And yeah, I might hang around a few extra minutes sometimes, but that’s just good manners. Doesn’t mean anything.
It’s not that I don’t believe in love. I’ve just seen what it does to smart men—turns them into idiots with joint checking accounts and an unnatural interest in scented candles.
That was why the thing I had going with Tally Brown suited me.Nofeelings, just plain old sex. Friends with benefits I believed the title was and God damn it there were a lot of benefits. So many. I was pretty sure my dick needed overtime pay.
That was why getting out of her bed wasn’t easy. I was dog tired. Yep, that was exactly what it was. We’d agreed on no strings, which meant no staying over. No staring at her sleeping form in the faint moonlight that crept in through the shutters. We had rules and while I’d never been the best boy in the class, these were one set of rules I was abiding by. But the weight of her still pressed into the mattress, the outline of where she’d curled around me clear and sharp like a worn groove was the real reason it wasn’t easy. That and I was dog tired.
Easing out from beneath her warm sheets, careful not to wake her, the cool air hit me, but I stood there a beat longer, fingertips ghosting over the fabric like I could convince myself to stay. Instead, I collected my clothes from the hardwood floor and tiptoed into the bathroom. It was a nice bathroom, small but large enough to take a bath with an overhead shower. It was white porcelain with a deep teal tile and teal and bronze marbled countertop. Gunner had insisted on top quality fixtures when we’d built the two-roomed cabin for his second in command. Charlie, his previous assistant, had lived above the stables but when they were burned down in an arson attack he’d insisted that we build a separate abode. Thankfully, Charliehad already moved out of the stable’s apartment at the time of the fire, but it had still shaken Gunner up.
Tally’s bathroom was chaotic; cosmetics scattered like evidence of a beautiful crime. The porcelain sink edged with rings from coffee cups and abandoned jewelry. Just like her sheets, the air hung with the rich tones of jasmine and something darker, something earthier—the ghost of morning coffee and the lingering warmth of her soft skin. Even the mirror seemed to hold her reflection hostage, smeared with her fingerprints and faint traces of lipstick. Every damn surface whispered her name and told me everything I knew about her. She was intoxicating and wild. She was a damn hurricane, in every aspect and for me that was a positive bonus between the sheets.
Looking in the mirror, I pulled my shirt on, the buttons already fastened since I’d been too eager to undo them when I’d got there. I had a mark on my neck where Tally had bitten me. I hadn’t had a hickey since I was in high school but since I’d started this thing with her it seemed I was making up for lost time. If it wasn’t hickeys it was marks from her nails that were always painted, usually bright red or hot pink.
“I feel like I’ve been mauled,” I muttered, glad my collar covered it up.
Sneaking back into the main room I looked around the dim light for my boots. They were over by the door, the floor creaking as I padded over to them. Tally shifted in her sleep, mumbling something incomprehensible as she stretched her arm across the warm patch that I’d left behind. For a second, just a second, I felt a twist in my gut, like someone wringing out a wet cloth.
“Meatloaf is the devil,” I muttered to myself, because that was what it had to be.
Pulling on my boots, my eyes refused to leave the sleeping beauty in the bed. The moonlight caught on the curve of her bare shoulder that was scattered with freckles. Twenty one to be precise. That’s how often I’d looked at them when we were fucking, and I admit when she was sleeping too. Creeper you’re thinking. Not really, I didn’t sleep well in her bed, and I had to occupy myself somehow. Sure, I could get up and go back to the house and my own bed, but I had to make sure that everyone was asleep before I sneaked back in, didn’t I.
When she turned over, dragging my pillow with her, her wild and tangled hair spread out, a strand covering her face, something shifted behind my ribs with a thud. Her hand clenched the fabric like she was still holding onto me, the soft sound of her breath filled the space, steady and even and too far away from me. I almost reached out to move it, to touch the dark auburn waves, but I needed to get home. The sight of it, though, made my dick twitch. Usually, she wore it in two braids, or one long one that almost reached her ass, except when we were in bed. I always insisted that she wore it down so that I could tangle my fingers in it. Shaking the memory of earlier, me wrapping her hair around my hand while I fucked her from behind, I grabbed my jacket, also from the floor.
I told myself to walk away, taking just a few seconds longer than I should have to watch her, like maybe I’d left something behind.
“Night Brownie. You make it real hard to leave,” I whispered into the darkness, to the listening walls, to the part of myself that was already planning tomorrow’s excuse to come back. My gut clenched with the truth that I wasn’t ready to name. The fact that this wasn’t just hooking up anymore. This was me, drowning in three feet of water and calling it swimming. Shaking the thought away, I headed out of the door checking my phone. I was right on schedule. Same time every morning. Three hours was the sweet spot. Sneaking over at 23:15, sneaking home at 2:15, it was enough time for us both to get what we wanted, two or three times depending on how hard our days had been.
The cool air bit at my cheeks as I stepped off her porch. It should’ve felt like freedom. But mostly it felt like a goodbye I hadn’t agreed to yet. As my feet hit the crisp grass it was as if the roots and the earth had some sort of chemical reaction with my body. I literally felt grounded, like my soul was at one with the land. Our land, our earth that had seen generations of dreams and promises. It was home and as much as I needed a house of my own, it would only ever be on this land. The cornerstone of my soul.
My breath ghosting in the night air, I took one last look at Tally’s front door and started for the main house, the cold erasing the lingering warmth of her bed. October in Colorado was shifting toward winter and in the distance I could already see snow tipping the mountain peaks. Silver in the moonlight,just like our town name.
The new stables gleamed white against the landscape, their metal roof almost fluorescent in the moonlight. The soft nicker of a horse could be heard on the cool night breeze, an owl hooting in response. I breathed it all in, seeping the beauty of it into my veins.
The walk to the house carved a familiar path through my restlessness, three months of midnight assignations wearing down grass and resolve in equal measure. Forever a balm to my soul. A few minutes of peace in my mind. Just me and the inky blue sky, that Tally called the sapphire ocean, with the stars scattered like tiny boats across it, infinite and forgiving a vast expanse of promises that I wasn’t sure I was ready to make. The mountain air tasted of pine and the possibility of everything I’d run from and everything I might finally be ready to run toward. Each step on the land my family had carved gave me time to think. To beg for the courage to want what I already knew I needed. The tranquility that being with Tally brought me.
That was partly why we started. I’d noticed her way before things started between us but was trying to do the right thing and stay away. She worked with my brother, plus, Tally didn’t seem interested. She was focused and professional, so I just kind of fantasized about her from afar, then I had a really shit day. We’d lost a cow and her calf, our hay baler had packed up and to top it all my dad had sent me a letter from prison asking me to visit him. It had messed with my head, since I’d been considering the same thing, as I had questions. It was like the universe was playing tricks with me. That evening Lily asked me to bring a casserole over to Tally and when she opened the door, wearing nothing but a t-shirt that just about covered her ass, she’d kind of knocked me off my feet. When she then asked me why I looked like a wet weekend in winter, one thing led to another. When I got home later I’d lied, and I told Lily I’d skipped dinner to play cards at the bunkhouse, but the sneaky little grin on her face told me she might know differently.
Back in the present, I set off down the path, automatically stepping over the motion sensors that Gunner had installed since the arson fire of the stables. There was no need to light up the place like the Fourth of July and announce to everyone that I was doing the walk of shame.
Not that there was any shame in what we were doing. Hell, I’d spentmost of my life since I was seventeen perfecting the art of a clean getaway. I was doing Tally a favor, she got all the benefits of my considerable talents and none of the awkward morning after bullshit or questioning from my family.
The main house loomed ahead and as I skirted around to the back porch I was grateful to see it was in darkness. No one was up which suited me just fine, meaning I could get another couple of hours of sleep before I had to get up for the start of my day. I crept through the door with practiced stealth and slowly closed it behind me. The only sound was the nightly creaks of the house as wood expanded in the warmth.
“Checking fences or playing cards on a weeknight?”
I turned and groaned internally. Of all the people to be sitting at the kitchen island, lit up by her damn e-reader, it had to be Lily. Her emotional radar was sharper than a butcher’s knife.
“Insomnia,” I said smoothly. “What’s your excuse?”
“Billy’s back teeth are coming through. I just got him down again.” She nodded toward the playpen where my nephew was sleeping like he’d been tranquilized.
“Didn’t see him there.” I opened the fridge. “I’ll keep it quiet.”
“Don’t you dare drink from that bottle,” she warned. “I poured a glass this morning and there were pie crumbs in it.”
“Okay, first of all, that wasn’t me. You need to talk to your husband about his backwash problem.”
“He wouldn’t dare.”
