by Brill Harper
I fake yawn. “I didn’t realize how tired I am. I think I’m going upstairs now. Enjoy the dessert.”
I don’t wait for the command to “sit” or “eat” that will come if I gave him the chance. Instead, I bolt, using the artful dodging skills I acquired in my youth.
I don’t lock my door. It’s not them I’m afraid of. It’s me.
And no matter how fast I run, I’ll never outrun myself.
Chapter Three
Wylder
“I'm not gonna lie, Wylder, it's pretty bad,” Colt tells me, kneeling on the ground, his sleeves rolled up, concern etching lines into his usually relaxed face.
The young foal he’s tending to is scared and hurt, her outstretched leg wrapped in bandages. He’s right, it’s pretty bad. “Have you considered that maybe the best thing is just to...”
“Yes,” Colt’s voice is hard and curt. “I’ve considered it. We'll wait a while to see how it goes, though.”
I nod, but I’m not sure time is going to help.
“It’s not broken, Wylder,” Colt accuses, the words are stretched thin over his vocal cords, but the emotion pokes right through.
“I know. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.” A good rancher has to have empathy for his animals, but sometimes the best thing for them is a humane and quick death. It’s never easy to make those choices, but it’s harder on Colt.
“She’ll be all right,” he says.
Fuck, I hate when shit bothers him. He doesn’t talk much about his early childhood, the years before I met him, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize why he hates to see anyone or anything helpless or hurting.
I keep my own voice calm. “Her leg is in pretty bad shape. She might be suffering, Colt.”
“I just can't do it tonight,” he grinds out. “I have to give her a shot.”
He looks up at me and we share an understanding that many people never experience. I’d walk across hot coals to erase the sadness in his eyes. Colt is the only family I have left in this world. I don’t think I’d be alive today if he weren’t here.
“Dinner was good tonight.” I aim for changing the subject.
He gets up and brushes the hay off his jeans. “Dinner is good every night. She’s a fantastic cook.”
“She’s not that great at cleaning.”
He shoots me a look. “Like you fucking care about her cleaning. I saw you going back for thirds on that casserole. She’s a great find. We’re lucky we found her. And that she’s stayed this long.”
“What you mean is we’re lucky I haven’t scared her off.” Yet. It’s been a couple weeks almost.
“Sometimes I think you’re trying to.”
“I don’t want her to go.” Not exactly. “I just...” I glance at the wounded foal. “Don’t go getting attached to her. She’s not for the likes of us.” And I don’t want him getting hurt.
“I know she’s only here for the summer. I can’t make promises that I won’t get attached to her cooking, but my heart isn’t in danger. Just my stomach.”
“Sure thing, Hoss.” We check the other stalls like we do every night. The steers make us the money around here, but it’s the horses that make this life what it is.
He flips the light off. “Maybe it’s you that likes her too much.”
I wince as we head out. “We can barely stand to be in the same room.” It’s a balmy night. Maybe it will rain.
“Don’t be stupid. I know you better than that. You push her away like you’re some gruff asshole so you don’t have to get close.”
“I am a gruff asshole.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue that. But you push her. Why is that, I wonder?”
We start walking toward the house. I like this part of the evening when chores are done, we’ve been fed, and I can take pride in the spread we’ve been tasked to be caretakers of. I almost lost it all. Lost my family, the old ranch, and was losing my damn mind, but Colt dragged me out of the hole and made me live again. This land is more than dirt and a good view—it’s everything. To both of us.
I take off my hat and run a hand through my hair. “I’d think you’d be glad I push her away. Less competition for you.”
He snorts at that. “Competition. I’m pretty sure if we ask her right now who she’d rather spend time in the hay with, it wouldn’t be you.”
“Exactly. You proved my point.”
“Oh, so you’re being an asshole for my benefit. Thanks so much.”
I laugh and punch him in the arm. “She ain’t stayin’. Don’t get attached.”
“I know.” Just like he knows that foal probably won’t make it. But it doesn’t stop him from hoping. Nothing stops him from hoping. I don’t know how he holds on to it the way he does.
And he’s hoping for Bliss.
The trouble is, if she were staying, there would be competition. We’ve never fought over anything. What if she drove a wedge between us? Now, when everything is finally working out our way. We’re building something good here. Something we put our literal blood, sweat, and tears into. I’m not risking that over a woman.
Not even if she’s perfect.
Which she’s not. She’s got more baggage than the claim carousel at the airport. She’s leery of men and afraid of her own body. And she turned my damn socks pink in the washing machine. She’s not perfect at all.
We slow as we get closer to the house. We both know we’re not done talking about the little miss and can’t finish our conversation inside.
Colt starts and stops himself from saying something.
“What?” I ask. “Just say it.”
“I don’t think she wants to go back. She doesn’t even like college. She only goes because she thinks a degree in accounting will give her security.”
“I suppose she told you that.”
“Actually, yeah. She did. She hates her accounting classes, but she says she’s good at math so she figured it would be smart. She likes cooking. Said she used to dream about being a chef, but didn’t think it was practical.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
We both know why. He thinks if I hear she’s looking for security, I’ll want to take care of her. His weakness is rescuing everyone, mine is taking responsibility for everyone around me. I only know this because he made me take a personality test online with him.
But damned if that test wasn’t true.
What I don’t understand is why he wants me to want her.
“She might stay, Wylder. She could stay.”
I stop walking, watch the shadows grow longer as the moon starts her rise. As a rule, Colt and I don’t talk about feelings. We don’t really need to, anyway, since we know each other well enough to sense what the other is going through. But I don’t understand him right now, which is unusual. I’ve never gone willingly into a feelings talk, but I don’t think I have a choice. “You want her to stay?”
“So do you.”
“You want her to stay for me or for yourself?”
Colt’s no more excited about talking about feelings than I am. He shuffles his boot over a rock. “We could let her choose.”
“Right. And say she chooses me. You just gonna be okay with that? You’re not going to break down my damned door when you hear me fucking the girl you want for yourself?”
His jaw tightens the way I knew it would, but he shakes his head, refusing to be drawn into a fight, though I know right now, he’s picturing me in bed with her. “We could let her choose not to choose.”
I ain’t often surprised, but my eyes blink too rapidly. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
We joked about it the one time, sharing a wife. But we’re both too damn possessive to be brother-husbands or whatever you call it.
“Just think about it, okay?”
“Think about what? Quit pussy-footing around and tell me what’s going on in that mess you call brains.”
“I’m thinking that for the first time in years, I’ve seen you show real int
erest in a woman. Because however well you think you are hiding it, I know you better than you know yourself, and you want her.”
I want to deny it. We’re too old for her. She’s too innocent for us. Especially for me.
But he doesn’t wait for me to interrupt him and keeps on talking. “And I want her, too. And if I thought you just wanted her for a quick fuck because she’s got a nice rack, I’d be pissed as hell. But since I see right through your shit, I know what you really want is to court her.”
“Court her? Did you hit your head today?” He’s talking like my ma used to.
“So I say, we both court her.” He is fucking serious right now. I’ll be damned.
“Maybe Bliss put something in your sweet tea. Some kind of mind-addling poison.”
“We could show her what it would be like for her if she stayed.”
Colt
“WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE? It would be like her being stuck in the middle of nowhere with two perverts who are too old for her,” Wylder says on a growl.
Oh, he’s ornery now. That’s okay. This is how it works with him. He gets pissy, I say things he pretends not to agree with, and then later, he comes around.
All I have to do is stay logical now. “She doesn’t like the guys her age. She doesn’t even date them.”
Wylder pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think it’s the guys that are stopping her from dating. She’s scared of men.”
Well, no shit. “You think I don’t know that? But she’s already feeling comfortable around us, despite how much you try to be an asshole to her. She laughs and smiles all the damn time now, and she stopped wearing as many clothes as she could get on herself and still move.”
When she first got here, it was layers and layers of armor. The last few days, she’s down to a t-shirt and jeans most days. The shirt is still way too big for her, but she doesn’t act like she might have to be on the run with just the clothes on her back anymore.
Wylder’s jaw is working. Tense and square. But hell, when isn’t he tense and square? Lately, that’s all he is. “I’ve only ever seen her laugh or smile when she’s in the kitchen,” he finally says.
“Stop trying to intimidate her all the time and maybe you’ll catch one in a different room. They sure are pretty.”
He meets my eyes. “This is fucked up. You really don’t think you’d get jealous? What is she supposed to do, trade off bedrooms between us? Do we make a calendar? This will never work. How are we going to handle holidays? I fuck her on Christmas and you get Thanksgiving?”
“Actually, in my head, I thought we’d switch off what nights we go to her room. But that’s putting the cart before the horse. We’re courting her, not bedding her.”
“We’re not courting her.”
He makes to stalk back into the house, but I grab his shirt and pull him back. “It won’t work if we don’t try.” He shrugs my hands off him, but I keep talking. “I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know that I care about that girl, I know you care about that girl, and I know I would die before I let someone come between you and me. But sometimes, when I think about her going back to school in September, it sure feels like a piece of me is already dying. Just...think about it. Please.”
“Not ten minutes ago, you told me your heart wasn’t involved.”
I should have something to say to that, but he’s right. Hell, he’s always right about me. Which is annoying as hell. I brush past him and head in alone, beating him into the house.
That was the hardest conversation I’ve ever had. One that could have gone to shit fast. Maybe it did. Maybe things won’t be right in the morning, and I just trashed my partnership. I’m glad I don’t pass Bliss on my way upstairs to my room. I need to be alone. To think.
Or maybe not think. Thinking is what got me into this mess.
She’s barely been here two weeks, and I’ve risked everything for the chance to court her. And, yeah, that’s old fashioned and dated. But it sounds right for Bliss.
Hell, she might not even want either of us. But I don’t think that’s true. I think she’s confused about how she feels and has had some bad shit in her past, but I know she’s attracted to me. And the way she gets all fluttery and pink around Wylder, I’d say she’s attracted to him, too.
I think about her pretty eyes when she looks up at me and smiles or laughs at something I said. It’s like the sun punching a hole in the clouds when she laughs. I find myself thinking of things to make her smile all day long like some dopey junior high kid with a crush.
I turn on the shower as hot as I can stand it and let the water wash away all the stress from the foal in the stable, from my talk with Wylder, from all the shit that doesn’t get done that needs to, and instead think about what it would be like if Bliss really were mine. Ours.
My dick plumps up at just the thought, and I haven’t even focused on the fantasy part yet.
I soap my body up, saving my dick for last. She thinks of me like some damned knight in shining armor, and God knows I want to fix all her problems and save her. But I’m no saint. I’ve got urges. What would she say if she knew about those? She’s so shy about men. About her body.
I groan. What would she think if she knew her knight in shining armor likes to imagine pounding her tender pussy with jackhammer thrusts until she forgets her name? Until her whole damn existence is focused on me.
I soap up my cock, hardening as my hand moves on the shaft, thoughts of my pretty housekeeper in my head. The images in my head are vivid. Rated X. Imagining her hand on me instead of my own, my hand moves faster, thrusting into my soapy fist. My hips start thrusting and my forehead beads with sweat. My body is primed and ready to fuck.
I’ve never gone this long without sex before. I even went out last weekend with the intention of a good dick wetting. But as much as my body wants release, it wants Bliss more. I couldn’t even get hard at the bar when Lacey June came in wearing a short skirt and no more wedding ring. Bliss has got me all tangled up inside two weeks. It ain’t right.
It’s not her hand now in my fantasy, it’s her tight sheath squeezing me while she moans my name. I spread my legs wider and jack furiously, breathing an effort now. I feel the cum building up deep inside me, and I suppress the urge by squeezing the tip of my cock. Not yet. Gotta make it last.
I imagine the heat of her tight pussy, dripping wet and spread open while taking me in. I groan. Words from a bad porno tumble out of my mouth. “Yeah, baby, fuck your boss’s cock...this cowboy needs your pussy so bad.”
My cock is rock hard now and a dark, angry red from my abuse. I need to come, the muscles tensing in my quads and back. But still, I don’t want to let go yet. I imagine her legs wrapped around me, her heels digging into my waist. I see flashes of her pretty smile mixed in with darker, earthier ones, flashes of ripe tits and a round ass. The fire she gets in her eyes when she’s holding her own against my best friend. The idea of waiting my turn when she’s in his room, when he’s inside her and I can hear them.
I grunt, trying to hold back my orgasm. “You feel so good...take it, Bliss...take it all.” My hand is slamming in punishing strokes now, and the tingle in my balls becomes unbearable.
I imagine her coming around me. Squeezing me. Screaming my name. The tingle spreads to my cock before it explodes in a thousand shards of pleasure. My whole body floods with pure white heat. “I'm coming, Bliss...coming deep in your little pussy.” My hips jerk as I come hard, squirting long, ropy strands on the tiled wall.
Chapter Four
Bliss
Do you know how much laundry cowboys go through? I lug the basket, heavy with denim, up the stairs, stopping first by Wylder’s room to drop off his folded clothes, then into Colt’s room.
As I enter his bedroom, I notice his bathroom door is open halfway, but it isn’t until I’m opening his dresser that I realize the shower is running. Whoops. I thought they were still outside. Backing up to leave, I’m brought to a dead stop when I hear him speak. Shi
t, he knows I’m here.
“Yeah, baby, fuck your boss’s cock...this cowboy needs your pussy so bad.”
Is he...with someone?
My face goes molten hot, and I want to run out, but something perverse keeps me rooted to the floor. I look above his dresser at the mirror reflecting his image from the bathroom. He’s alone in the glass-encased shower, whipping his hand up and down his cock...his huge cock. Not that I’m close enough to see it in great detail, but I guess that kind of speaks to how big it is.
I’m the biggest jerk in the world for invading his privacy, but I still can’t move.
He’s beautiful in the way men are. Corded muscles bulge in all the right places. Tree trunks for legs holding up the round butt that fills his jeans so well. He’s masculine perfection.
I’m mesmerized by the sight of his big hand stroking relentlessly on his cock. He’s not gentle with himself at all. There’s so much power in his body, all of it focused on an impending orgasm. I’m really intruding, but I don’t think anything in the world could pull me away now. I’m just as focused on his impending orgasm as he is, my core clenching on the emptiness between my legs.
“You feel so good...take it, Bliss...take it all!”
My name. He just said my name. He’s fantasizing about me in there. A hot tingle swells inside me, starting at my clit and working its way through my center. At the same time, chills shoot through the rest of me, making me shiver and break out into goose bumps. I start backing up slowly, quietly.
I have to go. Run. Get out of here. Tamping the urge, I take careful backward steps.
Until I bump into a hard body behind me and am wrapped in tight bands of muscular arms.
Wylder
“SHH,” I TELL THE LITTLE miss as she squeaks, my arms tightening protectively around her. “You’re going to give yourself away.”
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “I didn’t know he was in here. I thought you were both still in the barn. I was just dropping off laundry. Please, let me go. I should leave.”
