And I wanted to crow to the heavens that she was actually giving me the time of day.
***
“This is the best day EVER!” Audrey cried, bouncing slightly in my lap.
The grin that was splitting my face was enough to hurt. I’d been doing that—smiling—for hours now.
When we’d gotten to my place, instead of taking her to the shooting range immediately, I’d taken her to the barn where I housed my tractor.
After making sure she had adequate shoes, I’d helped her into the tractor and deposited her in my lap as I gave her a quick lesson on how to run everything.
“So what now?” she begged, eyes wide and excited.
“I don’t really have anything to do right now,” I admitted. “I just mowed the pasture last weekend, and you just did the only other thing I had to do—which was mow the front lawn. The only thing I really have to do, at this point, is even out the road over there…”
She clapped her hands, and then put the tractor into gear. “Okay, let’s do this.”
And that was how I ended up showing a city slicker ‘never seen a cow up close before’ woman how to dig with a tractor. She sucked to be honest, but so did everyone at first. That was how it went. The more practice you had, the easier it got, until it came as second nature.
I could literally hitch up the mower attachment in thirty seconds flat.
When I’d first started this over ten years ago, I hadn’t had a fuckin’ clue how to do anything. Let’s just say YouTube had been my friend.
“You’re pretty good at this for a newcomer,” I said, leaning back and letting her have complete control of the tractor.
My legs were hurting where she’d been sitting on them for the last couple of hours, but I didn’t care. Not when I could see her excitement lighting up her eyes every time she did something right.
“I’m a boss,” she declared.
I shook my head and placed my hands behind me head, linking my fingers to keep them from moving through her long curls.
“A boss,” I grunted, trying to hide the desire that I felt.
I wanted her.
I wanted her so badly that it was getting to the point of pain, but did I make her stop wiggling on my lap so my dick could have a little rest? No. I did not.
Instead, I let her move on my lap as she did her digging—fucking up my driveway in the process—to her heart’s content.
I didn’t bother to tell her that she was massacring it. Especially when I saw the uninhibited joy that was written all over her body.
“Okay,” she blew out a breath. “I’m done.”
We both looked at the driveway.
“You’re definitely going to need some more practice,” I told her. “Do you mind?”
She started to shift off of me and reach for the door handle, but I halted her movement with a hand placed on the soft swell of her belly.
“Stay,” I ordered, pushing a little more firmly. “Just lean back and give me some room.”
She did, leaning her entire back against my chest.
She wasn’t even stiff, instead she was relaxed and comfortable as I moved forward, caging her in between my arms and the steering wheel.
I took over the control of the brake and accelerator, and she let me without protest.
She watched as I smoothed the driveway back into place easily. Much more easily than it’d come up.
She even kept the smile as she waited while I made a few passes over it to ensure that the dirt was packed down.
“It’ll just be a big ol’ mud puddle by the time it rains again, but for now it’s good enough,” I said. “Are you ready?”
She wiggled in her seat, and I groaned quietly as my dick continued to respond to her moving on my lap by getting harder at this very inopportune time.
When she shifted again, I knew she felt it.
Liked it.
Because she continued to wiggle, and her face was flushed as she waited to see what I’d do next.
“Audrey,” I warned gratingly, barely able to be heard over the low growl of the diesel engine.
I didn’t know what I was warning her about.
It could’ve possibly been the fact that my control wasn’t infinite. Or it could’ve been the fact that I knew she wasn’t ready for where I could see this heading.
Whatever the reason, I needed to put a stop to it.
Or I would have put a stop to it had she not spun around in the seat and touched her mouth to mine.
And then I lost it. Lost it so spectacularly, in fact, that I didn’t realize I was even holding on to her when her kisses went from sweet to a scream in three seconds flat.
I let go as the feeling of ice water running through my veins poured through me.
I sat back, gasping, and lifted my hands in confusion.
“Audrey?”
Her eyes were wild, scared and filled with something that turned my stomach inside out.
“Audrey, honey?” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes finally found mine.
“It was the hands.”
I studied her face.
“What was?”
“I do better when I’m in control,” she whispered. “You put your hands on me, and held me to you. I’m so sorry.”
She covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders started to shake.
Realizing that she was crying, I placed one hesitant hand on the side of her face and tilted her head back.
“Baby, look at me.”
She did.
I swallowed, knowing that she was buried deep inside her head. Though she was looking at me, she wasn’t all there, and I knew that it’d take a miracle to get through to her at this point.
“My sister was raped by my best friend for years…two years before I realized that it was going on and stopped it.”
Her eyes snapped into focus, and I realized the moment she came back to me.
“What?” She licked her lips. “What are you talking about?”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the Plexiglas wall and looked at the ceiling of the tractor.
She shifted on my lap, and then placed her hand hesitantly on my cheek.
“Tell me.”
I swallowed, feeling my Adam’s apple bob, and righted my head.
“My best friend, Jay, used to beg me to ask my parents to have him over. Me, not caring, always asked. I never once stopped to pay attention to the fear on my sister’s face every time his name was mentioned. I was only thinking about my own selfish self, and never stopped to look around. To wonder why the hell she was making herself scarce when he was there.” I shook my head. “One night I woke up, thirsty as hell, and got up to get some water. I noticed that Jay was gone, but figured I’d find him in the kitchen eating or grabbing a drink. What I didn’t expect was to find him in my sister’s room, doing things to her that she never asked for.”
“Tobias…”
He shook his head. “I killed him.”
Her eyes widened.
“What?”
I nodded, swallowing thickly.
“I did,” I said. “Killed him with my bare hands.”
I finally found the courage to make eye contact with her, and such fierce pride was shining in her eyes that I found it hard to breathe.
“Ghost wanted to kill my rapist, too,” she whispered. “Brothers are good protectors.”
She placed her hand on my cheek and then leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips.
I didn’t respond, knowing that she was still too shaken up for me to do anything more than to allow her to do whatever she wanted to me.
She didn’t disappoint, but I couldn’t let her think that I was the good guy in this situation.
Because I wasn’t. Not even close.
“I should’ve been there for her,” I started again. “For years, I let that go on. He made her promise not to te
ll, or he’d kill me. He was serious, too, because she wasn’t a stupid girl. If she thought that the threat was real, she would’ve done whatever he wanted.” I looked away from her concerned eyes. “By the time I’d caught him, he’d raped her over forty times.”
Bile rose in my throat.
“After I…pulled him off of her, I started to beat him with my fists. Then when those started to hurt, I picked up a lamp and continued the assault until my brothers and father pulled me off of him. But at that point, he was already dead. For a while, they suspect.”
I finally worked up the courage to look at her, and the gratitude I read in her eyes was enough to undo me.
“She never recovered,” I whispered. “She wasn’t strong like you. She’d always been a gentle soul. She never talked back. Never did anything out of turn. Always asked permission to do anything, even go to the grocery store down the street and get something for dinner. She was what I would like to call forever young. She didn’t see the problems in the world. Always had her head in the sand. She went to counseling, but she was never the same as she was before Jay. She was there, but she did little more than just exist.”
“I’m not strong,” she whispered. “You may think I am, but I’m not. Look at what just happened.”
I brought one lone finger up and curled it around a stray piece of hair that’d slipped over her ear where she’d had it tucked. “You’re here. You’re living your life. You’re looking for an apartment. You’re doing more than just existing. It’s more than some do after what happened to you.”
Like my sister didn’t do, went unsaid. But I could tell she was thinking the same thing as I was.
She tried to look away, but I wrapped my hand around her chin to tilt her face toward me. “When you’re ready—if you’re ever ready—I’ll be here. Until then, I’ll be your friend.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Let’s go shoot.”
Chapter 7
Control your orgasm. It’s just a beard.
-Said no man ever
Audrey
The day to embark finally arrived, and I was both nervous and excited about the prospect of going on my first ever cruise.
“This your first time?”
I looked down at the older woman who was standing next to me.
“Yes,” I said, peeking around the partition that separated her balcony from mine and Tobias’. “Yours?”
She shook her head. “No. This is our seventeenth. We go on one once a year now.”
I smiled. “That’s exciting.”
The ship’s horn blew, causing me to jump.
I jumped again when I felt a warm body slide in next to mine.
“That’s the horn they blow when they finally take off. You’ll hear that every single time we leave a port,” the older woman explained, her eyes flicking up past my head to the man at my side.
“Ahh,” I said, tilting my head to stare at the man at my side. “Did you know that?”
He shook his head. “First time for me, too, remember?”
I grinned and looked back at the dock. Then started to bounce when I realized that the dock was getting further and further away from the side of the boat.
“It doesn’t even feel like we’re moving!” I gasped in amazement. “Do you think it’ll be like this the whole time?”
That question was aimed toward Tobias, but the older lady answered instead. “This is smooth, but then again, you’re in a very good cabin. The one you got, which is the one we always pick, is in the very center of the ship, both side-to-side and top to bottom. This is the cabin that will be the least susceptible to the waves or any wind we have.”
“Ahh,” I said again. “That’s awesome. Did you mean to get this cabin?”
Tobias shook his head. “No. I just told the woman that was booking the reservations that I wanted to be somewhere that wasn’t going to make me puke the whole time if the boat started rocking. She was very adamant that this would be the best cabin on the ship. Which you already know since you came with me.”
He looked at my pointedly.
“It really is,” the old lady agreed. “This has the biggest balcony, too.”
I looked around at our balcony, and then at the one directly below us.
“Imagine that,” I said. “You’re right. Why do you think this balcony is bigger than the others?”
She shook her head. “No clue, but this is what we get each and every time we set sail.”
I nodded.
“Come on,” Tobias said, grabbing my hand. “I want to go to the buffet.”
I rolled my eyes and watched as the dock where we’d boarded the ship disappeared from sight. “It was nice meeting you,” I told the lady. “My name is Audrey.”
Her smile was infectious. “You too, dear. My name is Della. You and your husband go enjoy eating. I’m sure we’ll see you again.”
I didn’t correct her ‘husband’ comment. Instead, I walked to the door that was closed behind the man who was slowly starting to take hold of my heart, and opened it.
Stepping through, I once again took stock of the room. “This is tiny,” I commented.
He grunted in response as he reached into his bag and withdrew a pair of shorts. “Let me change really quick, and we’ll head out. It’s fucking hot as balls in here right now.”
I hid my smile and presented him with my back, once again taking in the water which was all that I could see now.
I heard his belt clink as he undid his pants, and I felt a shiver tear up my spine.
This man, with his insistence that he was going to ‘get me out more’ was slowly tearing down every wall that I’d erected, and building them back up behind him as he did.
He was protecting me while, at the same time, offering me the freedom I was slowly coming to realize that I needed.
All these years, since the day I was assaulted and raped, I’d been hiding from myself and from life. I’d been doing everything I could to protect myself and, in the process, found myself not actually living my life.
I’d finished school and gotten a job, but I then buried myself so deeply into that job that I didn’t have time to do anything but work, eat and sleep.
These last few weeks with Tobias forcing me to do things without taking no for an answer was eye opening. It made me see exactly what I was missing, and the realization was overwhelming.
I had been in hiding, and I didn’t have plans to come out.
Or hadn’t, until Tobias forced me out of my comfort zone.
“Done,” he said. “You want to change, too?”
I thought about it, then shook my head. “No, I’m okay.”
He looked down at my jeans and three quarter sleeved t-shirt and then shrugged.
“Okay,” he said, picking up his wallet and the ID card that was now our lifeline on this boat. Anytime we wanted to buy something—a drink, a souvenir, an excursion or a spa service—this ID card would be used for payment. Of course, the card was linked to Tobias’ debit card, so it was unlikely that I would go buy things willy nilly.
Well, unless he pissed me off, that was.
He turned on his heel and walked to the door, opening it and gesturing for me to precede him.
“After you,” he drawled.
I bit my lip to keep from smiling and walked quickly to the door and through it, as I waited for him to close the door in the hallway.
“It feels better out here,” I muttered to him. “Do you think we could leave the door propped open to let some of that cool air in?”
He grunted. “No.”
Just that. One word to my question. No.
I rolled my eyes and started down the hallway, only for him to grab me moments later and gesture to the side with his hand.
That was when I saw the stairs. “Are you kidding?”
He shook his head. “Nope. There are three thousand people on this boat, darlin’,” he answered. “And all of them ar
e going to be heading up to the fuckin’ buffet.”
“Hmm,” I said, eyeing the stairs. “Well, let’s go.”
I took the first four flights without problem, but by the time we got to the fifth, my thighs were screaming.
“You’re killing me,” I wheezed, seeing him already at the top landing holding the door for me. “I can hardly draw a breath!”
He rolled his eyes. “Maybe while you’re here with me, we’ll workout. Work on those puny thighs.”
I looked down at my thighs, then up at him. “They’re not puny. They’re fat.”
He snorted. “Those legs are anything but fat. They’re shapely, yes, but they’re not fat. Have you ever heard the saying ‘thick thighs save lives’?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He hummed as we made our way out of the stairwell and straight out into the pool area. “Wow,” was all I could think to say.
“Three thousand people on board this ship. Three hundred of them are officers and their spouses. The other twenty-seven hundred of them are people over seventy,” he commented.
I couldn’t disagree with him. Every single person we passed on the way to the buffet in the corner was an older man or woman. None of them were under the age of sixty.
“They did say this was a nicer boat. Maybe the other cruise lines are a little more geared toward the younger crowd. That boat we saw as we pulled out had a water slide on top of it,” I pointed out. “And maybe these people were just priority boarders. They just got on and settled faster than the rest of us. Maybe they just haven’t made their way up here yet.”
He grunted something indistinguishable in reply, and I held my tongue as we made our way, following the masses, who all had the same plan to get food, into the dining room where the buffet was housed.
My mouth twitched when I saw Tobias stiffen.
There had to be at least three hundred people in the large room, but he didn’t say a thing as he grabbed a plate and made his way through the buffet tables where dish after dish was set up and waiting.
I chose a few rolls, some sliced beef that was served by a guy with a chef’s hat about three feet tall, and a scoop of spaghetti in meat sauce.
“That’s all you’re getting?”
I jumped when I saw Tobias come up behind me, his plate was heaping full and rounded at the top.
For the Love of Beard Page 6
