Chapter 21 – Jensen #2
"Are fine." She holds them both out from the saddle horn, spread wide, perfectly steady, showing me. "See? All ten fingers. Fully operational."
I exhale. "Don't do that."
"I didn't do anything."
"I know," I say. "Just put your hands back on the horn. Please.” I rub the back of my neck, trying to locate my pulse, which seems to have walked off somewhere down the fence line without me. "Don't scare me like that."
She looks at me for a long moment from up in the saddle, and something in her expression softens. "You were scared about me getting hurt?"
"Yes."
"For me, or for my hands?"
I meet her eyes. "Both. But mostly for you."
She holds my gaze for a second longer. Then she settles back into the saddle, takes the reins again, and tilts her chin at the fence line ahead of us.
“I want to see the rest of the property. Let’s go.”
We do. I’m nervous the entire way.
***
We're back at grandma's cabin by eight, full of her cooking and the warmth that comes from sitting around a kitchen table with someone who loves you unconditionally.
Grandma asked Catalina fourteen questions about growing up in California and listened to every answer like each one was the most interesting thing she'd ever heard.
Catalina answered all fourteen with more openness than I've seen her give anyone, and I caught her smiling at the table twice without remembering to rein it back in. I was right. Grandma loves her.
My childhood bedroom is small and hasn't changed since I was seventeen.
Same narrow, full-sized bed, same wood-plank walls, same window that looks out at the lake when the moon is bright enough.
I've slept in it on visits back enough times that it doesn't feel small anymore. It just feels like mine.
Catalina stands in the middle of it in an oversized sleep shirt, her hair loose, looking at the rodeo ribbon tacked to the wall above the dresser.
"First place," she says. "How old were you when you got this?"
"Nineteen. First year on the circuit." I sit on the edge of the bed and pull off my boots. "Dawson drove six hours to watch. Wasn’t even televised online. Made one hundred bucks. I thought I was rich."
She nods slowly, still staring at the ribbon.
Then she turns, crosses the room, and sits on the bed beside me, close enough that our arms are touching.
She reaches past me to the nightstand without explanation, picks up the small bottle of lavender hand lotion that grandma keeps in every room of the cabin, and uncaps it.
"Give me your hands."
I blink. "What?"
"Your hands." She holds hers out, waiting.
I stretch out both hands, and she takes them without ceremony, squeezes a small amount of lotion into her palm and rolls it between her hands a few times.
I notice that. The warming of the lotion, the deliberateness of wanting to be sure her hands are warm before they come in contact with my skin.
Then she places her fingers on mine and starts to work the liquid into my knuckles gently.
Her thumbs press into the joints with exactly the right amount of pressure. She knows what she's doing, knows where it's tight, finds it without me having to tell her.
"You've never used lotion a day in your life," she says quietly, not looking up at me.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Your hands are like sandpaper."
"They have to be to hang onto the rope.”
"Mm." She works her way across each knuckle, steady and methodical. I watch the top of her head, the dark curls falling forward slightly and the way she’s biting down on her full bottom lip as she concentrates on what she’s doing. "Does that hurt?"
"No." It's the opposite of hurt. I'm not sure I have a word for what it is. It feels good. It feels intimate. It feels like she’s taking care of me the only way she knows how.
She works in silence for a while. Outside the window, the lake is dark and still, and through it I can see the faint scattered light of stars that you can't see from any city I've ever ridden in. It’s a beautiful night but the only place I want to be right now is right here.
“I liked today,” Catalina says, still working my hands in hers. “Seeing the ranch. Thank you for taking me.”
"Yeah?"
"The horse.” She pauses. "I liked that part too. And you."
I turn my head to look at her. She doesn't look up from my hands. She drops them, then tentatively reaches for the hem of my shirt. I’ve already taken off my sling preparing for bed, so I help her, lifting it up and off until my chest is exposed. Her eyes dart to my shoulder.
“May I?”
I nod. Her fingers move to my shoulder, much gentler this time.
She kneads the tight muscles with slow pressure, her touch careful.
Unlike the exams she's given me before, I can tell she's using an entirely different technique—probably something she picked up during her years as the head doctor for the professional baseball team.
With each pass of her hands, the tension eases from my joint, the muscles loosening beneath her touch until I'm practically melting into her like butter.
"I liked that you were scared for me," she says quietly while she works.
"Terrified," I correct.
"I know." Her thumbs press softly in slow circles. "No one's worried about me in a long time. Maybe ever."
I think of her ex. The man who had her for four years and apparently spent most of it making her feel like the least important person in the room.
I think about the teenage girl who wrote doctor on her homework so her parents would look at her and be proud.
I think about a woman who's spent her whole life being impressive and how different that is from being cherished.
"Get used to it," I say roughly.
She finally looks up. Her eyes are darker and steady. I reach over and tuck a curl back from her face, easy, without thinking about it. She lets me.
She caps the lotion, sets it on the nightstand, and lies back against the pillow. We already know where this is headed, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking to rush it.
I shift my weight until I'm hovering over her, chest to chest, face to face. I'm shirtless, she's in just that oversized sleep shirt, and when I lift the hem of it, I find nothing underneath it. Something about that pulls a possessive growl from my chest.
"We have to be quiet," she whispers, her hand flattening against my sternum like she can feel what just happened to my heart. "Your grandma would hate me."
"My grandma already loves you." I palm her breast, feeling the warm, soft weight of it, and squeeze gently. She lets out a breathy moan.
"If you keep making that sound," I murmur against her jaw, "there will be no quiet from me tonight."
I lower my mouth and close my lips around her nipple, feeling her inhale catch.
Then her hands are in my hair, tugging my face back up to hers.
She kisses me the way she does everything—with her whole attention, nothing held back, like she's decided this is what she's doing, and the rest of the world can wait.
I get lost in it. We kiss like we have nowhere to be, like there's no series to get back to and no title on the line and no complications waiting for us when we leave Tennessee.
Just her mouth and her hands and the creak of the old mattress and the stars I can still see through the window over her shoulder.
Minutes of kissing pass and I don't count them.
Then her hands slide beneath my waistband, pushing my sweatpants down.
She takes my cock in her hand and guides me into her without breaking the kiss.
She rolls her hips up and takes what she wants, and I feel myself sink into her slowly and deeply.
I swear every ride, every score, every buckle I've ever won doesn't come close to this feeling of being inside her.
"I’ve just had the best week of my life with you," I say against her mouth.
She kisses me harder in response. She doesn't say it back, and I don't need her to. I can feel it in the way she holds me—arms around my neck, heels hooked at my waist, pulling me closer like she's trying to close every last inch of space between us.
Something changed here in Tennessee. We arrived as almost friends, but we’re not leaving that way.
I press deeper, finding the rhythm we've learned together.
My thumb brushes her clit, working slow, steady circles until her breath breaks apart against my lips and her whole body tightens around me.
She comes quietly, and it's more intimate this way.
This thing between us that she's trying to contain in the darkness of my childhood bedroom while my grandma’s asleep down the hall.
I follow her over the edge, holding her through it, my mouth on hers the entire time as I fill her with my come.
When I finish, I pull out and clean her gently with some tissues, then lie down beside her.
The old bed creaks under my weight, and we're close enough that we’re touching without even meaning to.
"Jensen?"
"Yeah."
There’s a long pause until she says, "Thank you for bringing me here. I like your grandma too."
I find her hand in the dark, fold mine over hers. I think about the red nail polish and her on the back of Maggie, trying something new and scary and choosing to trust me with it.
"Thank you for coming," I say.
She doesn't say anything else. And neither do I. And after a while, her breathing evens out, and she's asleep.
I don’t want this week to end.