by P. Dangelico
“If you had any idea how many times I put some in there and took them out, you’d be worried about me.”
He’s so honest and emotionally exhausted that I grab his handsome face and kiss it all over. Pushing me back on the bed, he rips open the condom package and rolls it on. Hallelujah. I thought this would never happen.
“You ready for me?”
“I was born ready for you. I swear you are the biggest tease––”
Shane pushes inside of me, bottoming out, and we both freeze. The feeling of fullness steals my breath away. I hadn’t anticipated him being this thick. The binoculars really didn’t do him any justice.
“Just breathe,” he murmurs and kisses my face. Slowly, my body relaxes to accommodate his, to make room for him like my heart has. I hook my legs around his waist, put my lips on his, and kiss him slowly. He slides in deeper, until it feels like we’re one.
Shane starts to rock his hips, going deeper with each thrust until the bed is moving back and forth and the headboard is hitting the wall. Stucco flakes are falling on us, but we don’t notice. Because Shane is not fucking me. He is giving himself to me body and soul. We come at the same time, so hard I think I may never look at sex the same way again. I never knew it could be like this. It’s been redefined. And we’re rewriting the book on it.
Great sex is like potato chips or mini ponies. Once you have one, you have to have more. We’re basically programmed for it.
Last night we managed to have sex in the bed. Which inevitably led to sex in the shower. Which inevitably led to sex with me bent over the back of the couch and Shane hitting me so hard from behind that we rearranged half the furniture in the room. Overnight, the storm finally broke and made enough noise to provide good cover. After which, the Colonel slept like a baby for the next four hours until dawn.
“You sleep last night?” Mona eyeballs me suspiciously. My hair is practically teased up to the ceiling, and although I have a newly acquired healthy glow to my skin, the bags under my eyes kinda tell a different story.
I yawn. “Not very well.”
“Digging up dead bodies again?” She sends me a sly side-eye and sips her coffee.
“Yeah, that’s it,” I mutter and take a big gulp of mine.
“What happened to your neck?”
Beard burn. “One of the animals… Hey, speaking of which, it’s still raining. Should I leave them out there?”
Now that the barn is done, I can’t wait to break it in.
“They love it out there when it rains. And they have the run-in sheds if it goes on too long… Blue, honey…” she says in a small voice and I know what’s coming.
“Yes, Mona?”
“How would you feel if we had another permanent resident at the Harris Ranch?”
“I’m very happy for you both. Unless you plan to kick me out to make room for him.”
Mona stands and throws her arms around me, my face somehow getting smashed between her double E breasts.
“Kicking you out? That’s nonsense. Who would I have all this fun with?”
“Good, because I have nowhere to go and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
I’m doing night check and Shane walks into the barn, just back from a run. Sweat drips down his forehead and he wipes it away with the towel hanging around his neck. He is the epitome of masculine beauty. One of those rare individuals who get even better looking the more you look at them.
Hazel sees him and starts braying and walking in circles. “You have stolen her heart, Hughes.”
His mouth kicks up on one side as he walks up, close enough that I can smell the salty clean scent of sweat and pine soap.
“What about you, Baldwin?” he leans down and kisses me, brushes his mouth against mine like the mere touch of our lips brings him pleasure. “Are you crazy about me?”
That’s a loaded question if I ever heard one. One that I cannot answer without giving it all away.
“Shane…”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to know that I would never hold you back. I would never stop you from doing whatever, or going wherever you feel you need to be.” I pick up my chin to look into his eyes because like Mona says, you never know when it’ll be the last time. “I don’t mind if you wander… Just come back to me.”
Chapter 17
“I’ll never be able to look at that guesthouse again and not see his naked ass,” I confess to Jess while simultaneously pushing the shopping cart and munching on the grapes I picked up in the produce section. It takes skill.
“It’s forever branded on my third eye. It’s a beautiful one; he is straight up the man of my dreams. But we have desecrated every piece of furniture in there.” A woman shopping in the baked goods aisle frowns at me and turns her cart in the other direction. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop, lady,” I say out loud. “It’s bad manners.”
It’s official. I’ve been invaded. My home is now occupied territory and my body a slave to conquering forces. But what about my heart?
It feels fragile and unprotected. I’m now convinced that’s what they really mean when they tell you not to have unprotected sex. They really mean your heart. And because of the state of my fragile heart, I had to talk about it with someone, and who better than the person who knows me best.
“Way to rub it in,” my best friend deadpans and I chuckle. “Never, ever carry on an illicit affair in your own home. It’s like a dog pissing on your couch to mark his territory. You’ll never get the stench of him out of there.”
I push the shopping cart down the frozen food and ice cream section and throw three tubs of Häagen Dazs in my cart. Mint chocolate chip, for Mona. Strawberry, for Darby. Dulce de leche, for me.
“I can always count on you to sugar coat it for me. And it’s not an illicit affair.” What exactly is it though? “It’s a one-way love story, sadly.”
“Wait, you told him you love him and he said nothing? That stinking puta.”
“Pump the brakes. No, I did not tell him I love him. But I can feel the words trying to jump out of my mouth every time he looks at me and smiles. They’re trying to come out. And he hasn’t said it yet. I mean, I see it on his face, but I need him to accept it. I need him to be at ease with it. People are their own worst enemy.”
“Preaching to the choir. Look, give him time.”
“I’m scared, Jess. I like this one. Scratch that, I love this one. But he’s turning thirty-seven a month from today. If he needs time to figure it out at his age, then we’re all doomed.”
“Tita always says things happen when they’re supposed to happen. I really believe that.”
I really believe that, too. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Tell me when you think I’m drowning. I’m too far gone to tell anymore.”
“I’ll do you one better. I’ll jump in after you. And then I’ll drown his ass.”
After I hang up with Jess, I get in line to pay and spot Andy, Mona’s attorney, three rows down from me. I wave, he waves. Then I get a wild hair up my butt and march over to do something about it. “Hey, Andy. How are you?”
“Great, Blue. How are you?” he mimics my delivery, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. Andy is a stocky, middle-aged guy who reminds me of Costanza on Seinfeld so this makes me snort.
“I know you can’t say anything to me due to attorney client privilege, but I need to say my piece.”
Andy frowns.
“How the hell could you have let her forget to pay her property taxes for two years,” I whisper hiss. “Two.” I hold up the corresponding fingers. “Really, Andy? We could’ve lost the ranch and the rescue.”
His eyes narrow and he frowns. “What are you talking about? I have no idea where you got that from. Her taxes are payed automatically through the trust. I have nothing to do with it.”
My eyebrows climb up my forehead. Holy freaks in hell.
“Trust?”
Andy looks confused. “Mona Ha
rris is the only heir to the Harris Ranching fortune. It’s public information.”
I drive straight home in the truck Darby was kind enough to lend me and head for the barn. That’s where I find Mona.
“Guess where I was just now?” I say to her and hang my elbows over the door of the wash stall.
She’s in the middle of curry combing Legend and he’s loving every minute of her tender care. At my question, she looks me over.
“Wrestling with the goats?”
“What? No. I took a shower before I went into town.”
She looks skeptical. “Well, that’s good.”
Just to be sure, I check my blue t-shirt dress for animal hair and find one stray, grey hair. “Guess again.”
She squints, checks my hair out. “Hmm, taking a sauna at the resort?”
I touch my hair. It’s not that big. “Wrong again. I was at the supermarket.”
“Oh, good. Did you get the Häagen Dazs?”
“Yes, I got the Häagen Dazs. You know what else I got? The scoop from Andy.”
She stops currying the horse and her eyebrows climb all the way up her forehead.
“Yep, that’s right. Ya been busted.”
“In my defense––”
“Why? Just tell me why?”
She nods and takes a deep breath. For once, Mona is serious. “You’re twenty-nine years old, Blue, and you’re stuck in a rut. I wanted to shake you out of it. I don’t want you to end up like me, childless and alone because you’re smart enough not to go back to a loser who doesn’t deserve you, but you’re too scared to move forward…. I want more for you. I want it all. And staying here with me isn’t the healthiest thing for you but,” she shrugs, “I’m too selfish to let you go.”
Tears stream down my face. “You know how much I love your crazy ass, right?”
“Yes. I do, Smokey.”
Walking around the stall door, I throw my arms around her and bury my nose in her Chanel Nº. 5 scented neck. “Don’t ever do anything like that to me again.”
A day later, I’m in the barn getting lunch buckets read for the horses when Shane appears in the threshold of the feed room. We’ve been sneaking around at night and it has not been fun. Which loosely translated means we’re both sleep deprived and edgy. But we also agree that getting Aidan and Mona involved could throw off the progress that Aidan has made. You know, mess with the balance in a way.
Shane leans against the jamb and crosses his arms. His biceps are popping off, his pecs two hard slabs of muscle hidden under his USMC t-shirt. A new one. I’m keeping his old one forever.
“What are you doing, handsome?”
“Aidan is memorizing a new script. He’s gonna hit the ground running when he gets out of here in a few weeks.” He nods excitedly.
The smile slides off my face. The reminder that they’re both leaving soon makes me nauseous. We haven’t spoken about what will happen next. We haven’t spoken at all with all the great sex we’ve been having and I’m not one to complain but…
“Why the frown, shirina?”
He pushes off the jamb and walks in, pining me in place against the wall with his hips. Dropping his knees, he grinds against me. Between his silky basketball shorts and my cotton ones there’s not much separating us. I pant while fireworks go off in the backs of my eyelids and sparks shoot along my skin all the way to my groin. Shane takes my hands and holds them above my head on the wall while he kisses me slowly.
“Hear what I said? Aidan is busy reading a script.”
The vibration of his voice against the sensitive skin on my neck is enough to produce a full body shiver. Shane kicks the feed room door closed and pulls a condom out of his pocket. Without breaking eye contact, he rips the package open with his teeth. We glance down together to see his erection standing proudly between us. Taking my hand, he gives me the condom.
“You do it,” he orders and watches me put it on.
The sight of his eyes fluttering shut and the hard set of his jaws fascinates me. The pleasure he feels because I’m touching and stroking him is the sexiest sight I’ve ever seen. Shane never willingly relinquishes power and control, so the fact that he’s gifting it to me makes my knees go weak. To be fair, everything about him makes my knees go weak.
Once the condom is on, he picks me up and holds me against the wall. Shoving my shorts and panties aside, he touches me softly at first. The wetter I get the more he pushes me open.
“So sweet. So soft. You feel so good, baby.” He pushes my hips down and thrust up. First in shallow movements, then deeper and deeper until I can feel him hitting the magic spot that Jaime couldn’t find in four years with a magnifying glass.
“It’s you. Always you. You’re all I think about. Morning, noon, and night.” With each declaration, he thrusts harder and harder.
“Shane, look at me,” I whisper and he does. We stare at each other as he pushes us closer and closer to climax, thrusting harder and harder.
Tears crowd my eyes. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to go without telling him how I feel. That I love him. That I don’t want him to leave. But I suspect he knows all of that because it’s written on my face every time he looks at me and it’s on my lips every time I kiss him.
I come first and have to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out. He follows shortly after. Slowly, he lowers me onto the ground and we cling to each other while we catch our breath.
“Every time I smell oats and hay I’m gonna get hard from here on out,” he says, breathing roughly. Then I hear, “Where’s the condom?” He’s staring down at his still semi-hard body. Curiosity piqued, I glance down and don’t see it either.
“It’s probably inside of me.”
His head snaps up. His eyes, sharp and focused, search my face. “Are you on the pill?”
If I had any questions about how he feels about kids, now I know. All the happy thoughts I was entertaining the last few days spiral down the drain.
“No, Shane, I am not on the pill. Have you had a vasectomy?”
At my angry outburst, his expression shifts, his mouth kicking up on one side like this is a big joke. “Hey now. No need for that.”
“Maybe you should’ve asked before you nailed me to the wall.”
Angry at the look on his face, I push past him, throw open the door, and march to the small office with the bathroom attached. In the bathroom, I take off my clothing and manage feats only a boneless gymnast could accomplish to search my privates for a lost condom. Somehow, I hook a finger and get lucky.
I open the bathroom door to find Shane standing a few feet away leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He’s so hot he doesn’t look real.
He pushes off and reaches me in two giant steps. Then he grabs my face and kisses me like it’s the last kiss of his tender, young life. And he doesn’t stop. No. He only stops kissing me when all the stiffness has left my body and I melt into him.
“I found it,” I say in a low, dejected voice. “Being a paramedic comes in handy.”
“Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it together. Okay? Together.”
I don’t say anything in return. My mind feels satisfied with his answer, but my heart says not to trust my mind.
Mona runs into the barn the next day while I’m de-worming some of the animals. Mona never runs. Not even if a pack of wild dogs were chasing her. Not even if there was a sale on bootleg designer jeans at Neiman Marcus. Which is how I know something’s happened.
“There’s a person here to see you,” she says, hanging over the door of Milo our resident llama’s stall.
“Who?”
“A teenage girl. Said she’s writing an article for the school newspaper on you.”
“Me? Why would she write one on me? How does she even know me?”
Then I think of the rescue and our social media accounts. I’m all over them. Which is the only way she could know me.
“Why is the sky blue? Who the hell knows. Come talk to her.”
>
I finish with Milo and exit the barn to find a teenage girl, fourteen years old at the most, sitting on the porch of the farmhouse with a glass of lemonade in one hand and an oatmeal cookie that Mona offered her in the other. She’s either half Black or Hispanic with shoulder length curly hair, light brown skin, and light brown eyes. And she’s dressed in what looks to be a school uniform.
“Hi,” I say, a little awkwardly. “I’m Blue Baldwin. Are you here to do a story about the rescue?”
She looks a little unsure and places the glass down on the side table. “Um, yeah. I’m doing a story for the school paper.”
“Shouldn’t the school have called to tell us you were coming?” Something is not adding up. “What school do you go to?”
“Oak Christian Academy.”
“And your name?” I prompt with a smile.
“Um… okay, so I’m not really here for the school newspaper…”
Knew it. “Your name?”
“Callie…” She looks at me and away. “Bloom.”
Callie? “Is Matthias your dad?” She nods, suddenly self-conscious. It hits me that her boarding school wouldn’t just let her leave the property. “How did you get here?”
“With my cellphone and a credit card.”
Smart ass. I like her already. “Let’s go. I’m driving you back right now. I need you to call your dad and let him know you’re safe and with me.”
She looks so bummed I’m tempted to give her anything she asks for. I just realized being a parent is not going to be easy.
“They got married and you didn’t come,” she says quietly, clearly upset about this. “My dad told me all these stories about you running into places where there’s like gangs and stuff and you helped a kid that got shot.”
“That was a long time ago. When I was a paramedic. Now I work here, helping Mona, that lady you met, rescue animals that have been abused.”
