by Rayna, Eden
Justin stands and claps his hands together once, telling us that’s his cue to leave. Both of us at the same time say, “You don’t have to go.” Although, the look we share with each other says that he should probably go. I like Justin, but I’m fine with him leaving because then I can take Danielle in every room of the house and not have to worry about onlookers. Maybe I can show her my rodeo tricks today.
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. Last time you made my ears bleed and I finally stopped having nightmares a couple days ago.” Danielle lowers herself from me and turns to face Justin, kindly pressing her back to me and covering my excitement.
“Nightmares because your sex life is so sad in comparison?” I quip as I toe off my boots, holding on to Danielle’s shoulders for balance and contact. I don’t want to spend a single minute here not touching her. We have less than forty-eight hours together, I need to make it worthwhile.
The sick bastard knows exactly where my mind is at. “By the way, Gordon is on his way in.”
“Fuck, really?” I draw out in one long breath.
“Gordon?” Danielle asks raising her eyebrows to her hairline.
Justin sneaks past me at the door and waves goodbye. I wonder who was watching the clock more closely for my arrival, him or Danielle.
“Gordon’s the other guy I rent to.”
“Rent what to?” She’s so cute when she’s confused. I walk her backwards to the couch and lift her over the backside of it so she stands taller than me. She leans down and cups my face, tilting it back and planting a soft kiss on my lips. “So this is what it feels like for you, hey?” She smiles, bending down and kissing me again.
I walk around to the front of the couch and scoop her up one more time to sit with her in my lap. She feels so good in my arms. Two days with her isn’t going to be enough.
“You were about to tell me what you rent to Gordon.” She reminds me as I get lost in kissing her again.
“This house. I missed you.” I express the feeling behind my greedy kisses and touches.
“Huh?”
I chuckle. “That’s the response I get when I say I miss you?”
“I missed you too.” She pats my chest in impatient acknowledgement of my sentiment. “You own this house?” The two sentences are strung together like they are one thought. I nod at her. “So, that whole thing I said last time about proposing and babies because only rich people can afford property up here….” She trails off waiting for me to finish her thought but I’m curious to see where she’s taking this. “You know I was joking, right?”
I grin at her while tucking her hair behind her ear. She leans into my hand and I swap it out for my tongue on her ear lobe. “Since you offered to put a baby in me, I kinda figured. Anyway, it’s no big deal.” I press my lips to hers again, trying to change the subject to a more urgent matter. The one in my pants.
“Right, in a town where no one can afford anything anymore, owning a house is no big deal.” She rolls her eyes at me.
"I've owned it for a long time. Since way before the oil boom, when houses were really cheap up here." I shrug. I'm a humble guy and I don't want to come across like a show-off.
“Why are you downplaying your success? Unless… you got the money from drugs or prostitution?”
“If that’s where you think most people get their money from then you’re going to be disappointed when I tell you my story.” I laugh through the statement.
All the things she’s learned about me and my life have been during our early morning phone conversations. This is the first time we’re talking about my upbringing in person. I’ve been wondering what she really thinks of the things I’ve told her and I’m curious to know what her facial expressions will convey. She’s a big city girl hailing from Vancouver. Aside from Fort Mac where I only spent a year, the largest place I lived in was Olds, Alberta when I went to college, and that town only has about nine thousand people.
She won’t let me drop the subject, so I tell her how I was part of the 4-H dairy program growing up, as were all my siblings. We learned how to care for our cattle and had different projects that we had to do to keep the cows healthy and productive and to learn the business of dairy farming.
When I was ten, my parents gave me a calf to raise. I sold it later that year and bought two more. Each spring, I would sell them and buy more. By the time I was eighteen, I had saved up enough to put a down payment on a small house.
Back then, I wanted to go into oil and gas like everybody else who was chasing the money. Most of my friends went straight from high school to the oil patch. Lots of kids even younger didn't even finish school before they left home. My parents told me I had to get a degree before I could move up here. They also said the good times only last so long and I would need education for when the bubble burst. Of course, I thought they were crazy. There was so much money in this province and decades of oil still in the ground, I couldn't fathom a time when our province would suffer.
I went to college, and without my folks knowing, a friend and I bought a place up here just before we graduated. After working on a rig for a year, I bought my friend out of his half of the house. But it turned out my parents knew a thing or two about the economics of this province. The market crashed and I lost my job so I went back to the farm. Here we are today with a lot of homes that people bought for more than they will ever be worth again. I got in before housing prices peaked, but now there’s no one to sell to, so I’m hanging on to it in the hope that things get better.
“What did your parents say when they found out you bought the house?”
My voice rumbles with a low chuckle at the memory of the night they found out what I had done. “I was home for Christmas when they found out. If you ask my parents, they’ll say they kicked me off the farm telling me I could go live at my new address since I was so smart with money. I remember it as me wanting to leave because I didn’t need my parents telling me what to do anymore. After spending a few nights living with my brother and his new bride, I came back with an apology for them.” Apologising was better than listening to newlyweds every night. “Things calmed down between us over the holiday and it was like water under the bridge. My parents don’t hold grudges. They are forever saying, ‘there’s a lesson in there somewhere, son.’” I mimic my dad’s deep voice.
Danielle laughs at my interpretation of what a father should sound like. “It’s cool how you look out for each other.”
I look at her quizzically. “Your family isn’t tight?”
“We’re tight in that my parents feel comfortable talking about anything and everything.” I shrug my shoulders showing her I don’t get it so she elaborates. “My parents are total hippies. They let us run wild and free. They shared stories with us that no child should know about their parents. Like, I know exactly when and how my brother and I were conceived.” She shakes her head and adds in yuck, to which I have to agree. No kid should know that about their parents. “And they always say inappropriate things about my personal life. Things that girlfriends would say, not mothers.”
“That’s where you get it from, hey?”
“I’m not inappropriate!” She blurts back at me but something about her blush tells me she’s shared a raunchy story or two in her time. Just maybe not with her folks.
I rub her arms soothingly, “That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about your free spirit.”
“Must be,” she concedes then goes on to tell me about her younger years. “The first time I got drunk I was with my parents at their friend’s house. The first time I got high, it was my mom who gave me the weed. They said if they made all this stuff taboo, I would just want it even more and end up abusing it, so instead, they gave it to me freely. I guess they had a point because when all my friends were getting stoned in back of the high school, I was actually attending my classes.” She laughs and throws her head back, tapping my chest. In as low a voice as she can muster, she says, “There’s a lesson in there somewhere.” I laugh
along with her. “Maybe our families aren’t so different after all.”
Her face gets serious all of a sudden.
“What is it?” I ask, tucking her hair behind her ear for the umpteenth time.
She shrugs her shoulders. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”
“Your face says it’s not nothing.” She’s smiling but not all the way to her eyes like she normally does.
Danielle runs her thumbs across my cheekbones and down my scruffy jaw after an entire day of travel. Stalling, she drags a thumb back and forth across my lips. “Is it crazy that I’d really like to meet your family?” There’s relief in her tone. Like the question had been burning inside her for some time.
“No crazier than me wanting to introduce you to them since the first weekend we met.”
She leans forward and kisses me. As our tongues dance together, I stand up and carry her down the hallway to my bedroom.
Chapter Ten
I can’t believe I have to go back already. I run my hand up and down Kirk’s smooth, hard chest as we lay in bed. We’ve hardly left his bedroom in the last two days. I met Gordon briefly on a quick run to the bathroom and I heard Kirk talking to him for a few minutes on a trip to the fridge. I’m not sure if we scared him away as we did with Justin, or if he’s been hanging out in his room wearing noise-canceling headphones. Kirk and I have been cocooned in our own little sexual sanctuary, oblivious to the outside world.
“When are you coming back?” The words come out part pout, part whine and all desperation.
“No idea. I don’t have anything scheduled and, honestly, it’s going to get busy on the farm soon. March is calving season so I’ll need to be around to help deliver all the new babies.” I break into a fit of laughter. “What?” He asks, trying to sit up.
I push him back down toward the pillow and look up at his face trying to contain my smile. “It’s just not something I ever imagined having a conversation about. Especially not while laying in bed naked.”
“You know,” he starts then falls silent leaving the rest of his thought unstated.
“I know lots of things. None of them are about cows, though. Or babies. Or cows having babies.”
He throws me a throaty laugh. I can feel his chest rumble under my hand and cheek that rest on him. “Want to learn?”
I crumple up my face, hopefully, he can’t see or feel it. “Ummm,” I trail off. I know we talked about family and meeting and all that stuff, but I didn’t think he meant right now. “I don’t know. I really like eating steak,” I say through gritted teeth. “Is it going to ruin my appetite for red meat?” I get the whole food chain thing and how humans are at the top of it, I just don’t necessarily need to know how the chain operates on a personal level.
This time his laugh is a full-on bark. “Danielle, you silly city girl, we’re a dairy farm. We don’t slaughter our cattle for the supermarket.” He pokes a finger into my ribs making me squeal.
“I don’t get holidays until spring break-up. March will be too early.” Every year the oil rigs stop operating for several weeks when the ground thaws. Road bans are in effect for heavy machinery because the moisture coming out of the ground makes the roads too soft and easy to damage. It gets really quiet – quieter than normal – in Fort McKay, so that’s when I take my holidays. Unfortunately, I don’t know the exact date until we see how long winter lasts.
“Would you consider taking your holiday on my farm?”
My entire body fills with butterflies, a sensation I have only ever experienced from a sexual rush. I push myself up form Kirk’s chest and look him right in the eye. “Are you being serious? You really want me to meet your family?”
“Every crazy one of them. Why?” He pulls me across his lap so I am straddling him.
“No one’s ever asked me to meet their parents before.” I try to steady my voice and pretend that I am not completely overcome with emotion. I have a hard-ass, party girl persona to maintain after all.
Kirk’s hands massage my hips. “I bet that’s not true.”
I look up to the ceiling and tap my chin as though deep in thought. It really doesn’t take much thinking, though. I’ve never had a boyfriend so there have never been parents to meet.
“You’d be surprised,” I joke with him. We still have so much to learn about each other.
“What about the boy you went to prom with? You didn’t know his parents?”
You’d think that would be a safe bet with parents wanting to meet other parents and all before their children went off to do all sorts of terribly stupid things. But not me. “I went to prom with a bunch of girlfriends. We all rented a limo together and went out for dinner. It was a blast.” It wasn’t really a blast. I don’t tell him that I hooked up with a random guy to ease the pain of watching my crush shove his tongue down Mandy Truman’s throat. Mandy, who should have graduated the year before but wasn’t smart enough to make it out of high school.
I lusted after Sean Scott all senior year and everyone knew it, including Sean. Two first names. I thought he was so cool. I waited and waited for him to ask me to graduation, then I thought, while partially fuelled by my mother’s marijuana, why does he need to ask me? I’m a strong, independent woman who doesn’t abide by any other social conventions. So, I asked him.
It was a fucking disaster. He looked at me like he didn’t even know my name like I didn’t have four different classes with him that year. Like he didn’t even know that I was graduating in the same year as him.
Not that I’m looking for something or someone to blame, but a boyfriend to me is like a head of garlic to a vampire. There are no broken hearts and publicly embarrassing moments over casual sex. It’s amazing how one night, which took place over a decade ago, has had such a lasting impact.
Then Kirk comes two-stepping into my life and I almost cry when he says he wants to introduce me to his family. I am a thirty-year-old boyfriend virgin. They should make a documentary on me.
“Wow, city living is really different than country life. There is a definite unofficial boy-girl attendance rule back home. You’d show up with a date even if it meant bringing in another kid from the town down the road.”
I contemplate which one is worse: wanting a date but not being asked or wanting to go alone and being forced to take someone.
“Anyway, think about it, Danielle.” I want to say yes right away before he changes his mind. But then I think, what would we talk about? What do his parents know about me?
“What is it now?”
I sigh. Is my face really that telling? “How are you going to tell them we met?”
He shrugs at me. “I already told them we met at a club.”
Honesty? Strange. “That was it? We met at a club and…”
“Well, I didn’t tell them I brought you home and fucked you senseless!” I smack his shoulder and at the same time feel his cock twitch under me. I give him a look telling him I felt that. He licks his lips and pulls my hips down firmly against his growing length telling me he’s proud of that fact.
“It seems so wrong to segue a conversation about your parents to this,” I comment, grinding in tight circles.
“You’re right unless we’re talking about your parents I guess.” He dances his eyebrows up and down.
“Ugh! Gross!” I holler, although he’s not wrong. I roll off him and try to crawl away but he grabs me by the hips and drags me back toward him.
“Sorry, out of line. I won’t do that again.”
I look over my shoulder at him. “Promise?”
“Promise.” He leans over my back and captures my lips in a fierce kiss. I spread my legs for him, inviting him to settle between them but he shakes his head at me.
“No?” I question, looking at his fully erect cock.
“Not like that.” The playful dimple disappears from his cheek and his eyes change colour to match his mood. “I want to see your face when I enter you.” He grabs me by the hips and flips me over so I lay underneath him, chest
heaving. “I will watch the emotions pass over your eyes and mouth and see the sounds form on your lips before I hear them with my ears.” His knee wedges between my legs, spreading me open for him. “You will show me your orgasm and you will give me your orgasm and you will do it with pleasure. So much pleasure.” There he goes again, switching seamlessly between good boy and bad boy, making me quiver without laying a finger on me.
Kirk slams his mouth against mine and I open up to taste everything he has to offer. At the same time, my heart opens up and swallows him whole. I will never be the same after this man. He better not break me.
Chapter Eleven
“We are going to have to do something about that car of yours.” We stand at the front window of the house where I can keep an eye on my car while it warms up in the driveway. The chances of having your car stolen from your own driveway while it idles are greater than any other location. And with the way this conversation is going, it wouldn’t surprise me if Kirk was planning a heist.
“What’s wrong with my car?” I take extreme offence to his comment. I have outright owned very few things in my life, my car is one of them. True, it might have come off the assembly line the year before I was old enough to drive, and it may have more rust spots than is fashionable, but it’s mine. I worked for it and I’m sure it still has a few more good years in it.
“Let’s start with it’s February and if a bad storm hits, your entire car could be buried under snow in a matter of hours.”
“So dramatic!” I answer back like I’m the first person to drive an economy car in the winter. Maybe up here in oil country where everyone drives as big a truck as possible it’s small, but in any other city it’s a perfectly fine size. “You want me to put twenty-two-inch wheels on my Ford Fiesta? Give it a little more height like all the yahoos driving their big trucks up here?”
“That’s another thing we should talk about. You’re going to break an ankle wearing those high heels on ice.”