Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Gideon
Something about today had felt heavy from the beginning. Now Autumn had hit me where the center of my emotions churned. This damn marriage. How wonderful these two weeks had been. How fast the next two weeks would go.
And admitting that any guy would be lucky to have her pissed me the hell off. My vision tunneled to black and I wanted to smash every glass within reach.
I wasn’t sure she’d respond, but then she rolled her eyes and took a swig of her drink. “Funny how I date only the guys who disagree.”
“You’ve dated boys, rusty. A real man will know what he has. Just like a real man knows when he’d be a shit husband and an absentee father.”
She studied me. I regretted my choice of words. “Is that why you don’t want kids? You wouldn’t be around for them? ”
We’d go with that. “I know what it’s like. I can’t do that to a kid even if you swear you’re okay with not having me in the picture.”
“Because you’d know.”
I nodded. “There’s no way I can be a decent father when I’m in another state working twelve hours a day.”
She tilted her head, the hint of melancholy not leaving her gaze. “You’re a good man, Gideon James.”
My self-consciousness was unexpected. “I’m not.”
“You are,” she said in a singsong voice. “And I should say any woman would be lucky to have you, but I want to stab that bitch with this skewer.”
I laughed and all the tension drained away. “Now that that’s out of the way, tell me about your day.”
She didn’t roll her eyes, but she wrinkled her nose. Did she really think I wouldn’t be interested in her day? That I would think the work she did wasn’t important?
“The biggest drama of the week isn’t actually kid-related,” she said with a smirk. “It’s the mystery of who’s eating the break room yogurt.”
I cleaned up the mess I’d made while she told me about the stolen yogurt, the new playground equipment the school was hoping to buy, the different types of fundraisers they were doing to pay for it, and how she had one little girl in class who’d talked with a posh British accent for an entire day last week.
I loved hearing about all of it. I hung up the rags like I’d seen her do the other nights she closed. She packed up all the clean containers.
“I’ll get the lights and then we can go.” She disappeared into the back room to get her purse and coat. The room went dark, the only glow coming from the security lights in the main entry .
When she came out, I pulled her toward me. “I haven’t gotten a kiss yet.”
She tipped her head back. “I thought Mama’s fried chicken took priority.”
It was good fucking chicken. The best I’d ever had. All week, I’d eaten like a king, but no food was worth going another minute without tasting my wife.
“You thought wrong.” I took her coat and purse and tossed them on the counter so they weren’t between us. “I didn’t kiss you when I first arrived because I would’ve kept going and your sister was here.”
“What about now?”
“I don’t see anyone else.” I wasn’t gentle when I caught her mouth. I also wasn’t planning to stop at a kiss. After the heaviness of our earlier conversation, after the way this whole damn night had burrowed into my mind and whispered questions I couldn’t answer, I needed a release, and I couldn’t wait until I got her to the house.
One of those persistent questions popped into my head. Do you really think you can never have this in your life again?
The jumble of questions that had been daunting me for days poured in.
Isn’t farming and ranching in your bones?
Don’t you miss this? Won’t you miss it again?
Why don’t you want to stay?
Why can’t you be good at marriage?
I had to silence that unknown voice. Where the hell was it coming from?
I pressed her against the counter. She wouldn’t want me to strip her down. This was her family business and she prepped food at the bar. But I needed more. Everything was right with the world when she climaxed with my name on her lips.
I tore my mouth away and kissed a path down her neck. “I’m going to bend you over this counter.”
She arched into me. “Now?”
“I had to watch you eat those olives off the spear without jumping you. Yeah, right fucking now.” Wait—I hadn’t been working in an office all day. I’d been outside and on a horse. “Do you want me to shower first?”
“You smell like horse and fresh air. What kind of Montana girl would I be if that turned me off?”
She was so damn perfect. I spun her around. “Put your hands on the bar top.”
She did as I ordered and ground her ass into me. I yanked my wallet out and retrieved a condom. I was never unprepared around this woman.
I unzipped my jeans just as she shoved her pants down. Her shirt fell over her bare ass and I growled. “Quit hiding your butt, rusty. It’s a shame.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “There’s a lot of it.”
“Fuck yeah, there is.”
I didn’t plunge into her. As desperate as I was to get as much of her as I could before we went our separate ways, I couldn’t use her. She had to want this as bad as me. I circled my arm around her waist and tunneled a finger through her wet seam.
“You’re already soaked for me.” I ripped the condom open with my teeth and shook the wrapper off.
She wiggled her hips. “What are you going to do about it, cowboy?”
The guttural sound that left my mouth couldn’t be described. I’d been called a lot of things in my life. Labeling me a cowboy should have been absurd, but something about it set my world back on its axis.
Lust pounded through my veins. I wasn’t used to this, wanting to be fused with someone else so badly I rarely had a thought that didn’t include her. Could I just return to Vegas and go back to business as usual?
The question didn’t need an answer now.
Maybe you’re afraid of the answer.
Anchoring myself back in the moment, I thrummed her clit. Her body went liquid. She was all mine.
This lack of control was why the next two weeks would go by too fast, yet not quick enough. I had built a nice, controlled existence that no woman could threaten. Autumn dismantled my restraint with no effort at all.
I thrust into her. This was paradise. This was like finding an oasis when I’d been living in the desert for twenty-five years. What an accurate damn analogy.
“Fuck, Autumn. You’re fisting me so fucking tight.”
I was rougher than I’d meant to be, but she was strong, meeting me with each push, bracing herself and stabilizing us.
Another goddamn analogy I didn’t need. I planted my free hand next to hers. She was warm and wet and I could barely hold back my release.
Headlights swung into the parking lot.
She gasped and almost jerked away, but I held her tight.
“They can’t see us,” I rasped, not knowing if it was fucking true. I continued to pump into her.
“It might be one of my brothers.” She kept pushing back into me .
“Then you’d better explode quick, firecracker,” I growled.
The vehicle drove through the lot. Her gaze was on it, and so was mine. She was tightening around me, her walls fluttering. She was close. I licked the shell of her ear. “You’re such a good fucking girl. You’re going to do what I say and you’re going to come.”
She moaned and a rush of heat enveloped my hand.
“You’re going to come, and you’re going to shout my name.” I thrust hard and turned her face to the side. “Because I need to hear it.”
I would not leave this bar without her coming all over me. After telling her I would make a shitty husband, I would not walk out without us being spent and satisfied. After admitting I’d miss her, but I’d still leave her, I would follow through on this tryst.
The pickup was parking. Her breathing quickened.
“You’re my good little wife, aren’t you? You’re mine.”
“Yes!” Her walls rippled and her cry echoed off the walls.
I had to get one more cry from her. I angled my hips up and slammed into her while I ruthlessly stroked her clit.
“Gideon! Yes!”
Only then did I let the lightning bolt inside me loose. Energy coursed from the base of my spine and straight out of my cock. “Fuck!”
I had to grip her hips to keep myself upright as I emptied into her.
The headlights flashed off. Long before I was ready, I pulled out of Autumn. I tugged her leggings and underwear back in place and straightened her shirt, then I tucked myself in. She’d be mortified if anyone caught her with her pants literally down.
A shadow approached the door of the bar while I got my dick zipped up.
She patted her hair like she was afraid she had bed head when we’d done it standing up. “I can’t believe?—”
The door swung open. I couldn’t make out which brother it was. “Autumn?”
“Tate. Hi.” She scrambled to grab her coat and purse. “We were just walking out.”
Tate paused. He was outlined by the security lights pouring in from the opening to the main entry. “Is that Gideon with you?”
“Yeah.” She couldn’t sound guiltier. I bit back a smile. “He brought me dinner and now we’re leaving.”
“Thanks for your help this week,” he said. He’d told me that every day. His olive branch, maybe, but I didn’t care. I was less hostile toward the Baileys. Like they’d said, it was Dad’s decision. The Baileys would do right by the property, but it was Dad who shouldn’t fucking sell.
The invite to help with cattle was a strategic move, exactly what I would’ve done in his situation. “Don’t mention it.”
Awkward silence fell.
“I don’t want to turn on a light, do I?” Tate asked cautiously.
“What?” Autumn said, her voice pitching up. A nervous laugh slipped out of her. “We’re dressed .”
“To be fair, we never undressed,” I added. Autumn stiffened even more, and I clamped down on a laugh.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.” He stuck his thumb toward the main entry. “I told Teller I’d stop by and take a look at some info on a new grain supplier.”
“Yeah.” Autumn nodded enthusiastically. “Okay. We’ll, uh, just head home. Like we were doing before you arrived.”
Tate’s chuckle filled the air between us. “Good thing Daddy never caught you with a guy in high school, Autumn. You lie like shit.”
He walked off, still laughing.
Autumn swatted my gut. “You did not help at all.”
My laughter finally broke out. This moment was nothing I’d ever thought would happen to me. Getting busted having sex where we shouldn’t? I’d been rigid about my various and sporadic interludes over the years. I should be as horrified as Autumn, but I wasn’t.
Tate could’ve chewed into Autumn, and I’d have defended her. This could’ve tanked any progress we’d made. But he’d treated her like an equal, just like he would’ve if he’d walked in on one of his brothers.
So maybe this fake marriage had helped her a little too. I couldn’t give her the picture-perfect family she wanted, but I’d helped improve her image with her brothers.
Or the thought was complete bullshit. Either way, we still had a couple of weeks together.
My wife’s cheeks were flushed deep enough to see in the dark. “Watching you squirm is almost as fun as watching you come, rusty.” I quickly washed my hands. “Come on. I gotta get you home. I need to shower. And then I’m getting between your legs again.”