by P. Dangelico
“Are you here alone?” she asked in a quiet voice.
I shook my head and she tucked away all the emotion she’d let me see. She’d misinterpreted what I’d implied––that I had female company––and I did nothing to correct her. It was better this way. For both of us.
“Mrs. Blackstone,” Ryan intoned. I glanced over my shoulder to see Ryan wearing an indulgent grin meant for me. My mood took another downturn. “Always good to see you.”
“Mr. Sutter,” my drunk wife drawled in return as Ryan ambled closer. “Likewise.”
I leveled the bulk of my annoyance at my best friend. “Are you done? She’s drunk and I need to get her home.”
Ryan’s hands went up. “Just wanted to tell you that we’re taking off. See you tomorrow.” He winked at Sydney and left.
Sydney’s attention was back on me, where I liked it. Reaching over, I plucked something out of her hair and inspected it. Dirt. Which prompted me to examine the rest of her clothes. The tight black jeans that hugged her athletic legs were covered with it as well. Without thought, I brushed some away on the inside of her thigh and heard her breath catch. Our eyes met and the tension expanded. It seemed to have a life of its own.
I hadn’t anticipated attraction. Yes, I’d felt desire for her all those years ago. But back then I could have said that about any number of women. This, whatever it was that was going on between us, was different. Now my brain controlled my actions instead of my balls. Which was why I couldn’t understand the strong visceral reaction I was having to a woman I should’ve despised for upending my life.
“I’m taking you home.”
She didn’t argue. In easy compliance, she slid off the stool and waved at Tony. Taking her hand in mine, I dragged her out of the bar before Randy could start in again. Two minutes later, we stood in front of my mud-covered ATV quad.
“In this?” I had to ask. I wasn’t sure if I should be impressed or worried about her reasoning skills. “This is how you got here?”
She smiled at me again, all proud of herself. “That’s how I got here.”
Damn, she was cute when she was drunk.
Chapter Ten
Scott
The drive back to the ranch was torture in more ways than one. First and foremost, my jeans were feeling more than a little snug. Second, I was shook. The further we drove the more I thought about her late-night excursion and the million terrible things that could’ve happened to her while I was busy congratulating myself. And the more I thought about it the worse my mood got.
“What you did was dangerous and stupid.” I didn’t have it in me to finesse it. And yeah, when the hell did I start sounding like my mother? “I have another pickup you can drive. I don’t want you walking, running, or riding anything off this property.” Her eyes were closed, a soft smile shaped her lips. “Syd? You hear me?”
“You didn’t seem to be worried the last few weeks.” She lowered the window and tipped her head back, the cold December air whipping her hair in every direction.
Where was the woman who had arrived in Jackson Hole without a hair out of place? Where had the ice princess gone? She looked laid-back and carefree. She looked like she belonged here. I’d done everything to make her miserable enough to beg for an annulment and she hadn’t. Every attempt I’d made to make her as uncomfortable as possible had blown up in my face. Trying to convince her to call it off sure as shit hadn’t worked. All I’d accomplished was to put her life in danger. Shame washed over me and held my head under until I was choking on it.
“Have you been out in that ATV before tonight?”
“No…tonight was a first. I finally hit my quota of boredom. But rest easy, I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m off your hands for a couple of weeks.”
I hadn’t realized it was time for her to headed back to New York. Probably a good thing. We needed to cool it, stick all the hot feelings growing between us in a freezer. At least I did. Maybe when she returned, we could work out a compromise. It wasn’t her fault I was attracted to her.
“Look––”
“It’s okay, Scott,” she was quick to interrupt. “I told you I wouldn’t interfere with your social life and I meant it.” She started humming a vaguely familiar song. It took me a while, but when the chorus hit, I recognized it was Tears of a Clown.
“You’re humming again.”
“Am I?”
The woman had a weird obsession with clowns.
I stole another glance at her. Slouched on the Ford’s bench seat, long legs parted with her face tipped back, her fingers tapped on the door handle. She wasn’t classically beautiful and that made her all the more compelling. Her lips weren’t full, the bridge of her nose was a little bit wide, and she had a soft cleft in her chin. Still, it all came together to make her more than beautiful. She was so damn attractive she made me want to stop and stare, to discover what else I’d missed.
She turned to face me, and a lazy content smile spread across her face.
I wanted to kiss her. I’d never wanted to kiss a woman more and that said a lot since I’d been kissing women since the tender age of thirteen. And yet I couldn’t because I was married to her. Because it would complicate things. That piece of illogical bullshit annoyed me to no end but there it was, reminding me that I was an adult now and no longer making decisions based on the wants and needs of my dick. All this I told myself while the jeans I wore strangled a fast-growing hard-on.
“Home sweet home,” she murmured, her raspy voice laced with humor.
The cabin was suddenly before us. I parked and turned the engine off. In the dead of night, out in the middle of nowhere, every sound in the cab seemed amplified by ten. The mingled sound of our breathing, the soft hum of Maren Morris’s voice drifting from the radio. The tension was back and escalating quickly, so were the longing-packed looks. Something had to give.
“Forget it. We’re not having sex. It’s a bad idea.” My lips formed the words before I could think twice.
She sat up straight, stiffly. “Who said anything about sex?”
“Your eyes, Sunshine. You keep looking at me like you want me to slowly peel away every piece of clothing on your body, kiss a path from your ankles to your sweet pussy, and worship your perfect breasts.” She inhaled sharply, her chest rising and falling. “Then, if you asked nicely and only if you asked nicely…I’d fuck you.”
The pale skin of her throat caught a ray of moonlight, the tendons moving as she swallowed. She wasn’t as immune to me as I’d first thought. Good. Why should I be the only one to suffer from unrequited lust. God knows, I was suffering. I watched her fight to get herself under control, to tamp down her reaction to me.
“I don’t recall you ever playing hard to get. Quite the opposite actually.”
A slow smile grew on my face. “Is that an invitation?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not my type.”
“What’s that? Barely legal?” The chance that Sydney might like men as young as Drake made me want to snap a two-by-four in half.
Her lips turned up in an insolent curl. “Deeper than a spray-on suntan.”
I hadn’t been this turned-on in ages, or had more fun arguing, and I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to crawl into bed alone. I didn’t want to listen to her talk to the dogs on the other side of the wall. I didn’t want to imagine her naked. I wanted to feel her naked. Under me. Over me. Any way I could get her––I’d take it as long as I got to touch her.
“The second time I’d take you rough…” My mouth started running on its own again. “From behind. I’d sink into you hard and deep and leave bite marks on the curve of your shoulder. Slap your ass a couple of times just in case you forgot who you married and started entertaining thoughts about a ranch hand who’s too young to know that you don’t shit where you eat.”
Her nostrils flared and her lips parted, the lower one glossy from where her tongue had darted out. A primal thrill shot through me. This was going to happen and maybe, just ma
ybe, I’d get this dangerous urge out of my system. Then we could put this inconvenience behind us and go on as business partners.
“Am I the only one that recalls what happened last time your ego got ahead of your common sense?” was her reply, voice low, the rasp so pronounced I felt it in my balls. It made me wonder if she was doing it on purpose to drive me crazy.
“I think we both know what happened that night. Stop kidding yourself.”
The image of how she’d looked up at me all those years ago, all soft and willing when I’d pinned her against the wall of the coat room with my hips, came rushing in. Whether she was too embarrassed to admit it or not, she’d wanted me as much as I’d wanted her that night. I’d been watching her, biding my time, and when she excused herself from the dance floor and headed for the restroom, I made my move.
She hadn’t pushed me away then, hadn’t said no or made any gesture of refusal because she’d been watching me all night too. I kissed her gently and she kissed me back. Then I called her Shelley and her knee came up, barely missing my future kids. It had been a simple case of wounded pride. That’s what she wouldn’t admit.
“This may come as a surprise, Scott––I’m well aware of how distorted your opinion of yourself is––but I’m not interested in sex with any man who’s given more rides than Disneyland.”
She could pretend all she wanted, but the throbbing pulse on the side of her throat said otherwise. “Sunshine…” A smile split my face. “…that should tell you how much fun the ride is.”
I was seconds from leaning over, yanking her closer, and kissing her until she forgot about rides and Disneyland and that I wasn’t her type. Until I forgot that I was angry at her for backing me into this marriage, and even angrier that I wanted her more than the next breath of air in my lungs.
Then I remembered that she had too much to drink.
She might wake up with a nasty case of buyer’s remorse, and I wasn’t dumb or horny enough to risk having to live with a resentful wife for the next three years. Especially not one that argued for a living.
Pulling back, I straightened in my seat, my attention returning out the windshield to the moonlit landscape. “Go inside, Sydney…Go before I change my mind.”
Chapter Eleven
Sydney
The next morning, I woke up with a raging headache, a hankering for twenty gallons of water, and a vague idea of how close I’d come to humiliating myself. Three Long Island Ice Teas had laid me low. I’d been seconds from leaning in and kissing him when he sat back and ordered me to go inside. Ordered. How humiliating. He’d pulled out the floor beneath me, sent me face-planting right into desire, and want, and need with his hot words and long stares and then left me high and dry. Alone again. Alone again!
No sooner had I shut the door to the Ford than the engine started, and he peeled away to parts unknown. That bothered me more than it should’ve. I shouldn’t have cared where he was sleeping or with whom––and yet I did.
But as someone once said, if that was wrong, I didn’t want to be right.
I cracked an eye open to find my breath had mass. Little white puffs hung in the air, evidence that the furnace was broken again. Searching around for my phone, I located it under one of the dogs, both of which had graduated from sleeping next to me on the inflatable mattress to sleeping with me on the pull-out couch.
The screen read 6:30, and judging by the quiet, Scott was undoubtedly long gone. How he managed to be out of the house without waking me every single morning was a mystery. Then doubt reared its ugly head and smacked me between the brows. Maybe he hadn’t made it home.
A shiver rocked my entire body, reminding me how sore my legs were. Now was not the time for the furnace to be acting up. Thinking about Scott having to spend the Christmas holidays alone in a cold cabin didn’t sit well with me. He might’ve been an unmitigated jerk, but I’d suffered too much in the past to stand idly by while someone else suffered. I made a mental note to talk to Laurel about it. Luckily, Drake had given me his number, so I fired off a text.
Me: Furnace broken again. Please help. I’m freezing. Frozen emoji face.
Fifteen minutes later, after I’d washed my face and brushed my teeth, there was a knock at the door. In a hurry, I threw on black leggings, a chunky white cable sweater foregoing a bra, draped a few blankets around my shoulders, and made for the door. Drake stood on the porch just as gorgeous and sexy in the stark morning light as he looked in the moody dimness of the bar the night before. Even better, he was clutching a large monkey wrench in his hand. He’d come prepared.
“Thank you for coming so quickly!” I nearly screeched I was so damn happy to see him. “I have homemade pumpkin muffins and freshly brewed coffee.” I’d baked the muffins yesterday, before the unfortunate ATV ride into town. A quick glance at the tray on the counter revealed that a few were already missing. Someone had come home. My chest got warm.
Drake nodded and motioned that he’d take his payment later. Then he stepped back, indicating to the furnace and water heater located in the shed attached to the cabin.
“Drake,” I said, touching his arm before I was out of his line of sight. Facing me, his soft gaze fell on my mouth. “Have you seen Scott?”
Let’s be real, Scott had basically won. I couldn’t continue to live like this. I hated that he’d gotten the best of me, but my comfort was more important than my pride. My work was critical, and I couldn’t perform under these conditions. Not for much longer. Definitely not for three years. I was leaving today and needed to give him a heads-up that, upon my return, the living arrangements had to change. I was even willing to rent something in town and he could stay with me.
The confused, questioning look Drake returned was downright adorable. I, however, was too damn cold and hungover to delve into what it meant. Drake retrieved his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans and typed.
At his house
Blink. Blink. Blink. He might as well have dropped a bull on my head. I tried to measure my breathing, doing my best to control my reaction as I always did. Damn proud of myself too ’cause I was near to blowing like a Yellowstone geyser. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop the heat that marched up my neck and covered my face.
My mind flipped through snapshots of Scott from all those years ago. My instincts had been right. This cabin wasn’t his style. He’d been gaslighting me all along. I was going to be sick––or homicidal. Not sure which yet. Probably both.
“Riiight,” I said, all breathy. It was hard to make the word come out when my thoughts were on a loop. That loop being unfit for public consumption.
“How do I get there again?” I asked.
He typed.
Follow the dirt road over the hill, make a right at the aspens, and keep going up. You can’t miss it.
I forced myself to smile at him. “Thank you.”
Drake tipped his chin and walked around the side of the cabin. The second he was out of sight, my smile dropped and I jumped into action. The blankets wrapped around my shoulders flew off, and I slammed on my purple Hunter boots. Then I marched straight for the shed with Romeo and Juliet trailing after me. I’d seen a mountain bike in there yesterday.
Straddling the bike, I glanced at my loyal fur friends. “Let’s go fuck some shit up.”
Twenty minutes later…
His home was magnificent. Around ten thousand square feet was my rough estimate. Natural stone, glass, and high-polished wood. It looked like a living thing growing out of the stunning scenery. And yet I couldn’t quite appreciate it. Not yet, anyway. Much, much, much later I would. At the moment, however, my lungs felt blowtorched, my hams and quads were on fire, and I still had a man to make pie out of.
Huffing and puffing, I pedaled up to the front door which was covered by an enormous overhang of wood and stone and dropped the bike in the driveway. In serious pain, I stumbled, my lungs burning worse than my quads. Grabbing a medium-sized stone, I weighed it in my palm and deemed it big enough to do some
serious damage. Then I hurled it with all my might at one of his gigantic floor-to-ceiling windows, screaming in hollow satisfaction. It hit dead center, made a plunk sound, and dropped back to earth without even leaving a scratch. Which, of course, made me want to scream again.
Adrenaline and a hunger for justice willed my legs to move. Crawling up the stairs to the front door, I pressed my thumb on the doorbell and didn’t let up until a woman’s voice could be heard on the other side.
“I’m comin’, darn it!”
If that was a clown, I was going to murder his ass for sure.
The front door flew open to reveal not a slinky wannabe model, but a very tall woman, nonetheless. This one, however, was on the Rubenesque end of the spectrum. She was middle-aged with short red hair, wide shoulders, and eyes an interesting shade of periwinkle blue. The dogs loped past me into the house like they’d done it a million times and my blood pressure shot to the moon and back.
Periwinkle blue took in my bedraggled appearance––the bedhead, the flush of overexertion, the wild–eyed expression––and her glossy pink lips quirked.
“Who are you?” I snapped because––manners? Yeah, I’d left those back at the cabin.
“Who the fuck are you, sweetie?” the tall woman returned. Although she smiled amusedly and used a decidedly sweeter tone than I had. Then again, she hadn’t been subjected to cold showers and mood swings of a manchild.
“I’m Scott’s wife.” I tried to look around the woman to no avail. Tall Red kept moving in my way. “Where is the two-timing son of a bitch?”
“Ahhh, yes, the new wife.” Red thrust a perfectly manicured hand out. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jan, Scott’s house manager.”
