8. Chapter 8
Chapter 8
KAT
A s if swept away by a thousand horses thundering across the desert, my heart raced heavily in my chest. I’d seen what I had, right? Unintentionally, and that certainly had not been how I’d imagined catching my first real glimpse of… well… any man, really. And it wasn’t like I’d seen it, seen it. But like…
My cheeks burned red hot at the realization that I’d totally sneaked another peek before closing the closet door and was totally wanting to do it again.
Ah…
“Kat!” my mom cried out, pounding against the door. The brass knob rattled, the two screws holding it to the door straining against the pressure.
“Coming!” I gushed, snapping out of the stupor that held me rooted outside of the closet door.
Rushing across the small room, I kicked Bernie’s pants and shirt under my cedar chest and quickly turned the lock on the door. Swinging it open, I leaned against the frame, hiding as much of the room with my body as I could.
“Hi, Mom. I’ll be right down,” I quickly said with a smile. My heart raced, blood pumping heavily in my ears as her brows twitched. Her gaze left mine, and she peered over my shoulder into the room.
“Why are you sweating?” she asked, pushing some brown hair similar to mine behind her ear.
I swallowed stiffly, straining for any subtle sound that might give away the fact there was a man in my closet. Why had I thought this was a good idea? Maybe I should’ve just said something to them about providing some clothes for Bernie. But there was something that gnawed at the back of my mind, pulsing with the steady drum of heat caused by the man himself, that had kept me from doing so.
“It was warm today,” I muttered, heat rising in my cheeks.
Her blue eyes darted back to mine. “And you’re still wearing the same clothes you worked in.”
“Well, I was halfway undressed when you knocked so I quickly put them back on since that was easier than taking them the rest of the way off and putting new clothes on.”
“Those ones?” She lifted a finger, pointing at the pile Bernie had set on the cedar chest.
“Uh, yeah, of course,” I replied, biting down on my bottom lip. My stomach squeezed, the guilt of a small white lie twisting tightly.
“Your brother’s clothes. The same brother who’s away for the summer working with mustangs, so I know for certain you just went and got those clothes from his room.”
“They’re comfy?” I said, unintentionally more as a question than an answer.
She placed her hands on her hips and closed her eyes with a sigh. “Just hurry up. Your food is getting cold.”
“Of course,” I replied, gripping the frame of the door.
She turned around, sweeping her hair over her shoulder, and padded away from me. Relief flooded my veins as rapidly as a spring thunderstorm came and went.
“Oh.” She paused but didn’t turn around.
My heart leapt to my throat; curdling nausea rose with it.
“If you just happen to have some man in your closet, don’t let your father see him leave,” she finished. “You know, just any man,” she added and quickly walked on, turned around the corner, then disappeared down the stairs.
I stared at the ghost of her figure, unable to move. Not a single muscle in my body twitched, no neuron fired. There was not a single thing in the world that triggered me to shut the door and get Bernie out of my closet.
“Well, fuck,” a man’s voice whispered through the muggy heat of the room.
Except for maybe that.
Within half a second, I shut the door and found myself standing directly in front of Bernie, who waited by the newly opened closet door. His brows raised as my chest brushed against his stomach.
“Apparently you didn’t need to hide me after all,” he continued with a wink .
“Don’t fucking wink. Don’t… Don’t do that,” I hissed as he peered down at me. “And, like, stop standing like that too.”
His chest rumbled with a chuckle, the vibrations oddly soothing my erratic heartbeat and drumming of prickling adrenaline. “I’m just standing.”
“Just put some clothes on and leave. Please. I cannot have my dad catch you.” I crossed my arms in front of my body, and Bernie’s eyes flickered away from mine. I slapped a hand over my cleavage. “Gah! You’re being so frustrating. Don’t look!”
He grinned to himself, pulling his eyes above my head, and then with footsteps as silent as death itself, he slipped around me. “You looked first, Kit Kat.”
“Looked first? You don’t have boobs.”
“I have a dick and balls, and I saw where your eyes went.”
“That is—” I closed my eyes. “You caught me off guard. That is not a fair comparison.”
“No? Then what would be?” he asked.
The crinkling of jeans met my ears as I remained facing the closet door, staring at the back of my eyelids.
“Hurry up,” I muttered, ignoring his taunting.
I didn’t understand what was going on. He seemed to be enjoying whatever this was. He seemed to be reveling in it. Whatever came out of his mouth was smooth and sharp, as quick as ice melting in the middle of summer. But what took the cake was his audacity. Only one other man had ever attempted stunts like Bernie was pulling today .
One day. All in one day. In just a single day, he’d crawled beneath my skin in a way that confused me.
“All right, Kat, you can look.” Bernie’s voice slipped through thoughts that were running in a circle of jumbled fog.
Turning around, I hesitantly pried my eyes open and sighed. “I was right.” I smiled, scanning his hardened frame. A tingle of intrigue slithered like a snake across my skin, and the shadow of his touch beneath my chin whispered against me again. Calloused, as hard as the muscling upon his body, his fingers wore memories of scars and work that didn’t come from sitting behind a desk.
“You were right about what?” he asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets as his gaze softened. An almost endearing look settled upon his features. Thin lips, freckled cheeks and nose, red hair like that of a dark monarch butterfly about ready to flutter away from a branch sat in gentle waves upon his head. His hat, still resting on the cedar chest, had hidden the copper hue from me. It was a short, obvious military cut, but not as if he was about to leave, but rather if he had come home from a world of chaos and violence I’d never seen in my cushy life.
His brows loosened; the two creases between them I’d thought permanent disappeared as his eyes lingered on mine. Sunlight from the window over my bed danced across his gaze, shifting the mossy green into that of a bright lily pad color.
“The clothes fit,” I finally muttered in response, wanting another moment caught in whatever strange swirling of a rushing whirlpool that flowed around us .
The edges of his lips twitched upwards, but he said nothing. His eyes slowly tracked down my figure, tracing every curve, every arc and sweep of my body. Normally, such an obvious action would’ve raised my hackles, but there was something that held me in place. As if I wanted him to look. As if letting a man like him drink me in crafted me into the very woman I knew I wanted to be.
I’d seen that look before. Not directed at me, at least not that I’d noticed, but there was nothing clouding the waters around us for it to be directed at anyone else.
“I should go,” he whispered, clearly not moving to break the moment.
I nodded slowly. “Don’t make a sound,” I replied quietly.
A tender smile caressed his lips, wrinkling the edges of his eyes. “Even you won’t know I’ve left.”
Goosebumps prickled upon my skin, rippling under the raise of his gaze back to mine. My heart trilled in my chest like an orchestra rising to its triumphant ending. “Go on,” I urged softly.
He winked and, as silently as he promised, he swept out of my room. I stood there, unable to move, unable to break my feet from the hardened cement they were lodged into, simply staring.
There’d been none like him before, and I knew there’d be none like him after.
Blinking rapidly, I swallowed down the lump rising as my heart continued to race erratically. Adrenaline seeped along my veins, heat pooling low in my core. Incomprehensible emotions raced through my body.
One day with him and I wanted more.
Even if logically I knew I couldn’t have more .
Despite the confusion, despite his rather impulsive actions and words, I wanted more of it.
Gasping, each inhale of oxygen strained as if through the thin opening of a straw, I clutched at my chest. Like the undertow, I was stranded at sea, needing to hear him speak again. To say those odd things that had me perplexed.
Why did I crave them so much?
Why did it make my heart flutter like the monarchs that rippled through the fields during the summer?
Like a drug crashing through my veins, a spell settled over me.
His face, his smile, his calloused fingers beneath my chin caught me in whatever trap locked my mind with nothing but thoughts of him. In a daze, I shuffled out of my room. What an idiot I’d been to move away so quickly when he’d touched me.
I paused at the base of the steps as my gaze caught my mom’s. Her eyes darted up the staircase and then back to me. “Where is he?” she asked.
“Where’s who?” I replied, still caught in a haze of thoughts and reality.
“The man who’d been in your room?” she whispered, glancing back over her shoulder.
“Dad’s not there, and there’s no other man here. You can go look if you want.” I offered.
Her brows stitched together for a moment and then she sighed. “I could have sworn I saw…”
I sucked in my bottom lip for a moment, Bernie’s words briefly graced my mind like a train just passing through town. “If there was, how upset would you actually be? I am an adult,” I asked .
She glanced over her shoulder once more and then stepped closer to me. “Don’t you dare tell your father I said this, but honestly, it would be nice.”
My eyes widened as my phone buzzed in my back pocket. “You’d be okay with it?”
She gently smiled. “Like you said, you’re an adult. You don’t need my approval. Though, if you do, then yes, I would.”
The vibrating in my back pocket continued, but I ignored it with a scoff. “That would require male attention. You know, flirting.”
“Oh, honey.” She pushed some hair behind my ear, her eyes filling with sympathy. “Men flirt with you. Like Wyatt.”
“He doesn’t flirt, Mom. He makes fun of me like he does with one of my brothers. For example, like how he talks with Sawyer.” My phone buzzed again, alerting me to another notification, and I whacked my butt, stopping the vibration.
“Maybe that’s his way of flirting with you.”
“To talk about me behind my back like he does with a bro? Yeah, that’s a real good way of flirting.”
She inhaled deeply. “That’s fair. I don’t know, baby.”
“Small towns,” I muttered.
Her arms wrapped around me, cradling me into her body. “Something will happen.”
“Dad would be happy if that ‘something’ was finally with Wyatt. And I know you would be too. We’ve talked about this before. You know I know about Wyatt and his parents’ conversation with you and Dad. ”
She rested her chin on the top of my head. “Your dad and I just want to see you happy.”
Once again, the annoying buzzing rumbled in my back pocket, and I rolled my eyes, ignoring it as I hugged my mom back. “Wyatt does not make me happy.”
“Want to answer your phone and then come eat?” my mom said, changing the subject.
Stepping out of the embrace, I slid my cell out from my jeans as my mom turned and walked back down the hall.
With an eye roll, I tapped the answer button. “What do you want?”
“Well, damn. I thought you’d be excited to hear from me so soon after I disappeared,” Bernie replied through the speaker.
I couldn’t help the smile that lifted on my lips. “Did me ignoring your calls not convey my feelings well enough?”
“I’ve never been good at picking up hints. You could smack them in my fucking face, and I’d probably still miss them,” he answered, and I just knew there was a smile on his lips with the level of sarcasm heard from his tone.
“Oh, ha ha,” I snarkily replied and plopped myself down on the edge of the stairs. “Really, though, why are you calling?”
“Because you never gave me my CAC. Also, you promised me a Kit Kat, and that was not given either.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth. “Oh my goodness, I totally spaced on your ID. And I never actually had a candy bar to give you…”
“I wasn’t talking about the candy bar,” he replied, his voice lowering, and I crossed my legs as a low pulse roared hot and slick .
Dropping my hand to my thighs, I looked out through the opaque glass on the front door. “But a Kit Kat is a candy bar.”
What the heck was going on with my body?
“Shit, Kat. I can’t fuck an actual candy bar,” he answered with a light chuckle.
I shook my head, knitting my brows together. “Well, I know that. What does that have to do with—”
“How about you sit and think on that, and when you get it, let me know. Until then, when can I get my CAC from you?” he quickly inserted.
“Get it?” I mumbled.
“Kit Kat,” he admonished with a lighthearted tone.
“I am so confused.”
A gentle bellow boomed through the speaker in my ear. “Forget it. Can I swing by tomorrow?”
“We’re headed to the fairgrounds early to set up for the rodeo. You’re welcome to come by there anytime,” I replied, rolling his words around my tongue. But I couldn’t figure out how he got from a candy bar to sex.
“Rodeo? What rodeo?” he asked.
Clicking my tongue, I shook my head. “I forgot you’re not from around here. It’s almost summer; we have rodeos like every weekend. This one in particular is for the seniors graduating high school, so they get special acknowledgment and such. My parents’ ranch supplies the calves and steers for ropin’ and bulldoggin’ and whatnot.”
“For what? The fuck is bulldogging?”
“Steer wrestling.” A rather unladylike snort escaped my lips. “Bernie, come to the fairgrounds a little before seven tomorrow night. Text me and I’ll have your CAC, and you can watch with me where I’ll explain what’s going on.”
“Ah, so you do want to see me again. See, I got that hint,” he replied, and my brows stitched together. That man was as confusing as they’d come. But for whatever reason, I enjoyed whatever we were doing. Whatever strange thing was happening, I was drawn toward it, toward him.
“I have your military ID. How does that equate to whether I want to see you again or not?”
“Kat, have you ever had a boyfriend before? Been even remotely involved in flirting and the whole dating world? Maybe a girlfriend? Am I just barking up a tree that doesn’t swing toward men?” he asked.
“I’m into men, and I’ve had a boyfriend before. It’s been a while, but what does that have to do with what you said and then what I asked?”
I heard a heavy sigh come from Bernie, followed by a light chuckle. “Never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow night, Kit Kat.”
And the line went dead.
I plopped my phone into my lap, ignoring the rumbling of my stomach as our conversation tumbled through my mind.
And no matter how much I replayed the words, nothing became any clearer. I needed to call my best friend; she’d help me figure out what I should have known.