27. AVERY #2
The exact conversation we had on the way home, which makes me dread telling her that she’s going to miss school tomorrow given they’re handing out parts. I’m hoping that the prospect of seeing Nora and Rafe is enough to keep her happy, especially since Scarlett will be there too.
When I look back at him, his earlier smile is gone, and a serious expression replaces it. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to shake the alarm that rattles around my insides, I still find myself chilled to the core and waiting for him to deliver the worst.
“I’m going to get changed so I can do the horses, and then we can order takeout so we can sit and talk. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” It’s all I can manage as I watch him put the bag with the shoebox down on the console table and then head upstairs.
After putting the shoes away with the dress, I join Jo and Iris in the kitchen.
Cap is asleep and snoring loud enough that the sound vibrates around the space while the other three are lazing by the bottom oven.
The weather is cooling down rapidly, and when they’re not running around like mad puppies, they’re in front of the fire or the oven when it’s on.
“How was your day?” I ask Jo, hugging her as I stand beside her watching while she covers the lids of the applesauce jars she made yesterday with some green gingham cotton squares.
“Quiet,” she replies, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “But good. All those naps got me feeling old.”
“Rubbish, you’re simply seasoned. That’s all.
Besides, rest is good. It’s what the doctor ordered.
” Literally. Rhett made sure she listened to him this morning after struggling to sleep most of the week, it was beginning to show on her face.
I’ve noticed how her memory tends to play up when she gets into a sleepless rut.
Taking one of the fabric patches and an elastic band from the pile in front of her, I start covering some of the jars too.
We’re doing it all in silence as Iris finishes off one of the seed-and-berry granola bars Jo made yesterday.
Rhett loves them for breakfast, and since he’s been staying here at least four out of seven nights, she’s been baking them almost every other day.
“What’s buggin’ you, sugar?” Jo asks when Iris wanders off to watch television.
For a brief moment I consider trying to brush it all off; however, it’s an impossible feat with Jo.
“Rhett said he needs to talk to me about something but—” Fuck. I stop and before she can try and pry anything from me, I finish the jar in my hand and start for the stables. “I’ll be right back.”
“Atta girl!” Jo calls after me with a wink when I look back.
I don’t need to talk to her about whatever it is Rhett needs to talk to me about. I need to go to him. She’s not going to tell me anything that’s going to put my mind at rest from all the thoughts swimming around it like piranhas feeding off fresh, bloody flesh.
It’s getting dark even though it’s barely five in the afternoon, and when I walk into the stables, the lights give the shadowy interior a golden glow.
Taking a moment to admire the scene, I lean up against one of the thick beams. It’s a sight to behold as Rhett shovels the old hay into the wheelbarrow beside him.
His hair is a ruffled mess that has my fingers aching to get all tangled in it while my palms itch to touch the muscles working beneath his T-shirt.
To feel them move and bulge underneath my hot hands as he kisses me or when he fucks me.
With my thighs clenching tight and my belly tied in knots, my heart skips a beat when he turns to find me drooling over him.
I can’t bring myself to be embarrassed by my open ogling.
It feels good when he does it to me in the mornings when I shower.
It feels good to be desired the way he does me.
And I want him to feel good too. I want him to feel the way he makes me feel.
Wanted beyond sense or reason. Needed more desperately than my next breath.
“You wanna help or just stand there…staring?” he asks, stabbing the shovel into the heap in the wheelbarrow.
“Hmm…” Letting out some of the fizzing air from my lungs, I try to stop myself from squeaking. “I’m beginning to understand why you love watching me shower.”
“So you’re ogling me?” Brows hitching high, he takes a step toward me, long and purposeful. A salacious grin tips up one side of his face, making the butterflies in my belly go insane. “Because that’s what I do. Shamelessly.”
My throat swells and stomach swoops as he takes a few more strides and pauses a little over an arm’s reach away from me.
My blood courses through me like lava, and my knees threaten to buckle at the way his stare rakes over me, lust etched on every line of his face as he licks across his bottom lip.
Clinging onto the beam at my back, I stop myself from slipping to my ass. Every breath echoes between us, and when he braces his hands on his hips, his arms bulge in that way that makes me squirm.
“You ever had a real roll in the hay?”
When I shake my head, Rhett comes closer, his body heat permeating through my clothes as his hands go to my hips and squeeze, hard enough that my sharp inhale hits the back of my throat, making me choke on his warm breath.
With his proximity and his scent enveloping me, there’s nothing I can do but hold on tighter to the wooden beam as his hands slip over the curve of my hips to the hem of my wool dress.
It’s one of the few items I’ve bought myself since being here.
Shorter than I’ve worn in years, and although this morning I wasn’t sure about it, now I’m grateful for the easy access.
Because I’m desperate. Dying for Rhett’s touch.
As though he can hear my thoughts, while one hand bunches the fabric of the skirt at my waist, the other rounds my thigh, tracing higher as he leans closer and closer. My heart pounds and pounds until I’m breathless, mindless, and nothing but putty in his grasp.
“Want to remedy that?” he asks with his hot breath bathing over the shell of my ear.
Gooseflesh pimples all over my body as I shudder at the sound of my rasped name rolling from his lips down the column of my neck.
“Avery, Avery…Avery,” Rhett chants, palm flattening to the back of my thigh with the V of his hand cradling the curve of my ass while his fingertips graze over the apex of my thighs.
I cannot breathe. I cannot speak. If it wasn’t for his hold on me, I would already be puddled at his feet. This is not what I came here for. It’s not why I came to find him, but now it’s all I can think about.
I want him. Need him. Over me. Under me. I don’t care, so long as he’s inside me.
“Doc…” I tremble when his fingers press deeper while stroking over my center. “Rhett…”
“God, your pussy is so hot,” Rhett groans over my lips before licking into my gaping mouth.
At the same time, he releases his hold on me, and before I can whine, he nudges my legs apart and tears the crotch of my tights.
The sound alone makes me whimper while searching out the flushed heat of his body on mine.
My hands abandon their endeavor at keeping me upright and clumsily push down on the top of his sweatpants, dragging them down over his lean hips and muscular ass.
“Fuuuuck,” Rhett hisses long and low when I fist his erection with my trembling hand, my thumb rounding the tip to spread the bead of precum.
Meanwhile, he continues stroking up and down my pussy, pressing harder, avoiding my clit as I clench with need for him.
Teasing, he scissors his fingers over my panties.
He’s driving me insane with how much I crave him.
My frustration tightens my hand around his girth as I work the length from root to tip again and again until his every inhale is released as a curse that vibrates down my throat.
“Fuck, baby…” Biting my lip, he groans.
The flat of his fingers tap at my pussy.
Once. Twice. Again and again, getting harder until I’m on my tiptoes with no other way to expel the intense push, pull, throb, and clench of my body.
My core pulses with a want so fierce that my bruising heart threatens to implode along with my burning lungs.
I’m about to beg him to fuck me, when Rhett pulls away, his hands grasping my face roughly before he bites down on my lip with a low growl.
Without warning, he spins me around, teeth pulling with smarting harshness.
My head falls back on his shoulder as he presses my front to the beam and his hand closes around my throat, pinning me to him as he licks down the side of neck.
His other hand pulls my dress up, and as he continues nipping down my neck, lowering himself behind me, he guides his dick to my entrance.
“Panties,” he mutters, grinding his groin into my ass.
With trembling hands, I fist the crotch of my underwear and pull it to the side.
“Good girl,” he growls against my neck, and the praise melts through me like liquid fire, barely able to suck in a breath before he thrusts deep, hitting home as my entire body shoves up the wooden pole. “That’s my good girl.”