by Pam Godwin
“The deed for the land.” I return to the bed.
“Julep Ranch?”
“No. The ten-thousand acres the ranch sits on.” I set the envelope on her lap. “You can read through all the documents later. For now, just focus on the highlighted sections on the pages I marked with tabs.”
I leave her to pick through the legalese and head to the bathroom to prepare a bath.
When the tub is filled, I shut off the faucet and turn to find her standing in the doorway.
“Lorne and I own the land? All of it?” The deed trembles in her hand as she stares down at it. “How? I thought my dad sold it to yours? And this other document?” She shuffles the papers. “It’s a trust signed by my mom. I didn’t know she had anything like this. Is it real?”
“Yes. I had everything verified by an attorney. Before your mom died, she gave the land to you and Lorne. She put it in your names, and that copy of the deed is documented by the county recorder. She handled everything through the proper channels.”
“What about your mom? She owned half of the ranch.”
“She owned half of the cattle business. Not the land. The acreage belongs to you and Lorne and no one else.” I crook my finger, motioning her closer. “Come here.”
“I’m so confused.” She steps toward me.
I take the documents from her, set them aside, and test the temperature of the water.
“Did you read the highlighted clauses in the trust?” Sliding my hands up her thighs, I catch the hem of the shirt and inch it up, up, and off.
“Yes, but the verbiage is incomprehensible.”
Naked Conor makes conversation incomprehensible.
Toned legs, sinuous curves, raveled red hair, perky tits, and goddamn, that freckle… My jeans aren’t big enough for the length of my reaction to her.
Giving her a bath right now was a terrible idea.
I scoop her up and lower her into the tub. “I couldn’t make sense of the trust, either. The attorney spelled it out for me. Dunk your head.”
As she slips under the water, I reach into my jeans and adjust. The belt is gone. The zipper’s undone, and I have nowhere to go with my erection, except…
She comes up for air, clears her face, and her gaze falls directly on my lap. “Are you joining me in here?”
“Not if you want to finish this discussion.” I grab the shampoo and focus my hands on washing her hair. “Your mom’s trust created hoops for you and Lorne to jump through, meaning you have to meet certain requirements to revoke the Power of Attorney.”
“Revoke what Power of Attorney?”
“Rinse your hair.” I pick up the conditioner and wait for her to resurface.
“I’ll do this.” She takes the bottle from me. “Keep talking.”
“You own the land, but your mom created a Power of Attorney that appointed our dads as the agents in the event of her death. This granted them the power to manage any and all business transactions and decisions related to the property.”
She finishes washing as she absorbs my words. “You’re saying Lorne and I own ten-thousand acres, but we have no power over it?”
“You can sell it. That decision still belongs to you and your brother. Not my father.”
“We wouldn’t.” She rubs her brow, frowning and nibbling her lip as she thinks.
Christ, I love watching her cunning mind at work.
“The drilling.” Her head pops up, and her jaw tightens. “The Power of Attorney allowed your dad to turn the ranch into an oil field without approval from Lorne or me. Approval we would’ve never given.”
“Exactly.”
“But you said we could revoke his power?”
“Not until you meet certain requirements. Those are the hoops I mentioned.”
“What are they?” She grips the edge of the tub.
“You must be eighteen, pass a drug test, and show proof of your residency on the property.”
“Residency on the property,” she echoes quietly, her gaze clouding, turning inward.
“You have to live here, Conor.”
“Oh my God.” A whisper. She grabs the plug for the drain and yanks it hard. “Is that why you kept me away? To stop me from revoking his power? For what? So he could drill the land? And you—”
I spear her with a glare that ends her accusations. “I kept you away, because there were multiple hits on your life if you returned. My father, among others, would’ve killed you before they allowed you to live here and file that revocation. And you would’ve filed it. The moment they started drilling, you would’ve looked into land ownership and discovered what everyone was keeping from you.”
Her eyes stay with mine, tunneling into me as I help her out of the tub and dry her off. Then I wrap the towel around her and guide her into the bedroom.
She sits on the bed, staring at her scarred palm. “The night of my sixteenth birthday…”
“Lorne was the concern.” I lower onto the mattress beside her. “He just turned eighteen and met all the requirements to revoke the power from our dads. Dalton and John couldn’t let that happen, because they made some crooked deals over the years with some dangerous men. Deals that involved borrowing money they couldn’t pay back.”
“Money for what?”
“Their extravagant lifestyle and poor business decisions.” I sweep an arm around, indicating the estate. “After our moms died, they lived like oil barons, with the finest furnishings, countless luxury trucks, new outbuildings and equipment. They spent and spent, as if the cattle operation was booming. But it wasn’t. The ranch was barely breaking even. This went on for fourteen years and reached its snapping point around the night of your birthday. They weren’t just going to lose the ranch. They were going to lose their lives at the hands of the men they owed money to.”
“But they were sitting on land rich in oil and natural gas.”
“Yes.”
Her nostrils flare. “Land that didn’t belong to them.”
“Land they could drill on and profit from as long as you and Lorne didn’t live here.”
The air clots in my lungs, so heavy and thick I wrestle with it.
“Dalton was involved in this?” The pain in her voice cuts me.
“Your dad made bad decisions with bad men, but he wasn’t involved in the threats against your life. He was going to tell Lorne about the Power of Attorney. My dad was not okay with that.”
“Because Lorne would’ve never allowed the drilling. So your dad hired men to kill us. Problem solved.” She closes her eyes as a violent quake crashes over her tiny frame. “Do you know how fucked up that is?”
“I’ve had a couple of years to come to terms with it.” And it still keeps me up at night.
“How did he think he would get away with murder?”
“Sheriff Fletcher was in his pocket. He and my dad share a history I haven’t been able to work out. What I do know is they were in it together. Fletcher got a cut of the profits in exchange for making the murders go away.”
“Except we weren’t murdered.”
“When my dad hired that hit on you and Lorne…” I grip her hand, lacing our fingers together. “Jarret and I weren’t supposed to be there when it happened. That was the first miscalculation. The second fuck up was their decision to rape you before they killed you and Lorne.”
She flinches, clutching the knot of the towel against her chest.
I shift our intertwined hands to my lap and capture her eyes. “Sheriff Fletcher tampered with the evidence and testimonies from that night to make sure Lorne went to prison. That took your brother out of the picture.”
“Why didn’t Dalton turn in your dad and Sheriff Fletcher?”
“Your dad was scared.” I grind my teeth. “He owed debts to violent criminals, and your lives were at stake. Yours and his. So he forfeited his shares of the business and took you to Chicago to keep you both alive and allow for the drilling on the land.”
“Did the debts get paid back?”
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br /> “Doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?” Her voice bites with suspicion. “Why haven’t you turned them over to the authorities?”
Our eyes lock, and our breaths spool out in the space between us. She’s not going to like this part.
I adjust my position on the bed to face her and touch the curve of her cheek. “Jarret and I killed a lot of men. Bad men.”
“What?” Her throat wobbles with a hard swallow.
“We killed every debt collector and hitman that knew your name and buried the bodies in the ravine.”
“No.” She shakes her head rigorously, and tears topple over the rims of her eyes. “You’ll get caught, Jake. They’ll find the bodies, and you’ll go to prison and—”
“They won’t find the bodies, and Sheriff Fletcher is highly motivated to make all this go away.” I hold her face in my hands and catch an errant tear with my thumb. “I have evidence against the sheriff. Conversations between him and my dad. Confessions of his plans to cover up your murder. The payments he received from the drilling. I have enough to put him away for a long fucking time.”
“You threatened him.”
“Damn straight. If he keeps my sins buried, I’ll keep his buried.”
“That’s dangerous.” She stands from the bed and paces through the room.
“Dangerous for him. I never admitted to a crime. He has nothing on me, and my threats ensure he won’t come around sniffing for evidence.”
“How many bodies?”
“I’m not telling you who, how, or how many. There’s no good reason for you to know the details, and I don’t need to talk about it. I have no regrets.”
“You’ve lost your mind.” She pulls at her damp hair, twisting it around her fingers. “You risked everything, Jake.”
“And I’ll do it again. In two days.”
Her breath holds. She doesn’t release it, as if she’s afraid she’ll say something that proves my point.
I rise from the bed and approach her. “When we made the blood oath that night, none of us hesitated. We didn’t hesitate when we sliced open our hands. We didn’t hesitate when we uttered the words we had every intention of honoring.” I lift her chin with a fingertip. “Jarret and I killed your enemies with that same vehemence. The instant I learned someone was watching you at school, we killed him. We picked them all off, one by one, until we were certain it was safe for you to come home. There is no one left with vested interest in this land.”
“Except John Holsten.”
“We killed my dad’s debt collectors. That means he has no debts. Then we blackmailed him with the evidence I used against the sheriff. I promised not to turn him in if he signed over the ownership of the cattle business and left town.” Regret twists my stomach. “I should’ve killed him.”
“But if he doesn’t have debts or any reason to return…”
“Revenge can be a pretty big motivator. He was looking at making a shit ton of money off this land, and Jarret and I took that away. To say he was livid when he left is an understatement. But he also knows that if he returns, we’ll end him.”
She chews on that for a moment, pacing, contemplating.
“Now that you live here,” I say, narrowing my eyes when she opens her mouth, “we’ll start the process that gives you full power over the land.”
She nods, continues to pace, then jumps into a barrage of follow-up questions.
We spend the next hour rehashing it all again. As I clarify every detail, my eyes never stray from hers. Where does she stand on all this? Her thoughts are inscrutable.
It’s after midnight when she sits on the edge of the bed and sighs. “One thing’s for sure. You never do anything half-assed.” She looks at me with the same scrutiny I’ve been giving her. “When you protect those you love, you do it with every breath in your body.”
“The same can be said when I hurt those I love.” I stand over her, shirtless, exhausted, and saddled with sins. “I abandoned you when you needed me in Chicago. I broke your heart when you returned home. I withheld vital information to manipulate you into obeying me.” A jagged breath drags from my chest. “I don’t deserve you.”
“The one who believes he doesn’t deserve me is the only one who does.” Her gaze drifts away for the span of a thousand unraveling knots. Then she meets my eyes again. “I forgive you.”
I breathe in, and my chest expands with the enormity of those three words.
“I forgave you ten days ago.” She reaches for my hand. “When you held my wrist in the truck, I knew I would accept everything you’ve done to bring us to this point. Right here. Together.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Conor
Jake towers over me, an imposing pillar of strength and promise. He said I would talk about the ravine, and I did. He said he would tell me everything, and he did. Only one thing remains, and it thrums through the bedroom, engulfing my senses.
“No more miles between us.” The predatory intensity in his eyes captures, claims, and marks his territory.
“No more years.” I remain on the edge of the bed before him, trapped in his sights.
“No more secrets.” His unblinking gaze stares through me with unmasked desire. Jaw locked and hands flexing at his sides, he looks as if he’s going to eat me alive.
“I love you, Jake Holsten.” I lick my lips, my mouth dry. “Even if you don’t go slow. Even if it’s not that great.”
He laughs, a dark rumble of thunder. “I’m confident you’ll come on my cock this time. Multiple times.”
A pleasurable shiver skips up my spine. “If I knew it was you in the barn that night…”
“Tonight, you know. Take off the shirt.” His command ravishes my body, thrusting into me with deep vibrating tones.
I lift the shirt up and off.
He drinks in my nudity, his attention loving me raw and his dominant nature owning my depths.
“On your knees.” He points at the rug beneath his bare feet.
He wears jeans, unbuttoned and unzipped, and nothing else. His hot, hard, half-naked body is incentive enough to run my mouth all over him. But it’s instinct that slides me off the bed and onto the floor. The instinct to please him, to surrender to him in every way.
As I lower to my knees, his breathing loses rhythm, his chest a heaving slab of power that contracts and expands. I rest my hands on his trim hips, and the position puts me at eye level with the hardness straining against his briefs through the open zipper.
Three years ago, I held his cock in my hand in the dark. I haven’t actually seen it since we were sixteen, but I felt every steely inch of him inside me that night.
“You said something to me in the barn.” I feather my fingers along the rigid shape of him through the cotton. “Do you remember? You pressed your lips—”
“Against your cheek. I wanted you to feel my voice when I said, I love you. I belong to you. No matter the time or distance, I’m yours.”
His words decimate me. The severe look on his face accelerates my pulse. His hunger is raw, palpable, and only a couple layers of clothes away from becoming very real inside me.
“Pull me out.” He tangles his fingers in my hair.
My skin tingles and heats as I lower his jeans and underwear and free his swollen length. Jesus, he’s bigger than I remember, thicker, harder, and hungry.
His balls hang heavy and full beneath his jutting cock. A clear bead of arousal wells on the plump tip, and I ache to catch it with my tongue.
“I need you to take the edge off.” His voice strangles. “It’s been too long, and… Goddamn, stop staring at it.” His features tense as if he’s in pain. “Put it in your mouth, Conor.”
I slide my lips over his shaft, relishing the taste of that salty drop. I draw him in until he bumps the back of my throat, and his growly groan envelopes me, urging me to suck root to tip and back again.
He tightens the fist in my hair, and I let myself go, tonguing the velvety skin with a yearning I’ve only
ever felt with him.
The room pulses with our uneven breaths, and the rug offers little comfort beneath my knees. But I’m exactly where I want to be. Where I’m supposed to be.
I’ve always been his.
The suction of my mouth muffles my moans as his sounds run wild. Grunting, guttural groans reverberate in his chest and charge the air with enough sexual energy to raise the hairs on my nape.
“Fuck, Conor.” His head drops back, exposing the taut cords in his neck. He clamps his hands against my scalp and drives my movements, fucking my face, and panting heavily. “I’m so close. Shit. Oh God, fuck, I’m gonna fucking come.”
His eyes latch onto mine, and my pussy clenches. I sheath my teeth, suck him hard, and send him over the edge. I’m so hungry for him my heart rate explodes with the first gush of his release against my throat. He throbs against my tongue, grunting and moaning as he empties himself in my mouth.
His legs tremble beneath my hands, and his fingers move to my face, roving across my lips where they seal around his softening cock.
“Now I can take my time with you.” He slips from my mouth, shoves off his jeans and underwear, and hoists me onto the bed.
His hands grip my thighs, and with a forceful yank, he brings my butt to the edge of the mattress. Then he buries his face between my legs.
I fall back, melting beneath the wet hot sensations of his lips and tongue. The scruff of his whiskers burns my skin, and his fingers dig against my thighs, holding me open for his punishing mouth.
He eats me like he’s starving. The same starvation that depletes my lungs and coils in my core. His teasing flicks and bites ignite an unbearable need inside me, driving me to madness.
“I need your cock.” I squirm beneath him, tugging on the messy brown strands of his hair.
But there’s no denying him. He devours my pussy until I detonate against his mouth and slump into a puddle of spent limbs and liquid pleasure.
He prowls up my body and scoots us to the center of the bed. Knees between my legs, he stretches me open, his cock hanging hard and long between us, twitching with readiness.
