He picks up a small baby goat and my ovaries nearly explode. I have no desire for kids, not yet, anyway, but a hungover-vulnerable Brody gently holding a tiny animal, spindly legs dangling over his forearm, is about the cutest-slash-sexiest thing I’ve ever seen and instantly makes me think of Brody as a father. He’d be an excellent one—by all reports, he raised Shayanne pretty damn well.
Finally, he speaks low and slow, like he’s scared I’m going to go nuclear again. “Can I explain?” I nod, still not sure where he’s going but readying myself for just about anything. “Shay is why I said you should talk to your dad about racing.”
I open my mouth to argue, and he lifts one brow to glare at me from under his hat. Slowly, I shut my mouth for once. It’s harder than it should be.
“Thank you.” He acknowledges how hard that was for me. “We grew up happy, and Mom and Dad were good together. But when she died, Dad was gutted and never right again. I picked up the slack and took as much of his anger as I could, but he was . . .” He pauses, looking for the word. “Stuck, I guess? After that, Dad would never let Shay grow. He kept her small, though I don’t think he meant to. She was just a kid to him, to me, to all of us. She still is sometimes, though these days, she won’t let us forget that she’s not. But she’s just so damn good. I wish Dad had seen her succeed, not for his sake because fuck him, but for hers. For the longest time, she had a soft spot for Dad, and it would’ve meant the world to her to prove herself to him.” He’s quiet, scratching behind the goat’s ears and seemingly lost in the past.
“That’s why I said what I said. I think it would mean something to you to show your dad what an amazing mechanic you are, especially with all the custom shit you’re doing. It’s your art, and I can see how it’s wearing on you to hold back a part of yourself from everyone. That’s all I meant, but it’s your call. Always.” He sets the goat down, dark eyes focused on me, imploring me to understand that his heart was in the right place.
Words fail me, so I strut right up to him and grab a handful of his shirt, pulling him down to me. He comes willingly, our lips crashing together. I apologize again without words, make promises across our shared breath, and taste his good intentions upon his tongue.
When we need to stop for air, and so that we can assume a more natural posture, with me not on my tippy toes and Brody bent and hunched over, I ask him for more even though he’s given so much. “Reed said this was Tannen Farm, and that’s what the sign said too, but you work for the Bennetts. How does that happen?”
He sighs deeply, and I know this isn’t going to be a happy story. My heart is already cracking for him because however it happened, he lost the one thing he told me he wanted. A ranch of his own. “I said Dad didn’t take losing Mom well, but it was more than that. I don’t think he ever had a happy day without her. That was when I took over around here—the house, the farm, the kids. Well, technically, Shayanne was the only kid, but really, we all were young fuckers who grew up fast. And I was doing it, handling it all until Dad died too. He owed money to some unforgiving people and we had to sell the farm to pay them off. We didn’t have many, or any, options, and the Bennetts saved us by buying the farm and promising us a chance to buy it back if they ever sell. We basically do what we always did, but Mark gets all the profits and credit.” A smile as he says that part lets me know that while it’s not his dream, he’s mostly good with how things are.
That’s important to me. Not whether he owns his own ranch or has a five, ten, and fifteen-year plan. I do, but not everyone thinks the way I do. And that’s okay.
Besides, my plan is sort of weird. Like don’t get arrested—again—and don’t tell Dad about racing and building racecars. Not exactly mature, exacting, progressive-thinking standards. And maybe not the best plan anyway, if I listen to Brody.
So maybe his version of being grateful for where you are at the moment is something I can learn from.
“I’m sorry. If I could fix it for you, I would.” I’ve never meant it more. I would do just about anything for Brody to get this back, and one of the things I do best is fix things. But this isn’t something I can fix with a torque wrench. Mechanics don’t have magic wands in our toolkits, and I don’t have a way to just wave my hand and make Brody happier.
Brody shrugs as though he’s already made his peace with the shitty situation. “I lived a lifetime of stress in under a decade. It’s nice to not worry for a bit, like a working vacation. I do what I know, what I love, without worrying if the bank is gonna foreclose or whether we’ll have enough money to keep the heat on through the winter. I want the responsibility back, and yes, I’m going to work my ass off to get it.” He looks at me from beneath the brim of his cap, reminding me of the painful words I threw at him. “And when I do have it all back, it’ll be because I earned it . . . each and every inch of dirt.”
“Would it make you mad if I said your dad sucks? I mean, I know I’ve got some pretty significant Daddy issues happening over here, but . . .” I’m teasing, a little. But hearing Brody talk about his dad’s relationship with Shay and Brody’s struggles to be an adult at a time when he should’ve still had a soft place to land makes me sad for him.
Brody huffs a laugh, a small smile cracking. “Nah, he was all right, just broken. I don’t forgive him for everything, but I’m not casting stones too much anymore. Just on occasion, when it feels warranted.” He takes a deep breath, seeming more settled than a moment ago.
“Will you show me some more?” I’ll take whatever he wants to show me—his heart, his body, his soul, his farm. Though I suspect those last two are one and the same.
“Come on, Lil Bit.” He guides me back into the barn, leaving the ovary-popping adorableness of the goats behind, and to a golf cart on steroids. “Get in,” he says, climbing into the driver’s seat and turning the machine on. It’s more of a diesel putt-putt-putt than the growling engines I’m used to.
He looks over at me, and a fizzy sensation washes through me. This is something I only feel when I’m the one sitting behind the wheel of a car on the line, with the light about to change.
I feel like I’m right where I should be. Like I’m on the edge of possibility, a moment where anything can happen from one blink to the next.
And then it does.
Brody takes his dirty, ever-present, camo-cow hat off his head and places it on mine backward. His thumb runs over my cheek, and this feels like a huge gift for a country boy like Brody.
“You look good in my hat, Erica.”
He slowly leans over and places a sweet, soft kiss to my lips. This is the first time we’ve kissed this particular kiss. Not sexy, not as a stepping stone to more, not even as a greeting, but just because we like each other and can’t stand to not tell the other person how much that means. His lips press against mine, and I breathe in his scent—sunshine, dirt, sweat, a little alcohol . . . and mine.
He’s right. Casual left a long time ago, and I’m glad to finally acknowledge that because I want more of these kisses, more days with Brody where I can tease that hard-to-get full smile to his lips, more nights making him lose his words, and more of a life making him trust me to have his back. Always, no matter what. I want him to know that I’m here for him and trust him to be there for me, because I choose him.
Shit. Fuck. Damn.
I do. I choose him. For the first time, I’m choosing something for me, not as an escape from something else like I did with the military, not like racing for my dad, even if I can’t tell him that now. But Brody? I’m choosing him . . . for myself, which makes us feel that much more important.
He leans back, and I feel the loss of his closeness until I see the shine in his dark eyes. He might be in his seat a few inches away, but he’s with me in this all the way.
“You ready for this, Lil Bit?” he asks, that cocky arrogant smile turning his lips up. He’s not talking about a farm tour.
“Might be the other way around, Cowboy. I can handle damn near anything, so what you sh
ould be asking is if you’re ready for me.” I can do cocky too.
“Fucking badass ball-buster. Let’s go.” He doesn’t give me a chance to respond, putting the vehicle in gear and pulling out of the barn. As soon as we’re clear, he gives the pedal a good push and shows me what he can do. He might not be a racer, but he’s a wild and reckless cowboy through and through, speeding across the grass as I hang on for dear life. This isn’t smooth and sleek engineering careening straight down a track. We’re bouncing and rambling over hills and ruts, my ass only meeting the seat every few seconds and my hands bracing on the oh-shit handle and the dash. I’m not embarrassed to say I scream out like a damn girly girl a few times. Okay, I take that back . . . I am embarrassed, but only because Brody is sitting in his seat like a damn steady rock, leaning into every donut like he’s done this a thousand times and laughing his fool head off.
“I’m gonna get you back for this,” I threaten, knowing that I’m gonna push the limits if I ever get him to ride bitch in Foxy when I race. We’ll see if he likes that. On second thought, he probably would.
The camo-cow hat flies off my head when he does a quick turn, and I yell out. He glances at me and lifts a sardonic brow before turning around. He doesn’t stop, only slows to a crawl as I lean out to pick up the hat from the dirt. I feel a pinch to my ass and jump, only to hear him laugh. Still on a mission, I grab the hat, bonus dirt and all, but this time, I pull it on facing forward with my hair through the hole at the back, hoping that’ll help it stay secure.
Brody nods his approval, and at a more reasonable pace, he drives me out to see the farming operation—the ‘home garden’ that grows for Tannen and Bennett usage and the ‘business plots’ that are reserved for Shay’s products and the crops they sell at the farmer’s market. After explaining the differences, he shows me the cattle, who come ambling toward the Gator as we approach.
“They think it’s feeding time,” he explains. “Which it’s not,” he tells the cows, though they probably can’t hear him from here. Actually, I don’t know . . . do cows have super hearing?
We get out and walk over to the barbed wire fence, which seems like nothing to get through if they decided to mosey on wherever they want. “Can I touch them?”
“Yeah,” he says over the animals who are mooing in anticipation of his paying them a little loving attention. I feel ya, ladies . . . he’d get a moo from me too. Except that’s weird, so maybe not a moo, exactly?
I can see why he loves this life—a bit of wild, a heap of responsibility, some peace and quiet, and a family that feels the same way about the dirt that you do. I’ve learned more about Brody today than in all our weeks before. Or maybe now, in addition to knowing what makes him laugh and where his favorite place for me to nibble is, I also know his heart and soul. I think he’s known mine all along, but I’m finally catching up. And yeah, I get the irony that the race car driver is the last one to get anywhere, but I’m here now and that’s what matters.
He shows me how to approach them carefully and scratch behind their ears, and after a few minutes of easy, comfortable silence, it feels like we’ve been reset. Not like I didn’t fuck everything up, but maybe that because I did, things are actually better than before.
“Can I show you one more thing?” Brody asks, his voice deep and rough and his fingers playing with the end of my ponytail.
“Anything,” I answer. The scariest part of all is that I absolutely mean it.
Chapter 21
Brody
“Third door on the right,” I tell the fabulous view as Erica goes up the stairs. That my mind is distracted is a testament to how important today has been because her ass is begging for my tongue and her thighs are pleading for my fingertips.
She whispers, “Why does it feel like I’m not supposed to be here? Like we’re doing something wrong?” She sounds more than a little intrigued at the idea, which doesn’t surprise me about her in the least.
“Because you’re going into my childhood bedroom to fuck. Luckily for you, I just took down my WWE posters last week.” She glances back, brows raised in question. I smack her ass in pseudo-punishment. “Kidding. I seem like a fake wrestling sort to you?”
She smirks. “Abso-fucking-lutely, you do, Cowboy.” She drawls out the ‘cowboy’ in a fake accent that’d make John Wayne cringe.
I asked for that one, so I go ahead and give her the grin she earned and the grunt she’s expecting.
She opens the door, and I watch her, knowing exactly what she’s seeing. A full-sized bed in the corner, unmade, of course, because I don’t see the point when I’m getting back in it tonight, a nightstand with the latest John Grisham book laid open to save my place, a basket of clean clothes sitting right next to a pile of dirty ones, and a chest of drawers where all the clean clothes should be.
“Very bachelor pad-ish,” she says. I can tell the unmade bed is driving her nuts. She basically makes hers the second she gets out of it, a military habit holdover, she’s told me. Suddenly, she gasps. “You are a fucking monster!” She picks up the book from my nightstand, waving it around in offense. “Use a bookmark, for fuck’s sake!”
I shrug, not caring in the slightest. “It’s my book. I’ll crease the spine if I want to.”
She looks horrified, so I make a show of grabbing a condom packet out of the top drawer, placing it inside the book, and closing it with a sarcastically affectionate pat. I set it back on the nightstand, hugely implying ‘you happy?’ She smirks and wanders over to the chest of drawers, looking at a picture of my family, all six of us.
“I think I was around fifteen then, in high school for sure. Brutal must’ve been around thirteen, because that was one of the last times I was taller than him. He shot up that summer, passed us all, even Dad.”
“You look happy. You all look happy.” She touches the easy smile on my teenage face in the picture. There are flashes of this boy inside me still, but the man is more hardened and cynical from what I’ve gone through between that camera flash and now.
“We were. We are. It was just the in-between that was hard, but we’re all good now. Truly. And one day, we’ll be even better. I didn’t show you today, but over the hill to the west, Brutal is building a house for him and Allyson and Cooper. And Bobby lets us all come listen to him perform at Hank’s now, something he never did before. He’s gonna be on the radio one day, I just know it. And Shay is happy with someone who wants her to live the life that she wants and deserves.”
“You said everyone but you. What about Brody Tannen? Is he happy?” she asks softly, setting the picture back down and turning to face me fully.
“Yeah, Erica. I am happy. And I’m gonna carpe the shit out of this diem like it’s all we get.” I pick her up, and her legs go around my waist naturally.
I mean that. I still think relationships are a ticking time bomb, waiting to destroy you when they inevitably end, but I get why everyone risks it now. Why, even if you know it’ll gut you eventually, it’s worth it to be with the one person who can make every minute mean something. Without them, there’s no risk, but it’s merely an existence, not life.
If I can have one happy day with Erica, I’ll handle any days of pain later. I put off any worries and just focus on the now, a gift I’ve rarely gotten to truly appreciate.
I sit down on my bed, her tiny ass in my lap and her sweet pussy against my thickening cock. “I’ve never had a woman in here before.”
She looks at me skeptically. “I don’t believe that for one second. Teenage Brody Tannen was a bad boy who snuck girls into his room every chance he got, I’d bet money on it.”
I laugh. “You’d lose then. I live in the middle of nowhere. Ain’t nobody coming out here.” The important jump that she came out here to track me down whispers in the air between us, and her smile falls as something deeper takes root.
She runs her fingers through my hair, which is getting a little long, but it feels good when she scratches my scalp and tugs on the strands to get my
attention so I’ve let it go longer than usual. “You’re worth chasing, Brody. Worth caring for. Worth sharing with. Worth living every day to the fullest with.”
I swear I hear more, hear things with my heart that her lips aren’t saying because I feel them too. We might both be hesitant to speak the words out loud, but today has changed everything.
Something breaks inside me, something I didn’t even know existed. Or maybe it’s not breaking—it’s healing? Scabbing and scarring over, stronger and better than before. I rise up, throwing her on the bed. “I need you.”
It’s not so much that I need to fuck her but that I need to be inside her the way she’s inside me. She’s in my skin, in my blood, in my . . . heart. And I don’t know what to do with that other than fuck my way into hers too and hope she understands me.
She’s already scrambling, pulling her shirt over her head as I undo her shorts and pull them down her legs. Her hands yank at my shirt, and I duck out of it, then both of us are shoving my jeans down. I reach for the book, grabbing the condom out of its pages, not caring at all that I lost my place because I’ve found one . . . with Erica.
Sheathed, I lean over her, one hand on either side of her head, and slam into her. She instantly spasms below me. “Too much?” I growl, praying she says no.
Her short nails claw at my arms. “More. More. Fuck.” Her eyes pop open, and I can see the pleasure there, the hungry need, and also the absolute pure connection we’ve forged, no matter how hard both of us were fighting it.
It’s there. It’s deep, wide, and powerful. It’s everything I never knew existed. Other people aren’t crazy for feeling like this. I’m just a dumbass who thought they were exaggerating. Now I know they weren’t.
Rough Edge Page 22