The Last Virgin in Texas Read online

  I cover her mouth with mine, sliding my tongue between her lips when she parts them. I swear to God I will never get tired of the taste of this woman. No matter what happens, as long as I can get back to her, as long as I have her kiss to come home to, I know it’s all going to be alright.

  She rakes her nails down my chest, then dips her fingers into my waistband, unbuttoning my pants.

  “Fuck, Gretchen, I love it when you do that.”

  As she tugs down the zipper, she dips her hand in my shorts and strokes my cock.

  “Do what?” She bats her eyelashes. She’s being coy. You’d think it was her that made a living acting, not me.

  “When you know what you want, and you tell me…or better yet, you just take it.”

  She bites my jaw, then trails her tongue down my throat. “What I want right now is for my husband to be naked.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I step back and slide out of my pants and shorts. “You’re behind, Mrs. Kane. I need you to lose that dress, sweetheart.”

  She pulls the flowery dress over her head and makes short work of the bra. Before she can get to her panties, I’m on my knees in front of her, pressing kisses to her belly as I slide her panties down to the floor.

  “Since you seem to be in the mood to give direction, tell me what you want, Gretchen.”

  She presses her palm to the side of my face softly, and looks down at me. “I want that million-dollar face between my thighs, for a start.” Her cheeks still turn a soft shade of pink when she says it, and I love that about her.

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart.” I lean forward and throw her over my shoulder, depositing her back on the bed.

  She backs up until she’s leaning against the headboard, and I raise my brow in question.

  “I wanna watch you.”

  I grin and pull on her ankles until she’s on her back on the bed. Her eyes are locked on me. “Baby, I told you this was the perfect place for us to spend some time together.” I point to the ceiling and she looks up at the mirrored tile above the bed.

  “Oh, my God!” She covers her mouth with her hand as she lets out a laugh. “I didn’t know that was a real thing.” Then, her eyes narrow and she presses her palm to my chest. “Have you brought other women here?”

  “Well, technically. I’ve spent a lot of time in this bed on my own, as a matter of fact. I used to bring Marissa here and she’d slip out and meet Willa next door.”

  “Oh.” She grins. “I guess that’s alright then.”

  I kiss her throat, and slide down to capture her nipple between my lips. She’s too short to reach down and touch me while I lathe and suck, so she runs her fingers through my hair, which I fucking love. As she presses me closer, she slides her leg against my cock, and I pull away.

  “Can’t do that, Gretchen, or I won’t be able to do what you wanted.” She juts out her bottom lip, as I kiss my way down her belly.

  “Did you want me to kiss you here?” I press my lips to the inside of her thigh. “Or was it here?” I kiss the top of her leg.

  “Tucker, please.”

  “Was it here?” I press a kiss to her bare flesh just above the spot she craves.

  “Tucker…”

  She can’t finish the thought. I press my mouth to her seam and slide my tongue between her lips.

  “Mm,” she moans.

  “Fuck you taste good, baby.” I slide my tongue up and down, kissing and tasting and devouring all of her.

  She’s writhing beneath me, and when I look up at her, she’s staring up at the mirror, watching me, watching herself. Her hands knead her breasts, her fingers sliding around stiff nipples as she rocks her hips to move against my mouth. She’s so comfortable in her own skin, and it makes her even more beautiful.

  I can’t wait anymore. I move, peppering kisses up her body until I reach her lips. I move between her legs, and just as I’m about to press forward, she stops me, pressing her palms to my chest.

  “Wait,” she presses her palms, pushing me away. “Lay back.”

  She gives me a devilish little grin as she wraps her hand around my cock, and slowly lowers herself down onto me.

  I grab her hips and sit up, rocking back and up as I guide her hips. She arches her back and slides back and forth, meeting me thrust for thrust.

  “Tuck…it’s so good…so fucking good.”

  “Perfect, baby. You’re perfect.”

  Her head goes back and when she remembers the mirror is on the ceiling, she pushes on my chest and leans back. “That’s so hot.”

  She grinds against me until she starts to climb so high that she loses her rhythm. I lean up and pull her to me, rolling her over. “You with me, sweetheart?”

  “So close,” she breathes the words as scrapes her nails across the stubble on my jaw. I press deeper, move faster, until we’re coming together.

  I’m cradling her in my arms, enjoying the warmth of her body against mine, and it’s everything I ever wanted.

  “Tucker?”

  “Hm?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Gretchen.”

  “I should’ve said it back, that first night.”

  “That’s in the past, now, baby. We’re right where we’re supposed to be now.”

  “I know, it’s just…I wanted you to know. I was just in shock, that night. You’d never said it before, and I froze. I just wanted to be sure you know it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you fifty years from now.”

  “Remember that because I plan on being a dirty old man.”

  I feel her laugh roll through her body. “As long as you’re just dirty for me.”

  “Deal.”

  “I’m glad, ya know? That I waited. I didn’t even know I was waiting for you, but I was.”

  “I promise you, Gretchen…I’ll never make you wait again.”

  About the Author

  Jennifer Woodhull is an author of romance with lots of wit, sexy heat, and plenty of heart. She is known for writing immersive settings that take readers to a wide variety of locales around the world. Her heroines are funny, strong, make bad decisions, and get in their own way sometimes before finding their path to happiness. Her heroes are driven, funny, sweet, and sometimes complicated.

  Jennifer lives in Tennessee with her real life book boyfriend and their yellow lab, who can be more persuasive than any roguish hero when he's after a snack.

  A lover of travel, Jennifer has been known to plot novels and write pages of dialogue on her phone from planes, trains, and automobiles (though not while driving, because safety first).

  Visit Jennifer online at

  www.jenniferwoodhull.om

  A special spin-off of this book, featuring Maisie and Dodger’s story is available to subscribers to my mailing list of free.

  Click here to get your copy of The Biggest Heart in Texas.

  Also By Jennifer Woodhull

  For title information and a link to read the opening chapters online visit www.jenniferwoodhull.com

  Turn the page for a 2-chapter preview of The Dating Alternative, a sexy, friends-with-benefits-to-lovers romance.

  The Dating Alternative - Chapter 1

  It’s a weeknight and I am home mercifully early from my job as a coal miner. Okay, not technically a coal miner. A first tier accountant. It’s the most entry level of positions. I am a commoner. A pleb. The lowest of the low.

  However, I’m the lowest of the low at the best accounting firm in town. I went to work for Latham and Steele three years ago. It was only my second professional job. Teague, Sampson, and Bray had hired me right out of college. I worked there for four years, working my way up to an accountant slot. When a recruiter with Latham and Steele reached out, I was thrilled for the opportunity.

  We were in the middle of a huge merger which was taking its toll on everyone from both a workload and cultural standpoint, so when the recruiter called offering better pay and benefits, I started packing
my desk before we even hung up the phone. Had I known I’d end up three years later, still in an entry-level role and working for Jacqueline, a boss so bad that she makes Cruella DeVille look like a kinder, gentler version of Mother Theresa by comparison, I’d have taken a beat before leaving TSB for two extra points of 401k match and an extra three sick days per year.

  On this particular evening, though, guess how many fucks I give about Jacqueline the jackass and her derisive comments? Zero. Instead, I am blasting nineties rock through my earbuds, and dancing around the house in my Hoosiers sweatshirt as I tidy up. Chelsea, the missing musketeer in my little gang of three, has been out of town for weeks, and she’s back on Friday. When we get together, we are going to drink copious amounts of liquor while she regales us with tales of her conquests in foreign lands. Considering my own nonexistent sex life, I am unashamedly living vicariously through her and Cate, the two best friends I’ve ever had.

  I sashay into my bedroom and pull open the top drawer of the dresser with one hand, holding the laundry basket against my hip with the other. Dipping a hand into the basket, I grab a stack of beige and white cotton panties and place them in the drawer. The drawer is only half-full. The good lingerie, those colorful pieces a woman keeps in her wardrobe for date nights and special occasions, have long since been discarded. They were tainted. Damaged goods. They had to go.

  As I put away a stack of the sensible flesh-colored t-shirt bras I’ve accumulated over the past several months, from the back of the second drawer, a dash of color catches my eye. I set the basket down, and stare at the piece of fabric.

  It’s a t-shirt. A simple t-shirt, but at the same time, a complex object. A reminder of crispy bacon on lazy Sunday mornings, and two-for-one margaritas on Thursday nights; of singing along at the top of our lungs to the radio, and nights spent wrapped in each other’s arms.

  I don’t want to pick it up, but I can’t stop myself. Before I know it, I have the soft piece of bright blue cotton in my hands. I pull off my sweatshirt and slip the t-shirt over my head. Looking in the mirror, the garment is three sizes too big as it hangs from my narrow frame. PUNTA CANA, is emblazoned across the front. I trace the crackled white ink with my fingers. Fuck, that feels like a lifetime ago.

  Walking over to the bed, I lay down. The mattress is only a few months old, but the bed itself is the same one I shared with my fiancé.

  It’s clear that it has been washed, this discarded relic of Grant’s life with me, but it still smells like him. Closing my eyes, the trip to the island comes back in vivid detail. The heat of the sun bouncing off the powdery white sand, the thrill of seeing dolphins leaping from the water in the distance and nights spent in each other’s arms, looking up at the stars.

  Grant had surprised me by proposing on the second night of the trip as we walk along the beach after dinner. He asked me to be his, and promised me forever. I says yes and we were happy. That was before he met her.

  On one of the nights when I had been working late, or maybe I had been studying for my CPA exams, he went out with his usual motley crew of beer-drinking buddies to their favorite local bar to watch basketball. It was probably a night like any other night. Isn’t that the way sometimes, though? Big changes sometimes come on a whisper, not with a scream.

  Through the lens of hindsight, I realized that it was after that night out with the boys that things had begun to change. It was subtle at first. He wasn’t as disappointed when I couldn’t make it to Margarita Thursday because we were too busy at the office. He started running again, saying he wanted to get in better shape for the wedding.

  Worst of all, though, he seemed, suddenly and without any explanation, somehow happier. I vainly thought it was because of our upcoming wedding. I told myself he was just happy for us to begin our married life together. I was so wrong.

  I blindly continued with our wedding plans, hiring caterers and putting deposits on venues. He was working longer hours than usual, but with a job in sales, I assumed he was just hustling – trying to earn more to help pay for the upcoming expenses.

  Eventually, everything had come together, and we were just three weeks away from the big day. I would be Mrs. Grant Nolan. It felt like everything was clicking into place – it was the inevitable happily ever after, and it was going to come true. I was so focused on the last-minute wedding details, and studying for my upcoming exams, I didn’t see it. I didn’t see any of it coming.

  It was a Wednesday night, when Grant came home from the office a little later than expected.

  “Hi,” I says. “So, should I do those steaks for dinner?” I asked, glancing up from the scattering of study materials and laptop on the dining table as he walk in.

  “No…yes…I don’t care. I won’t be here.” He says, matter-of-factly. He seemed agitated, almost manic with energy.

  “Oh? Do you have to go back to the office?” I asked, taking my glasses off and focusing my attention on my fiancé who stood before me nearly bouncing off the walls.

  “No, no. I, um, I’m leaving.” He nodded once and headed for the bedroom.

  “What do you mean, you’re…,” I followed him, asking the question, and as I turned the corner into the bedroom, I saw that he had the suitcase, the big blue one, on the bed. He was pulling stacks of clothes out of the closet and throwing them into it.

  “Grant?” His name was a question, to which he didn’t respond. “Grant! What the hell? What’s going on?” I raised my voice to near a yell.

  “Hmm? Oh. I’m leaving. We’re done. I’m moving out. Tonight. I’ll get what I can and be back for the rest in a few days.” He nodded again and put his hands briefly on his hips as if he were considering the contents of his suitcase. Then, he went to the dresser and pulled out socks, t-shirts, and underwear, shoving them on top of the dress clothes and jeans that were already packed.

  “Wait, what? What do you mean you’re leaving? Where are you going?” I couldn’t process any of it. I am a logical person, and what was happening at that moment simply did not compute.

  “Oh,” he stopped briefly, as if it had suddenly occurred to him that an explanation of some kind might be in order. “I’ve met someone, Brie. I’m moving out.”

  I looked at him, certain I hadn’t heard him right. He looked back at me, and he was grinning. The bastard was packing his shit, three weeks before our wedding day, leaving me, and he was actually grinning.

  “What the hell, Grant? How can you have met someone? You’re engaged…to me!” I crossed my arms and shook my head, certain this was all some stupid prank his idiot friends had put him up to.

  “Yeah, it’s a crazy story, actually,” he half-chuckled, putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head. “I was out with the guys about a month ago, and Pete brought his girlfriend, which we thought was a real drag, but she had her cousin with her. Isabel. Anyway, we started talking, and then I ran into her again a few days later, and we just really hit it off. She’s just…Brie, she’s just something else. I mean, she speaks three languages, and she’s in law school…she’s been to twenty-three countries…she’s an Olympian! A fucking Olympian! Can you believe that shit? She’s just un-real.” He shook his head.

  He was giddy. My fiancé was telling me about the woman he was leaving me for, three weeks before our wedding, and was bragging about how great his new girlfriend was like we were bros.

  “Are you high right now? What the fuck, Grant? You can’t date! You’re engaged! Have you lost your fucking mind?” I shook my head incredulously. The whole thing was surreal. I could feel a clammy sweat creeping over my skin, heat rose in my throat, and my stomach lurched. I fought the urge to be sick.

  “Brie, this was fate. Listen, you’re great, and you’re going to find somebody else. You’re gonna find a hedge fund guy or a statistics professor or, fuck, I don’t know, but somebody great. You’ll settle down in the little house with the white picket fence and a 401k and have a great life. But this thing with me and Isabel, this is…I mean, when I met her�
�,” he stopped fussing with his clothes and step toward me, extending his fingers, his palms facing each other like he was grasping a basketball.

  “This thing with Isabel is like lightning in a fucking bottle! You and me, we had a good run, you know? And you’re great, but Isabel…she makes me feel alive. I mean, like, really alive, you know? We’re going to Thailand next month!” He shrugged, smiling broadly, and rolled his eyes, as if in disbelief of his good luck.

  “What am I supposed to do, Grant? What am I supposed to tell our family? All our guests? Our wedding is three weeks away! What about all the deposits we put down? You’re going to fuck off with some girl you just met, and I’m supposed to just pick up the pieces? Take care of all the shit on my own? What about me, Grant?!” Tears streamed down my face, burning as they cut across the heat of my skin.

  “Brie, babe,” he put his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me with an expression that was somewhere between resolve and pity, “You’ll figure it out. This is the sort of thing you’re good at. Details…that’s your wheelhouse, babe. You’re a planner and that’s great, but I finally figured out, that’s not the life for me.”

  He went to kiss me on top of the head and I flattened both palms against his chest, shoving him back. “Get the fuck out!” I screamed. “Get out of my sight!”

  “I’m going. I’ll text you about coming back for the rest.” He latched the suitcase and walk toward the bedroom door, turning briefly to say, “Keep the ring. Sell it, or whatever. Use the money for some of those deposits. You always figure things out…always know what to do. You’ll be fine. Goodbye, Brie.”

  I stood in the bedroom, jaw and fists clenched, vibrating with fury. When I heard the front door click shut, the anger vanished like a puff of smoke, replaced with a wave of fear and emptiness the likes of which I’d never experienced before. I collapsed onto the bed, the bed that I had shared with Grant just the night before and sobbed myself to sleep.