifting. “But the whole world got something, a shot of your body.”

He shrugged. “As long as it ain’t bulging or sagging, I really don’t care much.”

Beau raked his hand through his hair; it was long enough you could bury your fingers into it and tug in the middle of a rip-roaring orgasm. That night when he’d had his lips on my lady bits, the scruff on his face was half the reason I’d climaxed that hard.

“Why are you blushing?” Beau murmured.

I batted his hand away. “I’m not blushing.”

“Your face is pinker than one of those kitschy Valentine’s teddy bears,” he said quietly, sliding a glance at me. “You’re thinking about that night, weren’t you?”

“Shhh,” I shushed him, feeling Sutton’s eyes on me.

“Sadly, tonight, one pair of you three will be removed from the competition,” Ariana started. “But before we get to the elimination, let’s see how the elimination comes about.”

“Let me remind you all that this game exists for you pairs to find true love with one another. You should know that even as your matches were made randomly, you were all selected because you had temperaments that complemented most of the others, and that was where our input stopped,” Sutton added. “That's where you two would take over, and the hope was that you would put in the work to get to know each other so, y’know, you’d win.”

Pure bullshit.

“And yes, we know, having an already confirmed couple is a deterrent, but even with the history between Cassie and Beau, they still need to work to relearn each other just as you others need to. The elimination is a compilation of the points you all scored: one, on the race; two, on telling the public how much you know each other; and three, on the date you all chose,” Ariana replied.

A stiff wind ruffled through the clearing, moving the cloud from the full moon, the silvery rays washing all over us.

“So, you all know about the first two but not the third,” Sutton replied, “And to make things clear as to why we’re going to eliminate this certain pair on the chopping block, we are going to show you part of the dates you six shared. Are you all ready?”