Dirty Cowboy (A Western Romance) (The Maxwell Family) Page 28

  He smiled and looked seriously at me as he said, “You know that you’re really pretty too, right?”

  I felt myself blush. I didn’t really know how to respond to that so I just mumbled a thank you and breathed a sigh of relief when the waiter came to take our order. Ian ordered the veggie pizza and I got the chicken fettuccini. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to eat it. My appetite had been all but absent since…Emma.

  “So, you didn’t answer me,” he said when the waiter left.

  “About what?”

  “That you know you’re pretty.”

  “I guess,” I said. “But Emma was like model gorgeous. People asked her all the time why she didn’t model.”

  Ian laughed and said, “She didn’t model because she was a big klutz. She would have fallen off the runway.”

  I laughed too. “That’s so true. Sometimes we’d be walking and she’d trip over nothing at all.”

  “She was tripping over something…her abnormally large feet,” he said, still smiling. “I used to tease her about them all the time. They were huge.”

  “Yeah, they were. She was self-conscious about them. Maybe because you teased her.”

  “They were like skis. How could I not tease her?”

  By the time our food came, I was feeling more comfortable than I had in a while. It was good to talk about Emma without anyone mentioning the fact that she was dead. We shared some more stories about her while we ate and then after we finished, we ordered a tiramisu to share, in honor of Emma. While we ate that, Ian said, “So what are you going to school for?”

  “I’m majoring in biology for now. I’m not sure what I plan to do with it just yet. I have been thinking about transferring to a University where they have a good veterinary program…I might like that.”

  “Do you have pets?”

  “No. I used to have a dog, but she died right after I left for college. She was really old though and she had a lot of medical problems by that time. That was hard because I had her since she was a pup, but I was glad she wasn’t suffering any longer. I worked a few summers for the SPCA though. I really liked it. I’m good with animals.”

  “I prefer them over most people,” he said with a grin. “We used to have a border collie.”

  “I remember! His name was Bodie, right?”

  “Yeah, I loved Bodie. He was just a really laid back, cool dog. He would get aggressive though if he thought someone was trying to hurt any of us. Emma and I couldn’t even joke around about fighting or he’d try and tear me apart. He always took her side. Him and the parents.” He looked sad again, lost in his thought of his sister.

  “Did you really feel like that?”

  “Like they liked her better?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shrugged, “I guess…sometimes. It really wasn’t a big deal to me though. I always knew that if I had me for a kid and then she came along…I’d probably like her better too.”

  “Emma was just always so easy to get along with, maybe that was part of it.”

  “Yeah, like I said no big deal.” I could tell he wanted to change the subject so I said, “So did you go to college?” I asked him.

  “Nah, I barely made it to high school,” he said. I did remember that now that he brought it up. Emma used to talk about how he just stopped going to school in his sophomore year and no matter what his parents did, he refused to go back. At the time, I remember being impressed and wishing I had the nerve to do something like that. Not school though. School always came easy to me and it got me away from my house where I didn’t want to be. “I don’t really need a college degree to do what I want to do,” he said.

  “Fight?” I said.

  He grinned again and said, “Win.”

  “So what do you do when you get hurt or too old to fight?”

  “Live off of all the money you made in the meantime,” he said with a grin. It was easy to see that he loved what he did. I had a feeling it wasn’t at all about the money.

  After we finished dessert, we argued a little over who was going to pay the bill. Since it wasn’t really a date, I thought I should at least pay my part. He said that since it was his idea we come out, he should pay. He finally slipped it to the waiter under the table while he was distracting me, asking me more about school and my classes.

  “Do you like the dorms? Emma seemed to like it there.”

  “Yeah, it gets a little nerve-wracking sometimes, living with all of those women. But it’s alright. When I go back, I might have to look for an apartment though. I took the rest of this semester off.”

  “Because of Emma?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I just need some time…you know? I need to be able to wake up just one morning and not…”

  “Remind yourself that she’s gone?”

  “Exactly. I don’t want to forget her…don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it feels like…”

  “Losing her all over again?” He really did understand.

  “Yeah. I have to remind myself every morning and I hate it. I also realized when I came home that this was where I needed to be right now. I think it helps me heal, being around people who really knew her. It’s helped me a lot talking to you. People at school had only known her for a while and they knew “College Emma” and not the real Emma we know.”

  “Well, I hope it doesn’t mess you up with school, but I’m glad you’ll be around for a while,” he said with a smile. When the waiter came back he signed the tag and put his card back in his wallet. Then he said, “It’s still early. You want to come by my apartment and hang out for a while?”

  “Yeah, okay.” I wasn’t sure that going to his apartment was my best idea ever…but I was sure that I wasn’t ready for the evening with him to end. I meant what I said; it did help me a lot to deal with Emma being gone to talk to him. Besides, if I said no I would just go home and spend hours trying to quiet my thoughts so that I could go to sleep and wake up tomorrow to remind myself one more time that my best friend was dead.

  Chapter Six

  Alexa

  Ian’s apartment was a few miles from his parent’s house. We drove in silence mostly, but it was a comfortable silence which if I thought about it would really be weird. Why was I so comfortable with him already? Was it because he reminded me so much of Emma, or because I was also realizing that I was attracted to him. When we drove up into the carport in the front I asked him, “Do you have a roommate?”

  “Nope just me. I would make a crappy ass roommate.”

  I laughed. “I doubt that you’re that bad,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, as we walked up to the door. “I think I’m a great guy.” He grinned and then he said, “But, I can see how my need for things to be done my way would annoy someone else I suppose.” He slid the key in the door and said, “Someone that is who doesn’t realize that my way is the best way.”

  He held the door open for me and reached in to switch the light on. The apartment was small, but it was nice and really clean for a guy who lived alone. My dad wasn’t a slob and I had to spend two days cleaning up after him when I came home this time. Ian’s apartment looked like you could eat off the floors. I wondered if he maybe was a little bit O.C.D. and that was one of the reasons why he thought he’d be hard to live with.

  He gestured towards the little suede sofa in the living room and said, “Have a seat. Do you want a beer?” I knew I shouldn’t since I would be driving myself home…but I said yes anyways. It was peer pressure at its finest. He went into the kitchen and I looked around while he was gone. He had a couple of framed UFC posters on the walls of guys I’d never heard of, but nothing else. He had a big TV that was really too big for the small apartment and I saw an Xbox and a stack of wrestling and fighting and UFC games next to it.

  He came back a few minutes later with two bottled beers. He’d taken the caps off already and he handed one to me and sat down next to me on the little couch.

  “So when did you decide you wanted to be fig
hter?” I asked him.

  “I’d have to say when I was about sixteen. My friend’s dad was a fighter and I hung around there all the time watching him train these big, tough guys. I wanted to look like them and I wanted to be tough like them. I bugged the shit out of him until he agreed to train me. At first my friend and I both trained with him, but my friend wasn’t really into it. I loved it. I hadn’t realized up to that point how much aggression I really had inside of me. This way I could get it out…legally,” he said with a grin.

  Actually wanting to fight was a foreign concept to me. “I just can’t imagine standing there and letting someone beat on you.”

  He laughed and took a swig of his beer. “See that’s where you would be going wrong. You’re not supposed to just stand there and let them beat on you. You have to keep moving. Part of learning how to fight…a big part of it is learning how to protect yourself.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes they get in some good licks no matter what. That guy socked you upside your head a few times tonight…even though you’re really fast and you still won. I think I flinched more than you did.”

  He shrugged, “Maybe that’s why my head is empty. I’ve gotten the brains beat out of it. Did you like it though…the fight?”

  “I doubt that your head is empty,” I said. “Emma told me that you were really smart. She said that even though you refused to go to school, you could still help her with her homework…how do you know things like that, if you didn’t go to school to learn them?”

  “If I want to know something, I look it up somewhere. The internet, a book, whatever. There’s information out there everywhere. I just don’t see packing your head with a bunch of crap you’re not ever going to need to know. I also learn better on my own rather than in a group setting. I’m a little bit anti-social,” he said.

  “No! I would have never guessed,” in a mock, shocked tone.

  “I know,” he said with a smile, “Shocking. Especially considering you spent…how much time at my house over the years and I’m just now getting to know you?”

  “Right, most of the time when I was there I never saw you. Did you hide in your room?”

  “Nah, I usually wasn’t there,” he said. I hadn’t been interested then, but now I wondered where it was that he was at. He was only a few years older than us, and his parents always knew where Emma was. Maybe it was the male vs female thing. “You didn’t answer me though,” he said. “Did you like the fight?”

  “I actually did,” I said, honestly. “I didn’t think I would, but it was fun. I may not have liked it as much if you didn’t win.”

  “Good, thing I rarely lose,” he said with another cocky grin. “So you’ll come to another one sometime since you’ll be in town for a while?”

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” I told him. I liked the idea of spending more time with him.

  He looked far away all of a sudden. I just sat quietly and waited for him to come back. I figured he was thinking about Emma again. His eyes were sad as he said, “I’m going to win a title someday. I wish that Emma would have been here to see that.”

  I wanted to touch him, and comfort him but that felt weird so I said, “I like to think that there is an afterlife so that I can imagine her looking down on us.”

  “I hope so,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced of it. He seemed to physically shake himself, like trying to shake off the bad thoughts and then he said, “You want another beer?”

  I really knew I should say no, but I heard myself say, “Sure.” What I wanted was to just keep finding reasons to stay here with him. Another beer was good enough for now.

  He went and got them and when he came back he acted like he had never brought Emma up and instead he said, “I guess I was a handful to my parents. I wasn’t a bad kid…but I just always hated following the same rules that everyone else did. I imagine that would drive a parent a little bit crazy.”

  “It seems like you have a good relationship with them now,” I said.

  “Yeah, we have a decent relationship. Mostly, it was because no matter how headstrong and annoying I was, they never gave up on me. What about you? What kind of relationship do you have with yours?”

  “Well need a few more beers for that conversation,” I told him. Talking about my family was one of the things I liked to do the least. Thankfully, he laughed and said, “Alright, we’ll leave that alone for now. You want to watch a movie?”

  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  “What kind of movies do you like?”

  “I like just about everything,” I told him. “Whatever you want is fine.”

  Ian got up to put on the movie and I had a minute while he wasn’t looking to study him. He wasn’t just nice looking, he was gorgeous. I had a hard time believing that when I was going through puberty I’d never really noticed him. I went through a time there when I could almost smell a hot guy. He really must not have been around much.

  He put on some mindless comedy and went and brought back two more beers before he sat down. I had only drunk half of the one I already had…so I downed the rest. I was already starting to get a light buzz and it felt good. Everything about being here with him felt good and I had felt bad for so long that I didn’t want this to end.

  We watched the movie quietly for a while each of us sitting on our own little couch cushion. It was a small couch so we were still pretty much side by side, but not touching at all. There was a pretty graphic sex scene at one part in the movie and I found myself trying not to look directly at it. I was already feeling hot and flushed sitting this close to this hot guy…and maybe the three beers had something to do with it as well, I don’t know. I wondered what he was thinking. Was he attracted to me at all? He answered my question a few seconds later. I felt his right arm go around me and pull me into his side. Suddenly I was on his cushion. My arm and leg were pressing into his warm, hard body and I settled back into him and enjoyed the sensations it was sending rushing through me. I didn’t let myself over think this, I simply told myself that it was okay because this is as far as it was going to go. We both needed someone to lean on right now, and I think that Emma would be really glad we found each other. So far, I was.

  Ian finished his beer and leaned forward to sit the bottle down on the coffee table. When he did, he didn’t take his arm off of me, he just kind of took me with him. As we leaned back into the couch in one swift motion, I felt his full lips glide across mine. For a second, I thought I’d imagined it, but a second later he put his fingers under my chin and tilted my face up towards his. He had something new in his pretty blue eyes now and it looked like desire. “I wanna kiss you, Alexa. Is that okay?”

  How the hell could I say no to that, especially since I really wanted to kiss him back. I nodded, speechless at the moment and as soon as I did, his lips were covering mine again and I felt the warm wetness of his tongue as it slipped between my lips and into my mouth. The hand that had been holding my face dropped to my waist and now he was holding me against him with both arms. He alternated between letting his tongue explore my mouth and pulling it out and letting it trace the outline of my lips. The hand that had been resting on my hip was moving now, sliding up slowly…giving me time to say that I don’t think this is a good idea. I didn’t say that. I couldn’t think of a reason in the world at that moment why we should stop what we were doing. When his hand reached my breast and began tracing the outline of my growing nipple through my shirt and bra, any resolve to stop things I may have had was gone.

  We kissed like that for a really long time while his magic hands went from one of my nipples to the other and eventually slipped underneath my shirt and made its way up over my belly and underneath my bra. The feel of his warm hand against my skin was electric and when he cupped my breast and started rolling and pinching my nipple, I felt my insides turn into Jell-O. I also moaned out loud, against his mouth. I felt him smile at that. I could tell that he was enjoying the fact that his touch was turning me on.

  His lips even
tually left mine and began sliding along the curve of my jaw until they found my neck. He licked his way down further until he found the flesh near the top of my shoulder and he took that in between his lips and began to suck on it. Every once in a while I would feel his teeth scrape gently across it and my whole body would quiver. The whole time, his hand hadn’t left my breasts and the alternating sensations were about to drive me crazy. I wasn’t sure it could get any better until I felt him lifting up my t-shirt and pushing it out of his way so that his mouth could take the place of his hand on by breasts and nipples.

  The feeling of his teeth suddenly taking hold of one of my nipples nearly sent me through the roof and sent an intense rush of wetness down below. I hadn’t ever experienced that fine line between pain and pleasure before…now I got it. I reached down and pulled my shirt up higher, out of his way…he pushed further and I knew he wanted me to take it off. I pulled it over my head and tossed it to the floor and he pulled my bra off and did the same with it. He looked up at my face then, I couldn’t decipher the look in his eyes. I think he was trying to make sure that it was still okay for him to go on. It was definitely okay and the look on my own face must have told him so. While he was still looking up at me he smiled and clamped down on a nipple. I moaned in outright delight.

  While he sucked on that one, he reached up with his hand and grasped the other one. I reached down and wrapped a hand up in his thick black hair and urged him on. He sucked on the nipple and then he opened his mouth wider and sucked in one whole tit. It was an incredible feeling as his tongue continued to move the entire time. I was sure my jeans were soaked all the way through by now. I don’t think I’d ever been so wet. I know that I had never wanted any one so badly.

  He seemed to enjoy the fact that I was watching him as he sucked them. Each time I closed my eyes, he would stop until I opened them and then he’d take one in the palm of his hand and look into my eyes again as he raised it up to his mouth and closed his sweet lips around it. Then he would start sucking hard and I would have to close my eyes again because the stimulus was just too much. I was making noises, mewling noises like a cat in heat. It didn’t even sound like me. My nipples were on fire and swollen bigger and harder than I ever remembered them being. I wanted to scream, but I was holding that back…for now.