“I like that you want all of it, I want all of it too,” she shared softly. “I just can’t give it now. Or at least, I didn’t feel I could before Addie talked to us this morning.”
“And this morning is when I realized where I was at with this. With you. With her. With Brooks. If I want to explore this with you, I have to be all in. I can’t hold back like I might in the beginning of a normal situation without any drama, testing the waters, seeing how far in I wanna get. This is no longer about building on what we got. Now, it’s about life, learning to have all that’s there to have together. And I’m all in. With you comes her. Brooks. Deanna. Charlie. With me comes Tobe. Margot. Dave. Ben and Cait, and whoever else.”
She was holding herself very still, staring at him intently, but he wasn’t quite done.
“Telling you all this isn’t about me getting burned by Shandra and still licking my wounds. Right here and now with this conversation, since I’m already all in, it’s about me having a genuine reaction to something, showing it, you internalizing that and not sharing it. I was disappointed because it’s disappointing. Life hits you with that too often. But in the end, you being close with Addie and Brooks and being there for them, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s just that I get to have the honor of doing it with you.”
“Johnny,” she whispered, wonder in her eyes now, like there’d been in her sister’s that morning.
Except it was a lot sweeter.
Still.
“Now you need to explain ‘your deal,’” he demanded.
The wonder started edging out with the panic beginning to edge back in.
“It’s just that it was you that made that decree and like I said, sometimes I need space to sort things out,” she explained.
“So you think you not talking to me about this, sitting on it, stewing on it, would have ended up all good?”
“Yes,” she replied immediately.
That was completely implausible.
“You’re telling me you’d get there on your own,” he said with clear skepticism.
“I’m telling you I’d eventually have talked to you about it when I was ready.”
“You sure about that?” he pushed.
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
“Babe, women stew.”
“It’s not stewing, it’s sorting.”
“Different words, same meaning,” he returned.
“That’s not true.”
“So I know something’s on your mind and I gotta keep my mouth shut, knowing that something is bothering you, not knowing what that is, or how that could affect me, us, and wait on you to give it to me?”
“That doesn’t make it sound too good,” she murmured.
“That’s because it’s not, Eliza.”
“I’m not like that.”
“You just snapped at me.”
“You were being pushy.”
“So we could get through it and fucking enjoy a fucking TV show without anything weighing heavy on either of us.”
“I’m not like that,” she shot back. “I do talk about it. I always get it out in the end and it turns out okay when I do.”
“And you can assure me of that,” he stated.
“Of course.”
“You’re sure,” he pushed.
“Yes!”
She was snapping again, her face screwing up.
It was cute.
But he still didn’t buy it.
“And what if the sorting doesn’t go my way and I’ve had no say in that?” he asked.
“It’ll go your way,” she answered sharply.
“Right.”
“Right,” she bit out.
“Now I’m meant to believe that?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes!” she snapped again.
“How?” he pressed.
“Because I’m falling for you!”
Johnny went still.
Izzy did not.
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m not stupid. I’m not going to mess that up by being upset about something and letting it fester and get twisted before I talk to you about it. I mean . . . yeesh.”
Yeesh?
He had no time to get into the utter adorableness of “yeesh.”
He shifted toward her, turning to his side, sliding down, hooking an arm around her waist and hauling her up against him.
Then he kissed her.
At first, he rolled on his back, pulling her on top of him, wanting her weight on him, wanting her anchoring him to his bed.
Then she whimpered in his mouth in that way he always felt in his dick and he rolled them again, Johnny on top of her, giving her as much of his weight as he thought she could take, pressing her into the bed like she could make a dent in it that would never go away.
The kiss started deep and wild and it kept going in that direction as they tore at each other’s clothes, devoured each other’s flesh any way they could get at it.
By the time he got his mouth between her legs, she was so wet and Johnny was just as ready for her, all he could do was suck her clit hard before surging over her, hand to his cock, guiding the way, finding her and sliding right in.
“Johnny,” she breathed when she was full of him.
He thrust, staring at this Izzy, his wild one, his sex kitten, the pink in her cheeks, the haze in her eyes, the swelling in her lips.
She lifted her arms above her head, cocked her knees and let her legs fall wide to the side . . .
Fuck.
His.
Open for him. Her hips undulating to meet his thrusts. Her body jolting when she took them. Her hair spread all over his bed. Her body his to do anything he wanted.
She trusted him that completely.
And no one else.
She’d never given that to anyone else.
But he had that from the beginning.
He made a noise that he made only for her and pulled out, shifted aside, whipped her to her belly and moved right back in. Hitching one leg, forcing hers up with it, gliding his hands up the outsides of her arms, keeping them straight above her head, wrapping his fingers around her forearms, watching her, one cheek pressed to his comforter, swollen lips parted, breaths coming fast, face flushed, he drove back in, pounding her into his bed.
Connected to her.
Covering her.
Giving her what was in her face at the same time he was her shield against the shit of life, the blanket to keep her warm, the shelter to keep her safe.
That was his to know, to give, to share with her later when she wasn’t taking his cock.
But her head arched back, she pressed her temple tight to his jaw and whispered a trembling, “Johnny.”
And he knew she knew.
He knew he didn’t have to say a word.
But he did have to say something else.
He slid a hand down the soft skin of her arm, her side, over her waist and hip and then in.
He touched her clit, pressed, rolled, she gasped and he said, “I’m falling for you too,” in her ear.
She cried out, her pussy rippling tight around his cock, her body shuddering under his, her ass pressing hard to his groin. It was too much, too good, he couldn’t ride her through her orgasm so he shoved his face in her neck, drove deep and shot inside his Izzy, groaning against her skin.
When he came out of where Izzy took him and back into the room, he pushed his face harder into her neck and kept her leg hitched as he fucked her gentle, deliberate, memorizing every inch of her inside, over and over slipping his cock out of her silky wet until she only had the tip and then sinking it slowly back in.
He felt her breath in his hair, the ease of her soft body under his. He slid his hand from between her legs and up to cup her breast.
He heard her hand glide over the comforter and press in to cover his.
Finally, Johnny buried himself inside her and stayed there, tracing the line of her neck with his lips.
Her body
twitched and her head moved to the side like she wanted to squeeze him out.
He started to pull away but she said softly, but urgently, “Don’t. It just tickles. Your beard. But I like it.”
He retraced his line at her neck.
She shivered under him.
And it was then he knew.
This was it.
This was all he was ever going to have.
Izzy.
Her body. Her pussy. Her hair. Her neck. Her breasts. Her scent. Her taste.
Her belly would swell with the babies he’d plant there.
Her skin would wrinkle.
Her hair would gray.
He would mourn her when she was gone and there wouldn’t be another for him.
Or he would leave this earth knowing she’d do the same.
That was it.
The rest of his life.
Simple.
And unbelievably fucking beautiful.
He’d finished taking the plunge and it ended up being him doing it fucking Izzy wild in his bed.
But he thought that was fitting considering that was how it started.
He nipped her earlobe, kissed it and asked quietly there, “You wanna clean up?”
She spoke no words, just nodded.
He kissed her neck. Her shoulder. Slid out and rolled her around to gather her to him and take her mouth in a deep kiss.
When he finished it, she looked into his eyes, hers blinked lazily, and when she opened them again, they were smiling.
“Be back,” she whispered.
He nodded.
She pulled away and he watched her move around naked, searching the floor.
She found what he knew she was looking for when she bent to pick up his tee, straightened and moved toward the hall, pulling it on over her head.
She didn’t bother with panties.
Ranger followed her to the bathroom.
Johnny grinned.
They’d left Dempsey and Swirl with Addie and Brooks because Izzy wanted them there for her sister’s protection.
So now it was just Ranger.
And it was not lost on Johnny that even in his absence Ranger had always been his dog. It didn’t seem he mourned or was even confused about Shandra not in his life anymore.
He was just home.
That said, being all Johnny’s, his dog hadn’t bonded with Izzy. He liked the attention she gave him when she gave it. He was a dog. That happened.
But he’d never followed her anywhere when he’d be leaving Johnny behind.
Now he was in the bathroom with Johnny’s woman.
Still grinning, Johnny angled out of bed, found his shorts, his jeans, tugged them on and then went to Izzy’s wineglass.
He nabbed it, took it to the kitchen, got the bottle out of the fridge, yanked out the cork he’d wedged in and refilled it.
He got himself another beer, and when he moved back to the bed, he set her glass on his nightstand with his bottle.
He was just stretching back out in the bed when she and Ranger returned.
She came right to his side. Crawled over him, set her hip beside his, and collapsed onto him, curled close.
He slid a hand over her hip, hiked up his tee, and cupped her bare ass as he found the remote and hit play on the TV.
Ranger dropped his jaw to the side of the bed.
Johnny threw the remote on the nightstand, reached out his other hand and rubbed behind his dog’s ears.
In a time in the program where it didn’t seem she would miss too much action, he murmured, “You need space, baby, take it.”
She pushed farther into him, twisted her neck and kissed his chest then rested her cheek there again and murmured back, “Thank you, honey.”
“You have that, feel safe in it,” he told her. “But just to say, you need to talk shit out, even if you’re pissed at me and we got something to work through, hit me with it. I’m here. I’ll listen. If you’re talking to me, snapping at me or yelling at me. I’ll listen. And we’ll get to the other side.”
To that, she didn’t kiss him.
She turned her head and nuzzled her face against his skin like a sleepy cat or a newborn baby.
Johnny’s chest constricted and only did it more when she settled with her cheek back to his chest and whispered, “Okay, häschen.”
She remembered.
She remembered what his grandmother called him.
And she gave him that back.
He was staring at the TV and not seeing a thing, just trying to remember how to breathe.
When Ranger licked his wrist it came back to him and Johnny murmured, “Right, boy. Down.”
Without delay, Ranger slid with a dog groan down the side of the bed and disappeared.
“Want your wine?” Johnny asked Iz.
“In a sec,” she answered.
He started tracing patterns on her hip and the cheek of her ass.
She sighed and curled in closer.
This was more like it.
Johnny smiled at the TV.
Then he watched a great program cuddled in bed with his woman.
A New Member
Johnny
“YOU’RE GOING TO do what?”
Johnny wasn’t altogether there.
It was the next morning and they both needed to leave. Him, to go deal with the horses, her, to go to work.
Ten minutes ago, he had heard her heels on his floors as she walked down the hall to appear in his kitchen fully dressed for work.
He turned from scrambling some eggs for her to see Iz in a navy dress that hit her at the knee and had short sleeves.
The thing about it was, it hugged her figure close and had a stripe of sheer navy across her upper chest and another one a couple of inches above her hem taking class and making it sexy.
She was also in beige pumps with spiked heels that looked professional but still called to him to fuck her.
Even though he had that overwhelming desire, since they had to get their shows on the road, he instead launched into his plans for her sister while scraping her eggs on a plate with the toast and bacon he’d made her, handed it to her and made his own plate then stood there shoveling it in while telling her how things were going to go.
She held her plate in front of her while he did this, her eyes on him getting bigger and bigger and he vaguely noted she’d quit eating halfway through him talking. She was just standing there, holding her plate and staring at him. But he needed to get her down with this so they could talk to Addie about it, and when they did, both of his girls could have a couple weighty things off their minds.
The problem was, throughout all this, all he could see was Iz in that dress and those shoes, and in the back of his mind he was thinking about what he’d do to her in them, so he wasn’t paying close attention to her eyes getting bigger and bigger and her not eating.
“I’m paying for the attorney,” he answered her question.
“She won’t let you do that, Johnny,” she told him.
“We’ll talk to her about it, I’ll state my case and we’ll see,” he said, taking the last bite of his toast.
“No. Really. She just won’t let you do that,” she said.
“She refuses, then it’ll be a no-interest loan. We can work out a payment schedule after she’s set that’s comfortable for her. But in the meantime, she doesn’t have to worry about it.”
“She might have a problem with that too,” Izzy replied.
He picked up his last piece of bacon and said, “That’s where you come in.”
“I’ve not been really successful with talking Addie into things she doesn’t want to do. Case in point, I told her to break up with Perry about seven hundred and ten times before he asked her to marry him. And I pleaded with her nine hundred and ten times not to marry him. You can see how that went.”
“Let’s give it a shot,” he suggested.
“You have properties?”
He guessed with the sudden change of subject th
ey were going to give it a shot so he nodded, chewed the last bite of his bacon and put his plate in the sink to run water over it.
“Plural?” she asked, sounding weirdly choked.
Not having her in her sexy work getup as his visual, his mind snapped back to the present and slowly he turned to her to see her standing there with her plate of half-eaten food held up in front of her.
“Yes,” he said deliberately, wondering why she was looking at him the way she was looking at him—like he’d sprung a second head and she didn’t know whether to stand there and scream in terror or run away as fast as she could.
“How many?” she asked.
“Two,” he answered. “Well, three, counting the mill. Actually, four but it’s more like three and a half since both me and Tobe own the shack. That said, we did the split. He got the shack. I got the mill. So it’s really his. But he’s never around, so whenever I need it I go to the shack.”
“The shack?”
“A fishing shack we own out at Shanty Hollow Lake.”
“Is it a real shack?”
“In a way.”
“How can it be a shack in a way?”
“It’s been taken care of just by guys for the last forty-five years.”
“What way is it not a shack?” she asked.
“It’s thirteen hundred square feet,” he answered.
She looked down at her plate but didn’t pick up her fork.
“Izzy, something up with you?”
Her head came up and she looked him right in the eye.
“How rich are you?”
For some reason, this question seemed like it had a wrong answer, and that wrong answer was not the answer any woman he’d ever known would think was wrong.
“That answer is relative,” he said as reply.
“Well, I already know you don’t own as many places as Circle K,” she returned.
“I got money,” he told her.
She suddenly looked around. Took it all in.
And her eyes fell on his dining room table.
“Baby, you wanna tell me why this seems to be an issue for you?”
Her gaze came back to his.
“My father’s father died in a hunting accident when my father was seventeen. He inherited fifteen hardware stores. He didn’t run them. He didn’t even work at one. He was a musician. He was going to be bigger than Johnny Cash. But he did take the checks whoever ran them sent him.”
The Hookup Page 28
