Where It All Began (Phoenix Falls Series)

When we’re fully out of sight from the others at the camp Madden grips his hands around the backs of my thighs and hauls me upwards. I’m straddling his middle as he descends parallel to the water and, with every step that he takes, the zipper of my shorts scrapes me up and down, my body slipping lower and lower until I’m wrapped around his hips.

I hum quietly as the metal grinds against me and Madden flashes me a look, burning with anger and lust.

“You’ll let me explain, won’t you?” I implore quietly, hands tentatively stroking their way from the bulging muscles at the tops of his shoulders to the strong sides of his tan neck. He hasn’t shaved in a while and his dark stubble scratches at my palms.

He makes a low grunt and then starts moving us further to the left, trudging so closely to the rocks that water flecks begin splashing my bare thighs. He’s not looking into my eyes anymore so I can’t quite gauge how he’s feeling.

Although the steel rod rocking hard against me is a slight clue.

“Madden,” I whisper as he shoves another low-hanging branch out of our way, smoothing his other hand flat against my hair to prevent it from getting tangled in any stray twigs. The loud startled flap of birds taking flight sounds out somewhere to my left and Madden glances over in that direction, a stern look on his face.

I have to quash my brewing smile, a warm sparkly feeling spreading in my stomach, as I soak in the sensation of him carrying me through the woods like a caveman, hands running all over me and so overtly aroused that he’s barely capable of speech. I know that it’s stupid of us to be so far out here, away from everyone else, especially given the animal warnings we get reminded of during the summer mating season, but I’m currently so lost in my hormones that, right now, I don’t care.

He suddenly drops me to my feet and starts ushering me backwards, using nothing but the jerk of his chin and his relentless pace to direct me. I stumble immediately and his hands quickly swoop forward, clutching his forearms securely around my lower back and dipping down so that he can press his forehead into my own.

My heart stutters and I close my eyes, keeping them shut until my ass hits off a sharp stone wall.

I pull away briefly and take a quick peep to the side, checking our surroundings. He’s brought us to some sort of hidden cave, entirely entrapped in dark stone walls and with the trickle of the nearby water resounding around the room in an echo.

When I return my eyes to look at him, his own gaze has dropped to the band of my shorts, two of his fingers hooked around a belt loop and tugging at it roughly as if testing the resilience. He looks back up at me and a shiver runs down my spine.

“I don’t wanna talk,” he says quietly, his voice so deep that I can feel it in my belly.

I shake my head. “I can do the talking.”

His cheek ticks up slightly, a wry look passing fleetingly over his features. “There are other things that I’d rather us both be doing right now.”

“I thought you’d want an explanation,” I say, and his face hardens again, the memory of what happened not ten minutes ago suddenly fresh in his mind.

He tips his chin in agreement and he unleashes his fingers from my shorts, moving them around my hips and then flattening them, warm and firm, against the dimples in my back.

“Make it quick,” he whispers roughly, eyes entranced by my lips. Then he presses his body completely into my own, the rigid shaft beneath his jeans suddenly digging hard into my stomach, and as I bite back a small gasp he adds on one low final, “Please.”

Now that he knows that I can sing I feel stupid for ever wanting to hide it from him in the first place. Whatever teenage logic I’d been clinging to at the start of my twenties has now entirely disappeared, and the words tumble from my lips like water off a lily-pad.

“I didn’t mean to lie to you. I thought it’d be embarrassing if you knew that I can sing, if you knew how…” I cringe before I even say it. “How alike we are.”

Shut up, shut up, shut up. I’m practically making myself gag with embarrassment.

I should’ve taken his advice and kept my mouth shut.

“What I mean to say is…” My brain goes completely blank as I try to find what it is that I apparently mean to say, and the way that Madden’s eyes are burning into mine right now definitely isn’t helping.

I swallow. “What I mean to say is that I like singing, a lot, and I also like you… a lot.”

Kill me now.

“But, uh, those interests aren’t entwined, if you know what I mean. Like, me liking singing has nothing to do with me liking you, and, uh, vice versa.”

I pause to try and gauge how he’s taking this revelation. Luckily his eyes are still darker than a serial killer’s, so I obviously haven’t turned him off too bad with my floundering.

“So with Tyler-”

Madden’s eyes sizzle and his spine snaps straight. Lord above have mercy.

“Let me rephrase that. There’s this show in town that you’ve probably never heard of – the Barn Bonanza? Do you know…? Anyway, it doesn’t matter, the point is that it’s this, like, talent show and if you enter and win it you can get a sponsorship so that you can make music with a local record company. Basically, they’ll give you a test run to see if you’re actually worth signing. It’s an acoustic thing so I asked Kaleb when y’all got here if I could borrow his old Fender but because I didn’t want you finding out-”

I’m definitely saying all the wrong things because Madden’s expressions have gone from irate to hurt to murderous in the space of the past fifteen seconds.

“Because I thought that you’d think it was, like, lame or something, I haven’t been able to practice at the cabin. So Dyl’s been letting me in to use the bar during the day and I thought that, this afternoon, because Tyler has a guitar too, I could do a little bit of practising before I go on stage and, you know, shoot my shot.”

He stares at me blankly, a dark molten glare simmering behind his silver eyes.

I try to relieve the tension by bending my fingers into the shape of a pistol and giving him a little, “Pew pew.”

His eye twitches.

“Put the gun away,” he says tersely.

Thank God. I try to smother my small dimply grin, relieved because we’re back to playing now, and I tuck my finger-gun safely away into my invisible thigh holster. I give it a pat and then raise my hands to show him that I’m unarmed.

“Wanna frisk me?” I ask teasingly.

He lets out a gruff unabashed groan and slowly, cautiously, I begin trailing my fingertips up his abdomen. He lowers his forehead back to mine and a flame ignites in the centre of my belly.

“You done talking now?” he asks, one palm smoothing down over my ass and the other climbing North until it’s fully leashed in the back of my hair.

I nod.

“My turn?” he enquires, hand rubbing harder against my behind.

I hide my naughty smile and nod again, but he shocks me right off my newfound high horse. His fingers tug suddenly in my hair, surprising me backwards, and the hand resting on the back pocket of my shorts dips beneath the denim hem, slipping straight up the back of my underwear, cupping his labour-hardened palm roughly around my soft cheek.

“I’m gonna say this once and then I’m done,” he says brusquely, his voice nothing more than a growl. “Never go to another man to fill your needs again, Kitty.”

Then, with one last look, he hoists me up and kisses me.

I moan, soft and startled, right into his mouth and he crushes down on me harder, a low rumble in his chest. Hungry and impatient, he tilts my jaw and slants me open, sliding his tongue slowly into my mouth, and then caressing me with long intense strokes. The hand in my underwear is rubbing and squeezing and I’m so overwhelmed that I can’t hold in my gasp, my mind too distracted to remember how to coordinate my fingers so that I can explore him in return. I tighten my thighs around his thick abdomen and, feeling my heat flush against him, Madden strengthens his grip, his tongue thrusting deep. I can’t keep up with him and I make a tiny pleasured whine, my brain evaporating into nothing but twinkling dust.

Then he grips my wrist in his left hand and embeds it roughly against the solid shaft in his jeans.

I stop breathing.

Madden’s length… Madden’s length is longer than my hand span.

Perceiving my unfamiliarity with our newly broken touch barrier, or perhaps sixth sensing the fact that I’m about to blackout, he loosens his grip on my hair and slows his pace, his right palm running down the side of my neck and then giving me a light squeeze. Butterflies flutter in my belly as I nervously reach up to return his affection, fingers stroking up his jaw and then into his dark, thick hair.

He grunts and pulls away, pupils dialled out.

“Too much?” he asks hoarsely, eyes beseeching into mine.

I shake my head. My one single brain cell rattles around in there.

“Words, princess. I need you to use your words.”

I try to find some.

“Uh…” Great start, Einstein. “No, it’s… it’s…” Oh dear. Another tragic onslaught of verbal diarrhoea cascades out of me. “It’s just been a really long time since I’ve done anything – like, I mean anything – with anyone so I’m just not very good. I mean, I’m out of practice. I can learn,” I add, voice hopeful, for good measure.

He watches me, truly curious, and then after a moment of slow consideration he flashes me his perfect white teeth, his cheekbones glowing warm and ruddy. I look longingly at his sharp vampire canines and then start chewing dreamily into my lower lip.

“‘Out of practice’,” he repeats on a deep exhale, eyes languorously trailing over my chest. His gaze shifts to my throat where his fingers are toying with the strings of my bikini, tied haphazardly beneath the neck of my top. He dips down, stubble scratching over my exposed collarbone, and he tugs at the string with a rough pull from his teeth.

I make a startled sound and he kisses gently at my neck.

“Fuck baby, you make me so happy,” he whispers, his mouth hot against my skin. A pleasured ripple runs down my core and I realise that I’m hearing him curse for the first time ever. With the combination of the still summer air infiltrating the cavern from outside, and Madden teasing every inch of my body, I’m beginning to dangerously exceed the recommended bodily temperature.

“You’ve never sworn in front of me before,” I whisper up at him, my palms exploring his pectorals and then giving them a little squeeze.

Solid as a rock.

Madden breathes out a laugh as he watches my perusal and then he nods at me when our gazes lock again. “’Cause I’m tryna be a gentleman with you, Kitty,” he says, searching my face. His expression looks hesitant for a moment and then he adds, “I’m gonna be a gentleman with you, everywhere except the bedroom. That’s the one place that I’m gonna drop the etiquette and let you see me for what I am.”

I tighten my hold on him, nails biting into his biceps and calves crushing us groin to groin. He makes a quiet wordless sound as the warm denim of my shorts rubs him roughly through his jeans.

“And what are you exactly?” I ask, teasing him with a smile.

He smiles back and then moves his mouth to my throat.

“An animal,” he replies, and then he sinks his teeth into my neck.

I howl in delight, laughing uncontrollably as he nips and tugs. His attack is surprisingly gentle at first but then it slowly becomes rougher and rougher, our smiles fading into parted lips, and my laugh diminishing into whimpers and whines. His licks turn into sucks and his kisses turn into bites.

One of his large hands slides to my chest and, after slowly acclimatising to massaging and squeezing, two digits begin rubbing circles around my sensitised nipple.

I moan in agony, arching my back off the wall, and my soft sounds entwine with the thrum of the running water.

“More,” I plead needily, pulling him upwards with a tug from my fists buried in his hair.

He pulls a pained expression, wincing slightly as he strokes his large palms up my jaw. My nipples have pebbled through two layers of clothing and his arousal has grown so hard that he’s bruising my skin. He knows what I want, and I know that he wants it too.

“I wanna fuck you,” he whispers, brow taut and tendons flexing. “But it shouldn’t be out here, like this. Not for our first time. It should be…”

He looks away from me for a moment, his eyes glazing as he pictures whatever’s going on in his fantasy. When he turns back to me again he grips at my chin and presses a hard kiss against my lips. I try to move with him and it makes him pull away, groaning as he rests his forehead against my shoulder.

“In your bed,” he says, voice tense. “Get you nice and comfortable and then I’ll pump you real slow.”

My thighs clench around him and his hips thrust instinctively, rocking me roughly against the stone wall. His hand runs down over my thigh, knee, and calf, only pausing when he reaches the top of my boot.

“And these,” he murmurs, pulling back so that he can look at what I’m wearing. He grips his fist around the sole of my cowgirl boot, hitching it upwards so that I’m opened wider against his body. I bite back a mewl. “I only want you wearing these.”

I can picture it so completely. The height difference. The size difference. Madden – big, broad, and tan as hell – standing over me as I lay back into my duvet, body bare bar for my pair of cowgirl booties.

I try to shift the power dynamic, hoisting myself higher up his body and kicking my heels roughly against his ass like he’s one of our quarter horses. His jaw flexes but he takes it like a man.

“You’re gonna let me ride you?” I ask, rubbing my breasts up against his torso.

His eyes flutter closed momentarily, his cheeks flushing red. “Jesus Kitty, I…”

Pleased, I reach up and peck a series of small soft kisses against his neck, jaw, and cheeks. His hands move more gently than before, stroking me sweet and slow.

When I look up at him again he has a molten look in his eyes.

“Use my cock however you want,” he says hoarsely, grinding himself against my thigh to relieve his aching bulge. “Whatever my girl wants,” he grunts, “my girl gets.”