Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lennix
Pulling my cardigan tighter around me, I huddled into its familiar warmth as I cupped my coffee mug between my hands and braced my forearms on the top of Corona’s stall door.
She was happily munching on her oats, without a care in the world, while my mind was spinning out of control, leaving me dizzy.
When I woke up this morning, I almost thought I’d dreamed the whole thing.
I mean, the sex had been out of this freaking world.
I hadn’t known it could be that good, so it couldn’t have possibly been real.
Right? There was a brief moment right when my eyes flipped open, that I thought I was alone.
Then a chuffing snore from the other side of the bed swept away the last of the remaining sleep that had addled my brain and spun me right back into reality, memories of the night before coming back in technicolor.
Raylan was still there, in my bed, sleeping so peacefully I couldn’t help but take him in.
Criminally long lashes dusted his cheeks, and the lines usually carved between his brows were smoothed out, making him appear younger.
He was relaxed in a way I’d never witnessed before, and seeing him like that caused something to catch behind my ribs and tug hard.
With his guard down in sleep, he looked almost .
. . innocent. Which was something he definitely hadn’t been the night before.
On that thought, a wicked flush heated my skin.
My hand slid forward to brush his golden wheat hair back from his forehead so I had an unobstructed view, but before my fingers could connect, I paused.
As incredible as the night before had been, my head started spinning with a million questions I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to.
Two words started banging around the inside of my skull like a drum beat. What. Now? What. Now? What? Now?
The light coming through slats in the blinds was a dull, muted gray, indicating the sun had barely begun its ascent.
It was still ridiculously early, but I knew there wasn’t a chance I was getting back to sleep, so instead of tossing and turning while I second-guessed every single moment of our time together, I decided to get an early start on my morning chores.
The tasks were second nature by now, so it was kind of nice to lose myself in the minutiae of it all.
My animals never failed to settle my nerves in a way nothing else ever could.
Unfortunately, by the time I was done and watching Corona in all her peaceful glory, my head was still all over the place.
Instead of trying to quiet the voices, I let them play, hoping that if I listened, I might come up with some kind of clarity.
Before that could happen, though, the sound of bootsteps on the dusty concrete floor sounded, and I knew, without having to look, who it was.
I couldn’t bring myself to face him just yet, so I kept staring at my horse, but I would have been lying if I said my heart didn’t skip a couple beats as he got closer.
Corona’s ears twitched at the sound of a newcomer, but she kept munching like she didn’t have a care in the world.
“Hey.”
I hoped the bagginess of the cardigan hid the little tremble my body gave at the rich husk of Raylan’s morning voice. God! What was it about a man’s voice, rough with sleep, that was such a major turn on?
“Hey,” I returned, still focused intently on Corona, mainly because I was struggling to find the courage to meet his gaze now that he’d seen me so exposed . . . literally. Without the high of sex clouding everything, I was feeling all kinds of nervous.
He came up beside me, taking up the same position as me. The lingering scent of his cologne mixing with the smells of the barn and becoming my new favorite scent. “You’re up early.”
I hummed noncommittally as I brought the mug to my lips and sipped my coffee.
“Yeah. Downside of having so many animals.” It wasn’t a complete lie.
I did wake up early most days because my pets could be assholes, but they weren’t why I was pulled from bed before the sun came up.
From my periphery, I saw Raylan’s mouth hinge open on a jaw-cracking yawn.
“I hope they didn’t wake you up.” Pirate wouldn’t have been an issue, seeing as he wasn’t really fond of people in general, but especially men.
But poor, derpy Ziggy loved everyone and wanted them to love him back.
“Nah. But I might still be a little out of it. I think I hallucinated a cow in your living room when I came to find you.”
Damn it. “You didn’t imagine it,” I said with a put-upon sigh. “That’s Daisy. She’s . . . a bit eccentric. Thinks she’s a house cow.”
“Lennix.”
“Yeah?”
There was a pause, and from the corner of my eye, I watched him turn to me. “Chaos.”
“I’m right here, Raylan.”
“Maybe.” I could hear the smile in his voice, even without looking. “But you’ve been doin’ everything in your power to avoid lookin’ at me since I walked in here.”
I should have known he would call me out on my weird behavior, it was how we used to be, back when we were friends. Before everything got so messed up. Heaving out a dramatic sigh, I twisted my head in his direction. And immediately regretted it.
The height difference put me level with his chest. His broad, tanned, hard chest that was currently on display.
He might have been wearing one of his signature flannels, but he hadn’t bothered to button it.
Same with his jeans. He’d only zipped them partway up, leaving those lickable, defined V muscles that pointed like a freaking arrow to what lay beneath.
He’d left just enough skin exposed to turn the dial up on the heat in my blood.
I’d had more orgasms the night before than I’d had in the entire month prior, you would have thought my tank would be topped off.
But one glance and I was practically rendered stupid in the same way guys got penis dumb when it came to women.
My mouth was so dry all of a sudden it felt like I’d stuffed it full of cotton, making it hard to swallow.
I managed, but could have lived without the obnoxiously loud gulping sound it made.
I knew what I’d find by the time I finally dragged my eyes to his face, and sure enough, he was grinning like a cat that got the canary.
I huffed out a chuckle and rolled my eyes at his arrogance. “There. I’m looking at you. Happy now?”
“Oh, downright giddy. And don’t sweat it. I stood out there, checkin’ out your legs for about five minutes before making myself known.”
I smacked him in the arm with the back of my hand and turned to face Corona once more. Her head had come up at some point, her curiosity officially piqued. As soon as she spotted Raylan, she abandoned her food and made her way to us.
“That’s so not fair,” I grumbled when my horse butted against Raylan’s arm with her nose, demanding a bit of loving.
“What’s not?” he asked as he ran his hand up her snout and scratched between her eyes where she loved it most.
“That she likes you. The traitor,” I muttered under my breath.
Raylan’s laugh was full and rich, and I became entranced by his Adam’s apple when he threw his head back. “You don’t want your horse to like me? That’s what you’re sayin’?”
“I mean, yeah.” I twisted to face him, resting my coffee cup on the ledge of the stall door so I could fold my arms across my chest and pop my hip out, all attitude. “It’s only fair, seeing how Zephyr hates my guts.”
He took a step closer, making personal space non-existent. My heart began beating faster when he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingertips tracing down the side of my neck to my collarbone. “Don’t take it personally.”
“How do I not take it personally?” I yelped. “Animals love me. I’m like freaking Dr. Doolittle around here.”
“Baby, Zephyr’s a surly bastard with everyone.”
The first word washed through me, creating a pleasant hum throughout my body.
I’d always loved when he called me Chaos .
. . at least I had before our friendship had gone down the toilet, but it was nothing compared to baby.
Despite being an unoriginal endearment, I couldn’t help but swoon every time he used it on me.
I ignored the hum and arched a single brow, teasing, “So what you’re saying is: like father, like son.”
He hit me with that damn lopsided smile that made his dimple pop. God, I wanted to dip my tongue into that damn dimple, and I was suddenly mad as hell at myself for not doing it the night before.
I had no clue what we were doing. Or what we were, for that matter.
For all I knew, last night had been a one-time thing, a way to work each other out of our systems. I couldn’t speak for him, but for me at least, it didn’t work.
That was the main thought spinning through my head that had pulled me out of bed at such an ungodly hour.
“Hey.” His gentle voice pulled me out of my tailspin. His rough fingers tilted my chin up so we were eye to eye. “Where’d you go?”
“Huh?”
“In your head. You went somewhere else for a second.” His brows pulled together, those lines that had been gone in his sleep carving back into place. “Somewhere good, I hope?” He formed that as a question, his tone dripping with uncertainty.
“I—” I paused to pull in a steadying breath.
There was no comfortable way to do this, so I decided to rip the Band-Aid right off.
“What are we?” Damn it. I’d hoped to be a little more eloquent.
I closed my eyes and shook my head before trying again.
“What I meant was, what are we doing? Last night was—”
“Out of this fuckin’ world? I couldn’t agree more.”
I chuckled, my lips tipping into a small grin.
My muscles slowly unclenched at his attempt to lighten the tension suddenly filling the air and making Corona paw at the ground.
That was another thing I’d forgotten about Raylan.
Those months when we weren’t friends were some of the hardest of my life, and one of the only things that made it a little easier was to keep the bad at the forefront of my mind.
Remembering all the good—and there was a lot of good—would have made it hurt even worse.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He pointed at me, his face brightening like a dimmer bulb turned on high. “Ah, but you aren’t disagreeing with me.”
I fought the smile pulling at my lips but lost. “I’m not disagreeing,” I agreed, because anything else would have been a bald-faced lie.
He closed the very last inch between us and kept coming, forcing me to move with him, swiveling so my back was to the rugged surface of the wall beside Corona’s stall.
My insides heated to molten lava as he caged me in, his hands braced beside my head on either side.
His voice was low and rumbly as he demanded, “Say it, Lenni.” He lowered his face to the crook of my neck, arousal dampening my panties when I felt the tip of his nose trace up my neck to the shell of my ear.
“Say it was out of this fucking world for you too,” he whispered, eliciting a full body quiver that made me weak in the knees.
I relented with no hesitation. “It was out of this fucking world. But Raylan—”
His head came up at the seriousness in my tone at those last two words, and he sighed out, “I know, baby.” He was back to speaking gently and using that damn word that rendered me completely stupid.
A wash of cold came over me when he took a step back and raked a hand through his disheveled hair while he heaved a heavy sigh.
That one step might as well have been the Grand Canyon between us.
I kept myself pressed against the wall to stay grounded.
The roughness of the wood abraded my palms as I pushed them harder against the surface while I waited for the other shoe to drop.
The silence filling the barn was downright stifling, but I couldn’t bring myself to break it by speaking. That would be up to Raylan. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait much longer.
“Look, I know what I am. I know I’m not built for relationships.”
Oh god, those words cut into me like a white hot knife through butter.
“I’ve never wanted a relationship.”
The hits just kept on coming. I pulled my cardigan even tighter, like it was a shield that his words would bounce right off.
“But what I do know is that what I feel for you isn’t something I’ve ever experienced before.”
I could hear a record scratching in my brain. “Wait. What?”