CHAPTER EIGHT
Hunter woke long before the sun, two mornings after the dinner that had served as a reminder of his family’s dysfunction.
Blythe slept next to him. She'd been curled against his side most of the night, as she had been the night before after making love twice. Tempted to wake her and take her one more time before leaving for the kennel, he pulled away and stood instead.
Three days. That’s all she had left. Three days hanging around his place while he worked, and three more nights warming the spot in his bed he'd thought would never feel warm again. He could take advantage of the short time and use every last second. Or he could begin to wean himself off her to keep the sting from feeling so sharp when she finally did leave.
This morning, watching her sleep in one of his tee shirts, he chose the weaning.
He’d been the one to insist they not get personal for this very reason. He’d been the one to throw up the first wall−a wall that didn’t stand a chance in hell when it came to Blythe Williams and her broken down car and idealistic views on family.
He pulled the sheet up over her sleeping body and stepped into the bathroom as his cell rang. Probably Gramps complaining about the sticky lock on the kennel door. The old man could fend for himself until he got there. He let the phone ring and stepped into a hot shower.
Five minutes later, he finished drying his hair with a towel and stepped out of the bathroom to find Blythe sitting cross-legged on the bed with his cell to her ear and a look of confusion pulling at her sleepy eyes.
“No. It’s not a big deal. No. As I said before, you don’t need to cut your trip short. I’m fine. Mandy was right. Can we talk about this when I get back? Three days. Yes. I’m sure. Bye.”
She hung up and caught his stare, concern now filling her wide eyes. "Sorry, I answered. It rang three times in a row, so I was worried it was an emergency."
Much more worried about who had put that look on her face then why she’d answered his phone, he forced a grin and pretended to busy himself with something on the dresser. “I told you to give out my number. Was it a friend of yours?”
She laughed, though there was nothing genuine to the sound of it. "More like an ex-friend."
“Anyone I need to be worried about?”
She straightened her legs and collapsed on the bed with her hands over her face. “Mike called Mandy to check up on me. When Mandy told him my car broken down in Texas, he freaked."
Hunter sat on the bed next to her and leaned down to nibble at her ear. There was no way he was going to let his frustration show at the mention of that bastard’s name. "Ex-boyfriend, Mike?" He made his voice sound as soft as he could, even though he gritted teeth.
Blythe moved her hands from her face and smiled.
“Want me to kick his ass for you?” He smirked into her neck.
“Hardly.” She pecked his cheek. “Mike’s more of the lawyers and lawsuits kind of fighter. He wouldn’t know what to do with a cowboy like you.”
Hunter grinned. “So now I’m a cowboy?”
She rolled on her side, took his hand in hers, and pressed her lips to his palm. “You always were. I just wasn’t able to see the potential at first.”
The erection that swelled at the sight of her lying in his bed, wearing his shirt, twitched under his boxers. How many more times would he have to take her? How many more chances would he have to feel this beautiful woman wrapped around him?
“As long as Mike knows he missed the boat with you.”
Blythe snaked her fingers under the leg of his boxers and wrapped them around his length. That was all the answer he needed.
He bit back the moan from her touch.
“Oh, he knows.” She cupped her hand along him and stroked. “I’ve moved on to the stronger, silent type.”
Blythe rose to her knees and scooted closer. She pulled his erection from the opening of his boxers and dipped her face between his legs. The warmth of her lips around his tip was too much. He leaned back and dropped his head, this time letting the low moan roll through him and out of his mouth.
Her tongue flicked around him, and her wet lips moved along his length until her nose tickled his belly. My God, she had taken him in completely and stopped to suckle.
Mesmerized by her, Hunter dropped his hands to her hair and tangled them in it. He cupped her scalp and worked her head backward and forward, lifting and pushing until she followed the same rhythm with her mouth.
The buildup was short and sweet, and his cock throbbed with the need for release. Easily, he could fill her mouth, but with such a short time left between them, he had to make the most of every opportunity to please her.
When he couldn't control the building orgasm any longer, he pulled out and pressed Blythe back to the bed. Her silk panties came off, and his fingers found her eager and already wet.
A few minutes ago, she’d been talking to her ex on the phone, but now she was set for him. Only for him. He plunged a finger between her lips and into her center, and she responded with a buck of her hips. A second finger forced a sharp cry from her mouth.
His. The thought reverberated around his head. She was his.
He had fought the feeling for days, buried it under any excuse he could find. But here, in his bed, with her so close to release only by his touch, the feeling surged through him like a herd of Longhorns on stampede. He wasn't going to be able to let this go. He wasn't going to be able to let her go.
"More," she whispered, undulating her hips to take his fingers deeper. Her head came up from the pillows, and her exotic dazed eyes gazed into his. "Take me, Hunter. Now. I need you inside me."
Blythe wiggled under his touch, and he spread her legs with his, opening her for him. His cock pressed into her heat. His head dipped into her juices before finding her entrance and pushing through. It was heaven. Being inside her. Being with her. Watching her work her body against him. Watching her beg for him with everything she had.
He thrust forward until she could take no more of him. Then he pulled all the way out before finding her entrance and driving in again and again until Blythe’s eyes closed and her lips parted in a silent scream for release. On the edge himself, he pushed forward one last time and spilled into her until her body shook from the rush.
He fell to his elbows. Who the hell was he kidding? There was no quitting Blythe Williams. He’d never be able to get her out of his system.
She rolled to her side and traced a finger along his back. “I thought you had to go in early.”
“I do.” He pressed the words into his pillow. His cock still twitched with the lingering spasms. “And now I need another shower.”
Fuck. He’d been so driven to be with her, he’d forgotten the damn condom.
He rolled to face her. “I lost control there. I didn’t suit up.”
Blythe tipped her head back just enough to point her chin out and laughed. “That’s okay, solider. I’ve been on the pill since I was sixteen.”
The rush of air that escaped his lungs was visceral. People in committed relationships didn’t worry about condoms and birth control. They had a plan. Fuck, he wanted that. Not until he’d had a glimpse of what could be had he known it, but fuck, he wanted to be with Blythe. Not for the week, or the month, or long distance. Be with her like Beau and Molly. Like Gramps and Grandma. Like… something he could never have with her. Something they’d agreed to not even start.
“Hunter?” Concern filled Blythe’s eyes as she rose to her elbows. “What’s wrong?”
She wouldn’t understand. Blythe didn’t feel the same way he did. She wanted a family and kids. Family dinners and holidays spent in houses stuffed with people. Even if she didn’t see it for herself, Blythe wanted the one thing he couldn’t offer.
He drew his fingers from her, adjusted the silk fabric back in place, and stood. “I can’t keep Gramps waiting this morning. We're going over the books together." He took his phone from the nightstand and dropped it on the bed. "Keep it today, in case Mike calls back." I sure as hell don’t want to speak to him.
He heard her sit up−heard the sharp intake of air behind him. Somehow, he was able to ignore them both. Worried another look would send him back to the bed, he grabbed his jeans and a Best Friends polo from his closet and left without ever looking back.
He was being a damn jerk but going cold turkey from Blythe was going to hurt a hell of a lot more if he didn’t start distancing himself now.
He was doing it for her.
****
What the hell?
Blythe sat at the kitchen table and nursed her third cup of Hunter’s coffee in an angry fog. She’d woken to the phone call. Her heart had raced when Hunter walked in to find her talking with Mike. The fear wasn't because he overheard a conversation that normally would have had her running back to Mike. The heart palpitations were because for the first time in six months, she hadn’t given a damn what Mike said. She hadn’t given a damn if he overheard the masculine voice over the phone either. Hunter had set her free.
What she had with Hunter wasn’t fake. It was honest. She knew exactly where she stood with him. Exactly how he felt. For a few precious moments that morning, she’d known the feel of him wanting to please her. As he sank to the bed beside her, she’d imagined what it would be like to wake next to him every morning. To smell the scent of soap on him fresh from the shower before he climbed back in the bed to take her once more before beginning his day. The scariest thought was that for a second, she had thought about telling him the one word she hadn’t even said to Mike until they’d been together a year.
She loved him. She damn-it-to-hell had fallen for her cowboy, and she had almost made the mistake of telling him so.
Then he’d turned his back and walked away. Why?
That question had plagued her brain for the last hour as she watched the sun rise over the pasture and the two bays graze in the distance. A man like Hunter wouldn’t be intimidated by an ex like Mike. Hunter hadn’t even flinched when she told him who’d been on the phone. He’d been too focused on getting into her pants to even care.
She took another sip of coffee and stared out the window. Hunter wasn’t the type to crawl into someone’s pants and take off. He’d more than proved that with the way he’d pined for Molly, even after stepping aside for his brother.
Shit. She dropped her mug onto the table so hard most of the coffee sloshed over the sides.
He hadn’t left her. He’d stepped aside. He had thought she was choosing Mike and he stepped aside to make room for him, a man she’d never really wanted. That was what cowboy’s did. She shook her head as a cloud of smoke billowed up the road. The horses looked up but went right back to their grass. Strange. Then she saw the truck. Hunter's was red, and this one was white, like the one she'd seen parked outside the Cole's ranch a couple of nights ago.
She took her mug to the sink and peered out the kitchen window.
The truck door squeaked open. Gramps climbed out of the driver's seat and crossed the yard in a few long strides. A man in a suit followed on his heels.
Oh my freaking God! Mike. Gramps had him in tow, walking up the front steps and not even stopping to knock.
“Hunter,” he yelled from the front entry. “You’ve got company.”
She hadn't changed from the morning and still wore Hunter's oversized PBR shirt, a pair of white lace panties, and nothing else. If she moved fast, she could dash by them for the front steps, but they'd still see her.
Who was she hiding from? She was a grown woman after all. Electing to face the music and keep her dignity intact, she stepped partway out the kitchen door. "Hunter's not here, Mr. Cole."
Gramps’s gaze tracked her. By the slight widening of his eyes, he had noticed her lack of clothes but was trying to ignore it. "I'm not here to see my grandson anyway, Ms. Williams." He tossed his head back to Mike, who stood at the entry, taking in the house.
“Mr. Davis here showed up on our doorstep an hour ago demanding to see you. Molly tried calling, but Hunter’s not answering his phone.”
Crap. Hunter wasn't responding because he'd left his phone upstairs on the nightstand, and she hadn't moved it since.
“Blythe.” Mike’s eyes found hers before he noted her appearance with a slack mouth.
Gramps shook his head. "I've got to get to the kennel. I'll leave you two here, but Blythe?" He focused on her with an intensity that heated her skin. "There's a taxi service that shuttles out this far for the airport. I expect you'll do right by my grandson and leave before he comes home."
He didn’t give her a second to respond. He spun and left, his boots pounding the wood floors and then the front steps. It wasn’t until she had watched him climb into his truck that she could think or even move.
“Blythe.” Mike stepped toward her. “If I had known you’d be…” He wiggled a brow and gestured a hand at her, seeming to forget what he wanted to say. “I-I was worried. I heard you were stranded here. Mandy left out the part about you shacking up with some farmer.”
“Cowboy.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Excuse me?” His slack jaw tightened. The frown he used to wear like a shield around her appeared again.
“Hunter is a cowboy.” She glanced out the window and saw Gramps on his phone in the truck. Three guesses who he’d just called. If she hurried, she could run up the steps and grab some jeans before he pulled out.
“I don’t care who or what he is. I’m just happy you’re safe.”
“I was never in trouble.” She ran past Mike to the stairs and started climbing.
“Blythe. Where are you going?”
“To get pants,” she called, breathless from the climb.
He mumbled something she couldn’t make out and didn’t care too. With one leg in her jeans, she bounced to the steps and ran down them.
“I called the taxi service. They should be here in forty-five minutes.” Mike hadn’t moved from where she’d left him at the base of the stairs.
“Great.” She ran out the screen door and let it slam, heading for Gramps before he put the phone down and took off.
“Blythe?”
She didn’t turn to see Mike, but from his voice, he had moved to the porch. “Take the taxi, Mike. I’ve got a cowboy to catch.”
The red taillights flashed, and the truck pulled away before she reached it. Putting everything into her legs, Blythe sprinted to the driver's door and knocked on the window.
Gramps slammed on the brakes and rolled the window down. “I could have run you over. What the hell are you doing?”
“Explaining,” she breathed heavily. “Whatever you think about the guy back there, you’ve got it wrong. I loved him once, but I don’t anymore.”
“And you’re gonna tell me you’re in love with Hunter? You two barely know each other.”
She panted before speaking, her side throbbing with a cramp. "No. I'm not going to tell you I love him. I'm going to tell you I'd like the chance to get to know him better. I'd like that chance very much, sir. I think he’s owed at least that.”
Gramps stared between her and Mike. “That guy’s not your boyfriend?”
“He was. A long time ago.”
He seemed to weigh his response with a significant amount of effort. "You hurt my grandson−"
“I can’t hurt him any more than he already is, sir. But, I might be able to help him. If you give me a chance.”
She waited for him to register her comment, hoping he would see how much she did care for Hunter.
“Fine.” He nodded to the passenger side. “Hunter’s a big guy. He can judge for himself.”
“Thank you,” she said, before rounding the front of the truck and climbing in.