Chapter 9 #3
Her hands grip at my shirt, fisting the cotton before splaying wide to roam over my abs.
I flex beneath her touch, wanting to rip my shirt off and feel her palms against my skin.
But I don’t. If I start taking off clothes, I’ll have my jeans around my thighs and her shorts around her knees in an instant.
But shirts don’t have to come off to get at what I want.
I slide the strap of her tank top off her shoulder, giving myself room to work, and push the neckline lower.
With one finger, I follow the edge of the black cotton bra I find.
I can see her nipple through the thin material and groan.
“Mmm, sweetheart.” She arches beneath my touch, giving me silent permission to go further, and I swipe my thumb over the nub through the fabric, feeling it harden even more.
Needing to see her, I pull the cotton down to expose her small tit.
I knead at the skin roughly, making tight circles around her dusky pink nipples.
“So pretty,” I growl before I suck as much of her skin into my mouth as I can.
I form a tight seal around her nipple, sucking and teasing at her with my tongue at the same time.
“Oh!” she cries out, leaning back with one hand supporting her on the bar as the other rests on my shoulder. I feel the bite of her nails into my skin and take it as a sign that I’m getting to her, especially as I feel her hips buck on the bar, searching for my cock.
Shoving the other triangle of her thin bra down, I give that mound some love and attention too. I lay worshipping kisses all over her exposed body, breasts, chest, neck, shoulders, then work my way back up to her mouth.
My hands go to her thighs as we kiss, squeezing and kneading the warm satin skin I find there.
Getting higher and higher, my thumbs are on the edge of her pussy beneath her shorts.
Her ankles wrap around my legs, holding me in place as if I have anywhere else I’d rather be right now.
I can feel the heat of her core, am right on the edge of testing her wetness beneath her panties—going slow be damned—when a loud bang on the door interrupts us.
“Willow? You good?” a voice booms.
“What the fuck?” I mutter, instantly on alert.
Willow jumps off the bar, yanking her bra and shirt back in place as she strides to the door.
I beat her there, covering the distance in furious strides.
I throw an arm out, keeping her behind me with a forceful look.
It’s two in the morning and no one should be bothering her.
The very idea makes my blood run ice-cold.
Great Falls is safe, but Willow is precious.
She looks at me wryly, likely thinking my protectiveness is unnecessary, but I couldn’t tone it down if I wanted to.
“Who is it?” she calls out.
“Chief Gibson. Doing a drive by and saw the lights still on and your car outside. Open the door.” His voice changes from congenial to authoritative.
“Oh, okay,” Willow says, looking at me in amusement as I step back to give her the space I couldn’t a second ago.
She twists the lock that Ilene closed when she left and cracks the door open. “Hi, Chief. I’m good, just . . . working late.”
She can’t lie to save her ass and Chief Gibson hears it. He pushes in, taking a few steps inside, but freezes when he sees me.
“Bobby.”
“Chief Gibson.”
He looks from me to Willow and back, seeming to fight a smile in favor of his blank ‘cop face’. Well, this particular cat’s out of the bag. By sunrise, the whole town will think the chief busted us having wild sex in the middle of Hank’s, no doubt.
“So, I guess you’re all good then, Willow?” he says, not bothering to hide his grin now that any fears he had have been allayed.
She nods. “Yeah. Uh, all good. We were just leaving.”
Doing his job, the chief turns back to me once more. “You been drinking tonight, son?”
I’m not his son, but I’m not going to piss him off by correcting him. “Yep, had a Girly Beer around eight and a draft around nine. Nothing since but dinner and Sprite. Ilene’s chicken fried steak sandwich was delicious.”
He takes my measure, looking me up and down.
I’ve never been a heavy drinker, saw too much of that with Dad for it to have any appeal, but it’d take a whole lot more than a couple of drinks several hours ago to affect me in the slightest, especially at my size.
“Damn, wish I’d gotten one of those sandwiches.
I’ll have to swing by tomorrow and see if I can snag one myself. ”
He touches the brim of his hat and dips his chin. “You kids have a good night, y’hear?”
“Yes sir,” Willow says.
I grunt an agreement, still a bit put out that he interrupted us. But it is good to know that he’s keeping an eye on the place and my girl.
Closing the door, Willow spins in place and puts her back against it. She’s breathing hard like we got busted doing something wrong, but what we were up to was so, so right.
“Oh, my God. That was terrifying.” She does look a bit mortified, but the way her eyes are dancing, she doesn’t seem too upset about it. She actually looks . . . invigorated.
I crowd in, pressing her against the door. “Yeah, terrifying,” I agree dryly.
She laughs. “Okay, Mr. Bad Boy, maybe not for you. But I’m a good girl, and usually invisible. Certainly not used to having the cops bang down my door when I’m in the middle of . . .”
Her voice trails off like she’s not sure how to describe what we were doing, and I’m now certain that no one has ever dirty talked to my sweet Willow. And I’m even more certain that she hasn’t dirty talked either.
“Foreplay?” I suggest.
Her cheeks pinken adorably.
“If Gibson had been a few seconds later, I would’ve been finger fucking you and at least then, I’d know what you feel like, how you smell, how you taste.
” My voice has gone low and husky, and even just the thought of slipping a finger inside her has me adjusting my cock in my jeans, which are suddenly way too tight.
She blinks, owl-like behind those frames, and inhales sharply. “Bobby . . .” That breathy sound almost has me saying ‘fuck it’ and giving in to what we both want and know is coming, but delaying the inevitable has its reward too.
I rub a thumb along her cheekbone. “Time, Willow. We have plenty, but if you remember nothing else from tonight, I want you to know that you are never invisible to me. You’re all I see—your eyes swirling as you think, that smile that goes a little higher when you’re extra happy, how comfortable you are in your own skin and because of that, you make everyone else want to be around you, the way you double-tap the whiskey to the counter but single-tap the vodka and tequila, though I don’t know why you do either, how you take pictures of simple things that bring you joy and share them because it’s your way of brightening other people’s day too, and most of all, how your breath gets a little shallow when I get too close and you get nervous. Like now.”
She takes a deep breath, forcing air down into her lungs, but it’s too late. I already saw those little pants she was making. I’m not too close to her physically, but I’m too close to her truth, and that’s an itchy-irritable feeling to let someone that close, this fast.
Even though it’s not the real issue, I’m willing to give her an inch for now, so I step back. Her hands stay pressed to my chest, though at her own doing, and I hope that she doesn’t want to lose contact fully.
“You’re intense. You know that, right?” she whispers, as if that’s supposed to be a newsflash to me.
“Been told that a time or two. Never mattered till now. Too much?” I dare to ask.
Her bottom lip disappears behind her teeth for a second, and she stares at her tanned hands against the black cotton covering my chest as she thinks. Finally, her eyes lift and meet mine. She shakes her head, gifting me one of her soft smiles. “Not too much. Just right.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I tell her, and she brightens. Laughing, I scold her, “Not yet, woman. I meant for you to go home and me to go home and jack off. Fuck, you’re gonna kill me, but I do want to wait. It matters, Willow. You matter. We don’t have to rush.”
Her cheeks pinken again, and her innocence washes over me like a balm, telling me that waiting is the right thing to do, but damn, her eagerness makes it so hard. “Okay, but I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
In the lot, I make sure she gets in her car safely and watch as she pulls out to head home. I have a split second where I consider turning right and following her home to finish what we started, but in the end, though it’s agonizing to do so, I turn left and go home as I promised.
The knocking on my truck window comes way too early, with the sun barely past the horizon.
“What?” I groan.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I peek one eye open to see Brody standing at my driver’s window, holding up a cup of coffee. The aroma’s enough to motivate me to wake up. I sit up straight, stretching out the new kinks in my back from sleeping slouched down in the cab of my truck.
Opening the door, Brody hands me the coffee.
I grunt my appreciation, speaking his first language.
Hell, it’s damn near his only language. I have trouble expressing myself at times.
Brody just gave up on even trying years ago.
He’s more the point and grunt type, but somehow, we can all decode what he says, even when he doesn’t really say it.
He waits for me to get a few good swallows down, letting the caffeine do its job, before he asks, “How long ago did you get in?”
Knowing the sun rises at six, I estimate, “Couple of hours ago. Didn’t want to wake you and Rix up because I knew you had an early day.”
He grunts back, showing his appreciation in return. Today is the monthly farmer’s market day, and Brody and Shay spent several minutes last night talking about what to take. Well, Shay talked and Brody listened. They work together at the market, selling off the crops we grow and Shay’s products.
“I’d love to tell you to sleep in or skip out and leave Brutal to it today, but he’s gonna need you. I can’t fill in because I’ve gotta go to town. Shay needs me.”
That’s not exactly true, but also not exactly a lie. It’s more complicated than that.
Brody is the oldest of us all, and when Dad went off the deep end after Mom died, Brody took responsibility for us all, becoming a de facto dad in a lot of ways.
He and Shay were the right and left hands of the family, leaving Brutal and me to our own devices, but somehow, we all worked together toward a common goal—keeping the family farm.
A goal we failed at meeting spectacularly, thanks to dear old Dad fucking us over, even from the grave.
That’s how we got hooked up with the Bennetts.
It’s been a while now, and we’ve all adjusted for the most part, though Brody has big dreams of saving up enough money to buy our land back.
He says Mama Louise is just ‘holding’ it for us, but I think that’s wishful thinking.
Still, the bit of money Shay makes at the farmers market is split three ways—a bit to the Bennetts to buy supplies, like the plums from the trees, a bit to Shay as a salary for all her hard work, and a bit to the Tannen family account.
We all donate to that, giving as much as we can, as often as we can, hoping that Brody will find a way to get that deed back.
I think it’d be different now that we’re so dependent on the Bennetts and they’re so dependent on us, but it’d be nice to have the iron Tannen Farms sign above our gate mean something again.
But basically, we all need each other to play the roles we’re assigned, and mine is as a farmhand.
“I know. I wouldn’t ditch Brutal. We’ve got crops to check,” I tell Brody, having had zero illusions of taking the day off. That’s not what farming is about. There are no days off, only days you pay someone else to do what you were supposed to be doing in the first place.
I take another sip of coffee, praying that increasing the amount coursing through my bloodstream will also increase its effects. “So, what’d you think?”
He doesn’t need me to spell out the subject change.
He knows I’m asking if he liked Willow. Another piece of his being the father figure for so long is that we don’t like to disappoint him.
Shay and me, in particular, are sensitive to making Brody proud.
Brutal does his own thing, and I don’t think he gives two rat shits about what Brody thinks, but luckily, they stand on the same side of the fence most of the time anyway.
He looks at me through narrowed eyes, though the sun’s barely up and he’s got on his camo cow hat, like always. He hums thoughtfully. “You don’t need to know what I think. You already picked her.”
I nod. “I know, but I trust your opinion. Always have.”
He’s silent for a long moment, and I think he’s not going to answer, but he finally says, “I like her.”
That’s it. Brody Tannen’s official stamp of approval.
“Thanks.”
He clears his throat and turns to head back into the house, leaving me alone with the early morning light.
A few more sips of coffee and I’ll get going on the day.
Brutal and I have two pastures to check for pests and problems, and walking their long rows sounds like a good way to think.
It usually becomes slightly meditative, sometimes resulting in a song melody or lyrics and sometimes just letting me clear my head a bit.
I already know what I’ll be thinking about today . . . Willow.