by Cara McKenna
She got to her feet and unbuckled her belt, struck by how casually they were undressing in front of each other. She supposed this was what it felt like, to be so familiar with someone. Raina wasn’t a modest woman, but she didn’t often reach this point with lovers; it demanded more vulnerability than she was normally comfortable with. Undressing as part of foreplay? Sure. But this was something else. Something far more intimate in its odd way. With Miah, though, it felt infinitely natural. And she liked it. Maybe more than was smart.
“Your mom’s been after you to settle down and make babies since, like, prom,” she reminded him. “No way is she on my cheering squad.”
“Why would you say that? She thinks you’re smart and independent—a woman after her own heart.”
“Yeah, but . . .” She met his eyes. “I’m not really interested in any of that traditional family-type stuff. You know that, right?”
Miah shrugged, though his attention went pointedly to the effort of tugging off his socks. “Course I know that. I told her I had no idea where you and I are going, anyway. I mean, it’s been two days, basically.”
“Basically, and literally.” While to hear him agree that it was only casual ought to have relaxed her, Raina felt something inside her go cold, a rare pang of uncertainty chilling the nice feelings from only a minute earlier. She’d known the truth, same as Vince, but it wasn’t until that very moment that it really hit home. She’d never be what Miah wanted. Not ultimately. This could only ever be a fling with a wayward friend for him, a taste of no-strings fun before he finally found himself a wife or whatever.
Raina knew damn well what her place in this was, and in theory she had no issue with it. But to admit to herself in that moment that falling for this man would only be an exercise in disappointment . . . well, that was a disappointment. It would have made her proud to have called him hers. For every person who’d ever looked at her sideways for how she dressed or the way she made her money to hear she’d landed the most upstanding bachelor in town . . . It was petty, and insecure, and very unlike her, but yeah, maybe some frilly little corner of her heart would’ve reveled in that.
Though at the end of the day, she didn’t want to be Mrs. Church, or Mrs. Anybody. And children? No, thank you. She’d used up every ounce of nurturing she might have possessed on her father when he’d been sick. Whatever Miah wanted in the long term demanded more than she had to give, and more than she cared to give.
Shake it off, Harper. Having conflicting feelings about her and Miah was one thing—fine. A lame, doomed, hopefully passing instinct, but a human one as well. Dwelling on it was quite another. And what mattered was that they were on the same page.
Miah was already shirtless and barefoot, and she snapped out of her thoughts easily with that visual as a distraction. She dawdled with her fly, watching his arms and back flex as he pushed his jeans and shorts to the ground. She bit her lip, mouth overtaken by the most shit-eating of grins. He tested the water with his foot then lowered himself in with a mighty sigh.
“It as hot as I remember?” she asked. It had been years since she’d felt this water around her naked body. There was another hot spring in Fortuity, far closer to town, but it was known to too many people Raina didn’t care to share a soak with. The Churches’ was better in every way—hotter, deeper, cleaner, and most certainly more private, at least with the ranch hands nowhere to be found tonight.
“Like a Jacuzzi,” Miah said, and slid over to make room on the smooth rock shelf.
Raina ditched her last stitch of clothing and sat at the edge, dipping her toes in. “Jesus, that’s boiling.”
“You’ll adjust. Beats the cold night air, anyhow.”
She tempered her feet, ankles, shins, and finally lowered her butt down beside his. The water came up to her breasts, and the breath rushed from her lungs, chased by the shock of the heat. Miah laughed. She felt divided in two, hot and cold, and she felt every hair on her head rise up in a full-body shiver.
“Feel good?”
She nodded, overcome for a moment. In the abundance of sensation, and the novelty of this place. Like she was sitting inside a memory, maybe. Some lame poetry like that.
“Yeah, it feels real good.” Better than just about anything.
Under the water, his hand closed around hers, and she turned to meet his eyes.
“The last two times,” he said quietly, “we’ve rushed right into it.”
“Yeah. Like we were on fire.” And hadn’t they been, really?
“Let’s go slow tonight.”
“Sure.”
“But not too slow—I have to start work in three hours.”
She laughed. “Slow for us, then.”
“Yeah. Slow for us.”
And they sat that way, hands linked, gazes lingering, but nothing more. Neither went in for the kiss, neither spoke. No action or thought was needed to fill the silence; the silence itself was rich. Raina hadn’t even known she could be this way with a man. Just be with him. The heat and hush of the water and fire were pawing them softly, the breeze tugging, lust simmering quietly, and yet the peace was absolute, vast as the sky overhead.
She’d never been so present with a man before. So at ease.
And she didn’t have the first clue what to make of it.
Chapter Eight
What was this strange magic, banishing everything but the experience of being? Raina couldn’t guess. The haze-inducing nature of the water, maybe, or the fact that they’d both already gotten laid that day? Or the work of the heat or the whiskey? Miah himself?
She wondered these things in a state of muted awe, the question a faint whisper, not a nagging concern. In time her mind wandered to other thoughts, and they sat together, regarding the steam and sky and each other’s skin.
“What are you thinking?” Miah asked at length. Not a comment to fill the lapse, but genuine curiosity.
“Not much. Maybe, like, thirty’s such a weird age.” She studied the flames dancing across the jittery surface of the spring. Both of their voices had grown calm and dreamy, to match the night. She could scarcely recall the worries that had left her so uncertain earlier.
“How so?” he asked.
“Well, it’s like you’re still young, except now everybody suddenly expects you to have your shit together. And I still feel like as much of a floundering dumb-ass as I did when I was twenty most days.”
He laughed, squeezing her hand under the water. “Tell me about it. I’m foreman to two dozen employees now, and they look to me for instructions and wisdom and shit. Some days it’s no problem. Other days I just can’t figure out when exactly I quit being their age. When exactly I quit being some carefree kid and became the goddamn boss, you know?”
She nodded. “I want to know exactly when and how I turned into my dad. When precisely his life became mine.”
“When he got sick, maybe¸” Miah said gently. “When you went from being the dependent to the caretaker.”
“I dunno . . . Maybe partly. Except my dad’s been a bit of a wreck my whole life.”
He met her eyes. “How so?”
“I know he always seemed like the happiest guy in town . . . and he was happy. Genuinely, for the most part. Via the magic of denial. But he was also buzzed through a lot of his shifts, and he was useless at getting the bills paid or the books sorted out. I think I’ve been on a first-name basis with all our suppliers since I was about fourteen.”
“Jeez, I never knew it was that bad. He always seemed so . . .”
“Fun?” she offered. The word she heard most in association with Benji Harper.
“That, but like, relaxed, I guess. Like nothing ever got to him, not a care in the world.”
“Well, maybe he needed a few more cares,” she said. “And maybe if he’d been a little more sober a little more often, that bar could’ve thrived.”
“I remember right after he died, you mentioned you thought he was an alcoholic.”
“No question.”
<
br /> “But a functioning one.”
“Yeah. He wasn’t a drunk the way Alex is becoming a drunk. He hardly ever got drunk. But he was buzzed more often than you’d have guessed. I covered for him a lot. He didn’t coast along the way it seemed like he did, just charming his way out of trouble. He owed a lot of people a lot of money by the time he went. And now I owe them. Most of them, anyhow. A few were kind enough to forgive the debts when he got sick, or after he died.”
“You need help?”
She smiled, shaking her head. “There’s an end in sight. Just five thousand left to pay off, between them all.”
If you counted property, land, and stock, Miah’s family was the wealthiest in the county. Three C had been around for nearly a hundred years, established with the fortune his great-great-great-grandfather—give or take a great or two—had made during the railroad boom. But the cattle business was notoriously unstable. In leaner years, Miah’s mother had worked as a substitute teacher to bolster the coffers. Maybe five grand wasn’t a make-it-or-break-it sum to them, as it was to Raina, but it wasn’t nothing, either. Plus Raina couldn’t imagine this affair would last as long as she’d need to pay the Churches back, and she could think of few things less appealing than owing money to an ex. She’d rather face the IRS any day of the week.
“I know what you’re thinking, but let’s keep things simple.” She lay her head on his shoulder. “Stick with what we’re good at.”
“Such as?”
That temporary, easy peace had been nice, but her default setting was back in effect—cagey deflection. “Fucking each other’s brains out,” she said. “Which is what we really ought to be doing, instead of talking about money or my dad’s issues, or any other goddamn thing.”
He laughed, the noise rumbling through his chest and right into her ear. “If you insist.”
“I do.” For as long as possible, let them stay exactly like this. Suspended within this bubble of lust and affection, they could be as free and dumb as in their teenage years, with no problems greater than where and when to meet up next.
Miah stood and drew her with him into the deeper water in the middle of the pool. The current rushed quicker here, tickling her legs and feeling effervescent. Before she could even steal a moment to regard that handsome face in the firelight, they were kissing, the heat of his mouth putting the spring to shame.
It was a challenge to stay upright, with her on her tip-toes against the push of the water, so she broke them apart, and found a jut of rock to hop her butt up onto. She spread her legs and welcomed the thrilling press of Miah’s hips, and his erection pinned between them. The night air was icy on her shoulders and the wet hands she tangled in his hair, but everything else blazed.
His breaths were needy, coming quick and harsh between deep laps of his tongue, and he held her with a possession that echoed his words from earlier. Mine, this kiss said, and she felt that same ferocity right back. It had to be the brightest moment of her entire life—to imagine she’d ever wanted like this before was unthinkable. Impossible. And she doubted she’d ever been wanted in return this fiercely.
She hugged her calves to his ass, urging him to thrust. They couldn’t fuck, not bare or even with a condom, but she craved the bump of his hips and the memory of his body driving into hers again and again. He gave exactly what she wanted, his excitement gliding along her belly, his muscles working in time with the motions.
She tore her mouth from his, meeting his eyes with such a flash of intensity, it could’ve been heat lightning. Stroking his cheeks roughly with her thumbs, she saw everything she felt reflected back in those pitch-dark irises.
“I’ve never wanted anybody like I want you,” she whispered. And she’d never felt compelled to tell a man so. Not before this one. “Feels like I could have you every night and I’d never get enough.”
He replied not with words but actions, slipping his arm between them, finding her clit with his first two fingers. Her eyes shut as her lips parted, and the palm cupping the cool skin of his nape curled, fisting his hair. She didn’t have to say a word. He knew better how to touch her after two days than any man had ever learned in a month. Knew her body as he did her history, as he knew her hometown and the friends they shared. As though it had always been his somehow.
He didn’t kiss her, but rested his cheek against hers, breathing heavily at her ear in time with the flex of his fingers. Needing to see him, she coaxed his head back, met his stare with their noses just touching. Traced his eyebrows, his jaw, ran her thumb across his flushed lips, once, twice, then eased it between them. He took it eagerly, catching her softly with his teeth, then sucking. Neither his fingers nor his eye contact faltered for a second.
She was locked in that gaze, feeling opened wide in every way. No way in hell she’d ever stared into a man’s eyes like this before—not for so long a time, not with all these vulnerable, receptive emotions surely written across her face.
She’d never told a man in words or with her stare the things she was telling Miah now. That she wanted him so badly it frightened her. That he pleased her, and if he should suddenly stop, she’d beg him to keep going. That he had power over her. She’d never told anyone such things, because she’d never felt them until now. He was an entirely new beast, this man standing before her. He scared her. And the fear was intoxicating.
His mouth was hot, his taunting fingers quickening.
“Miah.”
His lips were tight around her thumb, tongue teasing, eyes burning. She was going to come in due time, and when she did, it’d be from so much more than his fingers. From his mouth, his eyes, that gorgeous face, and from thoughts of what she’d do to spoil him right back.
He let her thumb go, lowering his lips to her neck. That mouth offered more than the kisses—noises as well, deep breaths turning to low, growling moans. The sounds of a man who needed to fuck. The most exciting sound there was.
She held his head in both hands. “Don’t stop. I’m close.”
He didn’t stop, didn’t rush, and never had his steadiness been so sexy. She wanted to feel this mouth between her legs, wanted to make him fuck her for an hour, make him work. But the mere thought was undermining her own staying power.
“Lemme hear you,” she mumbled, pressing his face to her throat. One hand slid down his back, nails digging.
He could have given her words or sounds or any other thing and it would have been exactly what she needed. What she got was so much more. His thighs rubbed hers as he began to thrust, moving as though they were fucking, and he moaned against her chilled skin. Her body clenched, grasping for him. Those noises and motions were exquisite torture, filling her body and imagination with cravings for his cock.
“Fuck, I want you.”
“Can’t have me. Not like that. Said so yourself.”
She wanted him nearly bad enough not to care just now. The rock at her back ought to be the ground underneath her. His fingers ought to be his dick, and those pumping hips ought to be grinding against hers. His panted excitement ought to be real, promising she’d get to see this man come undone above her, face incredulous.
“Deeper,” she said.
His stroke changed. Two fingers slid inside, the muscular pad of his thumb rubbing her clit.
“More.”
Another finger, a little deeper, and she swore.
“You thinking about my cock?”
“Yeah.”
His hand quickened, as did his breath. “You remembering last night? And this morning?”
She was now. This strong body by the glow of the fire, by the bright light of the noonday sun. And just as it was here, glinting and wet, serving her. She imagined his cock rushing in and out, chest clenched, hips working. Imagined his eyebrows drawn together with disbelief, and every muscle locked up tight as he came—and she got there herself.
“Miah.” She gripped his hair and neck, maybe too hard, but his gasp was pure pleasure.
“Good. Good.” Those fi
ngers never quit, only slowed as her pleasure piqued and finally fell, until his motions were so subtle her own ticking pulse all but obliterated them.
Whoa. She couldn’t even say the word. Couldn’t do a thing except hold on to him, feeling boneless.
“Good?” he whispered, nose caressing her temple.
She nodded.
“That’s my girl.”
Yes, your girl. I can be that.
She kissed his jaw. His shoulders were damp and cold, his legs warm as the water and melding with her own. The spring was like the sex—a sacred, isolated place where the two of them blended perfectly. The world above was harsher, tense, dividing them into two halves. Reality.
Fuck reality.
Beneath the water, she found him rock-hard. His entire body bucked as her fingers closed around him, and those hips were pumping him into her fist. His own hands were gripping the smooth rock ledge at her back, his arms locked at her sides. To judge by his expression, he’d get there inside a minute if Raina let him keep going.
“What happened to not rushing tonight?” she teased.
“I lied.”
Too bad. She had plans for this man.
He moaned when she let him go. “Honey, don’t stop now.”
“Move back,” she said. “To the other side.” She pushed at his chest and he obeyed, not looking happy about it.
“Trust me,” she whispered, and forced him backward another step, another, until his back was at the lip of the springs. “Sit up.”
Miah glanced behind, then braced his hands on the ledge and pushed himself up to sit. The water lapped at his thighs, and she marveled at the goose bumps rising all up his arms and chest. The fire would be warm at his back, at least, and in a moment, her mouth would be hot around his cock. Surely a worthy payoff for such a cruel interruption.
She pushed at his knees, spreading his legs wider. He cradled her head as she brought her face close and her hand closed around him once more. Cold air nipped at her shoulders and her hair dripped icy rivulets down her collarbone, but the contrast only heightened this moment.