Chasing The Wild (Crimson Ridge Book 1)

The snow is falling again, and my resolve is seconds from burning to ash.

As of this moment, I know the way Layla tastes and the tiny noises of pleasure she makes as I fuck her mouth with my tongue.

What I want is to learn every single sound she makes when she’s falling apart beneath me, and my cock is buried inside that sweet little cunt of hers.

Jesus. Fuck. Her scent is still on my fingers, and she’s consumed every single thought I’ve had since last night.

Everything moved so fast.

How the hell can I justify my actions? One minute I’m arguing with her about whether or not she’s still involved with my son, and the next minute I’m trying to rip her jeans off and eat her pussy till she screams.

What kind of a fucking father am I, if I can’t keep my hands off what doesn’t belong to me? Off my son’s girl?

Layla is the most stunning woman I’ve ever come across. Our connection goes beyond just being drawn to her magnetic pull on my body. Spending time enjoying her company is just so damn easy… and that might be the most terrifying part to all of this.

She’s also the only person I’ve ever felt such an intense attraction to. I’m insane for this girl. My dick is permanently hard whenever she’s around, and it’s becoming impossible to find reasons to remove myself from her presence twenty-four hours a day.

Especially when we’re in the depths of the longest, coldest nights of winter. When I’m battling myself at every turn because all the ways I want Layla is utter madness.

When all I really want to do is let myself into her room and give her the kind of goodnight kiss that lasts ‘til sunrise.

I brace myself on my knuckles. Staring at my craggy features in the bathroom mirror.

What the fuck does a pretty young thing like her see in a grumpy old asshole like me, anyway? I’ve got grays in my beard, and silver starting to streak a little on one temple. My hands are rough from working this goddamn ranch for thirty years, and my soul is in even worse shape.

She could have anything… and anyone in life.

Yet, the way she melted into me and wanted me last night was the most exquisite torture.

“You’re a real piece of shit, Wilder.” Glaring at my reflection, I wish I could punch myself in the jaw for being so reckless.

When I got home and saw the single line Kayce had emailed me, I just about got in the truck and took off back down to town, with my only plan being to kick his ass. Not because I care about the fact he’s not working or spends his time drinking or whatever the fuck it is he’s doing to waste his life. No, the reason I lost my shit was because I knew.

I knew if he didn’t return, if he wasn’t here, keeping my hands off Layla would be impossible. If I’m stuck up here buried in the snow with only her to tempt me every day, that’s going to be an enormous fucking problem.

At least if Kayce was around, I thought it would be ok. That I could make it through the next six weeks without my cock trying to get inside her at every opportunity.

Christ, I’m so fucked.

Before, it was just this unspoken thing between us, where we’d both fallen into a pattern, pretending we didn’t feel the attraction that day we met at the gas station.

I shoved that interaction in a box and tried to throw away the key the second I found out who she was and that she just so cruelly happened to be Kayce’s ex.

There wasn’t any other option. Because a father trying to make amends is not trying very fucking hard if he’s got his tongue down the throat of his son’s girlfriend. Even if she considers things long over between them, it’s obvious Kayce is still hung up on her.

Yet, here I am, spending most of my day imagining what her cunt tastes like.

I stab my fingers into my hair and look down. My cock is tenting my briefs just at the thought of Layla, as per goddamn usual. If I don’t take care of this, it is only going to make for an extremely awkward day ahead.

Not to mention we’ve got the bonfire tonight, which means that between the annual winter round up of the cattle happening today, the BBQ I’m set to host later on, the ranch is going to be swarming with pricks sniffing around the property all day and night.

My teeth grind, as I shove off the sink. Flipping the shower on and stepping out of my briefs. There’s already a dark patch on the navy-blue cotton where my dick has been leaking.

I step under the spray and rest a forearm up against the tiled wall. My other hand pumps some body wash from the bottle on the recessed shelf and I wrap my fist around my rigid length.

My eyes squeeze shut as I stroke myself from root to tip. It’s a well-trodden path I’m on, one that is coated in the dark shame that comes with knowing I’m fantasizing about a girl far too young for me.

The whole time my fist slides up and down my cock, all I see is Layla on her knees between my thighs.

She’s looking up at me with those big doe eyes of hers glowing with the shades of green the forest turns in spring.

Her pouty little mouth is right there, and as I collar her slender neck, she darts her tongue out to lick at my tip.

My chest tightens, and my dick jerks in my hand.

As my grip works up and down, it’s her lips that struggle to close around me, but she’s determined to take every inch. Her tongue glides, swirls, traces underneath my length.

She’s such a good fucking girl for me, taking me deeper and deeper, until I’m tapping the back of her throat as she swallows around my tip. I squeeze and massage her throat each time and feel her moan with pleasure beneath my palm.

I’m pumping faster. Tingling builds low in my spine. My stomach clenches, and the vision I have of her is so visceral as she bobs up and down. I even watch, entirely captivated, as her cheeks hollow.

My balls tighten.

Holy fuck.

My hand strokes harder, my release loading, her soft moans still ringing in my ears from last night, as if she’s right here in the shower with me. She looks so pretty, taking all of me. Hums around my length. Sucks me harder, and all I can imagine is the sight of filling all her holes, leaving no part of her unclaimed.

The filthiness of that image, of my release spilling out after fucking her bare, is what finally does me in.

A grunt bursts out of my chest, and thick ropes of cum shoot forward to paint the tiles in front of me as my cock jerks with the force of my climax.

I feel like I just ran a mile. My head spins, heart thunders, it’s too good and almost too much at the same time.

Apparently, my self-restraint is non-existent, because even though I collect myself and hose the streaks of evidence pointing to my shameful obsession off the shower wall, I can already sense that it’s not enough to satisfy my interest. It’s bad enough that she’s technically my employee, and here I am, forty-two years old, acting like a horny teenager.

This shit has got to end.

Throwing the extra layer of her past with my son into the mix makes me feel like a real asshole considering the depraved sorts of ideas occupying my mind.

Dangerous goddamn ideas that I’ve never experienced in my entire life, but when it comes to Layla, they’ve risen to the surface unbidden.

As much as I don’t want to, I have to face reality today. The spillover of me losing control like I did last night makes resignation sit heavy in my gut, knowing that I’m going to have to put in a really big fucking apology. Most of the early hours of this morning were spent laying awake worrying that she was going to have disappeared under the cover of darkness. Lying in bed, my hearing was attuned to every goddamn creak in the house—could have sworn the front door clicked shut about three times.

I wouldn’t have blamed her. Seeing the crushed look on her face as soon as I stopped things between us was nearly enough to have me going back on my word. I’d rather stab myself in the eye than be the person who causes her to have tears in hers again. She deserves so much goddamn better.

Better than I can offer her.

And that’s the entire dilemma I’m in… I want her to have the moon and the stars and the sun itself, but I don’t want anyone else to be the one giving it to her because I am a selfish, old bastard.

When it comes to Layla, it turns out I’m possessive as all hell and barely keeping that side of me on a leash. That girl would flee this mountain and never return if she knew the messed up way I can’t stand the thought of anyone else even looking at her… the ways I can’t stop myself from fantasizing about claiming her.

Which only reminds me of the shit show that today is likely to be, not to mention tonight.

Any minute now, there will be a bunch of randy bastards crawling all over my ranch. Most of them are good kids at heart, but they are all at an age where they have nothing better to do than chase after something pretty. Putting the girl currently under my roof and my care, firmly as the cherry on top of Devil’s Peak.

My fingers itch with the need to shove the barrel of my shotgun between their teeth until they get the picture.

None of them are going to lay a fucking hand on her, or I’ll cut them off and send them down the mountain bleeding out.

I’ve barely got my jeans belted and my shirt buttoned when I hear noise coming from outside.

Trucks pull into my yard, and the tightness in my chest strangles me like a vise. Looks like this morning, I’m going to have threatened half the mountain with murder before I’ve even had my coffee.