Chapter 27
27
His self-control can only be tested so far.
She finds the limit.
I thought visiting my mom’s grave on such a gloomy day would be too eerie, but it turns out the creek is just as creepy when dark clouds hover menacingly above it.
Peaceful creepy, though. Quiet, too. And cold, though that didn’t stop me from diving in. I figured the muggy threat of a summer storm would ward off the chill, but as I sit shivering, wet hair dripping down my back and my knees tucked to my chest as I try to get warm, it’s safe to assume I figured wrong.
Any minute now, I’ll shuck my damp underwear and t-shirt, and I’ll pull on some dry clothes. I’ll join a grazing Aster near the treeline and find some real shelter from the sporadic raindrops pelting the water, sending ripples across the still surface. I’ll start on the million things I have to do today—none of which include staring mindlessly into space, fretting about a man and a woman, and another man.
Any minute, but not this one.
When Aster whickers a greeting, I sigh. When I hear hoof-steps so heavy they could only belong to two horses on the ranch, I sigh again, because I know. Even before a huge body eases itself down beside me, close enough that the heat of it burns my side, I know.
Process of elimination—it’s hardly going to be Luna and Clyde tracking me down.
A steaming mug appears in my eyeline. I recognize the hand-painted ceramic from Lux’s kitchen cabinets, but it’s not her hand attached to the handle. I don’t say anything as I take the mug, the scent of my favorite tea blend wrapping around me. The combination of lemon verbena, honeysuckle, and calendula is strong, but not quite strong enough to overwhelm hay, dirt, and sweat.
Eau-de-cowboy , I think with a silent, weak laugh.
Surveying my beverage—and the matching one in Hunter’s grip—I exhale loudly. “How’d you even get these out here?”
I don’t see his mouth quirk, but I hear it in his voice. “Carefully.”
Picturing him straddling Gaia, cradling two mugs in one enormous hand, makes me smile too. Only fleetingly, though. It quickly evaporates when I remember our conversation yesterday, a conversation he’s probably here to reignite, to finish for good, and a quick flash of mortification chases the chill from my bones.
I’m sitting here in hardly more than my underwear, but yesterday is what I’m embarrassed about. The memory of me yelling at him is what’s twisting my gut. The gnawing awareness that something feels different—something’s different about him —is what I can’t help but focus on. He seems calm. Settled. Resigned . It’s a little foreboding, to be honest, and when he starts to speak, I brace.
But then he surprises me.
“Is Lux okay?”
The question of the day. Truthfully, I have no idea. I did intend to find out. When I got to the ranch this morning, I was even channeling my friend—I was ready for an interrogation, ready to pry for answers the way Lux is so good at doing.
And then I found her floating around like yesterday didn’t even happen, like nothing was the matter, like she hadn’t heard Everett James’ name and shrunk .
My attempts to ask the same thing Hunter just did were shut down. Every question, denied. Even my help, she flippantly dismissed, claimed she didn’t need me today, suggested I take Aster on a ride. Confused hurt brought me to the creek, and it’s kept me here for most of the morning, even as that brewing storm finally starts to break.
None of that is what Hunter asked. None of that I want to explain—nor do I want to discuss the outrageous theory niggling the back of my mind with someone other than Lux. So, I shrug. A non-answer, the same one I give when he asks what I’m doing out here.
Thinking would be the truth.
Hiding is a lot more accurate.
Setting my mug down, I rest my cheek on my kneecaps. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Lucky guess.” Fingertips, still warm from the residual heat of his own drink, graze my skin as Hunter tucks a wet strand of hair behind my ear. “Don’t think this is swimmin’ weather.”
The sentence ends weirdly. Too sharply. Like it was cut off a word too soon, and it makes a rock settle in my gut.
Inhaling cold air to soothe a sudden bout of nausea, I close my eyes. With one sense deprived, the others heighten, the palm on my nape becoming unignorable, the thumb tracing the curve of my neck inciting more goosebumps than the brisk dip in the creek did. I listen to the wind whispering through the trees, the clink of one ceramic handle hitting another, the rustle of fabric as Hunter shifts.
When something tickles my nose, I frown. I open my eyes, and the frown wilts before I can catch it, an instinctive smile blooming in its place because I can’t not smile. Not when there’s a flower an inch from my face, a single daisy that must’ve been plucked from the arrangement on the Jacksons’ windowsill.
“I’m tryin’ too, Caroline,” Hunter says quietly, twirling the flower between his fingers. “Tryin’ to look out for you. Tryin’ not to make shit worse, not to hurt your feelings. I don’t wanna fuck things up. I don’t wanna lose my friend. I don’t wanna not be there when you need me because you think you can’t call. That would—”
“—kill you?”
A fleeting smile is quick to morph into a serious, straight line as Hunter ducks until his forehead presses flush against mine. “I like you. I really fuckin’ like you. Don’t think I told you right before. Think you heard the other shit louder. So, I’m tellin’ you again; I like you. Kissin’ you wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t an accident. But it was unfair, and so was walkin’ away like I did. Sayin’ everything I said, assumin’ things.” He nudges me gently. “I’m tryin’, okay? Not doin’ a very good job, and I’m sorry about that, but I am.”
It’s the antithesis to yesterday. To my flustered, screeched confession. Hunter doesn’t ramble; he knows exactly what he’s saying, exactly what he’s admitting. He’s clear and concise and yet still, it’s not enough. It doesn’t set my mind at ease. It doesn’t eradicate my confusion—if anything, it adds to it. It makes me wonder what I’m supposed to do with all that, where we’re supposed to go from here.
But he’s trying . And I am nothing if not a girl who takes what she can get.
Breaking eye contact alleviates some of the pressure on my chest. I don’t move away though, and I feel his relief in the way his posture slumps, hear it in his long exhale, as I rest my head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry for yelling,” I whisper against the curve of his neck, feeling him shiver and shivering in return when he slips an arm around my waist. “Can we pretend that didn’t happen?”
“No way.” The fingers splayed across my hip pinch slightly. “I like you yellin’ at me. Like you being honest. Tellin’ me shit. Maybe you can do it some more. Over—”
At the first crack of thunder, we both jerk upright. What feels like only a second later, the sky opens and rain starts to fall, fat droplets that pelt us unrelentingly. We scramble to our feet, mine barely touching the ground before I’m all but carried to the horses, barely allowed time to haphazardly pull on my jeans before I’m lifted onto Aster’s back.
The storm descends so quickly, so ferociously, that I can barely see Hunter mounting Gaia through the thick sheets of rain. “I don’t think it’s safe to go back,” I have to yell over the racket.
I don’t hear Hunter swear so much as I guess he does, Gaia dancing in agitation beneath him. Squinting at the horizon, I see nothing, but I have an idea. Digging my heels in to start Aster forward, I pat Hunter’s shoulder on my way past. “Follow me. I know a place.”
By the time we make it to the building I just about remember how to get to and Hunter pries open the boarded-up entrance, we’re soaked to the bone. Wracked with uncontrollable shivers, we stumble inside, the sound of chattering teeth echoing around the empty building along with the horses’ indignant whinnies. Working quickly, I loop Aster’s lead rope around a barely standing beam and slide the saddle off her back, rooting through the bag attached until I find the horse blanket folded inside and throw it over her body.
Despite the state of our new surroundings, I sigh with relief. The dilapidated structure might have cracked walls and a holey roof, but it’s better than nothing. I truly can’t find it in me to care, not about the filthy ground, nor the threat of rodents and rattlesnakes, not with the chill of my sodden clothes making me shake.
I know I need to take them off—logically, I know that. I just can’t. Like, literally, I can’t. When I try to unbutton my jeans, my shaking hands won’t cooperate enough to grab the freaking tiny button. My top peels off easily, but the sports bra underneath is so skintight, sopping wet from the rain and my impromptu swim, there’s no way I’m getting it over my head by myself, and I’m not about to ask for help. Not when Hunter is already halfway to naked, shirtless and unzipping his jeans with ease, and I can barely look at him, let alone formulate a request to get me naked along with him.
This is a nightmare. An honest to God, bona fide nightmare. Trapped in this barn, this old freaking barn that I know for a damn fact harbors a few creatures I’d rather not think about and is all but falling apart at the seams, with two horses that smell like wet dogs and a naked man, while a thunderstorm rages outside.
A naked man I like , who knows I like him because I told him. Yelled it at him, actually, while lamenting over my past, unsuccessful relationship—my only relationship. And the naked man likes me too. And soon, I’ll also be naked, unless I want to risk hypothermia, which I’m not sure you can actually get in ninety-degree weather, but God knows if anyone can do it, it’s—
“What is this place?”
The internal rambling stops. Momentarily, my mind goes blank, everything chased from it as the dark hair sparsely covering a bulky torso dominates my stream of consciousness. I might gulp a little. I definitely gawk a lot—there’s just so much to gawk at. But in the grand scheme of things, I think I recover remarkably quickly.
Reluctantly meeting a smug, knowing gaze, I tell Hunter, “This is Hell.”
He quirks an amused, curious brow. “Hell?”
“We used to come here a lot.” Fifteen-year-old me loved coming here. I thought it was whimsical , with ivy climbing the walls, buttercups blooming in the random crops of grass sprouting from the ground. On sunny days, the cracked roof would let in haphazard streaks of sunlight, illuminating the dirt floating in the air so it looked like it was sparkling. Back then, Lux had a thing for fairytales, and she swore up and down this place was straight out of one of her books.
For a long, hot summer, it was our oasis. The Jacksons came here to escape their grandparents; I came to escape my dad. Our nickname for the place was born of irony, coined by Lux. Felt like heaven, looked like hell, that was the joke, and it’s still apt—years of neglect have taken even more of a toll, leaving it in even more of a state of disrepair, but it still holds that same element of… well, serenity .
As I stare at the rafters, I feel Hunter come up beside me. “Why’d you stop?”
“A family of rats moved in. And where there are rats…”
“There are rattlesnakes,” Hunter finishes.
“Plus,” I add, shrugging. “I fell through the loft floor and broke my ankle.”
There’s a long pause between Hunter’s last breath and his next. His heavy exhale has the force of a stiff wind, the sharp sound of him kissing his teeth like ringing in my ears. “You broke your ankle.”
I hum. “Jackson’s grandparents deemed it a safety hazard after that. Boarded it up and forbade us from coming back here.”
That guilt ate away at me for a long, long time. Because of my clumsiness, I robbed myself and my friends of a safe place. I spent the last few weeks of that summer trapped in my house, the boot on my foot making it impossible to cycle to the ranch and forcing me to listen to my dad’s drunken ramblings.
Pressure on the back of my head makes me frown, only explained when I feel breath on the nape of my neck and realize that it’s Hunter burying his face in my hair. “Jesus, Caroline.”
“What?”
He pulls away, circling around to stare down at me. “You told me about rats before you told me about fallin’ through a fuckin’ floor.”
I shift, the sharpness in his gaze making me uneasy. “So?”
“On a scale of important information, you rank rats before you seriously injurin’ yourself?”
A flush creeps up my neck. “They were pretty big rats. Mutant rats.”
The razor-like edge to his stare relents, but it’s still so intense I squirm, I have to look away, have to busy myself doing something else, but that something else is… well, stripping. And I can’t. Literally and metaphorically. My damn jeans won’t come off because my freaking hands won’t stop shaking, and the feeling of wet denim scratching my legs is seriously making me want to cry.
That urge, however, evaporates when far steadier hands bat mine away. When my grip on the top button of my jeans is replaced by someone else’s, with fingers far larger than mine yet they guide that miniscule piece of metal free with ease. They move to my zipper next, but pause for a gruff, “Okay?”
I… I nod. I barely hesitate. Because I need to be out of these wet clothes, of course. Not because that hand is making my stomach clench in a very good way. In a way I haven’t felt in so long, I almost forgot what it felt like—I almost can’t place it.
It takes less than a second to unzip me, but it feels longer. Maybe it is longer. Maybe Hunter really does take his time, and I don’t imagine things moving in slow motion. Maybe I don’t imagine the sharp intake of breath when my panties come into view either. Or the tug that drags my jeans down a little, exposes more of the peach-colored cotton beneath.
Hunter huffs. There’s movement in my peripheral, and I think if I looked up, I’d see him dragging a hand down his face. I’m about to confirm, but then he drops.
Into a crouch.
Eye-level with my panties.
But his eyes stay on my face, watching as he eases off my boots before peeling the clinging denim down my legs, deliberately slow in a way I don’t think has anything to do with the tight fit.
An eternity later, they’re a puddle around my ankles. Fingers wrap around a calf, lifting to guide my foot free, and I wobble. My hands go to his shoulder, one of his clamps around my thighs, and I stop breathing.
Hunter stops looking at me. Just for a second, his gaze drops to the scrap of fabric between my thighs, and I wonder why, today of all days, I chose to wear a skimpy thong that leaves nothing to the imagination. Breathing so deeply his nostrils flare, a red tint creeps up his neck, disappearing beneath his beard and flushing high across his cheekbones.
He stands abruptly. When he grunts, “Turn around,” I don’t even think about it. In a haze, I obey, not registering that I’m presenting my bare freaking ass until a hand lands so low on my hip, a calloused thumb grazes my buttcheek.
We both suck in a breath. We both hold it for a long, long time. But while my hands stay tightly fisted at my sides, one of his rises. Rubs the thin string of my thong between a thumb and a forefinger. Teases it higher until it sits above the curve of my hip bone, a pull I feel between my clenched thighs. Then, the touch is gone. Moving. Skating higher, smoothing over my ribs where a second hand joins it.
Fingers curl beneath the band of my bra, and Hunter asks again, “Okay?”
This time, I don’t give in quite as readily. When I hesitate, I feel the chest at my back expand and deflate before it disappears, a rush of muggy air replacing it. I start to turn around, stopping when something lands on my shoulder—a dry, clean t-shirt, I realize when I hold it up. Hunter’s, if the size is anything to go by.
“I’m not lookin’,” he reassures me, the words deep and strained. “Just takin’ it off. Then you can put this on.”
For a brief, silly moment, I contemplate what’s worse; taking what’s probably his only spare change of clothes and spending the next however many hours trapped with a shirtless Hunter, or me being the shirtless one. Thankfully, common sense kicks in.
With a quick nod, I let Hunter yank the sports bra over my head. I shiver as warm fingertips trace the length of my naked spine before disappearing, and I hurriedly pull on my borrowed shirt before the sight of my own damn nipples, hard for reasons far more complex than the temperature, sends me into cardiac arrest.
The full-body tremors making me quiver have nothing to do with the cold either. In fact, I’m not cold at all.
I’m hot. Very hot.
Bothered .
I turn around, shirt hem fisted between my white-knuckled fingers, and it gets worse. Because Hunter’s gaze drops to my chest. And I don’t quite cross my arms quickly enough.
Eyes slamming shut, he tilts his head back. Shakes it at the ceiling as he mutters something beneath his breath that sounds an awful lot like a curse, and my name. Scrunches his face like he’s in pain, and I don’t get it, not until I look down, planning to stare at the ground until it opens up and swallows me whole, but getting caught up on something else instead.
My mouth pops open, and God, I hate myself, but I think I gasp a little.
Oh .
“Caroline,” Hunter hisses. “Don’t do that.”
Don’t stare at the bulge in his pants—the big bulge that hints at a big something beneath it. Don’t do that. Okay. Yeah.
Easier said than done.
A groan makes my stomach clench. As do heavy-lidded eyes. And another low, drawn-out murmur of my name.
“Sorry.” I finally manage to pull my gaze away. “ God , I’m sorry.”
Hunter grunts. I swear, the air hikes up a couple dozen degrees as he slowly closes the distance between us. When a hand lands on my hip—my bare hip, beneath the t-shirt—I don’t have time to fret over the embarrassing noise I make, too busy gulping about the fingers that crook beneath my chin, tilt my head upwards. “Can’t look at me like that, Caroline.”
I gulp again.
“Lookin’ like you want somethin’.”
And again.
“Do you want somethin’, honey?”
I don’t think; I just do.
I kiss him.