Chapter Ten
B uck’s head was still reeling from that kiss. Hell, his whole body was on high alert. He hadn’t slept a wink. He had ended up taking a cold shower at one in the morning to try and spite his overactive hormones. It really was a hell of a thing. And he was supposed to see her today on a matter of business.
Yet nothing inside of him felt ready to discuss business. What he wanted to do was take her in his arms again. Kiss her senseless.
How had that happened?
But he hadn’t been lying when he had told her it was about her. About how much she made him feel.
About how much he wanted her.
It had been like that from the moment she had first appeared on his doorstep. And maybe that was the real reason he had kept her close. Maybe he was full of shit. Maybe it had never been about trying to follow his gut instinct. Maybe it had always been about wanting her. Maybe atonement was just an excuse.
That made him feel guilty.
And he would be lying if he said he didn’t like the guilt. It was his comfort zone.
Right about now, he felt like Marigold’s lips were his comfort zone. Where everything was that he had ever wanted.
He wanted to kiss her again, strip her bare—
“You passed the school driveway, Buck,” Reggie said.
“Dammit,” he said.
Colton laughed.
“Well, you’re going to get your driver’s license, and then they’re going to be your responsibility,” he said.
“I never said I didn’t want my license,” Colton said. “I think you don’t want me to get it.”
Well. Colton wasn’t entirely far off. Driving was a fact of life. It wasn’t like he had a long-standing hang-up. And he had been fine yesterday when Lily was driving the boys. Alcohol had played a factor in the accident that had taken his friends’ lives. That aspect wasn’t something that could be ignored. But...
As much as Colton was responsible—and he had become responsible in these last couple of years with a little bit of guidance, and having the chance to not live in chaos—Buck knew how stupid teenage boys could be. In a pretty damned haunting way.
“I do want you to get your license. It’ll make my life easier. But there are going to be so many ground rules.”
“I know, I know.”
Buck turned around in an auto parts parking lot and headed back toward the school. He summarily booted the boys out of the truck and then headed on down the road toward Marigold’s place.
He hadn’t been to her house yet.
He thought it was strange that he was looking forward to it. To seeing what sort of life she had built for herself and Lily. He knew it would be warm. Inviting. Well ordered. Because Marigold herself was all those things.
When he pulled up to the house, this theory was proven to be true. It was small, but well ordered, with a neat garden area in the front, and a porch with a rocking chair and a wreath on the door.
When she had said that she’d set out to make an entirely complete life for herself and Lily without Lily’s father, he hadn’t entirely known what that meant. But he got it now.
She was self-contained. Entirely happy without a man.
Well. Almost.
He thought again about that kiss. It had been absolutely incendiary.
Maybe they could...
Maybe.
Because he’d never had a sexual entanglement that got emotional. And she clearly didn’t need anything emotional from him. That was the perfect arrangement as far as he was concerned. A woman who didn’t need anything from him but physical pleasure. Because he could do that. He could give that.
As part of being a marked man, a man who had to go through life atoning, he had made it his business to be the absolute best lover possible. He needed the women he had sex with to come twice before he got close to the peak of pleasure. It was part of putting more out in the world than he took away.
He wanted to make Marigold come even more times than that.
He gritted his teeth and got out of his truck, made his way toward that cute, neat front door.
School carnivals, a passel of teenagers, meeting her parents, this adorable house. All of it stood in stark contrast to the riotous, sexual thoughts making their way through his head.
It was like the deepest, darkest part of himself was rising to the surface and making waves that didn’t belong in a beautiful, placid lake.
Wholesome.
That described so many of the interactions they’d had since he’d come back to town.
And then he’d kissed her.
Which had been anything but wholesome.
And what he wanted now was anything but wholesome.
He was about to knock when the door opened. There she was, her red hair wild about her face. Her eyes wide.
“Dammit,” he said.
She stepped back, and he stepped in, closed the door firmly behind her and pulled her into his arms. He was kissing her before she could say anything. And she melted against him, kissing him back with a ferocity that didn’t even surprise him, because the wild look in her eye when he had approached her, said everything he needed to know.
He could read her. It was so goddamned annoying. It would be better if he hadn’t known. If he didn’t see the sensual need in her eyes when he looked at her. But he did. Because it was the same need that echoed inside of him.
Because, for some reason, they felt that for each other on the same level. Because for some reason they felt...inevitable.
Was this it?
That day she had come to his door with Colton—was it all leading to this?
Well, his dick would like to think so. But that seemed... Well, it didn’t really seem like atonement. Because it felt a hell of a lot like pleasing himself.
He would put her needs first. He would put her first.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers pushing up through his hair, cradling the back of his head, moving down his back, and he did the same to her, feeling those wild curls, her petite frame, moving his hands all the way down to the delicious curve of her ass.
She was so gorgeous.
She was unlike any woman he had ever wanted before. Simply because she was her. Maybe because he knew her.
Maybe because he cared.
It wasn’t about a generic desire to score points with the universe, but about wanting to see her experience pleasure at his hands.
This was an entirely different experience to any he’d ever known.
Friends with benefits?
Yeah. That was what it would have to be. Because they were business partners. Because of the kids. Because no one could ever know that this had happened, least of all Colton and Lily.
Shit. That would make him the worst dad in the entire world. Scamming on his son’s girlfriend’s mother. The absolute worst. And Colton would have every right to disown him. Or punch him.
So no one would ever know.
No one would ever have to know.
That fueled him now. Made this feel darker, more glorious. Surrounded by her adorable house with gorgeous knickknacks. She had a shelf full of birds wearing scarves. And he wanted to strip her clothes off and see every inch of her bare skin. Right in front of those birds.
Maybe that was the whole point of it. That they had thrown themselves into this other reality. One where they tried to be acceptable. One where they tried to be neat. One where they tried to be better than they were. Better than their darkest, wildest impulses—but neither of them were. Because maybe no person was. And maybe they weren’t two different things, or two different kinds of people. Maybe everyone had this inside of them.
They had suppressed it. They both had. She sure as hell had. But it was still there.
And it was pretty damned glorious.
“I want you,” he growled against her mouth.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“God help me,” he said.
He lifted her up off the ground, her legs wrapped around his waist as he started to carry her up the stairs.
“You know where my bedroom is,” she said.
“I’ll figure it out.”
He was resourceful that way.
“I don’t have condoms,” she said.
Everything stopped for a moment.
“I have one,” he said.
Just one. One he always carried in his wallet for emergencies, even though it wasn’t like one-night stands broke out without careful planning on his part. And there hadn’t been one since he had adopted the boys. But he made sure to religiously replace that one condom, so it never went past its expiration date and didn’t spend too long being exposed to the elements or anything like that.
He was safe.
“Oh,” she said.
“It’s a safety measure,” he said. “I wasn’t planning this. It’s just...”
“Right,” she said.
“Are you judging me?”
“No. I’m glad.”
“Good,” he said.
He claimed her mouth again, marveling at the fact that he could be thirty-eight years old and this on edge. That he could be this intent on having her.
That he could want her so very much.
He felt like a teenager. They were even having discussions about condoms.
He wanted her so much.
He brought her into the bedroom. He was certain it was hers. And because she didn’t protest, he knew he was right. It was neat as a pin, like everything else in the house, her bedspread an adorable gingham. He was going to strip her naked on that gingham and do unspeakable things to her.
He set her down at the center of the mattress and stepped away from her, stripping his shirt up over his head.
Her eyes went wide. “Damn,” she said.
“Thank you. That’s awfully kind.”
“It’s hardly kind. A simple damn doesn’t do justice to those muscles. I feel spoiled.”
“Not as spoiled as I feel. Believe me. Because you are... I don’t have any gentlemanly words for it, Marigold. I just know that I want you. More than anything. I can’t explain it. Because it’s something that goes beyond words.”
“I don’t need words. You can just show me.”
So he did. He stripped off his jeans, his boots and socks, everything, and let her see how hard he was for her. How much he wanted her. Her eyes kept getting rounder and rounder.
“It’s been a really long time,” she said.
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
“Thank you,” she responded.
He moved over the top of her, kissed her neck, slowly, very slowly, stripped the sweater from her body and unclipped her bra. She was as beautiful as he had imagined she would be. Even more so. Because he hadn’t been able to imagine the exact ripe colors, the perfect softness and roundness.
And now he did. He cupped her breast, slid his thumb over her nipple. Watched her arch against his touch. Watched as her face contorted with pleasure. She was so beautiful.
So beautiful.
He growled, kissing her neck, kissing down to the plump curve of her breasts, taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking hard.
Then he moved down the rest of her body, gripping the waistband of her skirt and tugging it down her thighs, taking her underwear with it.
She arched against him, and he held her down against the mattress, parting her legs for him so he could taste all that glory between them.
She was wet for him, and she tasted like heaven.
He gripped her so tight, she couldn’t pull away from him. She was whimpering, crying out, and he could feel her whole body draw tight like a bow as she got closer and closer to the peak.
“Yes,” he growled against her. “Come for me.”
He felt her shatter against his mouth, and he kept on going, pushing two fingers inside of her as he did, as she unraveled completely. There on that sweet little bedspread.
And she was still the responsible, well-ordered mother of a teenager, but her hair was spread out on the pillow like a ring of fire, and her lips were swollen, her cheeks pink with desire.
He was still a man on a mission to be redeemed, a man with a black mark in his past so profound he didn’t think he could ever erase it. A man trying to do right by three teenage boys, a man whose head was filled with plans for a new ranch and plans for the future of the kids he had just taken on.
But he was also wholly here with her. And she was with him.
They were all the things, all at once.
His chest burned with it all.
He moved up her body, kissing a trail along her soft skin, before kissing her mouth, putting his hand between her legs and wringing another climax out of her.
Then, only then, did he reach for his wallet.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good,” he growled.
He tore open the condom and rolled it over his length, before positioning himself at the entrance to her body. Then he tested her readiness.
“I’m good,” she said.
She gasped as he filled her, and it was tight. But she seemed to want it. Seemed to glory in it. Just as he did. She wrapped her legs around his waist and clung to his shoulders as he began to move.
It was like a baptism. By fire, by grace, by Marigold, and he couldn’t get enough.
Because it was everything, and so was she.
He held on to his own climax as long as he could, gritting his teeth, biting the inside of his cheek to create enough pain that he wouldn’t lose it completely.
And then finally, finally, she shuddered out another climax, and he embraced his own.
He growled out her name as he let the pleasure take him, and then everything was still. Quiet.
She let out a long, heavy sigh.
“Oh, I feel so much better,” she said.
And then she laughed.
He withdrew from her, lying on his side. “Me too. But I’m glad that it’s mutual.”
“Was that really stupid?”
“I don’t feel stupid. I feel fucking amazing.”
“Me too,” she said. “I don’t want to... This doesn’t have to be dramatic. I just... I haven’t been with anybody in a long time, and I don’t want to get married. I don’t even want to have a boyfriend. I don’t want to share my house with a man.”
“Great,” he said. And he couldn’t quite pinpoint why an element of what she said made him feel a little dissatisfied.
“I just want... I want this. This that just happened. I like you. I know you came here to work with me. And we can do that. Now. We can talk about business. And then we can get dressed and go to our respective houses. Maybe we can even have dinner with the kids again. But they don’t need to know.”
She echoed every thought he had about this. It seemed perfect, and it seemed completely logical.
He loved it.
What wasn’t to love?
“Friends with benefits,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Friends with benefits. I think it’s a great idea.”
“Fantastic,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“All right. So let’s go over what we need to go over about the business.”
“I’ll go get my binder.”
He chuckled, and lay back in the bed. Wholesome. Almost.
Everything was going to work out fine. They both knew what they wanted, and what they wanted was essentially the same thing. There was absolutely nothing that could go wrong here.
Absolutely nothing.
Marigold was trying to chop celery, but she kept spacing out.
And when Lily came home, Marigold startled at the sound of the slamming door, like she hadn’t been expecting it. Because she had forgotten where she was. She might have forgotten who she was. The afternoon felt like a complete and total fever dream.
He’d come to her house, they’d had sex, and then they had lain in bed and pored over her planner like they weren’t naked, and then they had ended up making out, and he had to run to the store to buy a box of condoms. Which they had made good use of.
They had made love and worked on their plans off and on for the whole day, until it was time for him to go and get his kids from school.
And she felt... Changed. Which wasn’t how friends with benefits was supposed to go, she was sure. But she didn’t know if there was a woman alive who could keep her head on straight when she was being thoroughly...rustled by Buck Carson.
She paused for a long moment.
Buck Carson. He was the object of so many complex emotions in her life.
This friends-with-benefits situation felt like acting out against the past. Against the pain she had once felt, against things that had been taken away from her.
And maybe it was acting out.
Yet, he had proven he was safe.
They wanted the same things. He was investing in her business. They had a connection that transcended sex, but sex was an equally strong connection. And neither of them wanted it to be romantic. Today hadn’t been romantic.
She paused again.
“Mom?”
She snapped back to reality for the second time in just a few moments. She had forgotten that her first jolt was the door closing, which meant Lily was home.
“I’m in here,” she said.
“I wanted to go to Colton’s house for dinner tonight?”
“Sure,” she said.
“You don’t have to come,” Lily said.
And that made Marigold feel sort of hurt. Also, she wanted to see Buck. Which was silly.
She tried to smile. “Okay. I won’t. That’s fine.”
“Are you okay?” Lily asked as she made her way over to the fridge, opened it and took out a sparkling water. She popped the top on the can and stared at Marigold suspiciously.
“I’m very okay,” she said.
“Good. Glad to hear it.”
“Well. I hope you enjoy dinner at Colton’s. Did you talk to Buck about it?”
“I don’t know. Colton did.”
As if on cue, Marigold’s phone rang. Buck’s name appeared on the screen, and her heart tried to race up her esophagus and out of her mouth.
“Hi,” she said, answering the phone almost immediately. Lily was staring at her.
“Hey,” he said, his voice soft as velvet, like hands against her skin. She shivered. She looked at Lily out of the side of her eye and then studied the celery she was chopping. “Lily tells me she wants to come to your place for dinner?”
“Yeah. I know I have those great prepared meals but I was thinking of grabbing a pizza for the kids to throw in the oven, and maybe you and I could go have dinner somewhere else so we aren’t overrun by teenagers.”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
“I’ll come get you after Lily arrives at my place.”
“Okay. See you then.”
“What was that?” Lily asked.
“Oh, Buck just thought maybe it would be more fun if you guys were at the house by yourselves. I mean, with Reggie and Marcus, obviously. We aren’t leaving you in the house alone.”
“Oh,” Lily said.
“He and I are going to go have dinner somewhere else. It’s not a date.”
She felt her face getting pink.
“Mom,” Lily said. “You’re blushing.”
“I don’t think I am,” she said.
“You are literally bright red.”
“I am not. Because there’s nothing... I am just going to dinner with him so you can have some time with Colton.”
“I don’t know. I think you’re weird about him.”
“Yeah, I’m a little weird about him, because we have a strange...connection. Okay? We have a strange connection, and I don’t really know what to do about it. I’m still figuring it out. Grandma and Grandpa were wonderful when they met him, and when I explained that you were dating Colton, and that he was helping with my business, but there’s just a lot of history there.”
“Did you ever date him?”
“No. I was thirteen, remember? I did not date him.”
“Did you like him?”
“I told you that I thought he was handsome. But that’s not the same thing as having a crush.”
“Do you like him now?”
“I’m thirty-three years old,” Marigold said. “I don’t have crushes.”
“You would be allowed to have crushes,” Lily said. “I wouldn’t care if you did date. I mean, not Colton’s dad, but I wouldn’t mind if you dated.”
“I never wanted to do that,” Marigold said. “Because I like our life the way that it is.”
“But I’m leaving soon,” said Lily.
“Yes. You are.”
Lily frowned. “I mean... I like Colton. A lot. And he makes me feel things...” It was Lily’s turn to turn pink. “It’s really bad timing, isn’t it?”
Marigold thought about the afternoon she had spent in bed with Buck. “I don’t know. Maybe. Lily, I was worried about you getting hurt. I still am. And of course I’m worried about safety and responsibility and pregnancy and all that kind of stuff, but the truth of the matter is, Colton seems like a really good kid. And if he’s good to you, it doesn’t matter if it’s forever or not. Maybe what he’s teaching you is what a good boyfriend looks like. So that when you’re lonely and away at college, and you like somebody, you don’t accept less than what you feel right now.”
Lily looked sad. “Maybe.”
Marigold wondered if it was the same for herself. The sex that she and Buck had today had been transformative. Better than any she’d ever had, but of course that was the difference between having sex with teenage boys and having sex with a thirty-eight-year-old man who knew what the hell he was doing.
There had been such a gap in her experience—this was a teachable moment. Because Lily was right. Things were changing, and she was leaving. So that meant... It meant that Marigold should figure out what her future could look like. Maybe someday she would want a relationship. Maybe someday she would want to fall in love and get married. That would be... Well, it wasn’t something on the horizon just yet.
She couldn’t see past Buck being in her bed.
But maybe today was a learning experience. She would never settle for less than what she had felt in his arms. Because after knowing that existed, why would she?
She would never settle less for less than the insanity that had gripped them both when he had come to the door.
Why would she?
“Well, have fun at your dinner,” Lily said.
“You too,” she said.
And she felt just a little, tiny bit guilty that she wasn’t being totally honest with her daughter, but there was no point to that sort of honesty. Lily didn’t need to know that Marigold was having a sexual revolution.
If she was relieved that Lily left in time for Marigold to get dressed up for said dinner, well, that was just the way of it.
By the time Buck got there, she was wearing a skintight dress and more makeup than she normally bothered with.
“Wow,” he said. “You look beautiful.”
He moved in and kissed her, and she didn’t stop him. There was nobody here.
But as he deepened the kiss, she did press on his chest. “I’m hungry,” she said.
“Me too,” he growled, kissing her neck. She shivered.
“For pasta, not your penis.”
He stepped back and barked a laugh. “Well, you have a way of putting a man in his place.”
“I’m not trying to,” she said. “I’d like to have dinner. Also, I’m too nervous to go having sex when the kids could just appear at any moment. Or at least, my kid could. When she’s in school, great. But otherwise... We have to be careful.”
“Yeah. I hear you.”
“All right. Pasta.”
“Just tell me where the best place is, and I’ll take you there.”
She picked her favorite restaurant, because she could, and the two of them got sparkling water, slightly to the chagrin of the waiter, she could see.
“You can have wine in front of me,” Buck said. “I don’t care.”
“It’s fine. I don’t really drink much. It reminds me of...bad times. So, it’s not really a relaxing escape for me.”
“Fair enough.”
“I wanted to thank you. For earlier today.”
“No. The fact that it left you craving fettuccine instead of more of me doesn’t exactly feel like a standing ovation.”
She looked at him, feeling a shiver go down her spine. “I am craving you. But I’m also trying to be reasonable and rational.”
“I think I might be incapable of that.”
They ordered their entrée, and her stomach went tight. She really did wish this dinner would end with a kiss at her door. And her inviting him in.
She really did want him again.
“This is not a date,” she said, looking resolutely at her menu.
“Of course not,” he said.
They got their entrées and bread, and talked more about business, rather than steering the conversation back into the personal.
She looked down at his hand, the way it gripped the fork, and thought of the way he had touched her.
“So, you do have to tell me.”
“I have to tell you something?”
“Yes. How has your...love life worked, exactly, for the last twenty years?”
“Oh, now you have questions.”
“Yes. Because you are very, very good.”
“Well. Thank you for the compliment. I... The honest truth is that when I was kind of off the rails there for a few years, it was a lot of sex. Mostly anonymous. I... I didn’t care, about anything. I didn’t want connections. I wanted oblivion.”
“I relate to that.”
“But after I started working at the camp, it wasn’t that simple. Everything I did had to be a lot more...deliberate. I had leave every year, and every year I would take myself off somewhere faraway, to a tourist spot, find a woman and spend the week with her.”
“Really?” She hated that woman. Whoever she was. Whoever she had been for all those years.
“Yeah. I mean, not for the last couple of years. I was deciding what to do as far as adopting the boys. I was realizing I needed to make some changes. Sex was more of an itch to scratch, I guess. Kind of like leisure time. It felt good and relaxing. I made it my mission to make it as good as possible for every woman I was with. And that made me enjoy it too.”
“I see.” Was that what she was? A sex vacation?
“No,” he said, like he had read her mind. “It’s not the same as you. You’re different. Before, I never cared who the woman was. Blonde, brunette, slim, curvy. Didn’t matter. Just somebody to be with for a little bit. It was the companionship, the touch—that was what mattered. With this, it’s you. Because I haven’t felt the need to go out and find anybody since I adopted the boys. And I didn’t go out and find you. You found me.”
“Right.”
She held his gaze, and she felt something in her chest expand.
She didn’t need to have feelings for him. She really didn’t. It would be a mess. An absolute mess. And so would she.
“There’s a big barbecue happening at my parents’ house this weekend. Colton wants Lily to come.”
Marigold closed her eyes. “I really do worry about them.”
“Yeah. We all have to go through some heartbreak, don’t we? And hey, maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll go off to college, and it’ll feel natural for them to let go of each other. Or maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll find their way back to each other.”
“Maybe.” It felt so loaded, him saying that.
Was that what they were doing? Finding their way back to each other?
Don’t romanticize it. Just friends with benefits.
“Anyway. I thought it would be nice if you could come. I could introduce you to my parents.”
Her heart slammed against her breastbone. “Why?”
“Because,” he said. “We’re doing business together. Also, your daughter is dating my son.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
She wanted to go. That was the thing. And maybe it felt like a bit of a letdown that he didn’t want to introduce her to his parents because she was special, or whatever else it could’ve been.
But, it also didn’t feel like a letdown. It didn’t.
Because she just wanted to spend time with him. And the reason didn’t much matter.
They finished up their dinner and walked alongside each other back to the truck. It felt hideously awkward to not hold his hand. They had never held hands before, so she couldn’t fully explain why it would feel awkward, but it did.
She let out a long, slow breath, as she settled into the passenger seat and let him drive her back to her house.
He walked her up to the front door, and she felt a tense pause inside of her. Her breath hitched; her heart lifted. Right then, she heard the sound of tires on the driveway. Lily pulled up alongside Buck’s truck, and Marigold froze.
“I guess that‘s good night,” she said.
“Guess it is,” he said.
He waved, like they hadn‘t just been about to kiss. “See you this weekend, at least.”
“Yeah. See you then.”
He started to walk back to the truck and greeted Lily as she headed toward Marigold.
“Great timing,” Marigold said, smiling.
“Yeah.”
“Did you have fun?”
“I had a great time. He invited me to come out to his grandparents’ house this weekend.”
“Well, I hope you don’t think it’s weird, but I got an invitation also.”
“It’s not weird.”
“Great. That sounds just great.”