Forgiveness

by Wilder, Chiah

  Sweat dripped down Chet’s face and back as he swung the branch at anything in sight until he became exhausted and dropped it onto the ground. Hundreds of splinters laid at his feet as he breathed heavily, his adrenaline soaring so high he barely felt the cuts and scratches that were sure to be on his palms. All he saw was Maggie. Every thought was Maggie.

  Without missing a beat, Chet strode to his pickup and jumped inside. He turned on the ignition and moved it to a dark corner of the lot so it faced the stables.

  When Maggie came out, he’d be ready.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Maggie

  Maggie clung to the shovel as her head continued to float in the clouds while she imagined all the ways that kiss could have kept going between them. She couldn’t remember a time when something had been so hot and intense with anyone. Flux’s lips had set her on fire and made her forget what was right or wrong or smart … or foolish. All it had taken was his demanding kiss and the feel of him pressing hard against the crease of her skirt.

  He made her body come alive.

  The truth of that pushed its way through her fuzzy mind as she threw a large bundle of hay on the ground and began to spread it around the stall. Maggie resisted the urge to take a quick peek over her shoulder. From the grunting behind her, she knew he was working hard, but she could also feel his intense gaze on her. I won’t turn around. I won’t. Flux would never know how shaken she was by his kiss and the feel of his arms; she didn’t like it at all, not one damn bit.

  “You doin’ okay over there, Duchess?” His deep voice rattled her, making her body rev up a few notches.

  “Yep,” she replied as nonchalantly as she could muster.

  “Just checking.”

  Maggie heard the shovel scraping on the dirt again, and she forced herself to stay focused on the task. Ever since she could remember, her life had consisted of practicing and competing, and it’d suited her just fine. When all of her friends had been primping and giggling about prom and homecoming games, she’d been working hard for an upcoming competition. Sure, Maggie had boyfriends, and she’d had lost her virginity at twenty years old to a sweet cowboy whom she thought she loved, but hadn’t. After three months the infatuation had waned, and they’d gone their separate ways. But the intimate contact of being wrapped in Flux’s arms while he rubbed against her made Maggie ache for more. She wanted Flux like she’d never wanted any man before. No other had ever made her abandon her senses like that. I was even humping him! Ugh … why him? A more complicated man couldn’t have dropped into her lap if she’d planned it. A groan escaped from her lips.

  “What’s that, Duchess?”

  Maggie cleared her throat. “It’s just the dust.”

  The answer seemed to have satisfied Flux because he returned to laying straw around several stalls. I can’t believe I was all over him. As the blush in Maggie’s flamed cheeks continued to climb, she groaned inwardly and dropped the shovel to fan her face with her hands. It’d be nice to get out of an embarrassing situation once in a while without being so damn transparent. Shit … everything’s a mess. But you didn’t try very hard to keep away from him, did you? She should’ve cut things off when she was at the bar before giving Flux any chance of hopping into the cab of her truck and landing them in a bale of hay.

  Maggie thought she had everything in hand when she picked the least sexy thing they could do to get to know each other without all the sexual tension getting in the mix. But the way he looked at her had eaten away at her common sense instead. There was no doubt about it—she really had no one to blame but herself. She’d egged him on, practically dared him verbally, and a man like Flux? He wasn’t going to take a challenge lying down.

  He had all but told her that before he took her lips.

  Now, Maggie was left with the consequences of her actions. Damn adulthood. Since she’d begun competing, her sights had been set on the pro rodeo trail, and she didn’t need anything veering her off course. The ruggedly handsome, muscular, and oh-so sexy Flux was a huge distraction. And I work with him. What the hell was I thinking? This was why she’d stuck to the hard-and-fast rule of not seeing anyone from work, so things like that didn’t happen on the regular. The last thing she needed was a rumor going around the yard. Maggie knew well enough how quickly talk spread on the circuit—and about whom. She wasn’t willing to tarnish her glowing reputation in the ring for one night of hot, crazy loving in the sack with a biker who had intimacy issues. She’d heard the buzz about how Flux was a “love ’em and leave ’em” one-nighter. After she’d seen him at the arena, several of the women in the office had told her about his sexual prowess and his asshole ways. Yeah … complicated all the way around. I just need to nip whatever is going on between us in the bud. Like—now.

  But for Christ’s sake, they were two adults. There wasn’t any reason they couldn’t talk this thing through and come to some sort of agreement on the matter. There was no reason for her to play coy with her feelings now. Who the hell would that help in the long run?

  Maggie straightened her spine and took a deep breath.

  “You about done over there, Duchess?” Flux’s hoarse voice made her blink a few times, but she managed to get her bearings.

  She wasn’t falling against his dick again. Not until they’d answered some all-important questions and everything was on the table between them.

  “I’m spread out on this side. We should probably move to the next stall, don’t you think?” he said.

  Neither of them spoke again while Flux handed her his shovel and took the wheelbarrow into the next empty stall as she followed behind him. They had a good system worked out by this point. Good enough, that when he went to take back the shovel, she held it fast until he was forced to look down into her eyes with a confused expression. Then his attention shot elsewhere entirely, and he dropped his grip on the tool as if it had burned him.

  “So, now you can’t even look at me?” Maggie accused him, only slightly teasing. “This doesn’t change anything between us, right?”

  Flux’s brows creased before his face shuttered into a perfectly stoic mask. It was a nice trick. Maggie had her own version, but she didn’t plan on employing it tonight. Not with him. He had issues, and she knew that from the start. So, she would do her best to work with those issues rather than against them. She couldn’t ask him to kiss her and then walk out on the situation as if she hadn’t done a damn thing.

  A duchess has better manners than that, dammit.

  She put her hand on her hip and caught his gaze. “Do you agree with me or not that the kiss doesn’t change anything between us?”

  No answer.

  “Well … do you?” She was almost frantic for an answer now, even though on the outside she managed to keep her cool. The longer the gap of silence between them, the more she could think of all the different things this meant between them. They hardly knew each other, had barely even begun to talk about their lives, yet their connection was more genuine than that of any man she’d ever let touch her in the past.

  It was unnervingly inconvenient.

  “It doesn’t change things,” Flux parroted back as he rested his palms above his head against the horse paddock wall and stretched—probably so he didn’t have to look at her while they had this conversation.

  Meanwhile, Maggie was stuck staring at the ink move on his delicious biceps and triceps as he became a walking poster boy for sex on a stick. And the way his shirt rode up a little bit to reveal his flat stomach and happy trail made her mouth water and her skin tingle. She quickly turned around just so she could keep her dignity. One of them had to keep talking, so she picked up the mantel again.

  “We’re still casual and if we go down this road … and that’s a big if … it’s a one-and-done. No catching feelings, no relationship mumbo jumbo—none of that nonsense. We scratch the itch, then it’s out of our systems and we go back to business, agreed?” What the hell! Did I really say that? Where did my fucking brain go? She ran
her eyes over Flux then darted them away. Just a casual hookup wouldn’t hurt. For him … it’s his style, and for me, it’d be a release of a lot of stress. Just once, then move on and back to business. That wouldn’t be bad, would it? For once in her organized, calculated life, she’d like to throw caution to the wind—no plans, no goals, just some naughty fun. And Maggie had no doubt in her mind that Flux would aim to please, but could she really do it?

  “So…” Flux drew out the word and Maggie cringed, knowing exactly what part of that sentence he had caught onto and hooked his attention.

  “Just because I’m considering the possibility and bringing it up in a normal adult conversation doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, okay? But we have to explore all the possibilities and options, otherwise … well, it could be fucking chaos!”

  “Watch your mouth, Duchess. You’re starting to sound like me.”

  Maggie looked over her shoulder and pursed her lips as she looked at him.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your speech.” He threw her a shit-eating grin, then folded his arms across his sculpted chest and winked.

  The biker Adonis didn’t need any help knowing he was a hot commodity. She was sure the string of women who flocked to his bed did enough of the talking for both of them. And she wasn’t about ready to be another one—not until he understood the possible ramifications and the limits of their engagement.

  “You can mock all you want, big guy, but at least one of us is taking the full disclosure route,” Maggie huffed and dropped her shovel. “Tell me how you feel about it. Now.”

  “Demanding—I like it.” Flux’s voice was suddenly at the nape of her neck, his body heat lingering against her back.

  If Maggie moved less than half an inch, she would be pressed back against him, and the small possibility drove her whole body into stillness. No. Not until she knew what was going on between them. Anything else was beyond idiotic. How was she even justifying it to herself in the first place?

  “I can see your brain spinning, Duchess. You’re practically giving me a headache.” His voice was low and soothing and so sure of himself, but it didn’t match his prior reaction. “I’ve got every fuckin’ intention of seeing this through and agreeing to all your terms. We’re casual. One night. We’re friends. Check, check, and check. But I’m gonna let you sit with it for the night before we do anything rash after that kiss, which was fuckin’ incredible. You deserve more than me hiking up your skirt, hoisting you up on my hips, and taking you hard and rough against the wall of the stall, although if that’s what you want, I’m all in, Duchess.”

  The way he caressed her nickname made her swallow, and her flesh lit up from the inside out as all the arousal she’d been suppressing flared to the surface. Maggie’s nipples hardened and her panties dampened as her breath caught in her lungs. A vivid picture of Flux lifting her up in his arms, slamming her against the wall, and taking her within an instant made her squeeze her eyelids together hoping to beat it back.

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Maggie instantly knew the second he took a few steps back and put space between them again. For a beat, the whole world was a little bit clearer. Taking some time was in their best interests, especially when she never went into sex with a selfish agenda like she was considering with him now. She was a relationship kind of girl, not a one-night stand sex bomb, so why the hell had she even suggested it in the first place? Everything about Flux was foreign territory.

  Maggie heard the thud of his footsteps as he walked away. “Flux, wait!” She pivoted, and within seconds he was right back in front of her as if he’d never moved at all. Flux looked down at her, his black T-shirt streaked with dirt, and his hair still a mess from where she’d run her hands through it less than half an hour ago. His expression was unreadable, but Maggie sensed the same barely leashed arousal in him that ached in her core.

  “Do you want a ride back to the motel?”

  “No, I’ll walk. But thanks, Duchess.”

  “Okay, sure. How about one more for the road?”

  Before Flux could say anything else, Maggie gripped his T-shirt and yanked him down to her level, and they kissed until she couldn’t breathe without the scent of him in her lungs.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Maggie

  After she finished up in the stalls and shut everything down for the night, Maggie took a deep breath of the warm night air. She’d hoped some miracle would appear to help her better understand all the mixed up feelings swirling through her body and her mind. Instead, she was just as stuck as she’d been in the stables, which was unusual since it was a place where she’d always felt safe and secure. Maggie kneaded her shoulder and with no magical answer in sight, started walking toward her pickup.

  She didn’t make it far.

  One second her truck was in view, and the next, Chet blocked it from her vision. He stood there with his chest rising and falling in sharp, choppy breaths. Chet’s eyes were narrowed with a dogged intention that made her muscles seize up in fight-or-flight as all her alarm bells went off.

  Maggie took a step backward and tried to sidestep him. Maybe she’d get lucky and could avoid the situation. Fat chance. He blocked her path each time she tried, and he kept walking forward, forcing her backward through the parking lot and toward the stable. Maggie’s brain told her to run, but she didn’t. There was no way in hell she’d give Chet the satisfaction of having that much power. No, she’d hold her ground. It was decided even as her body struggled to tell her stubbornness to take a hike.

  One of the overhead lights illuminated him, and Maggie noticed blood covered one of his hands. Chet pulled his cowboy hat down low on his face so she could hardly see his eyes. An icy-cold shiver ran up and down her spine, and she suddenly wished she’d brought a shovel out with her, or that Flux had wanted that ride to the motel.

  “Chet, what’re you doing here? This has gone too far. You need to leave me alone, okay?” Maggie swallowed, somewhat proud when her voice came out evenly and not reed thin from the fear that threatened to tear apart all her reason and logic. “Just go back to the motel and let me leave. I’m tired … it’s been a long day.”

  He took a step closer.

  “If you leave now, I won’t tell anyone.” Take the lifeline. Take it and move the fuck out of my way.

  “Just like you won’t tell anyone that I’m lousy in bed, right, Duchess?”

  Flux’s pet name for her felt dirty coming from Chet’s lips, and she flinched as she dug in her back jean skirt pocket for the keys to the pickup. Maggie quickly arranged them like a weapon between the splayed fingers of her hand behind her back. Luckily, Chet didn’t seem to be tracking her movements, too lost in staring at her face.

  “What’re you talking about? I couldn’t say anything about you in bed or out of it—we never had sex. And if we had, I’d never do something like that. What would be the point of it anyway?”

  Maggie stumbled over his flawed logic, trying to connect the dots. Out of all the people in the world that could spread those rumors, why would she—the woman who’d rebuffed his sexual advances—turn around and trash his name all around the rodeo? It doesn’t make sense. He must’ve really pissed someone off and now he wants to blame me. Typical.

  “Chet, listen to yourself … You’re not making sense right now.”

  “Oh, I’m not making sense?” he yelled as spittle flew from his mouth and she took a step back. “That’s fucking rich coming from a little slut like you! You passed up the chance to be with me—a real man, so you can suck that asshole biker’s dick. You’re out of your mind! He’s the fucking scum of the earth. If this is your sick and twisted way of keeping all the other girls off me so you can make me jealous with him, you’ve fucking succeeded, honeycakes.”

  His sneer was all that was visible beneath the harsh glow of the lights around the barn.

  “Chet—” She fumbled for words.

  He moved the bar
est inch and her back slammed against the side of the stables, making a few of the horses neigh in protest. Shit, how did he get me this far back and I didn’t notice it? The back of her head smarted where it had hit the wood, but she welcomed the pain because it kept her reeling mind clear. She would need all her senses in working order to get out of this mess.

  Chet dipped his head down and she could smell the beer on his breath. “Stop. Playing. Me.”

  Maggie tilted her head to the left, and her hand tightened to the point of pain around her keys, but she didn’t want to resort to violence … yet. She didn’t really want to hurt Chet—she just wanted him to go away, but if he pushed it, she’d jam the keys right into his eyes and twist them. Adrenaline licked up her spine and tingled through her fingers and toes.

  “I need you to get a grip. Can you do that for me? Because if you can’t and this goes down the way I think it might, Chet, I won’t hesitate to bring a formal complaint against you with the rodeo commission and with Charlie. Do you really want a sexual harassment charge on your file along with all the other rumors I didn’t start? Is that your damn goal here?”

  Maggie put her hands on his chest and pushed him back, not caring that she still couldn’t see all his facial expressions or his eyes. She could pretty much feel the anger and defiance radiating from him, and she didn’t give a flying fuck about it.

  “I really don’t want to fuck up your day, but I’ll make it happen if you don’t let me get by you, do you understand me?” Maggie held up her makeshift weapon and poked him in the chest with it for emphasis.

  The silence was eerie and dangerous. Pushing her fear down, she lifted her chin.

  “I asked if you got my drift.” Maggie wasn’t calling his bluff—she wouldn’t hesitate to trash his career if he didn’t leave her the hell alone. Even though the rodeo may be a boy’s club, she knew Charlie wouldn’t tolerate one of his biggest barrel racing draws being harassed by a bull rider who didn’t bring in half the crowds she did.