Chapter 12 – Juliette
TWELVE
JULIETTE
My first thought when I woke up was that I was too comfortable. Like I was tucked into a warm cocoon where I couldn’t move, but why would anyone want to because I was so perfectly content?
That halfway point between real sleep and drowsing. Warm, but not hot.
Wait. This didn’t feel like the floor.
I shot up, realizing immediately I was sleeping on the bed next to Creed. He also shot up and in a second had his big hand wrapped around my mouth, his arm wrapped around my torso holding me against his chest.
Was he awake? Was he reacting to my sudden motion? I didn’t know. I forced myself still.
Breathing in and out in the slow rhythm like he’d shown me before.
“Sudden movements, babe,” he said into my ear. “Not cool. We’ve got to work on that.”
Slowly, carefully, he removed his arms from around me. Instinctively, I took a big swing at him with my fist where his face should be, but he caught it in his palm.
“Don’t hit me. You’ll only break some fingers.”
I pulled my hand back and crossed my arms over my chest. “You moved me while I was sleeping,” I hissed at him.
“You looked uncomfortable,” he said, without apology. “And you’re small enough that you could fit on the bed without me noticing you were even in it.”
“I’m not small,” I said defensively, although I had no idea why.
“You’re five feet nothing and I barely clocked your weight when I picked you up in a dead lift.”
“Five feet four and I’m strong.”
“You are that,” he admitted. “We fit on the bed without touching. You’re being stubborn for no reason.”
Probably. But stubborn was my default mode.
Then my curiosity got the better of me. I folded my legs up under me and looked at him. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of boxer briefs. I guess I should be grateful for that. Truth was, he had zero modesty, so I was sort of getting used to how he looked without much clothing.
We’d had no repeats of him stripping down naked in front of me, but if I had to identify his dead body at the morgue just by his body alone. I was pretty sure I could do it.
“What is that, anyway?” I asked him, pointing to the chain around his neck and the charm attached to it. This was the first time I was close enough to him to even try and make out what it was, but it wasn’t familiar to me.
“Just something my mother gave me,” he said, and I knew that was all he wanted to say about that. Creed did not talk about his family. Like less than I mentioned Herb, which was impressive.
Changing the subject, I asked him, “How late did you stay up?”
Because I’d obviously been fast asleep by the time he’d come to bed if he was able to move me without waking me.
“Late,” he said, propping his back up against the headboard, a deep scowl on his face. “Tank was shitfaced and I wasn’t going to bed until I knew he was in his room passed out.”
“Do I need to be worried about him?”
His eyes narrowed. “Not as long as I’m around. But don’t leave my side and don’t be alone in a room with him.”
“Geesh,” I said. I pulled the ponytail holder out, which was only holding up half my hair, then redid the messy bun on top of my head so all of it was out of my face. “What kind of friends do you have?”
He made a dramatic motion with his head like he was looking around the room for something. “Funny, I don’t see this place crawling with your girlfriends.”
I glared at him. “I blame Herb for that. I’m delightful.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
It pretty much went that way for the next two nights. I stayed busy out in the fields or in the kitchen while the two friends did their thing.
Creed had taken him into town and had shown him around Riverbend.
Then the two had gotten it in their heads to go hunting. That was a full day of them being gone, only to have Tank return to the house stinking to high heaven of whiskey and shouting about possessed dears.
Creed basically ignored him. And, like he had the past two nights, didn’t come to bed until after Tank was upstairs.
I’d given up being stubborn about sleeping on the floor, so for two nights we’d slept in the same bed. To Creed’s credit, he hadn’t tried to take advantage, either.
Also, not going to lie, there was something reassuring about knowing he was sleeping between me and the door. That sense of knowing nothing was getting past him to get to me.
But like anything, the minute you let your guard down, that’s when the shit happened.
“Sure,” I said, into my pretty new cell phone. “I’ll tell him.”
I’d only given my number out to a few people, but the Talleys were our closest neighbors so it made sense that Mrs. Talley have my number in case of emergencies.
I’d run into her at the grocery store a few weeks ago.
As always, she asked how I was, but did it with that face like she was ready to bust me out of this marriage if I blinked out help me in morse code.
I told her I was fine, (which, really I was), and that Creed had gotten me a phone if she wanted to exchange numbers, to which she’d agreed.
I was pretty proud of myself for not asking if her daughter, April, was still seeing Kevin from the hardware store.
But the truth was, I didn’t much care anymore.
“Who was that?” Creed asked, coming into the kitchen.
“Mrs. Talley said a horse got loose from the barn and took off. She’s calling all the neighbors to ask us to keep a look out. I’m thinking you should take the truck up to the highway so you can look out over the area.”
He looked back toward the living room.
“He’s just watching TV and getting drunk again,” I whispered. “I’ll have dinner ready by the time you get back.”
“Pork chops?” he said, looking over my shoulder.
“I’ve already got my algorithm trained for recipes.”
“Not a fucking clue what that means,” he said. He looked back to the living room.
“How long is he staying?” I asked, again under my breath.
“I’m having a talk with him. He’s stayed his last night.”
“Good,” I said, turning back to the pork chops that were just simmering in sauce. “Then I can get my room back.”
“Or not,” Creed said.
He was standing at my back, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him. Smell the farm that clung to his clothes.
“What do you mean?”
“You could stay in my bed. Let me touch you.” Creed reached his arm around me, his hand on my stomach.
Which made it feel kind of warm. This was usually the part where I slapped him away or made an excuse to leave, but his voice was in my ear and his fingers slipped inside my shirt to touch the skin just under my breasts.
“I’d get you used to me first. Sucking on your tits, your pussy.
Making you come again and again before you had to take my cock.
But you should know cock feels good, Jules. ”
I involuntarily tilted my head, giving him access to the ear he was speaking into. He dropped a kiss on my neck right where it met my shoulder, even as his hand cupped my breast. Rubbed his thumb over my nipple that was now hard.
“Oh man, look at the newlyweds fucking in the kitchen,” Tank slurred.
Both Creed and I jumped apart at the sound of his voice.
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said, bouncing from the doorway to the refrigerator. “Just grabbing a beer. Chief, here, says he won’t share you, but maybe he’ll let me watch.”
I whipped my head in Creed’s direction, but his eyes were on Tank.
The drunk asshole raised his hands like he was innocent. “I’m fucking kidding, man,” he laughed. “Relax.”
He stumbled his way back into the living room and I could hear the TV get louder like he was cranking the volume up.
“You should take the truck and go look for that horse,” I told Creed, trying not to think about how I hadn’t stop his hands from wandering. Trying not to think about how…disappointed I was we had to stop.
He didn’t say anything but his expression darkened.
“Just up to the highway and back,” I said, like I could read his mind. “It’s what good neighbors do around these parts.”
He didn’t want to leave me alone with Tank, but we were literally only talking ten, fifteen minutes, tops. I would have gone with him if not for two reasons.
One, I didn’t want to fuck up my pork chops. I’d paid premium dollar for these suckers at the grocery store. And two, if I had to sit next to him in the truck, just the two of us, I might start thinking about maybe, I don’t know, kissing him or something.
Which would be entirely stupid.
“Go on. Sooner you go, sooner you’ll be back.”
He nodded, because maybe he could use a breath of air, too. And maybe because neither one of us thought Tank was paying attention to what we were doing. Just drinking his beer, watching some stupid game show.
Creed went out the back door which had a path around the house to where all our trucks were parked.
I turned my attention back to the pork chops, checking every few seconds with the tongs to make sure I wasn’t torching them on one side.
“Chief shouldn’t have done it.”
I jumped at the sound of Tank’s voice but didn’t turn around. He’d just gotten a beer. There was no damn way he’d drunk it that fast.
“Done what?” I asked, not looking at him. Maybe if I ignored him, he’d go away.
“Left his precious, little wife all alone. I tried to tell him, we could share. He could have you Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’d get you Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Your pussy might be a little raw, but we’d fucking let you have Sunday off.
Yeah, the three of us on this little slice of heaven? What more could anyone ask?”
Fuck me. Had I been in heaven all this time? Here, I thought I’d been on a sugar beet farm. Did these motherfuckers know nothing about how hard farming was?
“That’s not going to happen,” I said, in what I hoped was my best teacher voice, even though I’d never had a proper teacher.
The move, when it came, was lightening quick. I should have expected him to be as fast as Creed, but the dude was drunk. I screamed as loud as I could, which would mean nothing if Creed had already rounded the house towards the trucks.