Chapter 8 #2
Except it made him feel... He didn’t even know. It kind of made him angry, because she was the younger one. She was the one without experience, and she made him feel like he had no idea what he was doing. It didn’t seem right. That was all.
He should be the one who knew what he was doing.
He should be the one who had total confidence in everything taking place between them.
But he couldn’t say that he did. He couldn’t give a reason.
Couldn’t give a speech about what he was doing here.
He had written it off as being male and basic and taking the sex that was on offer, but he knew that wasn’t true.
It wasn’t how he did things. It wasn’t how he looked at women.
And he had been telling himself a story, all this time.
Cricket’s story made a lot more sense, and had a purpose behind it.
And he just... He just wanted to touch her. It was a hell of a thing.
“You know, the way you were talking to your dad that day... Tell me about your mom. I mean, tell me about all that. Because you know about my dad, and you know all about my mom...”
“They were obligated to be together. And it was primarily because of me,” he said.
Because he might as well tell her. She was right.
He’d had a front row seat to all of her issues.
He’d talked to Creed about it, sure. But Cricket?
She could hear it all. Because she didn’t have a connection to the family, so why not?
It was a safer place. This moment out here in the meadow.
“One day when I was sixteen, she was crying. Then I asked her what was wrong. We were the two that got up early. And we used to spend mornings together. I loved that. So I would have all this extra time with her. And one morning, I asked her what was wrong. And it was like everything I ever thought about my life broke to pieces. My father married her because she was pregnant. My father was in love with another woman. He’d told my mother that.
Before they got married. He was honest, if nothing else.
And she thought that he’d fall in love with her.
But instead, it had just become years of the two of them stuck.
Because they had a family. Because they had a business.
Because they had all these things that were obligated to come before having feelings. Before love.
“And you know, I’m not over-bothered by my dad anymore.
I think that was enough for him. He couldn’t have your mom, so he made himself a life he enjoyed.
But I’m not sure my mother ever got to fall in love with anyone.
Not for real. Not and have them love her back.
She was just stuck. With a partner, sure.
And when she was sick... I can’t fault my dad for how he was.
He was a partner. He cared for her. And he stayed with her.
And you know, plenty of marriages that are founded on love, they don’t end up that way.
Somebody gets sick and they go through a years-long battle, and the other person leaps.
It’s too much for them. And sometimes I wonder if maybe my dad not being in love with her made him more able to take care of her during that time.
It’s complicated as hell. Because there was a very real partnership between the two of them, but sometimes it made my mother feel broken, and I will never not feel responsible for that.
Like I should’ve found some way to fix it. ”
“They made their choices,” Cricket said.
“That’s what I’m realizing about my mother.
For all her own misery, for all that I feel bad for her sometimes, for all that my father was an unforgivable asshole, my mom made her choices.
She wanted money. And she thought that would be enough.
She wanted to have things, and thought that would transcend love, but it didn’t.
And then she didn’t leave. She stayed. Because she was afraid.
And all her reasons, they were real enough, but they were still excuses.
Even if they were pretty valid ones. My mom stayed with James for us.
Because she was afraid that he would find a way to take us from her.
But she also could’ve had the fight. She weighed her options. And she chose.”
“I have some sympathy for that,” he said. “If she thought she couldn’t win...”
“It was still a choice. Just like your mother had one. It’s not like it was the 1800s.
They could’ve gotten a divorce. They could have.
Nobody had to be unhappy. They sat there in rules they made for themselves, and lived lives they made for themselves, prison walls they decided were okay.
That isn’t your fault, and it isn’t mine. ”
“Yeah, but on the other side, now your mom has a chance to make something new. Mine doesn’t. It’s a hell of a thing.”
“I know.” She shook her head. “I’m not saying it would’ve been easy. I’m just saying you can’t take their choices and blame yourself for them.”
“You’re twenty-two years old.”
“Yeah. And you’re what? Thirty-four? Thirty-five? So what? I’m not stupid. I’ve had a lot of time to think. That’s what comes of being the isolated, odd one out in your family. You have way too much time to think. And believe me, I’ve had tons. I don’t need experience to have figured that out.”
“So you have the whole world all figured out, do you?”
“I mean, I’m not gonna say the whole world. But maybe my piece of it.”
This girl. This woman. She didn’t know when to question or doubt. She dove headlong into everything. Bets at a poker table, wild conclusions and into his bed. And he just...he liked that about her.
“Bold claim, little Cricket.”
“I don’t know, things make more sense now than they ever have. I didn’t think that was possible. I just walked through the messiest, weirdest time of my life. And it’s really not so bad. And yeah, I basically do have it all sorted out.”
He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her on top of him, laying them both back on the blanket. He looked into her earnest face, and desire stirred in his body. “You have everything figured out, is that it?”
“Basically. The mysteries of sex are even solved.”
“Every last one?” he pressed.
He didn’t know why he needed this right now, but he did.
It was deeper than lust, that was the problem.
He couldn’t write it off as simply basic desire.
He’d wanted to. He’d tried to. But it was so much more than that.
That was the thing. With her, it always would be.
And whatever was happening between the two of them, she didn’t have to be here.
They didn’t have to be here. They were choosing it, out here under the unending sky.
With the land and the ranch in their blood, and his need for her pumping hot and insistent through his body.
“Bet you can’t teach me anything,” he said, his voice rough.
And Cricket, true to form, sat up, her thighs on either side of him, and stripped her white tank top up over her head without pause. She was wearing a plain, matching bra, her lean, athletic body a sight to behold. “Is that a bet bet, cowboy?”
“Sure.”
“You know, historically, you lose bets with me.”
“Yeah. I feel like a real loser right now.” With her sweet ass perched on top of him, and all her beauty blocking out the sun.
“Well.”
“Just remember that there are some bets I lose on purpose.” He gripped her hips, sliding his hands up to her slim waist, then up further still, brushing his thumbs over her breasts. Then he reached around and unhooked her bra, flinging it off somewhere in the grass.
She made a small sound that might have been indignant, but he didn’t much care. Because she was bare and gorgeous and perfect and he was dying for a taste.
He pressed his palm firmly against the center of her back and brought her down toward him, toward his mouth.
He sucked one perfect, ripe bud between his lips, and the cry that escaped her lips wasn’t indignant this time.
Not at all. It was one of pleasure, one of desire, and he reveled in it.
She wrenched his shirt over his head, wiggling away from him as she did.
And he pinned her down on her back, her arms up over her head, and kissed her deep.
“Little Crickets with smart mouths get themselves in trouble,” he said.
A challenge glimmered in her eyes. “Do we? I sure hope so.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I lack discipline.”
“Is that so?”
“I’ve mostly been neglected. I need a firm hand.”
“I could probably provide you with one.”
“So many promises. And yet...”