Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
MEREDITH
I thought Calder was joking about getting naked during the ride, but my pants are shoved down, and I’m gripping the metal bars on the gate between two pastures.
He grunts and drives into me, filling me.
Thanks to the jeans around my knees, I can’t spread my legs, and everything is so much more intense like this.
I’m not a voyeur, but we’re out in the open, in the middle of nowhere, and the sense we could get caught heightens everything.
“Fuck, Meredith. So fucking tight,” he bites out behind me. The chain holding the gate closed rattles.
Pleasure coils inside of me, tight and pulsating. What would it be like to have this experience every Monday? A lazy ride and a quick fuck under the summer sun.
“Calder, I’m so close.”
“I can feel you.” His fingers dig into my hips, and his rhythm is frantic. “Hot and gripping. You’re going to come hard for me.”
It’s not a question. “Yes.”
He tilts my pelvis and hits a spot deep inside that sends me spiraling.
My knuckles are white on the metal bar. “Oh god.” Stars shatter behind my eyes. “Calder!” My cry rings across the land so loud I actually worry people in town can hear me.
“Fuck. So fucking wet.”
I can’t tell if he’s pumping into me or moving me back and forth to glide over his cock, and it doesn’t matter. I ride out my climax as his heat fills me inside.
Our heaving breaths mingle as he pulls out. Our connection was brief and frenzied but unlike any I’ve had before. I’ve never gone riding and got laid. I’ve never had relatively lazy mornings like this, doing something I love with someone I…
God, I’m falling in love. I can’t escape how I’m feeling. I love Calder, but I love the Scandal Calder, who cares about his family and all that entails, which is Crossroads and Jules Creek. And me.
Denver Calder doesn’t go for morning rides or fuck his girlfriend in the middle of a pasture before noon.
And I’m thinking about all this with my ass hanging out in the breeze. I start to straighten.
He hasn’t let me go, his hold still around my hips. “You got it?”
I peel my hands away from the gate and push everything out of my mind. I don’t have to decide yet, and I’m not adding a blemish to the morning. “Yeah.”
He takes care of the condom, tucking it into a little plastic bag he brought along and stuffing it in his pocket. I may not have been planning to drop my pants, but he clearly was, and his intention to ravage me makes me feel special.
I pull up my jeans, tuck my shirt in, and adjust my cowboy hat.
This was a quickie, but I don’t feel used or convenient.
I get to be a wild country girl for once.
I could get used to this, but I shouldn’t.
What would this look like in Denver? I bring him a sandwich and give him head?
The sun shines a little less bright with that thought.
The horses are grazing where we tied them off several yards away.
I almost want to apologize to them for the show, but they’re happily munching on the grass.
Calder’s gaze softens when he sees me and tucks me into his side.
He doesn’t lead me back to the horses. Instead, we scan over the green rolling hills spread around on all sides.
The highway that runs by the bridge is on the other side of two short buttes.
“We used to play on those,” he says when he sees where I’m looking. “We’d race up them.”
I can picture three lanky boys laughing and talking shit to each other as they scramble for the top. “On foot, or with horses?”
“Both.” A smile ghosts over his lips. “I always won, but Landry would cheat. He’d go off-trail and take a shortcut that could get him fucking killed.”
“Why do I feel like you all did that?”
His lips curve up. “Maybe a few times.” He turns contemplative, his gaze sweeping the landscape. “There are a lot of memories here.”
This is why my decision is so hard. Crossroads is as much a part of him as it is me.
It’s a part of all of us. Times like this, I can see him feel it.
I can see how much he doesn’t want to let go.
He has the same draw he asked me to leave behind.
A part of my heart and my mind would stay in Scandal if I tried to get my happily-ever-after in Denver.
“Do you want to sell?”
A troubled line forms across his brow. “It’s right for Bowen and Landry.”
“That’s not what I asked.” After my lunch with Sawyer, I thought the issue was that we were all thinking about ourselves. But not Calder. He’s the only one of the four owners making a decision outside of his own wants and needs.
He steps into my line of vision and rubs his thumb over where my teeth were. “I want you, and I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy.”
Except for upsetting his brothers. I didn’t go through what they did.
I can’t say how I would feel, but it doesn’t feel right.
They were around when the pastures were full and working cattle was a party.
They were here to see Jules Creek full and growing.
They may not have seen the books, but they saw how everything flourished.
It can be even better than that. I’ve always seen it.
What if that’s how I have to think about Denver? What’s the potential in a city with as many people as this entire state?
“What about you?” I ask. “Can I make you happy in Denver?”
Shadows flit over his face. “Of course.”
“What would I do in the city when you work all the time?”
“I know you, Meredith. You’ll be working too, and when you’re not, you can bring me lunch in my office.” His smile turns suggestive. We both have the same idea about that.
My cheeks burn at the thought of doing the walk of shame past nameless, faceless assistants and coworkers of his.
What would they think? Some hick girl swinging by to give her CEO head so she can go back home and look for a job?
I shouldn’t care, but I don’t want to be entering my mid-thirties with nothing to show for myself but a sugar daddy.
Is that so bad?
From my reluctance, yes.