39. Clay
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Clay
The lake barely ripples beneath the fading sunlight. A breeze moves through the trees along the shoreline, carrying the scent of pine and warm earth.
Usually I'd have a joke ready or some line I'd spent years perfecting.
Instead, I'm standing beside Josephine trying to remember how breathing works, which is embarrassing.
I glance over.
She's leaning against the railing at the end of the dock, looking out across the water.
The blue dress is unfair.
I spent the entire drive pretending it wasn't distracting me.
"You're staring again."
Damn.
A smile pulls at my mouth. "You always know when I am."
"Because you get this look."
I turn toward her. "What look?"
"The one where you're clearly not listening to anything being said."
"That's hurtful."
"It's accurate."
I laugh under my breath.
Unfortunately, she's right.
Most of dinner had been spent watching her laugh at my stories, steal my fries, and look genuinely horrified when I admitted I'd spent half the week reading parenting articles.
Thinking about them still feels unreal. Thinking about them with her standing beside me feels even stranger.
Not bad. Just bigger than anything I've ever wrapped my head around.
For years my life was measured in rodeos, miles traveled, and eight-second rides. Now I'm standing beside a lake wondering whether our babies will have her eyes.
Most of my life I've felt the need to keep moving. If things got complicated, I left. If conversations became uncomfortable, I found an exit.
With Josie, I keep looking for reasons to stay longer.
"I used to come here when I was younger," I hear myself say.
She looks over. "Yeah?"
I nod. "When I couldn't stand being at the ranch."
A small smile touches her mouth. "I've heard a few stories."
"Those are probably the edited versions."
We spend another hour by the water, talking and laughing.
Every now and then I catch myself looking at her and thinking the same thing. She's here with me, and every time I think it, I have to stop myself from grinning.
My phone buzzes against my thigh.
I pull it out and glance at the screen.
Brandon.
That gets my attention. It’s been a while.
"Everything okay?" Josie asks.
I look up to find her watching me. "Yeah."
The answer comes a little too fast.
Her eyes narrow. I've watched her diagnose half-ton animals with less scrutiny.
I flip the phone over and slide it back into my pocket.
"Who was it?"
"Brandon."
"Rodeo Brandon?"
I nod.
A flicker crosses her face before she smooths it away.
The phone buzzes again.
Same number.
I hit silence.
Josie's gaze drops to my pocket. "You should probably answer that."
"I'll call him back."
She turns toward the lake, resting her forearms against the railing. "If it's important, I don't mind."
A few weeks ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about a call like this. I'd have stepped away, taken the conversation, and figured out the details later.
Now I'm standing beside a woman in a blue dress, and the last thing I want is to spend the evening talking rodeo contracts.
I move beside her and hook my finger around hers. She glances down at our joined hands.
"Brandon can wait."
Her mouth softens, though she keeps her eyes on the water. "You don't know what he wants."
"Nope."
"Could be important."
"Could be."
That finally earns me a look. "What if it's important?"
I shrug. "Then it'll still be important tomorrow."
Her fingers tighten around mine.
Neither of us says anything else.
We stay where we are, shoulder to shoulder at the end of the dock while my phone sits silent in my pocket.
By the time we make it back to town, neither of us seems in a hurry to end the night.
I walk her to her door.
"You know," she says, unlocking the deadbolt, "your recovery would probably go faster if you stopped trying to prove things."
"What am I proving?"
"That you're invincible."
I consider that. "Counterpoint." Her eyebrow lifts. "I'm extremely handsome."
A laugh escapes her.
"There it is."
She tilts her head. "What?"
"My favorite sound."
She looks down briefly before meeting my eyes again. "You had a good time?"
I huff out a laugh. "You're seriously asking me that?"
"Answer the question."
"Josie, I would've had a good time sitting in a parking lot eating gas station sandwiches if you were there."
Her cheeks turn pink. "That was smooth."
"I know."
"You practiced."
"I absolutely did not."
The smile she gives me is worth every embarrassing second of honesty.
I reach out and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Then I stop talking and kiss her. The kiss is overwhelming. The kind that makes the rest of the world disappear for a minute.
Her fingers curl against my shirt. I pull her a little closer.
“Come with me,” she murmurs. “Come inside.”
She doesn’t wait for my answer before leading me down the hallway, her fingers twined with mine, soft and insistent. The cottage smells faintly of vanilla and clean laundry. Her thumb circles the back of my hand.
I barely close the door before she’s on me. Pressed up on her toes, mouth to my jaw, then my neck, kissing a line to the hollow just behind my ear. Everything outside her disappears. It’s a struggle to remember which part of me is supposed to hurt and which part she’s making better by accident.
She guides me into her bedroom, the eggplant colored walls flashing past in a blur. Before I can take in much else, she's tugging my shirt free from my jeans.
I laugh. "Impatient."
"You have no idea."
She pulls the shirt over my head and tosses it somewhere behind her.
"Careful," I say.
She gives me a look that suggests she's heard the word and rejected it on principle.
Backing me toward the mattress, she presses another kiss to my mouth until the backs of my knees hit the bed. I sit, and she settles into my lap immediately, knees bracketing my hips as she catches my face between her hands.
My pulse kicks hard.
She's warm, restless, impossible to ignore. My hands find her waist while my brain tries, and fails, to keep up. Every instinct tells me to be careful, not to hurt her, not to get this wrong.
She kisses me like none of that matters.
She makes this sound, deep in her chest. A desperate, grateful whine. It breaks something open in me. I let her push me down onto the bed, let my hands learn the shape of her through her dress, the line of her thigh, the little invisible zipper at her side.
“Don’t stop,” she says, not really words, just all breath and want.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promise, and mean it for once.
She’s warm and soft in all the places I need, and I don’t know where she ends and I begin.
Part of me keeps trying to handle her gently, while the rest is hanging on by a thread.
My hips want to buck, my hands want to clutch her so hard I leave prints, and somehow, I manage to keep both those things in check.
It’s almost worse this way, like being dragged to the edge of a cliff and told to wait there, trembling, until someone decides if you fall.
She pulls the blue dress over her head in a single motion.
The straps catch, dragging against her shoulders, and my breath stutters in my chest. My mouth goes dry, and every coherent thought leaves at once.
She waits until I finally meet her eyes again before she unhooks her bra and tosses it somewhere between the bedsheets and the floor.
“Jeez, Jo,” I manage. “You’re so…”
She leans in, so close her hair falls in a curtain between us, and whispers, hot against my throat, her pulse jackhammering as she tries to melt carefulness out of me. I don’t let go, just hold her there, fingers cinched gently around her wrists.
Her lips part. I see the want there, the challenge and the ache. Josie is the kind of girl who needs to win the moment, but I need to lose to her.
I pin her wrists above her head before she immediately pushes back, so hard I nearly black out. She gasps, then laughs, something torn between delight and surprise.
My grip slips.
She twists out of my hold, catches me off balance, and suddenly we're rolling. A second later she's on top again, hair wild and falling into her eyes.
The tension is nuclear. Neither of us is saying shit, but all the words are there in the sound of her breath, the way she says my name like she’s giving me a gift.
I roll her onto her back and let go of her wrists, but she grabs my hair and pulls me down. The kiss leaves a wet stripe along my jaw. She bites at the stubble under my chin, curses when it burns her lips, does it again just to make me growl.
My cock is pressed between us, hard and dragging against the new slick heat between her thighs. Neither of us seems interested in thinking anymore.
I peel her panties off. She’s wet. I can feel it through my pants. I want to slow this down, tell her how she smells like vanilla and summer, and that it’s fucking me up in ways I wish I had words for. But I can’t.
Her hands are everywhere, greedy, stripping me down before catching the waistband of my boxers and yanking until I almost lose my goddamn mind.
She’s all curve and muscle, pale skin ghosted by blue veins. She arches her back, feet digging into the sheets and dragging me with her.
I want to taste her everywhere. I want her to remember me under her tongue when the sun comes up, and we’re both too embarrassed to look at each other over burnt coffee.
But right now she’s crawling up my chest, grabbing my jaw with both hands.
I could spend the rest of the night exactly where I am and still want more.
She pulls me between her legs and fuck, I never want to be anywhere else. She’s leaking against my hand, slick and so, so ready. I press my thumb to her clit, slow circles, and she swears softly into my mouth. I do it again, just to hear what else she’ll say.
She’s a mess, nails leaving red tracks up my arms. Her pupils are blown wide, and all I want is to watch her come apart. Her hips stutter, and I slow down, pulling back just enough to make her whine.
“Want you to keep going,” she mumbles, voice rough. “Don’t tease.”