Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Warrick
I had the fish cleaned up and portioned into the fridge while I heard the shower turn on. Rinsing my hands, I headed to the bathroom, suddenly craving a shower myself. The glass had not started misting up yet, and I saw her body through the glass while she had her head tilted to the spray.
Long legs, perky butt, flat belly, and perky tits—God, she looked like a buffet I needed to devour. I tapped on the glass door. “Need some help getting clean?”
She pulled the door open an inch. “The eighties called. They want this corny pick-up line back,” she said, laughing.
“Nope,” I laughed while stripping and plucking a condom from my wallet. “It’s genius. We’re conserving water now.”
“Sure,” she said, even as she rolled her shoulder. “Be useful and rub this shoulder; it’s stiff.”
Obliging, I started at her shoulders and massaged the muscles there, loving the way her eyes slid shut and a soft groan left her mouth. “That feels good,” she said, turning her back to me and lifting her now wet hair off her back. She shifted it to fall over the other shoulder.
I touched a water droplet running down her spine, and I dropped to my knees and licked it.
“Warrick—” Her tone was rough, lustful.
Reaching around her, I cupped both plump breasts and coasted my thumb across two stiff peaks. Zara’s eyelids fluttered closed, and I did it again, taking them between my thumb and forefinger, pinching her tight buds while pressing my body into hers.
Under my hands, she was wet, warm, and dripping, her naked body slick, slippery, and supple. I couldn’t stop touching her, stimulating her breasts before slipping my hands between her legs. It was even hotter and wetter than the rest of her, and Zara moaned into my mouth as I massaged her wet pussy.
“P-please tell me you h-have a condom on you,” she groaned.
I handed it to her. “Boy Scouts always come prepared.”
Reversing the touch on her clit, I kissed the back of her neck when her hips bucked against me as I slid two fingers into her tight, hot entrance. Grabbing my arm, she moaned, her mouth open, her head dropping on my shoulder. I slid a third finger in, kissing up and down her neck, sealing my lips over her frantic pulse.
She turned in my arms and slid her hands under my arms, her nails digging into my back, my lips against her ear. Her nipples were stiff on my chest as her hand fisted around my cock and stroked it. Her breathing grew faster as I shifted her weight, threw one of her legs over my hip, and my cock throbbed.
I pushed her harder against the wall as she got the condom on, and I hefted her up against the wall.
“Warrick—” she gasped. “—fuck me.”
Those three breathless words shot straight to my core.
I needed this. I needed her in my arms, shaking and whispering my name; I needed her trembling, coming, and being utterly, completely mine. She was on the wall, and I had her knees over my elbows, and the tip bumping against her slick wetness.
Easing her down, I sank into that perfect tight channel in one thrust, her tight channel enveloping me to the hilt, her legs locking around me. I couldn’t go slow—it was impossible.
I fucked into her, hard, the last thread of my control snapping in two. My hips snapped in and out, rough and raw. Her belly flexed under mine as I hit every sensitive, tender spot inside her, her slender legs tightening, hips rolling and flexing.
We moved harder this time, faster, our slick bodies hammering together. I pushed her, she pushed back, mindless, instinctive. I wanted more. I needed more. I had to get more, like I needed air. It was dirty and rough, it was hard, deep. It was ruthless and raw. We moved fast, chasing that high.
Zara shouted my name as her body became a vice around me, her body shuddering and impossibly tight, one hand in my hair, the nails of the other digging into my skin. I exploded inside her and couldn’t stop, draining myself in spasm after spasm.
“Jesus,” she looped her arms around my neck. “I don’t think I’ve come that hard…ever.”
I kissed her neck and gently let her down, littering kisses on her face and neck as the water rained over us. “How did you do it?”
She smoothed her hair from her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Get me to feel something again,” I replied.
I could not stop staring into her eyes, no matter how much it hurt. Into her deep green gaze while mine, I was sure, was full of emotion. Emotion I couldn’t define—not yet.
A long pause. She met my gaze. I saw so much emotion there, but nothing like before when I’d been inside her. This wasn’t something I had planned—neither had she. I had not expected anything to come from this but a little fun. I expected her to laugh and snap some quip.
Now, it was pretty clear what I saw.
No ambiguity.
Regret .
“We can’t do this, Warrick,” she said. “We cannot become something…anything.”
I knew that, but I pressed. “Why?”
Her head dropped. “I won’t be here long; you know this.”
“Zara—”
“Please, let me out,” she said, shifting to the door.
I knew enough not to protest when a woman said she wanted out, so I moved. She slid out of the shower and tugged a towel off the rack. I didn’t watch as she slipped out of the room, and the moment the door closed, I sagged against the wall and ran my hand over my face.
“Good going, jackass,” I murmured. “Now, she is gonna run.”
Grimacing, I finished showering, and by the time I got to the room, she and Goose were gone. I knew she had not taken the truck because her stuff was still here; maybe she just needed a second to herself.
My phone rang after I had gotten the fish out and the pot on the stove—it was Treeve. My brows dipped; why was the Mayor calling me so late?
“Donovan here,” I said.
“Warrick,” Gregory said. “I’m sorry to call you so late, but Mister Drayton wants to speak with you about a couple of things at the Silver Spur Saloon, tonight, you and your young lady, the PA. He said that explicitly.”
My head snapped back. “He asked for Z—Miss Harrington?”
“Yes, and offered to pay for dinner, too, anything you want,” Treeve said. “I am sorry to cut your getaway short, but he needs to see you both tonight.”
I sighed and shoved the fish back into the cooler. I would have to swing back here sometime between tonight and tomorrow to get them. I had a feeling Zara wouldn’t want to come back up here tonight. I looked up to the loft and grimaced; we hadn’t even had a night up there properly.
Stepping outside, I went down to the pond and found Zara and Goose, my big dog paddling in circles. I whistled, and he came running. Then I faced Zara, “We have to get to town. Mayor Treeve came a’ callin’, and we have to go.”
She nodded. “I’ll change into something better, and we’ll go.”
Stepping into the Silver Spur Saloon always made me feel like I was stepping into a Wild Wild West movie. Through the creaking, wood-battered doors, the place had a rustic, cozy interior and a perfect balance of period details and modern comforts. The place had scrubbed wooden tables, leather seats, tin plates on the wall, and a long row of beer taps behind the bar.
The dim light from the electric sconces threw shadows on the walls, and despite the warmth of the day, the interior was refreshingly cool. Clinking glasses, murmured conversation, and occasional laughter filled the air, while the faint strains of a piano playing in the corner came to my ears, and the fifty-inch TV had muted news reruns.
It was not hard to find Drayton Jr. Most of the people in the place wore jeans and khakis, not an expensive suit, and he had a confident swagger, like he owned the place. Not even Jake ‘The Snake’ O’Hara did that, and he owned the place.
“Donovan,” Drayton nodded. “Over here. Please.”
I glanced at Zara and didn’t see much emotion on her face, but she didn’t look antagonistic. That was good. We went to his table. “Mister Drayton. Good evening. What can we help you with?”
Instead of addressing my question, he turned to Zara. “Miss Harrington, glad to see you again. I am glad you came as well. What is it like to live on a ranch? I know you’re a city girl.”
He said it friendlily, but for some reason, my gut wanted me to punch his back teeth out. I didn’t have any hold on Zara; I didn’t own her, nor was she my girlfriend, so the jealousy was unwarranted, but something in me didn’t want Drayton to look two feet near Zara.
“ Ahem ,” I coughed, dragging attention to me. “You wanted to see us?”
“Ah, yes,” Drayton nodded. “I’ve been reading about this processing plant you want to get constructed around here. I don’t think I can get the full scope of what you’re looking for from paper, so can you walk me through it?”
My brows lowered. “Couldn’t you have called this meeting tomorrow?”
“I have a flight out to Cincinnati tomorrow,” he replied, his tone apologetic. “My apologies.”
I looked at Zara, but her attention was stuck on the TV. The news report flashed something on the screen, and she literally went white. “E-excuse me, bartender. Can you turn that up a little, please?”
The man nodded and pressed the volume up, then went back to pouring drinks.
“— s for the latest report coming out of New York, editor-in-chief of the widely spread newspaper, The Rambler, Elise Munroe, was found dead in her house.
Police Chief Eddie Wright has said that it was a home invasion, and the lady was found dead in her bed, shot execution style. He also adds that the killing has all the indications tying it to one of the Five Families of the New York Italian mob._
“Investigations are stalled as there is no viable connection between the notable journalist and any of the mob families, but initial reports do lead to the conclusion that the newspaper was about to run a story tying a local clinic to a mob affiliation.
"The small health institution was reported to be siphoning money from the government, treating patients who, according to the FBI, are either dead or created for nefarious purposes .”
Zara darted from the seat and rushed to the blinking light where the bathrooms were, and I nearly ran after her—but stopped and sat back down.
“Is she all right?” Drayton asked, twisting in his seat.
“I—” I swallowed. “I hope so. Probably something she ate at the ranch. She wasn’t too fond of the kale salad.”
“I prefer to juice mine,” Drayton replied. “Now, how about this plant?”
“Not just the plant but everything else that comes with it. There are four major ranches here,” I said, feeling like I was reiterating the same spiel I had told Gregory, Drayton Senior, the town council, the board of trustees, and my goddamn dog.
“It takes a lot to send the meat down to Helena, and even though it’s not far, what is in the middle takes the rub. We have to get specialized trucks; those come from Helena, too, and they charge by the hour.”
“Sometimes bulls die, and we don’t have the time to call those trucks, so we have to bury them, which is a revenue loss for us. If, by chance, we do get the trucks up here, the meat is deemed unusable. The long and short of it is that it is a way to keep every part of our business on our own land.
“In other parts of the state, there are operations out there selling directly to customers. If we have the plant here, there is no more sending cattle a city away, processing, and shipping from there. Everything would be done in-house, on our own land. I’ve spent two and a half years drawing up the plans, mapping everything out to the last detail.”
I kept an eye out, trying to spot Zara and getting fearful that she had not come back yet. “I think—no, I know —we can grow business with this facility, and it is going to provide at least fifty jobs for the town, a godsend for anyone who didn’t want to work at the boom-and-bust tourism business or whatever fringe jobs there are around here.”
“I see,” Drayton called a waitress over. “Whisky Sour, please? Mr. Donovan?”
“Sam Adams for me and lemonade for my friend, please,” I said, getting very worried about Zara now.
I turned back to see Drayton with a folder on the table. “Your reasoning is good, but the cost of this is massive.”
“The cost to keep the business out of the township is going to add up to much more in the years coming,” I said. “Honestly, we should have done this years ago.”
And given how much I’d already sunk into the planning, I would take a personal hit if it didn’t get built. Hell, the whole town was taking a hit every day it wasn’t up. Another four minutes and forty seconds passed, and no Zara—and now, I was getting frantic.
“If you will excuse me, I need to find Zara—” As I pushed from the table, she came around the corner, her face as pale as chalk as she joined us. Unsettled, I sat back in my chair, just as the waiter came and sat our drinks on the table. “Are you all right?”
She gave us a watery smile. “Upset stomach. I’m sorry about breaking up the meeting.”
“No worries,” Drayton said, his eyes sharp as he looked at Zara. It irked me. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes,” she replied, eyes dropping to the tall glass of lemonade. “Is this for me?”
I reached for my drink. “Yeah. I thought it would help your stomach the best.”
She sipped while Drayton and I talked over the plan for the plant. “I have to be straight with you. I think your father dragged his feet on this because I know he has stakes in the plant in Helena.”
Drayton sat his glass down. “Are you accusing my father of something, Mr. Donovan?”
“Simply capitalism,” I replied. “Nothing more.”
“The Drayton Conglomerate Empire has holdings in many industries,” Drayton replied stiffly. “But we do not infringe on the desires of other businesses.”
The air had shifted to tense, and Zara slowly sat the cup down, her gaze shifting between mine and Drayton's.
As the air seemed to grate on our skin, she said, “I suppose what Mr. Donovan was…is saying is that he does not think it would be fair to the townspeople to be adding to a global company while taking money from our community. That would be best for all of us to separate interests and have our own plant.”
“I’ll gloss over the almost insult towards my family, and I will look into it,” Drayton said. “Are you feeling better, Miss Harrington? Before you ran off, you looked as if you’d seen a ghost.”
“No, nothing like that,” she said, “I just had a bug.”
“Are you sure?” He twisted. “Are you sure it was not something on the TV?”
Her eyes tightened while her smile stayed in place. “No. There was nothing strange on TV.”
“I see,” Drayton nodded, closed his file, plucked his wallet out, and slid two hundred dollars over. “I must go, but please, order whatever you would like…on me. I hope you feel better, Miss Harrington. I have heard Ginger tonic does wonders for an upset stomach.”
With a tense smile, he stood, took one last drink, and left the bar. Zara and I shared a long look, and I sagged into the corner of the booth, rubbing my face. Nothing could rub the frustration away.
“He is just like his old man. Pompous, holier-than-thou, and all for the money. In all my righteous anger, I think I might have just shot myself in the foot,” I grumbled. “He is not taking that insult lightly. We might never get that plant.”
She touched my arm, and my skin instantly warmed. “He has that much sway over the town council?”
“The Draytons have their sticky fingers in every town from New York to California,” I took the money off the table, cringing at knowing I was touching dirty money. “Do you want to eat here or go home?”
She called for a waiter. “Can I get this in a to-go cup?”
When we left the bar, the humidity had dipped, and the air was misty with dew, but the sky was bright and clear. A wedge of moon glimmered in the dark sky, surrounded by rings of sparkling stars. As we drove off into the countryside, the leaves rustled as a chorus of birds began their nightly serenade from the trees.
Zara had her phone out and was texting something, then sighed and sat the phone down. She held her head straight. “Warrick, about earlier, when I freaked out? I-I-”
“You don’t have to explain,” I said, gripping the steering wheel. “Things were going too fast. It made sense you felt…off.”
“I didn’t come up here to find a…relationship,” she said, hollowly. “I am not the best person to have a relationship with, Warrick. I’m—I’m bad news.”
I shot a look at her. “I think that should be my line. I’m your boss, I’m older than you, and I’ve got baggage. Honestly, I shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.”
She laughed, hollowly. “I came on to you, remember.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I grunted. “I have control of my dick.”
Zara snorted. “Men think with two heads. One in their head and one in their cock. The one below the belt usually wins.”
I broke through the tree-lined lane, got to the ranch house, parked close to the porch, and shut the truck off. Turning to her, I asked, “Are you feeling better?”
“Oh yeah,” she lifted the cup of lemonade. “This did the trick. I’m just tired.”
“Go inside then,” I said. “You’re room is waiting for you. I’ll be up in a moment. I hope Marie has some leftovers somewhere.”
She left the truck, and before I followed her, I sagged into the seat and closed my eyes. Goddamn, I was the unluckiest bastard alive, wasn’t I?
Love, attention, affection—I probably was fated to have none of it. This was a kick in the teeth, wasn’t it? I’d finally found someone to dust off the dirt and cobwebs from my heart and open the rusty hinge—only for the lid to get slammed down again.
A chirp.
Looking down, I found that Zara had left her phone in the cupholder and a text had come in.
Xtra large pepperoni pizza was destroyed accidentally. We will offer a $20 coupon for next purchase, simply reply, yes to this text.
I frowned. “Pizza? What the hell is she doing with the number of a pizza place out here?”
The text shut off before I could spot the sender, but then I shrugged. It was probably a fluke on the pizza place’s part. I got strange texts all the time.
Taking the phone with me as I left the truck, I headed inside and made a note to drop the phone off to her before I went to my room. I stopped on the top step, braced an arm on the post, and looked out.
Zara did not live here; she was bound to go, and I knew there was no way I could cut ties with this place, this land, my blood another time. This—whatever it was—between me and Zara was already doomed to die.
Something shifted inside me as I leaned on the post, and I’d never felt more alone and insignificant in my life.