Chapter 14
Fourteen
Ina
I’m in the kitchen making lunch when I hear a car I don’t recognize. Not Beau’s truck…that engine I know in my sleep. This is something smaller. Quieter. I glance out the window, and my stomach drops.
Silver BMW. Texas plates. A man stepping out of it in pressed khakis and a polo shirt, like he’s headed to brunch at the country club instead of the cattle ranch he never wanted me to move to.
Mark.
Same face, same build…lean, medium height, same expensive haircut that costs more than my weekly feed order. He’s got sunglasses pushed up on his head, and he’s looking at the ranch house like he has any right to stand on this gravel and breathe this air.
My jaw locks. My hands curl around the edge of the counter.
He fucked his girlfriend in our bed, signed the papers, took his half, and disappeared.
And now he’s here. In his pressed khakis. On my porch.
I dry my hands on the dish towel. Take a breath. Walk to the front door.
He’s already at the bottom of the steps when I push through the screen. His eyes do that thing …that sweep he used to do when we were married. Starting at my feet, moving up slowly, taking inventory. Like he’s checking what’s his. Except nothing here is his anymore.
“Ina.” He smiles. That practiced, smooth, I’m-a-reasonable-man smile. “You look good.”
“What are you doing here, Mark?”
“Can’t I come see how you’re doing?”
“You haven’t called me in four months.”
“I know. I’ve been meaning to.” He takes a step up. I don’t move. “Lilah said she was home for the weekend. Thought I’d swing by. See the place. See you.”
Lilah. That’s how he knew. My daughter mentioned she was visiting and Mark drove four hours to …what? Play daddy? Make sure his ex-wife is still miserable enough to make him feel like the winner?
“Lilah’s out with Tanya,” I say flatly. “You should’ve called first.”
“Come on, Ina. Don’t be like that.” He climbs another step. Closer now. Close enough that I can smell his cologne…that expensive thing he always wore. It used to make me feel safe. Now it makes my skin crawl. “I just wanted to talk. We didn’t exactly end things on good terms.”
“You fucked someone else in our house. There are no good terms.”
His smile tightens. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither was the divorce settlement, but here we are.”
He opens his mouth…probably to launch into one of his calm, gaslighting monologues about how we both made mistakes and no one’s really to blame…when we both hear it.
My guy’s truck. Big. Black. Loud. Rolling up the driveway with the kind of engine that announces itself from a quarter mile away. Gravel crunching under heavy tires.
Mark turns. Watches the truck park behind his BMW. His BMW suddenly looks tiny.
The door opens. And Beau steps out.
He’s in a white T-shirt…tight, sweat-damp from working the ranch.
Dusty jeans. Boots. His hat pulled low, shadowing his golden eyes.
He’s massive. His shoulders strain the seams of his shirt.
His forearms are dirty, veins popping, his big hands hanging loose at his sides.
He looks like he just walked out of a field and could walk right into a fight without adjusting a single thing.
He takes one look at the scene…me on the porch with my arms crossed, Mark on the steps in his country club outfit…and everything about him changes. His stride slows, jaw sets, eyes going hard and laser-focused on the man standing between us.
Mark straightens up. He’s five-ten. Maybe five-eleven in good shoes. Beau is six-three in his boots and outweighs him by at least fifty pounds of pure muscle. The size difference is almost comical. Mark looks like he’s being confronted by an entirely different species.
“Who’s this?” Mark asks, turning to me. But his voice is thinner now.
Beau doesn’t wait for me to answer. He walks up the steps…
past Mark, not around him, his big shoulder brushing Mark back a half step without even trying…
and comes straight to me. His rough hand finds the back of my neck.
His calloused fingers curl into my hair.
And he kisses me. Right there. Full and firm and slow.
His lips, warm and possessive on mine. His body angled so that his broad back is to Mark and his entire world is my mouth.
When he pulls back, his golden eyes check mine. You okay?
I nod slightly. My lips are tingling. My body is humming.
He turns to face Mark. Keeps his hand on the back of my neck. His thumb stroking my nape. Casual. Claiming.
“Beau Redding,” he says. Low. Quiet. Not unfriendly. But not friendly either.
Mark looks at Beau’s hand on my neck. At my beaming face, the size of the man standing next to me with his arm around me like I’m the most natural thing in the world.
I watch Mark do the math …the age, the body, the confidence, the fact that this man clearly fucks his ex-wife regularly and thoroughly …
and I watch the result hit him right in the ego.
“Mark,” he says stiffly. “I’m Ina’s…”
“I know who you are,” Beau says.
Something cold passes behind Mark’s eyes. He looks at me. “So this is what you’re doing now?”
“Yes,” I say. No hesitation. No apology. “This is exactly what I’m doing now.”
“Ina, can we talk? Privately?”
“No.”
“I drove four hours…”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
Beau’s thumb keeps stroking my neck. Slow and steady, like he’s got nowhere to be.
Like he could stand here all day if that’s what I need.
His body is relaxed next to mine. But I can feel the tension under.
His muscles are hard against my side. His jaw is set.
He’s calm. But he’s watching Mark the way he watches a bull that’s thinking about doing something stupid.
Mark tries one more time. He adjusts his polo, pulls himself up to his full, very average height. “Ina. I came here because I think we should talk about where things stand. For the kids’ sake.”
“The kids are fine. Lilah’s thriving. Miles is good. They don’t need you to drive four hours to pretend to care.”
That hits him. His jaw ticks. His nostrils flare. For a second the mask slips and I see the real Mark…petty, wounded, small. The man who couldn’t handle me being happy without him so he drove across the state to check.
“I think you should go,” Beau says. Same low voice. Same calm. But his golden eyes are stone-cold, and his hand on my neck has shifted. His arm around my shoulders now, pulling me into his side, his massive body a wall between me and the man who broke me.
Mark looks at Beau. Really looks. Takes in the height. The chest, the arms, the quiet, absolute certainty in his intense eyes that says I will not ask again.
“Fine.” Mark takes a step back. Then another. His smile is gone. His smooth charm is gone. He looks exactly like what he is…a man who drove four hours to feel important and is leaving with nothing. “I’ll call Lilah.”
“You do that,” I say.
He gets in his BMW. Closes the door. The engine sounds tinny and weak after Beau’s truck. He backs out slowly, pulls onto the road, and disappears.
The dust settles. The gravel goes quiet.
I exhale. Long and shaky. And Beau’s arm tightens around me.
“You good?” he murmurs against my hair.
“Yeah.” I turn into him. Press my face against his chest. His T-shirt is warm and damp and smells like sweat and cedar and dust and him. I breathe him in. Deep. Let his scent push out every trace of Mark’s cologne. “I’m good.”
He holds me for a minute. His hands, on my back. His heartbeat steady against my cheek. Then I pull back and look up at him.
His golden eyes are still hard. His jaw is still tight. The caveman is still running the show behind his pretty eyes. He’s looking at the road where Mark’s car disappeared, like he’s memorizing the route in case he needs it later.
“Hey,” I say, pressing my palm to his jaw. His stubble is rough under my fingers. His muscle ticks. “Eyes on me.”
He looks down. His gaze softens. Barely.
“I didn’t like him on your porch,” he whispers.
“I know.”
“Didn’t like his eyes on you.”
“I know.”
“Didn’t like him breathing your air.”
My pussy clenches. God help me. Possessive caveman Beau shouldn’t be this hot.
It shouldn’t make my thighs press together, my nipples tighten, and my whole body floods with heat.
But it does. Because watching this big, quiet man look at my ex-husband like he was something stuck to the bottom of his boot and then kiss me like he was staking a flag … yeah. That did something to me.
“Take me inside,” I say.
His eyes flash. “Ina…”
“Now, Beau.”
He reads my face. Sees what’s there. And his golden eyes go dark.
He doesn’t carry me this time. He walks me backward through the front door, his hands on my hips, his mouth on mine, kicking the screen shut behind us, pins me against the hallway wall, and his big body presses me flat.
I feel every hard inch of him. His chest, his abs, his cock, already thickening against my belly.
“He touched you for twenty years,” Beau growls against my throat.
His hands yank my shirt up. His rough palms slide over my bare stomach, my ribs.
“Twenty years of his hands on your skin.” He grips my tits through my bra…
hard, possessive, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. “I’m gonna erase every single one.”
“Yes,” I gasp. “Please.”
He drops to his knees. Right there in the hallway. His huge hands grip my hips. He yanks my shorts and panties down to my ankles in one pull. Presses his face between my thighs and inhales…deep, rough, his nose against my clit, his groan vibrating through my entire lower body.
“This is mine,” he says against my pussy. His breath hot on my swollen flesh. “Every fucking inch. Mine.”
Then his mouth is on me. Devouring. Licking, sucking, his tongue pushing inside me, his hands gripping my ass so hard I’ll have bruises.
I grab his hair with both hands. My head slams back against the wall.
My legs shake. He eats me like he’s trying to consume me.
Like he can taste Mark’s name in my history and he’s replacing it with his tongue.
I come fast. Hard. Sobbing his name. Knees buckling. He catches me …of course he does…stands, lifts me against the wall, frees his cock, and pushes inside me before the last wave even fades.
“Who do you belong to?” he demands, buried deep, his forehead pressed to mine.
“You.”
“Who’s the only man who touches you?”
“You, Beau. Only you.”
“Who’s gonna breed you, baby?” His hips snap. Deep. Brutal. Perfect. “Who’s gonna fill this pussy and keep you full?”
“YOU,” I scream. And I come again. Or maybe I never stopped. My body is a live wire. Clenching, shaking, milking him. He follows with a roar…his big body shuddering, his cock pulsing inside me, his hands gripping my thighs so hard I think I feel the bruises forming.
We stay there. Pinned to the wall. Panting. Wrecked. His face in my neck. My fingers, in his hair. His cum dripping down my thigh.
“Feel better?” I pant.
He lifts his head. His golden eyes are calm again. Clear. The caveman’s gone back to his cave. My man is back. He brushes a braid off my sweaty forehead.
“Yeah,” he says. And almost smiles. “I feel better.”
I laugh. Breathless. Wrecked. Completely, thoroughly, possessively fucked in my hallway in the middle of a Saturday afternoon because my ex-husband had the audacity to show up on my porch.