by Anne Calhoun
Chapter Seven
“Not already,” Jess muttered when the alarm went off at five thirty Sunday morning. She rolled over, the thin cotton sheet tangled in her bare legs, and buried her head under her pillow. Tangled white-blond hair barely showed against the white pillowcase.
Flat on her back in the opposite bottom bunk, Rachel murmured in agreement. They’d spent Saturday evening in the Strand, a shopping and nightlife district of Victorian-era buildings in Galveston, at a Carrie Newcomer concert in a coffee shop/bookstore called Artistary. Glowing with the sheer emotion of the music and laughter she’d shared with Jess and the A&M boys, she’d taken a flyer listing future open-mike nights and concerts. Between dinner, the concert, the discussion, and coffee and dessert afterward, none of the Silent Circle Farm apprentices had gotten home until after midnight.
The late night ensured she’d be tired enough to nap part of Sunday away.
Getting up at dawn every day of the week was the only life Rachel had ever known, but Jess grew up in a wealthy suburb of Austin and wasn’t accustomed to the daily routine of chores that never ended. Leaving Jess to untangle her sheets, Rachel pulled on yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt, made a quick stop in the bathroom, then headed down the dirt path through the wildflowers to the goat shed. The simple tune for “I Believe” played in her mind as she walked. Katrina, Irene, and the rest of the does were waiting for her in a cluster of warm bodies by the gate. She gently used the gate to create enough space for her to slip into the pen, then greeted each doe according to her rank in the hierarchy. She fed them, changed their bedding, swept up the floor, then milked the does who gave birth in the fall and had weaned their kids. By the time she finished the sun skimmed the tops of the cottonwoods, and she could see Jess outside the chicken enclosure. They met at the end of the path leading back to the bunkhouse. The boys from A&M joined them where the path took a sharp left to the main barn.
“Waffles? Pancakes?” Toby asked as he transferred dirt from his palms to his jeans.
“Pancakes,” Jess said decisively. “Buckwheat pancakes.”
“With blueberries,” Brian added.
“And eggs,” Toby said, and held the bunkhouse door open for the women. “And cottage cheese and fresh peaches.”
Smiling, Rachel picked up her phone and purse from the farmhouse table, where she’d untidily left them the night before. Intending to put them away in her room, she stopped when she saw a text from Ben.
11 a.m. my place if you want something to do on Sunday morning.
She brushed her thumb over the screen to keep it from going dark. Three twenty a.m. He was up late.
“Sounds great,” Rachel answered absently.
Inside the bunkhouse she opened all the windows and switched on the ceiling fans to circulate the cooler morning air. The bunkhouse was a simple plan, with four bedrooms separated into twos for men and women. A single room served as the common area, with the kitchen along the back wall, and a big farmhouse dining table separating the kitchen from the mismatched sofa and chairs and bookshelves comprising the living room. She hurried into the bathroom to wash the smell of goats from her hair and skin, then changed into a cotton skirt and white eyelet blouse. Her hair would take twenty minutes to dry with the hair dryer, or hours without, so she towel dried it as much as she could, then parted it on the side and loosely braided it. When she emerged Jess was cracking eggs into an ancient Pyrex bowl while Toby poured pancake batter onto a cast-iron griddle.
“Where are you off to?” Jess asked as she added a hefty dollop of milk to the bowl and began to whisk the eggs.
“Just doing some visiting later this afternoon.”
A clomp of boots against the porch floorboards drew her attention. She opened the door to find Rob drying his hands on the towels hanging over the sink at the far end of the porch, George waiting beside him, already panting in the day’s heat. “Just the woman I wanted to see,” Rob said with a smile. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she said. “Everything looked fine this morning.”
“Thanks,” Rob said. He leaned against the porch railing. “Are you interested in staying past the kidding season? The Truck Garden’s taking more of my time than I thought it would. I didn’t anticipate raising enough money this year to get the outreach program off the ground, and I’m short an apprentice.”
What she should do and what she wanted to do were two different things. “I can do that,” Rachel said reluctantly, “but I can’t commit past the summer.”
“Sent in the vet tech school application?”
“No,” she said, not willing to lie about it. But she knew how things like this went. She’d promise to stay one more season, or through one more winter, and the next thing she knew she’d be three years older but no more herself than she was when she left Elysian Fields. She wouldn’t give Rob reason to depend on her. “Not yet. But I will.”
“That’s fair,” he said. “If you take summer classes we can work around that. I’ll make the time when kidding starts, too.”
“Good,” Rachel said firmly.
The screen door swung open and Jess peered around the weather-beaten frame. “You coming in for breakfast?” she asked.
“Smelled Toby’s pancakes all the way up at the barn,” he said easily, “so I hope I get an invitation.”
Jess opened the door even wider. “Come on in,” she said.
Rob held the door open for Rachel. They settled down to stacks of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and platters of the farm’s sausage, cottage cheese, and honey spread on thick slices of the bread Rachel had made earlier in the week. She left most of the conversation to Jess, who had much to say about raising food humanely and seasonally. When Rachel rose to stack plates, Rob got up as well and ran water and dish soap into the sink. “I’ll help you with those.”
The A&M boys disappeared as if they’d been vaporized. Rachel tied an apron over her blouse and skirt and washed all the dishes. Rob dried and put away. Jess hung around, wiping down the table, straightening the living area as she burbled on about their evening at the Artistary.
“What did you think of the concert last night?” Rob asked in a quiet moment. The look in his eyes reminded her of the look on his face at the auction. Had he been looking at Jess, or her?
“She has such a beautiful voice,” Rachel said.
“You should have come with us,” Jess added.
“I heard her in concert last year,” Rob said and accepted a platter to dry. “She’s the perfect blend of message and medium. You look pretty nice for a lazy Sunday lying around this place. Where are you off to today?”
She refused to blush. “I’m going into Galveston to visit . . . someone. Do you need me to pick up anything while I’m there?”
He shook his head and gave her a warm smile. “Drive safely.”
More than willing to make way for Jess, Rachel decided to leave early. She settled into the Focus and rolled the windows down to clear out a week’s worth of stale air as she headed down the dirt road for the highway leading southeast, crossing the causeway to the island an hour early. She spent the time at Artistary, drinking tea and reading a book she’d picked up the night before, then drove to Ben’s apartment.
The clock in her dashboard read 10:55 when Rachel pulled into Ben’s parking lot and braked to a halt in a spot marked Visitors. She cut the engine and got out of the car to look around. Three three-story apartment buildings all faced a parking lot, and the doors opened to common stairwells. Some balconies had plants, deck furniture, and wind chimes or cute little flags on them. The one she identified as Ben’s held a single plastic chair, and the blinds were drawn across the sliding glass door to block sunlight and prying eyes. There was no personality visible from the parking lot, no hint of life inside. Maybe he was still asleep.
She checked her watch—10:57—then c
hecked her gut. The indifferent text didn’t seem to require a response. Show up or don’t show up. No roses or sweet talking. Just sex. Take it or leave it. Her heart thudded in her chest, an unfamiliar anticipation shimmering in her pulse points, an unfamiliar heaviness in her breasts and between her legs.
She wanted. She now knew what it meant to want, what it meant to choose to satisfy that want. She would walk up to Ben’s door, walk inside his apartment, lie down with him.
Spring sunshine and heat cascaded down to pool on the asphalt as she smoothed the pleats of her skirt across her abdomen, then closed the car door and clicked the locks. She checked her watch again—10:59—then crossed the lot, climbed the concrete stairs to Ben’s door, and knocked. Long moments passed, then she knocked more sharply.
Finally the door opened to reveal Ben, wearing a pair of black cotton shorts riding low on his hips and a hooded, sleepy gaze, and nothing else. He blinked at her like he had no idea who she was or why she was there.
“Hi,” she said, struggling not to stare at the broad expanse of his chest and abdomen. “You texted me. Remember?”
Another slow blink, then without a word he stepped to the side and let her into the apartment. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights that night after dinner, so she’d seen only moonlight draped over shapes. Now sunlight filtered through the blinds, illuminating the space. The door opened into an eating area with a dinette set, mail stacked at one end, his utility belt slung over the chair nearest the hall closet. His gun sat beside the belt, and a key ring laden with keys lay beside it. Through the large pass-through window Rachel could see a kitchen. To her left was the living room, occupied by a brown leather sofa, glass coffee and end tables, and an enormous flat-screen television on a stand. The space was tidy and clean but lacked feminine touches like area rugs or artwork on the walls.
Beside her Ben rubbed his palm over his face and jaw. The sound of hard skin rasping against stubble sent heat trickling along her nerves. She remembered how that stubble felt against her lips, her breasts, a visible sign of his male to her female, harsh and rough to her softness.
“Why did you text me? I didn’t think I’d hear from you again after you dropped me off.”
“Why are you here?” he replied.
She tilted her head and let her purse drop to the floor at her feet. “You know,” she said simply.
“I don’t think I know anything about you.”
“You know how inexperienced I am.”
“That’s why you’re here?”
“I want more experience,” she admitted.
His smile flashed, startling her. “Give me a couple of minutes.”
He walked back down the short hallway leading to the bedroom on the left and the bathroom on the right. Rachel waited until the bathroom door closed, then stepped hesitantly off the square of linoleum doing duty as the foyer, into the living and dining area, then far enough down the hall to see into the galley-style kitchen. A white stove and fridge lined the wall, with a stainless steel sink and counter space under the pass-through to the eating area. The space lacked more than a woman’s touch. It lacked personality. He lived here, ate occasionally based on the cardboard frozen meal containers neatly folded against the side of the recycling bin, slept based on the unmade bed visible through the bedroom door, stowed his stuff based on the dinette table dumping ground.
The water running in the bathroom ceased, and the absence of sound startled Rachel. She turned away from the kitchen and crossed into the bedroom to sit on the edge of the king-sized bed that dominated the room. No point in pretending she’d come here for anything else, like coffee or breakfast or conversation.
Ben opened the bathroom door, saw Rachel sitting on his bed, and paused for a second. Then he turned away from her. She heard the fridge door open, the sound of a bottle top twisting off, then he reappeared holding a bottle of water. One shoulder holding up the doorframe, he drank half, then looked at her as he wiped his mouth with a knuckle. He couldn’t possibly look less interested in her, or for that matter in sin, but as he watched her, his eyes changed. Heated. Without a word the air picked up a charge. That skittering, sparking electricity made her grip the edge of his mattress.
He crossed to stand in front of her and set the bottle of water on the nightstand. A tuft of dark brown hair peeked from the elastic waist of the shorts, and the scent of sleep-warm skin drifted into her nostrils as she looked up his long torso to his face. To her surprise he went down on his knees in front of her. He said nothing, the sound of her shallow inhales running in counterpoint to his even breathing as his hands gripped her ankles and rose slowly up the backs of her calves, along the sides of her thighs. His thumbs met, brushing one after the other over her mound, awakening nerves before his fingers slid into the elastic at the top of her white cotton panties and tugged. She lifted her hips and he slid them down and off. Then he wrapped his arm around her hips and lifted her backward as he planted his other hand and shifted them back to the center of the big bed. As they shifted her hair, loosely braided halfway down her back, caught and she winced.
Without a word he settled easily on top of her, one hair-roughened leg between hers, her skirt rucked up to midthigh, his hard, bare torso pressed against hers. Braced on one elbow he reached under her back, found the end of her braid, and tugged the elastic free, then began loosening the plait.
Intimacy encompassed so much more than just sex, she thought. On her back, in his bed, she watched his face as his rough fingers worked away in her hair. Memory bled into the present as images of him using the ends of her hair to tease her breasts flashed in her mind. Without thinking about it she lifted her hand and rested it on his hip, gently rubbing her thumb on the ridge of bone exposed by his shorts. When he finished loosening her hair he cupped the side of her face. His thumb brushed across her lips, and it took her a minute to realize he was moving his thumb in the same slow rhythm she was. Curious, she dipped her thumb into the elastic waist of his shorts. In response he pressed gently on her lower lip, opening her mouth slightly. Then he bent his head and kissed her.
The taste of toothpaste, fresh and minty, quickly dissipated as the kiss grew heated. His hand roamed from her thigh, over her skirt to her waist, then up to cup her breast, back down again to tease her mound, then down to her thigh. Anticipation built, heat simmering in her lips, her nipples, in her sex, pressed firmly against Ben’s hard thigh.
Still, the light, teasing brush of his fingertips as they trailed up her thigh, taking her skirt with them, made her tremble. But he continued the motion, up over her tummy, catching the hem of her blouse and working under it to cup her breast. He gripped it firmly and pinched her nipple. Sensation made her gasp and tear her mouth from his even as she lifted into his hand.
“Tell me again why you’re here.”
“I want to be with you,” she said.
“What does that mean?” he said, his voice slightly amused, slightly mocking, then answered his own question. “You want to have sex.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Say it.”
“Why? You know what I mean.”
“Because be with you is kind of lame. Generic. Like watching a sunset on a date,” he said, still amused, still mocking. “Guys are dense. The next one might need specific instructions.”
She waited, her heart pounding hard against the palm cupping her breast. “I like watching sunsets, and I want to have sex with you.”
A rough chuckle tumbled into her ear. “This won’t be like watching a sunset. Be more specific,” he said. “What do you want me to do to you?”
The world contracted, encompassing only their bodies, the mattress at her back, the sunlight filtering through the blinds. His bedroom was like a wolf’s den, hidden away from prying eyes, safe and dangerous at once.
This wasn’t about what she wanted him to do to h
er. It was about what she wanted to do to him, to feel with him, starting with his torso against hers, so she sat up. Together they got her blouse and bra off, and this time when they lay back down she wrapped her arm around his bare back, flattening her palm at the small of his back and pulling him closer. Her fingers explored the hard bumps of his spine, the muscles flexing and ridged along either side while he kissed her. Mouth, jaw, cheek, ear, throat, collarbone, each impact light, teasing, the scrape of his stubble striking sparks over each hot spot raised by his mouth. Her nipples hardened in anticipation when his mouth reached the top of her breast, but he ignored them, instead gently scraping then licking, rough then hot and smooth, then chilly as he worked his way into the valley between her breasts, teasing the undersides.
Then he flicked his tongue against one stiff nipple. She shuddered, felt as much as heard that low, dark laugh before he did it again. Tongue, teeth, then another slow tour of her breasts while she floated in desire, her nipples tight and sensitized in the cool, dim room.
“What do you want me to do?” When she hesitated, he dropped hot, openmouthed kisses down her breastbone to her belly, then flicked her a hot glance. “Say it.”
“Kiss my breasts,” she whispered.
He gave a low, rough growl-laugh, then ran his tongue up the underside of her breast to her nipple. “Like that?” he asked, licking the hard tip.
“Harder,” she said.
He rewarded her daring with the pressure of teeth holding her nipple for the slow stroke of his tongue. Heat and light sang in her veins, spreading with her heartbeat, pooling between her legs. She undulated against his hard thigh, the rhythm slow, subtle—unlike her hands tightly gripping his shoulders as the air simmered around them. He brushed his cheek against the full sides, then slid up her body to hold her jaw for an explicit kiss. His mouth was wet, hot, lips swollen. She responded with abandon, her breath shuddering as she inhaled the scent of skin and sweat and arousal.
