Chapter Fourteen
Katie
“It’s broad daylight.” I rolled over in bed when I heard the window being slid open. “You couldn’t use the door?” I sat, pulling my hair into a messy knot on the top of my head.
Cash posted up on the foot of the bed, his hand going to my shin through the covers. “It’s so much more fun this way.”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning. I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet.” I put my hand over my mouth and scooted away from him. We kissed for the first time last night, and I was hooked. I thought of kisses as my gateway drug; they only made me want more. “What are you doing here so early?” And looking so damn good. He was dressed in boots and jeans with a thin white t-shirt tight in the biceptual region. So far I’d only seen him in shorts. The cowboy look was working real well for him though.
“Well, Katie Baby, we have a full day ahead of us.” He got to his feet, reaching for my hands and dragging me out of the comfy confines of Halen’s bed. “We are going to do all things teenager today.”
I stumbled to the closet, grabbing a dress, longer than the one I’d been wearing the night I’d met Cash. Then I head to the en suite bathroom to brush my teeth. I wanted to get that out of the way in case Cash felt like kissing me before we left the house. And I really hoped he did.
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing? All things teenager?” I pasted up my hot pink toothbrush and then ran it under the water for exactly two seconds. That was the magic number.
“Yes.” He’d followed me and was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed and a little smirk on his face. “But those were teenager spurts. This is a full day and night. It’s a crash course, baby.”
When he called me Katie Baby, it seemed like a sweet silly nickname. When he called me baby, only baby? It made me feel all warm and tingly further south than my stomach. “Let me change real quick.” I put my palm on his muscular chest, stiff-arming him out of the bathroom. He put his hand on mine, digging in his heels and halting my momentum.
“Wait.” He grabbed me by the hips, setting me on the bathroom counter and then stepping into my space, wedging himself between my knees. “I’ve been thinking about these lips since I woke up this morning.” He put his hands on my cheeks, and then he kissed me.
It was as good as I remembered from last night. And like last night, I got a little lost in it. I tightened my legs around his waist, making him groan against my mouth. His hands went to my hair, tugging lightly. I nipped at his bottom lip in response and he snaked an arm around my middle, bringing me even closer to his body. Cash was teaching me desire; he was teaching me what it felt like to want more. And I was loving every damn second of it.
Eventually he pulled back, smirking. “Get dressed before I change my mind and beg you to stay locked in your room with me all day.”
When he walked out, shutting the door behind him, I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. Cash made me feel like my whole body was going up in flames, like that bonfire at the old red barn.
I changed quickly and put on a minimal amount of makeup, then Cash and I strode hand in hand down the hallway.
“Cash? Where did you come from?” Mr. Conner—I mean Dash, he’d asked me to call him Dash like ten times now—looked between Cash and the front door. His forehead was wrinkled and he seemed super confused.
“I’ve been here for like an hour, Katie let me in.” Cash cocked his head to the side, his thumb pointing toward the entryway of the house. “I said hi to you when I walked in. You don’t remember?”
“Jett came in, but then…” Dash shook his head. “Uh, yeah, I guess.” He blinked a few times rapidly with a frown still on his face. “What are you kids up to today?”
“Since all the parents are headed to NYC, we figured we’d stay around the compound.” Cash shrugged in an “aw, shucks” kind of way. “Keep an eye on the younger kids.”
Something told me that this was mostly bullshit, but I didn’t dare call him on it. That didn’t seem like the teenager thing to do.
“Okay, great.” Dash clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks for doing that.” He headed off toward the master bedroom, walking backward. “We won’t be back until well after midnight. We have dinner reservations in the city. Emmie is staying at a friend’s house, but could you guys handle Jett and Marley?”
“Of course.” Cash spoke like it was almost ludicrous that Dash would even have to ask.
“You’re the best, C Money.” Dash spun around and was out of sight.
“You’re full of more shit than that cow pasture we were in last night.” I crossed my arms over my chest, shaking my head in mock disappointment. “On top of all that, your poor uncle probably thinks he’s on the verge of losing his mind. I bet he’s still trying to figure out if he really saw you come through the front door.”
Cash grinned, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the house and to his black truck. “Number one, Uncle Dash needs to pay closer attention to the things that are happening around him. The fact that I could confuse him so easily is on him, not me.” He opened the car door and helped me inside, resting his hand on my thigh. “Number two, I fully intend to watch out for Jett and Marley today, as well as feed them.” He winked. “They’re part of the festivities.”
***
We were in a part of the compound I’d never seen before. I could kind of spot the old red barn in the distance, and maybe the roof of Landry and Beau’s house. But that was it. My family’s ranch was big, really big. The Devil’s Share’s place was bigger. Right now, we were way out in the middle of a field, sitting in the bed of Cash’s truck. Crue, Avory, Halen, and Beau were all in attendance for the day’s festivities as well. Brody and Landry were at home with Wyatt. Jett was holding a hose, soaking the ground and manufacturing mud. And Marley? Marley was in the driver’s seat of a water truck. You heard me correctly, a WATER TRUCK.
“This seems indulgent.” I pursed my lips, watching as gallon and gallons of water poured out on the ground. “And wasteful.”
“Apparently, all this water came from the stocked tank we have on the property. Jett said they wanted to put in a new filtration system and make their operation self-sustainable.” Cash gestured to the large truck. “They drained the tank in the middle of the night, and they had to put it somewhere.”
“So of course you immediately thought, let’s use the mud pit to our advantage?” I turned to look at him, my eyebrow raised.
He leaned in a couple of inches, putting his hand on the back of my neck and urging me the rest of the way. Our lips met and my skin heated. Every kiss with him was hot, literally, I could feel the flush on my cheeks. He pulled back, smiling. “This is living, Katie Baby.”
“L-I-V-I-N.” Crue hopped up into the bed of the truck, making the whole thing shake a little. “You’ve never been mudding before?” I liked that no one batted an eye at the fact that Cash and I were on kissing terms after two days of knowing each other. Sort of spoke to their level of crazy, but I’d take it.
“Nope.” You’d think I would have since I’d grown up on a ranch in Texas. But alas, I had not. “I’m assuming that typically one would wait until after a big rain for this sort of activity.”
“One typically would.” Crue smirked. “We would not.”
“Don’t feel bad, Katie, I’ve never been either.” Halen had climbed into the bed, and was now was sitting on the roof of Cash’s truck, her legs crossed at the ankle. “And I live with all these yahoos.”
“We were always a little busy, Sweets.” Beau looked up in her direction, winking.
I liked those two. I liked their story. I liked the way they were together. You could tell that there was so much history, so much life led. But at the same time, they couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. It was like they were already a frisky old married couple.
“Okay, that’s all we’ve got.” Jett called out to us spectators and then flipped a switch, guiding the hose back into its home. “Everyone get started before this Texas sun evaporates all the damn water.” He got back in the passenger side of the water truck, slapping the side as he and Marley drove off.
“They aren’t going to play too?” I felt bad. They did all the work, after all. “I thought you said they were part of today’s activities.”
Cash helped me down from the bed of the truck then opened my door. “They’ll meet up with us later. They have to return the truck before the company realizes they rented it to two minors.”
I was beginning to think that Jett and Marley were the craziest out of all the Devil’s Spawn. The craziest, and the most brilliant. Which typically resulted in the most damage, if history was any indication. I climbed into the cab, buckled my seat belt, and then turned up the radio. Obviously, this was my first gig, but it seemed like loud music always went well with reckless teenage behavior in the movies.
When Cash climbed in I pointed to the dash. “Is all your music obscure Texas country from over thirty years ago?”
“Yeah.”
“Just checking.” I started doing a little dance in my seat and singing along to the old Cross Canadian Ragweed tune. I knew that Cash loved it when I did this; I knew because he’d always get that look in his eye. The look that let me know he was thinking about kissing me. I liked that look. And I liked making it spark in his eyes.
He positioned the truck right at the edge of the mud pit and we watched as the rest of his cousins climbed into Crue’s truck. Did he plan that? Did he want us to be alone? “You ready?”
“Yeah?”
“Was that a question?” He grinned, kissing my knuckles.
I shook my head and he floored the gas, shooting the truck forward. We immediately started to slip and slide all over the place. The wheels peeling out and mud spraying the truck. He needed both hands on the wheel to keep control, so I gripped the handle on the roof with one hand and the side of my seat with the other. “This is fun.”
He laughed and spun us in a circle, throwing mud onto Crue’s truck as he whizzed past. The song went from “Wanna Rock and Roll” to “The Road Goes on Forever,” a tune that even my Uncle Park called a classic. We kept going and the longer we drove in the pit, the larger it got. After what felt like an hour, Cash drove onto the dry ground, put the truck in park and turned to me with a big smile on his face. “You like?”
I didn’t realize it until the spinning had stopped and the radio was no longer blaring, but I was breathing heavy. “Yeah, it’s like an adrenaline rush or something.” Endorphins? Maybe I was so over-the-top happy that my body was spazzing out. Cash came around to my side of the truck and opened my door. He leaned against it, and I turned to the side facing the rest of the crowd. Crue was now parked next to us. “I feel like I could go run a marathon,” I called out.
Crue locked his arms around Avory’s middle, pulling her back against him and nuzzling her ear. “There are much better ways to burn off that energy, Katie Baby.” He winked and Avory giggled. Those two were worse than Halen and Beau. Was this a Devil’s Spawn thing? Were all these kids perpetually horny? Was Cash? Did he wish we were doing that right now? I glanced down at him and he smiled, reaching up to wipe mud off my cheek with his thumb.
He was so good, so kind and easygoing. Avory was right. After getting to know these kids over the last few days, Cash really was the best of them.