Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain #2)(70)

The thin thread I was holding onto my mind with twinged.

We had a lot to talk about. I didn’t know him, hardly at all. He’d played professional football, for two games but still, that was huge and the fact that he played only that short time was heartbreaking. He had a bad knee and he didn’t act like he had a bad knee so I wondered if he still did. And if he did, I wondered if he should be running. He had an eagle tattooed on his back and I wondered if that had something to do with the football team for whom he played only two games. He had shit going on in his life but he didn’t tell me what that was and I figured, since it seemed we were starting something, I should probably know. He’d just worked a woman out from under his skin and I needed to discuss that a bit further. Was she entirely gone? Was there a little bit of her left? What happened to make them history? Was I there now? How deep was I?

Not to mention, I needed a very long, thorough lesson in biker slang so I didn’t accidently mess anything up again.

I held tight to that thin thread and I turned my lips to his ear.

“We should finish talking,” I whispered.

“Fuckin’ you now, baby,” he whispered back, his tongue touched my earlobe and his hand slid from my bottom to between my legs were his fingers slid into the inside leg of my pajama shorts and drifted feather-light across my panties. “We’ll finish talkin’ later.”

“Okay,” I breathed which was a lucky thing, since his tongue and fingers snapped that thin thread that attached me to my mind and it was a miracle I could speak at all.

* * * * *

Laurie, it wouldn’t be for a few days that I’d feel the difference.

My eyes opened and I saw the room was dark. We hadn’t pulled the curtains again and I saw the outside lights shining in, illuminating Tate’s painted shoulder in front of me. I was curled into his back, my arm resting on his waist.

I stayed where I was awhile, hoping sleep would come.

Seems I got a f**kin’ type.

I closed my eyes tight in a flinch.

Boy, Tate could land a verbal blow.

Carefully, I rolled to my back and stared at the ceiling thinking of all Tate said, all Wood said, all Wood didn’t say and all I didn’t know about Tate.

Then I thought about my Dad, who still worked the farm even though he had a couple boys he’d hired to help him do it. Then I thought about if he could, or should, continue doing that and if he couldn’t, or shouldn’t, what would happen to our farm.

Then I thought about Tate more.

This took awhile and included me attempting to get comfortable and find sleep in three different positions. After I tried the third, I knew sleep wasn’t going to come.

Moving cautiously so as not to wake Tate, I slid the covers back and started toward the opposite side of the bed, trying to remember where Tate threw my pajamas.

I didn’t even get close to the edge of the bed before an arm hooked around my belly and I was on my back in the bed.

“Where you goin’?” Tate muttered, his voice drowsy.

“Can’t sleep or get comfortable,” I whispered. “You go back to sleep, I’ll –”

I stopped talking because Tate rolled me to face him then his hand slid over my bottom.

“Happen every night?” he murmured, still sounding sleepy.

“No, honey,” I answered, pushing lightly against his chest. “Go back to sleep.”

He lifted his head and then his face was in my neck.

“On the road,” he said there, his hands moving on me, “at night, I’d lie awake wonderin’ if you were sleepin’ okay.”

“That doesn’t sound very focused,” I whispered as his hand slid down my hip, my leg and then lifted my leg at the knee to hook it around his hip.

It didn’t sound very focused but it sure sounded sweet.

“It wasn’t,” he whispered back and I felt his teeth nip my ear, his beard tickling my jaw and neck, his hand slid between my legs and his fingers moved whisper-soft against me.

“Tate,” I breathed as I moved my h*ps to press into his hand.

“Like that, Laurie,” he murmured.

“What?” I breathed again as his hand kept moving, still soft, so light.

God, such a beautiful tease.

He’d done that a lot earlier. It wasn’t fast and hard like the first time. Tate was a man who knew how to take his time and make a woman’s body sing.

“Those little hitches,” he answered, lips still at my ear.

“Hitches?”

“In your breath,” he explained. “You gettin’ excited, like to hear that, baby.”

His finger suddenly slid inside and my neck arched back as my back arced forward.

“Yes,” I whispered, my arms moving around him to hold on tight as his finger moved in and out.

“Christ,” he whispered, “like that too.”

“Not as much as me.”

I felt his lips form a smile against my neck. His thumb trailed soft, teasing my clit.

My breath hitched again and my h*ps pressed into his hand.

“You like that too,” he noted.

I didn’t answer.

After more of his sweet torture, I called, “Tate, honey?”

“Yeah, baby,” he answered.

“Am I under your skin?” I whispered as my h*ps moved with his hand.