Page 55 of Tempting Wyatt (Triple Creek Ranch #1)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

wyatt

“SO THAT GUY, HUH? That’s your type?”

Ivy cuts her narrowed gaze over to me from across my kitchen. “Clearly not, seeing as he’s the ex.”

“Right. Yeah.” Seeing that slick pretentious prick has me all kinds of worked up.

Knowing another man had a claim on her sours in my stomach.

Her fiancé, he’d called himself. The thought of Ivy wearing that asshole’s ring—even for a second—is fucking me up.

Almost as much as the realization that I could never be what she wants if that’s the kind of man she dates and agrees to marry.

I could see my reflection in that dude’s shoes, that is, when I wasn’t blinded by the sun glaring off his shellacked hair.

“Wow, thanks for judging me.” She moves toward the front door. “And here I thought you were different.”

“Hey,” I say, wrapping my arm around her waist and pulling her to me. “No judgement here. I’m sorry he hurt you. Makes me wish I’d hurt him just now. But don’t lie to me,” I murmur, voice low and rough. “Is this thing with me just a rebound for you then?”

“This thing with you is. . . ” Her breath shudders out, and then she’s shoving at my chest, eyes flashing. “What do you want from me, Wyatt?”

Funny, not long ago, I was asking her the same thing.

I catch her wrists, drag them down, pin them between us. “I want the truth, angel. I want you to stop pretending like this is casual.”

Her lips part, but she doesn’t answer. She just looks at me, something unspoken flickering in her gaze. Something raw and desperate and real.

So, I do what I’ve been wanting to do since the second I found out that bastard ever had a claim on her.

I devour her. Like I’ve wanted to since that very first day.

I kiss her hard, deep, pouring every ounce of frustration, anger, and need into the slide of my mouth against hers.

She gasps, and I take it, swallow it, press her back until she’s up against the wall, pinned between the rough wood and me.

I lift her in my arms, and she wraps her legs around my waist like she was made for this. For me.

Her fingers claw at my shirt, yanking me closer, and I groan against her lips, grinding my hips into hers.

“Say it, Ivy.”

She shakes her head, breathless.

I nip at her jaw, her throat, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. “Say there are strings. Admit it to yourself at least. I have.”

She shudders, arching into me. “Fine. We have strings. So many damn strings.”

I grip her ass tightly, pulling her against my hard cock. “There you go, angel. Doesn’t that feel better to admit?”

She shakes her head. “It feels. . . scary.”

“No need to be scared. You’re safe with me.”

“You promise?” The vulnerable girl in her stares openly into my eyes. She wants to believe me but she’s not sure yet.

I kiss her more gently than before. “I promise, angel.”

I vow, in that moment, to do my best to make her a believer.

Slowly, I strip her down, unbuttoning the shirt of mine she’s wearing while kissing every inch of her bare skin as I go.

After lowering her jeans to the floor, I kneel and lift her left leg onto my shoulder, tasting her until she’s writhing and begging, until her nails bite into my shoulders and my name is a broken cry on her lips.

Over and over, along with a symphony of, “Yes, please,” and, “Wyatt.”

When I finally lay her out on my bed and sink into her, when she gasps and clenches around me, it’s not just sex. Not just a way to work through the frustration and tension.

It’s not temporary.

There’s no more expiration date.

It’s a promise.

That she’s mine.

If I have to live part of my life in California, I’ll be damned if I ever have to be the sad, sorry motherfucker who has to see what her ex did today. Another man claiming what I lost.

Our hands clasp above her head as I drive my body purposely in and out of hers. I don’t speak the words with my lips because they’re busy worshipping hers.

So I tell her how I feel with every part of me.

IVY IS STILL SLEEPING peacefully beside me when I blink myself awake hours later.

The alarm clock on the dresser and my growling stomach let me know it’s past dinner time.

The setting sun casts a golden glow across the bed.

Ivy’s wild curls are splayed on the pillow beside me.

She’s so damn gorgeous that she steals my breath, even in her sleep.

Her warm, feminine, honeyed scent perfumes the sheets between us.

I lost count of how many times we made love and how many times she cried out my name while coming on my cock. And my tongue.

Doing my best not to disturb her, I slide out of the bed and head to the bathroom. Once I’ve handled the necessities and washed up a bit, I make my way to the kitchen.

Deciding to make her breakfast for dinner, mostly because that’s what I have the ingredients for, I start the coffee and dig out the fixings for pancakes. I don’t cook often, but pancakes and sausage patties I can manage.

I check the pantry to make sure I have maple syrup for her. I only put peanut butter on mine, but I know that’s not typical. I place the syrup, some real butter, and the peanut butter on the table.

I’d exist primarily on peanut butter if I could. Growing up, we always had the ten-pound jar, and my parents were always shocked at how fast my brothers and I could go through it.

I’ve just finished the batter when I remember a trick Mom taught me as a kid.

A splash of beer or clear soda in the batter makes pancakes extra fluffy.

She’d let me pour it in, along with a splash of vanilla and a sprinkle of cinnamon, calling it our secret recipe.

Instead of the image of me as a kid making pancakes with my mom, what appears in my mind is Ivy in the kitchen with a little guy who looks a lot like five-year-old me at her side.

What the hell? I blink the image away just before I accidentally dump a full bottle of beer into the batter.

All the sex is confusing me. Must be it.

Makes sense. Sex is meant for procreation. Even though Ivy and I are currently focused on sex of the recreational variety, the built-in programming of my male DNA can’t help itself.

The idea of putting a baby in her, of seeing her carry my baby in her body, does things to me I can’t comprehend.

I let the batter sit for a few minutes with a towel on top of the bowl while I start the sausage. I cook it low and slow so it takes a bit longer than a batch of pancakes.

The skillet sizzles, a splatter of grease popping me on my bare stomach.

I probably should’ve put a shirt on, but it’s too late now.

I place a lid on the pan and train my brain to focus on the culinary tasks at hand instead of picturing myself impregnating the woman asleep in my bed and risking third-degree burns.

Never in my life has a thought like that even crossed my mind. Once in high school, my girlfriend’s period was three days late, and I felt like my life was over. Now, the thought of Ivy holding a little white stick with two pink lines, telling me she’s having my baby, sounds pretty damn perfect.

Which makes it official. I am losing my fucking mind over this woman. No, past tense. I’ve lost my mind already. It’s hers. Everything of mine is hers.

We’ve known each other two weeks. Hardly time to start planning a wedding.

Though, according to my dad, my parents had only just met when he told my mom she was the one.

“When you know, you know.” That’s what they always said, sharing secret looks and winks anytime the topic came up.

Do I know? An unfamiliar sensation hits my stomach, and I hope it’s just hunger.

Once the coffee finishes brewing, I decide to chug as much as possible so my sleep and sex-fogged brain will return to operating normally. At the moment, it’s fantasizing about an alternate universe.

“It smells like heaven in here,” a sleepy-voiced angel with wild, freshly fucked curls says as she enters the kitchen.

I turn, and her eyes go wide.

“Looks like a sexy devil is cooking though, so maybe it’s not heaven after all.”

“Hey, sleepy girl.” She’s wearing only my flannel haphazardly buttoned over her bare body. The sight is more appetizing than the food. I plate several pancakes for her and grab a fork.

“God, you cook too,” is her reply. Dazed eyes meet mine. “I think I love you.”

I drop the fork. It clatters loudly on the floor.

Ivy stands completely still with her eyes squeezed closed as I retrieve it. I peruse her bare legs on my way up.

I clear my throat, and she opens one eye to peer at me.

“It’s all the orgasms, lack of sleep, and the smell of coffee. I lost my mind for a second. Can we pretend I didn’t just say that completely inappropriate, weird, clingy chick thing?”

Thank fuck she has no idea of what I was thinking about before she came in here. Maybe I’m the clingy chick.

Unsure of how to respond, I grab her a fresh fork and hand over the plate. “Sit. Eat. I’ll make you some coffee if you promise not to propose.”

She laughs. “I’ll try. But men who make me coffee really get my motor running.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

She’s so fucking adorable. I don’t know how to keep up my walls with this woman. She’s the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. She’s kind and hardworking, and to top it off, she has a sense of humor. It’s no wonder my siblings and mom are all crazy about her.

Hell, I’m crazy about her.

And I have to let her go.

I hand over her coffee, then watch her put too much cream and sugar in it.

“Thank you,” she says sweetly.

“Welcome.” I turn back to the stove, noting how quickly our time together is passing.

We have a few more days but then she’ll, what? Pack up and go back to California like this never happened? Maybe she’ll remember me as the mean man with the axe who nearly dicked her to death.

Or maybe she won’t remember me at all. Her life in LA is probably pretty intense, surrounded by celebrities or whatever.

Fixing my own plate and bringing over the platter of sausage once I drain the grease off it, I resolve to focus on the moment. I can give Ivy a hell of a lot of orgasms in the time we have left. Try my damnedest to convince her to stay.

“Is that peanut butter on your pancakes?”

Her question pulls me from my thoughts.

“It is. Weird, I know. I’ve just never cared much for syrup.”

Her brow scrunches. “I wanna try.”

I watch as she makes a little sandwich out of a pancake, a piece of nearly burned sausage, and peanut butter.

She takes a bite and moans. “Oh my God,” she mumbles around the food. “So good.”

I grin. “Guess I’ll have to try it then.”

She waits like I’m going to fix my own, but I lunge and steal a bite of hers.

“Hey!” Her adorable squeal rings in my ears.

“Mmm,” I murmur as I chew. “It is pretty good. And efficient. I like it.”

“Can we call it the Ivy Special?” she asks with a gleam in her hazel eyes.

I pretend to think it over. “Nope.”

She pouts. “Why not?”

I take my time, casually clearing everything in front of me to the side. “Because ever since you walked in here in only my shirt, professing your undying love for me, I’ve been thinking about having the Ivy Special for breakfast.”

Without another word, I lift her from her chair and pull her into my lap. Kissing her so deeply that I can taste the peanut butter on her lips, I growl into her mouth. She moans in response, not protesting a single bit when I lift her from my lap and lay her on the table before me.

If I only have a few days with this woman, I’m making every single one of them count.

Starting now.

“Your breakfast will get cold,” she whispers as I spread her legs wide before me.

“I’m looking at my breakfast.” I open her gently with my fingertips, then slide my tongue directly up her sweet, wet slit. “And it’s plenty hot, baby.”

She writhes like a woman possessed on the table, back arching and thrusting her perfect tits upward. I tear her—well, my—shirt open so I can see all of her, then resume flaying her open with my tongue.

When I plunge it inside her, she cries out. My name. Then a string of yeses and pleas for me to continue. When I press two fingers inside her tight heat while sucking her clit, she comes all over me, seizing against the wooden table so hard that it sounds like the headboard thumping did last night.

I need to be inside her. I can’t stop myself.

I stand so abruptly that my chair falls backward. My cock is in my hand before I have a rational thought about a condom.

“Fuck, angel. I need inside you.”

“Yes,” she breathes. “Please. Now.”

She grips my dick suddenly.

The overwhelming sensation threatens to knock me on my ass. I’m lightheaded but driving into her forcefully over and over. She’s sensitive and still pulsing and clenching from her recent orgasm, milking my dick with every thrust.

Her walls tighten just as I’m about to explode. I’ve got to pull out. I should. No birth control is guaranteed to work every time.

But, fuck me, I don’t want to. I want to fill her with me, day and night, until this house is full of miniature versions of us in every room.

I don’t even care how fucking crazy that is in this moment. I picture her pregnant with my baby and place my hand on her stomach, and I fucking lose it.

“Tell me I can come inside you. Tell me I can fill that pretty pussy.”

She clamps down on me so tightly that I couldn’t pull out if I wanted to.

“Say it,” I command.

“Come inside me, Wyatt. Fill up my pretty pussy.”

Those filthy words coming from her sweet, sensuous mouth shove me over the cliff. I follow orders and shoot hot streams of my release into her tight, still-writhing body.

She moans with each burst, finding her own release once more. My girl is so responsive, so sensitive.

So fucking perfect.

And I don’t know how we’re going to manage a long-distance relationship, but she is so fucking mine.