As I reached the window at the top of the stairs I paused and looked out over the property. In the distance I could just make out the dark shape of Tally’s cabin.
Was she still asleep? Had she woken to find me gone as she always did? Did she ever wish, even fleetingly, that I’d stayed? I shouldn’t care but I did. The woman who was supposed to be temporary had become permanent in ways that terrified me. She wasn’t just under my skin, she was rewiring my DNA.
“Get it together, Miller,” I muttered, turning away.
I wasn’t falling for Tally Brown. Falling meant I was admitting I was capable of more than being the good time Miller brother. The one who kept things light while the rest of them built their picture-perfect lives.
Yet, as I stripped down and climbed into my cold, empty bed, the scent of her still on my skin, I couldn’t help but wonder why the space beside me felt so conspicuously vacant if it was good sex and nothing more.
Chapter 2
Just Friends – First Time Flyers
Tally
Iwatched him go from the window, peeking through the shutters staring at his silhouette, long and lean against the pale light of the moon. An ethereal silver glow highlighting Wilder’s outline against the inky darkness of the night. Almost portrait-like.
He moved like he always did, easy and confident, like the world belonged to him and he was being more than generous letting us share it with him. Not before he did what he always did, and that was stand there longer than he’d ever admit, watching, just to make sure I was still safely inside.
“Stupid enticing man,” I muttered, unable to drag myself away.
I saw him shove his hands into his pockets as he avoided the security lights. Following the same path, he did every night that he slipped from my bed.
The navy blue sky above was readying to dim for dawn, the vastness of it making me feel small. A tiny spec of insignificance. This was my favorite time, the quiet before the chaos of the day. The stillness of the sapphire ocean above was calming.
I’d called it that once, a throwaway line, and now Wilder referred to it in the same way. For some reason that felt good, like something I’d said mattered.
Yet, why I cared I had no idea. We’d made it clear from the beginning. It wasn’t romance. It wasn’t forever. It was tension and timing and taking what we needed when we needed it.
“It’s just fucking sex, Tally,” I muttered to myself, padding back to my bed. The bed that was still warm from him, that still smelled of his spicy cologne. The bed where he took me to places that I’d never dreamed my body needed to be.
The sex was hard at times, it could be fire-y, his mouth was filthy, and we liked to experiment with different things. But it was never sweet and romantic. Never soft and slow. It was exactly what we needed, just like the first time.
I remember I’d had a bad day. The ranch had been chaotic. Some piece of machinery had packed up, again, so Gunner had to go play mechanic, swearing under his breath that it wasn’t his job.
Dream Maker refused every cue I gave him. Like the months of training we’d put in didn’t matter. Like he didn’t remember who I was or why we were doing this together.
One of the new stable hands dumped a bale of wet, moldy hay into a stall instead of the compost and I had to sort it. Again.
And when Gunner came back, already in a mood, he snapped at me for going over budget on a new training saddle. Like it was going to bankrupt the entire ranch.
He apologized later and bought me a ridiculously large strawberry meringue cake from town.
Even so, by the time I made it back to my cabin, my head was pounding, and my patience was paper-thin.
Then Wilder knocked on the door with a casserole from Lily, I asked him why he looked so miserable and that was it.
We hadn’t even made it to the bed that first time. He railed me against the wall, his mouth all heat and hard, his voice low with a deep rasp like he smoked a hundred cigarettes a day. Everything about him was pure and raw and what I needed to salve my soul to go with the hot bath that had eased my muscles.
He was good. I’d give him that. The best I’d ever had in fact. Not that I’d had lots, but enough to know Wilder Miller was extremely talented with his tongue and his dick. But he scratched an itch. That was all, because relationships were not in my future. Tried that, was treated like horse shit, and didn’t like it. My own fault for believing the golden tones and lies of a man who called sex ‘naughties’.
Pulling the covers around my chin, I wriggled around to get the warmth back into my body. I’d pulled an old band t-shirt on, but that sleepy coziness had gone. It was too early to get up, I had another three hours before I needed to get myself ready for work and if I didn’t use that time to sleep I’d feel like shit all day. Trying to relax my body didn’t bring that heaviness to my eyes that I needed. Thank God my phone was charging across the room, otherwise I’d reach for it and then get lost in the maze of videos of horse training and bare-chested cowboys doing synchronized gym exercises—shoot me, it was my new obsession, and I knew watching them I’d never fall back to sleep.
Instead, I reached for the book on my nightstand. It was a romance, at least it was supposed to be. I’d gotten it from the library, recommended by Dolres the librarian. It was a bit dry, literally, because there was no sex in it. After this one I wouldn’t be taking her recommendations again, a girl needed something to keep her occupied when a certain rancher wasn’t around.
After just two pages my eyes started to feel heavy, and I willed myself to sleep, because no matter how much I told myself it didn’t matter that he never stayed a part of me still listened for the sound of the door opening.
“Morning, Tally. Coffee on?”
