16. Audrey
AUDREY
The house was every bit as big and beautiful as the living area promised. I lost track of the bathrooms on the first floor, but there was a cozy den with another fireplace and a dining room that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.
There was also a big deck out back with a giant grill and dining area, a hot tub, and a plunge pool that looked like it had been built out of an industrial-size stock tank.
And Holden hadn’t been kidding: there was an outdoor shower.
The whole place was cozy and warm, a property that felt like it had been in someone’s family (Graham’s?) for generations, the decor and design evolving over decades.
“Make yourself at home,” Ridge said. “Water in the pool is heated — there’s a light for night swimming, and the switch for the hot tub is on the wall.”
“Thanks.” Why was I thanking this man like he was a hotel manager instead of a man who’d hunted me through the tunnels? A man who planned to use me like a farm tool for the next three months?
We climbed a staircase with a rough wood banister to the second floor where two hallways diverged, each with a series of private suites.
Everything was deceptively homespun but clearly well made, like a luxury getaway where rich people went to feel like they were having a simple vacation.
“Here we are,” Ridge said, opening a door halfway down the second hall. “This is your room, when your daughter isn’t here of course.” He leaned against the door frame. “Her name is Ella?”
I nodded. “Who’s in the rooms next door?” I asked, looking at the doors on either side of mine.
“Holden and me. Graham’s across the hall.”
I was becoming unnerved by the way Ridge stared at me, like he was remembering me naked. Like he wanted to get me naked again. Or maybe I was just unnerved by the fact that the idea didn’t sound half bad.
“Convenient,” I said.
He shrugged. “Might as well be.”
My face got hot, and I hurried to cover it up with conversation. “Can I ask you something?”
I still hadn’t gone in my room. I was almost afraid to step through the doorway, turn on the light, accept that this was real.
“Sure thing.”
“Have you done this before?”
He raised his eyebrows. “This…?”
“The Hunt, bringing someone back here to live?”
“Once,” he said.
“What was it like?” I asked.
He gave the question some thought. “Easy enough.”
“Easy.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, flattened from the baseball cap he’d taken off at the front door. “That’s right.”
“Good to know.”
He held my gaze, and I felt like his green eyes saw all the way through to my soul. “Nothing to be nervous about. We’re all consenting adults.”
The words “consenting adults” sent an arc of heat between my thighs. “And this is what you do? Share women?”
“Sometimes.”
“It does’t get… messy?”
“No feelings, just fucking, no mess.” His green eyes seemed to darken. “Think you can handle that?”
It was clear from the tone of his voice that he had his doubts.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
He nodded. “It was an honest question.”
“I rode your bull,” I said.
His nostril flared with the memory. “That you did. The question is, are you down to ride more than the bull?”
“I don’t really have a choice, now do I?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “Depends on what you mean by choice.”
I’d signed the consent form. I’d agreed to the terms of the Hunt.
“So how does it work? Do you want me to suck your cock right here?”
He laughed, a sexy as fuck chuckle that traveled all the way from my head to my toes, lighting up every hidden place in between.
Then he dropped his head to my neck, and I felt the whisper of his breath like a hot wind against my skin. “Don’t tempt me, doc.”
My nipples got hard, and a strange new hum started at the center of my body.
He pushed off the door frame and started down the hall. “Get some sleep.”
I watched him disappear, then closed the door and leaned against it with a gasp.
I closed my eyes, reliving the delicious heat of Ridge’s breath against my flesh, his lips only an inch away from my throat.
How long had it been since a man had spoken to me like that, his voice a promise instead of a threat? How long had it been since I’d actually wanted to feel a man between my thighs?
I knew the answer: well over six years, since before I’d gotten pregnant with Ella.
Dean had been able to light me on fire once. But looking back at it from the ripe old age of thirty-five, I saw that our passion had been driven by my insecurity. Dean had been demanding in the bedroom, had made me feel desirable through the sheer force of his need to possess me.
It had been a rush to my twenty-something ego, and after I got pregnant with Ella, I’d convinced myself I was in love, that Dean would calm down once he became a father.
It never happened, and it was only in hindsight that I saw his demands had been control, his possession the worst kind of dominance.
But the rush I’d felt with Ridge standing in the doorway had nothing to do with ego.
It had been all lust, primal and raw, the promise not of control but of mutual pleasure.
Not an out-of-control blaze destroying everything in its path but a warm fire in a cozy hearth, one that would burn slow and steady all through the night.
Shit.
I stepped into the bedroom and took my first real look around.
The room was large, with the same wood furniture that decorated the rest of the house, including a king-size bed layered with simple ivory linens, a writing desk under a large window that looked out over the fields at the back of the house, and an overstuffed chair next to a fireplace, a smaller version of the stone hearth in the living room.
The walls were painted a soft sage green. Linen curtains billowed in the breeze from the open window.
I walked over to take in the view: a field stretching into the distance, the wild grass verdant and adorned with wildflowers in every imaginable shade, the tree line marking the beginning of the woods that surrounded the house.
It was a beautiful property, like something out of an old movie, and I wondered how much of the land was part of the Calloway ranch, wondered what the Bulls actually did here, how they made a living in an economic climate when small farms were dying off every day.
Then I looked down at the back of the house and spotted Holden, butt naked under the outdoor shower that adjoined the stock pool, hot tub, and barbecue area.
And holy shit.
Water sluiced off his body, his arms flexing as he scrubbed his torso. His back was turned, giving me a prime view of his muscular back and hard ass.
My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know exactly how old he was, but I knew he was way too young for me, which made it even more embarrassing when I realized I was wet, that my nipples were hard all over again.
Then he turned under the spray of the shower and I saw that his eyes were closed as he stroked his dick.
I’d been too preoccupied by the mechanical bull between my thighs to take the measure of his cock when he’d jerked off in the tunnels, but I wasn’t at all distracted now, and I stared at the thick shaft in his palm, mesmerized by the slide of his hand over the length of it, the thick head that appeared between his fingers.
He opened his eyes and tilted his head to look toward my window.
I froze, caught red-handed, but instead of stepping away from the window, our gazes locked.
He knew I was watching him and didn’t care.
He stroked his dick while I watched, my own lust building until I had the urge to lay down on the bed and make myself come just to relieve the pressure that had been mounting in my body since I’d come home with the three Bulls who’d claimed me in the tunnels.
It took me a minute to shake it off, to realize what I was doing.
I pulled back from the window all at once, my cheeks burning.
What the fuck?
I sat on the bed, my mind racing, and forced myself to turn to the mundane.
I needed a shower. A shower and sleep.
Then I’d be more myself.
Except I didn’t have any of my things. In fact, I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my purse, which I’d stashed in my car during the Hunt.
Dammit. I should have told Ridge that I needed to stop at my place.
I eyed the door to the attached bathroom. I could shower and sleep naked, then tell Graham, Ridge, and Holden that I needed to go to my place to collect some of my things.
I crossed the room to investigate and found it stocked with local bath products, a hair dryer, and a stack of thick ivory towels. A plush bathrobe hung from a hook on the wall, and a butter yellow co-ord — lounge pants and a zip-up sweatshirt — sat on the counter.
No underwear, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and at least I’d be able to put on clean clothes after I slept.
I turned the water on and undressed, tossing my filthy Hunt clothes on the floor before stepping under the spray.
The warm water felt glorious, and I turned it all the way to hot and tipped my head back, letting it soak my hair and run over my body.
Then I slipped my hand between my thighs and thought about the three men who’d captured me in the tunnels, wondering why I already wanted them more than I feared them.