“Jesus, are you all right?”
“Sweet merciful crap, John, I’m doing just fine. And I have a feeling I’m going to be doing a whole lot better in about thirty seconds.”
“It’s Jonathon.”
“That’s what I said. Now take off your shirt.”
I watched him lift his shirt over his head. I loved watching guys lift their shirts over their head. It was an underrated part of the ritual and I hadn’t had it happen in front of me for almost a year. But he pulled that shirt off his body and he was in front of me in nothing but a pair of socks and a smile, and I swear to God my heart was skipping a beat as I scooted across the leather seat.
He started to kiss me again, and I felt his hands moving back across my body. His hands were big and they seemed to touch me everywhere at once. But even as he started touching me and he put his face between my breasts, it was his cock that I needed. It was beautiful. I needed to touch it. I wanted to taste it. And more than anything I wanted that fucking thing inside of me.
His hands were on my breasts, but I managed to fight him off long enough to get a hand between his legs. I was still facing him but I could feel it in my hand—hard, long and smooth—and I could feel him relax slightly as I started to stroke him. I wanted it to last forever but I couldn’t wait for it any longer, and while I held him in my hand I managed to climb up over his body.
It was a move far more nimble than I should have been able to pull off, and the look in his eyes told me it was one he wasn’t ready for. But he also had a look that told me I could have done anything I wanted to him at that moment and he wasn’t going to stop me. I could feel him—a hot, blunt presence poised perfectly just below me. And with one hand holding him, I started to guide him in.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
All at once I had his big hands on my ass and he was stopping me from going forward. It was officially the first time I had ever been called out running for home base. Which was weird since I was usually the one wearing the umpire’s mask…
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t have protection, Olivia. Unless you have something. I’m not the kind of guy that walks around with a condom in his wallet.”
Aw, he was one of those responsible guys. I didn’t think those existed anymore either. Under any other circumstance, he might have been Mr. Right. But tonight, all I needed him to be was Mr. Right Now…
“I’m on the pill, Jonathon. It’s OK. Nothing is going to happen. I won’t get pregnant. What happens in Madison County stays in Madison County.”
I felt his body relax as he slackened his hold on my ass. Gravity started to do the work for me as I felt my body weight start to pull me down. He was huge and he was hard and if I was not wetter than I had ever been in my life I don’t think it would have been possible. But I exhaled and let myself go and my body swallowed him inch by delicious inch.
His hands stayed on my ass but they were moving in a way that was keeping me pinned to him. My body was wrapping itself around him and I desperately needed to move. I swore I could feel his heartbeat through that giant cock of his. I could practically count every vein and it was driving me crazy. But I could feel him holding onto me and then heard the soft sound of his voice.
“Go easy, Olivia. Fuck, it’s been a long time. Just go easy. You feel too fucking good and I want it to last.”
He was right about one thing. It felt fucking good, and I wanted it to last too. But I needed to feel that gorgeous cock moving back and forth inside of me. My body was throbbing around his like an itch that needed to be scratched, and the second his hands moved from my ass to my breasts I started moving forward again.
Hot breath on my neck. His hands were at my breasts and he started grabbing at me and it would have felt delicious if I wasn’t going up and down on that monster between his legs. For a moment I felt him move forward and I felt his tongue on my chest, teasing and licking at my nipples. It was enough to make me gasp but it wasn’t enough to slow my hips down and they seemed to move faster in spite of it. I listened to him let out a groan as he settled back in his seat.
“You’re moving too fast, Olivia. I’m telling you, you’re going to make me cum…”
He said it like it was a bad thing and I loved it. I could feel him throbbing inside of me and I loved that too. He was practically begging me to slow down and it only made me want to go faster. And the faster I moved, the closer I felt myself getting to the edge too.
I felt his body twisting as his hands left my breasts and trailed their way down my body. I wanted them on my ass. Or my breasts. Or even by his side. But I knew where they were going the minute I felt them between my legs.
I tried moving faster in an effort to stave him off, but I felt his big hands closing around my pussy. I knew he was close to cumming, and I wanted to pull his trigger, but I felt his big fingers touching me and I slowly started to lose control. His hands were big but his fingers were soft and when he settled on my clit, I started to feel my body shake. For a moment, it felt like we were in a race to get each other off. And he was starting to lean over the finish line.
“Oh God, don’t touch me there, Jonathon…”
I moaned and leaned forward and pushed my breasts into his face. I felt his fingers continuing to touch me as his big cock went back and forth inside and I thought I would lose my mind. I heard myself squeal, and in an attempt to choke back my moans, I leaned forward and started to kiss his neck. His fingers weren’t stopping, and what started as a kiss turned into a bite as I took his flesh between my teeth. I heard him gasp, and it was enough to slow his fingers down and give me a moment to catch my breath.
Temporarily.
But I was still closer than I wanted to be and I was dying to get him there first. I started moving faster in an effort to get away from him, but the only thing I succeeded in doing was pushing him over the line. I could feel his cock pulse one last time inside of me before he was groaning and filling me full of his warmth. It was a feeling I would have enjoyed savoring, but somehow, he managed to keep his fingers pinned to my clit and I could feel nothing else. And even as his big cock was jerking inside of me, I felt myself slip over the edge.
I heard moans filling the car, and it was a split second before I realized they were coming from me. I felt his strong back arching and he almost tossed me off, but I kept him pinned to the seat as my body continued to shake. For one weird moment, I realized I couldn’t see out of the car, because a thin sheen of fog had spread over the glass. And as I felt the orgasm tearing through my body, I almost felt bad.
Because I knew that I would never see him again.
Chapter 5
Jonathon
“This is not the way I intended this to happen, son. I was hoping to go over this with you last night. You know that.”
I was the beginnings of a reprimand that I knew was coming. And the fact that my father was giving it to me at a room in the Madison County courthouse made it all the more intimidating.
“I know, Pop, I’m sorry. I intended to come over to see you last night, I really did. But one thing led to another and I ended up staying at Bobby’s house last night.”
He was looking at me through those John Lennon style glasses that he always wore. My father was an oddity in this corner of the universe. He may have been the only intellectual wheat farmer in Colorado—or for that matter, the world. He had worn glasses like that as long as I could remember. Certainly before John Lennon ever made them famous.
“Well, I hope whatever you were doing was worth it, because I’ve only got about thirty minutes to bring you up to speed.”
Worth it? Fuck yes. Worth it every day of the week and then twice on Sunday. Whatever that meant. If I lived to be one hundred I was sure I would never meet another girl like Olivia WhatsHerName.
“For heaven’s sake, Roger, give the boy a break. Lord knows he has better things to do than have to deal with our problems.”
My grandmother was always willing to defen
d me, even in the face of our family’s impending doom. I wasn’t quite sure why my father felt compelled to bring her here but I was suddenly glad for it. She smiled at me the way grandmothers do when they just put the hammer down on your parents, and I realized maybe she would be good to have here after all.
My father got up from the table and walked over to the window in the court’s arbitration room. He took off the glasses for a moment and rubbed his nose, and I could hear the toot of a fire horn somewhere on the streets outside. Or it could have been a milk truck or the Wells Fargo wagon. This place was like the little country town that time forgot.
“It’s bad, son. I know I don’t need to tell you it’s bad. But it’s bad.”
He put on his glasses and walked back to the table and kicked out his chair.
“Growing wheat isn’t like it used to be in the old days. When your grandfather did it, it was a booming business and he was one of the richest men in town. When he turned over the farm to me, things were still thriving, and I hoped one day to turn the family fortune over to you.”
It was the subtlest of digs and it poked a little bit of guilt into my eye, but he went past it and moved on.
“But times change and markets change. And the wheat industry has changed. The farm in Clark County is no longer enough to produce what I need to keep my head above water, son. That’s not how it works these days. You either buy up land and mass produce or you get crushed by the industrial machine. And I thought it was just about over. But then Abraham Dunlevy passed away and his farm in Madison County came up for sale, and I knew it was our last chance to survive.”
“How the hell were you able to come up with the money for old man Dunlevy’s property, Pop?”
“I’m mortgaged to the teeth, son. I’ve literally bet the farm on getting that property. But I bet the farm on getting the property the way it was spelled out in Dunlevy’s survey. I signed the papers in a blind fury of optimism. I signed for the loan never anticipating a problem. But I should have known better, son. I should have known any business deal that close to the Hawthornes was likely to blow up in my face.”
The Hawthornes. Even Grandma winced at the sound of their name…
The name rolled off my father’s tongue with an evil hiss and it felt like the room suddenly got cold. I had been raised to despise the name. Even though they were a county away and they were cattle farmers, they were the brunt of every joke in our house. My father considered cattle farmers about as respect worthy as a pack of villainous thieves. And the Hawthornes occupied a rung on the ladder a couple of steps lower than that.
He got up and strode the length of the long conference table. I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall despite the rabble of noise on the street, and I looked up to see it said twenty to nine.
“How much of a discrepancy are we talking about here, Pop? How off are the two surveys?”
“It amounts to about ten acres between the two farms, son. Smack in the middle. According to Abraham Dunlevy’s survey, his property extends onto land the Hawthornes already own.”
“OK, so let me ask the stupid question. Can’t you guys just split the property right down the middle?”
“You’re asking me to split with that…”
It was a rare show of emotion from my peace-loving father. But it showed exactly how much he despised the Hawthornes. It was a disgust that had simmered for generations. Grandma put her hand on his arm and he collected himself.
“In theory, I suppose yes, we could split the property. Granted, I need every last precious foot of soil in order to survive. But I probably could do it. But Bill Hawthorne is as stubborn as a god-darn mule, and the last thing that unsophisticated oaf is going to want to do is settle anything.”
“This sounds like something that attorneys should be involved in, Pop. I’m not doing you any favors by trying to sort this thing out for you.”
“I don’t think you understand, boy. I’m leveraged to my last tooth on this property. What I haven’t spent on putting you through college I’ve mortgaged to buy Dunlevy’s farm. If it means hiring attorneys then that takes things to a whole other level.”
He had taken another subtle shot. He was plucking at the strings of the guilt violin and he was starting to play a heart wrenching tune. And I knew exactly where he was going before he even got there.
“The only way out for me at that point would be to have you come home and work with me, son. I’ve got no other choice. I’m staring ruin in the face.”
This time it was me who was standing up from the table in exasperation. I walked to the window and looked outside, like my father had only fifteen minutes before. There was a horse trailer on the street going in one direction and a kid on a bike with a sack of newspapers over his shoulder going in the other direction.
This place was like a fucking Norman Rockwell painting…
“I’ve got a job waiting for me in Chicago, Pop, you know that. The whole reason for me going to Notre Dame was because I didn’t want to live my life slinging wheat. Remember? We’ve had this conversation before. I’m ready to get the hell out of dodge.”
“Mind your language, boy!”
The voice was my father’s, uncharacteristically loud and harsh.
Oh for fuck’s sake…
I walked back to the table and had a seat, preparing to get reprimanded a little more. But I looked up at my father and saw despair where I was expecting discipline.
“I didn’t plan for it to happen this way, Jonathon, you know that. I worked hard to send you to Notre Dame. I want you to go to Chicago and use your Accounting degree and build yourself a successful career, son. And your mother would have wanted it too.”
My mother, God rest her soul. He was plucking another string on the guilt violin, and the music just got a little more bittersweet.
“Still,” he continued, “I don’t think that coming back to Clark County would be the worst thing in the world for you, son. Between the two of us and that extra property, we could build a successful business. More successful than any McCallister farm has ever been. And you could settle down with a nice young lady like Carla Jean Sullivan and start giving me some grandchildren.”
He threw it out there like chum over the side of a fishing boat and Grandma took the bait. I knew she would as soon as my father mentioned Carla Jean’s name. It was as predictable as last call at Huddy’s on a Saturday night.
“Oh, I do love Carla Jean, Jonathon. Your father’s right. Wouldn’t you be happier here in Clark County, dear? Wouldn’t you be happier raising a family here with your high school sweetheart?”
“Why do you have to bring her name up, Pop? I ended that last year. You don’t want me to give you grandkids from Carla Jean. She’s about as sharp as a bag of hammers. Let’s get back to this farm thing. What is it you expect me to do?”
I could feel my blood starting to boil and I realized that had been my father’s intention all along. He didn’t care about Carla Jean. He only wanted to fire me up to help him see this thing through. He was more cunning than anyone had ever giving him credit for. It was the reason I would take a Hawthorne over a McCallister in a game of wits every damn day of the week.
And twice on Sunday. Whatever the fuck that meant…
“Son, the best case scenario for us, obviously, is to get the property the way that it shows on old man Dunlevy’s survey. I don’t see how we can pull that off. Bill Hawthorne is as stubborn as a mule and twice as stupid, so that’s a longshot. Splitting the land isn’t ideal, but I could still make things work. It’s just going to be tight. Very tight.
“If he fights like the cornered dog that I know he is and wants to involve lawyers, I’m sunk. There’s no way I can afford attorneys in this thing after what I went through to buy the damn property in the first place. And if it gets to that point, I’m going to need you back here full time.”
He wrapped up with the doomsday scenario, and that was fine because it would never get to that point. There wasn�
��t any fucking way, come hell or high water, that I was going to let myself get sucked back into Clark County, Colorado. I opened my mouth to give him a watered down version of exactly that thought and the door to the arbitration room opened.
A man with a badge on his chest and a pistol on his belt stepped into the room and all the conversation at our table stopped. The clock on the wall clicked off to nine o’clock as the man looked at us and spoke.
“I’m going to go ahead and let the members of the Hawthorne party in here and then we can proceed, as long as you folks are ready.”
Oh I was ready, my father had seen to that.
My father answered him in the affirmative and the man went back to the door and stuck his head into the hallway before returning into the room. It was the moment of truth. It was the moment to get an eye on this family that had been the brunt of dinner table jokes for the better part of my youth. It was the moment between me being a wheat farmer and me getting the hell out of Dodge.
A big John Wayne looking guy came through the doorway first and gave our side of the table a sour sneer. He was my father’s age plus a year or two probably, and most certainly had to be the Bill “Hellfire” Hawthorne I had heard about all these years. If it came down to a fistfight I was certain that he would kick the shit out of my old man. But if it was a game of wits, then I was certain that he was going to lose.
The big man ambled down to the end of the table and was followed by an old woman. She was wearing a hat and clutching her purse and she smiled at us sweetly, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. They were playing the grandmother card, too. This was going to be a bloodbath. I eyed her cautiously as she moved to sit down next to surly old man Hawthorne.
There was a third set of footsteps coming through the door and I looked up to see what must have been Hawthorne’s son. He looked to be close to my age and was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. And his eyes looked glassy. I couldn’t say for certain, but he looked like he was stoned. He tripped on one of the table legs and landed in the seat next to his grandmother.
Dirty Neighbor Page 3
