Buckled

by Pam Godwin

  “Our agreement hasn’t changed, Sheriff. You just stick to writing parking tickets and you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Good to hear, boy.” He pats a hand against the car door. “Good to hear.”

  “You take care now.”

  “Same to you.” He motors away.

  The sheriff will always be a liability, but not one I lose sleep over. If anything, he serves as a buffer between the ranch and other law officials. It’s in his best interest to prevent anyone from snooping around on our land. Including reporters.

  The rest of the morning rolls by achingly slow as anticipation builds in my gut. For over a week, I kept my hands to myself. I’ve been a respectable, proper gentleman.

  It grates on my nerves.

  By the time I load Maybe into my pickup truck, every muscle in my body is coiled and vibrating.

  She wears the dress I instructed her to put on, the flowing white one from the night she arrived at the ranch. Her hair tumbles around her bare arms, her skin flushed and glowing from the shower. The fact that she chose to wear my boots with the dress only fuels the desire sliding through my veins.

  I climb behind the wheel and narrow my eyes at the wide space between us. If she sits any closer to the passenger door, she’ll be eating the window.

  “Move to the middle.” I point at the center of the bench seat.

  “Why am I wearing a dress while you’re in jeans and a t-shirt?”

  I shift toward her and give her the truth. “I want access to your pussy.”

  Her mouth falls open on a breathless gasp, and she whirls toward the door, fumbling the handle in her attempt to escape.

  “Maybe.” In a tone I’ve never used with her, my voice cuts through the cab, sharp and deep. “Turn your ass around and look at me.”

  She turns and shoots me a withering glare.

  I give her one right back. “We don’t trust each other. You think I’m hiding something. I know you’re hiding shit. We both have walls up, and I’m going to change that.”

  “By shoving your hand up my dress?”

  “Yes.”

  “Unbelievable.” She gapes at me. “You’re such a… I don’t know what you are, but I bet it’s a thirteen-syllable word in a psychiatric ward! I can’t even believe—”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen.”

  Her teeth clack together, her eyes fuming with blue smoke.

  “It would be so easy to learn everything I want to know about you.” I soften my tone. “One call to a private investigator and I’d have a full report in my hands by morning.”

  Her breath hitches. “That’s invasion of—”

  “I won’t do it, Maybe.” I clench a hand on the steering wheel. “I want more than your secrets. I want those, too, but I’m not going to take them. I want you to give them to me when you’re ready. I want to earn your trust.”

  “Sex doesn’t earn trust. It destroys it.”

  A sinking feeling hits my stomach. “Who hurt you?”

  She averts her eyes to the window and rests the back of her hand against her mouth.

  Tension knots in my shoulders. “Who?”

  She shakes her head, robbing me of her gaze.

  “Let me be frank with you.” I drum my fingers on my thigh. “I’m not good at this.”

  She casts me a questioning look.

  “This…” I gesture between us. “I don’t do this with women.”

  “You don’t do what? Conversation?”

  “Yes. I talk to Conor, but she’s… Conor.” I twist in the seat to face her. “When I’m with a woman, I communicate with my eyes, my touch, my body.”

  She makes a disgusted face. “I’d rather not hear about—”

  “I’m talking. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “You’re right.” She straightens. “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve spent my entire life out in those fields.” I motion at the landscape beyond the windshield. “It’s solitary, physical work that involves my body. Not my voice. I’m hands on when I complete tasks and communicate with others. When I talk to my brother, we use our fists. When I’m interested in a woman, I tell her with my eyes. When I want to talk to her, I tie her to a support beam and express myself with the lash of a crop.” I give her a knowing look. “Sex is communication at the deepest level.”

  “For a tactile guy, you explained that fairly well with words.”

  “I can explain myself a whole lot better with my hands.” I rest a hand on the seat between us, palm up.

  “That sounds like a pick-up line.”

  “I’ve never used a pick-up line in my life.”

  “Because you don’t have to,” she mutters. “Women throw themselves at you.”

  “I’m willing to work for this. I want to. But I need you to work for it, too. Meet me in the middle.”

  She stares at my hand, where it waits between us. After a moment of hesitation, she reaches out and slides her fingers along the scar on my palm.

  “Thank you.” I close my hand around hers. “I’m going to touch you for the next two hours. I’ll push against your boundaries, but I’ll stop before you say the word.”

  “How will you know?”

  “It’s what I’m good at, Maybe. I know how to read a woman’s body.”

  “Really?” A bark of laughter. “What’s mine telling you?”

  I give her a once over. Darting gaze, tense neck, excessive swallowing, clammy palm, and a subtle bounce in her foot.

  “You’re annoyed. Conflicted. Apprehensive.” I return to her eyes and absorb the pain she tries so hard to conceal. “Lonely and lost.”

  Her head jerks back, and she swallows again.

  I pull on her hand, a silent command to sit where I instructed.

  She yanks free of my grip and straightens the dress over her knees. Her fingers go to her hair, fidgeting with the tangles. A nervous habit.

  Then she lowers her hands. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt as to whether your methods build trust. But I’m not just falling in line because you growled an order. I’m choosing to give it a try.”

  A thrill jolts through me. She’s wonderfully, beautifully, remarkably perfect. Stubborn as a mule, but damn, I wouldn’t change a thing about her.

  She scoots over, adjusting and smoothing the dress. I help her buckle the lap belt and start the engine. Then I hit the road.

  We ride to town in silence, and I stop at the gas station to fill up the tank. Now would be a good time to buy condoms since I don’t keep any at home. But I decide against it when I catch her staring at the convenience store with enough fire in her eyes to burn the place down.

  Back in the truck, I connect my phone to the stereo and cue up my playlist.

  The Cowboy in Me by Tim McGraw starts the drive. The tires hum on the pavement, and Maybe sits motionless at my side.

  I wait until we’re out of Sandbank before I give her my full attention. Her knees squeeze together. Her hands lie flat against her abdomen, and her shoulders bunch near her ears. Not the body language I hoped for.

  “You’re uncomfortable.” I rest a hand on her locked knees.

  “I’m, uh…” She drags in a long breath and releases it. “I get queasy when I’m nervous.”

  Nervous is better than scared.

  “I’ll go slow. So slow you’ll accuse me of being cruel.” I squeeze her knee. “Put your hand on my leg.”

  Since I have to watch the road, the twitch and flex of her fingers will help me monitor her reactions.

  She doesn’t move. No surprise. I’m prepared to push as hard and long as it takes until her reluctance crumbles.

  I clench my fingers tighter around her knee, tighter, tighter…

  She makes a noise in her throat and slams a hand down on my thigh.

  I loosen my grip and glide my palm around her clenched knees, keeping the fabric in place as a barrier.

  That’s where I linger for the next thirty minutes. Stroking, kneading, I touch her through th
e dress until her hand falls slack on my lap and her knees relax.

  I inch the material up, just enough to bare her lower thighs. Her fingers dig into my leg, and I hold still.

  Since she had live-in boyfriends, I know she’s not a virgin. This has nothing to do with prudence, and everything to do with distrust. She tenses as if I’m going to wrench apart her legs and stab my fingers inside her.

  After I restrained her to a wooden beam, I guess I can’t blame her.

  Eventually, she takes a few breaths and uncurls her claws.

  Over the next hour, I focus on her thighs, caressing the velvety skin, memorizing the slender shape, and coaxing the toned muscles to contract and loosen, all while edging carefully, subtly closer to her panties.

  It’s an hour of delicious discovery.

  Featherlight touches make her ticklish. A gentle massage sinks her deeper into the seat and turns her body to butter. But it’s the bruising press of fingers and my restrictive grip on her leg that revs her breaths and causes her hand to curl and uncurl on my thigh, as if subconsciously pleading for more.

  She enjoys being worshiped and adored with affection, but she gets off on rough, unyielding domination.

  As long as it’s with the right man. A man she trusts.

  If my instinct is correct, she’s never had that kind of relationship, which means she’s never experienced the total and complete submission she longs for.

  She’s already so pliable beneath my hand—her legs partially open, muscles loose, breaths deep and wanton. I could slip my fingers past her panties and inside her cunt before the word stop crosses her mind.

  But I want her at my mercy during the visit with Lorne. I want her thinking about the drive home, aching for more, needing, and imagining as she twists herself into a creature of ravenous hunger.

  So I spend the remaining thirty minutes playing with her. Teasing fingers along the edge of her panties, brushing against the seam of her pussy, and caressing the insides of her thighs, I work her into a state of trembling, panting desire.

  The mood shatters the instant we arrive at Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

  I park in the lot, surrounded by two-story, anti-cut metal fencing, barren grass, and suffocating gates. I’ve been coming here for six years, and I still succumb to skin-tightening, throat-burning, lead-in-my-stomach guilt every time I see it.

  Lorne killed one man the night Conor was raped, and he was sentenced to ten years in this hellhole.

  I’ve killed many. Premeditated. Coldblooded. Yet I haven’t served a single day behind bars. If I have any regrets, it’s that Lorne is locked in there instead of me.

  “This isn’t easy, is it?” She slips her hand from my leg and pushes the dress over her knees.

  “Lorne’s the strongest guy I know. If anyone can survive this place, it’s him.”

  She nods slowly, staring at the guard tower. “I know he killed an innocent man, but it wasn’t intentional. Ten years seems too long a punishment.”

  One day would’ve been too long, but Dalton Cassidy and Sheriff Fletcher made sure Lorne was put away long enough to drill on his land.

  She looks down at her lap. “We just spent two hours together and didn’t exchange a word.”

  “But we communicated more during that time than we have in the past nine days.”

  Her lips pinch and relax, curving into a small smile. “Maybe so.”

  “I knew I’d find it.”

  “What?”

  “An agreeable bone in your body.”

  She huffs a laugh. “Let’s go see your brother.”

  Even though Lorne isn’t really my brother, I consider him one. This isn’t something I told her, and she hasn’t witnessed my interactions with him. Yet she’s paid close enough attention to me to understand how I feel. It engenders a tenderness for her I’ve never felt for anyone outside my family.

  For the next hour, she sits quietly beside me as I catch up with Lorne. These visits never give me a sense of wholeness or reunion. We’re separated by a metal table. Our conversations are monitored and surrounded by chattering, often tearful families. But I can read a lot in his eyes, and today they seem darker than ever.

  Incarceration hasn’t just paled his complexion and toughened his appearance. It’s slowly sucking away his spirit, leaving behind a ghost of the boy I grew up with.

  He’s aged faster and harder than Jake and me. Only a year older, he scowls more, speaks less, and moves in a cagey, shielded manner that concerns me. No matter how many times I ask about his life within these walls, he refuses to discuss it. He won’t even hint at his misery. But I know. I know that whatever is happening to him in here has jaded him, reshaped him, and I fucking hate it.

  “You’re pretty.” He stares at Maybe, his expression as unreadable as his tone. “Way too pretty for this guy.”

  “Thank you, but why would you assume…?” Sitting a foot away, she turns to me. “Did you tell him we were together?”

  I look at Lorne and announce, “We’re together.”

  “No, we’re not.” She pushes her shoulders back.

  “I told him about our deal.”

  “All deals aside…” Lorne rests an elbow on the table. “The tension between the two of you is stifling.”

  She shifts in the chair and averts her eyes. I bet her panties are wet and her mind’s sprinting through the possibilities that await her during the drive home.

  I wish I had a better feel on Lorne’s thoughts. He’s been in here since he was eighteen, without his family, without the ranch, without sex. On the outside, he appears put together. If he’s dealing with internal shit like I suspect he is, he’d never show it.

  “Why are you here?” He levels her with a look that spurs her to sit taller.

  “Jarret invited me.”

  “Jarret isn’t the kind of man who’s led around by his dick.”

  I curl my fingers against my lips, concealing a grin. Lorne has the ability to wield a glare like a hammer, and he’s wearing that glare now to intimidate her. But she’s already nervous, given the twist of her fingers in her hair.

  “I know.” She forces her hands onto her lap.

  She also knows I’m not the only one who will come after her if she fucks with my family. Lorne wasn’t a forgiving guy before prison. Now, he’s downright frightening.

  “We have more in common than you think.” She lifts her chin, her soft blue eyes clashing with Lorne’s hard green.

  I shoot her a curious glance as Lorne growls, “I seriously doubt that.”

  I’m with Lorne. They’re nothing alike.

  “What do you mean by that?” I ask.

  She gives me a sad smile and looks away. “I’ll tell you someday.”

  Damn her fucking secrets.

  Lorne meets my eyes, silently reprimanding. Get control of this.

  I stare right back. I’m working on it.

  We slip into conversations about the ranch, and too soon, the hour is over. I hug him as tightly as possible and force myself to let go. I force my boots out of the room, out of the prison, and into the truck with Maybe at my side.

  She sits in the middle without being asked. “There’s some good breeding on Julep Ranch, and I’m not referring to the horses.”

  I pull out of the parking lot and toss her an inquisitive glance.

  “You all are insanely good-looking,” she says. “Lorne’s no exception. He’s also intimidating. And kind of scary.”

  “Prison will do that to a person.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” I slide a hand across her thigh for no other reason than to be close to her warm softness.

  “I can’t do this.” Her fingers curl around mine instinctively, as if her body is on a different trajectory than her mind.

  Can’t do what? Hold hands? Let me between her legs? Be in a relationship? I don’t ask, because I want all those things and refuse to settle for anything less.

  “That’s okay.” I pull out my p
hone and select a song. “I’ll convince you that you can.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” She cocks her head, listening to the lyrics of From The Ground Up by Dan + Shay. Then she laughs. “I never would’ve pegged you for a romantic.”

  “I don’t know how this got in my playlist.”

  “I just watched you choose this song.”

  “And?”

  “I like it.” She slips deeper into the seat and rests a hand on my lap.

  This time, she doesn’t stop my fingers from sliding along her thighs, molding, rubbing, and easing up her dress. She whimpers as I stroke higher, deeper into the crease of her leg, teasing the edge of her panties.

  Her knees part, just enough to welcome me. But I don’t need the encouragement. I’m set on a course to take this slow, to savor the quivers in her thighs and the shallow gulps of her breaths. With a steady hand on the wheel, I use the other to cup her mound and finger her through the material until she becomes damp to the touch.

  Halfway through the drive, I still haven’t breached the barrier of her panties.

  “You’re cruel.” She moans, even as her muscles tighten, ready to fight me.

  “You’re not the only one suffering, darlin’.”

  I’ve swelled so tightly and painfully against the zipper I’m distracted by the urge to adjust. But I only have two hands.

  “We should stop this.” She rocks against my touch, such a beautiful contradiction.

  I hook a finger inside the crotch of her panties. “Open wider.”

  “Jarret.”

  “Let me in.”

  “If I don’t?”

  Stallions are easier to break than her resolve, but I’m undeterred. “You will.”

  I grip her thigh and force her to spread. She clenches, and I pull, digging in my fingers with a snarl.

  “Don’t growl at me.” She shoves at my hand. “And keep your eyes on the road. You’re going to cause an accident.”

  I jerk the wheel to the side, roll onto the shoulder, and slam the truck into park. Then I release my seatbelt and turn to her.

  She stiffens, breathless, trembling. “What are you—?”

  I fist her hair and capture her mouth, ravaging her lips with a need that’s bigger than my skin. It scratches and expands inside me, trying to get out, to get to her, to devour her whole.