14. Sable
CHAPTER 14
sable
H eath used the spare toothbrush in my very feminine bathroom—which I’d made so because I now lived alone.
He came into the bedroom naked and frowned when he saw I was in pajama shorts and a tank top.
“Get rid of those, Bambi,” he instructed.
The sex between us was good. Really good. But I didn’t want to presume that he wanted to fuck me every time we were together. I took my clothes off as I sat in bed, watching his eyes light up with arousal, his erection swelling.
“I love your tits,” he breathed. “Squeeze your nipples.”
I stroked my hands up onto my breasts and covered them and then did as he asked, moaning.
His hand went to his cock, and he stroked himself. “Yeah, like that. Are you wet, Bambi? ”
I licked my lips and nodded.
Sex had never been like this with Jack. It was all very rushed in the dark, and there wasn’t a lot of foreplay. I got off most of the time—he had the good sense to use a clitoral stimulator when we had sex. But for many years, he just wanted me pregnant and would save his sperm for when I was ovulating. That had been the worst part about trying to make a baby—the loss of intimacy. Before that, we weren’t breaking any records, but we’d had a healthy sex life.
With Heath, we’d spent three nights together in total. This would be the fourth. We’d made out a lot. In my office at the Wildflower because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. In his Jeep. My Leaf.
When we spent a night—we had sex a couple of times, once before we went to sleep and then when we woke up. Jack could go once a night, about twice or so a week. That was it. I always felt there was something wrong with me because I wanted sex so much more than he did. I knew that for me, letting someone inside my body was about trust—which wasn’t a surprise, considering my first sexual encounter had been recorded and shown to me. I’d overcome that and had a healthy sex drive, or at least that’s what I thought until Heath. Now, I knew that Jack and I hadn’t really had good sex—it had been fine ; what Heath and I did was amazing . I felt tremendously lucky, and I hoped that he felt that way too, and didn’t think I wasn’t living up to how good he had it with Alexa.
I nearly shook my head to remove the image of Heath with his ex. Now, that was dumb: thinking about your new man with his old wife.
“Where did you go, Bambi?” He pulled me out of my thoughts by climbing into bed and parting my thighs. “I’m gonna be offended that you’re able to get distracted when I’m with you.”
“Well, then, do something about it.” I challenged.
He pushed me onto my back and cocked an eyebrow. “Are you ticklish, Bambi?”
“Don’t you dare,” I cried out as his fingers found my waist.
I was laughing hard, and we were wrestling soon enough. I’d never had so much fun in bed, I thought as he entered me, surprising me.
“I think I need to keep my cock inside you to keep you in check, Bambi.” He began to thrust.
“Cocky much,” I managed to say on a whimper.
“Now, see, that’s just the kind of challenge I like.” He pulled out and flipped me over. “Hands on the headboard, babe.”
I did as he asked, and when he entered me, my back molded against his chest. I felt him deep inside me. “Sable, darlin’, do you know that sometimes I look at you and get so hard that it hurts if I don’t get inside of you?”
“Heath, harder.”
“You’ll take what I give you and how I give it to you,” he murmured, laughing softly. “But next time, I’ll let you ride me and set the pace.”
And he did precisely that, I remembered, grinning like a fool as I drove to the Wildflower the following day.
I didn’t care what the world thought because I was happy , sublimely so. I had a job I loved and a man…I was falling in love with. Yes, there was a good chance I’d get hurt because he had been clear from the start that this wasn’t a relationship. I understood. He was jaded after the end of his marriage—I knew precisely how that felt. But I hadn’t closed my heart. It was wide open, despite my past, because Heath was who he was. He cared. He was affectionate. He was romantic. He was… everything .
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way about my lover, I thought sardonically, as his ex walked into the Wildflower that evening, anger etched on her face.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered. Not tonight, I thought. The tavern was busy with tourists and locals.
The moment she walked in, it was like someone had turned the volume down. The tourists didn’t understand the significance of Alexa being in the Wildflower, but the locals did, and they were ready for the show that Alexa was stupidly going to provide.
“Casey, let Heath know,” I whispered.
Alexa was his problem. She wasn’t going to be mine.
Casey walked toward the kitchen, her phone in hand as she messaged, I hoped, Heath, letting him know to collect his angry former wife, who’d come into my place of work, guns blazing.
She was dressed to kill, wearing a cream-colored dress and heels that clicked against the wood floors as she made a beeline straight for me behind the bar. Her blonde hair was sleek and perfect, her face set in that controlled, icy expression I’d seen on her before. But her eyes—well, they burned.
“Are you serious right now, Sable?” she spat, her voice loud enough to cut through the noise.
Conversations faltered. Heads turned. I gripped the edge of the bar, trying to decide if I could talk her down or if I should brace for impact.
“Hello, Alexa. I’m afraid we don’t have room at the bar, but there may be a table open.” I looked around her as if trying to identify a place for her.
“I think there’s one in the back, Alexa. Let me take you,” Mackenna, our new server, said. As a local, she knew the potential for drama.
Alexa gave Mackenna a withering look and turned to me, stepping closer to the bar. I was glad to have the counter between us because her nails looked sharp. And it would be a damn pity for me to call the cops and charge her with assault if she raised a hand to me.
“Oh, don’t play innocent with me,” Alexa snapped. “You think I don’t know what’s going on? You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
Alexa was my age, so she probably wasn’t going through menopause, I thought almost viciously, a small part of me ready to rip into her, though I knew I couldn’t. This was my place of work; it would be disrespectful.
“Alexa, maybe we can go to my office and?—”
“You are nothing but a gold-digging homewrecker,” she barked.
I sighed. Okay, so this was going to take place in front of God, everyone who lived in Aspen, and tourists who would hopefully tell their friends, who would also come here to enjoy bison sliders and a catfight. How the fuck was this my life?
“Alexa, there’s no reason for us to have this conversation or any other where you speak to me the way you are.” I knew it was important to remain calm, so I did, though it wasn’t easy.
I had triggers, and a woman from my past who bullied me and yelled at me was taking me back.
Alexa laughed, bitter and sharp. “Poor little Sable. Always pretending like she’s the victim. You little slut?—"
“That’s enough,” I interrupted, my voice rising, but she wasn’t finished.
“—you think you can steal my man?” she hissed, her voice dripping with venom.
The room went dead silent. I could feel the heft of every single pair of eyes on me, and my stomach dropped. This was so much like high school, and even though I wasn’t that girl anymore, I could feel the remembered humiliation mixed with this new one. The logical part of me understood that this scene made Alexa look bad—I mean, sure, I was the homewrecking slut, but I wasn’t making a spectacle of myself.
“You think you can just waltz into my husband’s life?” Alexa continued, her voice trembling with rage. “You think you can replace me? Do you even realize what you’ve done to my daughter? To my family?”
“Alexa, I’m not having this conversation with you.” My voice was steady, not revealing the mess I was inside. “You need to leave. Now .”
She laughed again, but this time it sounded hollow. “Oh, I’m leaving, but consider yourself warned.” She spun on her heel. But before she walked out, she threw one last dagger over her shoulder. “I’m going to ruin your life.”
And with that, she was gone.
The silence stretched awkwardly and stiflingly before the conversations around the room started up again—quieter this time. I could feel the pitying glances and whispers already forming.
“The drinks you still have to pay for,” I said, adding levity to my voice, “but the show was free. We do this every Tuesday before trivia.”
Some people laughed awkwardly, others openly, and some didn’t at all.
I turned my back to the bar and gripped the counter, trying to steady my breathing. My hands shook, and I felt like I might shatter into a million pieces.
Casey came up beside me, her voice low. “Heath said he’s on his way.”
I nodded and looked at my phone, which was on mute. There were two missed calls from Heath and five messages. I went to my office as I called him.
“Hey, I’m on my?—”
“It’s okay. She’s gone.”
“What happened?”
“I’m sure all of Aspen and surrounding counties will have that news everywhere, and since I’m certain some people recorded that debacle, you’ll be able to see it.”
“Shit.” He sounded exasperated. “I’m sorry, Sable. You okay?”
I nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t. Not even close.
“You need to talk to your wife, Heath. She can’t come to my place of work and make a nuisance of herself.” I had started shaking with the force of adrenaline.
“Ex-wife, darlin’,” Heath corrected me, and I could feel his irritation. “You know this is out of my control, don’t you?”
What the hell did that mean?”
“But I’ll talk to her,” he added.
“Thank you.”
“Did you say or do anything to provoke her?”
What the fuck?
“No,” I replied tightly.
I heard his sigh. “She isn’t usually like this, Sable. Let me see what’s going on. Maybe we need to be careful and not flaunt our…us in front of her.”
My heart hammered at his words. Was he taking her side on this? She shows up here and insults me, and he’s wondering if I caused her to lose her shit and how I could mitigate future outbursts from her?
“Again, babe, I’m so sorry.” He sounded contrite. “I’m going to take care of this, alright?”
“Yeah. ”
“I’ll come around the Wildflower around closing time.”
I didn’t know how to feel about him right now. I was conflicted.
“I miss you when I sleep alone,” he murmured.
I melted like snow on a hot spring day. “I’ll see you later,” I breathed, hoping I was done with the dramatic program for the night.
But before Heath arrived, around closing time, Natasha Vikar showed up at the Wildflower.
There were only stragglers left, and as she sat on a barstool, I raised my hand. I was out of fucking patience. “If this is you stepping in to tell me to back off your brother-in-law, you need to take it up with him.”
She smiled sheepishly. “Not here to do that, Sable.”
“You want a drink?” I asked, my hands on the bar counter. I was raw and emotionally battered. And once again, I wondered if two orgasms a night, or maybe three, were worth it.
“I miss you when I sleep alone.”
Fucking hell! So, yeah, it was worth it because…damn it, because I liked Heath despite the crazy ex.
“I’ll have a finger of Basel Hayden.” She pointed to the bottle.
I poured her a finger.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
I was about to snap that I owned the freaking bar but realized this was her way of extending an olive branch. “Thanks.”
I poured myself a finger as well.
We raised our glasses and clinked them. Then, we took a sip and set our glasses down.
One of the last few patrons waved at me. “I’m just going to close him out,” I told Natasha.
Once all the last guests had left, it was just Natasha, Mackenna, and I.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to help finish up?” Mackenna asked, suspiciously examining Natasha.
“Go home, Mac.” I gave her a reassuring smile—my, it’s all good .
Mackenna left almost grudgingly. The people who I’d gotten to know in the past two months since I took over the Wildflower were, as they said, Team Sable. It was cute and comforting. I’d never had many friends—not the way I grew up—so it was special to have people at my back who supported me and didn’t want to leave me alone with Alexa’s sister.
“I heard what happened tonight with Alexa,” she began.
“I’m sure the whole town’s talking about it by now.” I tried to make it sound like a joke, but it came out weary.
“I’m not here to pile on, Sable. I’m here to apologize.”
That stopped me in my tracks.
“You didn’t make a scene in my bar, Natasha.”
She shook her head. “For…for what I did to you in high school.”
Now, there were things I thought would never happen—the Cubs would win the World Series, the Browns would make the Super Bowl, or Natasha Vikar would ever apologize to me.
“I’m not asking for forgiveness because I don’t deserve it. But I want to tell you that I’ve regretted what I did for years. For the rumors, the pranks, all of it. Alexa, Leslie, and I—we were awful to you. And then…then there was that tape.”
“Well, everyone famous has a sex tape,” I flippantly replied because I had no clue how to respond to her apologizing to me. Especially after her sister had proved she was still stuck in high school, and my reaction—though I didn’t show it—had been about as mature as if I were back there, too.
“I know my saying anything doesn’t erase what I did. It was horrible—I was so cruel. But I wanted you to know that I’m glad you and Heath are together.”
Were we together? I wasn’t sure what we were, especially after the conversation we just had, where he decided not to take my side right away.
“Heath’s a good man,” Natasha continued. “He deserves someone like you. And honestly? You deserve someone like him—strong and with integrity.”
I downed my whiskey. “Ah…I don’t know how to respond to any of this,” I admitted.
She smiled ruefully. “Give me a chance.”
“To do what?” I asked, confused.
“To be your friend.”
She was sincere, no doubt about it. “I don’t think so, Natasha.”
Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and I felt like a jerk.
“I…did you know that he was my first?” I asked.
She gasped. “No.”
“He was.” I pursed my lips to control my feelings and then added, “It took me years to get over it. Trust is not an easy thing for me.”
“That’s why I’m asking for a chance. I know you don’t trust me. But I’ll earn it.”
“Why? I mean…why do you want to be my friend?” This was all very strange and confusing.
“Because I think you’re a special person, Sable.” She looked around the tavern. “What you’ve done here and how you’ve turned your life around, despite the shit thrown your way through no fault of your own, is remarkable.”
Before I could digest her words and formulate a response, which, in all honesty, was going to take a while, the front door jiggled, and Heath walked in.