CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
WHEN I WAS back at Rawhide and following Haven like a shadow, she’d take me to her vegetable garden and have me help her out.
I did it because that was what I was supposed to do, but I didn’t think I’d like it so much.
But then again, there were many things about Rawhide, about living on a ranch itself, that I never thought I’d like, but as it turned out, I did.
So when during one of our rides along the lake I found the marigolds, I got excited.
I asked Radisson to stop immediately, and I carefully collected the roots and took them back to the main house so I could plant them.
Which I did. And I thought I did everything right, everything like Haven showed me, but they wouldn’t grow.
Or at least, I thought they wouldn’t grow and that the leaves had already started to go brown and droop.
Which is what I told Radisson. I said they weren’t growing and we needed to do something about it.
It was my first plant ever. I couldn’t let it die. What kind of a plant mommy would I be?
At which point he lost his patience and snapped, or more like muttered to himself, “Christ, she’s worse than Ma and Lynnie.
” Then he raked a hand down his face and said, “Look, if they’re dead, they’re dead.
Ain’t nothin’ you or I can do about it. The best I can do is go back out there tomorrow and get you some new ones. But that’s it. Deal with it.”
He kept looking at me like he needed an answer.
When I didn’t give him one, he said, “You with me?”
“What?”
His jaw clenched and he asked again, very slowly, “Are you with me on this? Peyton. Or are you gonna behave like all the other women in my life I’ve known and annoy the fuck outta me about some dyin’ plants that don’t matter one way or another?”
“Dying plants matter.”
“Holy fuck,” he bit out, but that was all I gave him the chance to do.
I tackled him to the hard ground and kissed the breath out of him.
Then I attacked his pants, followed by his dick.
I sucked him off until he was about to come, but then it was his turn to attack me.
So he pulled my mouth off his cock before he sat me down on it and made me ride him until we both came.
Yes, it was a struggle, getting him inside me that way.
It was painful. I cried. He loved it. I loved it, too, and we both came like we always do: hard and together.
But that’s not why I’m thinking of this incident right now. I’m thinking about it because of what he said that got me so emotional I had to jump his bones.
It was that comment about me being worse than his mom and his sister.
It did something to me. It made me realize how much I wanted it, wanted to be in the same club as them.
It made me realize how badly I wanted to meet them, his mom if I could, and how badly I wanted to meet his sister now.
How badly I wanted his sister to like me despite me being a Turner.
The daughter of the man who destroyed her life, much like her brother’s.
I’m also thinking about this because I’ve decided to do something.
It’s not something that hasn’t occurred to me all this time that we’ve been here.
It had also occurred to me back when he took a bullet for me at that warehouse before confessing the truth about why he stole me in the first place, for what purpose.
I never brought it up because he wouldn’t talk about anything to do with his plan to get Lynnie back, but I think it’s time to do it now.
We don’t have any other option.
It’s been an hour since we came back from the woods.
I rode with him like I always do, on his lap, wrapped around his body, safe and secure.
And just like he kept doing at the woods, he’d kiss my forehead, my cheek every few seconds while we made our way back to the main house.
He helped me get down from the horse, but instead of letting me walk up to the house, he carried me there.
He carried me over the threshold and into the shower.
Since these days we always shower together, I knew he’d stand under the water with me, dwarfing the stall with his presence, suffocating the air and making me feel even safer.
But he didn’t. He drew me a bath. And the entire time he was preparing things for it, he kept me plastered to his body.
He even took my clothes off himself before he put me in the water, and then he washed me.
Naked and on display, he knelt by the bathtub and bathed me.
His hands were so gentle as they soaped me up, taking extra care in the areas I’d scraped from being on my hands and knees on the ground, and his stare was so tender as he made sure not a single place on my body was neglected.
Once done, he carefully dried me with the towel before wrapping me in one.
Usually before we go to sleep, he watches me put the lotion on my legs and braid my hair, which more often than not results in him jerking off over me and painting my skin with his cum.
But today, on top of everything else, he did those things himself too.
He set me down on the closed toilet seat and knelt again to lotion up my legs, all gently and tenderly like before.
Then he combed my hair with careful strokes and braided it for me.
And he did it exactly the way I do. Meaning he wasn’t just watching; he was also learning.
Then he took a quick shower of his own while I was brushing my teeth.
He put his old jeans back on before carrying me bridal-style over to the barn, still wrapped in the towel.
Now, as I watch him moving around the barn, getting ready for bed, putting on a fresh pair of pants—I already have my nightie on—I do know that I need to be brave and tell him. Giving him his fantasy today was only the first part of the plan. The other one is this.
I climb out of bed just as he snaps one of the drawers shut and blurt out, “Use me.”
He isn’t wearing a shirt because he doesn’t wear one to bed, and that little fact makes me want to cry and jump for joy at the same time.
Up until a few days ago, he wouldn’t let me see him bare-chested, and now he doesn’t even think about it.
Meaning, whatever happens between us in the future, I’ve at least given him a safe space with me.
Though I will say it’s not doing me any favors right now because I can clearly see the muscles of his back twitching.
I can see them going tense, alerting me that already this isn’t off to a good start.
Plus, I didn’t say it right. I should’ve been clearer about what I meant. So when he turns around to face me, his features set to neutral, I pace my slamming heart and begin. “I… I know.”
“Know what?”
I squirm under his direct gaze. “That you aren’t making progress.”
At this, I detect a tiny bit of movement, his jaw clenching, and nerves swarm my belly like buzzing bees.
“I overheard you talking. On the phone.” Then I hasten to explain, “It wasn’t my intention to do that. I promise. But last night, I went to sleep before you because I was so… tired and something woke me up. Not completely, but… I heard you talking.”
Last night was the only night since we came together that I didn’t sing for him.
And it was because he exhausted me. Truly.
He worked me over hard, and when I say hard, I mean really hard.
More than he did in the woods an hour ago.
Usually when we have sex, he makes me come once or at the most twice, but then he lets me recuperate before starting something again.
Last night, though, he wouldn’t let me rest. Not for hours.
He ate me out until I was a shaking mess and gushed over his tongue; made me suck him off the hard way, while I was still coming down from the high, while playing with my fluttering pussy and giving me another hard orgasm after my first one.
I thought that would be enough and we’d go to sleep for a bit.
But even though he came down my throat, somehow he was still hard and hungry.
He fucked my pussy and didn’t stop until I came not once but twice.
At which point, I told him, begged him, to stop and let me breathe, to breathe himself, but his response was to go down on me and eat me again until I came for the fifth time in a row, becoming a writhing, sweaty, sensitive, and sore mess, and promptly passed out.
Or I think I passed out, because the next thing I knew it was dark and he was talking on the phone in hushed tones.
It was only when he came back to bed after the call that I realized why he’d been so frantic with me.
It was because he was tensed about the situation, about the lack of progress.
Ever since we came to his family’s ranch and we decided to get close—or rather, I decided for him by jumping him before the storm—he’s been visibly relaxed.
I knew we were still being hunted and his sister was still in danger, but even so, he wasn’t carrying the whole world on his shoulders.
This place suited him, but after his call I realized it wasn’t all lust, his hunger for me, that made him go so hard at me.
There was an undercurrent of something else, some edge, fear almost.
So basically, after all the effort, they still haven’t been able to pinpoint who could be behind all this.
Arsen and Brecken haven’t been able to get any more clues because something is missing.
Or so I heard him say. I also heard him say that time was running out.
I didn’t need him to tell me, or them, that because I know time is running out.
Whoever has Lynnie is not going to wait around forever for Radisson to give him what he wants: me.
He’s going to retaliate and he’s going to do that soon.
So today, I wanted to give him a little escape before I brought him back to real life and told him that missing piece is me.