Chapter Thirty #2
In any case, I usually help Haven around the kitchen and the house.
I work with her in her little vegetable garden and help out with the chicken coop and stuff like that.
And I actually kinda like it. Even though I grew up at the Turner ranch, I never did things like that.
Maybe because I was busy hiding and cowering and nursing my mother back to health, sometimes myself.
But here at Rawhide, everything feels… so bright and positive.
So safe that I can finally enjoy things. Live my life.
How ironic that I’m able to do that while being their captive.
“Anyway, it’s in the ATV. So I’m just going to leave it for you guys and go,” I finish, breaking my thoughts and taking a step back.
But that’s the only step I get to take because he grabs my wrist and pulls me toward him. And he does it so hard that I go crashing against his chest, my curves molding themselves around his hard, bare torso so easily, without much resistance.
I push away from him, though. “Let me go.”
He brings his arm around my waist at that, keeping me pinned to him. “No.”
“Arsen, I—”
“You hurtin’?” he rasps, looking into my eyes.
My heart skips a beat, and I drop my eyes down to the triangle of his throat. “No.”
He dips his face down, his hat casting a shadow on both of us, trying to snag back my gaze. “You sure?”
I shift on my feet, blushing. “Y-yes. Can you stop… looking at me when you talk about it?”
“Another one,” he responds, letting my wrist go and using that hand to pull my head back and making me look into his eyes. “You don’t need to look at anything else but me when I’m around.”
“That’s absurd.”
“That’s the rule.”
I frown and bring us back to the topic. “It’s almost over now anyway.”
“Tomorrow, yeah?”
“I can’t believe you remember.”
“When you get off the rag.” He completes the sentence that I wasn’t trying to. “Yeah, I remember.”
God, my cheeks are burning now, and I can’t help but grumble, “Don’t call it that. And it’s not as if that kept you… away from me.”
I know it sounds like I’m complaining, but I’m not.
After my initial reluctance about having sex while on my period, I totally got on board with it.
Probably because it involved having sex in the bathtub, which he specifically put in that barn for me.
I actually saw him haul that thing up the stairs with the help of a couple of ranch hands the first day my period started and then, for the past four days, I’ve been watching him fill that tub with hot water that, again, he hauls up himself in a bucket.
All because I woke up with cramps one morning and told him my periods are brutal.
The only way I can operate is if I’m pumped full of drugs and I have a hot water bottle at all times.
He got me both. While also becoming my personal heater that hugged me when we slept while massaging my lower tummy, telling me all the stories about how he grew up on the ranch, about the time when he broke his arm trying to ride a bronc, which was when his dad took him aside and told him he either needed to stay away from an unbroken horse or learn how to break one. He decided to learn.
Heaven.
His voice, his arms, his back and tummy massages.
Even his orgasms because they help get the cramps out.
Oh, and let’s not forget all the junk food he stocked up on, candies and M&Ms and cupcakes.
So again, I’m not complaining. It’s just that does he really have to talk about it when everyone’s so close and I’m already so turned on?
“Told you a little blood won’t keep me off your pussy,” he says, breaking into my thoughts.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Can I go now?”
“Not until you tell me how to fix it.”
“Fix what?”
“Got you mad, didn’t I? Tell me how to fix it.”
I hold on to my ire, even if it’s hard when he’s looking at me like that, all molten eyes, lopsided smiles. “One of these days, you need to ditch this husband thing and come up with your own ideas on how to fix things.”
“Yeah, one day. But until then, how about my wife teaches me. She’s the straight-A student between the two of us.”
I shake my head at him, my lips twitching. “First, compliment my dress and say it’s pretty. You’re the one who bought it.”
I still can’t believe that he did that. That he actually went shopping for me. In a mall. Where there were other people.
I honestly didn’t breathe for several seconds when he dumped all his purchases on our bed in the barn the following day.
And told me he was going to burn all the clothes Haven got for me because I was allowed to wear only these dresses.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how excruciating it must have been for him.
To be around so many people when he can’t bear to attend a bonfire on his own ranch.
So I tackled him. Literally. I sprang up from the bed, all naked and jiggling curves, and I launched myself at him.
I kissed every inch of his face and then his bare chest before attack-worshipping his dick.
I say attack-worshipping because that’s exactly what I did.
I didn’t give him a chance to utter a single word before I put him in my mouth and proceeded to love on every inch of it.
“It’s pretty,” he rumbles. “But it ain’t got nothin’ on you.”
I shake my head at him again. “Say thank you for bringing my delicious lunch.”
“Thank you for bringing my lunch,” he parrots, “but it won’t be as delicious as dessert.”
“What dessert?”
“The one I’ll have after dinner tonight.”
Okay, I give up. He’s so freaking good at this. Making me melt and filling me with butterflies. “Are you trying to sweet-talk me into forgiving you?”
He smirks, his fingers flexing in my hair. “No, ma’am.”
Damn it. Instant puddle.
“I want flowers,” I tell him.
“Buttercups?”
“Will you take me to see them again?”
They’re truly so beautiful, and when he took me to see them last time, I instantly fell in love.
“Tonight.”
“And then can we go to the creek after?” I ask about another one of his favorite spots on the ranch. “We can have a picnic like we did before.”
“Yeah.”
“And… Will you do that thing where you…” I trail off on a blush.
“Where I what?”
I go up on my tiptoes and whisper, “Put it between my… you know.”
He stares at me for a beat before pulling me farther up and squeezing his arm around my waist, leaving only my toes grazing the ground. “You askin’ me to titty fuck you, darlin’?”
Well, yeah. I guess I can’t really get mad at him for being so blunt and dirty when there are so many people around us, because it’s not like I have any manners. But maybe I just like pretending I’m annoyed so he can be all sweet like this.
I bite my lip. “Will you?”
His eyes drop to my mouth before he says in a low voice, “Seein’ as I dream about your milkmaid tits even with my eyes open and while nailin’ these damn boards up, it ain’t exactly a hardship.”
My eyes are wide. “Arsen, you need to focus on this. You can’t be distracted. It’s dangerous.”
He hums, his lips twitching. He thinks it’s amusing the way I worry about him, but seriously, he could get hurt. Then he rumbles, totally ignoring me, “Well, what can I say, the only thing that can save me now is ridin’ your juicy tits like I do your juicy pussy.”
I clench my thighs tightly at his words. “The amount of obsession you have with my ‘juicy pussy’ is a little insane.”
“Nah, the amount of obsession I have with your ‘juicy pussy’ is a lot insane.” He lowers his voice. “But then again, they don’t call me the Dark Stallion because I’m sane.”
First, very cool nickname. Second, when he told me about it, I could absolutely see why.
Again, I didn’t know him eight years ago, but I could see how he used to be before he got put away.
And the more time he spends with his family and at Rawhide, the more the “old” Arsen comes back. All wild and cocky, happy.
“Just for that, two letters, please,” I say, trying to sound stern but totally failing.
Him giving me a letter is the best part of my day.
It usually waits for me under my pillow when I wake up for the day.
A little folded thing that contains his thoughts, his truths, little things about him that make me fall in love with him even more.
I hoard them like candy, so getting two of them in one day is going to be wonderful.
“Fine.”
“You know, you were right.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“When you said cowboys may make bad boyfriends but they make the best husbands.”
Chuckling, he comes in for a kiss, but I stop him. “Everyone’s staring.”
“Good. That’s how they’ll know not to go near your mouth, once I’ve fucked it with mine.”
It’s been a week since that night in the cabin, and I still can’t believe I did what I did.
That I let Arsen fuck me in the ass in front of that man.
Which again, makes all my shyness and embarrassment moot because I’ve done worse, so I let my husband kiss me in front of everyone and stake his claim.
It’s not as if they don’t already know. If me bringing him lunch wasn’t already a clue, they all know that once Arsen is done for the day, he rides over to the main house.
He interrupts whatever it is I’m doing—probably helping Haven in the kitchen along with Peyton—and drags me out by the arm without a word.
He puts me on the saddle and then takes me to his barn where we spend the night before he drops me back off at the main house for the day.
So I know they know.