Knocked Up By The Billionaire Cowboy

 

Chapter 1

Tessa

Tessa knew what people outside of the small town of Bailey thought about its residents. She knew that to the bigger city of Houston, they were nothing more than rednecks. They didn’t fit in with the glitzy world that put science before faith. That’s why no one ever left. That’s why no one ever came. The town’s population had stayed below four hundred since it had been established.

That was okay though, for most of the residents who lived there. They liked it that way. They liked being able to walk down the street without ever seeing a face they didn’t know. Small town gossip and occasional drunken brawls was enough excitement for them. They didn’t need anything more.

Tessa wanted to be like that, but she wasn’t. She had never been like the people of her town. She had grown up in the same houses; she’d played on the same streets and suffered through the same education, but she wasn’t like them. It wasn’t until she was seven that she was given a reason. She hadn’t been born in the small town. She was an outsider. Her parents had adopted her.

Although she was only young, she felt stupid for never realizing. How could those people be there parents? They looked nothing like her. It wasn’t just small differences like green eyes instead of blue. Their skin tones didn’t match. Her parents were a naturally tanned brown, but she was darker than that. Her hair was thick, dark and naturally curly, but her mom’s was fair, blonde and straight. Tessa was at the time too young to understand, but she wasn’t the same ethnicity as them.

She’d felt like an outsider before that day, but after it, she knew for sure that she was. She’d often noticed the eyes of elderly holding onto her, as they passed on the streets. She’d often wondered what it was that they were looking at, but after that day she knew. She knew that they were staring at the freak, the one who didn’t belong, the intruder in their midst.

When Tessa had started high school she was determined to focus on her studies. She knew it was the only way that she’d get out of her crappy town. She knew it was the only way she’d ever break free of the feeling that she didn’t belong. It was in high school that she met Rick. Rick wasn’t like the others, he’d grown up on a ranch on the outskirts of the town and he didn’t fit in either. His father had been born on the ranch, but his grandfather had moved into the town from the city. The town’s folk still hadn’t quite accepted the family into the knit.

Rick was everything that Tessa wanted, but he wasn’t what she needed. She lost her focus on school. For the first time in her life she had a friend, she had someone who loved her; she had somebody who made her feel like she had a home. That’s why she didn’t leave. That’s why on her twenty-third birthday she found herself sitting in the same crappy bar that she’d been in only the weekend before.

“Oh hon, your face is breaking my vibe,” Rick said, as he stumbled over to the buffet she was sitting on. The broken leather on the seat irritated Tessa’s bare skin and she shifted slightly. “It’s your birthday, you should be partying,” Rick leant over the bar and held out his empty bottle, so the bartender would know to get him another one.

“You’re right,” Tessa said with an angry tremble in her voice. “It is my birthday and I’m stuck here,” throwing her arms up in the air. “Don’t I deserve more than this?” It wasn’t a question that needed an answer. It was rhetorical.  Of course she was better than the crappy bar they were in. She was better than the whole craptastic town she was stuck in.

“What’s wrong with this place?” Rick asked with a disgruntled look. He was a simple guy. He liked simple things and aimed for a simple life. The bar was just part of his routine. He knew it. He knew the people that drank there. He was becoming more like the town people every day and it made it difficult for Tessa to remember why she’d ever loved him.

“There’s nothing wrong with this place,” she sighed. “It’s just, it’s not very special is it?” she tried to get her point through to him, but it was obvious from the distant look in his eyes that it wasn’t sinking in.

“Any place is special when you’re here,” he smiled at her dopily. “I’m going to head back to everyone,” he added when the bartender handed him over a fresh bottle. “Are you coming back over?”

Tessa shrugged. “I’ll come over in a bit,” she told him, so that he would leave. She’d been happy sitting at the bar and dwelling on her the misfortune of her life. She didn’t want to have to pretend to be happy in front of her “so-called” friends. That was the truly laughable part about the party he had thrown for her. It wasn’t even her friends that had come. It was his friends. She didn’t have any friends. She didn’t want any.

Rick walked back into the crowded bar and disappeared into the mix of plaid shirts and dark brown hair. “Excuse me miss,” a deep, well-spoken southern drawl said from behind her. She turned to find that the voice belonged to a tall, olive skinned guy with startling auburn eyes. “Is this seat taken?” he asked when her attention was turned to him.

“No,” she looked down at the buffet next to her. “I don’t, um, think so,” she scanned the small crowd around them.

“Okay then,” he smiled and sat down. Tessa took in the deep gray suit that he was wearing and the expensive, well-coiffed, sandy blond hair he had. He stood out against the backdrop of guys in the bar like a sore thumb. “I’ve been on my feet all day,” he leaned over and said, before asking the bartender to bring him a beer.

“Right,” she looked down at her bottle that was on the bar. “You know, you’re going to get lynched if you stay here right?” she said jokingly. She took a drink of her beer. She could feel the gathering stares of everyone who was in the bar, as they realized there was a stranger among them. “I hope you came here with a good reason.”

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Chapter 2

Ash

“Why is everyone staring at me?” he asked her. He could feel the burning ache of focused eyes on the back of his neck and he didn’t dare turn around. “Is this going to end in my brutal murder?” he was joking, but there was a trace of worry.

“Who are you?” she asked him, without answering either of his questions.

“I’m Ash, my brothers and I have just moved into the Belle view ranch estate up the road.” He tried to ignore the burning against his neck and focused instead on the girl sitting in front of him. She shifted on her buffet and he found his eyes trailing down to her long legs. He brought them back up slowly, as he traced the curves of her hips and the gravity of her breasts, before settling on her dark honey eyes.

“You live here?” she asked in disbelief. “Why would you do that?”

“We bought the ranch,” he frowned at her.

“Didn’t you do any research first?” she asked him. “This isn’t the kind of town that you just roll into. This is a tight knit group of people. They’re staring at you because they think you’re a threat.”

“Are you not one of them?” he asked, because he could hear the way she was referring to them without including herself.

She shrugged. “I guess that would depend on who you asked.”

“I’m asking you,” he leant forward with a playful smile. She was hot. He couldn’t deny that her plump lips and big eyes were drawing him to her. A soft vibration against his leg broke his concentration on her. “One second,” he slipped off of the buffet. “I just need to take this,” he explained to the girl, before he pulled out his cell. “Is there a back door to this place?”

She nodded and pointed behind her. “Just go straight ahead…you’ll find it.”

“Thanks,” he smiled and then flipped open the phone. “Just one second, let me get outside,” he told his brother Caleb, before he had a chance to start speaking. A red, chipped door took him outside with a heavy creaking moan. “Alright, I’m,” he stopped speaking.

He wasn’t alone in the back garden of the bar. There were too people pressed against the bare brick wall that blocked out the rest of the world. They were fucking. Ash could see the guy’s pants around his ankles and one of the girl’s breasts was out for anybody to see. “Shit,” she said, as her eyes met with Ash’s. “Shit, Rick, look,” she pushed at the guy who was still busy thrusting into her.

“Sorry,” Ash said quickly, the phone in his hand a long distant thought. “I’ll, um, leave you two, to it,” he grinned and then pulled open the door and walked back into the bar. He laughed, as the door closed behind him. He couldn’t get the shocked look of the girl out of his mind, as he walked back over to the bar, texting his brother, so he knew that he hadn’t totally forgotten about the call.

“Everything okay?” the girl at asked, when he got back and took his barstool. “You’re looking a bit flustered,” she added quickly.

Ash chuckled to himself again. “I just went out back and found two people at it,” he explained.

“At it?”

“You know,” he grinned. “They were getting dirty in the garden.”

“No way,” she looked back. “Who was it?”

Ash shrugged. “I don’t know; I’m new here if you remember?” he smiled, when she looked back at him. “I heard the chick say his name was Rick though,” he added.

All the color from the girl’s face drained away. “What did you say his name was?”

“Rick?”

“Fuck,” she screamed out, as she slammed her bottle down on the bar. “I’m going to fucking kill him,” she slid of the seat and started to march quickly over to the door that Ash had just come from. He stood up and followed her. He wasn’t sure why.  He couldn’t just leave her, especially when she was in such a state.

“Hey, wait,” he called after her. “Maybe I got it wrong,” he tried to calm her down, but she didn’t break her step, as she pushed open the red door.

“What the fuck?” she demanded walking into the garden. “Rick. What the fuck are you doing?”

Ash stood at the door not knowing what to do. He didn’t want to encroach on the girl’s    though it was obvious that she was going to need somebody to be there for her.

“Get the fuck off of him,” she screamed at the girl. “What the fuck? This is my fucking birthday and you do this?”

Christ – Ash thought to himself. That was harsh. The guy was clearly a major douchebag.

“Tessa, we can talk about this,” Rick said pulling pants up from around his ankles. Ash could see that he had a clear hard on still pushing through his jeans.

“We’ve got nothing to talk about,” Tessa told him. “This, us--we’re fucking done.” She turned quickly and Ash stumbled back in his attempt to get out her path.

“Tessa,” he called after her, when she’d started to push her way through the crowd. She didn’t stop, so Ash followed her out of the front of the bar. “Tessa, stop,” he reached out and put his hand on her small, soft shoulder. “You don’t need to go through this alone,” he said gently. He knew firsthand how much being cheated on sucked.

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Chapter 3

Tessa

Who was the man standing in front of her? He was a stranger named Ash, who had turned up on one of the worst nights of her life.

The world felt like it was fracturing around her. All of her plans had been burned to the ground. Rick had ruined her life. He’d taken every hope and dream that she’d ever had and he’d suffocated the life out of them. She’d watched it happen. She’d stood on the sidelines and  watched him do it with her hand in his.

“It’s going to be alright,” Ash told her gently with his thumb slowly running across her skin. It felt good. His touch was warm and his skin rough.

“It’s not going to be alright,” she told. She was staring bleakly into the distance. It was dark, just like her future. “What am I going to do now?” she asked, as though Ash was supposed to know. “I gave up everything for him and now, what do I do?”

“You move on.”

He didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. It wasn’t that simple. Where would Tessa go? She had no skills. She had nothing, but a waitressing uniform and the next month’s rent to her name. “Okay,” she said as she pushed herself up onto the tips of her toes and kissed him gently. It’s what he had meant. He’d meant that he wanted to sleep with her. That’s why he was standing outside. That’s why he’d followed her out into the garden.

He pulled away. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” his tone remained gentle, but eyes had turned hungry from her kiss.

“Yes,” she put her hands against his chest. “We do.” Her lips found their way back to his. She could taste beer on his tongue.. Her heart was beating wildly. She’d never been with another man. She’d only ever been with Rick. This was all new to her. It was new, exciting and exactly what she needed to escape the pain in her chest.

The path down to the bar was marked with a trail of woods. Tessa led the way over to them with her hips that were placed firmly in his hands. She could hear his breath getting heavier against her ear. His hands started to fidget on her hips. They were getting restless. They wanted to explore her body Tessa wanted that too.

“Take your shirt off,” she said against his lips, as her fingers came against the cotton barrier. He did and she lowered her lips, so they were leaving a trail against his chest. The taste of his sweat rolled over her lips. Her tongue started to dance against his skin, as she sank down to her knees. She let her eyes meet Ash’s in the darkness as she unfastened his belt and lowered her lips over the lines of his hips. “Is this what you want?” she asked, when she’d taken him in her hands. Her lips hoovered just above the tip, teasing him, as they gently brushed against it.

“No,” he said and Tessa was caught with surprise.

“No?” She watched, as he sank down to his knees. His hands slide up her hips, catching her shirt and lifting it, so that her bare skin touched the breeze around them. He lowered his lips to her neck and her eyes fell closed, as he brought them down, so that the gentle touch of his breath was hardening her nipples. “This is what I want,” he whispered against her skin, as he lowered his hand and rubbed it against the growing wetness of her crouch.

The sound of the zipper on her shorts filled the air. Tessa arched her back, so that Ash wouldn’t have trouble pulling them down. She was naked. The dry leaves were the mattress on her back, as she waited for Ash to show her what she’d been missing with Rick. The sound of her shorts hitting the floor brought Ash back to her. His naked body pressed against hers, so that their heat merged around them.

She could feel him pressing between her legs. He wasn’t trying to get in. He was teasing her, as he lightly thrust. “Tell me that you want me too,” Ash whispered into her ear, as he playfully dipped himself into her and then pulled out, before he lost control and went all the way.

The teasing was too much. The excitement was too much. Her body felt as though it was ready to explode with or without him. “Of course I want you,” she said digging her nails into his back, so that he had no choice, but to thrust forward and into her.

Tessa lay still with her eyes turned up to the sky above her. The stars were out. She could see them in the breaks of the trees. The sound of Ash’s gentle breathing beside her broke the otherwise serene space. The peaceful glow from what they had just done was starting to fade and worried thoughts were coming back.

What had she just done? She’d just fucked a guy that she didn’t even know. What was Rick going to say? Was she even going to tell him? She reached out and pulled her shirt over to her, so that she could put it on. “This shouldn’t have happened,” she said standing up. “You need to forget that this ever happened.”

“Forget? Why?” Ash looked confused.

“I’m not the kind of girl who does this. I’m not the kind of girl who just sleeps around. I’m sure that’s the kind of girl you’re used to, but that’s not me. This was a mistake and you need to forget that it ever happened.” She managed to find her shorts and pulled them on quickly. “Forget you ever met me,” she turned and headed out of the woods, before Ash would have a chance to follow her.

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