by Cara McKenna
Miah’s voice was barely a whisper, reedy with desperation. “Oh, honey. Please.”
She gave him what he needed. Took him deep, slowly, finding that curious mineral taste of the water first, then in time, a far more personal flavor as his cock primed for her.
“Yeah. Don’t stop.”
She smiled to herself, took him deep again. There was nothing more exciting than this—than hearing the most respectful man of her generation growing pushy and gruff from what she could do to him.
His wet hands were tangled in her hair, his hips shifting restlessly in time with her mouth. The odd, cold drop fell from his hair to her forearm, and while the night breeze felt arctic, the sounds of his excitement lit her brighter than the campfire. A man’s voice had never done this to her—not like Miah’s was. That soft baritone was dark and deep as the sky overhead, his groans rhythmic and guttural, burning her alive. She ought to call him up on lonely, restless nights, and beg to hear this. She’d be spent, sleeping like a baby in two minutes flat from remembering this precise moment.
Who needs a fucking bed, really? The man might be on to something.
“Oh, fuck. I’m close. I’m so close.”
And she knew just what to do with that announcement. Exactly how to blow his mind. She slowed her hand and her bobbing head, earning a moan of supreme distress.
You’ll thank me in a minute, she thought, taking him at half speed. The hands holding her head begged for more, but she kept it slow, kept it deep, and when those cradling palms began to twitch, she knew she had him.
“Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, like that.” His entire body was locked up tight, and with a final, sharp groan, he was home. She held still, taking what he gave for a long, quaking moment, until his hands went slack and his voice became only breath, eclipsed by the rush of the water.
She pulled away, swallowed. Then gazed up at him, unable to hide her smile at his expression. Pure bliss.
“Cold?” she asked, rubbing his thighs.
“No. Fucking perfect.”
She laughed, and stepped away so he could slip back into the pool.
“Where’d our refreshments get to?” she asked.
Miah craned his neck, moved to the edge, came back with the bottle. She tapped it with an invisible glass and they each drank, and even the sting of the liquor couldn’t scare off her smile.
“What did you say the other night?” she asked. “‘How come we haven’t been doing this forever?’”
“Something like that.”
“Million-dollar question. Though now that we are, let’s make a pact to never stop.”
“Deal.” He settled back on the low rock shelf and she joined him, sipping in quiet contemplation.
If only we didn’t ever have to stop. If only she could fuck him so good he’d forget he ever wanted a family, so good he’d swap those dreams for a life that had a place for her in it . . .
Fat chance. About as likely that she’d wake up with an urge to knit some baby booties. Sex was magic, but every spell wore off in time.
The night air grew cold, the light of the fire waning.
She leaned into him and sighed. “Time to head home, probably.”
“Doesn’t have to be.”
She blushed, feeling shy for no good reason. “You’re due to start work in a couple hours.” She faced the inevitable, standing, climbing out of the water and onto the blankets.
Miah turned on his hip to face her, eyes perusing her body. “That just means I’ve still got a couple hours I could be spending here with you, all wound up in the blankets, watching the fire die.”
That shy sensation deepened. “Since when were you such a smooth talker, Jeremiah Church?”
“Since I fell for you.” He, too, rose and abandoned the spring, wet skin prickling in the breeze.
Raina smiled, though underneath she registered a tangle of mismatched emotions at those words. Pleasure, because she was starting to fall herself. Fear, because the higher they climbed together, the more painful it would be when they tumbled back down to earth. Falling, indeed.
She took a seat on the blankets, determined to enjoy this moment, scary or not. “Fell for me, huh? Fortuity’s golden son and the owner of the dive bar by the railroad tracks?”
He sat beside her and drew the top blanket up around their damp shoulders. “Benji’s is as much the heart of this town as the ranch.”
“Your family’s probably the biggest employer around here, or maybe second, after Petroch. All I do is help people get drunk.”
“Nonsense. That bar’s the social hub of Fortuity. Second anything exciting happens, Benji’s is the first place people go. It’s the front porch of the whole town.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybes about it.” He braced his arm behind her, his muscle solid and reassuring.
“I just don’t know if that’s all I’m meant to be, I guess. A bartender.”
“You’re way more than that. Plus you’re still doing your tattooing, right?”
“Not a ton, but yeah.” She’d lost steam with her beloved hobby after her plans to make it big in Vegas had proved a monumental flop, and now that she was running the bar, there just wasn’t any time. “Only like, one job a month lately. Anyhow, you can’t actually approve of that, can you?”
Miah made a face. “I can’t say I love the idea of you touching a load of strange men or anything, but if it makes you happy, of course I approve. Just don’t be offended if I don’t ask about it too often.”
“Fair enough.” She eyed his throat, the only bit of his bare skin she could see just now. “Let me tattoo you someday.”
He shook his head, laughing. “No way.”
“Come on. I’m surprised you even scored a motorcycle license without one.”
“That’s Vince’s scene, and yours. Not mine. I got nothing against tattoos, but I couldn’t even guess what I’d want if you forced me to get one.”
She pondered that question. “You’d get your mom’s name or something.” Or your future wife’s, or your kids’. “Something all family-oriented and sentimental.”
He shrugged. “Good a guess as any.”
“Just promise me when the time comes, I get to do the honors.”
“Deal. But don’t bother holding your breath.”
Raina poked her feet out from under the blanket, letting the fire dry them. The flames were growing sleepy, all orange now, no more white banners licking the sky. The wood was chewed to rounded hunks, glowing coral and crimson.
A year from now, Miah might come out here and marvel to remember that this night had ever happened. That he’d ever had a summer fling with Raina, that they’d ever let themselves believe it could be something. And she wanted to believe that just now, didn’t she?
Idiot.
No, just human. Don’t overthink it. There were plenty of people out in the world just itching for a chance to cut you down, so why waste energy doing the job yourself?
It made sense that she’d fall for him—perfect sense. Her last seemingly serious lover had been a smooth-talking stranger, and he’d done worse than merely break her heart; he’d hurt her pride. Badly. It only stood to reason she’d be drawn to Miah, a plain-spoken, trusted fixture of her life, familiar as the red dust itself.
“Come to breakfast,” he murmured.
She started. “You mean this morning? Where? The diner doesn’t open until seven.”
“Let’s watch the fire die for another hour, then come back with me, to the ranch. My mom’ll have something ready by five thirty. She already knows about us—what’s the harm?”
What’s the harm? What was the point, more like. “It’s a little soon to go parading around in front of your family, though. Acting like a couple.”
There was no hurt in his eyes, only amusement. “And aren’t we?”
“Jeez, I dunno.”
“I’ve got no designs on anybody else. Do you?”
“No.” They burned way too bright for anyone else to
shine through.
“I figure that makes us a couple.”
“Makes us lovers, I guess. A couple’s something different.”
“Would you go with me to a wedding if I asked you?”
“Whose wedding?”
He laughed. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it does. I mean, if Casey Grossier came rolling back into town with a bride in tow, sure. But some big Church family affair, with a load of your cousins I’ve never met . . .”
“Why’s that scare you?”
Her shoulders locked up. “It doesn’t scare me.”
“Yeah, it does. Why?”
“It doesn’t scare me. It’s just . . . I dunno. You and me, we’ll be whatever we’re going to be. But I’m not ready for all that stuff that comes next—family expectations and all that. I mean, you and I . . . We’re not compatible that way.”
“We’re compatible in plenty of ways.”
“Yeah, sure. We have history, and we share a social circle, and the sex is ridiculous . . .”
“What else do we need?”
She met his stare. “You know what.”
“Listen to you, getting way ahead of ourselves. I want a family, yes. You don’t think you do—”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t, fine. Sorry. But I’m not proposing, honey. I’m just asking you to have breakfast at my house. My mom likes you. I’m pretty sure you like her. She’s not going to quiz you about china patterns, she’ll just want to know how you take your coffee.”
She shook her head. “No. Not yet, anyhow.”
He sighed, the sound like a shrug, charged with neither levity nor annoyance, but something trapped in between. “All right. I won’t push.”
And I won’t run. Not like usual.
Whatever this was, it felt too good to succumb to her usual patterns, to turn tail the second it felt too big, too unwieldy. She’d let herself get way too lax with that last guy, swung too far from her self-preserving instincts and gotten her heart broken open. It was so tempting to revert to how she’d always been, chalk Vegas up as her punishment for ever abandoning her intuition to begin with. But not with Miah.
“You don’t push,” she murmured, resting her cheek against his, “and I won’t spook.”
“You spook all you want. I’m real good with the wild ones.”
She nudged him with her elbow. “Shut up, cowboy.”
Chapter Nine
The summer only grew hotter with the arrival of August, only blazed brighter, and the sex followed suit.
They saw each other three or four times a week, sometimes in the midst of Miah’s duties, before the bar opened, and sometimes late at night, mere hours before he was due to start working again. Their clashing schedules also forced them to get creative; several times now Raina had received a call on her cell around eight or nine, and under the hush of the bar’s constant din, she’d helped Miah put himself to sleep.
“What else?” he’d ask, voice strained and glorious.
“My mouth,” she’d whisper, careful to keep her expression blasé. Or, “Me on top, riding your cock.” Or, “Let me feel your tongue.” Christ, did that man give great head. She couldn’t begrudge his exes a thing if they’d taught him those tricks.
She had to bite her lip during those calls, driven to self-satisfaction—and indeed arousal—listening as he came apart all the way across town, from his hand and her words.
And it wasn’t just the sex now. She’d opened up to him more than she had for any man, and even told him about her bygone assault, her near-gang-rape. She’d never told anyone about that before. Only Vince knew, and that was because he’d been there and managed to stop it.
Miah had taken the news as she’d expected he would. He’d listened with thinly veiled rage tensing his face and fists, and though she made it plain that it shouldn’t affect the sex in any way, it had. But, if anything, it had made him fiercer—every kiss and touch infused with a sizzling charge of protectiveness, or perhaps possession. He’d not made her feel vulnerable or delicate as she’d feared. Merely more . . . precious. And in the wake of the confession, she’d felt lighter. More open. And like more of a goner than ever.
The previous Sunday morning he’d summoned her to the old auto garage Vince had been renting since high school, two blocks up Station Street from the bar. He’d led her inside with his hands over her eyes, and when he let her open them, she found herself staring at the most thoughtful gift a man had ever given her—a new bike.
Well, not new. A ’68 Honda Super Cub, red with white trim. Gorgeous little machine, and he’d restored it himself, with Vince’s help. The gesture had, without hyperbole, taken her breath away, in no small part because she knew exactly how precious Miah’s free time was. Once they’d gone for an hour’s ride together, she’d done her best to take his breath away right back, on her knees in the garage’s cluttered office.
She had it bad, and was driving herself crazy trying to figure out where to find the money to hire staff. Even just a part-time bartender to cover a couple closing shifts a week . . . The thought of one full, luxurious, evening with Miah sounded like heaven.
But she couldn’t afford it, no matter how she crunched the paltry weekly profits, and neither could she afford to simply shut the bar one night a week. The accounting was so tight, the only way this worked was to stay open seven days, and for Raina to continue running herself ragged until her inherited debts were finally paid off. Some nights the duty of it felt like a sentence. But this place was half of who she was. The only real home she’d known, and the business that had kept her fed and clothed. Still did.
But it had never felt so exhausting before. She’d grown up in this bar. Done her homework at these tables, read ten thousand books on quiet nights, listened to the laughter of just about everyone in town, and seen half of them cry. On the surface she only mixed drinks and opened bottles, but she’d feel justified in proclaiming herself Fortuity’s resident therapist for all the free advice she doled out. Sympathy? Rarely. But counsel, hard truths, reality-checks? Plenty.
Loitering in her kitchen, she eyed the clock on the microwave and sighed—time to open. She ditched her half-drunk coffee in the sink and pulled on her boots, headed downstairs.
The day was blazing white through the front windows, so she kept the lights off while she swept the scuffed floor. Grime lurked in the crevices between the old boards; many of them were original, from back when this building had been the town’s general store. Some had been replaced, and not at great expense. In the cracks between was trapped generations of desert dust and bygone beer.
She stowed the dustpan and broom, then jumped at the sound of knocking. And at the rear door, not the front. She set the mop and bucket aside and strode down the short hall and past the bar’s office.
“Who is it?” she called through the door.
“Miah.”
“Oh.” She flipped the bolt and pulled the door in. “This is a pleasant surprise. Lousy timing, though, cowboy—I’m due to open in ten minutes.”
“This won’t take long.” Ominous words, but he looked cheerful enough.
She took him in as he entered—black tee, dusty; work jeans, nearly more brown than blue, with a big hole in one knee. Out in the back lot, King sat alert and patient in the cab of the F-150.
“You up to some dirty jobs today?” She shut the door.
“Yeah, maintenance stuff. Real glamorous.” He leaned in, kissed her. That stilled her heart some—if the urgent matter that had propelled him here was to break up with her, he probably wouldn’t have gone there.
“So what’s up?”
He took a deep breath, let it out in a huff. The seriousness of his expression brought her anxiety back in a rush.
Don’t dump me.
Don’t propose.
Don’t dump me.
Don’t propose.
“It hit me just now,” he said, gaze darting between her face and the floor, hands fidgeting at
his pockets. “While I was out working. Hit me so fucking hard I had to come over and say it.”
“Okay. Do we need to sit down, or—”
“I’m in love with you.”
She could only stare at him, transfixed as those words pulsed through her body. It was no surprise, really. Not after nearly two months as lovers, and not considering their chemistry and the power of this most mutual of infatuations.
“You think so?” she finally asked. Her heart felt all funny, too big for her chest.
He nodded. “I know it. Clear as I’ve ever known anything.”
Her excitement waned, if slightly. And what exactly do you want to do with this? What came next? Not marriage, in their case, so what path did this step belong on?
Knock it off. If we had the time, this would lead straight to my bed. Damn, she could’ve finally had him upstairs if it weren’t for the timing. And she needed that now. Needed to make this physical and drown out the worries, remind them both that what they had was exactly right, at exactly this point in their lives. Simple, elemental, no future required. Just two bodies, two people needing and wanting and using and giving—most natural thing in the world. So good and so right that it was okay to ignore what wasn’t to come.
“C’mere.” She pulled him to her by the arms, squeezed him hard. Never had a man felt so good against her—sturdy and warm, smelling of dirt and grass and sweat.
“I’m filthy,” he said.
“Don’t care.” She clawed her fingers into fists around his shirt, buried her face in the crook of his neck.
“You love me back?” he whispered.
She nodded.
“Say it.”
“I’ve probably loved you since I was sixteen.” Loved him as a friend, as a crush, now as the best and most dear lover she’d ever had. “I’m fucking crazy about you.”
His nose nuzzled her temple, then his lips pressed a soft kiss. “Good.”
Fuck the floors. “Let’s go upstairs.”
He laughed. “You’re about to open.”
She stepped back, palms sweeping up and down his chest. “The world’ll keep turning.”