Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Zane
If the rest of my days started out with Andi in my arms, I’d die a happy man.
The thought hit me like that sunrise we’d watched this morning—slow and warm—as it crept into those darkened parts of my heart and lit me up from the inside out. She lit me up from the inside out.
I’d gotten a taste of it last weekend when I’d woken up with her curled into me and around me—a sort of…
blissful feeling I hadn’t felt in a really long time.
But waking up with her this morning? Shit, I didn’t know how to describe it because it wasn’t just blissful. It was more than that. So much more.
Between all the things we did last night and this morning, I’d had more than just a taste and was fully convinced that my hunger for her would never be satisfied. But that hunger wasn’t limited to just wanting more of her body. It was wanting more of…all of this.
Waking up together.
Lazy, sleepy kisses.
Watching the sunrise.
Watching her take back her life while allowing me to be a part of it.
Even the domestic stuff like making her coffee while she showered (because I was a gentleman and had self-control and could let her shower alone…at least that’s what I told myself).
Speaking of showers…
I heard the water turn off just as the coffee maker sputtered out that last little hiss it always gave when it was done brewing and tried really hard to focus on finding my damn travel mugs instead of picturing her naked in that foggy room.
Tried and failed. Images of her flushed, wet skin floated into my mind as I opened my cabinets one by one like I didn’t live here.
I think I opened the same cabinet three different times before my eyes landed on the only two travel mugs I owned, and I shook my head with a curse as I pulled them down.
I’d just unscrewed the lid on the first mug and was pouring coffee into it when I heard her soft, bare footsteps behind me. A second later, her arms wound around my middle from behind as her cheek pressed against my spine.
“That smells amazing,” she said, her voice still sounding a little raspy from sleep and…everything else.
“It does.” I grinned, willing my heart to behave, as I set the pot down and tightened the lid on the mug before turning in her arms. And when my eyes landed on her, standing there in last night’s dress with her dark hair all damp and wavy and her skin looking soft and fresh, my heart gave a big ol’ fuck you as it took off in my chest like someone left the gate open.
I lifted a hand to her shoulder and let my finger slip under that red strap as my other hand found her hip. “But you smell better.”
She let out this cute laugh as her head fell back slightly to look at me, exposing the length of her pretty neck. “I smell like you, but I guess I should be thankful for the lack of girlie stuff in your shower.”
My grin widened as I cupped my palm around the side of her neck. “I like you smelling like me.”
“Oh yeah?” she said, raking her teeth across the bottom of her smile.
“Mmhmm,” I hummed, dipping my head to the other side of her neck and nuzzling her skin. “It’s like sending you off into your day with a reminder of me and everywhere I’ve been.”
Andi echoed my hum as her head lolled to the side and into my palm. I pressed my lips to her pulse and flexed my fingers into her damp hair. “Speaking of the day…” Something inside of me deflated with those words and the way her hand slid up my back and patted it twice. “We need to start ours.”
I made a grumbly sound of disapproval against her neck before switching to open-mouthed kisses and moving my hand from her hip to cup her ass.
“Life still exists outside of these four walls, cowboy,” she said on a breathy laugh. “And the last time you were late to your ranching duties, your brother kicked in the door.”
“Let him try that shit here,” I murmured, trying to place another kiss against her skin but her hands palmed my cheeks, pulling me away from her neck so our eyes could meet. Her thumbs touched the corners of my mouth, tugging my scowl into a grin while drawing a bubbly laugh out of her.
“Haven’t you had enough?” Her eyes were bright as they darted back and forth between mine.
A real grin tipped my mouth then as I dipped quickly and skirted my hands around to the backs of her thighs, eliciting a squeal from her lips as I lifted her to me. Her legs locked around me automatically as I walked us back to my bedroom. “Princess…I don’t think I will ever have enough.”
Aside from telling her right then and there exactly how gone I was for her, “never having enough” was the second truest thing I could give her.
I felt it deep down inside of my soul as our bodies fell together for the…
Jesus, I’d completely lost sight of how many times we’d done this since last night.
What I hadn’t lost sight of, though, was her and the way she… completed me.
I loved her, and as I showed her in ways that words could never touch, something sure and certain swelled in my chest.
Andi Ford may have landed in Tarnation by complete accident, but it was no mistake how she ended up in my arms and in my heart.
“What the hell is taking you so long?” Luke’s impatient whine carried down the hall and to my bedroom as I stepped out of my ensuite—towel slung low around my hips and water dripping from the ends of my hair as I padded across the hardwood floor to my closet.
“Some of us actually broke a sweat today,” I shot back, sifting through a row of pearl snaps and button downs.
“Yeah, well, if you don’t hurry up,” Luke called out as I heard my refrigerator open and bottles clink, “I’m leaving for the Spur without you.”
“Settle down.” I huffed an unamused laugh. “You sound like a little kid hellbent on beating all the other little kids to the playground so you’re first in line to have fun.”
The refrigerator door shut, followed by the distinct sound of a beer being uncapped.
“Brother, I am the playground,” Luke said, sounding smug but at the same time amused by his own joke. “I’m just trying to satisfy my curiosity and see which lucky lady gets to slide down my pole tonight.”
Jesus Christ. “You’re an idiot,” I said.
His responding laughter grew in volume as I heard him walking from the kitchen and down the hall towards my room.
He stopped in the doorway, looming and nursing a beer as I settled on a navy plaid snap shirt.
I pulled it and a pair of jeans off of their respective hangers and laid them over the end of my bed as I moved over to my dresser.
“Speaking of sliding down poles,” Luke said, tipping his beer to me and raising an eyebrow. “You and Andi, huh?”
I glared at him from over my shoulder as I pulled out a pair of boxer briefs and socks. “Choose your next words carefully,” I warned, shutting the dresser drawer and stalking back to where I’d left my clothes.
“Don’t go gettin’ all defensive,” Luke said. “Alls I’m trying to say is…good job, man. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, and stepped into my boxer briefs before sliding them up and under the towel. With the goods now covered, I untucked the towel and dropped it onto my bed, reaching for my jeans.
“And you’re welcome.”
Something about the way he said that piqued my curiosity, because it didn't really sound like a response to the thanks I just gave him.
My eyebrows went together as I shot him a look and situated my jeans around my hips.
“For what?” I asked skeptically, reaching for my shirt and sliding my arms into it.
A weird grin curved up one corner of his mouth as he took a pull on his beer. “Letting you have Andi.”
I froze mid-collar adjustment and glared at him again, tonguing the inside of my cheek and finishing fixing my collar before crossing my arms over my exposed chest. “You wanna explain your apparent generosity?”
He shrugged. “If memory serves me right, you weren’t the most welcoming or friendly of the two of us.
I didn’t even have to try to be charming because you were a big enough asshole that it instantly just made me more appealing.
” He laughed, and damned, if that didn’t dig under my skin. “You look like you wanna hit me.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Well, knock it off, because it’s that grumpy ‘tude that set you back in the first place,” Luke said and took another drink.
“You guys could’ve been here, fallin’ into bed or whatever, a lot sooner had you not been such a fucking bear at first. But I—” He dropped a hand over his chest, “being the good brother that I am, saw that spark between you for what it was and decided to back off.”
I felt the corner of my mouth lift, amused now because Luke was clearly delusional. “Back off from what?” I buttoned my shirt. “You were never even close.”
“Says the guy she actively avoided for a week.”
I rolled my eyes and sat on the bed, loosening my socks from their bundle and crossing my ankle over my knee.
“It was quite the sacrifice on my part, not going after the pretty new girl in town so my brother would finally get his head out of his ass and stop being stuck in the past,” Luke said, obviously teasing but really making me want to clock him.
“A noble act like that deserves recognition and, with that, I’d like to propose that y’all name your firstborn son after me. ”
I blinked at him with the blandest expression on my face. “You really are a fucking idiot,” I said, my tone dry and bored as I slid my sock onto my foot, only to have my big toe go right through a giant hole I’d had no clue was there. “Damn. Toss me another pair of socks, would ya?”
I ripped off the ruined sock as I heard the dresser drawer open behind me.
“Zane… What the hell, man?”
My brow crinkled. Did he sound…disappointed? I twisted and saw Luke holding a small, black, square box and—yep—that was disappointment all over his face.
“Why do you still have this?”
Go ahead and add pity to that look and tone.
I stood up from the bed and marched over to where he stood, taking the ring box out of his hand a little more pissy than I should’ve.
I didn’t even bother opening it, knowing that nestled inside was the past, present, future ring I’d proposed to Brianna with—the one she’d left along with that “I can’t do this” note the night she gave up on us.
Him wondering why I still had it was a good question, one I asked myself countless times over the past year.
I guess some deeply broken-hearted part of me just couldn’t get rid of it on the off-chance that she’d show up one day, tell me she’d made a horrible mistake, and beg me to take her back.
Every time I thought about it, I thought of how pathetic that made me sound. How pathetic and inadequate she made me feel by not even bothering to tell me to my face that she couldn’t marry me.
I threw the box back into my drawer and pulled out the pair of socks I’d asked Luke for—shutting the drawer a little more forcefully than I’d intended. “I asked for socks, not for you to snoop.”
“Why are you holding on to that thing?” he asked again, losing the disappointment and pity and replacing it with genuine-sounding concern.
“Shit, Zane, if I’d’ve known you were clinging to the past like that, I’d’ve—” He pinched his lips like he was thinking, “—I don’t know, come up with some sort of… bond-breaking ritual to help you out.”
My mouth fell open as I gaped at him. “Bond-breaking ritual? What the hell are you on?”
“That barrel racer I talk to—”
Jesus, here we go again with the barrel racer. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, just a quick physical reaction to this nonsense before I went back to looking at him like he’d lost his mind.
“—dabbles in something called romantasy.” He shrugged. “Dudes with wings and shit, I don’t know, but there’s all kinds of stuff in there about bonds and breaking them, and that’s what you need.”
I huffed a humorless laugh and sat down on the edge of my bed to put my non-holey socks on. “What I need is a brother who isn’t completely insane.”
“Ah, c’mon,” he said, sounding way too jovial now.
“Let’s take a detour and ride out to the creek before we hit the Spur.
We’ll make a paper boat and drop that cursed ring into it and cast it off.
But before we do that, we’ll light that fucker on fire and watch it burn all of that bad luck away while it floats off. ”
I was back to openly gaping at him. “I’m really worried about you,” I said, to which he laughed.
“And I spent way too much money on that thing to set it on fire and send it floating anywhere.” I tugged on my boots, tucked my shirt into my jeans, fastened my belt, and grabbed my hat.
I stopped next to him on my way out of my room and clasped my hand over his shoulder.
“I’m fine. And I’m not stuck in the past. Not anymore.
In fact, my present and, quite possibly, my future is currently slinging drinks at a honkytonk I’m rather eager to get to.
” I flexed my hand on his shoulder. “So can we let this go and…go.”
“Yeah.” Luke sighed, turning serious for probably the first time in his life. “But, all jokes aside, get rid of it. If you really do see a future with Andi, don’t keep holding on to something that represents your past.”
My chest went a little warm and fuzzy at that, and I chose not to provoke him anymore because what he’d said was actually really thoughtful and…dare I say…wise.
This thing with Andi was new—new and fun and exciting—but, damn, if I didn’t see it turning into something that could last.
And I wanted that.
I wanted her.
And holding on to her was much more satisfying than holding on to my past.