Too Wild to Tame Read online

  With a vile curse, Aaron wrenched open the sleeping bag’s zipper. He jerked Grace down into the warmth his body had created, closing the bag again with an angry zip. Her bare skin hitting the slippery nylon, Aaron’s hard body pressing in from behind, his lap molding to her buttocks at the same time, was so decadent, it knocked the breath clear out of her lungs, dropping her jaw on a silent expulsion. And when his arms crossed beneath her breasts, his voice urgent in her hair, Grace almost climaxed without any further stimulation. Going from the freezing atmosphere into Aaron’s embrace was comparable to bobbing among the icebergs to being rescued by an army of towels fresh from the dryer.

  “Give me your hands,” Aaron commanded, offering Grace no choice but to obey. He took them between his own and made a pained sound, before tucking them between Grace’s thighs, which warmed them in a matter of seconds. Their presence so close to her sex warmed everything, really. Made her starkly aware of Aaron’s erection nestled between her bottom cheeks, his feet pushing her boots off with hasty movements, abandoning them in the sleeping bag’s end. And then he clamped her feet between his muscular calves, warming them through the stockings. “Better, baby?”

  Grace wasn’t sure she could speak through the pleasure. She was naked, except for stockings and underwear, and gathered so close to Aaron, she could feel the rapid booms of his heartbeat against her spine. Her attempt at communicating came out sounding breathless and dreamy. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt better in my whole life.”

  Aaron’s heaved sigh shifted her hair, before his head ticked back. “What are these tattoos on your neck?” Using his stubbled chin, he shifted the hair aside. “Are these numbers?”

  “They’re coordinates. That’s the exact location of the cabin that burned down,” she murmured, a small chisel putting a dent in the sweeping bliss of warmth. “You’re the first person to see the tattoo, actually. My hair always covers it.” Her pulse spiked with the intimacy they were sharing. “I wear the coordinates so they can’t wear me.”

  The silence lasted so long, Grace wondered if he would comment. Wondered if she wanted him to. In the end, he brushed his lips over the spot—once, twice—and God, it was exactly right. “For the love of God, distract me. Tell me where you’ve been.”

  She didn’t want to distract him—she wanted him present—but since her body was in a state of pleasure shock, no choice existed but to stall. Until she could turn around and do her utmost to get Aaron naked right back. “We…there was a hostage situation.”

  “What?”

  Following instinct, Grace turned her face to plant a kiss on his biceps, unfortunately still covered by the white thermal. “The bars were closed, so we shared a bottle of house red in a cornfield. It was the turkey’s turf, though. We found out the hard way when he chased us out.” Eyes drifting closed, she smiled. “We weren’t late on purpose. The last hour was spent on the Suburban’s hood playing rock-paper-scissors.”

  A couple of beats passed. “Why rock-paper-scissors?”

  “To decide who would create the diversion,” she explained, sucking back a gasp when Aaron scooted closer, driving the ridge of his arousal deeper into the valley dividing her backside. “It started as best out of three, loser distracts the turkey. By the time we ended, it was best out of a hundred.” Aaron’s fingertips strummed down her belly, sliding back up, making Grace sink her teeth into her upper lip to keep from moaning. “The turkey finally got b-bored and left.”

  Just when she thought her current situation couldn’t possibly get any more amazing, Aaron’s body started to shake with laughter behind her. The sensation might have been enough to sustain Grace’s happiness for the rest of her life, but the sound…oh God, the slow thunder roll of it against her ear, like a drought-ending storm, bathing dry fields and turning everything green…it blew her away. Just sucked her belly in tight, curled her toes, and filled her chest with effervescence.

  “It could have been worse,” she managed. “It could have been a bear.”

  The smile—thank God—was still in his voice when he spoke. “Grace. What is this fascination with bears about?”

  He’d noticed. “When I was eight, my parents noticed food missing from the kitchen. Not just once, a few times. They didn’t suspect me, because I was so young and I was a picky eater anyway.” She fell into the hazy rhythm of the story, vowing to lie and pretend she was still cold if he tried to shake her loose. “Then one Christmas morning, a whole ham was missing from the fridge…and whoever had taken it left a trail of grease leading out the back door. And a bunch of little footprints.”

  “Do I want to hear the rest of this?”

  She swallowed a laugh. “They found me in the backyard, leaving dinner for my pet bear, Nolan. And Nolan was on his way into the yard to get his ham. I’d only seen him at a distance before, but when he got closer…he bellowed.” She fit the arch of her foot against his calf. “He ran toward me full speed and my mother screamed, but Nolan changed directions and nabbed the ham instead.” Aaron’s heartbeat had accelerated against her spine during the story and she gloried in that telling reaction, even as she wanted to soothe it. “I’m not really afraid of the bear. It’s more guilt that I stopped feeding him. It sounds silly when I say it out loud.”

  “You’re not silly,” Aaron said after a moment, his lips grazing her neck. “I’m glad it was a turkey tonight, instead of Nolan, too. Pissed-off poultry is a lot better than what I was thinking.”

  “What were you thinking?” What are you always, always thinking? I want to know. I want you to tell me, so I can lock up your secrets and never, ever betray your confidence, even if I’m tortured.

  Aaron said her name under his breath. “It doesn’t matter. Every time I think about you, I land on the same damn conclusion.” He started to ease away, shooting a flare of panic through Grace’s blood. “You’re not the kind of girl who has…short affairs. That’s all I have. I’m not sure where I’ll be next week, but for damn sure, I know I won’t be your—or anyone’s—boyfriend. I never have been.”

  He seemed to realize how harsh that sounded, because he pushed his forehead into Grace’s shoulder, nudging and staying put. “You deserve someone who can offer the long run, Grace. That’s not me. It wouldn’t be fair to…set what I know about you aside for one night. No matter how bad…” He sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly, his erection still prominent against her bottom. “No matter how bad I’d want to turn a blind eye to the right thing. For once, I can’t.”

  This chance was slipping through her fingers, but after Aaron’s speech, she was more determined than ever to shatter his defenses. Maybe he didn’t realize it now, but he’d just revealed himself. He cared about her. But he didn’t think himself capable of offering more. If she could just win this one victory, there would be light on the other side. She knew it in her stomach. She’d do anything to reach that place. Even lie, it seemed. The past might have caused her to doubt, but even the strongest memories and fears that made trusting difficult…they didn’t stop her gut from screaming out that the man on the other side of the mask needed her in order to soar. They needed each other.

  “You’re wrong.” Grace turned in Aaron’s loosened embrace, allowing a chafing of her nipples against the thermal shirt, before pushing a resistant Aaron onto his back and straddling him. “You’re wrong. I only want one night.” The words tasted acidic, but at least she had his attention. At least he’d stopped trying to unseat her from his aroused lap. “You’ve said it before. We’re too different and…I agree. But…”

  “But what?” Aaron rasped.

  Grace slid down Aaron’s body, a merciless drag of ripe female over primed male anatomy, making Aaron’s muscular torso flex as he moaned. “I’m attracted to you, even though I know better. It hurts to be around you,” she murmured shakily. Truth. That was truth. “I just need you inside me one time and I’ll leave you alone. No one will ever know.”

  “I’ll know.” His hands fisted at the small of her
back. “I’ll never stop knowing.”

  She slipped nimble fingers down between their bodies, palming Aaron’s rampant arousal. “It’s just a moment, like in the field. Give me a moment.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Aaron’s willpower capsized like the fucking Titanic. He couldn’t believe he’d held out even one full minute with naked Grace sliding up and down on his cock. Purring against his throat. Asking for one night. One night. There was something undeniably wrong about her request. That something was making him anxious, imbuing him with the urge to flip Grace over, take her by the shoulders, and demand to know her game. Or maybe…

  Maybe she wasn’t playing a game at all. The attraction to him was there, but anything beyond that—any form of relationship—was undesirable to her. Not so hard to believe, right? No. Not at all. Why would she want anything long term with someone who didn’t know how to express himself, while she…God. While she remained true to herself and her principles, no matter the consequences. How could he assume the most truthful person he’d ever met was lying? That was his shady life experience talking, not his experience with Grace.

  He’d underestimated her ability to make decisions before. He’d called Grace crazy while she listened in the closet. He’d questioned her behavior, implied she was abnormal, for crying out loud. No way would he do that again. If she wanted one night with him, he would grasp on to it with both hands and be grateful she’d found him worthy of even a short space of her time.

  That permission snapped something loose in Aaron, a green light to devour without holding back. Take her. Take her. She asked for it. Needs it.

  With an anguished groan, Aaron levered himself up on one elbow, seizing Grace’s mouth, licking inside the textured perfection without delay. The taste of red wine and sugar made him drunk, made him wild. Especially when Grace kissed him back with zero restraint, their mouths open so wide, it would be considered crude to anyone watching. But there was no one there. No one to watch him debauch this girl in any way he chose. No one there to shake their head and put another notch on his filthy soul for fucking her sweet body on the goddamn floor.

  My hands are too tainted to touch her.

  But I can’t stop. I can’t stop.

  Any hope Aaron had of roping his sanity back disintegrated with Grace’s next move. With his hands busy in her wild hair, Aaron could only lift his hips in consent when Grace tugged down his sweatpants, releasing his heavy dick into the sweltering interior of the sleeping bag, trailing her fingers over the sensitive moist head, breathing an awed sound into his mouth, swelling it further. “I’m warning you,” Aaron grated. “You give me that little I-just-witnessed-a-miracle gasp when I’m slapping my root up against your pussy, it’s going to be a hard ride.”

  “Good,” she whispered, looking down at him through hooded green eyes, ribbons and braids falling down around her face. “But…me first.”

  Aaron couldn’t look away from her gorgeous image to judge her intention. But when she reached between their bodies, tugging the crotch of her panties to one side, his cock surged uncomfortably and wedged between their bellies. “What are you doing to me?”

  “Shhh,” Grace leaned down to feather the reproof over his mouth, licking the seam of his lips, draining him of rational thought. And then she slipped her wet, bare pussy straight up the length of his cock, moaning his name on the way back down. And Aaron forgot the meaning of rational thought, let alone the ability to have it. His focus dwindled down to the primal need to get inside Grace’s body and work her over until she knew nothing but his cock. How it fit, how it fucked, how every ridge corresponded to pleasure points inside her flesh and exploited them. The monstrous tunnel vision stole his breath, made his hands rough and unmanageable as they kneaded Grace’s smooth, cotton-covered ass, the backs of her thighs, urging her to grant him the blessing of another slick ride.

  “Again,” he groaned, his eyes riveted by Grace’s plush, swaying tits. “One more time, then…condom, baby. So hard up for your pussy. You’re going to know how miserable I’ve been. My thrusting dick is going to tell you all about it.”

  “Yes.” Her body loosed an almost violent tremble on top of him, a sob wrenching from her open mouth, causing concern to penetrate the ferocious blanket of lust wrapped around Aaron’s brain. But she slid up again, she slid up with those damp folds dragging on either side of his too-long-ignored cock—and desire dug its claws into Aaron’s gut, twisting, drawing his balls up with a shock of pain. Grace kept going, up and down, up and down, faster, faster, the whole of Aaron’s erection entering the tugged-aside panties, exiting through the snug waistband, before sliding back in for another hit of paradise. “So good…I can’t…can’t stop.”

  The distant quality to Grace’s voice tried to drag him back from the brink of forgetting himself, forgetting everything but pleasure, achieving it, holding on to it. But abstaining from someone he’d wanted beyond reason made it impossible to capture or define what was wrong with their actions. What could be wrong when nothing had ever felt this goddamn good in his life?

  Aaron reached up, fisting the back of Grace’s hair and guiding her down to his mouth, the ensuing kiss voracious, her grinding glides up and down his cock turning into something else. The head of his cock squeezed, followed by his full, aching length…and then he rammed into the back of her pussy. “No…” Aaron growled through the inescapable euphoria of being joined with Grace, nothing between them, but somehow responsibility found a way to grip him around the neck, his words forceful but slurred. “Need a condom. Can’t have y’like this.”

  Didn’t matter that he was clean. This…Jesus, this was one privilege no amount of atoning for his past, present, and future could earn. No matter how fucking terrible it would feel to pull out of warm, safe…home. The home he could never live in, but would dream about for the rest of his pathetic life.

  Above him, Grace’s mouth was dropped open, her expression pure, beautiful hedonism. A vision of her dancing beneath the moon, laughing up at the snow, hit him fast and hard in the chest, knocking his determination askew, a guttural shout breaking from his mouth when she fell onto his chest, her hips pumping with breathy sobs, fucking him bareback. “I’m sorry, I know I need to stop,” she breathed into his neck. “Help me.”

  Aaron’s hands closed around Grace’s hips, intending to ease her off. Just long enough to grab the closest piece of latex protection and get back inside her body. Instead, he urged her down onto his impaling dick, gritting his teeth over the tight journey. “One more time. One.” Grace made a sound of relief, rolling her hips and taking him to the hilt, grinding down. “I told you,” he said. “I told you I was a bastard.”

  At that, her half-closed eyes sprung wide, her head shaking in denial. “No, you’re not.” She treated him to a long, thorough tongue kiss, riding his cock all the while. “Or if you are, you’re my bastard.” Her breath caught. “For t-tonight.”

  The reminder of his one-night-stand status in Grace’s eyes gave him the surge of inescapable reality he needed. Not just reality, but…self-directed anger. That he couldn’t be the man to give her more. Make her want to dance every night in a field and compliment her on looking pretty, instead of threatening to come after her, make her sorry. Tonight he could be that man. Tonight he could be the only one she saw, but he would do it right, goddammit. She deserved that much and more from him.

  With a growl of determination, Aaron pulled out and reversed their position, turning Grace onto her back with enough force to startle a whimper from her lips. He promptly swallowed the sound, while reaching for the discarded dress pants folded to the sleeping bag’s right, knowing there was a condom in the front right pocket. Need to get back inside her. Now now now. “That was very bad, Grace,” he chided against her mouth. “Like it skin on skin, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” she breathed, licking kiss-bruised lips, grazing his lower one in the process. “That was my first time doing it. You just felt so amazing…I’m—”r />
  “Stop.” Invisible pressure exerted itself on Aaron’s chest, but with a major effort, he forced away the pride brought on by Grace’s confession. The disbelief over her almost apology. “Stop saying you’re sorry for letting me test out your hot pussy. I fucking loved it.” Finally having located the condom, he ripped the foil packet open with bared teeth. Before he covered himself, though, he slapped the insides of her legs with his heavy, bare length, loving the sound it made, the way her jaw slackened. “Or can’t you tell by the way I’m dripping precum on your thighs?”

  Grace seemed to hold her breath as Aaron covered himself in latex, the thin barrier tighter than usual around his ready flesh. God, had he ever been this thick in his life? Never. It was as though his body had reached peak wakefulness. Or he’d been half asleep his entire life, waiting for the one body, the one person that magnetized him, brought him out of his self-imposed coma.

  Don’t think like that. You’re damning yourself.

  He looked down between their bodies, turned on within an inch of his life to find Grace still wearing the sodden, twisted panties. The ones that had housed his cock as it slid over her clit. With more force than intended, Aaron shoved the underwear to one side and rammed his cock into Grace’s entrance, clapping a hand over her mouth to minimize the scream that erupted. His own animalistic groan was barely captured by clamping his teeth so hard into his lower lip, blood could be tasted on his tongue. He was forced to breathe through the heave of release his balls sorely needed and almost produced. Forced to envision finishing without pleasuring Grace to calm himself down. And as soon as the torrid near-requirement to climax passed, Aaron curled his elbows beneath Grace’s knees and fell forward onto her body, bucking his hips in cruel slaps, unable to slow down.