Marin #2
As soon as I am close enough to feel his warmth and strength, my body responds. Like a chocolate kiss in the sun. He studies my face like he’s memorizing me. “So…” he trails off.
“So… this was your big secret, huh?”
A slow nod. He runs his hand over his rough stubble. “Among other things. But yeah. He’s my little brother. Secret number one of maybe a thousand.”
I glance at Stevie, who has now flipped to the Science Channel. “And you thought I’d mind?”
Davis lifts his broad shoulder. “I didn’t know. It’s a lot.”
I laugh a little, feeling my cheeks flush. “My family is a lot. This?” I glance around the room, out the windows, at the big rolling hills, at Stevie. “This is not a lot. This is just… life.”
Davis looks relieved. Happy even. He gives me a long up-and-down, with a smoldering desire in his eyes, before looking away, like it’s just too much and not the right time for now.
Tell me about it.
“So,” he begins, clearing his voice of its husky desire, “Who wants coffee?”
“I’m good. Thanks though, brother,” Stevie says.
I sit down on a sofa near Stevie’s chair and Davis looks at me with such warmth in his eyes, such tenderness. “Yes, please,” I say softly. “Lots of cream and very sweet.”
And Davis narrows his eyes at me, licking his full lips before mouthing, Just like you.
Oh my goodness.
***
I spend the day with them, and time whizzes by.
It feels weird. Amazing and liberating, but still weird.
It’s the first Sunday in my entire life that I haven’t spent five hours listening to a preacher roar about sin.
It’s relaxing and comfortable. And I feel more at home here than I’ve ever felt at my own house, with my grandfather.
Even Janie, who seemed a little suspicious of me at first, warms up to me after a while.
She even hooked me up with some clothes that were a bit more appropriate for hanging out in a mountain man’s house. She also insisted on washing out my dress… but I drew the line at the panties, doing a little sink wash in the bathroom and leaving them between some towels to dry.
So, right now, I’m in a pair of old Levi’s secured with a belt, commando mind you, and a gray hoodie of Davis’s that’s eight sizes too big, but I love it. It smells like him and I never want to take it off.
And Stevie is like a ray of sunshine. Full of joy and sass. He worked on his painting while I watched and then let me add a few strokes when he got tired.
We discover a shared passion for Scrabble, which—much to our shared delight—Davis can’t play at all. But after hours of double-letters and triple-triples, my stomach lets out a growl so loud that it might as well be a caged beast living in the basement.
With his good hand, Stevie tinkers with the tiles and looks at Davis who is coming in from outside where he’s been loading up the wood burner that’s hooked up to the boiler system keeping the house as warm as spring sunshine.
“Someone needs to get this lady a square meal. Those grilled cheese sandwiches from lunch were killer, but sounds like they’ve worn off. ”
Davis enters the room from the back hallway with a big leather saddle propped on his hip and drops into a wooden chair next to the fireplace where he’s kept a few logs burning since our return.
He settles the heavy leather saddle onto a stand pulled out from behind the stone fireplace and starts fiddling with the leather straps.
“You have horses?” I perk up, my attention moves from the game as Davis eyes me with the certain smolder that makes my inside all gooey.
“We do. Five of them. Two came with the property from my grandfather. I’d never ridden before we got here, but now, can’t say I’d want a life without a horse. I ride pretty much every day if I can.”
“Is that so?” I tease, pinching my tongue between my teeth and raising my eyebrows. “Love at first sight.”
Stevie snorts, a huge smile cresting his face as he looks between us.
“Seems I’m a love-at-first-sight kind of guy. Thought it was just the horses, but maybe not.”
“Whaaaaat did you just say?” Stevie chimes in with a bust-your-nuts brotherly laugh. “What a difference a day can make. You feeling okay there, brother? You got a fever?”
“Shut up,” he barks back, but Stevie shrugs my way as Davis sit in the chair, all man-spread, rubbing the leather with some sort of oil, making me gush into my Levi’s.
He gives Stevie a kind of loving fuck you glare.
“Anyway, where were we? Right. I was going to ask the lady what she wanted for dinner as soon as she whooped your ass again.”
Stevie laughs and adds SOUP to the board, off the S in my SPELUNK. “Might as well ask her now, because she’s got me again.”
Davis turns to me, warmth in his eyes. “You hungry, beautiful?”
I nod, with my stomach growling again. “Definitely.”
“I think you should take her to Mastriano’s, brother. I think you should have a night in the town. Janie can stay a little late, can’t she?”
“Can do!” We hear Janie’s response from the kitchen.
The word Mastriano’s fills my mind with images that I’ve only ever dreamed about. The restaurant is one town over, on the main street that leads to the super-church that we attend every month or two. Shiny glass and white napkins and olive oil glistening from beautiful carafes. “Could we really?”
Davis nods, like I’m just too cute, too sweet. “Yeah. We can pick up some things for you too while we’re out. And I think you should wear that dress from last night.”
My body rushes with that same molten need I felt the last time he looked at me like this.
“Okay,” I say in a whisper, desperately trying to hide my fire-hot blush.
“But, first, can I see the horses? I love horses. I’ve only ever been up close to them a few times.
I always dreamed I could ride someday, but I’m probably too old to learn. ”
Davis’s eyes narrow and his chest fills, setting down the rag with the oil and nodding toward the back door. “You’ve never too old to learn. Especially when it comes to horses. Let’s go.” He’s on his feet and my belly tumbles and twists. This all is like a dream.
As we reach the backdoor, Janie comes in from the kitchen.
“Mr. Ray!” She calls to Davis holding out a cell phone. “This thing been going off in your room something fierce. You gonna see who is it? Someone sure wantin’ to talk to you.”
Davis shakes his head, opening the door and easing us through onto the back porch. “Don’t need to talk to anyone. Just throw it on my bed and close the door. I hate that fucking thing sometimes.”
Janie looks down at the phone as Davis closes the door behind us and we work ourselves down the steps and into the bit of sunshine fighting its way through the clouds.
“I don’t like cell phones much, either. Not that I’ve ever had one, but they sure just seem to interrupt things.
Most people don’t even see a beautiful sunny day because they’ve got their eyes on that electronic distraction.
I’m grateful I don’t have one. Maybe weird, all the kids my age probably think they couldn’t live without one. ”
Davis exhales, the rough pad of his thumb rubbing across my knuckles and his touch sends hot prickling over my skin. “Some people don’t know what’s important.”
A warm rush of moisture assaults the flesh between my legs again, stealing my train of thought, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, besides all the sinful things I want to do with Davis. “Guess that big storm must have missed us,” I say, squinting up the sun.
“Always another one coming,” he engages me in the conversation of weather, grabbing my hand and jerking his head toward the gabled red barn. “Horses are out in the pasture, but I’m sure they’d stop their grazing to meet a sweet sugar cube like you. I know I would.”
“You graze?” I say, a smile teasing my lips.
“I graze on that hot little pink sugar maker you’ve got between your legs.” He quickens our pace. “I haven’t been able to fucking think straight since I tasted you. You’re turning me from a mountain man into a madman. I need my fix.”
A burning flash of shame envelops me like a reflex as the incessant pulse in my needy wet lady bits reminds me that I now have firsthand experience with the sin of lust.
It’s not even been twenty-four hours and I’m falling hard for this giant. I would even hazard to guess that these lusty feelings are generously mingled with love. As crazy as that sounds, in my heart, I know it’s true.
Our pace picks up as we head to the barn, the horses raising their heads from the green pasture when we approach.
But, instead of going to the fence and calling them over, Davis pulls me into the barn, shutting the door behind us and slipping the wood brace into the slots… locking us inside.
“But, the horses…”
“Plenty of time for the horses,” he says in a low grumble on a throaty exhale.
“Horses are patient, I’m not.” Davis reaches around and takes my rear end in his hands.
“I can’t stop thinking about how you taste.
How you felt when I tore that cherry out of you, making you mine.
” His fingers dig in harder, making me wince; a gasp escapes from me.
“I may never get anything else done because all I want to do is mount you like a stallion and pump you full of me, morning and night. You trying to turn me into a crazy person, aren’t you? ”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter as his eyes flash.
“What did I say about apologizing to me?”
He releases my backside only to bring down his hand in a hard swat, and it’s the starting pistol I need for releasing what’s inside of me.
“You said I never have to say I’m sorry to you. But, I’m always sorry. My whole life I’ve been sorry. For everything. For being born.”
I twist the soft flannel of his shirt between my fingers, trying to keep my balance. I slow my breathing as dizziness takes me when I look up at the fifty-foot ceiling in the barn and everything spins out of control.