Chute Yeah

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “The real thing?” she said just as softly.

  “Yes,” I told her. “It was the real thing for me the moment that I saw you in town for the first time and you called me an asshole. It was like I was back in high school feeling the side of your tongue all over again.”

  Her face went soft.

  “I want it to be the real thing, too,” she admitted. “Not playing. For real, for real.”

  I pulled her up onto my step and tucked my arms solidly around her body, pulling her up until she was pressed fully against me.

  “I’ve never wanted anything to be more real in my life,” I said. “Getting you here? It was the quickest way I could see that happening. Sure, I didn’t think I’d get you to fall into my trap in the first weekend, but….”

  She pressed her lips to the underside of my chin.

  “You forgot your hat,” she said.

  I pulled her back into the trailer with me and fetched my hat.

  This time when we went outside, I was the one to lead.

  “Come on, baby,” I said, tugging her along in my wake. “Let’s go get that milkshake.”

  Chapter 16

  That moment when you realize burpees are a part of your life now.

  -Candy to Banks

  Candy

  When we arrived home the following week, the last thing I wanted to do was spend the night away from Banks and under the same roof as my father.

  Not only would I not be able to sneak Banks in, but I wouldn’t be able to sneak out, either.

  But Dad’s enthusiasm at seeing me was sweet, and I couldn’t help sharing in his excitement.

  “How did it go?” I asked, looking at his thumb.

  He gave me a scrunched-up look before saying, “It went. Your donkey decided to go a visitin’ twice. And it was after the second time that Callum and I decided to just leave him there.”

  I blinked.

  Then blinked again.

  “They’re okay with that?” I asked.

  I mean, Banks had said as much, but I hadn’t expected the same from Callum.

  “Yep,” he agreed. “And I think you should consider making it a permanent thing. They said they didn’t care if he was over there or not, and I think he actually enjoys himself a little better over at the Valentine place.”

  I did, too.

  At least with one Valentine in particular.

  “Well,” I said. “I guess I’ll discuss it with them when I head over to their job site tomorrow. Any other problems?”

  He shook his head.

  “Actually, I made it over to all of the active sites.” He grinned sheepishly. “And I’m moving back home.”

  I blinked.

  “You’re what?” I asked, unsure if I’d heard him right.

  “I’m moving back home,” he repeated. “I’ll still come over when you leave on Friday to check the animals. But…” He blew out a breath. “I miss being in my own place. Your momma…”

  I suddenly understood.

  My place was missing everything about my mom. There was nothing here. No memories. No knick-knacks. No nothing.

  I smiled softly at him, then walked forward and into his arms, pressing a kiss to his weathered cheek.

  “We’ll talk about you driving tomorrow…” I started, but he interrupted me.

  “I’m off all my pain pills,” he said. “I can’t do the computer or write yet, so I’ll still need you, but this last week has shown me that I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

  I pursed my lips in thought.

  “In fact, after you cook me dinner, I’m headed home.” He grinned. “Miss my bed.”

  My eyes softened.

  “Okay,” I said. “What do you want?”

  It was after dinner was consumed, after things were cleaned and tidied, after my father left, and after I started to do the books for the week, that I texted Banks.

  Candy: What are you doing?

  Banks: Sitting in the living room, drinking a beer, contemplating sneaking into your room tonight so I don’t have to sleep alone. Does your bedroom window have a lock? Does the bed creak?

  I snorted.

  Candy: No, my bedroom doesn’t have a lock on the window. I use a metal bar. I can easily lift it up. And yes, my bed squeaks. It’s about fifty years old. I got it at a garage sale for a song.

  Banks: What about the floor?

  I would have laughed had he not been one hundred percent serious.

  Candy: That creaks too. But just FYI. My dad decided to go home. He said he misses his house.

  Banks: Be there in ten.

  He wasn’t at my house in ten. He was at my place in five.

  When I opened the door and saw him standing there still wearing the same thing I’d watched him get dressed in that morning, I smiled.

  “You were fast,” I said, voice husky.

  “I’d been thinking about coming over since I dropped you off this morning,” he admitted. “I was trying to come up with a viable excuse to see you that wouldn’t get me killed.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “My dad knows we’re together,” I said. “He’s not dumb.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But I also don’t have to rub the fact that I’m doing his daughter in his face, either.”

  “It’s my house,” I pointed out.

  I mean, I wouldn’t have done anything with my father under my roof, but I could have seeing as I made the mortgage payments and my father didn’t.

  “True,” he agreed. “But one day, when I marry you, I want him to like me.”

  My eyes widened.

  “You… marry me?” I sputtered, the spit drying up so fast in my mouth that I found it hard to speak. “What?”

  His grin was infectious. But my head was spinning, and I didn’t know what to say in response to his words.

  He had to be joking… right?

  But before I could ask him to clarify his statement, his mouth was on mine.

  “I missed you,” he whispered between kisses, his bearded jaw rubbing deliciously along my skin. “Like a lot.”

  I licked his bottom lip, then pulled it into my mouth, sucking lightly.

  His breath hissed out as he squeezed my hips to hold me in place.

  “I missed you, too,” I admitted. “I was already contemplating coming to visit you before bed.”

  His growl was a low rumble that made my nipples tighten.

  “Glad that we got this figured out then,” he admitted. “‘Because I want to sleep with you tonight. I was a little worried we wouldn’t get any sleep since we’ve become so accustomed to sleeping with each other.”

  That was true. Granted, it’d only been a few days of us sleeping next to one another, but it’d been enough to show me what I’d been missing—my very own living, breathing cuddle cowboy.

  My cuddle cowboy was sweet, soft, and oh so warm. He also let me use his bicep as a pillow, and his thigh to wrap my own around.

  “I want to sleep with you, too,” I admitted. “But before that….”

  I began to unbutton the buttons on his chambray shirt.

  His smile tilted up even more at the corners of his mouth, letting me know he was enjoying my aggressiveness.

  “Yeah?” he pushed. “What’ll we do?”

  “We’re going to try out my squeaky bed.” I latched onto his hand and dragged him behind me.

  His laugh had tingles breaking out all over my body, and it literally took everything I had not to stop right there in the middle of the hallway and jump his bones.

  He must’ve read the look on my face, too, because before I could get any closer to my bedroom, he was halting me by hooking one finger in the gap in my jeans right above my ass.

  I stopped and looked at him over my shoulder and realized my mistake.

  I showed him my weaknesses, and he preyed on them.

  Before I could so much as blink, I had my face
against my hallway wall, and him crowding up behind me.

  My heart rate started to accelerate, and he paused like he always did to make sure that I was not having any problems with him being so close.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I licked my dry lips and replied with, “More than.”

  He growled and ground his cock against my backside, rubbing the hard erection teasingly over the crack of my ass.

  “Undo your jeans the rest of the way,” he ordered.

  I did, loving the sound of the pop-pop as the button fly came the rest of the way undone, one by one.

  They felt like shots in the night—or loud demands in my hallway.

  His mouth was trailing a tingling line of kisses along my exposed shoulder.

  “Did I tell you that I liked this shirt?” he asked. “Because I do. A lot.”

  He had.

  A lot.

  Smiling as I pressed my forehead against the wall, I said, “You told me this morning as you watched me put it on. Then you told me at that rest stop where you stopped for a stretch of your legs and ended up fucking me in the trailer.”

  We had done that, too.

  I’d loved it.

  I’d gone in there because I’d forgotten my charger, and I’d been pulling the shoulder-baring top down so that it rode in the right place, and accidentally flashed a little more boob than I’d been intending. When Banks had followed up behind me and seen the act, he’d kept tugging until my braless breasts had popped free and been exposed to his eyes.

  He did much the same thing now, pulling so slowly that just one breast popped free of the confines.

  “You have.” I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth. “Mmmmm.”

  My words trailed into a moan when his hands started going two directions at once. One went down the length of my belly toward my pants while the other moved up to cup my only exposed breast.

  I leaned my ass back into him and ground against his cock, loving the wordless desire that left his mouth moments later.

  His fingers on one hand plucked my nipple while the fingers on the other were down my pants, sifting through my pubic hair between the lips of my sex.

  “Fuckin’ pants are too tight,” he rumbled.

  They were pretty tight.

  I’d unbuttoned them about halfway through our journey home today and had caught him staring at them more than once.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “I should lose them.”

  He stepped back slightly and said, “Do it.”

  I hooked my hands into the waistband and pushed them down as far as I could get them without bending down.

  “You’re gonna have to let me bend if you want them all the way off,” I teased.

  With them at the top of my thighs, it was more than enough for him to get what he wanted—access to my pussy.

  “That’s all I need for now,” he disagreed, his fingers now gliding effortlessly through my wet slit.

  Up and down he went, coating his fingers in my need.

  “So wet,” he growled.

  So wet for you, I agreed silently.

  I pushed my ass back toward his cock, but he stepped back.

  “Nuh-uh,” he said. “I want to feel you, and I have to wear these jeans home. If you get your juices on them, I’m going to have to wash them…and that’ll take away from my night with you.”

  “I have to do laundry anyway,” I tried.

  He chuckled and pressed his lips once again to my neck, trailing his beard along my neck and back.

  My nipples tightened, and he felt it.

  “You like my mouth on you?” he asked.

  Was that a rhetorical question?

  Because it was more than obvious I liked his mouth on me.

  So, I didn’t answer.

  Instead, I latched onto his arm that was attached to the hand that was between my legs and dug my nails into it while canting my hips to urge him on.

  He didn’t catch my drift, though.

  Instead of spearing his fingers into my needy center, he slowed to a near stop and circled my clit, but never coming close to touching it.

  I gritted my teeth and stopped trying to get him to do anything, knowing that he would do what he wanted anyway.

  “Now you get it.” He laughed huskily against me.

  Then his teeth sank into the skin at the base of my neck, and I clenched so hard I almost came.

  If his fingers had only been in me when he’d done that…

  “I can practically hear your brain ticking.” He chuckled. “What do you want?”

  “Your cock?” I didn’t see the point in lying.

  I wanted it deep inside me, moving in and out slowly, as he worked me to where I wanted to be.

  Something in which he likely knew.

  But he wanted to draw out my pleasure. Wanted to always make sure I came at least twice.

  When sometimes I just wanted to be bent over and fucked hard.

  “Hard?” he wondered.

  Again, I didn’t see the point in telling him otherwise when I knew that he was going to do what he wanted when he wanted it.

  Banks Valentine moved to the beat of his own drum and expected everyone else to do much the same.

  “Soft?” He bit me again, much softer this time.

  I moaned and closed my eyes, rocking my forehead back and forth along the hallway wall.

  “Or do you just want me inside of you at this point?” he asked. “Anything will do once I’m in you?”

  Those were the magical words.

  “Yes,” I finally answered.

  Not sure which one I was actually answering yes to at this point.

  Maybe the third option was right.

  Anything would do.

  Before I could tell him that anything would do, though, he slowly started to ease inside of me, one delicious inch at a time.

  When I thought that I was going to come, he pulled back, not allowing me to cross the line into oblivion.

  He did this, again and again, until I was on the verge of tears.

  “Banks, please,” I whispered. “Please.”

  “Tell me what I want to hear,” he ordered.

  I had no idea whatsoever what he wanted to hear.

  So, I just told him everything that was on my mind at that second in time.

  “I kind of hate you,” I whispered brokenly, pressing my forehead hard against the wall, causing it to ache. “I hate that you make me so happy. I hate that you make me feel so good. I hate that one day, you’re probably going to realize that I’m not good for you. I hate that we’re so close to finishing y’all’s house, meaning after you’re done with me, I’ll have no other reason to see you. But most of all, I don’t hate you. I love you. I’ve loved you since we were teenagers, and you were teasing me about my shoes.” I swallowed hard. “The day that you said yes when I asked you to the dance was the happiest day of my life.”

  He groaned and buried his face into my neck, and his cock into my pussy.

  I gasped at the suddenness of it but didn’t have much of a chance to say anything more because he slowly started to fuck me. Taking me in slow but consistent increments.

  It was exactly what I needed.

  Within seconds I was done.

  My clit felt like it hardened between my thighs, and soon I was coming so intensely that my eyes hurt.

  I moaned and moved my head sideways, letting out a yelling curse.

  He cursed right along with me when I clamped down on his cock.

  And seconds after that, when I felt him jerking inside of me, I continued to shudder all around him.

  “The worst day of my life,” he rasped. “Was standing you up. The best day was when you let me into your life again. I’m sorry I was such a shithead when we were kids, and even more sorry that I can’t erase that day from existence. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen that night. But right now? You’re exquisite.
I don’t know if it’s because I know you’re mine. If it’s because you glow when you come. Hell, it’s probably just because you’re that gorgeous. But, honey? I just want you to know, I won’t fuck this up. I will not. Not now, not in a year. Not in twenty. You’re… baby. You’re mine. It’s too soon for rings. It’s too soon for declarations of love…”

  He grinned when I opened my mouth to comment.

  “I know how you feel. I know how I feel,” he said. “But I don’t want to go that far just yet. I want you to say it to me when I deserve it.”

  I would’ve said he deserved to hear it right now, but I knew what he meant.

  This was still new.

  We still had a lot of hurdles to jump over before we got to that point and muddying up the waters with talk of feelings wasn’t the best idea yet.

  But it made me feel better that he was on the same wavelength as me.

  That he was feeling much the same as I was…

  I took his hand and squeezed it three times, bringing it up to my mouth and pressing a kiss to his palm.

  “What was that?” he rasped, smoothing his hand down my bare hip.

  “That was for the words you won’t let me say for everyone to hear,” I told him. “Even though I feel them, I will wait to share them aloud with you until the time is right. When it’s time again… I’m going to shout them from the rooftop.”

  He pressed a kiss to my shoulder and then slowly pulled out of me, making me feel like I’d just lost something precious. Something I needed to survive.

  I started to laugh.

  “What?” he asked, his hand pressing lightly on my belly.

  “I just had the fleeting thought that I needed your dick to survive.” I giggled.

  He chuckled behind me before wrapping me up in his arms and guiding me to the bathroom.

  “That’s not a bad thing,” he said. “I kind of like that you like it so much you’re thinking it’s necessary to live.”

  “Next time I’m dying I’ll let them know all that I need to survive is your…” I trailed off when he growled and turned me around, his hands going to my face.

  “I don’t want to hear anything like that.” He paused. “Ever.”

  I blinked at the seriousness in his tone.

  “Banks…” I paused until his attention was solely focused on me. “I’m okay. I’m better. I’m me. I’m not broken anymore, okay? I was only teas—”