THE CORBIN BROTHERS: The Complete 5-Books Series

by Lexie Ray

  Time was a funny thing. I knew that, logically, we couldn’t have been kissing for more than a couple of minutes — perhaps even less than that. But time warped and doubled and grew fat and resplendent for us, and it felt like we had been doing this for hours. Days, even.

  The sharp tips of Zoe’s fingers dug into my shoulders in a way that should’ve hurt, but it only made me want her more. There was something about doing each other’s breathing, our chests heaving up and down, each and every moment so essential to both pleasure and existence that stopping anytime soon was the most ludicrous idea I could’ve come up with. Zoe raked her nails down my front, stopping at my belt, hovering with a seeming indecision. She had to be well aware of my erection by this point, and maybe she was too afraid to touch it. Maybe, by touching it, she thought that there was no backing out anymore. That it would make this tryst something more permanent. Inescapable.

  I smoothed my hands down her back, trying to soothe whatever feelings were racing through her mind, trying to keep both of us present in this sweet moment. It didn’t matter that we were making a mess in the kitchen instead of doing this somewhere a little more romantic — like a beach or beneath a mosquito net or by a secluded waterfall. This was reality, not fantasy. I had, of course, fantasized often about something more with Zoe, but reality was so much better than the laughable situations I’d concocted in my own brain. This was real. This was visceral. We both felt this, were swept up in this so irresistibly that we’d laid aside everything we’d been doing, even if it had seemed essential at the moment, to be together.

  Zoe let out something between a tiny moan and a sigh and wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me closer, squeezing me with deceptively strong muscles. She was so tough for being so small — or maybe that was why she was tough in the first place. Because life hadn’t treated her the way it was supposed to. Because she’d been forced to be strong in the face of everything that had happened to her.

  Zoe pressed her body against mine and I took the opportunity to hug her closer to me. She was so special, whether she realized it or not. There were so many facets to her and I knew that I hadn’t seen all of them. I would have a wonderful time discovering the entirety of her gem.

  I kissed the shell of her ear, making her shudder, and was just about to gently suggest that we move this party to the bedroom when we both stiffened.

  “Mama! I’m home!”

  Well, shit.

  We shoved ourselves away from each other — Zoe hopping down from the counter and adjusting her shirt — as the front door opened and slammed. I scrambled around for a moment before sitting hard in a chair at the table and draping a section of the newspaper over my lap to hide the bulge in my jeans.

  Toby scampered into the kitchen in a matter of seconds, hugging his mother around her waist. He was growing every day — especially since living on the ranch and getting more than enough food and room to develop — and a few of my brothers had a friendly running bet as to how old he’d be when he became taller than Zoe.

  “Hey, there,” Zoe said a little hoarsely, reaching down to ruffle his dark hair fondly. “How was your day at school?”

  “I like riding the bus,” he declared, looking up at her.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” she said, laughing, “but that wasn’t what I asked you. I want to know what you learned today. The best thing that happened. Who you played with during recess. That kind of thing.”

  She had only just started letting him ride the bus, folding to that small demand for independence. Things had been locked down pretty tightly ever since Amelia had been kidnapped right from this very house, but life had a way of returning to normalcy, if you just waited long enough. All of Toby’s friends had been riding the bus, and he felt left out in that arena. Zoe had grappled with it, watching her only child hop on and off a bus twice daily, away from her watchful eye, but that was just part of parenting — letting go.

  Wasn’t it? I wouldn’t have known.

  Toby started jabbering a mile a minute — he had a unique penchant for that — and I took the opportunity of his distraction to slip out of the kitchen, still holding the newspaper as a protective screen over my crotch. Zoe didn’t so much as glance at me as I went, focusing her complete and utter attention on her son. Maybe it was intentional. Maybe she couldn’t get herself to look at me after what had just happened — what had almost happened. There would’ve been a lot of explaining to do if that bus had been a little bit earlier or later, or if Toby hadn’t screeched his existence upon opening the door. Who knew what would’ve happened if he’d been distracted by something in the yard, or if he’d gone down to the barn instead of coming straight inside, like he was supposed to.

  Anything could’ve happened.

  Everything could’ve happened.

  I wasn’t in the business of resenting a first-grader for breaking up a potential tryst between his mother and me, but I also wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of a cold shower in the middle of the day. It was the only remedy that I knew besides time to get rid of passion that wasn’t going to be fulfilled any time soon, though, so I endured the frigid spray over my body, willing my erection to stop getting our hopes up.

  Zoe and I had been so close to acknowledging the feelings we had for each other that I had tasted it — could still taste it, in fact, the way her tongue had felt in my mouth, her lips against mine.

  I cursed quietly and adjusted the knobs on the shower wall until the temperature of the water was a little more tolerable.

  This erection was just very stubborn. I couldn’t stop thinking about Zoe, about the way she’d tasted, the sensation of her nails digging into my skin, even through my shirt. The squeeze of her thighs around my waist. The anticipation of more.

  Feeling like a helpless dirtbag, I wrapped my hand around my cock and closed my eyes, lifting my face to the shower head’s spray, wondering what it would feel like to have Zoe’s hand clenched around my member instead of my own. What she looked like without the burden of clothes. What she felt like beneath me, my body covering hers, both of us fitting together like I knew we could. Or what she felt like riding me — maybe that would be how she preferred it, being in control, dictating the rhythm and the pace and the rising tide of climax that would sweep us both away if we just gave it a chance to do so.

  I gave a soft grunt and used my hand against the tiles of the shower wall to steady myself as I came, focusing on the apex of my orgasm, still stroking myself even as my seed mingled with the water and washed down the drain, fighting to extend the mindless pleasure and delay the onslaught of self-loathing.

  Because of course this wasn’t the first time I’d done this, pleasured myself to the thought of being with Zoe.

  I wished I were a better man, a stronger one, that I could ignore what I felt for a woman I wasn’t entirely certain felt anything for me at all. I wished for some kind of saint-level adherence to celibacy, that the sight or smell or thought of Zoe would only make me smile, beatifically, instead of getting a hard-on that refused to go away.

  I stayed under the shower spray for longer than I could justify before turning it off, feeling more tired than sated, knowing that there was a ranch and everything for me to face out there. I had way too much work to do to justify a daytime pleasure session in the shower.

  And there was the fact that Zoe and I now had something really pressing to talk about.

  I got dressed in fresh clothes, unwilling to face questions about putting on what I’d been wearing earlier if anyone had taken note of my outfit or my out of place bathing ritual, and girded myself for re-entry into real life.

  Real life. Where your impromptu make-out session with the woman you’ve had your eye on ever since she arrived is interrupted by her kid.

  It was high time for the fantasy to be over.

  I walked out cautiously, certain that Zoe would still be in the kitchen, cleaning up our mess or preparing for dinner or something, wanting to talk about what had happened, what we we
re going to do to move forward or apart or whatever. This was something that couldn’t just continue on unchecked, ignored. We lived here, in this house, on this ranch, together. Communication was key to getting along, and Zoe and I were no exceptions to that rule. I was afraid of rejection — wasn’t everyone? I was afraid that she would tell me that everything was a big mistake, one that neither of us should look forward to repeating. I wasn’t sure if I would try to talk her out of it yet or not. I had to balance what I wanted with what she was comfortable with, and as simple and gentlemanly as that sounded, it was actually pretty fucking hard.

  But Zoe wasn’t in the kitchen. It looked like she’d swiftly tidied up while I’d been in the shower, putting away everything she’d had out, everything we’d destroyed in our few sweet moments, and fled. The entire house was quiet, as if I were the only one who was still inside. That was fairly typical for the mid-afternoon. Everyone who usually was in here was out working the ranch. Zoe would usually try to spend a little time with Toby after school ended.

  I raked a hand through my hair and decided to go outside — if not to work, then to at least get some fresh air and escape from this house — and promptly almost ran right into Amelia.

  “Jesus, you scared me,” I said, exhaling noisily.

  “You must’ve been deep in thought, then,” she remarked, giving me a dubious look. “I’ve been making all kinds of noise in here. It’s deep cleaning day.”

  She brandished a bucket and sponge at me, and I put my hands up.

  “Okay, so I might’ve been deep in thought,” I said.

  “Ranch stuff, or something different?” she asked. Amelia was in the house nearly as often as Zoe was, both of them often working in tandem to prepare meals or clean the house. Amelia didn’t have to do any of that, if she really didn’t want to. She was Tucker’s wife, now, after all, and he doted upon her as much as she would let him. A terrible thought suddenly crossed my mind.

  “Were you in here all day, or did you just come in?” I asked, struggling to word my question so as not to arouse suspicion. It would be super awkward if Amelia had been in here while Zoe and I had been knocking things off the counter, kissing, pawing at each other.

  “Well, earlier I was discussing chicken coop plans with Tucker, and helping him where I could with that,” she said. “But since then I’ve been scouring floors and baseboards and walls and doors — man, you should’ve seen the dirt that came off the doorknobs. Have you ever even washed them in the entire time you’ve lived in this house?”

  “I can’t say that I have,” I said slowly, hoping that this spate of deep cleaning had distracted Amelia from what Zoe and I had been doing in the kitchen. I didn’t know what would’ve been worse — Toby catching us going at it or Amelia. Amelia wasn’t bad. It just would’ve been a scene that I was desperate to avoid. Why let everyone else know about Zoe and me before there even was a Zoe and me?

  “Well, I’ll leave you to whatever you were doing,” Amelia said brightly, moving on. “You should be excited for dinner. Zoe and I have big plans — everyone’s coming over.”

  “Sounds great,” I said, hoping I at least sounded genuine. “See you later, then.”

  Family dinners at our ages — it would’ve made my parents proud. They were always firm about all of us Corbins looking after one another, from me, the oldest, right on down to Hunter, the youngest. They tried to reinforce the fact that there was no stronger bond than brothers, that we would always be there for one another. We’d banded tightly together after the car wreck that had killed our parents, and then several of us had drifted away. Now, though, we were all back together on the ranch, where our parents had convinced us we belonged, and our family was growing all the time. After Hadley had come on the scene to help Hunter recover from wounds he’d sustained while serving in the Marines, Zoe and Toby had been our next additions. Then it was Paisley from the Summers Ranch, which had abutted our property for as long as I had been alive, marrying Avery in an attempt to save both of the ranches by combining them. Next had come Peyton, burned by her father’s cruelty but borne aloft by the love for horses she shared with Emmett. Amelia was our latest addition, driven to the ranch to seek Tucker’s help with an old danger that threatened them both. Neither of them — or any of us — had expected them to fall in love in the process, but there it was.

  All of my brothers had paired off with someone except for me. I didn’t know if someone else would unexpectedly fall into our lives — like the rest of the women who lived here now had — or if the woman I was meant to be with was already here, right in front of me, living just upstairs.

  Zoe and I hadn’t given it much of a try. We hadn’t really had a chance to.

  I wasn’t jealous of the happiness my brothers had found — on the contrary. I was joyful that they had found, sometimes inexplicably, women that complemented them so perfectly. I just wondered sometimes if that opportunity would ever arrive for me. I was a co-CEO of this operation, and it could be awfully lonely at the top, controlling everything, dictating tasks and responsibilities, going to sleep at night alone, without knowing what the next day would bring. There had been some really difficult challenges here on the ranch. It was the nature of the business. But it was hard all the same — even tempered with the modest successes sprinkled here and there.

  I stepped out into the waning afternoon and walked down to the barn. Half of me wanted to run into Zoe, and the other half hoped I wouldn’t see her for the rest of the day. The only comforting thing was the realization that I’d get what I wanted, one way or another. I’d either see her or I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t know what to say to her — if there even was anything I could say to her at this point.

  It was a beautiful fall day, and probably one of the last really warm ones we’d have until next spring. I could focus on that, at least — the fragile warmth, the contrast of the blue sky against the turning trees, the fact that we were going to be okay this winter in spite of the challenges we’d been forced to take on this year. Droughts, cattle thefts, an ever-expanding list of everything my brothers wanted to add to the family business. Oh, yeah, and a serial killer. We couldn’t forget that challenge we were forced to overcome.

  I made it to the barn without seeing Zoe, and only half of me exulted. A few ranch hands drank water in the shade the structure afforded them, standing almost at attention as they saw me enter. I waved at them to try and get them to relax, but that was impossible. They drifted away from me, the “boss man,” looking for somewhere else to rest in peace. I hated that — being the boss. Nobody else had volunteered to fill the position, but as the oldest Corbin, it had sort of fallen in my lap. I couldn’t escape being a leader to the rest of my brothers. I knew more about running this place than they did. What was more, I was willing to do the boring shit to keep this place going, the things that they didn’t think about. I took care of paperwork and vendors and the like while they got to move the herd and ride horses and be out in the sun all day. I was the palest of them by far since I had to spend so much time indoors, poring over files and records. Avery used to complain bitterly about filling in the cattle logs, spreadsheets that helped us track each animal’s progress — from weight to vaccinations to every single hiccup that happened over their lives. I could’ve been a real asshole about it. The cattle log might be tedious, sure, but it ensured that he was able to be outside with the herd every day — albeit marking down a few measurements and notes. I was the one who had to analyze the data he’d gathered.

  Now, though, Avery was more focused on his dude ranch. Everything was ready to go, but we were still holding back. I wouldn’t be comfortable until the people responsible for the cattle thefts that had plagued the area were behind bars, but Tucker figured it would be hard to pinpoint just who was behind it. Anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted the liability for bringing people to stay on the ranch with the off chance that there could be a gun battle some night over the cattle, which had already happened more than once. We’d set up
a security camera perimeter after Amelia had been kidnapped, which had seemed to deter anything else from happening, but I didn’t want to risk it. Avery had instead started a tour program that welcomed some of the people who had been interested in the dude ranch program onto the ranch for a day. They got to ride horses and witness the operation first hand. It wasn’t as lucrative as hosting people overnight would’ve been, but Avery was content that he at least got to educate some people about life on the ranch, even if it was just for a handful of hours during the day. His time would come, and I appreciated his patience at me not wanting to push our luck.

  I brushed some stray bits of hay from a simple plywood table and looked up into the hay loft of the barn. Were there windows open up there that was blowing the hay down here, or was it natural for it to drift down to accumulate at ground level? I climbed the ladder that led up there easily enough, but everything seemed in order. We stored what hay and grain we could inside the barn and a packing container we’d gotten for overflow storage for the coming winter, when we’d have to do the bulk of feeding the herd instead of the grass, which would die at first hard frost. It had been tough over the summer, with the drought, when we’d had to buy hay and grain — and water, for a short but grueling period — to sustain the animals. That kind of spending was usually only budgeted for the winter, but after that shit show, I was in the process of keeping a “dry day fund” available for those kinds of emergencies. Ranching was, more than anything, a learning process. If you failed to learn your lesson from one fuck-up, you could be sure to fuck up the same situation in the future. Weather was fickle. There would be droughts — there was no doubt about that. Now I knew what I needed to do to weather them. There needed to be money on hand, and I was scrimping where I could to ensure that.

  Roughly half of our heifers were due to calve in a matter of weeks, and after that, Paisley — the other CEO of the Corbin-Summers Ranch — would cull the herd, selling what we didn’t require to sustain our numbers to whoever would buy them. That cash would help us through the winter. It would also help my emergency fund. We would keep pulling through because we had to. We didn’t have a choice to fail. We simply couldn’t. This ranch was too important to our family — and our extended family, now — to let it slip into failure.