He hooked his arm around her shoulders. “Lucky me. You’re my favorite thing in the whole world.”
She leaned into him and pushed the cart toward the produce aisle to grab the raspberries before they checked out and headed home for dessert night.
Chapter Nineteen
Sonya woke up to a slice of sunlight cutting across her face and Austin peeling her panties down her legs. One annoyed the hell out of her. The other made her hot all over.
“I know you’re awake, sweetheart.”
The purr in that sweetheart rippled over her skin like a heatwave. “I’m still sleeping.”
Austin’s hand glided up and down her thigh. “I’ll have to try harder to get your attention.” He slipped his hand between her legs and brushed his fingers feather light over her soft folds. Her thighs fell apart without her really thinking about it.
“Even when you’re not awake you want me.”
She rocked her hips into his wandering fingers. “I always want you.”
“Do you want me here?” He slipped one finger, then two into her slick core.
“Yes,” she sighed out.
“Do you want this?” He circled his tongue around her tight nipple, then sucked it into his warm mouth.
“More.”
“You’re greedy this morning.”
She’d show him. She rolled on top of him, straddled his hips, and took him in with one long press of her body down his. She’d felt his condom-covered length against her thigh while he teased her. She wasn’t the only eager one this morning.
“You started it.”
His wolfish grin matched his mischievous mood.
His hands clamped onto her hips and he guided her up and down his hard shaft in a rhythm that wasn’t too fast or slow, but just right for waking up her whole body. She planted her hands on either side of his head and leaned down for a sultry kiss that mimicked the push and pull of their bodies. He wrapped his arms around her, drew her close, and clamped his mouth over her nipple as she rocked her hips against his, finding that sweet spot that had him pumping into her as she moved against him.
“Damn, sweetheart.” He hissed, then licked her nipple and took it into his mouth again. The sweet torture sent a bolt of heat down to her core. He thrust deeper, harder, taking her up to the edge and driving her right over it. He lifted and slammed her down on his hard length one more time. Her body quaked around his pulsing shaft. Ripples of pleasure faded with the burst of release in both of them.
She collapsed on his chest, her face buried in his neck. His arms wrapped around her back and held her close and warm against his big body heaving with his deep breaths.
“Morning, honey.” She smiled against his warm skin.
“Mmm. Sweetheart, I think you’re trying to kill me.”
“You take your chances when you wake me up.”
His chest rumbled with his laugh. “I have to get up. I have horses to feed.”
“They’re beautiful.” And nothing had been more glorious than seeing his face when he led the six of them out of the trailer and into the completely repaired and refurbished stables.
They’d worked hard this past week to finish the house and stables and finally start bringing the animals to the property.
“I can’t believe how far we’ve come in the past couple weeks.”
She didn’t know if he meant with the ranch, or their relationship. They’d grown closer, to the point they did everything together. Including making decisions for the ranch, which horses to buy, and the things they needed for the house. He asked her what she’d like, though they hadn’t agreed she’d stay longer than it took to have the ranch up and running with the cattle and a couple of workers to help him with the daily chores.
When she first arrived, she’d never thought about staying. In fact, she’d wondered what she’d do with all her time back at the Ranch. Now she couldn’t see doing anything else but living here with Austin.
She’d let her firm know she needed a little more time to decide about the job. Austin stopped asking her about it. She got the feeling he hoped it would just go away and things between them would stay just like this. She admitted this was pretty damn good.
“Next comes the cattle. You’ll get the other fields ready to plant. You’ll have hay and alfalfa for the ranch and to sell. You’ll be self-sufficient and making a profit in no time.”
He rubbed his hand up and down her back. “Do you want to go riding later? I’d like to show you the rest of the property.”
“I’d love to. But first I’m going to town.”
“What for this time? More éclairs?”
“You ate most of them, Mister I-don’t-really-like-chocolate.”
“I never said that. I don’t eat it a lot. That’s not the same as not liking it. And those things were so good.”
“I know. We’re on the third batch. I eat any more and lie on top of you like this, I’m going to flatten you like a pancake.”
“Sweetheart, with the way you run around this place doing everything, you’re never going to gain an ounce. Even if you did, I wouldn’t complain.” He slid his hands down her back and over her ass.
“Mmm. Sweet-talking me. What do you want?”
“More of this.” He rolled her to his side and kissed her long and deep, then held her close. “You didn’t answer me. What are you doing in town?”
“I’m going to the courthouse to pull the land records.”
His gaze locked with hers. “Why?”
“I want to know if they can tell me why your father wants this place so bad.”
“You found the copy in my grandfather’s papers.”
“That was the tax assessment. I want the deed for the original purchase of the land.”
“Actually, he inherited it from Great-grandpa Austin Jones.”
“You’re named after him.” She liked that he’d gotten a family name. And not his dad’s.
“My father wanted to name me after his father, Oliver. My mother refused to use that as my first name.”
“You don’t look like an Oliver.” She made circles with her thumbs and index fingers and put them over his eyes. “Maybe if you had thick black glasses and were six inches shorter with a paunch belly.”
Austin smacked her bottom. “Stop, or I’ll insist we name our firstborn Oliver.”
She caught her breath, then took the joke for what it was and said, “Our daughter would hate you forever for naming her that.”
He laughed and the tension eased out of him, too.
This thing between them seemed to be going fast, but it also felt natural and like they’d known each other forever.
“We’ll give her a beautiful name like her mother’s.”
She brushed her hand over his golden hair and wondered if their child would have his coloring or hers or something in between. She’d love a little girl with her dark hair and his brilliant blue eyes. “So you’re Austin Oliver Hubbard.”
“That’s me. You know what? How do I not know your last name?”
“You never asked.” She rolled to her back and stared up at the ceiling.
“What’s wrong?”
“You never asked if one of my great-uncles is my father.”
Austin levered himself up on his elbow and stared down at her. “I don’t care who your father is one way or the other. It doesn’t change who you are and how I feel about you.”
She sighed, then opened up about her past. “My mother believes it’s a boy who used to pay my great-uncles to let him be with her. He was in high school. He treated her well. He liked her, brought her little treats and presents. They used to sneak and see each other without my great-uncles knowing. She says I look like him.”
“You look like your mother, but taller, and a lot less fragile.”
She smiled at that. “Whether it’s wishful thinking or true, I don’t know.” She sighed again, the pressure to hold all this in too great to bear. “When her father finally took her and me to the cl
inic after she gave birth, the doctor asked what name to put on the birth certificate. She told him she wasn’t sure about the father. He said she could leave it blank, but I needed a last name. She asked if she had to use hers. She didn’t want me to have the same last name as her uncles. The doctor said she could give me any name, even though it would be harder to prove I’m her child in the future with our different names without the birth certificate. She didn’t care. She named me what she wanted.”
Austin brushed his fingers up and down her arm in a gentle caress that raised goose bumps on her skin. “What did she name you?”
Sonya gave a side-eye look and tried to hold back a smile. “Remember she was only fourteen.”
His grin brightened his eyes with interest. “What is it?”
“Sonya Daphne Tucker. Sonya because the guy she really liked and believed could be my father had a sister with that name. Daphne from her favorite cartoon. She never saw the show, but a teacher gave her a book to help her improve her reading skills. She read it over and over again.”
“Scooby-Doo.” Austin chuckled. “One of my favorites, too. Daphne was hot.”
Sonya smacked him on the shoulder and they laughed together.
“And Tucker?”
“Tanya Tucker. Her favorite country singer. She started singing when she was a teenager and my mother wanted her life.”
“Being a superstar, singing and traveling, seemed like a much better life than the one she lived.”
“Exactly. But Tanya’s real life was a country song in and of itself with love and loss and drug and alcohol abuse. Like everyone, she lived through highs and lows. What my mother really wanted was a simple, carefree life.”
“How come she didn’t give you the boy’s last name?”
“She didn’t want to get him in trouble. What if I wasn’t his? People would ask who got her pregnant. She couldn’t say for sure one way or the other, but she could point the finger at a lot of people who would have wanted to shut her up. Several of them threatened her, so why say anything?”
“It’s sad.” Austin traced his finger down her shoulder and along her arm. “When I met her, I knew what happened, but all I saw was a loving mom who adored her daughter.”
“She does. But the early years were hard. I have my resentments.”
“How did she get away from her family?”
Sonya sighed. “Her mother had never crossed her father or stood up to the uncles, but she saw that even after I was born the uncles were never going to leave June be. Her mother hadn’t saved June and tried to save me. She feared that in a few short years they’d start in on me the way they had with June. So she scraped together every dime and dollar she could for several months, pretended she needed June to help her do the grocery run, and put June and me on a bus when I was about eighteen months old. My mother ended up in Kansas City with ten dollars and a toddler. A cop busted her for panhandling. Instead of sticking her in foster care, which she vowed to run away from because to her families hurt kids, he took us to a shelter. It didn’t take long for her to meet a guy who said he’d take care of her.
“Predators like that have an eye for finding vulnerable girls. He kept her so long as she turned tricks for him. When he got rough, she left him. Repeat that cycle a few more times and she’s in Vegas with another loser with big promises but who is only using her.
“Big Mama found me panhandling on the sidewalk outside one of the big casinos. She wanted to know why I wasn’t in school. I told her I was hungrier for food than book smarts. She asked if I had people and I told her enough about my mom for her to understand the situation. She asked if I wanted a real home where no one would ever hurt me or my mother and there was always food and I could go to school every day.”
“I bet that sounded like heaven.”
“It sounded like every other bullshit empty promise I’d ever heard. But then she handed me a fancy card with a vine of roses over the outline of a mansion.”
Austin traced the vine tattoo winding its way over her hip and thigh. “The Wild Rose Ranch.”
“I didn’t know what kind of ranch, but I knew expensive when I saw it in the embossed card.” Sonya sighed. “She made me believe her when she told me there was another girl living there who was just like me.”
“Roxy.”
“She promised me a friend and that my mother would never have to answer to a man ever again.”
“Did June want to go?”
“I didn’t give her a choice. She’d made all the decision for us up to that point. I told her either we went together, or I was going alone.” Sonya saw the past so clearly. “We stood on the wide porch of that gorgeous house wearing discarded clothes from the Goodwill, paper sacks in our hands with our few belongings, stick thin, and praying for a miracle.” Sonya choked back tears. “Big Mama opened those doors and changed our lives.”
Austin traced the largest rose, a symbol for her, the smaller ones for her sisters, on the vine tattoo. “Were you happy there?”
“Yes. I mean, my mother was still selling herself for money, but we were safe and fed and had a family of sorts. I was behind in school, but Big Mama hired a tutor. I caught up and excelled, graduating top of my class in high school and college. I had every opportunity. I wanted that for my mother. But the life she was living in that mansion, making money that she got to keep, that’s so much better than where she came from, she’s content to take what she’s been given and be grateful.”
“How did her uncles find her?”
One of her few resentments toward her mother. Sonya tried to hold back the anger. “I want to blame her, but how can I fault her for wanting to stay in touch with her mom?”
“She called home,” Austin guessed, shaking his head.
“A couple times a year. But this time she wanted her mom to know she lived in a big house and made lots of money.”
“And your uncles couldn’t wait to get a piece of that.”
Sonya rolled over and laid her chin on her hand on his chest, her thoughts on the past and how her mother was doing now. She’d call her later.
Austin brushed his fingers through her hair. “Do you want to take that job and go back to the Ranch?”
She still hesitated when it came to rejecting the job offer, but, yes, she loved being with Austin. She picked at nonexistent lint on the sheet by his shoulder. “Not really. It’s time for a change.”
He gently tugged a lock of her hair. “Do you think you’d be happy living here?”
She met his earnest gaze. “I am happy here.”
He leaned in and kissed her softly. “Good.” He kissed her again, long and deep and filled with promise. He broke the kiss and groaned under his breath. “As much as I want to wallow away the day in bed with you . . .” He squeezed her ass to give her a hint of what he’d like to do again. “I need to go feed the horses.”
She kissed him quick, then rolled off him. “I’ll make breakfast for us before I head into town. Anything you want me to pick up while I’m gone?”
“I’ll let you know before you go, but all I really want is you to hurry back to me.”
She shifted back to him, put her hand on his cheek, and pressed her forehead to his. “People are always in such a hurry to go, go, go. Right here, right now, you and me, this is heaven.”
“Let’s stay in heaven a little while longer.” His kiss sparked a fire that brought them together again in a passionate embrace that had their hearts beating as one as their bodies moved in perfect harmony until they reached an explosive crescendo and they lay content and wrapped in each other’s arms once again.
Safe. Happy. Together.
Everything she’d ever wanted in her life.
Chapter Twenty
Sonya stood at the counter below the Records sign, waiting for the courthouse employee to finish her personal phone call.
“I’m telling you, she bought that cute little house on Pine Drive. She’s setting up a place to run her girls. Every man for miles wil
l be visiting that place the minute it’s open for business. Moths to the flame. You’ll see. People were talking about this happening when John made that woman come to town, but then we all thought she was legit, but turns out, not so much.”
Sonya imagined her sharp gaze blasting the woman’s head clean open like a laser strike. “That girl” had to be her sister Roxy, who hadn’t told her anything about buying a place on Pine.
The woman turned and jumped back a step. Her hand flew to her chest. “Oh my God. I didn’t see you there.”
“Obviously. You’re too busy talking out your ass and telling lies.” Sonya leaned on the counter like she had all the time in the world for . . . Darla, according to her name tag, to get her shit together.
“Gotta go.” She swiped her cell phone screen and stuffed the phone into her back pocket. “Uh, what can I do for you?”
“Stop talking about my sister. After that, I’d like you to pull the property records under Alan Jones and Austin Hubbard.”
“Well, now, Austin inherited his granddaddy’s ranch. Everyone knows that.”
“If it’s all the same, I’d like the records going back to when the property was originally purchased, handed down to Alan Jones, then turned over to Austin.”
“Well, to go back that far I’ll need to pull the microfiche. We’ve only got the records on computer going back to 1980. The rest are being added to the system, but it’s a slow process.”
“I’m happy to look through the microfiche if you pull them for me. Research is kind of my thing.”
Darla tilted her head. “Really?”
Sonya nodded, confirming that even in jeans and a plaid button-down she remained a nerd. “I’m a forensic accountant.”
“So you know how to hide all the money the brothel makes.”
Sonya rolled her eyes. “It’s a legitimate legal business. No hiding money. No hiding what the girls there do for a living. They pay federal taxes just like everyone else. Though most people think it’s in Vegas, it’s illegal to operate a brothel in Clark County. The mansion is located in Pahrump, which is in Nye County and is the closest to Vegas. Customers either drive out or are picked up at the airport or their hotel by limo and driven out.”
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