Claimed By The Devil (Devil's Riders 8)

Rolling around on a picnic blanket with the most beautiful girl in the world sounded like the perfect way to spend the afternoon. Even if it gave me blue balls, which was inevitable. I knew I would be hard and aching for the rest of the day. For weeks or even months, most likely. I didn’t give a damn.

I’d suffer unrelenting sexual frustration for her and more. Any damn day of the week. For as long as it took.

I helped her to spread out the blanket and loosely tethered our horses nearby, allowing them to graze.

I watched hungrily as Melissa lowered herself to the blankets. She looked perfect, fresh and sweet and so goddamn gorgeous I wanted to rip her clothes off.

Not that that was anything new.

I’d pretty much been on maximum overdrive since she came back to town. I hadn’t been this horny since I was a teen. Not even then. Melissa just had that effect on me.

“Do you think you’ll go back?” I asked, suddenly realizing I might get a good thing going just to lose it. If she went back to school, some guy would snap her up. Someone her own age. I didn’t know what the fuck I would do if that happened. Follow her there like a damned stalker, most likely. My stomach tightened as I sat down next to her, stretching my legs out so my boots were off the blanket.

She shook her head as she knelt and leaned forward to unpack the basket. She looked especially beautiful today. I realized it was the first time I’d ever seen her wearing a skirt. My mind lit up with the possibilities. That would make it easy to explore her juicy thighs and . . .

Fuck, my cock was instantly hard. I took the cotton napkin she handed me and tried to drape it over the tent in my jeans. I hoped it might work as camouflage.

Or in this case, cockouflage.

“I don’t think so. I didn’t really fit in there,” she said, sounding a bit sad about it. But then she smiled at me. “I guess it depends on how things go here. If I can find the money for it, I might do online classes or try a local school.”

An oddly protective feeling washed over me along with the relief that she wasn’t leaving. She was having money problems? I wanted to ask her more. I wanted to leap in and offer to help. I would pay for her classes, dammit!

Don’t push, Nick. The girls warned you to go slow. They didn’t just mean between the sheets.

“What were you studying?” I felt instantly like an ass for not asking her that sooner. But she didn’t seem to mind. Plus, we hadn’t really talked all that much when we hung out in the mornings all these weeks. We both tended to keep to our own thoughts.

“Agriculture and environmental studies. Sustainable farming, stuff like that.”

“Saving the world?”

“I know it’s silly. But I love nature. I thought maybe I could learn how to help it, just a little bit.”

“I think it’s fucking great,” I said, instantly wishing I could take back the ‘fucking’. She was a nice girl. She didn’t need to hear talk like that. But, as with everything else I threw her way, she took it in stride.

“Well, I minored in literature, which is one of the most useless degrees possible.”

“I thought that was philosophy,” I joked.

“Or theater,” she said with a twinkle. “Though I roomed with a girl in the drama department one year. She really loved it. It wasn’t just about costumes and bright lights to her. She thought she could make a social impact.”

I nodded.

“I think art can do that. I write songs sometimes,” I added, feeling suddenly vulnerable. Mac and Sally wrote songs. They were both insanely talented. Not many people knew that I wrote music, too. “And I make furniture.”

She brightened up even more. Jesus Christ, the girl was literally glowing. She was like a cute little nuclear reactor.

“I think that’s amazing! I wish I could do stuff like that. My parents would never let me near a power tool. Too clumsy,” she said with a cute little shrug. She handed me a faded porcelain plate and set one to the side for herself. Then she took out the food and two sets of cutlery neatly wrapped in cloth napkins.

“That looks amazing,” I said gruffly. Damn if I didn’t like having her take care of me. It made me feel like fucking king.

“Is iced tea okay? I should have brought lemonade too,” she fretted. Goddamn, the girl was cute. I still felt like a dirty old man sitting here thinking about sliding my cock inside her while she offered me iced tea. I would grip her luscious tits and bury my face between them while I plunged myself in and out of her. And she’d let me. I knew she’d let me.