When she’s dressed in yesterday’s clothes and my shirt, we linger at the front door. I can’t stop touching her. My hand on her hip. My mouth on her jaw. Her neck. The spot below her ear that makes her shiver every time.
“I’ll swing by later.”
“You don’t have to…”
I smile. “Try to stop me.”
I slap her ass…feel it bounce under my palm, full and round and perfect through her thin shorts…and she yelps. Giggles. That sound going through my ribs like a blade.
“Now go before I drag you back to bed.”
She shakes her head, laughing. Walks to her SUV. Her hips swaying. Her braids bouncing against her back.
I lean against the doorframe and watch her drive away. Her taillights fading into the morning dust. The road going quiet.
Then I go back inside. Pour another coffee. Sit at the island that still smells like pancakes and her perfume. Look through the open bedroom door at the wrecked sheets, the dented pillows, where she slept curled against me.
My house doesn’t feel empty anymore.
I bring the coffee to my lips. And smile.
Because my woman just left. And she’s going to spend the whole day smelling like me.
Ten
Ina
I drive home with the dumbest grin on my face. It lasts about seven minutes. Somewhere between the Redding Ranch gates and the turnoff to our property, the grin dies. The warmth drains out. And that bitch in the back of my brain…the one who’s kept me alive through a shitty marriage and a shittier divorce…finally gets loud enough to drown out the butterflies.
He said permanently, Ina. Permanently. Name. Kids. The whole damn thing. You’ve known this man for three days. THREE. And you sat there crying into your pancakes like a fool.
I grip the steering wheel. I can still feel his rough thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand from the truck ride. The phantom touch won’t fade. Like he left his fingerprints on my skin.
And you let him see it. All of it. The tears, the soft parts, the needy, desperate parts you swore you’d never show anyone again. Remember what happened last time? Remember what Mark did with your soft parts? He weaponized them. Everysingle one. Threw them back in your face incourt,like they were evidence of your weakness.
My jaw tightens.
Beau’s not Mark.
Yeah? You thought Mark wasn’t Mark either. Not at the beginning. At the beginning he was sweet and sure and said all the right things too.
Fuck.
I pull into the driveway. Kill the engine. Sit there with my hands on the wheel, staring at the house I grew up in. The house I ran back to with my tail between my legs.
I’m still wearing Beau’s shirt under my clothes. I can feel the cotton against my stomach…soft, stretched wide from his massive shoulders, the neckline loose around my collarbone. And the smell. Cedar and leather and his warm, clean skin. It’s all over me. On my chest, in my hair, between my breasts where I pressed against him this morning while he told me he wanted me permanently.
I pull it off over my head. Fold it neat. Set it on the passenger seat. My hands linger on the fabric for a second too long. Then I go inside.
The shower is too hot, and I don’t care. I stand under the spray and try to scrub my brain back to normal. But the water runs over my body and all it does is wake up every place he touched. My neck…where his stubble scraped while he whispered filthy things against my throat, my tits…still sensitive, my nipples tightening under the water, remembering his full lips pulling, his tongue circling, the suction that I felt all the way to my clit. My belly…where his big, rough palm pressed flat while he was inside me, feeling himself move. Between my thighs…sore, swollen, tender. I can still feel the stretch of him. The impossible thickness. The way he filled me so completely that I forgot where I ended and he began.
I press my forehead against the tile and close my eyes. And there he is. His golden eyes burning into mine while he thrust inside me. His square jaw clenched. The vein pulsing in his thick neck. His massive shoulders flexing above me. His full lips parting as he groaned my name.
I turn the water to cold. It barely makes a dent. My body doesn’t want to forget him. It wants to marinate in him.
I throw myself into ranch work like my life depends on it.
Check on the pregnant heifer with Miguel. Go over the feed order twice. Fix a gate latch that’s been bugging me for weeks. Reorganize the tack room. Sweep the barn aisle. Then sweep it again because apparently I’ve lost my damn mind.
