Chapter Thirty
Vanessa
I felt restless after spending most of the morning poring over information about how to open an art gallery. I decided to go for a walk around the ranch. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll even see Trethan. I shook my head. I thought about him a little too often. It wouldn’t be bad if we were actually in a relationship, but we definitely weren’t.
Despite our vague plans to meet up sometime that week, I hadn’t heard from Trethan in four days. I knew he’d started training with Larry, but I didn’t know how that was going. I had sent him a couple messages asking about it, but I hadn’t heard back from him at all. I wanted to know what was going on, but I didn’t know if approaching him on the ranch was the best idea, not when Dad could come across us at any point. And, I didn’t want to seem clingy if Trethan was trying to put space between us.
It was hot outside, and after a little walking, I made my way into one of the barns. It was musty in there, but at least I was out of the sun. I should have worn a hat.
I froze when I saw Trethan was there, in the same barn, filling up the troughs with food for the pigs. He glanced toward me and smiled with half his face, turning toward me.
I gasped as I saw the bruising that stretched from his temple down to his jaw. “What happened?” I asked, striding quickly forwards and reaching toward the purpling mess. I stopped myself before I could touch it, knowing it must hurt a lot.
He grimaced. “It’s nothing,” he muttered. “I just did something stupid.”
“You got into a fight,” I said flatly.
“No!” he exclaimed. He frowned at me. “You know I don’t do that anymore.”
“Well, that’s what it looks like,” I said defensively. “And since I haven’t heard from you in a few days, I can only assume that you’ve been trying to hide it from me.”
He sighed. “I’ve been trying to hide the bruising from you,” he admitted, catching my hips and pulling me toward him, until our lower bodies were flush against one another’s. “I didn’t want you to worry. But I haven’t been fighting. I just got thrown off the bull and didn’t land right. I’m fine, though.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure this is the best idea,” I said uncertainly. “I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt.”
“But think about the gallery,” he said. “If I get the money, you’ll be able to get the loan from the bank and open it, won’t you?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, “but I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt just to get the money for the gallery.”
“It’s not bad,” he said, reaching up and bravely touching the edge of the bruising. “My jaw’s a little sore, I guess, but the rest of it is fine. I used to get worse when I was fighting.” He smiled crookedly at me.
I shook my head. “But-”
“Come on,” he said, cutting me off. He leaned in and kissed me. “See, I can still do that,” he said. “That’s how okay I am with the bruising. Doesn’t hurt to kiss you.”
I gave him a doubtful look, but couldn’t help laughing at the eager look in his eyes. “All right, all right,” I said, leaning in for another kiss. He deepened the kiss this time, nipping at my lower lip and then tonguing away the sharp flare of pain. I moaned and put a hand against his chest, leaning into him.
Trethan hissed and pulled away, pain in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips and staring concernedly at him.
He shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said. “You just caught me by surprise, that’s all.”
“Bullshit,” I said succinctly. I shook my head. “If you’re going to hide things from me, I don’t know if we can continue to...” I trailed off, ducking my head in embarrassment. We weren’t in a relationship, after all. I didn’t have any leverage to threaten him with. It was his own prerogative if he wanted to lie and say that there was nothing wrong when there clearly was.
But Trethan responded to my unspoken threat, sighing and shaking his head. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he repeated, reaching up to unbutton his checkered shirt. As he pulled it open, I saw that the dark bruising wasn’t isolated to his face. Instead, there was a patch of green and purple bruising spreading down his ribs as well, plus assorted smaller bruises scattered in other places across his chest and stomach.
I put a hand over my mouth. “Trethan,” I said, horrified.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said.
“But how did it happen?” I asked. “You told me you were getting really good at riding the mechanical bull. I thought you were going to use that to win this thing.”
“I am,” he said tersely. “Riding a real bull is different from riding a mechanical bull, though. Anyway, when I’m at the Roasted Bison and I have a ride, I only go for one or maybe two rides in a night. With Larry, I’m training for an hour or two at a time. It’s only natural that there’s some bruising.” He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s mainly due to my own stupidity. Most of this bruising, I’ve just been exhausted and haven’t fallen the way I was supposed to. That’s all.”
I shook my head. “But you shouldn’t be letting him push you to ride until you’re exhausted,” I protested.
“I’m getting way better,” Trethan argued. “Can we go back to what we were doing?” His fingers trailed along my hip enticingly, but I forced myself to pull away.
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” I said, looking at his injuries. I shook my head. “I can’t believe you’re this injured and all you can think of is still sex.”
He groaned. “I’d have to be in a coma to not want to have sex with you,” he said.
I giggled. “Really?”
“Really,” he said, growling. He looked at me with puppy-dog eyes. “Come on, let’s take a tumble in the hay. We’ve never done that before, have we?”
I snorted. “Seriously?”
In answer, Trethan grabbed my hand and tugged me along toward one of the empty stalls at the back of the stables. “Just put down fresh hay in here; we’re getting a new horse sometime tomorrow,” he told me, a wicked gleam in his eye.
I gasped as he tripped my feet out from under me and gently lowered me down to the hay. He settled over me, lightly stroking a hand down my side. I blinked in surprise and looked to the side. “You were expecting this to happen,” I accused him, feeling the wool blanket beneath me rather than the poky hay.
He grinned. “Well, I was expecting to have to ask you to come check out something out here,” he said. “But yeah, I was planning this.” He rocked his hips, and I could feel how hard he already was in his jeans. Admittedly, I was already pretty wet.
Trethan kissed me, his hand coming up under my dress, nails scraping lightly down my sides. He dipped his fingers into the waistband of my panties and pulled them off, setting them off to the side and then sliding his fingers into me. He hummed approvingly as my walls clenched around his digits, needing the intrusion.
I rocked down against his probing. “Please,” I whimpered.
He growled and pulled his hand away, but before I could protest, I realized he was working to undo his belt. He tugged his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his cock, and then, with a grip on my hips below where my dress was rucked up, he tugged me toward him and down onto his length.
He slid fully into me, without giving me a moment to adjust, and my body went slack against the hay. “Oh, fuck,” I said softly.
Trethan grinned down at me and gave another hard thrust, pausing again when he was fully seated inside of me. I wriggled against him, but he held my hips firmly, setting the pace he wanted, teasing me with his rod.
I dissolved into desperate pleas as he reached between us and played with my clit, still giving me hardly any stimulation where I needed it the most. But he only grinned wickedly down at me and reached up to put a hand over my mouth. “Shh,” he breathed into my ear. “Don’t need anyone else hearing that, now do we?”
I blushed brilliantly, realizing exactly how exposed we were. But it lent something to this, the thrill that we might get caught, that someone might overhear us. I trembled with need, moaning beneath Trethan’s hand, unable to quiet myself.
Finally, he seemed to realize that I’d had enough teasing and started to rock his hips in earnest, giving me just what I needed. He moved his hand to the side so that I could breathe and he could brace himself. I had to bite my palm to keep quiet as pleasure built inside of me.
Trethan bit a mark into the side of my neck, and I lost it, the stimulation all too much. I cried out loudly, unable to muffle myself as I shook through my orgasm. Trethan was right behind me, grunting quietly and burying himself to the hilt, pulsing inside of me.
I giggled as I cracked open my eyes. “Well, that ending didn’t make what we were doing obvious to everyone within earshot, did it?”
Trethan chuckled as well and brought up his fingers to trace the mark on the side of my neck. “This won’t make it obvious either, will it?” he asked, a smug note in his voice.
“You didn’t,” I said, suddenly coming back to reality. I groaned. “Dad isn’t the type to ask questions, but you know he’s going to be thinking all of them.”
He looked sheepish at that. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t really think through that part; I just wanted to...” He trailed off, looking even more sheepish.
“You wanted to…” I prompted. He just shook his head, though, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face in my hair. I absently traced the bruises along his side for a moment. “You promise this isn’t too much for you to handle?” I asked quietly.
“What, you?” he asked, chuckling.
“No,” I said, rolling my eyes. I pulled back so that I could see him. “The bull riding. Training with Larry. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but I don’t want you to get yourself hurt.”
Trethan was silent for a long moment. “Do you trust me?” he finally asked, a strange note in his voice.
“Of course, I trust you,” I said softly. Whatever it was that we had been doing, whatever complicated feelings that I might have for him, I had trusted Trethan back when we were teenagers, and that, at least, had never changed.
“I’m going to be careful,” he said. “But I’m going to win this thing.” He paused. “You know, this is what I wanted to do. What I wanted to be when I grew up. I just never got into it because my dad was so derisive about my chances. Training with Larry, it feels like for the first time in my life, I’m unlocking my potential.”
“Okay,” I said quietly. There was nothing else I could say, no matter how worried I was for him. If he felt like he was doing what he was supposed to with his life, who was I to stop him? I didn’t particularly like it, but we weren’t in the sort of relationship where I could ask him to stop.