“I’m pretty sure in your current state that I could just take advantage of you right now.”
“Go ahead.” He grins letting his eyes drift south and bunching the fabric of my nightshirt in his fists, like any second he might rip it off me. “If you’re up for the challenge.” He pushes me up against the side of the barn, so very different from our last encounter in here. His hands are at my hips, my back meeting worn wood that’s captured thousands of memories in this barn. He hunches over just enough and then slides his hands from my hips down my thighs and picks me up. My legs wrap around his waist, squeezing, and my hands go to his shoulders. The thin fabric of my panties leaves nothing to my imagination when I come in contact with the ridges in his belt buckle pressed against me.
He knows I feel it and gives me that country boy grin, shifting his weight forward again to give me a little more. Heat spreads throughout my body like a jolt of electricity.
Looking at him right now, he will mind if I take advantage of him. He most certainly will. There are parts of him holding back and he’s not going to let go that easily.
The moonlight filters into the barn and I feel its relief for once, in his arms.
And then he’s kissing me, giving me what I need as his mouth moves over mine, what he wants but knows he shouldn’t have. It’s tentative at first, gently parted lips and a slow, gradual build before his tongue sweeps over the seam of my lips. He tastes like peaches and whiskey, sweet and sinful all in one.
I knew looking at him that Callan would be an amazing kisser. His kiss is alive, sweet and savoring, like sweet tea on a hot day, never quite enough, but just enough to satisfy the tongue once he gives me that taste. It’s not enough because I want so much more. I never want it to end.
He continues kissing up and down my neck, sending shivers through my entire body. That kiss was nothing like I’ve ever experienced in my life. The way his mouth feels, his calloused hands, his breathing, all of it.
It’s slow and it’s meant to be as he kisses over my sun-kissed and salty skin, heating it to degrees the sun could never reach. Holding me against the side of the barn, Callan’s already in control here, more in control than I am at the moment. There’s a sense of strength only he knows, but it’s also that bottle, a motivation only it can provide. It’s the only way he’s forgetting the age difference.
“I feel bad for you,” I say when he’s staring at me, maybe deciding what happens next.
“Why?” his eyes find mine, and they seem honest, pure to the heart. He may be trouble, but this boy had a good heart and it’s evident from these looks he’s giving me.
“Because in the morning, when you’re not drunk, you’re not going to remember any of this.”
“No.” He shakes his head, his voice a soft murmur. “I’ll remember this, tonight.” He touches my cheek with calloused fingertips pursing his lips as he searches for the words he wants to say. “I can’t forget this.”
I’m not sure what that means because it’s clear, come morning, I’m untouchable again.
His mouth inches toward mine again, his eyes fluttering closed, his lips give me what I want that his body won’t. I can settle for this, for now because it’s him and I can’t get enough of this cowboy and the pleasure he’s giving me tonight.
He pulls back and looks at me, struggling to pull away. “I’m not good for a girl like you.” He doesn’t want to stop, but the look in his eyes tells me he’s saying goodbye.
“Why?” I reach out and touch the fire, his lips, with my fingertips. They part and give me his breath that scorches my skin. “Why do you fight this so much?”
It wasn’t even about him denying me anymore. It’s this feeling that I know he feels too. Why deny yourself something you want so badly?
“I’m just as troubled as you.” And the way he says it makes me sad like he believes it so much that he’s warning me. I doubt that’s true. If only he knew the things I’ve done, and seen, he wouldn’t believe that at all. My hands slip off his shoulders completely, the last little piece of me that was connected to him falls away. “I can’t bring my problems on anyone else. I just won’t do that to someone.” He says, letting go of me.
I frequently find myself staring out my window at the pastures and the sun as it rises over the wheat fields and barren land. My mind drifts to Callan and the way he watched me last night. My skin burns at the thought, the feeling of his warm body against mine.
It’s not often that I think about a boy as much as I’ve thought about Callan James lately. I can only think of one other one.
I’m in my room late Monday afternoon, when I see my dad out in the arena standing over the bull pens. I also see Callan approaching wearing chaps and a glove on his right hand. He climbs over the chute when Hammer, our mean as fuck bull enters the chute.
My eyes go wide at what I’m about to see. Callan James riding a bull.
When Callan’s in position, my dad tells him something and then he climbs over the side of the gate and gets a rope tied around him right behind his front legs. Before I know it, the gate opens and Hammer starts bucking and rearing. I’m in absolute awe. What gets me is Callan’s confidence on the bull. There’s never a question of whether he can do it. He can. And he does. My eyes are riveted to him and the motion of his body as he does what he’s damn good at, bending and twisting as he tames the beast.
The site has me grabbing at clothes to get down there and see this in person.
I’m not quite fast enough so when I get down there, he’s off the bull and dusting off his jeans with a smile.
My dad laughs and by the look on his face I can tell he’s impressed by what Callan just did. “Ain’t nobody rode ol’ Hammar.”
Callan tips his head and then removes his hat, dusting it off too. I’m learning that hat is his favorite since he’s worn it every day I’ve seen him so far.
I wait until my dad has disappeared on his tractor out to the south field when I go looking for Callan. He’s walking toward the barn when I catch up with him, hoping maybe he might be a little nicer after kissing me in the barn last night.
“You definitely know how to stay on the full eight seconds, don’t you?” There’s a sexiness to my tone that has his attention.
He turns around and walks backward a few steps watching me walk towards him, then turns back around.
His voice is harsher than before, full of a bitterness that I’m beginning to get used to. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
God, what the hell is this guy’s problem?
I follow him, just like I have the last two days wanting to figure out why he claims he’s trouble. I’m beginning to think they’re just words to get me to leave him alone. “Are you always such a jerk after a girl sucks your dick the first night you’re in town?”
Maybe that was harsh but can you blame me on this one?
He snorts picking up the pitch fork to throw hay into Shep’s stall. “What’s that say about you, farmer’s daughter?”
Jerk. Asshole. Dickhead. I really could go on here.
“Callan—” I’m just about to tell him off for being such an asshole when he beats me to it.
“You’re seventeen, Alanna. You got no business actin’ this way.” He throws down the pitch fork and begins to walk away, his shoulders tense. His body language is telling me to stay back, but I’m not a very good listener. “I saw you with Kasey the other night. Is that just your thing?”
It’s reality, but it hurts. It hurt really bad to hear him say that.
“Well, I remember last night and you kissing me. Age doesn’t mean a damn thing.” I’m ignoring his remarks about Kasey and going for the obvious, his obsession with my age.
He turns on his heel and faces me again, anger lighting his face. “It should. It fucking should matter.” He takes both my hands forcing me to look at him, his brow scrunched. “It matters.”
“Why’d you kiss me last night then?”
“What are you doing?” He
ignores my question searching my eyes for an answer he assumes I have. The pads of his thumbs brush over my heated cheeks lightly. “You’re letting these guys treat you like you’re some kind of slut. That’s not you. I see it. You don’t. You think you can’t do better, but you can!”
“Really?” I don’t think anyone has ever questioned my behavior before. Well, other than my parents. They just assume I’m this way because that’s Alanna Rodger. The girl drowning her memories by sleeping around. “Because it certainly doesn’t appear that way. The good guy I want treats me the same way, he just won’t fuck me.” It’s a pretty low blow, but I say it anyway.
His lips purse immediately. His face and the way his eyes are stone cold and bleeding with an invisible pain when we make eye contact give him away. I want to know his pain because finally I think I’m not the only one feeling it.
“You don’t know anything.” He’s so angry that his confidence and pride waver. He’s breaking a little and it’s making him uneasy and I see it. He wants to show me I don’t know what I’m talking about, but his stubbornness gets him too. It’s easy to say he’s not one that gives up easily. “You think you know, don’t you? You think you’re so fucking smart, yes?”
“Callan.” I sigh, his name on my lips is something he wants to hear because I see his face twist when I say it, the words washing over him. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t what?” His expression is suddenly livid as if that one remark sets him off. His eyes search mine, the cobalt blue depths of his meeting sea green. They collide like waves crashing against a rocky shore.
“Be this way.” My eyes dip to his chest, so tense his muscles seem tight and rigid underneath his dusty black t-shirt.
“What way? This is me.” He backs away about a step dropping his hands to his side. “You’re the one fooling yourself.”
I blink at his harshness. “You’re being an asshole.”
“Oh, Alanna.” He rolls his eyes, shaking his head at me. He’s mocking me. “It’s not a way. It’s me. I am an asshole. Took you long enough to figure it out. Most women figure it out the first night.” When I take another step back he knows I’m pissed with the words he’s saying but he doesn’t stop, he’s going for the full eight seconds, the entire ride of destroying me. “I can’t be anything you’re hoping I will be. It’d be a goddamn disaster.”
I swallow over my irritation. I really don’t know how to reply to that other than I want him to see that it has nothing to do with me wanting him. Or at least I’m telling myself that for now. I couldn’t tell you what I want from him anymore. It started out as one thing and now. . .it’s not that.
“I’m not looking for anything from you but your dick,” I say, acting the way he thinks I am. If that’s what he thinks, that’s what he’s getting.
“You had that, remember?” He laughs, brushing past me without another word.
“I do remember.” I grab onto his crotch as he walks by and he stops, he wants my hand there, I feel it.
Reaching beside him, he picks up a handful of hay and throws it at me and grabs my hand, the one stroking his dick through his Wranglers, and pulls it away. “Stop that.”
“Stop being a jerk to me then.”
He rolls his eyes, annoyance flashes in them, and then he walks away. I watch his back and then my eyes drifting lower.
He’s got the best ass. I’m jealous of every bull or girl he’s ever ridden. So jealous.
When Callan returns with a bag of feed, he notices I’m still there, leaned against the horse stables.
“Jesus!” Callan throws the bag of feed down on the floor at my feet. “What do you want from me, Alanna? Am I just another way to piss off your daddy?”
“No.” You can’t miss the sadness in my tone, but it also doesn’t stop him.
“Then what it is? You fuck this entire town and suddenly want me?”
He’s trying to hurt me. He wants me to leave him alone, but it doesn’t hurt me. Well, maybe a little but he doesn’t know the truth and I know he wants to. He does. I see it in his eyes that he wants to know why I am the way I am. I’m not sure I have an answer for him. I’m not even sure I know anymore.
When I don’t answer, he cocks an eyebrow at me. “Does your daddy know Kasey?” he asks, there’s a little more to his words than he’s leading on, as if he knows the answer to that. “Does he know about me?”
I shake my head because my dad doesn’t know shit. And he never will.
“Does he know you’re lying to him?”
I won’t give him an answer and I think it pisses him off.
“That’s what I thought.” He says, laughing with a nod and then leans down to pick up the feed bag. Tossing it over his shoulder, he waits for a second, giving me another chance to convince him otherwise. I don’t. I’m not sure what to say right then.
No one tells me what to do. Especially my dad. If he pushes, I push and now there’s a wall no one can climb between my father and I.
I also didn’t like the fact that Callan seemed to think he knows me, but yet won’t give me a chance.
His eyes are bloodshot, watching and waiting for me to say something. I see right through him. He’s the kind of guy who rolls into town, gets what he wants, maybe fights for my honor, but there is still a part of Callan that will always be that rebel kid. He nods as if to let me know my assumptions are right. He’s just as fucked and he knows it.
“What am I to you then?” I finally challenge. “If you say you don’t want anything to do with me, why are you roughing up Kasey and trying to make me walk the straight and narrow? Why go to that much trouble if you’re leaving town in a few days?”
His eyes close and he sighs. “Maybe you’re someone I can’t fucking resist. Someone that I have no right to want.” He says, walking away.
But he can and he is. I despise what he’s doing to me, making me crave his harsh words and southern drawl, specs of blue diamonds that shine so bright under a Texas night. All because of him I find myself staring at the stars every night. He’s demanding my attention in ways he doesn’t even know.
I follow him, refusing to let it go. He walks outside the barn and into the field where Shep is now, kicking around dirt and hay. After a moment, he reaches down for his tool bag he left out there last night and walks back into the barn.
“What is it about you?” he throws a saddle to his left out of the way and reaches for the feed again. He rips the bag open with his pocket knife and then pours the feed into Shep’s stall. “You’re looking for trouble, aren’t you?”
I blink, leaning against the stable crossing my boots. “Depends on how you look at it, eight seconds. Or I’m just lookin’ for a good time.”
I can tell right now he knows my words are simply just words. I want to shake him, tell him to get over himself and that I’m turning eighteen tomorrow, but I don’t.
Callan rolls his eyes muttering something I can’t hear when I call him eight seconds and more than likely don’t wanna hear.
I have work to do in the barn today so he’s just going to have to deal with me being in there too.
Wearing my usual jean shorts and flannel tied up around my waist, I get to work looking at Shep’s ankle. He’s got an abrasion on his left front leg that I cleaned a couple days ago after he got tangled in a bob wire fence. When I examine it today, the skin is turning gray which means it’s healing.
I stand up and stroke the side of his head. Shep leans into my touch. He’s the sweetest horse. I’m kinda sad that Callan’s having him taken back to Decatur. “Stay out of that fence, boy.”
When I’m finished with cleaning out the other two horse stalls, Callan’s watching me, a hammer in hand.
“Help me out here.” He says, nodding to the side of the barn he’s repairing. “I need an extra hand and you’re distracting me.” He turns facing the boards, and then back to me. “Might as well help out.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “So you don’t want me but I’m distracting y
ou and you now want my help?” I’m teasing, but it’s slightly entertaining the look that comes over his face.
“You know damn well that you’re distracting me.” And then he steps closer, his brow scrunched in determination I know well. “Don’t make me beg.”
Beg, oh God, I can only imagine what that would be like. Part of me really wants to see him on his knees before me, begging me for something instead of denying.
“Begging might be good.” I lean into the stable doors only to have Shep stick his nose in my ear. I giggle taking a step away from him. The sound makes Callan smile.
He stands beside me now, crossing his arms over his chest with the faintest of a grin tugging at his beautiful lips I desperately want on mine again. “Please help me out before I tell your daddy what we did in my truck the night I met you.” To get his point across, he winks and tips his head south.
I burst out laughing, my arms clutching my stomach. “Yeah, I’d actually pay to see you do that.”
He takes a teasing step toward the door and then stops, reaching for the extra bag of nails. “You’re right. I wouldn’t do that.”
I sigh, following behind him. “I’ll help.”
He looks back at me over his shoulder. “Keep your shirt on this time.”
I roll my eyes. “Am I too hard for you to handle, eight seconds.”
He stops and I nearly run into his back when he does this, whirling to face me, his chest pressing into mine. “Stop teasing me.”
“Stop teasing you?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Yes. . .you know I can’t act on it and you’re making it really hard for me.”
I take a seat on the crate near him, holding the bag of nails. “You could act on it, remember? But you won’t.”
“You’re right. . .now help me out. Hold that board up so I can get it up there.” He motions to the stack of boards.
It’s clear he doesn’t really need my help and that makes me smile too. He wants me in here with him.
I do as he says because I want nothing more than to be around him right now.
Remember Tonight Page 5
