A Hero’s Home

by Tessa Layne

  Millie shifted to her knees, unable to contain herself. “Doesn’t it? Who do you think is getting the water when the going gets tough? Small winemakers, or feedlots?”

  He made a disbelieving noise in his throat. “You’re oversimplifying it. And if it bothers you that much, you can eat locally raised meat. You know…” He slid a look her direction. “Help out your neighbors and all.”

  Oooooh, he was so frustrating. He sounded like all the old-timey ranchers that gathered at Dottie’s diner every morning. They’d drive all the way into Newton or Emporia to buy from one of the chain grocers before setting foot in her store. Why? Because she valued sustainable practices. And it cost more. But really, did it? When you factored in the time and gas costs? “I am helping out my neighbors,” she snapped. “I carry Sinclaire bison, and fresh eggs from the local farms. Chickens too. Pork from the Mennonite family that lives just outside of town. But who buys it?” She blinked back tears of frustration. She would not cry in front of Jason. It wasn’t his fault business had been so bad after the tornado hit a year ago. So bad, she’d considered closing and just concentrating on winemaking.

  Jason took her hand. “I can talk to Travis. I’m sure we’re going to need more now that we’re a fully working ranch.”

  Deflated, she sat back down, shaking her head. “I don’t want a pity purchase.”

  “But isn’t that better than no purchase?”

  “Maybe for the ledgers, but I don’t want to be the person in town who everyone feels sorry for.”

  “I hear you there,” Jason agreed.

  She risked a look his direction. At least he got that part, but did he have to be a bacon-head?

  Jason kept caressing the skin between her thumb and forefinger, sending little tendrils of attraction rippling through her limbs. If he wanted to distract her, it was working. His mouth turned up, showing a dimple. “I promise to stop by for my weekly supply of bacon… and rabbit food.”

  She socked him in the shoulder with her free hand. “How about some more wine?”

  He gave her hand a squeeze and untangled their fingers, reaching for the bottle. “Sure. Only don’t make me eat tofu.” He refilled their cups to the brim.

  “Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it.”

  “Oh I’ve tried it,” he answered with such sarcasm, she giggled.

  “Not mine. Here.” She dug in her bag and produced a container of her favorite baked tofu, crispy and seasoned with curry spices. “It tastes best warm, but it’s pretty good the second day, too.” Without thinking, she took a piece and held it to his mouth.

  He opened, and she popped it in, fingers grazing his lips. Like lightning, his hand gripped her wrist, capturing it. Her pulse tap-danced erratically as his gaze caught and held hers. Slowly, his tongue flicked out to taste her fingers. The movement set off a fire in her veins, while the air squeezed out of her chest. His gray eyes flashed hot, holding her in thrall. She swallowed, battling the urge to lean in and taste him, taste the remnants of wine on his mouth. The moment dragged on until time sped-up, and in a flash, he’d pulled her to him, and pivoted in one smooth movement, so she was trapped beneath him, staring into his eyes. He was going to kiss her. She knew it. She licked her lower lip in anticipation, and with a groan, he lowered his head, mouth devouring hers with an intensity that turned her limbs liquid.

  With a sigh, she relaxed into the ground, relishing the weight of him, the feel of his cropped hair beneath her fingers. There was no softness about him, his muscles were like rocks under her palm, his tee-shirt so silky. But she wanted his skin, the heat of it burning into her hand, the friction setting her nerve endings on fire. She pulled his shirt from his pants, heating to the point of combusting as she slid her hand over the corded muscles along his spine.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he murmured when he raised his head.

  She lifted her shoulders, chasing his mouth. “Why not?” She nipped at his lower lip before dropping back, pulling his head down and kissing him again, sliding her tongue against his, savoring the musky taste of him mixed with her wine. The combination only increased the ache between her legs. She rocked her hips against his erection, seeking more friction.

  The groan he let out resonated in her core. Heaven help her, if this was what happened when they kissed, could they survive lovemaking? All she knew was that she wanted to find out. But then, as quickly as they’d started, he rolled off of her and sat up, burying his head in his hands. “I can’t do this,” he mumbled. “I. Just. Can’t.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Millie sat up and placed a hand on his bicep. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s… ah…” His face heated. He swallowed, pulse racing. “I’ve only been intimate once since my surgery,” he blurted. There. He tensed, waiting for her reaction. After his first disastrous experience post-amputation, he’d shunned dating entirely. The explanations, the difficulty, had all been too much. Better to be celibate than endure the humiliation of revulsion, or worse, pity.

  “Ooh.” Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth went round, and a picture of her rose unbidden, that perfect mouth wrapped around his cock. He shifted uncomfortably, adjusting his cargos so that the bulge was a little less obvious. But the woman didn’t miss a thing. Her eyes drifted to his package and she tilted her head, obviously puzzled. “But your penis still works, doesn’t it?”

  He snorted, chest heating at her directness. He’d been asked a lot of questions in his life, but that one was a first.

  “Yes. There’s nothing wrong with my dick.”

  She continued to stare at him, baffled. “Dick, not cock?”

  He laughed uncomfortably. Who the hell had conversations like this? “Dick, cock, johnson, little man, whatever.”

  “Don’t you mean big man?”

  Jason shook his head, huffing out another awkward laugh. “Yeah, sure.”

  “But if there’s nothing wrong with your penis…” She stared at him eyebrows drawing together. “I mean, if you…” she canted her head, clearly baffled.

  It was odd, this frank conversation. He was running at the mouth, and it didn’t feel weird or pathetic. It felt… frighteningly normal. Humorous, even. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to discuss the intimate details of his sex life, or lack thereof. No shame, just facts and observations.

  Huh.

  Jason’s neck prickled. He tilted the bottle, pouring the last dribble into her cup. “This conversation calls for more wine.” Lots more. In spite of the easy banter, he wasn’t sure he could manage it otherwise. Their hands collided as they both reached for the bottle opener, fingers tangling. The air between them charged, making his skin pull taut. They locked eyes and the heat in hers licked at him. His cock was like a steel rod, begging for attention. For the first time in ages, the possibility of getting horizontal lodged itself in his brain and wouldn’t leave. And judging from the look in Millie’s eye, she had the same idea. He gulped, mouth suddenly dry.

  “Here, let me.” He closed his hand around hers. He stared at their hands, her tiny pale one, encased in his large olive one, struck by how her skin glowed against his in the twilight. His chest felt strange, like he’d swallowed an icecube whole.

  She rolled her lower lip under her teeth. “Okay.” She let out a soft giggle, husky and sweet. The sound went straight to his balls, intensifying the ache. “Maybe you can work your magic on the next bottle.”

  The way she said it put naughty pictures in his mind. He wanted to work his magic on more than a bottle. He wanted to lick the wine from her neck, taste its sweetness mingled with the scent of her perfume and the salt from her skin.

  “Do you trust me?”

  She nodded slowly, eyes wide and dark.

  He went hard all over, balls aching. More than anything, he wanted to pull her into his arms, taste her mouth again, suck the remnants of the wine off her lower lip. “To open the bottle?” he amended hoarsely.

  “Of course,” she murmured.r />
  He settled for giving her hand a squeeze, then slowly opened the next bottle, prying it open slowly so that it wouldn’t explode. The gas hissed out with a sigh that sounded remarkably like Millie’s, when they’d kissed. His cock strained against his boxers. Must everything point toward getting horizontal with her? He needed to get his head back in the game. Remember that he was here to help Resolution Ranch start off on the right foot, not scratch a four-year itch. He filled their cups, too high for good taste, but he didn’t care. At the moment he needed something besides Millie to consume his focus, and that meant concentrating on the wine. Not on her mouth, or the way her body went soft and pliant underneath him. He tossed back the cup, taking a big gulp. The carbonation burned on the way down, making his eyes water and he held his breath, waiting for the bubble in his lungs to release. It didn’t suck, the wine. She’d let the fruit get a little too ripe, or maybe her ferment had stalled, and the flavor was slightly muddy, like she’d crushed all the fruit in the vat, not just the best fruit. If growing conditions were favorable this summer, she could make a decent wine.

  “Would you help me?” she asked, eyes luminous. “Make it better?”

  Had she read his mind? Or was he just shitty at disguising his thoughts? “Sure,” he tossed off with a lift of his shoulder. Anything to keep her talking and to keep his hands off her satiny skin.

  She beamed at him and poured more wine into his cup. “So, why the self-imposed celibacy?”

  “Are you always this direct?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. You said you needed more wine to continue this conversation.”

  “So I did.” For a long moment, he stared into the bubbles fizzing from his cup trying to compartmentalize the thoughts racing through his head. “The answer is complicated.”

  “You don’t have to answer if it’s too much.”

  Bile burned his throat, and this time, a sip of the wine did nothing to ease it. She deserved some kind of an answer. “The short answer is that it has taken me a long time to come to terms with my injury.” That wasn’t exactly a whopper, but he wasn’t about to air his family’s dirty laundry to a stranger, no matter how much he enjoyed her kisses.

  She laid a hand on this thigh, and damn him for wanting her hand six inches higher. “But you know that’s not what people see when they look at you?”

  “It’s what I see.” That much he would own.

  Her hand began making lazy circles, alternately caressing and squeezing his thighs. He should tell her to stop, but the sensations hypnotized him, lulled him into a sense of feeling whole. “Maybe you just need to practice seeing differently.”

  His cock stirred again. Three inches higher and she’d feel the effect she was having on him. He tangled his fingers in her silky curls, letting its softness run over him like healing water. This was insanity, but he didn’t want it to stop. For one shining moment, he wanted to lose himself in sensation, pretend he was whole, even if it was a lie.

  He tugged on her hair, exposing the creamy column of her neck. Dipping his head, he nuzzled the hollow at her collarbone, inhaling her perfume. Again, roses and almond flowers filled his head, taking him back to a younger, happier time. Had he ever been happy, a voice in his head asked? Happier moments, maybe, climbing the almond trees that surrounded the vineyard, running barefoot through the rows, damp dirt pushing between his toes. The painful jerk of his heart yanked him back to the present. The memory had been so visceral, for a moment he’d felt complete.

  As if sensing his grief, Millie sighed, and brought her hand to his head. He breathed her in again, pressing a gentle kiss on the place where her pulse fluttered wildly.

  “Ahh, Millie,” he murmured, lifting his head to stare into her wide, deep blue eyes. “I want to kiss you again.”

  “I have condoms in my bag.”

  He let out a shaky breath. Of course she’d cut to the chase. “I don’t do relationships.”

  She rolled her eyes, laughing quietly. “Who said anything about relationships?” She cupped his cheek with such tenderness his heart hurt. “This is just two people deciding to make each other feel good. Right now, in this moment. No strings. No expectations.”

  The last of his resolve crumbled with her declaration. He’d pay for this in some far, dark corner of hell someday, but at the moment, he didn’t care. He’d denied himself for so long, had clung to his loneliness like a life raft, and now, he just… couldn’t. He needed what she was offering more than his next breath. To want her was sheer madness, to act on it, crazier still, and yet he felt himself falling into her embrace like she was home. His home.

  He took her mouth like it was his last chance at oxygen, she tasted of wine and hope, of promises and dreams, and he couldn’t get enough of her velvet tongue sliding against his as he drank her up with a groan. He’d die a happy man, just from her kisses. Her hands fluttered at his waist, slipping under his shirt with delicate strokes that set goosebumps racing across his torso. Still keeping his mouth fused to hers, he reached behind his head and yanked, pulling off his shirt in one smooth move, only separating from her long enough to toss the material aside before finding his way back to her luscious mouth, now swollen from his kisses.

  He drew his hand down the column of her neck, tracing the outline of her clavicle, then dropped it to the edge of her top. God bless elastic necklines. He pulled on the edge, drawing it down to expose the pale swell of her breast. Peppering her skin with kisses, he worked his way down the same path. Heat radiated off her skin, the scent of her sweet and floral, filling his senses. She sucked in a breath when his mouth grazed the top of her breast, letting out a delighted sigh when he swept his tongue along the top of her bra.

  “Take it off,” she whispered, dropping her head back. “Or push it down, I don’t care.”

  His abs clenched as he quietly chuckled. “Bossy much?”

  She opened her eyes and stared at him with an enigmatic smile. “I can be. But mostly I wanted you to know it was okay to take it off.”

  Ahh.

  This was outside his realm of experience. Ronnie had been a passive lover. Maybe it was because they’d been so young. Or maybe, like he suspected, she hadn’t been into him for a really long time and had just been using him to get off. He swallowed down the bile that rose up in his throat whenever he thought of Veronica and his brother. That water had floated under the bridge four years ago. He was different now. Better, somehow. And Millie was full of delightful surprises.

  He flashed her a smile. “I’d rather watch you take it off.”

  Her eyes lit as she returned his smile. His stomach flipped doing queer jumping jacks as she held his gaze and slowly pulled her arms from the sleeves, letting the material pool at her waist. Reaching behind her back, she unclasped white satin cups. His heart stopped when her bra fell away, exposing her to the night air.

  “You’re perfection,” he murmured feasting on the vision before him. Pale round globes darkened in the center by rosy nipples pulling tight. He could stare at her all night. He’d seen a painting years ago, on leave in Paris, of the birth of Venus. The woman in the painting captivated him, and he’d endured ribbing from both Johnny and Sterling when they discovered he’d returned three times to visit the painting. But Venus had nothing on Millie. She glowed, skin as lustrous as a pearl, as delicate as the sliver of new moon hanging low on the horizon.

  Reaching for his hand, she placed it just below her heart, so that the weight of her breast filled his palm. He grazed the puckered nipple with his thumb, fascinated at the bumps that erupted across the swell, by the way it stiffened even more. He bowed his head, worshipping her skin with his mouth, tasting her, lapping at the hard peak until she moaned.

  “Your mouth is amazing.”

  Spurred on by her encouragement, he traced a path to the other swell, sucking and tasting as she arched into him.

  “Yes. More,” she panted.

  More? He’d give her everything she wanted and then some. He nudged her back to
her elbows and slid a hand up her silky thigh, bunching up her skirt as he continued his perusal. She dropped her knees open, inviting him to explore higher. With long strokes, he continued higher. Her muscles pulsed under his palm, hips rolling in expectation of his touch as he sought the center of her. He’d expected to encounter damp silk, or a scrap of lace, but sweet Jesus, he encountered the slick, swollen folds of her pussy.

  Heart. Attack.

  She would kill him long before they got to the main event. “You’re something else, Millie,” he murmured, cupping her soft mound. With the sweetest little sigh, she rubbed into his hand, covering the palm with her arousal.

  “This feels so good.”

  Fuck, yes, it did. “This, too?” He slipped a finger into her tight, wet, heat, nearly jizzing in his drawers from the glory of it.

  She bucked against him with a groan, muscles contracting around him. Spots flecked his vision, his breathing as ragged as hers. She was close. So was he, for that matter. He teased his thumb across her clit, lightly sweeping back and forth until she shattered beneath him with a keening cry. Holy hell, he’d never seen anything as magnificent.

  “Condom, condom, condom,” she chanted, still gasping for air. “I want you inside me, now.”

  For once, his right mind didn’t care that his dick mind was calling the shots. He fumbled through the bag until he landed on a strip of square foil packets. A strip?!? His mind went to a wickedly dirty place. Damn the consequences, all he could think about was taking her over the edge over and over again until they were both spent.

  But when her hand came to rest on the lower part of right thigh, he froze. Panic clawed at his chest. What would she say when she saw it? Felt the liner? He swallowed hard, failing to push away the self-loathing that roiled his gut. God help him, he was going to fail at this.

  CHAPTER 7

  She was losing him. He’d tensed the second she’d put her hand on his leg. “I-I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t…” Her face burned. “I was just really into you… into this. I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable.”