“I really like the fact that you’d rather go up to your room right now.”
“You changing your mind?” She shifted so she could stand right back up.
Their fingers were still linked and he lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it. “Not yet.”
Tingles raced from where his lips touched her right down between her legs. This conversation better not take very long. She hoped Josh Landry had some stamina because she wasn’t sure one time with him tonight was going to be enough.
“Tell me about the ‘stuff’ that Andrew’s parents think is weird about you,” he said.
Oh that. Dammit. Why had she said that? She wasn’t embarrassed about her “stuff” exactly, but she was used to people thinking it was all a little odd. And she kind of wanted to wait and be odd with Josh after he gave her a couple of orgasms.
“Oh, it’s not—”
“Tori.” He stopped her with that one word. “Tell me.”
Well, crap. Okay. She wasn’t going to lie to him. He’d come here tonight to help her out with a bit of an odd problem.
“I have a farm,” she started. “In addition to my vet practice. Actually, my vet practice—my clinic, anyway—is run out of a building on the farm.”
“Okay.”
“It was my mom and dad’s, it’s where I grew up, but my parents moved into town about two years ago, so it’s all mine now.”
He was still holding her hand and she loved the feel of it. It was big and warm, his skin roughened by working outdoors with his hands every day. She liked that about him. They didn’t do the same kind of work, but clearly Josh wasn’t afraid to get a little dirty and he didn’t buff the calluses off his palms.
She really wanted to feel those hands all over her body. All over her body.
It had been a really long time since she’d had sex. A really long time. But it was how much she wanted to now that was really nagging at her. She didn’t think about sex that much. Now she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Tori?”
She focused on Josh’s face. Oh right. They’d been talking.
“Why would Andrew’s parents think that your farm is weird?”
She wanted to get this talking stuff over with. “Because it’s mostly full of special needs animals.”
He just looked at her. For several long moments.
“About ninety percent of my animals have some kind of issue. Some have a missing leg. Or a toe. One of my cats is paralyzed in her back legs. One cat only has one eye. The milk cow doesn’t give milk. One of my dogs has PTSD. My chicken is mentally ill. They all have…something going on with them.”
He was still just looking at her.
“See? Weird.”
“You have a farm full of special needs animals,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded.
“Okay. How did that happen?”
He wanted to know more? “Um…well, technically it started with me refusing to put Frank down when he was born with a cleft palate,” she said. “They didn’t want him, so I took him home with me and fed him with a tube and took care of him until he was old enough to undergo surgery. Then we corrected the cleft as best we could. He still needs some feeding help but he’s one of my best friends.”
Tori winced. See, that was the kind of stuff that had gotten her teased for years.
“And Frank is?” Josh asked.
He was looking at her with…affection. That was unusual.
“An English bulldog,” Tori said. Josh wasn’t looking at her like she was weird. He wasn’t even leaning back. In fact, he might have leaned closer. So she took a deep breath and said, “Okay, officially this all started when I was eight and found a baby squirrel that had been knocked out of his nest. I nursed him with a little doll’s bottle and kept him in my bedroom, hidden from my parents, until he was old enough to release. But he’d never really leave. He kept hanging around, and climbing up to my window and stuff. So I’d let him in at night, and I built him a little house outside and fed him for…a while after that.”
“A while?” Josh tipped his head so she would look at him.
She nodded. “About four years.”
He was clearly surprised. “Squirrels live that long?”
“Most live about six years—provided they’ve got food and shelter and predators don’t get to them—though they can live up to twelve.”
“Wow.”
She couldn’t help but smile. If he found that interesting, she had all kinds of crazy facts about animals. “I had a raccoon for three years.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “In your bedroom?”
“Only for a week. When she was a baby. Until my mom found out. But then I kept her in our barn.”
He finally smiled completely. “What else? How many other animals did you have as pseudo pets?”
“A family of rabbits. Chipmunks. Mice.”
He shook his head. “Wow.”
“Yeah. And I built them shelters and made them food—”
“Made them food?”
Well, she was this far in. “Little cakes made of seeds and things they liked. Stuff like that.”
“And you were just a little girl?”
She nodded. “And I thought it was really cool. Until I told about them during show-and-tell and everyone started calling me Cinderella.”
“Why Cinderella?”
“After I admitted that I talked to the animals, they teased me about having the birds and mice help me make my clothes and do my chores.”
He laughed softly, but it didn’t feel mocking. It felt like he was sharing a memory with her.
She could smile about this now. He was acting interested and was being sweet about her story. She relaxed and kept talking. “So that was my reputation growing up. I had dogs and cats, too, of course. And my dad raised all kinds of farm animals. I took care of any runts or anything that got hurt or had any problems. I made a cart for our dog that broke his leg. I’ve bottle-fed more cats than I can count. We had a mama cow die in childbirth and I took care of the calf. He became like a dog, really, following me around, meeting me by the fence when he knew I’d be getting home from school.” She took a long swallow of her champagne. “But that was why I didn’t socialize much or go out for things after school. I needed to get home to take care of my animals.”
“And you preferred that, didn’t you?” he asked. “You never wanted to play basketball or be in the school play.”
She looked up. “I really didn’t. I always preferred the animals. And my classmates thought that was weird.”
“I can’t speak for the girls, but I’m guessing at least some of the guys were just jealous that you didn’t want to spend time with them.”
She laughed at that. “You really can’t help the sweet talk, can you?”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “While you were saving the animal kingdom, I was spending time with my favorite hobby.”
“Girls.”
“Pretty much.”
She couldn’t even fault him. He was so upfront about it. And yeah, sweet. It made her want to tell him everything.
“So, the rest of the story is then the special needs animals I have now. I take on the hurt ones and the ones with birth defects and the ones that just don’t…fit. I have everything from chickens to horses to cats and…” She hesitated for a second.
Josh leaned in, his eyebrows up. “Come on…what else do you have?”
She grinned. She kind of thought Josh might like this. “I have a pig who is scared of thunder. I have a very sweet alpaca who loves me to sing to him. And…I have a mountain lion.”
Now he was staring at her. Not necessarily in a you’re-super-weird way, but in a wow-that’s-pretty-cool way. There was a fine line between those two, she’d found.
“So you do sing to the animals,” he finally said.
“I do.”
“Maybe you are a little like Cinderella,” he said, with a grin that made her want to crawl into his lap and do very u
n-princess-like things to him.
But again, from him it came out completely differently than it had from the kids at school. She was over the teasing from grade school. She remembered it, of course, but she was twenty-eight now. She worked with and lived with animals, and she was completely happy and she’d figured out that she didn’t need people to understand her.
But it was nice when they did. Or when they accepted her anyway.
She wasn’t the same little girl who’d been teased. She wasn’t the teenager who’d gotten comments about how she had to keep her only friends in a pen to get them to stay. She was the woman they all came to or called when their pets or livestock needed help. There was some definite satisfaction in that. And she was pretty damned gracious about it, to be honest. It wasn’t the animals’ faults that their owners had been jerks as kids.
“And a mountain lion?” Josh asked. “Really?”
“Really. Found him as a cub. He’d been injured badly. Shot, actually. I don’t know if it was an accident or if someone shot him on purpose and just left him there. But I operated and nursed him back to health.”
“And then he didn’t want to leave either, right?” Josh asked. His voice was softer now and a little huskier.
Tori felt a little shiver of pleasure go through her. “I guess not. He kept coming around.”
“Yeah. I totally understand why.” His voice was even deeper now.
She watched him move closer, felt him slide his hand up her arm, over her shoulder, to the back of her head, and smelled the scent of his aftershave with a hint of champagne as he leaned in.
“So, none of that’s weird, Tori,” he said softly. “It’s all fucking loveable as hell.”
Then he kissed her. Sweetly. But hotly. She’d never realized how sexy a kiss that was all lips could be. No tongue, no wandering hands. Just lips. But there was something about it that made her feel desired in a way she’d never felt before.
And she wanted more. So much more. Not just the physical stuff. She wanted to tell Josh about Fergie and Frodo and Fiona, her triplet fainting goats. She wanted to see his eyes widen when he found out she’d had a sloth for a while. She wanted to know about his childhood too. Though she was ninety-nine percent sure that he’d been an outgoing, getting-dirty-in-the-bayou-whenever-possible kind of kid.
But she also wanted more of the physical stuff. Definitely.
Tori shifted, keeping their lips locked together, until she could slide into his lap. She straddled his thighs and soaked up the sound of his groan and the feel of his hands dropping to her hips. Not to move her off his lap, but to press her more firmly against his fly.
He was hard. Really hard. And big. And suddenly the warm feeling he’d caused by actually being interested in her animals turned into hot, licking flames.
She ran her hands up the sides of his neck and into his hair. She loved the way that made him groan too. She wanted to strip him down and rub her body all over him the way Webster did against the catnip-filled dolphin he hid from all the other animals. She hadn’t felt this for a guy in a very long time.
Finally he pulled back, breathing hard.
She stared down at him.
“Damn. You are so fucking sweet,” he told her, his voice gruff.
Tori smiled. “Thanks.”
“And I’m not sure how to feel about this, but all of that sweetness makes me want to see just how naughty I can make you. No matter how bad I’d feel the next day about debauching you.”
Debauching. That was a great word. She wiggled on his lap.
His hands clamped down, keeping her from moving.
“I’m not as sweet as I seem,” she told him.
“No?” It was clear he didn’t believe her.
“I’ve punched a couple of guys. I ruined a girl’s prom dress with cow poop. I stole…some things one time. And I put my hands in unspeakable places and walk through crap—literally—on a daily basis.”
He laughed, almost as if surprised though. “Okay, but let me guess here. You punched the guys over some animals. You ruined the girl’s dress because of something with animals. And you stole food or something for animals.”
Ah, he was paying attention. She grinned. “Almost. The girl had a couple of dogs that had been together for three years, since they were puppies, and she sold one—just one and split them up—so she could afford that dress. And the guys were brothers and their cat had kittens and their dad didn’t want them so he told the boys to take them out to the country and dump them.”
Josh’s fingers dug into her hips. “So you went after them and punched them and saved the cats?”
“I punched them in the parking lot after school,” she told him. “Then I went to their house and stole the kittens.”
“So those were the things you stole that one time?” His mouth was curving.
She nodded.
“Does it count as stealing if you take something they didn’t want in the first place?”
She laughed. “Hey, I’m trying to be a badass here so that you’ll debauch me.”
His eyes got hot instantly and his smile dropped. His expression was completely serious when he said, “I’m not sure anything could stop me from doing that. Except you saying no, of course.”
“There’s no way I’m going to say no,” she told him sincerely.
He took a deep breath. “Okay, then there’s just one more thing I want to talk about.”
“I shot a coyote once,” she said. She thought that was pretty badass. “And I took a guy’s fuel pump out of his car so he couldn’t come after me when I let the birds he had caged loose.”
“You can shoot?” That definitely seemed to surprise him.
“Yep. I’ve been hunting all my life.”
“You hunt?” he asked.
“Yeah. Duck and pheasants mostly, but I’ve gone deer hunting too.”
“But…you love animals.”
“Hunting isn’t not loving animals. It’s important where we are to control their populations. Starving to death or getting hit by cars isn’t a nice way for them to die either. When I shoot, I know they go instantly. No suffering.”
Josh was looking a little awed now. Or maybe it was confused. “And you know cars?”
She shrugged. “The basics. It’s a lot easier and cheaper to take care of your own stuff when you can, and we have several kinds of vehicles on the farm. Trucks and a tractor and a bobcat.”
Josh shook his head. “Damn.”
“You okay?” She couldn’t describe his expression.
“Yeah, I just had no idea how much hunting and car expertise would make me want to bend someone over the end of the bed and lick her from head to toe.”
That surprised a laugh out of her even as a hot shiver swept through her body. “Maybe because most of the people you know who can do those things are guys?”
“That’s probably part of it,” he agreed. “My mom and sister aren’t really…outdoorsy.”
Tori smiled. She was surprised by how much she wanted to meet Josh’s mom.
“But Ellie hunts alligators,” he added of his grandmother.
Tori felt her eyes widen. “Wow, really?”
“Yep. Claims hers always taste the best.”
Tori didn’t have a lot of trouble picturing Ellie hunting. “Is alligator good?”
“You’d try it?” he asked.
“Of course. Why not?”
He shook his head. “At this point, I have no idea. I think I’m just getting used to the idea of being with a tomboy. Not sure I’ve done that before.”
Tori wasn’t sure she considered herself a tomboy exactly, but no, she wasn’t girlie either. “Your grandma is a tomboy?”
“Definitely. Tough girl. She cusses and she whooped us as often, or more, than our parents did. There’s nothing that makes her squeamish that I know of. And she’s not reckless, but she’s also not scared of much.”
“And you’re not usually attracted to those things?”
“I guess…” He sighed. “Maybe those girls are rarer and I haven’t run across many.”
Tori didn’t think that was it. “Or maybe you don’t talk to the girls you…spend time with.” That was a nice way to put the fact that she was pretty sure Josh was an obvious playboy. Which had always made him sending him back to her hotel alone last year strange. And now he didn’t seem in any hurry to get up to her bedroom either. “Maybe you just don’t know what things they can and can’t do outside of the bedroom.”
He seemed to think about that and then nodded, slower this time. “That might also be it.” He paused. “Or maybe it’s just that I hadn’t met you yet.”
She laughed, even as her heart flipped. “You and that sweet talk.”
That he had yet to act on. Now that she thought about it, Tori wondered if she should be concerned. Maybe he couldn’t stop thinking about how unsexy her job was or how she was barely pulling off the heels and lipstick tonight or how she’d hidden wild animals in her closet as a kid. The gross, awkward, odd stuff might be finally adding up.
Josh nodded. “Yeah, let’s call it sweet talk.”
“What else would we call it?” she asked.
“A genetic disposition to fall head over heels ridiculously fast.”
This time when her heart flipped, she wasn’t sure it went back to its usual position. It felt bigger in her chest. He seemed so sincere. Almost self-deprecating about it. As if he thought that was what was happening, whether he liked it or not. Whether she liked it or not. She didn’t actually think that Josh was head over heels for her, but she liked the idea that he liked her a lot. And thought of all these things about her were fucking loveable as hell. To use his words.
Yeah, she liked that a lot.
“Does this mean we can go inside and get naked now?” she asked. Because she also really liked kissing him. And she really wanted to get naked with him. Before she said anything else about who she was that might make him wonder what the hell he was doing with her.
He gave a half groan, half laugh. “Soon. I have one more thing I want to ask you about.”
“Okay.” She wiggled on his lap, on purpose this time, loving the way his fingers curled into her hips as if he couldn’t take it.
“You and Andrew,” Josh said.
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