by Tiana Cole
“You paid my hospital bills, didn’t you?” she demanded.
“Well, good afternoon, Cecilia, and yes, I did,” he replied, not seeming to understand why she was so upset.
“How did you know about them?”
“I saw the bills when they came in the mail,” he replied.
“So you read my mail?” she stared at him incredulously.
“It is hard not to notice when I’m sorting your mail out from mine. They get delivered to the same box.”
“Is it also hard to not open it when it has my name on it?” she asked.
“Look, I didn’t mean to, okay? I forgot that you would have mail coming to my box and just went through it, opening everything. I didn’t do it on purpose, but once I did and saw what it was, I decided to just take care of it,” he told her.
“I didn’t ask you to take care of it. You could have just told me you accidentally opened it and handed it over to me,” she turned to stalk away, throwing over her shoulder, “I’m not some sort of charity case.”
“I didn’t say you were!” he replied, stopping there. “But you wouldn’t have had those ridiculous bills if not for what happened in my barn, and you should have had insurance in place to take care of it. It just happened so quickly that it wasn’t in force. I did nothing for you that I wouldn’t have done for any other employee of this ranch.”
“Would you have kept it a secret from them too?”
“Probably not, but most of them would have asked for the help rather than just paying it out of their own pockets,” he said.
“You had no right, Jack. There has to be some sort of boundary between my personal life and my work relationship with you,” she told him, stomping out of the office. Back in the guest house, she tossed together an overnight bag and called a friend in the city about spending the weekend with her. It was Friday and she needed a break from this place. A few minutes later she was in her car, heading away from the ranch. She caught a glimpse of Jack looking toward her retreating car from the front of the office and ignored him. Her work week had ended and she owed him no explanation. He needed to learn not to cross lines that weren’t his to cross.
***
Jack stood on the front porch, watching the aged BMW fly out of the long driveway and disappear down the county road. He shifted his feet, his thoughts warring in his mind, and his heart felt…he rubbed his chest, right over it. He wasn’t sure what he felt, but it wasn’t good.
He had been right to pay the hospital bills. It was his fault, and insurance should have covered it, if it had been in effect. But then why did he have that nagging feeling of doubt? Jack shook his head, hoping that Cecilia would be able to forgive and forget, and it would all blow over. But then he remembered the look in her dark eyes: she felt hurt and betrayed. She had been dead serious.
He had known it would be hard, having her work and live there on the ranch, so close to him, yet untouchable. Maybe he should just tell her…but no, it wouldn’t be fair.
He knew that. He was the employer and she was the employee. What if he told her how he felt, how she drove him crazy in all the right ways, and she didn’t feel the same? He couldn’t put her in that position.
Jack sighed heavily, then looked down at a soft whine. He stared down as Titus, his grandfather’s giant mastiff, pushed against his thigh and whined again.
“I know, boy.” He scratched his big head behind his ears just where the dog liked it. “Just be glad you don’t have to deal with women.” Titus tilted his head to the side, staring up at him with eyes that didn’t understand. “Don’t worry, I don’t either.”
Chapter Eight
Jack knew he was really in trouble when she didn’t stop by for breakfast on Monday. He sat there, staring at the full plate of food sitting untouched on the table beside him. The rest of the week was the same. He rarely saw her unless he had to go up to the office for some reason, and he had found himself making more and more excuses to go talk to her, just to see her.
But her answers were distant, completely professional, and he hated it.
Weeks went by with her spending every day off with friends in the city. The job she had originally been so excited about now seemed like a burden to her.
She even considered looking for work elsewhere, but she knew no one else was going to pay her the salary she was getting used to plus a free place to live.
Now, even her salary and benefits seemed a bit like charity to her though, so she wouldn’t rule out just giving them up in favor of a little more respect for her privacy.
But it was difficult. Every time she saw him or talked to him, she couldn’t deny the tingle of desire that still fired through her blood.
They continued on, seeming to draw further and further apart, and Cecilia kept on with her cool working relationship with Jack and her continued absence from the ranch. One night on her way back from the city, she arrived home to find him sitting in a chair on the back patio of his house.
As she passed by on the way to the guest house, she could hear the sound of him sobbing and she looked over, her heart breaking at the sound. It was then that she realized something was terribly wrong. He had his head in his hands as he wept openly. It was very much unlike the usually stoic man and she found herself dropping her bags and making her way quickly toward him.
“What’s wrong, Jack? What has happened?” she reached for him, trying to see if he was hurt.
“Titus,” he said, still crying.
Cecilia looked around for the large mastiff that commonly lumbered about the ranch behind Jack. She had never paid him much attention as she wasn’t really a dog person, but he was hard to miss due to his size. Jack had told her once that he had been his grandfather’s dog. Like so many other people and things in Jack’s life, Titus had been inherited with the ranch, but they had been inseparable well before that.
The sight of Jack in tears spurred her forward, and Cecilia reached for him, not thinking of anything else but comforting him.
“I’m so sorry, Jack. I know he meant a lot to you,” she said, kneeling in front of him and pulling him to her. He clung to her as if she were the last person on earth, gradually seeming to get a grip on himself. As his tears subsided, he pulled away from her and looked down at her. His deep ocean-blue eyes went from grief, to gratitude, to desire in a flash.
Before she could react, he leaned forward and kissed her. It wasn’t just a little peck of thanks either. His mouth pressed against hers, firmly, aggressively. She felt honest-to-God fireworks exploding inside her with the way he kissed her, leaving her breathless as he finally pulled away.
“I’m sorry. That was so inappropriate.” He pulled even farther away, looking shocked at himself that he had done that. Rather than reply, Cecilia pulled him back toward her, returning his kiss tenfold. All of the pent-up emotions, wants, and desires surged through her as if a dam had burst with the touch of his lips. Kissing him, it was impossible to deny her attraction.
“Completely inappropriate,” she gasped as she pulled away. His remaining tears gave way to a soft smile as he looked down at her.
They stared at each other for a long moment, not saying anything, the air itself heavy and thick with tension around them.
“Will you stay with me a while?” his words asked, but his eyes asked so much more. Cecilia caught her breath, her heart starting to pound quickly and insistently in her chest. Is this what she wanted? Is Jack what she wanted? More than she had ever wanted anything in her entire life.
“Of course,” she told him, the words coming out as a whisper, but she knew he understood as she stood and reached for his hand. They walked quietly into the house, no more words spoken between them, barely pushing the door closed behind them before leaning against it as they kissed again, neither of them holding anything back. She couldn’t have even if she’d tried. Jack seemed to draw every ounce of pleasure and emotion out of her. The way he touched her, the way his mouth moved over hers, exactly like in her dreams, but so,
so much better.
She never could have imagined just how good it would feel, how perfectly right it felt to be held in his arms.
Their heated kisses lead to an urgency that they couldn’t deny, their clothes slowly falling to the floor as they peeled them from one another on the way to his bedroom. There was no going back as their naked bodies intertwined across his bed, exploring one another eagerly.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered against her skin, planting soft kisses as she made a slow tour of her deeply hued contours. Her back arched toward him as he made his way from the soft globes of her breasts to her rapidly moistening center and then he lapped at her velvet center.
She moaned beneath him as he grew more and more aggressive with his tongue, suckling her clit while she writhed beneath him in ecstasy. Her nails dug into the bed, her hips rising to meet his mouth as he quickly brought her to one of several orgasms and eagerly drank the fruit of his labors from her pussy.
“God, I want you inside of me,” she cried out, pulling him upward toward her. Her whole body ached with want for him. He resisted, continuing his maddening assault on her dripping folds until she thought she might pass out. Her nails dug ferociously into his back, their dark beds contrasting heavily with his lighter tone as he groaned heavily. The vibrations were sending shockwaves down her legs as she found herself shattering into yet another climax.
“Incredible,” he whispered against her skin as he dragged his lips up her stomach and across her breasts, taking his time sucking and biting at them, prolonging the ache she felt for him. His mouth covered hers as he moved up to kiss her, exploring her deeply with his tongue as he slid his cock deep inside her. He felt amazing as their bodies rocked back and forth in a mating ritual as old as time itself.
Pulling away from her mouth, he sank his teeth into her neck, causing her to cry out. It seemed to only encourage him as he plunged deeper into the center, grinding his hips against hers with each thrust. They were like a single entity in motion as they met each other’s body violently, their passion taking on a new life as Cecilia’s cries of ecstasy sounded in perfect harmony with Jack’s moans of pleasure. His staying power was incredible, lasting for what felt like hours. Cecilia lost count of how many times she had climaxed before Jack sank into her one last time, filling her with a warm flood of orgasmic bliss.
They lay there in the aftermath, her head resting on his chest as he stroked her hair. Neither of them spoke for a while, but it was Jack who finally broke the halcyon silence.
“That was amazing,” he breathed into her hair, his chest still heaving in the aftermath.
“I agree. I hope you aren’t going to tell me that this was also a part of Maggie’s employment package,” she said in a mock serious tone, sending him into a fit of laughter. Jack rolled over onto the bed beside her with another satisfied moan, running his fingers so sweetly down the line of her cheek it had tears stinging the corners of each eye. He stared deeply into them.
“I care a lot about you, Cecilia. I don’t know what it is about you, but I’ve felt it from the first day we met. I won’t say it is why I hired you. As a matter of fact, it was my biggest reason that I felt I probably shouldn’t hire you, but I did it anyway and I’m glad I did,” he told her, still not looking away, and she found herself trapped by his gaze.
“I find that hard to believe with how cool you’ve been to me,” she replied, feeling a little sad at the thought, thinking of how much time they might have lost over the past several weeks.
“I was just trying to keep my distance. I didn’t want to make things awkward, and I didn’t want to get hurt and then have to look at you every day. It killed me to watch you dating Tommy, but I couldn’t say anything about it,” he said.
“You know we never really dated, right? We went to dinner twice and didn’t so much as kiss,” she told him.
“But you were so chummy around the ranch,” he said, obviously surprised.
“Just a case of no spark, but being good friends,” she shrugged.
“That’s good. I won’t have to bury him on the back forty acres then,” Jack chuckled.
“That would probably be best for all involved. We’ve had enough attempted murders since I’ve been here,” she said playfully.
“I will never be able to apologize enough for that, Cecilia. I had no idea she would go that far,” he replied.
“Of course you didn’t.” It was her turn to reach out to him, lacing their fingers together as he pulled her closer into his hard, muscled body. “Have you heard anything from her?” The thought was out of her mouth before she had even realized she’d spoken it out loud.
“She has been trying to contact me, but I’ve declined her requests to visit and thrown away letters that come in the mail. I’ve notified the authorities to enforce the restraining order. If I had done that all along, maybe she would have healed and not be where she is,” he said.
“It’s obvious that you care about her still,” Cecilia replied, not sure how she should react to that.
“Don’t misinterpret that, Cecilia. I care about what happens to her. We were close and her brother still works here. He is one of my closest friends.
I have no feelings for her anymore. Those died over the course of the past year when she refused help for her drinking and continued to make my own life hell,” he said, pulling her closer. Their words drifted off as they fell asleep in one another’s arms.
Chapter Nine
The weeks and months seemed to fly by after that first night together. Cecilia and Jack were inseparable as a couple. Though she maintained the guest house as a separate residence, most nights would find her in the main house with Jack. Her role as accountant gradually transitioned to more of a chief financial officer as Jack concentrated more on the day-to-day productivity of the ranch and allowed her free reign to handle administrative and financial decisions for him. Together, the ranch reached new heights.
Cecilia had not known when she accepted the job just how wealthy Jack Mayhew was. It seemed like any other ranch until she had begun sorting through the books. It was then that she realized that it was, by far, one of the wealthiest ranches in the country. There were payments coming in that, at first, she had questioned. They seemed to be unrelated to the ranch itself, but further investigation led her back to the equipment she had seen Jack scolding the young farm hand for destroying when she had arrived.
Jack’s grandfather had apparently invented a sort of hybrid plow that allowed fellow ranchers and local large scale farmers to use the same piece of equipment to cut fields, plow them, and smooth the earth for planting without having to switch.
It was both more economical than the buying and upkeep of different plows, but also a huge time saver in that there was no need to change equipment between activities. With the flip of a switch, the dynamics of the plow switched out to the one you required for the job at hand.
Though Cecilia didn’t fully understand the nuances of the plow, the patent and the royalties for its sale had made Jack Mayhew an extremely wealthy man.
So much so, that he really had no need to worry with operating the ranch. He could walk away from it and be financially set for the rest of his life. What he did here was not for himself, but for the men and women he employed and for the memory of his grandfather, who had worked so hard to build it. The knowledge that he kept the ranch going as a labor of love rather than a means of support just made her appreciate what sort of man he was all the more.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said to her as she made her way into the kitchen where he was busy making their breakfast. It was a habit he had continued from the day they had first made love, always getting out of bed to make her breakfast while she showered.
After breakfast, she would clear the dishes while he took his turn in the shower and then they would walk to the office together.
“Good morning to you, my love,” she responded, putting her arms around him as he stood at the stove in his pajama pan
ts. She loved the way her face felt against his bare, muscular back. His skin was always so warm against hers and it comforted her.
“I have to go into town today and pick up some things at the feed store. I thought you might go with me. We could have lunch at Café Verona like we did your first day here,” he said.
“That sounds wonderful. It’s been a while since we’ve been there,” she purred against him.
“Yes, it has. I fell in love with you that very first day, you know,” he told her, turning around to look down at her for a moment.
“I love you too,” she replied, perching on her tiptoes to kiss him.
“I guess we'd better get this show on the road or we’ll end up back in bed,” he told her, casually placing her hand on the growing bulge in his pajama pants.
“Oh my,” she replied. “We could be late for work.”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t want your boss to be angry with you,” he told her.
“Don’t worry about him. I know how to smooth things over if he gives me any troubles,” she told him.
“Yeah? How is that?” he asked.
“Like this,” she said, slipping down onto her knees and sliding his pajama bottoms down.
She was dimly aware of him turning off the stove behind him as she swirled her tongue around the tip of his cock, enjoying the velvet feel of it against her lips as she teased him. His hands tangled in her hair. Taking more of him in her mouth, she was soon bobbing up and down slowly on his girth, allowing him full access as he plunged deeper into her throat with each thrust. His hands pulled her head down onto him, sinking in behind her tonsils as she quickly brought him to an orgasm that caused his hips to convulse wildly with the release.