“Eat,” he orders.
My stomach rumbles and I reach for a slice of the heavenly-smelling pizza and that’s what we do. He leans against the counter, holding a slice in his hands while I sit at the table and we both eat off the round pizza platter. No plates, no napkins, just us and the pizza. He pops the tops off another set of beers and I gladly imbibe. It is cool and refreshing as I chase my pizza down with it. That is when he speaks the words, I have been dying to hear. Hoping he would say them. Hoping he would say them tonight.
“Stay with me tonight,” his voice is low, demanding.
I don’t answer because one, it sounds more like a command than a question. And two, I am finally hearing what I’ve been waiting for and I think maybe he isn’t for real. Maybe I am hearing what I’ve been longing to hear for the past two and a half months. He knows exactly what I want. I’ve made no secret about that. I didn’t think I had to answer to the obvious.
I watch his throat bob up and down as he finishes his beer, eyeing me from beneath his heavy eyelids. The blue is dark, lusty. His gaze pins me like he’s undressing me with his eyes and I know that there is no mistaking what he wants.
I imagine his cock already erect in his jeans as he stands there. Watching. Calculating. Waiting. He slowly sets his beer down, his eyes never leaving mine.
He saunters toward me, his eyes sparkling underneath the kitchen lights. My stomach clenches in anticipation, my heart already beating so loud he must be able to hear it and I eagerly wait for him to touch me, to lead me to his room.
He opens his palm.
I place my hand into his and he pulls me to my feet.
He smells manly and spicy and I lean into his neck unable to help myself. My lips brush along his collar bone and I swear, his skin burns my mouth.
We don’t embrace. Our arms sway against our sides as we stand there. Toe to toe. My chest presses into his and my nipples tighten into little points. I want his mouth there. I want him to undress me. Undo the small buckle at the front of my bra that would allow my breasts to be free. Free them into his large, waiting hands. When he doesn't move, I kiss his neck again, his jaw, loving how the stubble from his cheek brushes along my cheek. Rough and slow.
“Come on.”
I follow him to his bedroom. Unable to hide my curiosity of the rest of his home. He lives here! I am getting to see an up-close version of Ryan that most women were never invited to see. His recliner that he must lay in while he watches tv each night. The blue and white mug that sat next to it. That little mug not knowing how lucky it was to have his lips caress it over and over.
I know I’m being ridiculous but I can’t help myself. I want to know more of this mysterious Ryan. I need to know more. He isn’t just a conquest to me. He lights me up from within. I feel lighter when I am near him. Happier. I didn’t feel so blacklisted when I was with him. I didn’t feel like I had to tread lightly.
When we enter his room, I go into stalker-mode even more so. This is his haven. His safe place and I can’t believe he trusts me enough to allow me to enter. It is mostly clutter-free. His bed neatly made and the whole place smells like him. Oh God. He turns to me, grabbing my hips with his large hands, digging his fingers into my sides, he presses his erection into me and kisses me with such a fierce passion that I’m gulping for air when his phone rings. Groaning, he reluctantly releases me, “Shit, it’s Brianna. I have to answer.”
“Please.”
“Brianna?”
His voice is anxious and I feel bad at the thought of what he must be thinking.
“No. I can come get you. It’s not a problem. I’ll be right there.”
“Is she okay?” I ask as he pulls the phone from his ear.
“She’s fine. She’s not feeling well and wants me to come and pick her up. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. We got a lot done tonight. Over the weekend, I can go through the list and work on the rest of the names. I should have it done come Monday and then, I’m hoping our real work will begin.”
“Me too.” He leans in and kisses me. A firm hard kiss. I begin to pull away and he leans in once more and this time his tongue pushes into my mouth. It is promising, enthralling and I desperately want to push him onto his bed and have my way with him.
But I pull away.
“See you some other time?”
“I’ll follow behind you until we get on to Main Street.”
I finally manage to pull out of his driveway without succumbing to his kisses and obvious arousal. His lights shine behind me in my rear-view mirror and I cannot be happier with myself. As disappointing as it was that we hadn’t made it any farther than the foot of his bed, I am still worried about his sister. It didn’t outweigh my concern over Brianna catching ill. Tonight, we’d come a long way. Further than I thought we might. I felt like our relationship was on the precipice. That a single move would propel us in the right direction or wrong one. I just had to figure out the right one.
Chapter Sixteen
Ryan
I’d tried to avoid Brianna as much as was humanly possible given the fact that I was her guardian. She’d been puking all weekend. Sick as I’d ever seen her. Enough that when she’d stayed home from school this morning, I’d considered taking her to the hospital.
“I think I’m better.”
She came barreling out of the house late in the afternoon and the green that had taken residence in her face was no longer there. She wore her silly bunny pajamas and her hair looked like she combed it, no longer sticking up in all different directions. She must be better if she’d had the energy to do that, as well as to step foot outside.
“Glad to hear it. Thought I was going to have to take you to the emergency room.”
“I haven’t thrown up in, like, four hours. Plus, I ate some fruit. I think its passed.”
“Thank God for that. But I still think you need to take it easy.”
“I will. Have you gone out with Miranda again?”
My hands still on the baler I’ve been working on. Fucking thing had to have the teeth replaced again. I’d become such a master at this, doing it shouldn’t have taken me as long as it was. But today it was a bitch.
“No. We’re friends, okay? Besides it’s none of your business, Bri.”
“It is too, Ryan. You’re my big brother. I want you to be happy.”
“I don’t think Miranda would want that kind of relationship anyway. She is pretty independent.”
“Ha! So you’ve thought about it. At least. I knew it!”
What had I done to deserve this scrutiny from her? One time she had brought the subject up of me having a girlfriend and I’d easily dodged the discussion. Now, she was a hound dog. Another thing I wasn’t quick to forget was her age. At thirteen, almost fourteen, why was she even thinking about my state of well-being? I’m positive she had better things to do with her time than worry about my dating life. Or lack thereof, as it had been lately.
“Is there anything else you need, Bri? I’m busy.”
“Nothing now. I’m going in to call Maddie and see what I missed today at school.”
“Please do.” Anything to get her out of my hair.
We’d come so damn close the other night – all the way to my bed! Disappointment still gnawed in my gut. The one thing keeping me sane was the knowledge that we’d have another chance. I didn’t know how soon, but it’d moved up a few notches on my list of priorities. She tempted me in a way I couldn’t explain or understand. She was slowly knocking down the wall I’d tried so fruitlessly to erect.
What was worse was my insistence on keeping our relationship a secret from society. How could she stand me? She was nothing but straight-forward with me. She didn’t play games with me. Instead of being spiteful with me, she was helping me. Even trying to help Brianna with the newspaper article.
The longer I worked on this baler, the madder I got. I fucking hated this shit. I despised this kind of work. Which is precisely why I’d gone to school to
be a numbers guy. Not someone who had to sweat and slave over crap every single day of his life. I could hear my dad’s voice in my head telling me to buck it up, son. A man’s work is never done. Oh, how wrong he was. A farmer’s work was never done. A man who worked the nine to five was done at five oh five.
Being stuck here, long after the daylight waned, wasn’t what I’d planned. There was that word again. Stuck. Miranda had the intuitive sense to call me out on it and I’d ignored her. Because she was fucking right. I felt stuck and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. The kids needed as much normal as they possibly could. When children lose both parents at such a young age, I had to do what I could to make them have as normal life as possible. Having a normal life meant staying here, making sure they stayed in the home they grew up in and had come to count on. I had to put my feelings of stuck on the back burner. For…until they graduated high school at least.
Was I being stupid not selling some of my water shares to that company? If I did that, I could pay off the note on this place, possibly save enough for Alex and Brianna’s college. Then what? I’d still need income. That money, no matter how many shares I sold, wouldn’t last forever. There was no easy way to handle this. My parents clearly had no intentions of selling the stocks. Even when it could have allowed them to retire. My mom could’ve possibly been talked into it. But not my dad. Living off money when he was healthy enough to make his own way, would’ve never happened.
If Miranda had found any more information, she hadn’t found it important enough to share it with me. I hadn’t heard from her since the night I’d followed her into town. I wanted her to call. Even if it was just to say hello. But I knew she wouldn’t. She’d wait until she had information for me. Problem was I wanted to hear that matter-of-fact voice now. That voice I knew got all soft and breathy as she moaned my name when she came.
Chapter Seventeen
Miranda
Combing through the rest of the real estate transactions, I’ve come up with ten names. These ten had purchased at least three properties in Gibson County in the past year. I was able to compile all of the addresses underneath each person’s name who had purchased property. I cross-checked those who had purchased and sold the same property within the year, assuming it was a sort of fix and flip situation. Once I’d done that, my list had gone from ten to a whole eight. Maybe I was second-guessing my efforts, but could this all be in vain? Was combing through eight people and all of their real estate transactions going to lead us to any person who may have bought water shares or stocks in the area?
I was having my doubts and was feeling bad that once I explained this to Ryan, he would no doubt be disappointed in me. Mid-flight, I decided to pull an internet search on water stock issuers. Why hadn’t we thought of this before? Even me. Some investigative reporter I was.
I hit pay dirt. Not only were the state lists of water basins of where the water came from, but there were entire lists of water rights for sell. The list seemed to go on and on, ranging in price from a few thousand dollars to around thirty thousand. Per share. Ryan owned one-thousand shares. From what basin I wasn’t exactly sure. There were four that covered the list, as of now. A&T Water, currently three-thousand five hundred per share. JAN, currently fifty-five hundred a share. And the most-expensive out of the four listed: M.L. & N. at twenty-three thousand dollars per share and Foster Water at sixteen thousand per share.
Ryan never said which basin his stocks were from, but owning one-thousand shares, if any of these four were his, I did the quick math and realized Ryan John could very well be sitting on a pretty penny. At a minimum, three point five million. At the maximum twenty-three million dollars. Surely this wasn’t correct. Who determined these prices? One thing I hadn’t considered was the fact that maybe he didn’t even own water shares from this part of the country.
My gut told me it was one of these four. Besides, I vaguely recall that his family had lived in Gibson County for generations. I’d have to check the article I wrote when his parents got killed but something nagged at me that I knew he came from a long line of family who all had stayed around here.
This is insane. If Ryan owned this much stock, valued at this amount of money, why wouldn’t he sell the farm? I knew he didn’t want to be there. Even if he wasn’t ready to admit it, his heart was not in it the way his father’s had been. I’d been around him a few weeks and that much was obvious. He was driving himself crazy by working on a farm when in reality, that was not what he wanted to do. I didn’t know what he wanted to do, but this farm business wasn’t it.
I lean back into my recliner, my feet pulled up underneath me. It is almost ten. I desperately want to call him. Not so he would tell me which stock he owned. I wanted to talk to him as a friend. Ask him why he did this. Why he pretended everything in his life was fine when it wasn’t. Why he went through the motions of every day but wasn’t living it. I knew he was a good ole’ boy, but come on, even those types had to have some shakeups.
On the other hand, it was none of my business. What the hell did I know about family? A brother or sister? Any family for that matter. My mom left us when I was twelve, leaving me in the hands of my alcoholic father. I blame him for not instilling discipline and a sense of wholesome goodness in me, which is why not very many people liked me.
You know the kid that snuck out at one in the morning to teepee your house and put hair gel inside your mailbox? That was me. The one who got into trouble with the police for curfew, drinking, trespassing, shoplifting…also me. I do regret killing Mrs. Potter’s fish in the pond she had in her front yard. That was unforgivable. I can see why she hates my guts. And Mr. and Mrs. Pratt who own the grocery store, I shoplifted enough cigarettes from them, I’m surprised I don’t have emphysema. One summer, I let out some of my neighbor’s chickens from their chicken coops. I was freeing them. You know, free range chickens? I’d lost count of how many chickens were on the loose after the fifth or sixth house. I was a hellion.
All the girls in school disliked me ‘cause the boys they liked all gave me attention. As an adult, I understand now that was only because I would sleep with half of them, but at the time, I thought they liked me and I craved attention. Aside from that, I got along well with the opposite sex. I felt comfortable with them. I still crave attention now, too. I simply have better control. It’s subtle attention I crave: a man’s eyes staring down my shirt, checking me out when I walk by or walking with a sway in my step knowing that they’re checking out my ass. All of it gives me little thrills.
I don’t know if all of this had to do with some psychotic diagnosis of being left by my mother and being ignored by my father all of my life, desperately craving male attention. I’d read somewhere about object male hunger and how many females with absent father figures experienced this. Sounded like me to a T.
Which partly explains why I literally threw myself at Ryan John. He had been doing all of those things to me the night of that wedding and I’d simply had enough. I needed that mouth he kept using to have a conversation with Becca the bride, smiling like he’d had no cares in the world, on me. On my lips, on my everywhere.
This want for him had turned in to a desperate need somewhere along the way. I needed him. My soul was missing its mate and like a puzzle piece had found it with Ryan. I was tough enough to let it slide, his not wanting anyone to know about our relationship. At least for now I was. Deep down I was counting on the fact that he would eventually change his mind and want me enough that he would want everyone to know. Consequences be damned.
Bit premature on my part. I could sense it inside of him though, that he too knew and felt our connection. Our soul connection. I saw it in his eyes when he was studying me, the admiration in his voice when he wanted to hear my opinion, the way he touched me, some lusty fuck-me touches and some that were sweet, caring, let-me-keep-you-safe kind of touches.
I had to figure out a way to get over this hurdle of us living on the opposite sides of the track. I truly b
elieved he held no judgment against me, but there was some type of judgment there anyway. The kind fueled by people who cared about you. Where they gave you their two-cents of advice about what you should do, who you should love, what kind of job you should have and where you should live.
Golda was like that for me in our short amount of time together. I’d needed it, badly. Someone like her in my life was a blessing. She taught me how to be a better person. To follow my dreams and not only do the right things, but find the inner peace inside myself and my heart that actually made me want to do the right things. That made me want to become a better person.
My phone rang startling me out of my daydream. My heart beat a staccato rhythm because I knew who it was. It was like the tone of the ringing phone said it all in the way it sounded. Ryan. It’s Ryan, pick up the phone.
“Hello.”
“Miranda.”
That voice. His low, slightly southern drawl just whispering explicit promises in that one word – my name.
“Ryan,” I say, rather breathlessly.
“You awake?”
“Yes. Just working.”
“For me?”
“Yes. I found a few websites that buy and sell water. I was thinking we could keep an eye on them and see if High Plains shows up on any of them as the buyer or the seller.”
“Sounds good to me. Or, we could forget High Plains altogether and toss this letter.”
My heart stops. If he tosses the letter, he wouldn’t have any reason to get in touch with me.
“You could. But I feel like we’re getting closer to figuring something out. Aren’t you?”
“I am. Just not sure I want to, now.”
“Why, Ryan?”
“What good’s it going to do? I can’t sell these rights.”
“You don’t even want to be on that farm. Why can’t you be true to yourself? Just for this once?”
Wet: A Small Town Romance (Love in Lone Star Book 1) Page 10
