Justified

by Jay Crownover

  I knew Hayes had been by the house already. When I finally got free from work I returned his missed calls and told him I wasn’t going to make it out to the ranch to see him tonight. He came clean about scaring Aspen out of her skin, and mentioned they talked for a bit. I didn’t pry, trusting him to tell me what I needed to know. But my sister’s surprise visit was news, and not the welcome kind. Of course Kody didn’t listen and steer clear of my house while Aspen was there. She never did what she was told.

  Breathing out long and slow I flattened my hands on the counter separating us and simply said, “I’m sorry, Aspen.”

  She let out a shattered-sounding laugh. “Sorry for what exactly? That I have no clue who I married? That someone is trying to kill me? That I can’t have children? That you kissed me?” Another jagged laugh was forced past her pursed lips.

  I heaved a sigh so heavy it landed like a rock between us. “All of it. I’m sorry for all of it. But I saw your face when Hill brought up what the money was for. You looked devastated.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long time, and when she did, her words caught me off guard. “Yeah, well I’ve pretty much made my peace with what I can and can’t do when it comes to being a mother. I’m not used to sharing those struggles with anyone else, so it caught me off guard to end up in a discussion about my reproductive limitations with a stranger…and you. Sometimes I’m sad about it, I can’t help but feel that way. But mostly, I know that if I ever do decide to become a mother, then I’m going to have to be the one to take the steps to make that a reality. For now, I like my life the way it is. I’ve put a lot of work into making it one I can be proud of. There’s still so much more I want to accomplish. I feel like I’m just getting started. Most days that’s enough to keep me happy and fulfilled.”

  I lowered my head and rubbed my hand across the back of my neck. I figured I might as well go all in with discussing tough topics tonight. There was no reason to ruin another day for her by telling her about David Barlow’s infidelity later down the line. Putting it later all on the table at once seemed like the best way to get her some closure.

  Glancing at her from under my lashes I muttered, “Uh, well I know the conversation with Hill was rough and unexpected, but I have something to tell you that is going to be just as unpleasant. So, brace yourself.”

  Her inky eyebrows winged up, and her fingers tightened on her wineglass. She gave a barely discernible nod and muttered, “Hit me with it.”

  I lifted my head to meet her gaze fully. “The reason David Barlow is in so much debt is because he’s been paying for sex. High-end escorts. Expensive trips with mistresses. I don’t know how he’s kept it all hidden, but his bad habits have increased in frequency and cost exponentially over the last few years.”

  Aspen’s fingers tightened on the stem of the wineglass so much they turned white. I was worried the delicate glass was going to break under the pressure. She lifted the wine to her lips and chugged what was left back in one swallow. Carefully setting the empty glass down on the counter she shook her head and barked out an ugly laugh.

  “Part of the reason I finally moved forward with the divorce was because David started acting strange the last couple of years we were together. When I told him I was done trying to have kids I noticed a significant change in his behavior. He still treated me like a queen, but he started working later and later. He would disappear and be impossible to get ahold of. I was curious but also kind of grateful. It made leaving easier. I had my doubts about him, so I made sure I got tested for everything under the sun as soon as I moved out. At least he was apparently careful while he was making his bad choices.”

  I grunted and dragged my hand down my face. Someone needed to kick David Barlow in the nuts and teach him how to act right. “I’m sorry, Aspen. For everything. You deserve better all around.”

  She shrugged and forced her trembling lips into a faint smile. “Don’t be sorry about the kiss then. It was actually one of the nicer things to happen to me in a while.”

  “It was a mistake. One that can’t happen again.” The denial was automatic and weaker than I anticipated. I shifted and winced as the stitches in my shoulder pulled. I tried to soften my too-quick statement. “I think the close quarters and stressful circumstances went to our heads.”

  She gave me a look that plainly wanted to call me on my bullshit, but instead of continuing the argument she nodded to where I was rubbing my stiff shoulder. “Do you want me to help you clean that and change the bandage? Turnabout is fair play after all.”

  I’d helped her rewrap her burned hand and clean around the staples in her head when she first left the hospital.

  I wanted to refuse her help but couldn’t find a logical reason other than stripping down near her didn’t seem like a great idea when my self-control where she was concerned was so questionable. Instead, I reluctantly agreed. “Yeah. I could use a hand if you don’t mind.”

  She didn’t respond other than to follow me silently to the master bedroom and into the bathroom. She waited near the vanity while I ditched my Stetson and my uniform shirt. When I got back to the bathroom, she had warm water running in the sink and a fresh bandage and medical tape laid out. Her eyes caught mine in the mirror when I walked up behind her, and I watched them drop to check out my upper half.

  I stayed in shape because my job demanded it. My ego and certain parts of my anatomy—which were particularly reactive where Aspen was concerned—liked the dark heat that flared to life in her obsidian gaze as her roving eyes took in the defined lines of my abdomen.

  She cleared her throat and twirled her finger in the air. “Trade me places, hero. Let’s get you fixed up.”

  Our bodies brushed together as I slid in front of her. I didn’t want my breath to catch or my dick to get hard, but that’s what happened.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off our reflection. Her dark head barely peeked over my shoulder, and her hands looked so pale and delicate against my darker skin. I braced my hands on the edge of the vanity and leaned forward. I dropped my chin down and concentrated on keeping my breathing nice and even. I hoped like hell she couldn’t feel the way she made my entire body stiffen and clench.

  I hissed when she pulled the tape off the old bandage. She clicked her tongue at me, and I saw her head shake. “This is all crusty and gross. You’re lucky it didn’t get infected. You should have had me change it days ago.”

  I grunted. “Been busy. It didn’t seem important.”

  She scoffed behind me. “Sure, it’s not important. Who needs two working arms?”

  I grumbled again when she wiped some kind of goo on it that caused my skin to tingle uncomfortably. Her movements were quick and efficient as she got the new bandage in place and secured it. When she was done, she patted me on my uninjured shoulder and took a step backward.

  “Almost good as new.” I was opening my mouth to thank her—and get her out of my personal space so I could do something completely idiotic like jerk off to memories of that kiss—when I felt the barely there brush of her fingertips skate down the column of my spine. “You have a lot of scars, Case.”

  I shuddered slightly and bit out, “Hazard of the job. Some are old, from football in high school. A couple are from my time in the desert.” Most of them were from my old man. He had a wide leather belt with a huge-ass silver belt buckle he liked to use when he felt like I’d been particularly disobedient.

  I felt her fingers trace along the waistband of my jeans and my skin rippled in response.

  “You have a road map on your skin. Clearly the path you traveled has never been easy.”

  Her caress slipped across my hips and tickled along the edge of my abs. My stomach muscles contracted in reaction, and my cock throbbed painfully behind my zipper.

  “But I’m here, mostly unscathed. I’m here for my son, and I’m here for this town. Nothing has been able to stop me from being where I was supposed to be.” It’d taken me a long time to accept that Loveless was as much a
part of me as I was a part of it. It no longer felt like I’d lost my chance to escape when I was younger.

  I sucked in a loud breath when her fingers dipped beneath the waistband of my jeans, precariously close to the achingly hard erection there was no hiding. My hands tightened into fists in front of me, and I lifted my head so I could look at her in the mirror. Her dark eyes met mine with a mischievous gleam.

  “What exactly are you doing, Counselor?”

  She laughed, and the puff of air was warm against my shoulder. “I honestly have no idea, but it’s the only thing that’s felt right in a very long time. You said no kissing. This isn’t kissing.” Her thumb traced the delineated lines on my lower abdomen, and her fingernails dragged through the thin trail of dark hair that arrowed below my belly button. My cock kicked in response.

  “It’s a mistake. You’ve had a long night.” The words sounded strangled and thin.

  “Doesn’t feel like a mistake. Didn’t feel that way when you kissed me earlier either.” I felt her lips touch the back of my neck, and my entire body convulsed.

  “You’re still married.” It was the last argument I had, the last-ditch effort to put the brakes on something I didn’t fully understand.

  Her soft sigh made me shiver and had my eyes drifting closed all the way. A moment later her palm was gliding along swollen, rigid flesh and I couldn’t put a coherent thought together.

  “Doesn’t feel like it.”

  No, no it did not. It felt like we were supposed to be exactly where we were in this moment…together.

  Chapter 11

  Aspen

  I wasn’t sure what came over me.

  Maybe I was obsessed. Possessed. For sure I was depressed and possibly repressed.

  There were a lot of things flying through my head, but they all quieted down when I had my hands all over Case’s hot, hard flesh. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against his spine between his shoulder blades. His skin was warm, and he smelled earthy and real. He looked like a hero. He wore the battles he fought and won on his skin with pride. The scars, the marks life left all over him, didn’t detract from his attractiveness at all. I liked that it was obvious by looking at him that he wasn’t a man who sat on the sidelines. He was someone who acted, who had purpose, who wasn’t afraid of jumping in with both feet. He was everything I wanted to be. I wanted to act first and think later. I wanted to be fearless and brave.

  The first step was touching Case, even though he clearly thought it was a terrible idea. He emboldened me, and maybe, just maybe I needed to know that I could still draw a reaction out of him now that he knew to what extent I’d been rejected by my husband and just how broken I really was. I’d learned to accept my body’s limitations. Not being able to bring a baby into the world was as much a part of me as being short and having black hair. For the most part I was okay with that—at least I was until someone else found out about it and made me feel like I was somehow intrinsically lacking as a woman. It was hard to miss something I’d never had until others reminded me most others had it. I was already different in a lot of obvious ways, but being different in such a personal and private way hadn’t helped matters when it came to trying to find my way in the world.

  But Case knew, and he had yet to push me away. He knew, and he was still hard in my hand, the tip of his cock already slick. He knew, and his breathing was still choppy and rough. He knew my biggest secret, the one I cried over, grieved, kept close to my heart, and yet his abs still contracted underneath my exploring fingers. Maybe I needed the validation that someone, well mostly this man, who I’d always been inexplicably attracted to, could want me.

  One of us sucked in a sharp breath. One of us pressed closer. It was so hard to tell who was following whom. But when it became clear neither one of us was going anywhere, I tightened my hand around the pulsing erection in my hand.

  I held my breath, waiting for him to stop me, waiting for him to tell me we couldn’t do this. When his rough fingers locked like a vise around my wrist, my pulse kicked up in tempo, and my hand stilled. His fingers tightened like a clamp, and I felt his entire body shudder and quake under my forehead where it rested on his back. I let my lips touch his heated skin, prepared to walk away if it was what he wanted. I was never this bold, and I’d long ago gotten accustomed to handling rejection.

  My eyes flew open in shock when he used the hold he had on my hand to push my hand farther into his pants and all the way down to the base of his cock.

  “If you’re going to touch me, then don’t play around.” His voice was barely more than a rasp of sound, and when I braved a look over his broad shoulder, his eyes were staring directly at me in the mirror.

  My lips parted on a silent sound as I wrapped my hand entirely around his girth and started to slide it up and down. When I reached the tip, I used the pad of my thumb to collect the moisture beading up at his slit and spread it around to reduce the friction of my palm skating along his rock-hard length. My fingertips traced the heavy vein I could feel running along the base, and I heard his breath catch. His eyes were so bright I wondered if they would glow in the dark. I swore I could feel the touch of them on my face as we watched each other in the mirror.

  I was too short to look over his shoulder to see what he looked like in my hands, so I had to watch myself in the mirror with wide eyes as I touched him like he belonged to me. It was a seriously sexy sight. His skin was a dark honey color next to my much paler complexion. All of him looked huge and hard against my much smaller and softer parts. Plus, with his lean hips revealed by his pushed-down jeans, carved torso, cut abs, ruggedly handsome face, and unforgettable blue eyes, he was pretty much every woman’s dream of what a hot cowboy should look like. He was picture-perfect, and I was scared to blink because I felt like he might disappear if I moved wrong or said something to break the spell we were both under.

  Before I could question my sanity, I tightened my hold on the straining erection in my hand and started to work him over with deliberation. I wanted to feel Case Lawton come apart in my hands. I dragged the nails of my free hand across his abs and up over his ribs, leaving lines in his skin and causing him to gasp my name in surprise. There wasn’t much else I could use that hand for other than to memorize every line and dip of his body, since most of it was still wrapped in gauze. I used the tip of my tongue to trace a long line across the wide plain of his shoulders. It wasn’t a kiss, so I figured I was still within the boundaries he’d set. I was used to having to stand on my tiptoes to reach the parts of my partner I wanted my mouth on. With Case, I really had to try to reach, but if anyone ever asked I would tell them it was totally hot how much bigger he was than me. I liked that I could almost completely hide behind him, that if he was inclined he could cover me from head to toe with his bulk.

  He grunted when I circled the sensitive line that ran under the flared head of his cock. His arms locked, and the veins in his forearms started to bulge. His eyes dropped to half-mast, and twin flags of red started to burn on the sharp blades of his cheekbones.

  “Aspen.” My name was a broken sound full of warning. His hips pressed back toward me and then rocked slowly forward into my slippery grip.

  I sighed against his skin and closed my eyes. I rested my cheek on his shoulder without the bandage, loving how strong and resilient he felt underneath me. I still wasn’t 100 percent steady on my feet, but Case could handle both our weight with no problem.

  “Let go.” My voice was soft, but the order laced throughout the quiet words were loud and clear.

  In this moment I knew that’s what I wanted. For him to let go of the past. For him to let off the resentment and anger, so I could do the same. I desperately wanted him to let go of who he thought we were so he could see who we could be if he gave us half a chance. I didn’t need to think about the crush I’d had on him when I was younger, because the way I was feeling about him now was very grown-up. I wouldn’t have been able to handle him then, our differences would have gotten th
e best of us. But now, now the things that set us apart from one another were beautiful and would keep things interesting and exciting.

  A moment later his entire body rippled and quaked under my hands. He barked out a string of dirty words that would have made me blush in a different situation. Warm liquid coated my fingers—it felt sticky and rewarding.

  The only sound in the bathroom was our labored breathing. But then came the sound of water running in the sink when Case leaned forward to turn it on. I ended up plastered to his bare back as he used his tight hold on my wrist to thrust my hand under the faucet. I inhaled the last lungful of his scent and took a second to revel in the fact I could make Case Lawton lose his mind and go against his common sense if I tried hard enough. But as all evidence of his release and our closeness washed away, so did the intoxicating, powerful mood we’d been enveloped in a moment ago.

  Case wiped my hand dry before grabbing my shoulders and forcibly moving me sideways so he could turn and put more than an arm’s length of space between us. We stared at one another without speaking for a long time. Eventually, he sighed so heavily I was surprised the gust from the sound didn’t knock me over. He lowered his chin and lifted a hand to run across the back of his neck.

  “Aspen.” This time when he said my name it made my heart sink into my stomach and had a painful ache kicking to life in my chest. “This has to stop. We have to stop. This isn’t going anywhere, it can’t. I can’t. I’m trying to figure out who’s trying to kill you. To do that and get you back to your life, I need to be able to think straight. I need you in the box you’ve been in for all these years, the one that doesn’t have any kind of emotional attachment to it. I can’t deal with trying to find a new box to put you in right now.”