Cowboy Baby Daddy

He grinned and shook himself, giving me an apologetic look. He suddenly reached out and grabbed me, pulling me into a rough, half-desperate kiss. It was heated and messy, his tongue slipping over mine and his teeth nipping at my lips. Slowly, though, he gentled the kiss, his lips moving tenderly against mine.

I heard the sound of a foil packet opening, and I pulled back so I could watch as he pulled a condom down his member. He bent my legs up and kissed the inside of one knee, making me squirm again against the sheets, needing more contact, needing something else. Eric hummed an acknowledgment and thrust into me all in one go, impaling me on his length.

I let out a whimpered moan, my hands creeping up against the headboard, using it as leverage so that I could push back against his thrusts, driving him ever deeper inside of me. His talented fingers continued to play across my skin, aimless patterns leaving a trail of goosebumps behind. Every soft graze of his fingers against the soft skin of my nipples had me mewling and arching against him, the stimulation almost too much.

He leaned in for another scorching kiss, and that, coupled with his quick thrusts, was my undoing. I broke away with a gasp, turning my head to the side and squeezing my eyes shut, my entrance contracting with waves of blinding, sensational pleasure. I could feel Eric spilling inside of me as well, coming in perfect unison with me, collapsing around me on the bed.

We both just lay there for a moment, panting with the aftershocks. Finally, Eric rolled to the side. But he didn't go far. He lay there, turned on his side to face me, continuing to caress my skin, sending little prickles of pleasure through the hazy aftermath of my orgasm.

But he wasn't done with me yet. Instead, Eric got a devilish smirk on his face and slid his hand lower, sliding his fingers back into the warm, slick area of my crease and playing across the overstimulated nerves there. My breathing caught in my throat, and I was almost tempted to stop him, as I balanced on the edge of pleasure and too much, but ultimately, I allowed him to continue brushing his fingers across my skin in those talented, tantalizing strokes.

In

an embarrassingly short while, I was coming again, practically sobbing with a much-needed release. As I finally dragged myself back to reality, it was to Eric smiling over at me, and I couldn't help but smile back at him.

Then, his expression turned serious.

“I'm enjoying our time together,” he told me.

“I'm sensing that there's a 'but,'” I said, wishing that he could have at least waited until we had clothes on before starting this conversation.

Sure, I knew that we needed to talk. About what we were doing, where we were going. About if this was going to keep happening, and where it was going to keep happening if it was. We couldn't keep sneaking around in motel rooms like wayward teenagers, but if we didn't want to raise the suspicions of everyone in town, this was the best way to ensure our privacy.

“But,” Eric agreed, nodding his head. He rolled away and looked up at the ceiling, folding his arms behind his head and looking deceptively casual. Still, I could see the tension in his form, and I frowned, wishing I could help him just relax. “I'm enjoying our time together, but I'm worried about how a relationship between us might affect both of our lives.”

I frowned, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. “Well, I'm not saying that we have to run around alerting everyone in town that we're sleeping together,” I said.

“There's also Emma to think about. And my professional relationship with your mother.” Eric ran a hand back through his hair, tousling it even more than the sex had. “For all we know, you could be headed back to Chicago sooner rather than later. I know you're mostly here because of your mom's health. In any case, I don't want to rush into anything.”

“Right, of course not,” I said, feeling a stab of disappointment. From the way he was talking about it, it sounded as though he was considering a relationship. But now it sounded like he wanted something that was just short-term, and just sex. I swallowed hard, hating the idea of that.

Of course, that's kind of the feeling that I'd gotten the previous time we'd slept together, given that he'd avoided seeing me from that night until after the next weekend. Clearly, he wasn't looking for me to be his girlfriend.

I gave a mental shrug. I'd take what I could get, I supposed. The sex was really good, and I didn't want to lose him. Plus, maybe if he had time to get used to me, and get used to the idea that I was sticking around for a while, maybe things would change between us.

What it really came down to was, I wasn't ready to make myself vulnerable yet by telling him that I wanted something more. Especially when it sounded like he wasn't prepared to give me something more.

Eric frowned, his eyebrows knitting together, and I realized that I'd been silent for too long. But I wanted to hear what else he had to say, anyway. “I'd like to keep seeing you,” he said. “But more like this, with a few ground rules. Dinners in other towns. No staying over at one another's houses. I just want things to be pretty low-key so that word doesn't get around town that we're...” He trailed off, clearly not sure how to describe what exactly we were doing.

But I had the perfect word for it: fucking. We were just fucking. It might be tender and sweet, but it was all couched in the idea that this was going no further.

I really was his rebound. The thought almost amused me, or it would have if I hadn't been feeling so unsettlingly upset about this.

I forced a smile on my face. “I understand,” I told him. “I'm having a good time too, and I don't see a reason to put labels on this. It'll only stress us both out, won't it? Anyway, we're both a little too old to have designated fuck buddies.”

Eric looked taken aback, and I wondered whether he'd been expecting me to be upset about this. If he only knew.

“Right,” he said after a moment.

“So, you probably need to get back to Emma, don't you?” I asked, my voice overly bright, echoing around the motel room.

Eric stirred, as though I'd just brought him back to reality. “Right,” he said again. He climbed out of bed and started getting dressed, and after a moment, I did the same.

I couldn't help snickering. “Just like teenagers,” I commented.

Eric gave me a smile, but he looked distracted. Aside from a quick goodbye hug, we didn't interact further, even as we walked back to our cars. I got in and had to blink tears away from my eyes so that I could see the road ahead of me. His headlights disappeared in my rearview mirror.

Chapter Fifteen