Chapter 17 #2
Good. Everything is taken care of. My family and Durban have my back.
“I was so tempted to quit on the spot. She purposely insulted me, and that’s what hurts the most.” I squeeze my eyes shut and suck in his caramel-and-oak scent.
My hormones are programmed to relax around him.
Tension melts out of my body to the point where I’m just tired.
“I’ve taken so much shit from employers that I didn’t deserve, but standing up for myself cost me every time.
” I fold my arms and lean my butt against the table.
He’s between me and the doorway, like he’s buffering me from the world.
“You can quit.” He brushes the backs of his fingers down my cheeks, and I soak up every millimeter of his touch. “You can tell her and Stanford to go to hell, and we’ll support you. Your dad will support you. The town will support you.”
I blow out a heavy breath, but turn my face into his hand.
“I’m so close to the end. I can’t let her ruin this for me.
This is the only way to cut my uncle out of all our lives.
If I wreck his daughter’s wedding, he’ll never let the land go.
” I inhale a lungful of air, steeling myself to go out and face the crowd.
“I’m going to finish this. I’m going to help this ranch.
I’m not going to be the drain on this family. ”
He’s even closer now. “You’re too damn good for this wedding. Your whole family is.” He pauses and screws his face up. “Your immediate family.”
Our bodies are lined up. I slide my hands around his shoulders. “I feel better now. Because of you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You made me feel less alone.” I know my sisters and Mom are out there. Jamison, Avery, and Thea will throw down with almost no notice, and Jamison would do the same and calmly go nurse Tavis afterward. But I can’t have that. I can’t be the cause of more drama.
“I’m here for you. All weekend.”
And after? I’m afraid to ask. Two more days. That’s all. Three, if I wait for Sunday to see if Durban is still interested in me.
What if he wants to be done with me? Or keeps me at a distance and keeps what’s between us to just sex?
Preemptive hurt rises up like smoke. Would I go along with it just to get more of him? Put up with the bare minimum when I know I want more? I’ve been down that road.
The wedding hasn’t even happened yet, and Durban’s here with me now.
I want to push my hands through his dark locks, but he’s combed his hair nicely. If he’d worn his cowboy hat instead, he would’ve stolen all the attention from the groom.
It’s why I suggested he doesn’t wear it when he’s working. A wedding planner has her pride.
He places his mouth on mine for a slow, searching kiss. I take it further, licking across the seam of his lips. It’s like I flip a switch. He clamps me harder against him and opens for me, tangling his tongue with mine in a slow, sensual dance.
The ridge of his erection presses into my belly.
I don’t have much room between him and the table, but I claw at the waistband of his jeans.
I need him to hold up his end of our agreement now.
I need him to drain this stress from me, to squash these hopeless and hopeful thoughts playing tug-of-war in my head.
He breaks the kiss like it’s the last thing he wants to do. “Are you sure?” He’s got his hands on my waist, stroking my sides with his thumbs.
I’m one hundred percent certain I want him. Beyond tonight, but for now? Yes. “Can you be quick?”
He scoops up the hem of my dress and drags my underwear off. I step out of them, but I wouldn’t have cared if he ripped them off.
“Hold this,” he says about the fabric of my skirt. He shoves my panties in his pocket and finishes freeing himself. Then he hitches me on top of the table and skims his hand over my thigh, sweeping up to my pussy. Pleasure ripples from every point he touches.
“I need to get you ready,” he says roughly in my ear.
“I’m ready. Just fuck me.”
He lets out a combination of a growl and a grunt and thrusts inside. Suddenly full, that pressure I wanted him to drain is gone, replaced by him and increasing satisfaction. I smother a cry against his shoulder but immediately grind against him. I need more, and I need it fast.
He pumps into me, long and slow at first, until I grab his ass and urge him to go faster. And faster he goes. “Do you need it hard, Belle?”
“God, yes.” I widen my legs. The edges of his fly cut into my thighs, but I relish the bite of pain. With each shove in, he rubs against my clit, and I edge closer to the top of my peak. Almost there. “Harder.”
The cords of his neck strain as he hinges his hips back and forth. “Hold on tight.”
I release his butt and grip the edge of the table. He slams into me. Withdraws. Rams in again. Over and over until he’s grunting with each breath.
My mind is blissfully empty. I can think of nothing but hanging on. I careen through my crest, coming harder than I thought possible. My body clamps on to him so tightly, I don’t know how he keeps moving. I clamp my legs harder around him.
He grits his teeth through a roar, coming with me, and plants both hands on each side of me. When he slams his mouth to mine, I nearly topple back.
Two seconds later, he’s pulling out of me and tucking himself back into his pants.
My heart rate hasn’t slowed down, but it’s for a different, more climactic reason than when I walked in here.
“You okay?” he asks as he helps me put my feet solidly on the floor.
“Much better.” I’ll go through the rest of the night on a post-coital cloud. I straighten my dress and give his pocket a pointed look. “Um, my underwear?”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “I’m gonna go ahead and keep these.” He wraps an arm around my waist. “And you can be distracted from everything going on out there by my cum running down your thigh.”
Durban
Iverson tosses a square bale of hay into the back of the trailer hitched to the side-by-side. We’re behind the barn, finishing morning chores. His horses are lined up at the fence, their tails swishing, watching us.
“Last one,” I say as I fling mine in.
He swipes the back of his wrist across his brow and rests a gloved hand on the edge of the trailer. “How’d last night go?”
“Fine.” He continues to watch me. The back of my neck prickles. “What?”
“Jamison said you couldn’t keep your eyes off Campbell. And then you two disappeared during the meal.”
“I had to restock,” I say as boringly as possible. Like I didn’t have the hottest quickie of my life and become that pervert who won’t give a woman her underwear back.
“You came back with one bottle.”
Damn. I hoped no one noticed. I shrug and take my work gloves off. “That’s restocking.”
“Something you want to tell me?”
“Nothing to share.” I’m not the only one involved. If Campbell wanted Jamison to know, she would’ve told her. Either she was keeping her sister from worrying, or she flat-out didn’t want to tell her.
He narrows his eyes, studying me even longer. “Haven told me.”
“That cocksucker!”
Iverson stabs a finger in my direction. “I knew it! What does he know that I don’t?”
I snap my mouth shut. Haven didn’t say a thing, and I fell for it. Iverson outsmarted me.
Hurt passes through his eyes. “I know I’ve had stuff going on, but it’s not like you can’t talk to me.”
I puff out a hard breath, drop the tailgate of the trailer, and prop an ass cheek on it.
“Natalie broke up with me.”
His cheek twitches, but he holds his reaction in well. “And Campbell is the rebound?”
“No.” Is she? I’ve never needed a rebound relationship, and maybe at first I was only looking for relief, but Campbell’s always been more than that.
“We didn’t want you to worry, but we didn’t want anyone to know.
Haven caught her at my place and said he wouldn’t tell.
It’s just . . . She was stressed about the wedding, and I was frustrated about waiting for Natalie only to be dropped right before she finishes her degree. ”
“Damn.” He shakes his head before narrowing his attention on me. “You miss Natalie?”
I miss Campbell. I haven’t thought about Natalie, but I lift a shoulder so it doesn’t seem like I’m panting after Campbell when she’s vulnerable.
A flicker of disappointment lights his eyes. “Can’t help taste,” he mutters.
“I don’t miss her,” I say, irritated that he assumed my silence was about my ex because why wouldn’t he?
He takes off his gloves and slaps the side of the trailer with them, shaking his head. “I thought it was weird that you and Campbell were working real well together when you could hardly tolerate her.”
I didn’t know her. “We get along just fine.”
He snorts. “With your clothes off.”
We didn’t need to be naked last night. But all those times talking with her, in the dark, in the barn, and eating together, I was stripped down more than I’ve ever been. “It’s just until the wedding’s done. Then we’re going to concentrate on our work.”
“What about work do you need to concentrate on?”
“Getting taken seriously.”
“We do take you seriously.”
“No, you and Lane take the bottom line seriously, but this whole endeavor was to push the limits of spirits. Right now, we’re pushing mediocre.”
His brows shoot up. “Damn, Durban. Tell me how you really feel.”
“We need to really unleash our abilities, and then we need to show them off. We need to enter more contests, win awards, and create buzz. We need to make the bottles that sell at estate auctions for thousands because that would mean our reputation is that well known and respected.”
Iverson doesn’t immediately respond. He swats his gloves against the trailer a few times. “We’re working on Rafting and Tasting. Then there’s the street fair in Billings.”
And Bozeman and Helena. “We need more. We need to expand.”
He slides his gloves back on. “Maybe you could talk to that event planner you’re sneaking around with and see if she has any more ideas.”
“I will.” Relieved my interrogation didn’t last long and he didn’t berate me for fucking his sister-in-law, I push off the tailgate of the trailer and walk around to the driver’s side.
Time to get this day going. Excitement’s starting to build at the thought of discussing another project to work on with Campbell.
It means working together more after the wedding.
It means watching her blossom and thrive.
“Durban?”
The hesitant expression on my brother’s face isn’t one I’ve seen before. He’s the guy we go to for everything. Our leader, and not just because he’s the oldest. Because he’s always taken care of us. “Yeah?”
“Relationships . . . can be . . . more.”
“What are you talking about?”
He doesn’t get into the side-by-side but continues to shift uncomfortably. “It means, fuck, I don’t know. You waited for Natalie for years, and she only tossed scraps to you, and now you’re limiting what you could have with Campbell to the wedding.”
“That’s all we’ve talked about,” I say stubbornly, embarrassment coagulating in my chest. She hasn’t said she wants more with me. “We have an agreement, and I’m not adding to her stress.”
“You want more though.”
“It’s only been a couple of weeks.”
“You stayed loyal to Natalie for years after only a few months.”
A blob in my chest starts to pulsate. “Exactly. I’m not making that mistake again.” I start the engine, and it whirs to life. I’m done with this conversation.
Iverson doesn’t move. “You weren’t the one that made the mistake.”
I stare ahead, fighting off a case of heartburn that feels a lot like yearning.
I did make a mistake—with Natalie and, worse, when I judged Campbell.
Add in the mess of a relationship Campbell just got out of, and she’ll probably want to be left alone after the wedding.
If she does keep me around, it’d be for the orgasms. As much as I could lose myself in her forever, sex isn’t enough.
Waiting on her for years wouldn’t be enough.
I want all of Campbell, and I’m too much of a pussy to ask her if she wants the same. “Campbell and I think each other is fine for a good time, and neither of us has expressed wanting more. It’s as simple as that.”