Your Neighborhood Cowgirl: The Neighborhood #6

by Tarrah Anders

  We move to the table and take seats across from one another. I take a bite out of my burger and wipe the corners of my mouth free of the condiments escaping the sides of the bread.

  He chews and looks at me with a nod.

  “I think that there is, of course, more that we can learn from one another, but we don’t need to rush any of it. We know some of the basics, and I think that is what any relationship is like. A work in progress.”

  “A work in progress?” I question with a tilt of my head.

  “Yeah, basically we know surface level shit, but in relationships there’s always that chance to dig deeper. As humans, we’re ever evolving. One thing will affect you differently one day versus six months down the line. Think about it this way: sure, we have our jobs and those can be predictable, but outside of that - it could be like an emergency room. Not in the fatal aspect, but in the aspect that anything can happen from one point to another.”

  I nod and like his mode of thinking.

  “Did you always want to be a medic?” I ask him.

  “I did. I still want to, but I think I just needed an empathetic break. I saw so much negative that I needed some positive in some way. I needed the comfort too. I needed to know that I was relieving something in someone else. I’ll go back to be a medic someday. Hell, I have training that can be put to good use, and it would be shit of me to not give back, but right now, I have downtime. I make my own hours, in a way, and I get to know all kinds of different people on a whole different level.”

  “That’s a different way of looking at it. Obviously, I’ve only been on the receiving end, but I can see how it’s about the giving aspect too.” I take another bite out of the burger.

  “What about you? You work at the bar, is there anything else that you do?”

  “I’m taking online classes to become a teacher.”

  “A teacher? That’s pretty cool. How much longer do you have?”

  “I have about two more years.” I smile.

  “What kinds of schools are there here? For a small town, I can’t imagine that it would be many.” he says.

  “There’s a school just outside of town, by the house that Missy bought. The school is an all-ages, so it goes from the littles to the bigs. A few of the neighboring towns all come out to the school.”

  “Is that where you would want to teach?” he asks.

  “If they will have me, sure. It would help me keep my job at the bar, my apartment here, and I wouldn’t need to uproot everything. But I’m open to it, just not prepared just yet. Which brings up something about the two of us. You live in Hollybrooke, I live here in Mercy. I saw the back and forth happen for a bit with Luke and Rhi, and it didn’t look like fun. It almost tore them apart, and that worries me.”

  “What about it worries you?” he asks.

  “Well, it’s not exactly the shortest drive between where we live. I work weird hours being a waitress and all, then I’m doing school work sporadically too.”

  “There are numerous couples who work, go to school, and have long distance relationships. I think we could do it. Do you know what the battles were between your friends?”

  “I think it was just a little bit of distance made it hard to deal with. Plus, Rhi’s car took a shit, so there was that too.”

  “Well, you’re in luck. I have a brand-new car, and I don’t see that being an issue. Let’s give this a try. Remember, we like one another, what could it hurt?” he asks, taking the final bite from his burger and licking his fingers.

  Yeah, what could it hurt?

  Seven

  Three days went by after Darrel left my house with a simmering kiss and a promise to spend the whole weekend with me.

  I cancelled the rest of my appointments with Darrel and staggered the appointments with Mrs. Maxwell. Tre from Cuddle Puddle tried to get me signed back up with Devin, but I declined and told her I had no extra time.

  Which was the truth.

  I have the whole weekend off now that Wyatt has begun working in the front of the house more and more. I have busted my ass over the past three days to finish my essay and to get some reading done, so I wasn’t sitting around doing homework all weekend.

  This is a new thing for me. I have grown so used to working all the time and then doing homework when I’m not working. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a relationship, but I’m not complaining.

  I look to the clock and note that I have a few hours before Darrel gets here, so I pull out my assignment list and look around my space. I need to create a visual lesson plan, and I need the wall space to create it. I look to the wall above my couch, and the wheels begin spinning. I jump off the couch and grab my giant easel sticky note pads and put three of them side by side.

  I’ve got my markers around me, a calendar, and a rough lesson plan unfolding in my living room when a knock echoes through the space.

  Has it really been three hours? I look at the mess of my living room and sigh. It’s better for him to see my lack of cleanliness when I’m deep into a project now versus later and have him freak out.

  I pull open the door and offer him a big smile, then realize that I forgot about that shower I was planning to take before he came over. Knowing that I look like I’ve been working out is likely not the best impression for someone I want to get into bed with.

  My shirt is torn at the neck, baring my shoulder and my pink bra strap. My pants are of the stretchy and yoga kind. Darrel takes in my appearance and gives me an appreciative smile as he scans my body with a low whistle.

  He is wearing a plaid shirt, glasses, and worn jeans. Has a duffle bag slung over his right shoulder, and he holds a brown paper bag in his hand, which is promptly held out to me.

  “I brought us, um… snacks,” he says hesitantly.

  “Snacks?” I take the bag, step aside to allow him entrance, and look inside the bag.

  It’s as if he raided a child’s Halloween stash with fun-sized chocolate bars and all sorts of other candies. I look up to him and he smiles.

  “I doubt that you eat that crap, but it gives me a good reason to get it out of my kitchen. I was raised to bring something when you go to someone’s house, and I forgot to grab something until I was running out the door. Please don’t feel like you need to eat it, and you are more than free to toss it.” He smiles.

  “You brought leftover candy? Candy, that you do not want?” I ask.

  “I mean, I felt that it was rude that I wasn’t bringing something over, so I grabbed the first thing that I could find in my cabinets.” He shrugs. “Really, please do not feel obligated. It was stupid, I know.”

  I see a smile tug at the corners of his lips and think otherwise. He drops his bag beside the end of the couch and then approaches me, places his hands on either side of my hips, and pulls me close to him to settle between his legs.

  “Hi,” he says quietly.

  I push my arms through the space between his elbows and his body and wrap them around his middle. I put my head against his chest, breathe his soapy scent in, and breathe out a hello back to him.

  “Sorry my place is a mess; I got lost in an assignment and forgot about setting a timer to get ready for you,” I say as I step back slightly to look up at him.

  His smile is endearing and the corners of his eyes crinkle as he speaks.

  “I don’t want a fake version of you. I want the real you. I don’t care if your place is trashed.” He pauses and shakes his head. “Let me clarify, as long as you’re not hoarding shit and have rodents, I think we’re good. I want to see the day to day version of you, and if you need to focus on school work, all the more awesome. That’s me seeing you in your element. And that’s what makes a relationship work.”

  “Okay, let me just tidy up what I have here and then… yeah.” I move towards the couch and begin to pile up my notes while Darrel comes to stand beside me.

  “What’s all this?” he asks.

  “This is my visual lesson plan, one of my assignments for thi
s week.”

  “What’s the plan then? Teach it to me?” he asks, sitting down and folding his arms in his lap with a straight back.

  “No, this is designed for school age.”

  “Try me?” he asks.

  I look at him and see the eagerness in his eyes and set down the papers in my arms.

  “Okay, so each of the papers on the wall above your head will represent a part of the day that will focus on different growth aspects for a child,” I begin and begin breaking down the day. He asks questions, and I answer them, reframing some of the curriculum from the practice. Another hour later, I’m finally sitting down beside him.

  His arm wraps around my shoulders, and he pulls me against him, kisses the top of my head, and smiles.

  “I like the gist of what you got there. I think you’ll be a great teacher,” he replies.

  “That’s just the framework, there’s so much more that goes into it. It’s such an unappreciative job that I’ll be kicking myself in the ass in the future once I am officially a teacher.”

  “Either way, you’re helping the kids,” he replies. “You know, molding the minds of tomorrow and shit.”

  “That’s true,” I agree with him.

  “Plus, then I get to put your ringtone as ‘I’m Hot for Teacher’, so that’s an added benefit for me,” he says with a laugh.

  Eight

  So far, hanging out with Darrel has been nice. After I went over my lesson plan with him, I cleaned up, and then he Googled something to make with the contents of my fridge. It turned out to be a pretty good pasta dish, and we sat together watching a new movie on Prime.

  He let me choose the movie, and even though I had a lot to choose from, I chose something that I thought that he would enjoy. I passed out within twenty minutes of pressing play.

  I could feel Darrel lift me and move while he walks to the bedroom. He angles his body to maneuver through the doorway, placing me gently on my bed. I roll over immediately into my pillow and feel a blanket covering me. I hear him walk out of the bedroom, and then moments later my bed dips, and I feel his arm drape across my waist. He leans in, kisses my forehead, and settles into his side of the bed.

  Somewhere in the middle of the night I wake up. My body is wrapped around a human heater in the center of the bed. My blankets are at the foot of the bed, and my pillow is missing. Darrel’s arms are wrapped around me, holding me close to him, and tighten when I move a little. I need to get up and grab some water, but I don’t want to completely disturb him.

  How we got in that position confuses me, but I make it out of the bed without him fully waking. He moves to his back, and he’s not wearing a shirt. My eyes zero in on the pretty impressive bulge in his boxer briefs. I’m unsure how long I stood at the foot of my bed staring at him, but his gravelly voice startles me.

  “You standing at the foot of the bed staring at me is pretty creepy, doll.” He gets out before I dash down the hall to the kitchen. I hear him chuckle and move around as I return to the bedroom with a glass of water. I set it on my bedside table and pull out the drawer that holds my bedtime shirts. I quickly change and slide back into bed. Darrel is still on his back and with his arm closest to me, he pulls at me and we recreate one of our cuddle positions.

  “I’m sorry that I passed out on you,” I say against his chest.

  “I fell asleep towards the end as well. What time is it? You realize that you don’t have any clocks in your apartment? How the hell do you ever know what time it is?” he mumbles.

  “I have a cell phone for that and a clock on my microwave,” I say against his bare chest.

  “If I’m going to hang out over here on a regular basis, I’m going to need me a clock. I have to know what time it is if I wake up,” he offers.

  “Well, aren’t we a little prima-donna?” I tease him.

  “No, just peculiar.” His hand moves up and down from my shoulder to my elbow slowly as my hand traces his belly button, enjoying the ripples of his abs and the slight brush of hair that trails from his belly down.

  “If you continue along the path you’re going, doll, I’m just going to say that you’re starting something that we maybe want to wait on,” he says gruffly. My eyes look down at where the tips of my fingers brush, and I note the sizable tent in his briefs.

  I turn my body and look at him. “What if… what if I don’t want to wait?” I ask.

  “Fuck, I don’t know if I would be able to control myself. I would rather take my time with you,” he groans.

  “We have all weekend to take our time, what if we got what we want out of the way first and focus on the other stuff later?”

  “Doll, I don’t want the first time that I bed you to be a fast fuck,” he says.

  “What if that’s exactly what I want right now?”

  “Really?”

  “Darrel, I’ve wanted you to take me since the first time you came over. It was torture with my ass against you, to not move and make you hard.”

  “Oh, doll, I was hard,” he says arrogantly.

  “Oh, I know. I meant, harder.” I smile wickedly as I lean down and take his mouth. His hand reaches up as he threads his fingers through the short hair at my neckline and moves so I am sitting on top of him.

  Fuck that was hot! I think as I lightly press myself along the hard ridge of his dick as he groans into the kiss.

  His hands move down the length of my back to grasp the globes of my ass and squeezes, He releases them lands a smack across. The sound echoes through my bedroom, pinging off the bare walls, turning me on even more.

  “Are you sure this is what you want to do right now?” he asks, guiding my hips as I rub against him.

  I nod my head and bite my bottom lip while leaning down to cover his mouth with mine.

  “Fuck. I can feel how wet you are,” he says against my lips.

  I don’t respond as I’m on the verge of an orgasm. I move my hips faster against him, grinding harder against his length and kissing him with pure abandon.

  He lifts me right when I'm about to go off and a frustrated groan escapes my throat as he switches positions to hover over me. He’s breathing heavy as he runs his nose along my cheek and his lips meet my ear lobe.

  “I want to take your panties off now,” he whispers.

  “Okay,” I say quietly, while nodding in agreement. I want it too.

  His large hands pull at the sides of my underwear and he tugs them down. He leans up on the bed, pulling the fabric from the bottom of my feet, and removes his own briefs.

  For the first time, I’m seeing him fully naked.

  And I’m impressed.

  Nine

  Being impressed is not really the way I would describe what I see when Darrel is sitting in between my legs while stroking himself.

  His dick is perfect. Dicks in nature are ugly as fuck. But there’s something about his, it’s almost smiling. The cleft is smiling at me as he strokes himself from root to tip and practically tells me that it’s coming for me. That this dick is going to do wonders for me in all ways possible.

  I lick my lips and watch the amount of pressure that Darrel adds to his shaft, and when our eyes meet, I see the fire burning and the desire that he has to get lost in me.

  He leans down and our lips meet. He kisses me, his hands running along my thighs and up towards my pussy. His fingertips lightly dip into me and then retreat.

  “So wet,” he murmurs against my lips, gently nipping at my bottom lip. “So very wet.” He moves his mouth from mine and trails kisses from my cheek to my ear. With his mouth to my ear and a heavy breath, he expels, “You’re perfect. Everything about you is perfect.”

  I move my hips and a moment later his dick sinks into me. As he thrusts slowly, the feeling of him fitting inside me, as if we were made for one another, warms me. My fingers dig into his sides as he moves, thrusting slowly while nibbling lightly on my ear and then moving back to capture my lips with his.

  This feels so amazing. It’s been so lo
ng that I’ve had sex, this feels incredible. Almost like there is nothing between us.

  Wait… nothing between us.

  Panic hits me suddenly, and I still my movements, causing Darrel to stop with a questioning look on his face.

  “Are you okay?” he asks with a concerned tone.

  “You aren’t wearing protection; we’ve gone bare,” I say in a hushed tone, my eyes wide.

  Darrel pushes up on his hands and slips out of me. His dick is coated in my wetness, glistening from the light coming in through the cracks of my bedroom window. He runs his hand over his face and takes a deep breath.

  “Fuck, I knew it felt too good. Shit, I’m so sorry. I’ve never, I would never… shit!” he expels.

  I lean up on my elbows to get a better look at him.

  “I have condoms. I have some in the bathroom.” I scramble up from underneath him, run into the bathroom, rummage through one of the drawers, find the unopened box of Magnums, and return to the bedroom. Darrel hasn’t moved from his position and sits there with his head in his hands.

  “I’m so sorry, that’s like a huge ‘no,’ and I shouldn’t have thought with my dick. I’m clean. I haven’t been with anyone in months, and before that, I’ve always used condoms. I’m so sorry, Deb,” he says.

  “It’s okay, I’m clean too. But I’m not on the pill,” I confess. “I haven’t renewed my prescription since my last relationship fell apart, but it’s okay. I have this brand-new box of condoms that we can use!” I try to impress cheer into my tone.

  He looks at me and smiles. “I brought some as well.” He points to his bag at the end of the bed. “I’m sorry, I should have been more mindful.”

  “Well, let’s slip one of those babies on you, and get this party started!” I wink at him.

  “Um, what?”

  “Is the mood killed?” I ask, nodding to his semi-erect dick.

  “I mean, I’m pretty sure it won’t take me much to get riled up again. I seem to always have a hard-on where you’re concerned,” he replies with an awkward laugh.