by Jillian Neal
“Sounds like we have company.” Brock took her hand and guided her back down the stairs.
They located Ev and Jessie standing in the kitchen. Ev was measuring the hole in the cabinets where ovens were meant to go.
“She swears she wants to move in here.” Brock shrugged.
“Well, if that’s what little mama wants …” Ev winked at Hope.
“You’re sure?” Brock asked yet again.
“Two schools of thought on arguing with a woman, son,” Ev spoke before Hope could reply. “Neither one of ‘um works, so start figuring out what furniture you need to get today. You’re moving.”
“Listen to your uncle. He knows what he’s talking about,” Jessie assured.
“You good with these floors?” Brock ignored his aunt and uncle’s teasing and kept up his questions.
“I love the hardwoods. I just think hardwood floors with the paneling is entirely too much wood.”
A goading smirk crossed her husband’s face. He wrapped his arms around her, and, unable to resist, whispered, “I have plenty of wood for you, darlin’. Don’t you worry.”
Jessie and Ev both rolled their eyes, making Hope laugh at her husband outright.
Overwhelmed that afternoon, Hope tried to frugally pick out things for their new house. “Are you sure we can afford those?” She pointed to a large set of gas logs that Brock wanted to put in the kitchen fireplace. They worked with a remote control, for ease of use. Hope couldn’t believe her husband’s turn around on not spending money until he felt he’d earned it. He was following through on his promises, and she would do the same. She was going to make Pleasant Glen her home, although being in Lincoln that day was very nice. Disappearing into a crowd of people that had no idea who you were was rather appealing after the week they’d had.
“We’re making a home, sugar. I want you to get what you want.”
He’d already added a rather expensive coffee maker in their cart, and their new cooktop and ovens were waiting to be loaded into the trucks. She’d picked out new cookware. They’d moved some of their combined furnishings from Gypsy Beach. All of Brock’s cousins had promised to help them load and unload furniture as soon as they had all of the paneling dealt with. Ev and Jessie had urged them to move the bed they’d been using from the cottage to their new home. They assured them that the cottage was really meant for guests to the ranch from spring through fall. It wasn’t ever really meant to be lived in through a winter.
Jessie and Holly were anxious for Hope to finish all of the house selections so they could hit the mall for some clothes shopping. Another yawn overtook Hope. Brock grinned and cradled her in his arms so she could close her eyes against his chest for just a minute.
“You okay, sugar?”
“I don’t understand how something the size of a pea can make me so tired.”
“You wanna go on home? We can come back another time.”
“No, we’re here now. I want to get everything we need. I’ll be fine.”
That evening Hope got lost in discussions of their new home with Brock. A sense of contentment she’d been so desperate for had been with her since the night before. The space heaters he’d purchased that day in Lincoln made the cottage far warmer. They just had to remember not to trip over them when they returned to the kitchen for more of the cocoa Hope had prepared after they’d eaten supper with Ev, Jessie, and all of Brock’s cousins.
“I got you a surprise today. I was going to wait until we officially moved, but I want to give it to you now,” Brock confessed.
“Brock, we spent a small fortune on our new house today, bought space heaters for this house, and I got clothes I actually fit in. What do you mean you got me a surprise?”
“I wanted to get you this. I was gonna attempt to wrap it, but I suck at that anyway.” He handed over a bag from Best Buy. He must’ve gone there while she was clothes shopping with Holly.
Furrowing her brow, she pulled the box out of the bag and gasped, “Brock! You got me a new e-reader!”
Grinning at her reaction, he brushed a kiss on her forehead. “You never read anymore. That scares me. There are two dozen boxes of books upstairs that you used to love that you never even wanted to unpack. I miss watching you read. I love how you get that far away look in your eye when you’re off in some other world, and I like how you twirl your hair while you read and bite your lip if something gets intense. I know somewhere deep under all of that confusion I stupidly let you carry around, you miss it, too.”
“I do. I miss it a lot. I don’t know how I let myself get so lost when we got up here.”
“Well, maybe this will help. This way you can download anything you want. You don’t have to wait to go to the big bookstore in Lincoln, but I still promise we’ll go out there more. And you don’t have to order them and pray that Miles doesn’t read them before you do.”
“Thank you!” She hugged him fiercely. “I can download pregnancy books.”
Chuckling, Brock nodded. “Anything you want. And I called Sal Cartwright. His boys are saving up for trucks and are anxious for some ranch work. They’re gonna come work in the mornings before school some and then in the afternoons, so I can be here more. I’m gonna hire three more hands for the next few weeks so we can get the house done. Tomorrow, we’ll get to work painting. I’ll get the ovens installed, and you can start arranging things however you want them.”
“Thank you for all of this, Brock. I am the luckiest girl on this planet, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t see that for so long.”
“Ranch life is tough, darlin’. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“Life is tough. Life on a ranch, life on a beach, life anywhere is going to have its ups and downs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to live it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Hope white-knuckle gripped the steering wheel of Brock’s truck as she listened to her husband’s instructions.
“Okay, keep plenty of space between you and the car in front of you in case you come across a patch of ice and slide,” he explained.
“Space. Got it.”
“Relax, sugar. You’ll be fine. You’re not gonna hit anything out here.” He gestured to the empty snow-covered pasture surrounding them.
“Except maybe a wayward cow.”
“Nah, I pinned them up on the other side of the ranch, to keep them safe,” he teased her.
Rolling her eyes, Hope drove in circles around the pasture. This was her third lesson with Brock. Jessie and Ev had each given her one as well. She was feeling more confident, but still wanted to be cautious. She was currently housing their child, after all.
“Okay, if you start to spin, turn into the spin and don’t slam on the brakes. Just stop giving it gas.”
Hope nodded.
After her lesson, she drove them to their new home. The walls were almost completed. The paneling was now painted white, giving the farmhouse a bright, cheery effect. She couldn’t wait to serve dinners at the large pedestal kitchen table that had belonged to Brock’s grandparents.
They were moving their furniture in the following day. She’d selected a few new lighting fixtures.
When she parked the truck, Brock headed inside to install the new lights.
Luke and Austin entered the kitchen a few minutes later. “You’re in it for the women. Don’t even deny that,” Luke huffed.
“The women are a bonus. I’m in it because I love it. What do you care anyway?” Austin came right back.
Hope and Brock shared a discreet eye roll. It seemed two nights before, Luke had gotten irritated with Austin at Saddlebacks. As usual, the women were hanging all over Austin, and he was working his rodeo king status heavily. Normally, his brothers didn’t seem to care, but when Austin had sweet talked Amber Swenson onto the dance floor, Luke had gotten furious.
“If you wanna bed Amber, why don’t you call her up and take her out?”
Luke shook his head as he began handing Brock the pigtail harnesses he needed f
or the lighting in the downstairs bathroom.
“Amber’s been through hell. Mitchell just up and left her one day, no explanation, no nothing. She’s a friend of mine. I just don’t want you using her and tossing her away, which is your M.O. Has nothing to do with me wanting her.”
“Right.” Austin rolled his eyes.
“Would you two shut it? You’ve been arguing about this for two days. Let it go,” Brock commanded.
Mumbles of irritation answered his order, but Hope was pleased that they did stop fighting, for the most part.
Chapter Eighteen
Saturday morning, the seductive scent of his wife roused Brock. The sun was just beginning to awaken the ranch. Very pleased with the arrangement he’d worked with the Cartwright boys, he reveled in his ability to sleep in on Saturday mornings. Their new home was warm, and they were settling in. The evening before, he’d helped Hope unpack all of her old books and arrange them on the bookshelves he’d installed in the keeping room. That balance they’d needed no longer seemed so far out of reach. Swallowing down the terror he always felt when he thought of Hope driving herself and their tiny baby over ice and snow, he reminded himself that fear was no way to live life. Something he’d learned from his beautiful wife. He would take her to get her license that day, just like he’d promised.
He kept his eyes closed and allowed his hands to glide from Hope’s shoulders downward, tracing the descent of her spine and then over the swells of her bare asscheeks. She was tucked beside him in a sexy little ball. Handy she wasn’t wearing panties. My God he wanted her just like this. Warm, and sweet, natural, carrying his baby, and tucked safely in his arms. She was barely awake and trying to conceal a grin.
“I want you, Mrs. Camden.”
“Do you?” she sighed.
“So bad, darlin’. I’m aching for you.”
“I’m in one of your t-shirts, and I just woke up.” Her confusion was evident in her sleepy tone.
“You’re beautiful.” She’d modeled the lingerie she’d ordered for him two nights before. It was stunning, but this, this was perfection. He wanted her satin skin in his hands with nothing in his way.
He savored her breathy moan. Her hand reached back and encountered his rock-hard cock as he rubbed himself against that sexy ass that drove him wild with need. He shuddered as she squeezed his shaft and then dragged her fingertips up over his head.
“That’s what you need isn’t it, darlin’?”
“Yes.” The urgency in her breathy tone amped the hunger racking readily in his balls. His hands slipped up the t-shirt she’d worn to bed, now that they had a warm home. Her ample breasts spilled through his fingers as he grasped them, coaxing another moan from deep within her. He tried to remember to be gentle, but my God, he needed to own her thoroughly.
She sat up, allowing him to dispense with the shirt altogether. Tossing it away, he nuzzled his head to the outside curve of her right breast then brushed hungry, open mouthed kisses along the underswell. The flavor of her, the sweet tang of sweat between her luscious tits, the perfection of her, natural and open all for him, sent impatience surging through his veins. His muscles ached with need. Sucking and nipping at her nipples, his tongue swept over the tightened buds adding pressure constantly. He decided to indulge the lust side of things that morning. He was certain she wouldn’t mind.
“Oh, God, more. Harder,” she begged.
A savage growl escaped him, humming against her breasts as he bit and suckled at her in constant juxtaposition, driving her into a state of euphoria with his tongue. Her back arched as her body rolled, so anxious for more.
The pain and the perfection of it all had him slipping his fingers down her tensed abdomen to tempt her further into compliance.
Swollen and fevered to the touch, she was the embodiment of primal female, needy all for him. Losing all ability to be gentle, driven by his own intense greed, he speared his fingers deep within her silken channel to find her tissues drenched, just as he’d suspected. “You’re so nice and wet for me, darlin’. God, such a good girl.”
Her body writhed as he slipped his fingers almost all the way out and then plunged her depths again, over and over, until the sound of her slick dew against his fingers made him desperate to pull her over him and own her thoroughly. She tightened around him, squirming and begging in broken syllables of desire. “It’s right there, isn’t it, sugar? So close I can feel it coming. I know what you need.” He indulged her clit with several sucking licks.
“Brock, now. Please.”
In one quick move, he pulled his fingers away, guided her up on her knees, and slammed into her, burying himself in deep. His sac slapped against her ass, and she came on his first thrust. The epitome of his every fantasy, his every desire, and by some miracle his wife. He drove her hard, feeling her juices slick him with every savage thrust. Ecstasy sizzled in his veins. White pops of light clouded his vision. His mind singled in on nothing but her pleasure to push away the rapture his body craved. If he lost focus, he was going to come long before he was ready. “Take it for me, darlin’. Just like that. I want you to scream my name for me when I let you come again.”
“Oh, God, yes.” Her guttural tone shot another stream of bliss straight to his cock. She milked him. He throbbed constantly inside of her, feeling her press back against him as her body consumed his.
“Not yet, sweetness. I’m not finished with you yet.” He groped her ass as he drove into her, squeezing and watching her supple flesh, pliant under his touch. The perfection of it all bordered on pain as it roiled in his balls. He slapped her ass, watching it quake and fever under his hand as she moaned her adamant approval and shook it for him. He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, still fighting with himself. Shutting down his own release. She was all that mattered.
Reaching around her, he stroked from her opening, filled to overflowing with his thick cock, upward to her clit, back and forth, until she shook from need and collapsed against the mattress. She came hard, crying out his name.
Rearing up on his hands, he slammed into her once more. On his next gasped breath, he fused his mouth to her shoulder blade, leaving a marking of ownership as he gained his own potent climax.
When he finally regained his breath and withdrew, she was a quivering mass of euphoria, still shaking from the experience. Brock fought the regret that built in his gut as he stared at what would be a slight bruise on her shoulder very soon, and remembering that she was pregnant, and he’d taken her like a wild animal with absolutely no consideration of restraint.
Guiding her up onto his chest, the apologies formed readily on his tongue. “I’m sorry, darlin’. That was too much. I shouldn’t have lost control like that.”
Her eyes blinked open. She grinned at him. The pink heat that he’d infused her body with settled in her cheeks. “Um, that was completely amazing. I was dreaming about that just a few minutes ago.”
“You’re gonna have a hickey on your shoulder.” He cringed.
“Yum,” she giggled out the word. My God, how could she be so stunningly sex and so incredibly innocent in the same moment? “No one will be able to see it, right?” Her awareness seemed to be coming back to her slowly.
“Uh, not as long as you’re wearing a shirt.” He traced his fingertips over the darkening bruise beside her shoulder blade to give her an idea of the location. “So only me.”
Leaning up on her right elbow, she stared down at him with her hair in a tangled mass from their passion and her lips drawn in a sex-kitten grin, kiss-swollen, the color of a ripened raspberry too long on the vine. He kissed her, gently this time, but still just as unable to help himself. “You’re so damn beautiful. I just love you so much.”
“I love you, too, and I’ve had hickeys before, you know?”
His smile faded rapidly. “Can’t say that’s what I wanted to talk about right after we had sex.”
Laughing, she brushed a kiss on his left nipple. “When I was a little girl, I had this doll that had
suction cup feet that would stick to windows. For some reason, I decided to suction cup it to my face a few times while my sister and I were playing. I had tiny, purple circles all over my cheeks and chin. Daddy thought it was hysterical. Mama didn’t, since school pictures were that week.”
Laughing with her, Brock wondered if he could ever possibly count all of the things he adored about his wife. He was quite certain numbers didn’t go that high.
“So, maybe if we have a little girl we won’t get her anything with suction cup feet. Hickeys on my daughter are going to really irritate me,” he confessed as he considered the scenario.
“I hadn’t even thought of that until you said I had one, so thank you for bringing back another memory from my childhood, and I’m glad you gave me a hickey because I think it’s really sexy.”
“Do you, now?” He kissed the sides of her smile.
“Yes, I do.”
“Have to see what I can do about that. But you’re okay, right? You’re sure that wasn’t too much?”
“I’m so much better than okay,” she spoke through a contented yawn that made him grin.
“You ready to spend the whole day together?”
“Yes, but after breakfast, because I’m hungry.”
Laughing, Brock pulled on some sweats and headed to the kitchen to scramble his wife some eggs. “When we get back from getting your license, I have you a surprise.”
“Brock, what do you mean you have me a surprise? You just gave me an e-reader, and we have a whole new house.”
“Technically this isn’t only from me. The entire Camden family is in on this one.”
Hope spent her day busy with people actually visiting the library, since it hadn’t been opened in the last few days, and helping Brock when he struggled through a book he’d wanted to read as a teen.
