Chapter 4
GARRETT
The sky is still blacker than the inside of my hat, and the barn is quiet except for the shuffle of horses figuring out they're about to work.
I'm telling myself, for about the ninth time since I rolled out of bed, that I'm only going on this overnight trail ride because Carl asked me to.
It’s a bigger group than usual. Twenty guests. Three wranglers aren't enough hands for that many greenhorns on open country.
And yes, I wasn’t expected to go on the hayride last night, but I figured I would tag along since Jim mentioned the harnesses and wagon gear were giving them trouble at first.
Sure, there are plenty of guys here that could take care of that.
I was just being extra cautious.
For safety reasons.
I heft the saddle onto Moose's broad back and cinch him up while he blows out a long horsey sigh like he knows I'm full of it.
"Don't you start with me," I tell him.
He swings his head around and nudges my elbow.
"Yeah," I say. "I know."
I keep thinking about last night—kissing Lark against that tree as she ground her sweet body against me. I had to summon every ounce of control not to fuck her right then and there.
I adjust myself once again, knowing these next two days are going to be hell.
One of my own making.
Lark’s at the stables by six.
Light's coming up gold behind her, and she's up on the pretty little bay mare the wranglers picked out for her, sitting in the saddle as if she grew up there.
She holds the reins loose, those hips rolling a little with the mare's movements.
Two low ponytails peek out of her hat, making her look younger than she is, and she's laughing at something Lyla said, easy and bright.
I'm done for.
I’ve been done since the forge that first day. But after last night…holy hell, I’m a mess.
And now watching her sit a horse like that, a cowgirl through and through, it hits in a different place. Not only my groin, but something in my chest and deep in my gut.
Her eyes find me across the string of riders and she smiles, a little angel and devil combined.
The ride out is long and hot. We wind up into the hills, past the cedar brake, along the creek and then away from it, switchbacks and cattle trails and one stretch of flat pasture where Carl lets the group lope, and I hang toward the back of the line where I'm supposed to be.
Which means she's in front of me.
Which means for hours I watch her ride.
She rides with joy…heels down, shoulders back and relaxed, talking to the mare under her breath the way people who love horses do without thinking about it.
When we lope across the pasture, her hat blows off and she catches it one-handed without breaking stride, laughing.
I hear her yell eat my dust, baby to Lyla, and I nearly laugh out loud.
Trouble. Pure trouble.
The camp's in a meadow by a bend in the creek. Our tents go up fast. Cook has ridden ahead in the chuck wagon and has the coals spread and a pot of beans working and steaks ready for the grate.
The guests seem delighted by all of it.
I tend to the horses with the other wranglers, and I take my time, because the longer I'm out here with the horses, the less I'm over there looking at her.
When I finally circle back to the fire, I get a plate and plant myself on a log with Jim and Ford on the far side of the fire from the guests. On purpose.
Still, across the flames I can see her. She's sitting between her friends with her plate balanced on her knees. She's talking and eating, her mouth shiny from the grease of the steak. Damn, I’d love to kiss her lips like that…
She glances up.
Straight through the fire, straight at me, and I hold her eyes for a moment, then turn away first. I hate playing games, but feeling this way is all so new to me. I’m clueless.
Jim is watching me over the rim of his cup. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. Jim's been married twenty-six years and has the knowing look of a man who has seen a lot of men step in bear traps.
"Shut up, Jim."
"Didn't say a word."
"You were gonna."
He smiles into his coffee, then gets up, smacking me on the shoulder.
“Just let yourself feel something for once, will ya?” he says, as he walks off.
But that’s the problem. I’m feeling too much. All at once.
Lights out is when the camp is supposed to wind down. The fire is banked low. Guests are in their tents. Ranch hands are flopped on their bedrolls at the edge of the trees keeping watch for curious critters.
I lie on my back, staring up at a sky so full of stars I get dizzy.
I can hear the creek. I can hear Moose shift nearby on the fence post. Jim is snoring already, because Jim could sleep through a tornado. And I'm thinking about her light blue eyes and smart mouth against mine under an oak tree.
I thought I was content with my life.
I’m not sad or broken, just living at a low simmer. I do my work day in and day out, eat good food, hang with the other staff on the ranch when I get lonely.
Going to bed by myself seemed fine.
I didn’t need anything else.
And the older I got, the more I settled into this life.
Then this woman walked into my forge and lit every pilot light inside me at once, turning the burners to high.
It’s been so long since I’ve lived like that, I’m not sure what to do with it now.
A giggle cuts through the dark.
Then comes another one. Then a whispered shh shh shh that is substantially louder than the giggles. Three dark shapes are moving past the edge of my sight line, keeping low, heading away from the tents and down toward the water.
And then, clear as a bell, is Lark's hushed voice, trying and failing to be quiet:
"...skinny dipping is not a crime, Laurel.”
I'm up and pulling on my boots in a flash.
Guest safety, I'm telling myself, tying the laces with more aggression than is called for. This is open country. There are snakes. Mountain lions. Javelina. Three half-drunk women stumbling off in the dark to a creek is a recipe for disaster.
And all three of those women can completely handle themselves. So again, I’m full of shit.
I traipse through the trees, hanging back and out of sight when I get to the water.
The creek runs wide and slow here, moonlight laid across the top of it as if somebody poured milk over the surface.
The three of them are already in. Laurel is shrieking about cold.
Lyla is floating on her back, her braid coiled on top of her head.
And Lark is in up to her shoulders, hair loose in the water around her, face tipped up to the sky.
I confirm there are no snakes, no lions, no javelinas, and no drownings in progress.
And I’m far enough away that I can’t see any private parts I’m not supposed to see…in detail.
They swim around, splashing and laughing. They chatter and whisper, and it kinda warms my heart seeing them enjoy the cool night without a care in the world.
I lean against a tree, watching over them.
I’m not leering. I’m protecting.
Don’t mind the bulge in my jeans.
After about ten minutes, Laurel gets out, grumbling about pruned toes. Lyla follows, toweling off near the far bank. The two of them head back up toward camp, giggling and smacking each other.
Lark stays.
She’s alone. That’s not safe at all.
She turns a slow circle in the water, hair trailing behind her.
"You can come out now, Garrett," she says in my direction.
I close my eyes, and let out a breath.
Then I step out of the trees into the moonlight, feeling every bit an idiot.
"I was—" My voice comes out wrong. I clear my throat. "Making sure y'all were safe."
"Uh-huh."
"Mountain lions come down to the water at night."
"Mm-hm."
"Snakes, too."
She smiles at me. "Get in the water, cowboy."
I hesitate.
I'm not the man I was fifteen years ago. My gut is thicker than it used to be, my knees don't love the up and down of hill country anymore, and I've got grays in a beard I can't even commit to shaving.
Under my shirt is a body that does hard work for a living and looks like it—not the lean kind of hard, the weathered kind.
Her body is a goddamn work of art.
"Garrett."
My eyes come up. “I don’t think you want to see this body without clothes.”
She treads water. “Hell yes, I do.”
"Lark—"
"And I don’t only want to see it, I want my hands and mouth all over it.”
Okay then. I can’t argue with that.
I strip on the bank with my back to her since I still have a drop of pride left.
My boots, socks, jeans, shirt, and boxers end up in a pile.
I wade in fast before I can think about it.
The cold hits me up to the thighs, then higher, and I'm cursing under my breath and she's laughing at me.
But when she swims over and latches on to my neck, the cold stops mattering.
"Hey," she says.
She fits against me in the water just as she did on the dance floor, and against that oak. Her legs come around my hips and I hold onto her.
"Hey, darlin’,” I whisper.
Her hands thread through my beard, then down my neck and shoulders.
I tip her chin up and take her mouth properly—deep, open, the type of kiss I've been thinking about since last night.
She melts into it with a little hum against my lips, her tongue sliding over mine. My hand comes up out of the water and finds her breast.
Jesus.
It’s so full and heavy in my palm, and when I roll her stiff little nipple between my fingers she breaks the kiss to gasp into my mouth.
I don’t stop. Her head tips back and her hips roll against mine under the water, my cock already raging.
I duck and catch the other tit in my mouth, tongue working the tip, beard scraping the soft skin around it, and her fingers curl in my wet hair and hold me there near trembling.
"God, your mouth," she breathes.
I squeeze both of her sweet tits with my big hands.
"Garrett, over here," she murmurs between gasps, gesturing toward the bank with her head, where a wide smooth rock slopes into the water, moonlit and glassy. I walk us to it, the creek dragging at my thighs, pulling her along with me, my cock bumping up against her body with each step.
I lift her clean out of the water and up onto the surface of the stone, and perch that perfect ass on rock still warm from a day of Texas sun.
“Spread those sexy thighs for me, darlin'."
She leans back a little and spreads her legs, knees dropping wide, and Christ—there she is.
The moon throws enough light to see her pink and glistening and prettier than anything I've laid eyes on.
Those sweet, tender folds parted, droplets of water and her own slick clinging to the insides of her thighs.
I push her knees even further out and lean in.
The first pass is slow—tongue flat, hungry, right up the middle—and the sound she makes has my cock throbbing.
Then I settle in, working her the way I've been fantasizing about. She's salt and sweet and creek water, and she's shaking before I've really gotten started.
Her fist finds my hair. Her other hand clamps over her own mouth because camp isn't far and she's trying to be quiet, but hell….I'm not going to make it easy.
I curl my tongue, seal my mouth over her, and suck…her whole body bowing off the rock. I don't let up. I work her until she’s writhing, making sure to lick, suck, and tease every deep delicious part of that pussy.
It takes maybe a minute for her to tremble like mad, thighs trying to clamp around my ears, but I keep them open as I take what I want from her decadent flesh.
Her back arches higher off the stone with an orgasmic cry, her hand muffling the moans and screams I'll hear in my head every night for the rest of my life.
Finally, I ease her down, kissing the inside of her thigh and the soft curve of her stomach. When I finally lift my head, she's got her eyes half-closed and that loose, wrecked look on her face that I put there.
I get up out of the water onto the bank, and she slides over next to me. I kiss her neck, right under her jaw, and I feel her pulse hammering against my lips.
Then her small hand moves down to wrap around my straining cock.
I let out a long groan.
She strokes me slowly, from base to tip, pressing her mouth near my ear, saying things—filthy soft things about what she's wanted since the forge, about how hard I was against her last night, about everything she wants to do to me—and that’s it.
One more roll of her fingers over my slick, aching tip and I’m coming.
I hold onto her shoulder as my body jerks and shakes, cock shooting hot seed over her hand and my hips.
I gasp and groan….
“God yes, baby…that’s it. Drench us…” she says, in that sultry drawl.
She kisses my temple once I’m thoroughly spent.
We slip back in the water to clean up.
She's got her arms loose around my neck, her cheek against my jaw. The creek moves around us. Somewhere up the bank a whippoorwill starts up. My heart is doing something slow and loud that I can feel everywhere.
"I haven't felt like myself in a long time," I hear my voice say.
She just looks at me and smiles, turning her head and pressing her mouth to my jaw, right on the scruff.
"I’m glad I could bring you back,” she whispers. “It would be a shame to live the the rest of your life as someone else. Because I’m falling for this version of you.”
Something bright and dangerous blooms behind my ribs, and surprisingly, I’m not trying to quash it.