BENNETT COULDN’T BREATHE. His chest was burning like he had just driven a herd of cattle across a field on foot and Kaylee was lying there in the back of his truck, completely naked, her small, perfect breasts rising and falling with her own labored breathing. He couldn’t make out much detail on her bare body, just the vague impression of pale skin, long slender limbs and slight curves in the mixture of white moonlight and the yellow glow coming from the truck.
But even if it wasn’t sharp and clear, the fact remained that he was looking at his best friend’s naked body. His best friend, who he had just had sex with.
Dammit.
Except, as he knelt there in the truck, he felt...not a whole lot of regret, even if he should. He felt good. He felt better than he had in a long time. Yes, he was a man, so he was pretty basic, but he hadn’t realized he was quite that basic. That even with his life flung into turmoil, even with this adding a strange new dimension to his most important nonfamilial relationship, he felt good.
Because he’d just had an orgasm.
One that was so strong, so powerful it was still ringing in his head like he’d gone shooting without ear protection.
“You’re going to get cold,” he said, his voice rough.
He didn’t know why that was the first thing that came to mind. Except she was so slim, so vulnerable-looking. He had a feeling the night air would have her shivering in just a few minutes. Of all the things to be concerned about, that was a strange one.
“I’m not cold,” she mumbled, but she mobilized, beginning to collect her clothing, which was strewed around the bed of the truck.
He imagined that he should do the same. He was trying to get his brain functioning again. His jeans and underwear hadn’t gone far. He found them and pulled them on. His T-shirt was another matter. He hunted around for that for a while, and finally discovered it buried in the blankets.
He shrugged it over his head and by the time he was finished, Kaylee was completely dressed, wiggling herself out of the truck and back onto the ground. He followed suit, but by the time his boots hit the gravel Kaylee was already in the truck, the door closed firmly behind her.
He took a deep breath, looking around at the darkened forest behind the truck. He had a brief thought that life might be simpler if he just walked into it and kept on walking.
But he couldn’t do that. He had a business with ranchers and animals that depended on him. There was a teenager waiting for him at home. His teenager. His son.
And probably, Kaylee wouldn’t appreciate him disappearing into the darkness either.
If he felt strange, she must feel even stranger. Hell, strange was an understatement. He felt like he was about to crawl out of his skin.
Kaylee was pretty. He’d known that for a long time. He wasn’t blind. And yes, recently, there had been a sexual edge to that acknowledgment. But this was different than a sexual edge. This had been an explosion. It had blown what he had thought about their relationship sky-high. It had to be the same for her too.
They had never thought of each other that way. Not really. There was a difference between acknowledging the other was an attractive person that maybe somebody else would enjoy having sex with, and actually having sex with each other.
He took a deep breath, gave one last longing look to the inviting, dark forest and got into the driver’s side of the truck. His keys were still in the ignition.
He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything as he started up the engine and began to drive back down the mountain.
“You can just take me back to my truck,” Kaylee said.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind driving you home.” It seemed wrong to have sex with a woman in the back of his truck and not even drive her home.
He felt weird about leaving her at all, but he had to. He couldn’t go back to her place. And he couldn’t have her spend the night at his. His stomach twisted, sharp and hard at the thought. Kaylee spending the night. All night in bed together.
That made him hard again in an instant and he shifted, feeling like a jerk. Because he hadn’t thought of one useful thing to say and he was sitting next to her getting aroused all over again.
No. He wasn’t going to spend all night in bed with her. Even if circumstances permitted...
This was a one-off kind of thing. Like Kaylee had said, they had both been celibate for a long time. Not really by choice, just by circumstance. And they had both needed to scratch the itch. They had scratched it good, but the damn thing about itches was that scratching just made them itch more. Which was about where he was at the moment.
And it was a pretty good indicator that he was going to have to stop.
Let it be a thing that happened once under the cover of darkness with no witnesses except maybe one perverted owl in a tree.
That was the beauty of the compromised lighting situation. He had seen Kaylee naked. But he hadn’t really seen her naked. It had been an impressionistic nude. Rather than how it might have been if the lights were on, harsh and bright. If he had gotten a good look at all that skin, at the exact shape of her breasts, the color of her nipples, the recovery would be a lot more difficult. The comedown would be a lot harder.
If he knew exactly what color that thatch of curls between her legs was, if he knew how pink she was there...yeah. He couldn’t be thinking that every time he went into work in the morning. Couldn’t be obsessing about it whenever they had a beer.
He needed her. All of her. Not just her body.
She had always been there for him. She had been there for him tonight in a more profound way than usual, but it was kind of an extension of their friendship in many ways. Giving each other what they needed.
Well, that’s bullshit and even you know it.
Whatever. He was sticking with bullshit for now. It was that or open up the door and jump out of the moving vehicle. Tuck and roll and hope for the best.
“I’m sure,” she said. He sneaked a glance over at her and saw that she was looking out the window, gripping on to the shoulder strap of her seat belt like it was a lifeline. Like maybe it was the only thing keeping her from jumping out of the truck.
It didn’t surprise him at all that they were on the same page. That was how they worked.
He hesitated. “Thank you,” he said finally.
“Thank you?” Her voice sounded hollow.
“Yes. I really... It’s been a hell of a couple weeks. It’s been a hell of a few months. And I...I needed that.”
“You needed that,” she echoed.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.” But there was something strange in her voice, an edge that he couldn’t quite place. He didn’t know what he had done wrong, but he had a feeling he’d done something wrong.
Hell if he knew what.
Maybe the sex?
But no. She’d wanted it. And she’d been into it. Way into it. She’d gotten off, same as him. So it couldn’t be that.
“Kaylee...”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Just weird.”
Thank God she’d said it. “Really fucking weird,” he acknowledged.
“Yeah,” she said, forcing a laugh out.
They pulled back into town. The saloon was still open, packed with people, even more than when they had left an hour or two earlier. Just a couple of hours to shift the foundation of his life. That was the theme recently.
His girlfriend breaking up with him during a Christmas celebration on a crowded street, effectively blowing up the future he’d had planned. A son he didn’t know he had showing up on his front porch, absolutely destroying any last remaining illusions he’d had that he could control the world or his life.
Getting naked with his best friend.
Yeah. The last few months were just one life-changing moment after another.
This didn’t have to be one, though. Maybe.
It was just him and Kaylee. And they were stronger than anything. Solid. Close enough to weather this, that was for damn sure.
“I’m over here,” she said softly, pointing a block up.
“I’ll see you later,” he said.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
She bailed out of the truck quickly, stumbling a little bit when her feet hit the sidewalk. “Bye,” she said.
Then she turned away from him and walked back toward her own truck. He watched her until she got in, until she started the vehicle and drove away.
And then he just sat there for a moment, a hard knot building in his chest, growing, expanding.
No. This was going to be okay. It had to be.
He headed back out toward his house and was relieved to see that his brother’s truck was still in the driveway.
He sighed heavily and got out of his own truck, crossing the gravel drive and making his way up the steps. Wyatt opened the door before Bennett’s hand touched the doorknob.
“Hey,” Wyatt said.
“How is Dallas?”
“He went to his room about a half an hour ago. Probably not sleeping. Back in the Dark Ages we would have had porn under the mattress. I hear tell you can look at porn on smartphones nowadays and I imagine he has one...”
Bennett snorted. “You hear tell? Like you don’t know where to get porn.”
Wyatt lifted a shoulder. “It does give incentive to adapt to new technology, that’s for sure.”
“Was he...”
He didn’t even really know what to ask. Wyatt jerked his head toward the inside of the house, and Bennett followed him in. Then Wyatt opened up the fridge and pulled a couple of beers out.
“He was fine,” Wyatt said. “I mean, I don’t have any experience with kids, so honestly, thank God your surprise one is past puberty. Makes them a hell of a lot easier in many ways. If you had randomly ended up with a toddler, I would have been off the babysitting list.”
“He was fine, though?”
“He played on the Nintendo thing.” Wyatt popped the top off his beer and took a swig. “And we didn’t talk much. Mostly about some of the work we had coming up on the ranch that I was going to give him. But you know, he seems fine.”
Bennett blew out a long, slow breath. At least there was one relationship maybe he wasn’t screwing up.
“You’re not home that late,” Wyatt pointed out, looking a little disappointed on Bennett’s behalf.
“Late enough, apparently,” Bennett said meaningfully.
Wyatt arched a brow. “Now, you’re implying that you got laid, but you look like somebody just dropped an anvil on your head. That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Bennett popped open the beer bottle and took a long drink, then he rested his elbows on the table and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I had sex with Kaylee.”
He waited for his brother’s shocked response. Waited for any response at all. It didn’t come. Bennett looked up slowly and was met by Wyatt’s completely blank expression.
“Did you hear what I just said?” he asked, exasperation coursing through him.
He was standing there staring at the smoking rubble of his life, and his brother didn’t even have the decency to look surprised.
“Yes,” Wyatt said slowly. “You slept with Kaylee.”
“Doesn’t that shock you?”
“No. Don’t you guys...” Wyatt frowned. “Are you telling me you’d never had sex with her before tonight?”
“Wyatt,” Bennett said, “she’s my best friend.”
“Yes. Your best friend who happens to have female anatomy. I figured you guys slept together when you weren’t seeing other people. I thought that was your arrangement all this time.”
Bennett felt...scandalized. And given the recent events of tonight he had no right to feel that way. But Wyatt thought...did everyone think that?
“Hell, no,” Bennett said.
“I figured you had a damn good thing going there, Bennett.”
“I do. Friendship. Only friendship. Until tonight.”
“Now that I find shocking.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never been friends with a woman and not slept with her. Really, I’ve never been friends with a woman.”
“Isn’t Kaylee your friend?”
“Like a family friend,” Wyatt said. “That’s different. It’s not like I hang out with her alone, constantly all the time. You and Kaylee do.” Wyatt shook his head and lifted the beer bottle to his lips. “You must have balls of titanium.”
“I just never saw her like that before,” Bennett said through gritted teeth.
That wasn’t entirely true. He’d been noticing her more and more lately. But in the grand scheme of things, it was almost never.
“You never saw a gorgeous, leggy redhead as a sex object before? I take it back, you don’t have balls of titanium. You have broken balls.”
“They feel pretty busted at the moment,” Bennett said.
“I just mean that’s a whole level of denial that I can’t even get into, bro,” Wyatt said. “If you didn’t see her as sexy before, you were trying not to.”
“She’s my best friend. There are always going to be women to sleep with, but man, woman, there’s no one like her. No one that’s been in my life all this time. I work with her. I go out and have a beer with her.”
“And now you have sex with her. It’s perfect, in my opinion.”
“I don’t and I’m never going to be able to see it like you do.”
“Sex isn’t that complicated, Bennett. You want some, you have some. People don’t have to get hurt. That’s all mental stuff that doesn’t have to be there. It’s about expectations.”
Bennett shook his head. “I don’t agree with that. I think it means something.” Yet he’d been about to go out and get some meaningless sex tonight, but in general, he didn’t really believe sex could be meaningless. Which was one reason this was bugging him. “It just isn’t that casual for me.”
“Well, why the hell not?”
“Sex isn’t a handshake, Wyatt.”
“No,” Wyatt said, “it isn’t. Because when I shake someone’s hand I’m usually making an agreement of some kind. When it comes to sex, I’m not agreeing to anything beyond a little bit of fun.”
“Someday,” Bennett said, “some woman is going to screw with your head. And I’m going to look forward to watching that.”
“Not me,” Wyatt said, kicking his feet up onto the table and leaning back. “I’m immune.” He punctuated the sentence with another drink of beer.
“You’re cocky.”
“It’s served me well so far. You don’t ride bulls for fifteen years without being a hell of a lot of cocky. And anyway, with that came a lot of women, Bennett. Trust me. I know my limits. I don’t have many.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
“It should. You’re going through a hell of a time right now, and obviously, you needed some stress release. It stands to reason you would end up looking for it with a woman that you know. That you like. Since this conversation leads me to believe that casual sex really isn’t for you. Also, she’s pretty. She’s really pretty.”
“She is,” Bennett said, remembering the way that her skin had felt beneath his fingertips. Remembering how it had felt to kiss her.
The slick friction of her tongue against his, the greedy glide of her hands down his back.
She was beautiful, and she had definitely been into it.
“Right,” Bennett said. “I guess that’s true.”
“Bottom line, even though you’re friends, you’re a man and she’s a woman. And you’re only human.”
“I didn’t just have sex with her because she’s a woman,” Bennett said. “And it wasn’t just because she was there. I could have found someone else.”
But the way she had looked at him when she’d said she didn’t want him leaving with anyone else... Well, in that moment there couldn’t have been anyone else. It had nothing to do with proximity or availability. He couldn’t reduce it to that. Because there had been something magic in it being her.
He gritted his teeth, fought against that thought.
Because he didn’t want to think about all that magic the next time he saw her. He didn’t need that between them. But she knew him. She knew everything he was going through and then some.
Maybe that was why he needed it to be her. Just maybe.
“Sex doesn’t have to build or destroy anything,” Wyatt said, standing up and clapping Bennett on the back. “Sometimes it just feels good. Don’t overthink it.”
Bennett nodded slowly.
“I’ll see you at some point tomorrow, when you drop the kid off.”
“Sure,” Bennett said.
“He’s a good kid,” Wyatt said, his tone suddenly taking on a more serious note. “A hard worker. He’s a natural at it. Ranch stuff. I’m glad to have him on my team, and not just because he’s my secret nephew I never knew about.”
“He is a good kid,” Bennett said, believing it all the way to his core, not really understanding why.
“See you later.”
And then Wyatt left, his advice still ringing in Bennett’s ears. His brother telling him that sex didn’t have to build or destroy anything was about the most ironic thing on the planet given that Bennett’s secret son was currently sleeping down the hall.
But maybe with Kaylee it didn’t need to affect anything. Maybe Wyatt was right. He had needed something, and they had been there for each other. And it didn’t have to be life altering or world rocking.
Too bad his world felt so damned rocked.