Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Iverson
I wait until Tuesday to go to Sunny’s office. Each day has been torture. I have to be in the same room with her and talk about finances. I need to rattle off amounts and estimates of feed, hay, and repairs while my blood will be trying to vacate my brain and stream right for my dick.
Her door’s open when I knock on it.
“Come in.”
I enter. She’s behind that massive desk. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun. My stomach sinks when I see she’s in another sundress. A light-green one this time that gapes over her chest when she leans over.
She looks up from her computer and leans back in her chair, a sultry smile on her face. “I thought I’d have to track you down again.”
“I do as I’m told, ma’am.”
Her smile dips. “Ma’am again? I warned you.”
I lift a shoulder and pull out my phone.
I open my notes app and set it in front of her.
“That’s what we have for bales and how long I think they’ll last. Thanks to the rain last spring, we have a nice supply, but I still recommend purchasing a few loads.
” I sit across from her desk. “Glen refused to try a new mineral because it’s more expensive, but I have it listed for you to look at.
Reviews say it’s better for lactating cows, and I think it’d decrease our bottle calf rates. ”
“Okay.” She scrolls through my down-and-dirty list. A furrow forms on her brow. “Self-propelled baler?”
“We do enough haying that I think it’s justified.” Her dad and Glen never thought it was. “It’d free up a tractor. Every year, we have to delay baling because we’re still cutting or we have a breakdown. We can also change settings in real-time with the self-propelled option.”
“You sound like a sales guy got to you.”
I bristle. “And you sound like your dad. Maybe try haying one year and see how playing round-robin with the equipment bogs down your day.”
“I sound like Dad for a reason.” She keeps her defensiveness contained, but I hear it. “He’s kept Hawthorne Ranch successful for decades.”
I snort. “Yeah, and he’s running it like he did in the past. Sometimes, I’m surprised we’re not using horses instead of tractors.”
Her expression stays serious. “Hiring another person and buying more horses is cheaper than a lot of this equipment.”
She had me there, but cost wasn’t everything. “Cowboys don’t grow on trees, Sunny. Want to keep a good employee longer? Then make the job so their body doesn’t give out so fast.”
The squeaky wheels of housekeeping carts go by the door. Two young cleaners chatting about their weekend filters in.
Sunny goes to the door and closes it. I keep my gaze dutifully off her and the way her sundress drapes over her breasts to hug her waist. When she returns, she doesn’t go behind her desk. She leans against it in front of me.
“How long do you want to be an employee?” Her voice is quiet, but her question seems genuine.
I grind my molars. I like the work I do, but getting up to toil all day for another man isn’t the dream.
Foster’s offer runs through my head again.
I have to talk to my brothers. We could do a lot with that money, maybe even start our own ranch.
The irony that we’d have to sell our property and buy something smaller in order to do it isn’t lost on me.
Is that what Haven and Durban want?
“As long as I need to be,” I say, keeping my head down.
“I’ve seen Daddy’s benefits. You can’t work here for twenty years and have enough to retire. You’re going to be working until you’re almost seventy.”
“Are you our financial adviser now?” I ask sarcastically.
“If you need one.”
I blow out a hard breath. “I don’t know, Sunny.
Could me and the guys leave and do something else?
Yes. But what? None of us have more than a high school diploma.
Our only experience is what we do here. Sure, we’ve done some construction.
We were on a road crew once. It’s all back-breaking work. At least we enjoy this.”
“I feel like you’re underestimating yourself—and them.”
“My brothers will follow me over a cliff.” I clench my teeth. “It’s a lot of responsibility.”
“I can help with what you do have,” she says softly. “I wasn’t kidding about the financial advisor. I’m not one, but I understand it. If you trust me.”
“It’s not about trust.” It should be, but I like to think I’m a good judge of character. My mama’s responsible for that in all the worst ways.
I want to ask Sunny about coming into a windfall of money.
Can she help with that? What would she do?
I don’t think she’d tell her dad, but I can’t reveal the last offer to her before I do to my brothers.
I can let them know we have someone who can help us do more than watch the amount drain slowly.
She’s quiet, waiting for me to continue. I’m surprised I want to do just that. I don’t entertain fantasies, and I don’t share them with strangers. But she knows something about me no one else does. Might as well add to it.
“If the world spun in my favor,” I finally say, “I’d like a ranch of my own. I’d call the shots. Hell, I’d love to ranch with Durban and Haven. As long as it has the name Hennessy.” I run my thumb and forefinger along my lower lip. “I’d like to learn something new too.”
“Like a hobby?”
I lift a shoulder. “Maybe. You know, there’s this guy…
” I clear my throat. I can’t tell her all of it.
Not without the approval from my siblings.
“We go way back, and he started a distillery. Top-shelf shit. Real good stuff. The night you came in, I was pondering how he knew what to do. I knew he learned distilling, but it’s the grains and the aging, and I dunno, the water?
” I watched a bourbon documentary once in the bunkhouse.
“It’s interesting, but it can’t be a hobby. ”
She tilts her head. “Why not?”
“Home distilling isn’t allowed. I like beer, but not enough to make it.”
Her chiming laugh is a treat to my ears. “I’m sure you’ll find something, and your biggest strength is your family. Three heads are better than one.”
I give her a long, lingering look. God, she’s gorgeous. So out of my league, it’s not funny. She didn’t laugh at some poor cowboy telling her his hopes and dreams.
“Keep me in mind,” she says. “I can help you with what you need.”
I huff out a laugh and stand. “You are very much not allowed to help me with what I need.”
She looks up at me through her long lashes. “And just what is that?”
“Another long night of fucking that sweet pussy of yours.” I nearly choke on my words. Shit, where did that come from? How did we get so close?
Her face is inches from mine, and I’m towering over her.
“I need that too,” she whispers, and it breaks the flimsy restraint I have. “I’ve thought of you every time I’ve made myself come since that night.”
“You got yourself off thinking about me?” I’ll never need help getting myself off again after that confession.
I hitch her farther onto the desk and sweep her skirt up. She works at the fly of my jeans, and as soon as her warm fingers touch the flesh of my cock, I’m toast. I’m hers.
“Sunny, I need to get inside of you now.” I hook my fingers around the waistband of her flimsy underwear.
She’s off the desk and pulling her skirt down. “Oh god, I’m sorry. I want you so much, but I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
My heart is pounding and my chest is heaving.
Between how close to ecstasy I was and feeling like we were busted, my heart rate is sky-high.
“It’d be worth it.” I take her in, from her puffy lips to those legs that could’ve been wrapped around me, and I know one thing is for certain. She’s worth the risk.
But I’m not. “It probably saved us. I don’t have any condoms on me.” I never replenished them. If it wasn’t her, I wasn’t interested.
“Oh.” She blinks those big eyes. “Well, I’m on the pill, and I get checked yearly.”
“I use the paltry healthcare we get here.”
The corner of her mouth tips up. “I’m going to push for a better plan.”
“That’s my girl.” I brush my hand down her flushed cheek. “I want you so bad.”
“You can have me.” She wraps her hand around my wrist, but she drops her gaze. “I don’t want to get you in trouble though.”
I cup her face. My decision is easy. I just hope I’m the only one paying for it. I’ve been a model employee, but I’ve never come across someone like Sunny. I don’t want to waste whatever time she’s willing to give me. “I never much liked being told what to do.”
Sunny
I’m bent over the bench in the tack room. My jeans are around my knees. Iverson’s hand is clamped on the back of my neck, and he’s plunging into me. I bite my lip to keep quiet, but the ecstasy that swamps me is overwhelming. My teeth are going to cut through my flesh.
Worth it.
I reach the peak, and I want to hold it there. We don’t have hours like we did our first and only night together.
“Iverson,” I say his name on a breath. I’m begging. It’s a plea to stretch it out. It’s demanding he doesn’t stop.
He slides in and out, an arm clamped around my middle with his rough fingers on my clit. He’s got his other hand cupping a breast under my shirt.
“I’ve got you, sunny day.” He backs off, holding me at the brink as his thrusts get faster and harder. “Now, baby. Come for me hard.”
I grip the sides of the bench and grind back into him as I tumble over the edge. “ Iverson .” Waves and waves of pleasure wash over me.
“Fuck, Sunny.” His hold on me tightens. I can’t move, and I don’t want to.
There’ll never be a time I don’t want this. Him inside me. Filling me. I go to bed and wonder what it would be like to fall asleep in his arms. I know so little about him, yet I feel like I know more than most everyone in his life.
All too soon, he’s pulling out of me and tucking that magnificent cock back into his pants. I tug up my jeans, wishing we didn’t have to rush.