Chapter 8 Haven
EIGHT
Haven
I smelled like Wyatt Holt’s shampoo and I was absolutely done for.
I snuck out the back gate at the ranch, then I drove my car home—home to Amber, who was definitely going to be home, definitely going to be waiting, and definitely going to have questions. I found her at the kitchen table of our little apartment off Main, peering at me over a bowl of cereal.
Her eyes went to my hair.
To my rumpled clothes.
To the hickey on my neck, which Wyatt had been polite enough to leave there.
Then she pointed her spoon at me, a bit of milk flinging across the table at me.
“That was not about a cow.”
I blew out a breath and dropped my backpack by the front door. “Good morning to you too.”
“Haven Marie Sinclair.”
“Amber Lee Bowen.”
She pushed back from the table, pointing her spoon again. “You’d better sit your butt down.”
“I need a shower—”
“Your hair is wet.” She said with an accusatory glare. “And I want to know why. And how the shower or a cow could possibly have given you a hickey. Sit. Down.”
I sat down.
She sat across from me and put her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.
“Does he have a big dick?” she asked.
My eyes widened, but I couldn’t help but smile. “Amber.”
“Don’t act scandalized,” she said. “Ma’am, you are so excited. And you should be. And you know I would never, ever judge you—”
“I know, but you also love gossip.”
She mimed zipping her lips up and throwing away the key. “For you, I will keep any secret.”
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
Then I leaned forward and spread my hands out on the table, and it all came out in a rush: “We had sex and it was amazing and he was so good and his dick is like…ugh, amazing, not that I have that much to compare it to but—” I screeched a little, resting my forehead on the table to muffle it.
Amber grabbed my arm and hauled me back upright.
“No no no,” she said. “You do not get to put your head down. I need your face for this. I need full eye contact.”
“Amber—”
“Just to confirm—it was Wyatt, right?”
She covered her mouth with her hands, feet drumming on the floor, the muffled sound of someone trying very hard not to scream.
Then she pulled herself together…
…folded her hands on the table like a woman conducting a very important meeting.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Start from the birthday kiss.”
“You already know about the birthday kiss.”
"I know about the kiss. I don't know about—" she waved her hand at all of me— "whatever happened between then and now that resulted in you coming home smelling like sex and looking like that."
"Looking like what."
She pointed at my neck.
I pulled my collar up.
"He gave you a hickey," she said. "Wyatt Holt. Who has never once in six years given any indication that he has a pulse."
"He has a pulse," I said. "He…very much has a pulse."
"Haven." She grabbed my hands across the table. "I need you to tell me everything. I need it like I need oxygen. I will take this to my grave, I swear on my mother's life, but you have to tell me right now or I'm going to actually die."
We stared each other down again.
“He spanked me,” I said, too fast.
She actually gasped. “Haven.”
“He…he told me he wanted to ‘flip me over and pound my pussy’?”
She reached across to slap my hand. “You’re lying! No. No way.”
"I'm not lying," I said. "I would never lie about something this important."
"Wyatt Holt said those words. Out of his mouth."
"In my ear, specifically."
Amber sat back in her chair and pressed both hands flat on the table like she needed to steady herself. "I need a minute."
"Take your time."
"I'm taking it." She stared at the ceiling. "Okay. Did it hurt? Because you were—I mean, before last night you'd never—"
"No," I said. "It didn't hurt."
She looked back at me. "Really."
"Really." I picked at a thread on my sleeve. "He was very…thorough about making sure I was ready."
"Thorough."
"Like. Very thorough." I paused. "He used his fingers for a long time. And his mouth."
Amber made a sound like air leaving a tire.
"Three fingers," I added, because apparently I had no self-preservation instinct whatsoever.
"Three—" She stood up. Sat back down. Stood up again. Walked to the counter and stood there with her back to me for a second. Then she turned around. "Haven Sinclair. That man ate you out and used three fingers to open you up before he—"
"Yes."
"Before he flipped you over and—"
"Yes."
"And spanked you—"
"Can you lower your voice—"
"We live alone!" she said. "Haven. Oh my god. Oh my god, I'm so happy for you I could cry.” She paused. “So…what? You’re like—a couple now?”
That was the first thing that made me stop short.
“Well…we agreed to keep it secret,” I admitted.
Amber's expression shifted.
"Secret," she repeated.
"Nobody can know. We work together, he's older, it's—"
"Haven."
"It's complicated."
She sat back down slowly. Put her cereal bowl to the side. Looked at me the way she looked at things she was worried about but wasn't sure she had the right to say out loud.
"What?" I said.
"Nothing."
"Amber."
"I'm not saying anything."
"You're doing the face."
"I don't have a face."
"You have a very specific face," I said. "You've had it since seventh grade. Say what you're thinking."
She was quiet for a second. Picked at the edge of the table.
"I just want to make sure he's not—" She stopped. Started again. "You've wanted this man since you were sixteen years old, Haven. I've watched you want him for five years. And I want to make sure that he knows that. That he's not just—" Another stop.
"He's not using me," I said.
"I know he's not using you. I know you're not naive. I just want to make sure he understands what he has."
I looked at her.
She looked back, steady, all the laughter from five minutes ago completely gone.
"He asked me to come back tonight," I said quietly.
“And you’re going to like…tell him you deserve not to be kept a secret, right?”
I grimaced, looking away. “I was the one who suggested it.”
She did a double-take. “Why?”
“Because I wanted it,” I said. “And because…because—”
“Because you wanted it and you were willing to do anything for that dick,” she finished for me.
I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”
She rolled her eyes. “Respect. But…you should tell him. You deserve to be treated like a princess, okay?”
"I know," I said.
"Haven."
"I know, Amber."
"Because I love you and I will support you no matter what, but I also need you to know that you are the prize here. You. Not him. You walked up to that man on your birthday and asked for what you wanted and he said yes, which means—"
"It means he wanted me too."
"It means he wanted you too," she confirmed. "Which means you have more power in this than you think you do."
I looked at my hands on the table.
The thing was, I knew that. In the barn yesterday, in his bed last night, in his kitchen this morning—I'd felt it. The way he watched me. The way he'd made breakfast without being asked and told me to come back tonight…
“I think he’s scared,” I said. “I don’t know of what. I think—I think his history in the military is more messed up than he lets on, he had this scar—”
“Haven, he is a grownass man, not a skittish animal.”
"I know he's not a skittish animal," I said. "I'm just saying he has reasons."
"Everyone has reasons," Amber said. "That doesn't mean you have to manage around them forever."
"I'm not managing around them. I just—" I stopped. "It's fine. It'll be fine."
She looked at me for a long moment.
"Okay," she said finally. "Okay. I trust you." She picked her bowl back up. "And for what it's worth, the fact that he made you breakfast and asked you back tonight? That's not a man who thinks this is nothing."
I looked at my hands.
I knew that too.
I stood up and grabbed my backpack. "I'm going to take an actual shower now. My shower. In our bathroom."
"Finish telling me about the spanking first."
I was already down the hall.
I was going back tonight and I knew it and she knew it and everything was completely fine.
Probably.