Chapter 6 Ina
Six
Ina
Tanya waves me over from a high-top near the back of the bar. She’s already got two drinks on the table and is grinning like a woman who’s been waiting all week for this.
“You came!” she says, hopping up to hug me like we didn’t just text an hour ago.
“Don’t act so shocked.”
“Girl, I’ve been begging you to get out of that house for weeks. I was starting to think you and that porch swing were in a committed relationship.”
“We are. It’s very serious.”
She snorts, shoving a drink toward me.
Tanya’s my oldest friend out here. We went to high school together before I left for college and she stayed, married Bobby Garza, had three kids, and became the kind of woman who runs a household, a part-time bookkeeping business, and the entire PTA without breaking a sweat.
She’s also the only person who can make me laugh until I cry and tell me about myself in the same breath.
Tonight she’s in tight jeans, red boots, a tank top with glitter, and enough energy to power the whole county. She took the night off from motherhood and she’s determined to spend every second of it dancing, drinking, and minding my business.
We settle in. Music blares, boots scuff on the wooden floor, the crowd thickens as more people filter in. Familiar faces wave and stop by our table. A couple of women from the co-op. Some people from our old high school. A guy I went out with once in 2011 who has no business hugging me this tight.
“Down, boy,” Tanya mutters when he finally leaves. “He’s been divorced for six months and already circling.”
“Takes one to know one.”
She grins. “Speaking of. How’s single life treating you?”
“It’s not single life, it’s peace and quiet.”
“Mmhm. Peace and quiet with that glow on your face?” She leans in, eyes narrowing. “You look different tonight. Like you’ve been sleeping better. Or not sleeping at all.” She wags her eyebrows.
I take a long sip of my lemonade. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar.”
I’m about to change the subject when a burst of deep male laughter rolls across the room. I glance up.
And there he is. Beau freaking Redding. Why, Universe? Why me?
He’s sitting at a table with his brothers. Mack’s got a woman on either side of him, grinning like the charming bastard he clearly is. Levi’s leaned back, talking to a redhead. But Beau? Beau sits quiet, still. Like the calm center of a storm.
No hat tonight. His thick, dark hair is pushed back from his forehead, a little messy, like he ran his hand through it once and called it done.
It makes him look younger. Rougher. His jaw catches the low bar light…
sharp, shadowed, dusted with that stubble I can still feel on my neck if I think about it too hard. Which I’m trying not to do.
He’s wearing a dark shirt that does criminal things to his body.
Stretched across his chest and shoulders like it’s one deep breath away from ripping.
The sleeves hug his biceps…thick, round, the kind you don’t get from a gym.
His forearms rest on the table, tanned and veined, and his big hands are wrapped around a glass of water.
His hands. His rough, sure, devastating hands that were inside me this afternoon.
My pussy clenches. In a bar. Surrounded by people I’ve known since birth, while a Garth Brooks song plays on the jukebox. This is my life now.
His golden eyes scan the room lazily. Unhurried. Like he already knows what he’s looking for.
Then they find me.
The second his gaze locks on mine, I feel it.
Not in my chest. Lower. A hot, tight pull between my legs that makes me squeeze my thighs together under the table.
His eyes don’t move. Don’t blink. Just hold.
Even from across the room, his stare has weight.
Heat. It presses against my skin like a physical thing. Like he’s touching me without moving.
My cheeks flush. My nipples tighten against my bra. Great.
I yank my gaze back to Tanya. Who is already staring at me with the biggest shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen.
“What?” I snap.
“Nothing. Just watching you have a full-body experience.”
“I was NOT…”
“Babe, you’re clenching your glass like it owes you money.”
I loosen my grip on the lemonade. She smirks.
I clear my throat. “So. The Redding boys.”
“Oh… What happened to ‘peace and quiet’?”
“I’m making conversation. I recognized Mack.”
“Mm-hmm.” She doesn’t buy it for a second. “Whole lotta tall, hot trouble over there.”
“Are they heartbreakers?”
“Some of them. Mack flirts with anything that moves, but he’s mostly harmless. Levi’s the sweet one. Got a kid. Good dad.”
I nod, keeping my expression carefully neutral. “What about Beau?”
I ask it too casually. I know it. She knows it. The bartender probably knows it.
Tanya tilts her head, studying me. “That one’s different.”
“Different how?”
“He’s really smart. Like, scary smart. Went to some big-shot university up north. Cornell, I think? Had some research position.” She shrugs. “Then he came back a few years ago. Nobody really knows why. He just showed up one day and started working the ranch like he’d never left.”
My chest tightens. I wasn’t expecting that. A real story. Not just the hot cowboy fantasy I’d been filing him under to protect myself.
“Is he also the type to flirt?” I ask.
Tanya snorts. “Girl, no. Beau’s never been like that. Even before he left. I haven’t seen him with a single woman since he came back. Not one. It’s just bulls and spreadsheets with that man.” She laughs. Then her eyes sharpen. “Why? You interested?”
I laugh. Too loud. “I’m just asking. He seems like the kind of guy who’d keep a rotation.”
“Beau Redding?” She shakes her head. “That man doesn’t rotate. He doesn’t even orbit. He’s been locked in on that ranch like a monk with better abs.”
The story I’d built in my head…him being a player, some smooth-talking womanizer using me for fun…
is cracking. Badly. Because a man who came home from a fancy career to work his family’s land, who barely speaks but shows up on your porch and puts his mouth on your body like you’re the only thing he’s ever wanted to taste…
That’s not a player. That’s something much more dangerous.
“Why are you so curious about Beau?” Tanya presses, grinning widely.
But before I can answer, her eyes go past my shoulder, and her whole face changes. “Oh, shit. He’s coming over.”
My pulse spikes. I don’t turn around. Don’t need to. I can feel him. His presence shifting the air behind me. The temperature changing. And then his scent…leather, cedar, warm skin…drifting over my shoulder like a hand reaching for me.
I hear his boots on the wooden floor. Slow. Steady. Not rushing. A few people glance up as he passes. Someone says his name. He doesn’t stop.
Tanya’s watching with her mouth slightly open, eyes darting between me and whatever’s happening behind me. She looks like she’s witnessing a wildlife documentary in real time.
Then I feel him. Right behind me. Close enough that the heat of his body presses against my back through the air between us. Close enough that the hair on my arms stands up and my skin breaks out in goosebumps.
I turn my head. And there he is.
Beau Redding. Standing right there. Towering over our table. This close, he’s even more devastating. I can see the flecks of amber in his golden eyes. The faint scar on his jaw I hadn’t noticed before, the fullness of his bottom lip, the shadow of his dark lashes.
His gaze doesn’t shift to Tanya. Doesn’t scan the room. It stays on me. Locked. Burning. Like I’m the only person in this bar. In this town. On this goddamn planet.
He nods at Tanya. Touches where the brim of his hat would be. Polite. Brief. Then he looks at me.
And holds out his hand.
No words, no line, no “Can I have this dance?” Just his big, calloused palm, open and steady, offered to me like a question he already knows the answer to.
I can see the lines in his palm. The rough skin.
The thick fingers that were inside me hours ago.
My body remembers before my brain can catch up…
a rush of heat between my legs, my nipples tightening, my breath catching.
Tanya kicks me under the table.
And like an idiot…or a woman with absolutely no self-preservation left…I take it.
His fingers close around mine. Warm. Rough.
Sure. The same grip from the fair. The same heat.
But different now because I know what these hands can do.
I know how they feel on my skin, inside my body, cupping the back of my neck while he kisses me stupid.
And the memory of all of it slams through me the second his skin touches mine.
He leads me to the dance floor as the music shifts to something slower. Richer. All fiddle and guitar, the kind of rhythm that gets under your skin and makes you do things you’ll think about for weeks.
He pulls me close. One hand slides to my waist…
wide and heavy, fingers curving around my side, his thumb finding the dip above my hip.
The other holds my hand against his chest. I can feel his heartbeat under my palm.
Steady. Strong. His body heat wraps around me.
The cotton of his shirt is soft against my cheek.
He smells like warm nights and worn leather and the clean warmth of his skin under.
My body knows him now. Knows his scent, his heat, the size of his hands, the width of his chest. And the traitor melts into him before my brain can file a single objection.
I try to hold myself upright. Keep a little space.
Maintain some shred of dignity. But his thumb is stroking my hip in slow, deliberate circles that send pulses of heat straight to my clit.
His heartbeat is steady under my palm. And he’s holding me like I fit here.
Like I was always supposed to be right here, pressed against his chest, breathing him in.
I give up. I relax into him.
We don’t speak for a long time. Just move. Swaying slow. Pressed together. The bar blurs around us. The noise fades. It’s just the music and his body and the slow drag of his thumb on my waist.
Then, just above the sound, I hear his voice. Low and steady. His lips brushing my hair. His breath, warm on my scalp.
“Didn’t know my night could get better.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. Too busy memorizing the feel of him.
His thumb on my hip. His chest rising and falling against mine.
The hard plane of his stomach against my belly.
The way his hand on my back keeps me close …
his palm spread wide between my shoulder blades, fingertips pressing gently into my spine.
Like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip.
One song turns into another. I lift my head long enough to glance at Tanya. She’s sitting at our table with her chin in her hand, grinning like she’s watching the season finale of her favorite show.
I drop my head back against Beau’s chest. And I think, just for one more song. Then I’ll pull away. Then I’ll be rational.
But his arm tightens around me. His mouth brushes my temple …
his full lips soft and warm against my skin, lingering.
And he murmurs, so low only I can hear, “No. Not yet. Let me feel you a little longer. Let me smell you.” His voice drops.
A rumble that I feel more than hear…vibrating through his chest into mine. “Fucking love having you in my arms.”
The heat of his voice spreads through my whole body. Resonates in my chest. Tightens my nipples. Pulses between my legs, making my clit throb. And the way he says it…like I’m already his. Like I’ve already said yes to something I don’t remember being asked.
I don’t pull away. I press my face into his shirt. Breathe him in …leather, cedar, warm skin, the faintest trace of sweat. Close my eyes and stop pretending I want to be anywhere else.