Page 61 of Wild and Wanted

‘You okay?’

She did laugh then, noticing he wasn’t asking her if it was good for her because she was pretty sure they had heard her in Redemption and that was confirmation enough. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been this okay.’

And they hadn’t even got to the sex bit yet.

‘Looks like my work here is done,’ he murmured with a grin.

Then, as she watched, he wiped his mouth on her bare belly, back and forth several times, holding her gaze the entire time. It was indescribably dirty. And he knew it, grinning at her again as he dropped a kiss on her skin before pulling her skirt down and rising to his hands and knees.

Looming above her, he manoeuvred himself off, dropping down beside her on his back and scooping her close, his fingers sifting through her hair. His heartbeat thudded below her ear strong and steady as Stevie admired how good her hand looked splayed against his chest despite the troubling presence of her purity ring putting a dampener on her post-climax buzz.

She didn’t know why she was still wearing it considering she had no intention of following through on its promise. She just kinda forgot it was there most of the time. And she was worried if she did take it off she might forget to put it back on, which would raise questions with her mother she did not want to answer.

Stevie didn’t feel bad about her decision to break the pledge. It had been right at the time and she wasn’t mad that she’d made it or been true to it. But she wasn’t sixteen any longer.

And she’d never met a guy like Clay Calhoun.

She’d been holding out for the one and she knew as sure as God made little green apples, Clay was that guy. Was he her forever one? She didn’t see how that could be possible despite the mad flutters in her chest whenever she thought of him. She had a contract and her mother was busy with touring plans. But he was the one for now and that was okay, too.

No matter what her mother thought.

Her gaze drifted aimlessly south as his fingers tickled her scalp, making her deliciously drowsy. Down, down, down it drifted over the plaid of his shirt to the denim of his jeans and the thick outline of his erection – his cock, as he had so bluntly put it last night – pressing against his fly.

Oh God. Stevie cringed, realising she’d done it again. Laid there like a starfish and let him pleasure her without any sort of in-kind reciprocation. Yes, she had lost complete control of her thought processes but that was no excuse.

Especially as she wanted to get some of that action.

Without conscious thought, Stevie’s fingers trailed down his body, feeling light and floaty, almost as if they weren’t part of her hand. In stark contrast, Clay’s body was tense beneath the inexorable brush of her nails and when her finger lightly brushed the zipper of his fly, she could hear his groan rumbling through his chest two beats before it met the air.

‘Can I touch you?’ she asked, repeating her request from last night. He’d denied her then; would he do so again today?

‘Stevie,’ he muttered on a jagged release of breath.

Lifting her head, she propped herself up on her elbow, looking into his rugged cowboy face. ‘You’ve now given me two orgasms and you’ve had nothing.’

He smiled as his fingers brushed her temple, pushing the hair back over her shoulder. ‘This isn’t a quid pro quo situation.’

Stevie blinked, momentarily surprised by his choice of words, then she laughed. ‘Rides a horse and speaks Latin.’

‘What?’ Clay grinned. ‘You think cos I’m a cowboy, I don’t have a second language?’

She laughed again. ‘I thought cussing was your second language.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that. I blame those ten years on the circuit without my mama around to whoop my ass.’

‘No need to apologise.’ She shook her head. ‘I like it.’

‘Yeah.’ His voice dropped suggestively as the hand in her hair moved to her ass and squeezed. ‘I know how you like it, dirty girl.’

Warmth suffused Stevie’s cheeks at the thought of how much Clay Calhoun had corrupted her and how very much she did not care. ‘And how do you like it? Show me.’

He sighed, his hand moving for her ass to her hip. ‘Soon. We really should be getting back now.’

‘Clay.’ She didn’t mean it to sound whiney but it really, really did.

Amused by her frustration, he just smiled and said, ‘Good things come to those who wait, Stevie girl.’

‘I know I’m inexperienced but it looks self-explanatory and… I’ve read books, I’m not a complete ingenue.’