Chapter Six Blaze
Chapter Six
Blaze
I see a bright-red bandanna with long blond hair streaming out the back in the distance. I ease off the gas and slow down as I approach the barn. I hop out of the truck and walk over to where she stands, ankle deep in muddy water.
At least I hope it’s water.
She flips around, fury spiking hot in her gaze, and it hits me again how fucking devastating she is.
Six years ago, Savannah was pretty, like girl-next-door pretty with that wholesome rancher’s-daughter thing going on. And now . . . Jesus. She’s a bombshell with legs that go on forever. But it’s not just the physical changes. She moves differently. She’s more confident. Independent and strong.
It’s hot as fuck too.
This Savannah is dangerous. Because she’s no longer the girl who loved me. She’s the girl who survived without me.
“Whatcha doin’, Savvie?” I ask, nodding toward the mess, trying hard not to stare. “Trying to be a rancher or something?”
“Fuck you, Blaze.” She shakes the rusted metal piece in her hand at me.
“Looks like a piece of a water pump,” I say.
“Ding, ding, Captain Obvious.” Then she bends down, her ass perfect in those tight jeans. I tear my eyes away from it and focus on the busted piece she’s trying to fix.
“Where are your ranch hands? Shouldn’t they be doing this work?”
“I can’t rely on other people if I’m going to run this place.”
My brows furrow. “What do you mean, run it?”
“I inherited the ranch. My aunt left it to me in her will. So I’m going to make it profitable again. For six months.”
“What happens after six months?”
She shrugs and tightens the piece with a wrench. “I’ll figure that out in six months, I guess.” Then she turns it on. The piece explodes off, water spewing everywhere, soaking her from head to toe. Again, from the look of it.
Savannah slips and falls back against my chest. My hands land on her hips to steady her. My heart pounds in my throat with the touch. It’s too familiar. Too dangerous.
And when she turns around, it’s not her head or her toes I’m looking at.
Her tits press up against the thin white fabric, clear as glass.
My tongue flicks against my teeth. Every instinct screams to back her against the barn door, which is half hanging off its rusty hinges, and take her the way I did years ago.
To claim her, body and soul. To make her beg and plead for my cock the way she used to.
Rough and greedy, because she belonged to me.
Still does, even if she doesn’t know it.
She tilts her head back, glaring at me with those baby blue eyes that are sharp enough to cut.
“Let me go,” she says in a low voice.
“Only if you really mean it,” I say with a half smirk. “’Cause we both know your mouth always liked to battle with that body of yours.”
“Not this time.” Shrugging out of my grip, she reaches to shut off the pump and stomps her feet through the puddle, her body begging me to chase.
I do. I wade into the puddle next to her, bend down, and take the wrench from her so I can snap the piece into place. I twist it until the pump hisses, and when I turn it on, the water flows cleanly. I give her a sidelong glance. “You’re welcome.”
Her jaw drops. “You’re such an arrogant asshole. I would have figured it out, you know.”
“Seems like you’re in over your head, and the learning curve’s a bitch.” I back away from the water and lean back against a section of the fence that doesn’t look like it’s going to buckle under my weight.
“Whatever I do is none of your business. You made sure of that a long time ago when you kicked me out of your life.” She uses the back of her hand to wipe away the sweat from her forehead, streaking dirt across it instead, and damn, she looks so good right now.
Mess and all, her fire still roars. “Me, Nash. You just alienate people and then run away. Coward.”
She hurls the word at me, and it lands like a hive of wasps on the attack, biting and stinging.
“Watch it, Savvie. Don’t make judgments about things you don’t know.”
She doesn’t know the real reason why Nash and I really fell out.
Since he found out about our secret affair the same night that all hell broke loose, she thought it was the betrayal that put the nail in our friendship coffin.
But Savvie has no clue that her brother was neck-deep in the same shit I was, that he was as much to blame as me for the explosion that took her parents and uncle.
“Shutting down again, as usual,” she bites out sarcastically, flipping her wet hair over her shoulder. “Look, I have a lot of work to do, as you can see, and I don’t have time for social calls.” She picks up a bucket and starts to walk away, but I grab her arm before she can escape.
With a gasp, she trips back into me, and I pull her close, the heat of her body radiating against mine.
My fingertips tingle as I dig them into her flesh.
The deeper I go, the more control I command.
I feel like I can finally breathe when she’s pressed against me like this.
It shoots me back in time, when I could be myself, when my life wasn’t spiraling, when I was free from the noose that’s now permanently looped around my neck.
“You don’t get it. My life has gone to hell.
My father. My brothers. This town. But you?
” I dip my head low, forcing her to stare at me, pushing her to give in to the temptation I know consumed her mind and soul the second I touched her.
“You’re mine. Always were. Always will be.
So hate me all you want, Savvie. Just don’t think you’ll ever get free. ”