“Get out of here,” I barked at her, striding back into the shadowy depths of the barn.
“What?” she asked behind me, breathless and confused. “Declan?” she called after me.
“Now!” I bellowed, leaving no room for questions, no opening for discussion. Commanding, firm. Brutal.
She did as I told her, leaving me alone in the cold, dark barn, my hands clenched in fury. With an explosion of rage, my fists found a bale of hay and tore into it, punching, pummeling, grinding it into the ground. Consumed by hunger, longing, fury at being deprived.
Panting, my knuckles bloody from pounding the rough floor planks, I stopped myself. It didn’t do any good to scrounge around in the dark like an animal. I’d had enough days like that in my life, fighting for survival, scrabbling through foster homes, a brute resorting to my fists.
That wasn’t me, not anymore. I was on the cusp of something bigger and better. I didn’t know what it would be yet, not exactly, but it was so close I could almost taste it. And I needed this job to make it happen. I couldn’t screw up and get in trouble. Harlan would badmouth me and who knew, that standing offer from the other ranch to come back and work in the fall might dry right up. There I’d be yet again, stranded and empty-handed.
It was too big a risk. I still had a whole summer ahead of me on Harlan’s ranch, a summer of long, hot nights. But I had to spend them away from her. Kara tempted me like no other, but this wasn’t going to happen. It had to be that way.
§
A couple of days later I was packing up the truck. Harlan and I were leaving for a two-night trip. He wanted to check out a ranch in Wyoming, buy some new steer, talk to a guy about a grain swap. He had a whole list of things. I was happy he’d asked me to come along. I’d been hoping to get a chance to talk to him. He was sitting on a gold mine if he’d only open his eyes to it.
Right now, I could see the writing on the wall. His ranch was going belly up. But he had a great property, set right in the middle of a perfect patch of wilderness, creeks and trails and all sorts of shit city folk would love to come enjoy. He could turn it around, open his place up to tourists. They’d pay, I knew they would. I didn’t know how it would go, whether he’d be up for it, but I’d try to talk to him. He might just go for it.
Kara came out to the barn, all honey and sugar, pretty little flowers on her dress. She had a package she was delivering into the cab of the truck, some corn bread wrapped in a tea towel and a thermos. Like she was carrying that night she had come down to my cabin.
“For me?” I had to ask.
She nearly jumped out of her skin, whipping around with a hand up to her chest. Guess she hadn’t seen me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, like it was strange for me to be in the barn.
“I’m getting ready to head out with your daddy.”
“On the two-day trip?”
I nodded my head, watching her. She looked so pretty when she flushed up, startled, her eyes wide, her breathing fast.
“I didn’t know you were going with him.”
“Gonna miss me?” I couldn’t resist teasing her. She looked so skittish, like I might eat her up. She was right about that.
“Bet you are,” I continued. Her eyes widened. I liked getting her riled up. She sure did it to me.
She looked down, blushing now, the pink rising up into her cheeks. And spreading down along her collarbone, up to the top of her halter dress. No sleeves, no straps. A man could pull that elastic right on down and gain full access to paradise. I stepped closer.
“I didn’t know you were going on the trip,” she repeated.
“You already said that.” I stepped closer.
“What are you doing?” she asked, jumpy, her eyes darting over to the entrance.
“What do you mean?” I wasn’t going to touch her, not with her father about to come down to the truck any second. Hands-off, that was my policy. But it couldn’t hurt to look, up real close, nose pressed against the window.
“Why are you walking over to me?” She looked pinned, trapped, though I wasn’t holding her there. I’d like to.
“Can’t a man say goodbye?”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you want me to do?” I knew I was playing with fire, but who could resist it when it burned so bright?
“Declan.” She glanced away, down, anywhere but right at me though I was pretty close now. Close enough that I could close the gap real fast, reach out and pull her to me in the blink of an eye.
“Yes, Kara?” I liked saying her name. Even more than that, I liked her saying mine. I wanted to hear her whisper it into my ear real close in the dark, breathe it out needy, scream it out loud when she came.
The screen door slammed up at the big house. I knew Harlan would be by real soon. He’d want to get on the road.
“Guess I’d better get going,” she said. She didn’t move.
I brought my hand up over her head against the wall of the barn. I leaned over her. She wasn’t a tiny woman, she had real womanly curves and long legs, but right next to me she felt small and fragile. I could tell she was trembling. I could smell her strawberry hair, so soft. Her eyelids flickered closed for a moment, like she was about to swoon.
“You OK?” I whispered, real low in her ear.
“Mmm,” she murmured, swaying slightly toward me.
Still in that low whisper, I told her, “I’ll be thinking about you while I’m gone. How you tasted in the barn. And that moan I heard you make when you watched me get my cock sucked.”
Her eyes flew open, wide. I pulled back, shoving my hands into my pockets and takin
g a few steps away.
“You do the same now, y’hear?” I flashed her a grin like it was no big deal. Like I’d told her to say hi to her grandma for me.
She stayed pressed against the wall, breathing fast, her breasts heaving up and down, her tiny waist below. I just about rushed back and crushed her against me, pressed my lips to hers, the hell with it all.
Instead, I tipped the brim of my hat to her. Such a gentleman. Then I climbed into the truck with her father and drove off with a raging hard-on for his daughter. Not such a gentleman after all.
§
We came back from the trip early. Some meeting had fallen through, something else had come up back at the ranch. I didn’t feel like being out on the road with Harlan anymore anyway. He’d shot down my idea for wilderness tourism like I was an idiot. He didn’t see the point in it, didn’t believe anyone would ever pay to come out and do ranch work.
When you put it like that, it did sound stupid. Who would pay to do hard manual labor? But that wasn’t the point. You had to sell the idea of it, the lure of the wild. I’d seen it work at the other ranch where I’d spent my winter. I knew the idea had legs and I was pissed off that Harlan didn’t see. He was going to drive his ranch right into the ground and Kara’s future along with it if she didn’t get out in time. That’s what he was determined to do, but he was too blind and stubborn to see it.
Down at my cabin, the door was ajar. I didn’t like that. I’d spent one too many nights in mixed company, crashing in places where I didn’t have my own space and I couldn’t lock anyone out. Now that I had it, I was never going back. My place was my own. No one messed with it. I had a Swiss army knife in my back pocket. Slowly, I worked it into my palm as I silently eased open the door.
There, on my bed, lay Kara Brooks. She had her shirt pulled up and a full breast in her hand, kneading and stroking it. Her jean shorts were unbuttoned and wiggled down her hips. Her panties were pulled down. She had her hand on her pussy, her fingers deep up inside of her folds as she moaned and gasped and writhed on my bed.