I come back inside about thirty minutes before Cynthia’s supposed to show and strip off my clothes, which are filthy from the half hour I just spent tidying up Missy’s latest escape attempt. Agreeing to let Cynthia come over will hopefully be a way to get her off my back. She has never been one to take subtle hints, so I’ll have to find a way to make it painfully clear to her that we’re never getting back together.

I briefly consider skipping a shower in hopes that the smell alone would scare Cynthia off, but if I’m too obvious in my attempts to shake her loose, she’ll know. I have to play this thing perfectly to get her off my case once and for all. I have to be myself, but I also have to make sure she never wants another date. To be honest, that shouldn’t be too hard. “Myself” can be a real asshole.

I step in the shower, not even waiting for the water to get hot. The cold water makes my lungs contract and gives me a welcome shock, soothing my exhausted muscles and fighting back the heat a day of honest work built up.

I idly soap my hair and body and without realizing it, my mind starts to wander to Mila. I think about how she looked on the bench by the park, just sitting there with her head tilted back and her eyes closed. I’d never admit it, but I was heading the other direction when I saw her and wasted a lot of effort cutting across the main street and doubling back to go talk to her.

I think about how her pussy felt against my tongue and how it gripped my cock, about how her dark nipples pressed so fucking perfectly through her shirt once I got her wet.

City girl or not, I’m going to need some cold ass showers to keep my mind off of her, and even that’s not doing the trick. I grip my swelling cock, thinking about her and not even caring that the water is icy. I picture her in the park again, remembering how she seemed so out of place, how I wanted nothing more than to pick her up like I did when she turned her ankle, except this time I wanted to carry her to the barn and toss her down in the hay. Hell, I would’ve settled for setting her down in the mud if it came to it, but I’m not complaining about the way things turned out.

My cock is stiff as a rock at the thought, and just when my hand starts to slide up and down my cock in a steady rhythm, I think about everything that’s happened in the last few months. Dad dying. Ronnie making threats. The fucking sounds I’ve been hearing at night just outside my window. The footprints on my property. All of it.

I don’t need to be lusting after some girl. Especially, not some city girl who isn’t going to stick around. Maybe she seems worth my time right now, but you can’t trust women from the city--always some fucking agenda with them. And Mila can’t be any different. She’s hiding something from me with the way she slipped away that night after the lake, and the way she tried to break things off today at the festival. I know I should stay away, but somehow I know I won’t. I know I can’t give her up, secrets or not. I want her too fucking badly.

I plant my palms on the wall and let the cold water wash away the embers of my arousal. Not now. Not tonight. Not ever.

If I know what’s good for me, I’ll stop finding excuses to go up and talk to her, too. Then again, if I’m not around to give her a push here and there, she may end up settling in out here and becoming a permanent buzz in my head. Can’t have that…

Someone knocks at the door loudly enough for me to hear over the water. Damn. Have I been in here that long?

I shut off the water and snag a towel. I do a half-ass job at drying myself off and swing the towel around my waist before stepping into the master bedroom and looking in the closet for something to wear.

“I forgot how gorgeous you are,” Cynthia says from behind me.

I turn to glare at her while wearing nothing but my towel. “The fuck are you doing in my bedroom?” I growl.

“You didn’t answer when I knocked,” she says. “I wanted to come in and make sure you hadn’t collapsed in there or something. I know CPR, you know.”

She’s moving deeper into my room and making no attempt to hide the innuendo in her words. She pauses though and makes that same strange face from before. Her eyes go up and to the right for a second. Cynthia sighs, turns, and leaves without another word.

I’m left standing in front of my closet confused as hell. One minute she’s throwing herself at me, the next she’s storming off. Great. I guess I can add crazy to the growing list of adjectives I attach to Cynthia.

I throw on some clothes and remind myself I just need to suffer a couple hours of this shit. If I play my cards right, I’ll get her off my back once and for all.

She’s waiting at the kitchen island when I come out of my room fully dressed. She’s looking up and to the corner again like a scolded teenager, clearly annoyed. A little confused, I move to the fridge and grab a beer for myself. I could offer her one, but if she wants one badly enough she can damn well get it herself.

She opens her mouth to speak--something bitchy if the way her eyebrows draw down is any indication--and then clamps her mouth shut and forces a creepy, fake smile.

“Okay,” I say, twisting the cap off my beer and throwing back a quick swallow. “What the fuck is going on here?”

She raises her eyebrows and shrugs like she has no idea. “A date, I thought. But it looks like you didn’t even plan for me to come over.”

“You said coffee,” I say. I can feel my nostrils flaring in annoyance, even though I knew from the start she’d call this a date. “Just to clear the air, remember?”

“I remember. So, where’s the coffee?”

“Yeah,” I say, unable to even pretend to sound sorry. “Forgot that part. You can grab a beer if you want. Or there’s water in the sink if you’re watching calories.”

I’m baiting the hell out of her, and the old Cynthia would’ve already blown up on me by now, but for some reason she’s controlling herself--barely. Her lips are a tight line as she walks to the fridge, grabs a beer, and plops down at the kitchen table.

“Well?” she says. “Are you going to sit or just stand there like a barbarian?”

“I always admired barbarians,” I say, taking another swig of my beer and not moving an inch.

Cynthia lets out a long breath and closes her eyes briefly. It’s eating her up not to lose her shit on me, and I’m actually finding myself enjoying the experience a lot more than I thought I would.

“I came to apologize,” she says stiffly. “I know I wasn’t the best girlfriend in the past. I wasn’t the best... friend, either. I want to change all that.”

“Got a time machine?” I ask, interrupting her.

“Lucas…” she says darkly, and I think she’s finally about to blow, but she reverts back to her stiff, almost mechanical tone. “What I’m trying to say is I want to be a better person. Going forward. I regret… how I was,” she says.

She waits a second and then makes an annoyed face, eyes looking at something distant.

“What is that?” I ask.

“What’s what?” she asks.

“What you just did. That thing you keep doing. Like you’ve got voices in your head or something.”

She opens her mouth to speak and then clamps it shut, eyes fixed on me but wide, like she’s been caught.

I move closer to her, scanning her from head to toe, not sure what I’m looking for but…

I notice a small, transparent little wire going from her earring to inside her ear, where a transparent earpiece rests inside. She turns her head when she notices me looking, but I already saw enough.

“What is this?” I ask again, voice dangerous now. My heart is thrumming like a well-oiled machine, and adrenaline floods my body until I feel like I could flip a fucking semi truck with my bare hands.

“It’s just like a hearing aid. I don’t have--I just--”

“Did Ronnie put you up to this? You want me to say something that incriminates me so he gets the ranch? What’d he promise you, twenty percent? Thirty?”

Cynthia buries her head in her hands and actually sobs. I take a surprised step back, feeling most of my anger simmer down into something cold and hard.

“I hired a matchmaker. Okay? She was supposed to help me win you back. I just wanted to be together again.”

“A matchmaker? You’re serious?” I ask.

Her only response is an unapologetic glare.

I lean close to Cynthia’s ear. “You enjoying the show, lowlife?”

“Lucas…” says Cynthia. “Let me explain.”

“I’ve let you do enough,” I say. “Shut the fucking door on your way out.”

Cynthia sulks, but she storms out of the house like I asked, not bothering to hide the fact that she’s yelling at whoever is listening through the surveillance equipment she’s hooked up to. “You’re fucking finished,” she yells. “...not paying you a cent for this, and if you--” the door slams, dulling her words into a low mutter that I still hear trailing away outside.

I grip the countertop so hard I think I might crack the wood. This is what I get. It’s exactly what I get for trying to let her down easy. Every time I trust a woman, even an inch, I end up looking like an idiot.

I was going to save the tidying up I needed to do in the barn for morning, but I need to take my mind off this or I’ll end up breaking something before long. I grab my coat, hat, boots, and head outside. The air’s cold enough to turn my breath to mist, and I find the cattle and goats all huddled in the barn, nestling in the hay together for warmth.

It’s not long until I’ve put most of the anger from my mind, between hanging up saddles, tucking away buckets and tools, and sweeping stray hay into the stalls, I’ve managed to let everything settle down into my gut where it simmers away slowly, instead of the hot boiling rage I felt half an hour ago.

I hear dry grass crunching outside and stop in my tracks. As quietly as I can, I move to the far wall, grabbing a metal pitchfork and looking out the window. The glass is too dirty to see anything, so I move to the edge of the open barn doors and look across the pasture toward the house. The light of the barn behind me is so bright I can barely see anything except the vague outline of my house across the darkness.

I flip the lights off, squinting into the dark. I’m about to give up watching and write it off to a stray goat when I see a dark shadow move just outside my bedroom window. My hands clench around the pitchfork. What the fuck?

My eyes adjust more to the darkness until I see the shape of a man wearing all black. He waves his hand and two other men creep toward him, sliding around the side of my house. One of them pulls something from the back of his pants--a handgun--and stands slowly to peer through my window.

I think back to the sounds I’ve been hearing around the house and feel my rage boil over again. I’m so pissed at the thought of these assholes creeping around my property and peeking in on me while I sleep that I don’t even think about the guns or the fact that I’m outnumbered. I take off toward the house at a full-out sprint, pitchfork held high over my head. I plant my foot and hurl it like a javelin when I think I’m close enough. I let out a furious growl of effort and watch it sail through the darkness in complete silence, only to thwack into the wood siding of the house just inches above one of the men’s heads.

They turn toward me in surprise. The man with the gun takes aim, but one of the others reaches to his arms and pulls them down, shaking his head. They’re too far for me to hear what they say, but I see the two men argue for a couple seconds, then they all take off running.

I stand watching them flee, chest heaving, fingers still tingling from the wood of the rake handle as it slid from my grip.

“Lucas?” asks a timid voice to my side. “Did you just--”

I jump like someone just shocked me with a cattle prod. “Jesus Christ!” I roar, rounding on her. “Mila? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came to… um, well. There’s something I need to tell you. Something I should’ve told you before now. But if you’re too busy throwing pitchforks at your house, I could come back another time,” she says with the shadow of a smile on her lips.

“You need to go,” I say through clenched teeth. I turn to walk back to the barn, but I hear her footsteps crunching the grass behind me. “Are you deaf?” I ask.

She stares up at me intently, jaw flexing as she sucks in rapid breaths through her nose. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she repeats.

“I said you need to go.”

“I’m not leaving until you listen to me,” she repeats, stepping closer. She loses her footing on the dark grass and stumbles into me.

I catch her arms, but not before her full tits press into my stomach. All the fury inside me swirls into a confused mixture of lust, passion, and above all, need.

I find my fingertips moving slowly up her arm, grazing the smooth skin of her neck and finding her cheek. Goosebumps ripple in the wake of my touch, and the cool mist of our breaths are close enough to mingle.

She swallows hard and opens her mouth to speak, but I shake my head. “I told you to leave. You should have listened.” My voice is barely above a whisper, little more than a rasp of hunger and want.

“What if I don’t listen?” she asks. Her eyebrows twitch together and up, like the words escaping her lips are surprising even her.

“We might both end up doing something we regret.”

She bites her lip, leaning her face into my open palm and sighing with closed eyes. “I already regret so much. What’s one more drop of water in the ocean?”

Fuck.

My heart's still pounding from the men I saw creeping around my property and the shit Cynthia pulled, now this? Maybe I shouldn’t be getting tied up with some city girl who clearly has something to hide, but right now the pounding pressure of my erection is making a pretty good argument for saying fuck it all, even if it’s just for tonight, just one last time.

I slide my hand from her cheek to splay across her back and then scoop her into my arms, holding her beneath her knees and carrying her toward the barn. She gasps, but she doesn’t fight me. Inside the barn, I don’t even bother to close the door or flick on the lights. The moonlight streaming in provides plenty of light, and I’m not quite ready to take my hands off her, not even to flip the switch.

I snag one of the blankets I keep on hand for particularly cold nights and toss it over a fresh pile of hay, still holding Mila close to me. I was going to toss her down to the hay, but my racing pulse and the fire of my lust overcomes everything else.

I bend my neck down to kiss her while I hold her in my arms. Her lips are sweet and soft against mine, a surge of warmth to fight the cool night air. She hesitates at first, eyes still open and looking up at me, but I know she’s mine when those long lashes flutter down and she closes her eyes, sliding her tongue tentatively into my mouth at first and then with a rapidly growing intensity. Her small hands press into my chest and one snakes around my back, digging into my muscles.

I reposition her, gripping her by the ass with both hands so she can wrap her legs around my waist. I pin her back to the wall of the nearest stall more roughly than I intend, and the loud bang of wood wakes a nearby cow and two goats, who scuttle away in annoyance. Mila’s mouth opens in silent surprise, but her eyes hold only heat as she looks up at me with her back pinned to the wall and my body pressed against hers.

“Last chance to leave, city girl,” I say, even though we both know we’ve already gone too far to stop now.

Something passes over her face--hesitation, doubt, regret--I can’t say which, but I remember the look on her face when she said she needed to tell me something. I’m too far gone for curiosity to stop me now, but the connection clicks distantly; she’s trying to decide if she should tell me before we go any further. Fuck if I care about her demons right now. Maybe she’s a serial killer or hell, maybe she really is a vegan, but I’d rather not know. At least for now.

All I care about is getting another taste of those lips.

She shakes her head and swallows so hard I can hear it click in her throat. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I crush my mouth against hers so hard her head thumps back against the wooden stall. Her legs scissor more tightly around me and she threads her fingers through my hair, gripping me tightly and pressing me into her, begging for more.

You’re going to get more, darlin’. You can bet your tight little ass on that.

I pull at her bottom lip hungrily with mine, kissing a path down her chin and neck until I’m cupping her tits through the thin material of her dress. I move a hand under her dress and skillfully unhook her bra. I’m too impatient to wait for her to slip her arms through the straps, so I yank down and snap the thin material free, pulling the bra from her dress and tossing it down to the hay.

“Those are expensive,” she says, but there’s no real anger in her voice, only surprise.

“What about these?” I ask, hooking my thumb under the waistband of her panties and pulling until she can feel the pressure.

She looks up at me, eyes wide and full of lust. She bites her lip slowly, so her bottom lip just slides out of her teeth and pops back to place. A wave of uncontrollable desire crashes into me and it’s all I can do not to tear her panties off and then split her dress down the middle with my bare hands so I can get to her faster, but that would ruin the fun of making her beg.

“Those weren’t that expensive,” she says with the hint of a smirk. “So maybe you should--”

I silence her by ripping the panties off in one quick motion, snapping them off with a sound like a rubber band cracking. Her body shudders against me, and I know the only thing between Mila and I is the thin blue dress she wears. I don’t rush, no matter how much my aching cock would like me to. I take my time running my calloused hands over the outside of her dress, feeling the soft shape of her tits through the thin material and the way her nipples harden immediately at my touch.

I kiss her now, slowly and reverently while I explore her body. I let my hand ride the curve of her waist and the swell of her hips. I press my palm down her belly until I feel the mound of sensitive skin just above her pussy. I grip her ass, her thighs, and even her calves, loving every fucking second of it.

My cock throbs like it’s about to explode. I’ve never been this hard, this turned on. I’ve never wanted it this badly. All thoughts of my life or my problems are nothing right now, pushed back to the deepest corners of my mind by the single, thrumming beat of Mila… Mila… Mila…

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel real fear--fear that I won’t be able to stop, that this city girl is going to undo me, that I’ll never be satisfied again unless she’s in my arms or my cock is buried in her to the hilt. She’s trouble. But the best kind, and damn if she isn’t exactly the kind of trouble my life has been missing.