Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Goldie
Sunlight creeps into the room, awakening me to the most startling news of my life.
More startling than dead elders or a rushed wedding.
The startling news is this: My right hand is wedged between a sleeping Barrett’s upper thighs.
I never intended to be the big spoon in a sleeping scenario with this man. I must have gotten cold during the night and unconsciously snuggled in close. One thing led to another, and now here I am, molesting him while he sleeps.
I could not be more creeped out by my own actions. I’ve never even kissed a man—not that I’m saying I want to make out with this particular man. Of course, I don’t want to kiss Barrett. Like it or not, I’m a married woman.
Although, he is incredibly hot. Hot doesn’t even come close to what he is. I am attracted to him in a way I didn’t dream possible.
Now, how to get out of this? I make myself lie perfectly still and consider my options.
I could acknowledge the unfortunate situation of my hand being sandwiched between two hairy tree trunks and ask him to please release his grip.
Option 2: I could oh-so-carefully, gradually, without waking Barrett, extract my hand with the slow deliberation of a bomb squad.
Option 3: Leave it there and hope for the best. Maybe Barrett will roll over in his sleep, and I can take the opportunity to move far, far away without him noticing.
Option 4: Yank my hand free, roll over, and pretend nothing happened.
I run the pros and cons of each option. Number one is too much honesty. No, I can’t bear it. Number 2 is not likely to work because his thigh muscles are unbelievably tight. Plus, if he wakes up, he’ll think for sure that I’m fondling him on purpose. Number three relies on too many variables.
I choose option 4. Sucking in a deep, quiet breath, I silently count down from three.
Three, two, one!
I rip my hand from between Barrett’s thighs. Just when I think I’m home free, everything falls apart. Something is stopping me from rolling away. Something big and heavy, and it’s breathing very hard.
It’s Barrett.
He is awake, and he’s on top of me. He’s got my arms pinned to the mattress with his big hands, and he hovers so close I can feel everything below his waistline is bare.
“Where do you think you’re going, my little sneak?”
His face is tight, and his expression is intense. The contour of bone in his square jaw and high cheekbones is visible. His eyes are strangely dark under his hooded lids.
I gasp. “Sneak? It was an accident!”
Barrett narrows his eyes and lets out a growl. Damn him, I feel it down below my navel.
His voice is thick with sleep as he croaks, “An accident, huh?”
“Yes!”
“Tell me you didn’t like it.”
The way my body lights up at this is totally inappropriate.
“I didn’t!” I like. “Let me up!”
Strangely, I itch when Barrett rolls away, letting me go.
He senses my hesitation. One of his eyebrows lifts. “Well?”
“Well, what?” I ask.
Barrett sighs, sitting up and swinging his huge legs over the side of the bed. In that brief movement, I could see his cock bobbing, fully erect.
I watch as he rubs his eyes, stands up, and shuffles to the bathroom naked. He moves as quietly as a cat and as smoothly as liquid.
God, why does he have to be naked, like, every second?
Clucking my tongue to show disgust, I roll away and stare at the wall.
I should just get out of this bed. I certainly never would have gotten into bed with him if I knew he was going to sleep naked. It’s completely inappropriate.
Barrett stays in the bathroom for a long time, and I’m curious what he’s doing in there.
When he comes out again, I can’t help but peek over my shoulder. He looks a lot more relaxed as he climbs back into bed.
“Thought you were getting out of bed,” he mumbles, not bothering to stay on his side this time. He’s so close that his hairy legs brush against the backs of my thighs. His scent is all around me. Soapy, with distinct notes that are simply…him.
I should get out of bed. I don’t want to get out of bed. But I’m not telling him what’s going on in my head.
“Are you still naked?” I ask disapprovingly.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s my house. You’re the one who’s breaking and entering.”
“You’re touching a married woman.”
“And yet you’re still here. Funny that you should take the moral high ground when you’re a criminal.”
I sit up and look down at him, clutching the blanket to cover my erect nipples that feel so tight they could slice right through the giant flannel that I stole.
“I wasn’t breaking anything. You should lock your doors.”
This gets me a hearty laugh that shakes the bed.
“Since we’re splitting hairs, I regret to inform you that you are not a married woman.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you sign anything?”
I nod weakly.
“And does that person who married you have the legal right to conduct civil marriages?”
Shrugging, I reply that it was a spiritual marriage.
Barrett reaches over the blanket and touches my hair. It feels so good; his touch sends electricity arcing over my scalp.
He looks me straight in the eye so I understand. “Goldie. If it’s not a marriage certificate recognized and sealed by the state of Montana, you are not legally married.
I blink. “I’m not married,” I breathe.
“She’s coming around, folks.”
“You are so strange. Who are you talking to?”
He laughs, and now he’s twisting strands of my hair around his fingers.
“Nobody. I’m just waiting for you to realize everything you’ve been taught is all smoke and mirrors.”
I shake my head, even though I feel like scales are falling from my eyes. Just a little.
“It’s even worse than a legal wedding. It’s a spiritual marriage. Only the Prophet can dissolve it. Just me being alone with you makes me an adulterer.”
“Sure, if you believe in all that nonsense.”
Barrett is talking about nonsense that I’ve believed in since I was a child. I was raised in a mostly happy home, the surprise baby at the end of a long line of siblings—18 in all. Then it all went to hell when the Prophet took over.
“It’s not nonsense.”
“Being with more than one woman is unthinkable to me. I don’t understand why you would sit here and defend it.”
“You don’t understand the culture. And that’s okay.”
Barrett scrubs a hand over his face. “Look at you. You’re a badass. You fucking poisoned an old creep so you could escape. You climbed halfway up Windgrave Mountain alone and then took over my house like you fucking owned the place. That’s not a sweet and demure sister-wife. That life is bullshit. And I don’t know why a self-possessed woman like you would put up with it.”
With that, Barrett throws back the covers, pulls on those godforsaken sweatpants again, and mumbles something about needing to add some logs to the fire.
He leaves, and I take a moment to think about what he’s saying.
I think about everything I’ve been through. I think about the way things were before the Prophet took over. I do remember my mom and her sister-wives being jealous of each other. I do remember going weeks, sometimes months, without seeing my dad. We didn’t have enough food. My sisters had to make their own clothes or settle for hand-me-downs. I remember a lot of good times with my siblings as a child. I always had someone to play with. I was never alone.
But if I’m honest with myself, it was never ideal.
I was scared of men until I met Barrett.
Finally, I come out of the bedroom and find him nestled in his recliner, staring at the fire.
“You said you regret to inform me that I’m not married.”
“Yeah,” he says, dragging his eyes away from the fire to look at me.
“When you said that, why did it feel like you did not regret that at all?”
“Irony, baby.”
“That’s it?” I ask, taking a step closer.
When I’m close enough, he hugs one arm around my waist and drags me onto his lap with a breathtaking lack of effort on his part. One second I’m standing next to him, and in the next, I’m straddling this massive man on his recliner.
His hands are on both of my thighs. I stare down at his face, processing how close I am to this man now. How I’ve never been so close to a man, ever.
“I don’t understand what’s happening here,” I say.
“Don’t you?” His hands move up an inch, causing heat to build in dangerous places. Unfamiliar places.
I shake my head. “I never thought I was attractive to anybody. And at the same time, I never found anyone attractive. I thought something was wrong with me.”
Slowly, Barrett drags his hands backward, so close to my ass, but not quite. “Goldilocks, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. If anybody in that godforsaken cult can’t see that, then they’re out of their minds.”
Barrett has a strange way with words. I like the way he talks plainly, and I almost believe him. But I was only chosen in marriage as a punishment. None of the younger men in the church ever gave me a second glance. Which was fine with me because I never thought anything about any of them, either.
I’m not sure what to do with my hands, so I rest them on his upper shoulders, on that triangular muscle at the base of his neck. I try to remember my half-assed anatomy lessons. Trapezius. That’s it. They look like a natural place to hold on, and I desperately need something to hold on to because every new reaction from my body is making me dizzy.
“Before Olivia, Louisa, and I decided things were so bad we needed to leave, I thought polygamy was my only choice. I didn’t want to be with anyone in particular, but I thought these people understood me. This is what my family has done for literally centuries. It’s all I knew. I thought at least it was a safe choice. A familiar choice. I could choose a husband or I could be the strange girl who spent all day picking wildflowers and in the greenhouse making oils and tinctures.”
I’m now unconsciously stroking my thumbs over Barrett’s shoulder and collarbone. His gaze is heated as he replies, “Doesn’t sound strange to me. It’s pretty fuckin’ sexy that you know how to do that shit.”
He makes me blush. No one but my girlfriends ever compliments my intellect.
A sadness creeps up then, and I tell him, “Once all the changes came, with all the new rules, people were suspicious of me. They called me a witch. But they put up with it because I made things that healed people.”
His hands are fully on my lower cheeks now, and it feels oddly protective. “That’s fucked up.”
I have to agree. “It is fucked up,” I say, now feeling more comfortable with that word.
A smile plays on Barrett’s full lips. I want to touch them. I want to know what they feel like against my skin. But everything in me holds me back. A kiss seems too intimate, more so than all the other touching we’re doing. Even more than the rigid cock nudging my inner thigh. I feel like as soon as I kiss someone, that will be the moment I really have left my community forever.
“Goldie,” he says after a while.
“Yes?”
“The way you keep staring at my mouth makes me a little crazy.”
“Oh,” I say, suddenly ashamed, moving my gaze to his eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
His hands caress my ass, building that fire of need within me. “No, baby. Don’t ever apologize for making me want you.”
He wants me. It should be obvious, with the way he keeps massaging my ass like it’s the end of the world and mine is the last ass he’ll ever touch.
“Are you saying that because you’re a lonely mountain man who’s badly in need of company?”
“So what if I am? We’re both two lonely, misunderstood people who found each other. What could be more perfect than that?”
Whatever blood remains in my horned-up brain now rushes south. Way, way south.
There’s just one problem. He’s going to laugh at me when I say it out loud.