THE NEXT MORNING, Bennett woke up without a single idea of what had happened the night before. But he did wake up with the idea that Dallas needed to start helping with chores around their place.
Because it was their place. And if they were going to share it then they were going to have to work it together. Dallas was going to have to learn to take responsibility for the land he called home.
The kid was less shocked at getting yanked out of bed at six o’clock than he had been at the beginning of all of this. Early mornings were becoming the norm, and Bennett found himself vaguely amused when Dallas stumbled into the kitchen without complaint and poured himself a cup of coffee from the coffee maker.
Bennett had taken to stocking the house with various pastries, since that seemed to add an extra incentive for Dallas to get out of bed, and they were not going to the coffeehouse every morning.
The rumor was sweeping slowly through town that Bennett Dodge had a son. The details were definitely fuzzy in said rumor, seeing as Bennett hadn’t gone out of his way to provide any.
And he hadn’t called his dad yet. There was that.
But he just didn’t know how to broach the subject with Quinn Dodge. Not that he wasn’t a good, understanding man—he was. But...it was just a conversation he wasn’t looking forward to having, especially not over the phone.
“A little bit early for a wake-up call,” Dallas mumbled, taking his first sip of coffee and grabbing a doughnut out of a box at the center of the table.
“Yeah, well, we have some extra work to do this morning. Or, you do.”
“I do?”
“Yes. I’m going to teach you how to take care of the animals here. I know you got a basic ranching primer from my brother, but I figure it’s time you took some responsibility for this place.”
“That sounds like unpaid labor,” Dallas said, unimpressed.
“It is,” Bennett said. “But it isn’t. You live here. That means that this is yours too. That means that the payment is getting to live in a place that you enjoy. But here, we’ve got lots of land and we got animals that live on that land. They need to be taken care of.”
As if understanding they were part and parcel to the topic being discussed, Pepper and Cheddar scooted closer to the table. Though, it probably had less to do with the topic of discussion and more to do with the fact that a sprinkle had just fallen off the top of Dallas’s doughnut and landed on the floor. Pepper snaffled it up, and Cheddar looked at Dallas, clearly irritated that her counterpart had gotten a piece of sugar and she hadn’t.
Bennett watched, amused as Dallas flicked a couple more sprinkles off the doughnut and onto the floor. He looked over at Dallas, his expression sheepish. “It wasn’t fair,” he pointed out.
“No,” Bennett agreed in mock seriousness. “And they keep score.”
“I get that feeling about them.”
“You like the dogs,” Bennett said.
“Well, you can’t not like dogs. I mean, you can, I guess. But when you live in a house with them it’s kind of hard.”
“Hey, I won’t tell anyone you like something. But I just mean, you got used to the dogs, maybe you’ll like the rest of the animals.”
After they finished their caffeine, they headed outside, Dallas wearing a hoodie that he had pulled up almost over his face, his hand stuffed in his pockets.
He guarded any expressions of enjoyment closely, definitely did his best to keep most of his feelings to himself. It made Bennett wonder what had happened to make him see happiness as something that was too expensive to get out.
He had vague ideas, and all of them made his stomach turn.
He took Dallas into the barn, where the horses were still in their stalls. “Okay, so this girl here,” he said, indicating the first stall, “gets two flakes of hay in the morning.” He walked over to one of the bales of hay. “Has Wyatt explained this to you yet?”
Dallas shook his head. “I haven’t fed any of the horses on my own.”
Bennett walked over to one of the hay bales that was already untwined and gripped the edge of a wedge of it, separating it easily from the rest. “This is a flake. They’ll come off pretty easily. It’s the way the bales are put together. So, Lucy here is on a diet. Two flakes of hay in the morning and two at night for her. No grain. She gets a vitamin supplement instead.”
He moved on to the next stall. “Shadrach gets two and a scoop of grain. The scoop is in that trash barrel over there, and it’s pretty self-explanatory in terms of measurement.”
“And Meshach gets two flakes and two scoops of grain. It’s a lot, but he’s pretty skinny, having trouble keeping meat on his bones.”
“They’re all old?”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “For the most part I’ve ended up with my animals because they were at the end of their usefulness for someone else.”
“That seems...nice of you.”
“I always wanted to fix things,” Bennett said. “You know, my mom died when I was seven years old. There was nothing I could do about it. After that...I hated to see anything suffer. It just...got to me. One time I rescued a bird that had flown into the window of our house. It was injured. Really badly. But I picked it up and put it in a shoebox with a blanket, took care of it as best I could.”
“And you saved it?”
“No. The fucking thing died anyway. But it would have died sooner if it weren’t for me. I did something to change how it went. And...I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to be a doctor. I didn’t want to handle people dying. That’s something I didn’t want any part of. But the animals... Some of them I save. Some of them I don’t. But my intervention matters. And for a kid who felt like he couldn’t do anything when his own mother died...”
“I get it,” Dallas said. “I wish my mom were dead.”
Bennett straightened, like a shot going through his body. “You do?”
“If she were dead then she wouldn’t have left me by choice. She just left. At least your mom didn’t want to go.”
The teenager’s words made a strange kind of sense to him. He nodded slowly. “It’s true. My mom never would have chosen to leave us. You know, she had just had Jamie. Jamie was a surprise baby. I was supposed to be the youngest. But...she was so excited. I remember that. I remember her putting her hand on her stomach and smiling. And my dad did the same thing. It was a terrible thing to lose her.”
“Yeah,” Dallas said, turning his focus back to the hay. “So, two flakes?”
“Yes,” Bennett said. “Two flakes.”
And then, a thought occurred to him that hadn’t before. “Dallas, do you want to learn to ride today?”
“I guess,” Dallas said, holding back any vague hint of excitement. But Bennett could sense it. Could see the longing in the kid’s eyes.
He didn’t have any pressing appointments this morning, and he could put off checking in at the clinic. While he had Dallas’s attention, he wanted to keep it.
“Then I’ll text Wyatt and let him know you’ll be late today. I’m going to teach you.”
* * *
BENNETT DIDN’T SHOW up at the clinic all morning. It was nearly eleven o’clock, and he still wasn’t there. That wasn’t unheard of, but it was definitely unusual. And combined with the events of last night...
Kaylee’s stomach flipped over as she tried to concentrate while scrolling through her schedule on the computer. She had a big block of time available and she could always take a long lunch. But then, she would just sit around stuffing her face and worrying about the fact that Bennett was clearly avoiding her.
Of course he was avoiding her. He was probably steeped in regret over what happened between them last night.
He had thanked her.
Thanked her, like she had done him a favor. Thanked her like she hadn’t come apart in his arms like some needy sex kitten that she had never been before in her entire life.
Thanked her.
That thought burned all the way through.
She was going to take lunch. She was going to go get a big greasy burger down at Mustard Seed and try to let go of all the things that were bugging her.
Laura was at reception, gathering her things to take a break and Kaylee stopped her. “Do you want to get a burger? I don’t mind closing down for an hour.”
Laura looked regretful. “I have plans already. Meeting my mom at Bellissima. But you’re welcome to join in if you want.”
“Thanks, but I’m married to the burger idea.”
“See you after,” Laura said.
Kaylee nodded, and flipped a sign saying the clinic was closed for lunch before heading out to the parking lot.
She drove down into town, but she drove past Mustard Seed. Which she wasn’t going to do. Because she wasn’t supposed to do that. She was supposed to go and get a hamburger. But she seemed to be driving toward Bennett’s place.
Her hands were sweaty on the wheel of the pickup, and she readjusted them, not sure if she was trying to talk herself out of this insanity, or mentally trying to bolster herself to sally forth with the crazy.
Bennett was supposed to be her friend. That was the bottom line. He was supposed to be her best friend in the world, and after sharing something completely intimate with her he was avoiding her. She’d wanted this, wanted to be with him for half her life. And she’d been terrified of it, of the potential fallout, for just as long.
Here she was living it. And he hadn’t even sent a text.
But maybe he hadn’t liked it. And this morning he was appalled and disgusted by it. By her. Maybe she hadn’t scratched the itch the way he’d needed it scratched or...or...
And maybe there were rules. Rules about how you were supposed to act when a man didn’t call the night after you slept with him. Maybe you were supposed to be aloof or cool, acting like a cat, twitching your tail and making it seem like you didn’t care whether or not he scratched you behind the ears.
But she had known Bennett too long to play games. It wasn’t about pride. Not with him. He knew her. And that meant he knew her well enough to know that he should have damn well gotten in touch with her today.
And so, she felt both resolute and justified in her rage as she turned down the driveway.
She parked in front of the house, turning off the engine and shaking her hands out like it would do something to calm the nerves that were rioting through her system.
She let out a harsh breath.
“Don’t be a coward, Capshaw,” she said out loud.
Because she had told Bennett that he could have sex with her last night. She had kissed him the other day. She was not a coward.
She was a woman who went for what she wanted.
Maybe she hadn’t always been, but she was now. She was resolute, and she was determined. She was shaking, but she was going to ignore that.
Or at least hope that Bennett didn’t notice that.
She all but flung herself out of the truck, stumbling on the gravel when her boots hit the driveway. Then she cleared her throat and straightened, running her hands through her hair and giving it a small shake.
His truck was here, but when she knocked on the door to the house he didn’t answer. She frowned.
She started having weird wild fantasies, and what began as a pit of disquiet in her stomach sprouted into a tree of paranoia. Perhaps his ex had come looking for Dallas and there had been some kind of ax murder inside of his house and he hadn’t gotten in touch with her because he was lying dead on his living room floor.
She scampered over to the living-room window and looked inside, able to see just a small sliver of the room through the closed curtains.
There didn’t appear to be any bodies. Which was a relief. But it still left her with unanswered questions.
She took a deep breath and started walking out toward the barn. There was a good chance he was out there. Still possibly ax murder, though. Because now that the idea was in her head she couldn’t get rid of it.
Then she heard voices, and she stopped, looking to her left at the wide-open field.
Bennett was standing there, leaning up against the fence, his shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows, bare, muscular forearms resting on the top rail of the fence. His black cowboy hat was pushed up slightly and he was grinning. It didn’t take long to see what he was smiling at.
Dallas was out in the field. And he was riding a horse.
Her heart turned over in her chest, and then crumpled up tight. So tight she could barely breathe.
She had been prepared to be angry. And then, she had been prepared for tragedy—though, only in that detached, paranoid sense—but she hadn’t been prepared to fall in love with that man all over again in a moment.
In love.
Dammit. She was in love with him.
Always had been.
She hadn’t wanted to be. It was the revelation that scared her more than any other. More than wanting him, being in love with him was so, so scary.
There was something about love. It made you hope. And hope was the most insidious, terrible thing. Her entire childhood she’d hoped. Hoped her parents would see her. Hoped she would somehow matter to them.
That she’d be enough.
She hadn’t.
She’d loved them. It hadn’t mattered.
She didn’t want to be in love with Bennett. But she couldn’t deny that she was. Any more than she could turn away from what was happening in front of her.
He turned then. As if he could sense her staring at him. And she hoped he couldn’t feel the intensity of the emotion that was pouring off her.
“Kaylee. What are you doing here?”
“I was a little bit worried about you,” she said, heading toward the fence.
“Sorry,” he said, frowning as he lifted his wrist and looked down at his watch. “Damn. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
She couldn’t even stay angry. She hadn’t been angry anyway. Not really. She’d been scared.
“How long have you two been out here?”
“Since about six this morning. I gave him a quick primer on the care and keeping of the horses, and then we ended up starting a riding lesson. He’s been enjoying himself too much to stop.”
“I don’t think he’s the only one,” Kaylee said softly.
The pride on Bennett’s face was... There was something about all of this that only cemented her feelings.
No one had ever looked at her like that.
That was a small, petty thought that didn’t belong here. That was not about her. Dallas deserved to have someone look at him like that. And even if she was equal parts happy for and envious of the kid, she was going to focus on the happy part.
She was good at that. At taking the pieces and not the whole. It made it all manageable.
She had experienced what Dallas had to a degree. But there had been no wonderful secret father waiting for her on the other side of it.
Though, there had been Bennett. And there had been his family. She was lucky enough. She had no call to get morose.
About that. She was still feeling a little morose about the whole sex situation.
“I guess not,” Bennett said. “Good thing I didn’t have any appointments today. Just kind of on call. But I didn’t mean to not check in at the clinic.”
She nodded. “Good.”
His lips pulled down tight, his brows lifting in an obvious question.
Dumbass man. She was going to have to walk him through it.
“I thought maybe you were avoiding me,” she clarified.
The corners of his mouth went down farther, then relaxed suddenly as realization seemed to dawn over him like beams from the sun rising slow up over the mountains. That frown turning into an expression of absolute sheepishness.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding so incredibly sincere she wanted to punch him.
She would have rather had a smooth line than an apology like that. Than a look of pure bewilderment that let her know he truly hadn’t been thinking of what had happened between them last night.
She felt so raw. She couldn’t move without thinking about what they did last night, and he didn’t seem to be conscious of it at all.
“Will you be all right if I head to the barn for a minute?” Bennett called out to Dallas.
“I’m fine,” Dallas said, guiding the horse to turn to the left and taking a broad circle around part of the field.
“Come on,” he said, not touching her, which seemed deliberate at this point. But still, she followed him over to the barn and walked inside with him. She turned to face him, crossing her arms and treating him to a hard stare.
“I didn’t mean to make it seem like I was standing you up,” he said.
“No,” she said, feeling beyond wretched now. “Why would I think that? It’s just that something completely weird happened between us last night. Something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. But I can see where you just hadn’t paid it any thought. Because it seemed...mundane to you?”
“It did not seem mundane to me. But maybe I pushed it to the back of my mind.”
“How nice to be able to do that.”
“I’m sorry,” he reiterated.
“Well, the apology pairs nicely with the thank-you that I received last night.”
“What was wrong with the thank-you?”
“Oh, nothing. What girl doesn’t like to be thanked for sex, as if she’s done a man a favor?”
He frowned. “Kaylee, I’m a little bit lost here. How is it that I’ve managed to say about five words to you since all that happened but they were all the wrong words?”
“The fact that you can count the words is part of the problem.”
She was maybe being a little bit difficult right now, but she felt difficult. She felt offended. She had taken a chance on the one thing she had wanted for so long, the one thing that she had held herself back from. And along the way had come to the realization that she couldn’t hang out in denial of what all of these feelings meant.
So if she was a little bit messed up, she was just going to have to apologize for it later. The problem was he didn’t seem like any of this bothered him at all. It was all simple thank yous and I’m sorrys. All going about his daily life in a way that didn’t include her.
And nothing had been on her mind from the time she had finally fallen asleep last night, to the time she had woken up this morning, that wasn’t about Bennett.
Was it so wrong to have hoped that a corner of his brain was reserved for her?
“I didn’t need you to thank me like I did you a favor,” she said.
“But I...was grateful.”
“Oh my gosh, Bennett!” She was about a second away from banging her head against the side of the barn wall. “You expect any woman to not be mad at you for being grateful that she gave you sex?”
Poor Bennett looked stricken. No. Not poor Bennett. She refused to feel sorry for him. “Apparently that is the wrong feeling. But I guarantee you a great many men have that feeling.”
“Well, how about this?” She stretched up to her full height, which still put her nose just beneath his. “Thank you. Thank you for the orgasm. It was awesome. I’m putting it in my diary. Because you are the first man to ever give me one.”
Well, crap.
She hadn’t meant to confess that. And right about now you would be able to hear the tiniest piece of straw fall onto the concrete barn floor. Because Bennett had fallen utterly silent, his mouth dropped open in an expression of shock.
“What?” he asked.
Her lips tightened up of their own free will. Like they were trying to save her from her own stupidity. “I’ve never had an orgasm with a man before. With a partner. Obviously I’ve had them. But by myself.”
He blinked. “Oh.”
“So, thank you. Thank you for the use of your sensationally magical dick. It was very much appreciated.” She waved her hand around. “A fun time to be had by all.”
He blinked, his jaw getting hard as stone. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t much like that.”
“See?” she asked, insistent. “It makes you feel weird.”
“Not the part about the orgasm.”
She frowned. “Well.”
His brows snapped together, a look of intense curiosity on his handsome face. “Really? Are you being serious or was that for demonstrative purposes?”
“I’m being serious.” She nearly stamped her foot.
It was too late to back out now. She had started on this trail, and she had to keep on it now.
“No man. None of them. None of those douchebags I watched you date.”
She crossed her arms and shook her head, defiant. “Nope.”
“Well, that’s just... I’m torn between wanting to beat them up and wanting to take a damned victory lap.”
“This is not really more charming than any of the other crap you pulled earlier.”
“I’m the first one to give you an orgasm?” he asked as if he hadn’t heard her previous statement.
“Yes,” she said, “don’t let it go to your head.”
“It’s not my head it’s going to.”
“Bennett!”
And it was almost hilarious. This exchange was almost like something that would have happened between them before the sex. And it was as endearing as it was exasperating for that reason. Of course, it wouldn’t have been about her orgasms, but still.
“It’s just hard for me to believe.”
“That there’s something wrong with my body?”
He shook his head emphatically. “It’s not you, Kaylee. Hell, no. It was them.”
“That’s just your favorite scenario because it means they were all defective and you’re a stud.”
“Well, sure. But I think we all win in that scenario.”
“Look, Bennett. I’m feeling a little bit messed up about all of it.” She closed her eyes, realizing suddenly that the orgasm confession was actually perfect. Because it gave her a hell of an excuse for being an emotional basket case. One that wasn’t: oh, yeah, I’m deeply in love with you. Fatally. Forever.
No way. She couldn’t handle that right now. One thing at a time.
“I had no idea,” he said.
“But you did know that I don’t sleep around. And you did know that this would be weird.”
“Sure,” he said. “But you have to give me some slack then too. For it being weird on my end.”
Well, that was reasonable. And it made her mad. Because it wasn’t fair. He wasn’t supposed to be reasonable about things. She wanted her rage. She wanted it to be all about her. Wanted it to be about her indignity and her feelings. She didn’t want to have to worry about his.
How was that for unfair?
“So, your method was just to not deal with it?”
“I’m a guy.”
“Sure. But you’re the guy that I usually talk to about everything. And something pretty big happened between us, and if we can’t talk about it then... I don’t have anyone else, Bennett. Which is why this was probably a really bad idea.” It was why confessing that she was in love with him was unthinkable. “We need to be able to deal with this. We need to be able to come to some kind of resolution. I can’t have it be an unspoken thing between us. I can’t have it be something that comes between us at all. Bennett, you’re my best friend. You were the first person who made me feel like there was some value in me. I’m not being dramatic. We moved all the time until we came here. Until I met you. And my parents cared more about the last drop of whiskey and a bottle than me. They still do. If it wasn’t for you, if it wasn’t for your family, I would probably be somewhere drowning in a pool of liquor and futile existence. All by myself just like them, because I would never have known that there was another life possible. Your family showed me that there could be something else. You showed me that. And you’ve been my closest friend ever since. I will be damned if sex messes that up.”
“Kaylee, nothing could mess us up,” he said, those dark eyes so serious and honest it made her breath catch. “We’re bigger than one night. We’re long summer nights out at the ball field watching cheesy minor league games and eating stale pretzels. We’re cold winter nights around a Christmas tree, and cool spring morning trail rides up a mountain. One night of sex in a truck could never erase all those nights. Ever. It’s a new night, the kind we’ve never had before, I know that. But it doesn’t undo all that history.”
“But it feels like it could,” she said, feeling small and fragile. She closed her eyes, emotion welling up in her chest. “I just can’t stand the idea that...that I was thinking about this. All night, all day and...if it didn’t matter to you I couldn’t stand it. Being that wrong about it. It reminds me...” Her face got hot and scratchy. “It reminds me of when we moved here.”
He looked at her, his face turning to stone. Like he was bracing himself for a blow.
“It’s not that bad,” she said quickly. “It was me being stupid. It’s just...where we lived before, I had this friend who had...my dream bedroom. It was all frills and lace and a canopy bed. I loved it. But I could never say that. I always...pretended I hated that stuff.”
She swallowed hard, her throat dry. Bennett reached out and grasped her hand, and it made her want to cry. She wished he wouldn’t touch her. But she didn’t have the strength to pull away either.
“When my parents said we were moving and getting a new house, and I was getting a new room...I somehow thought... I just thought maybe somehow...it would be that room. That there would be a new bed in it, and the wallpaper would have flowers. That I’d have a canopy. Really, I thought...I could move and be different.” She blinked heavily. “I’ll never forget opening the door, and the room was empty. And then they brought up my same mattress. The same ugly blanket. It wasn’t new. And neither was I.”
“Kay,” Bennett said, his voice rough. He pulled her into his arms, up against his chest. “I had no idea.”
“It wasn’t the missing lace and canopy. It wasn’t that the walls were oatmeal and not flowers.” Though that was some of it. “It was feeling so stupid over hoping like that, and being so wrong. I couldn’t stand it if this ruined us and I was so lost in the feeling good that I missed it.” She closed her eyes. “I couldn’t stand being so wrong about us.”
“No, honey,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I couldn’t think about what happened last night because I had to get through this morning in front of my kid without an X-rated film playing in my head. But it...it matters to me. You matter to me.”
“What if this gets all messed up? What if we mess this up?”
“Then we’ll make a plan. We’ll make a plan and be damn sure we don’t mess it up.”
That was her Bennett. He wanted plans of action. He wanted to control the situation by laying out the details of what would happen next. And what wouldn’t.
And she was just...willing to let him. Because she had no idea what she wanted to do with this. She knew what she felt. But she didn’t know what was possible. For her. For them. And the unknown of it all terrified her.
If she could just let go and let Bennett be confident for the both of them then that might actually work for her.
She wouldn’t have to take the risks. She wouldn’t have to make the choices.
A pushy move, maybe. But she was feeling a bit wimpy. So, there it was.
“What do you suggest?”
“I enjoyed last night,” he said, his dark eyes serious on hers. “I mean that. But I would never take what happened for granted. I would never assume that it was going to happen again. You don’t owe me a damn thing, Kaylee. And you don’t ever have to feel like we need to do that to keep my friendship.”
She frowned. “Why would I think that about you?”
“I just want to make sure that’s clear.”
“It’s clear,” she said, “because I know you. If you had wanted to use me for sex you would have done it a long time ago.”
“That was before. I just want to make sure you know that I would never hold anything over your head.”
“Bennett,” she said, “if I thought you would do that, then you threatening to take away your friendship wouldn’t be so much of a threat. Because I wouldn’t want to be your friend. I know that you aren’t going to expect anything from me. You don’t need to go over-the-top knight in shining armor here.”
“Okay. Then I want to do it again.”
The words hit her like a punch to the gut.
“You do?” That whole time he had been justifying and protesting so much she had assumed that he wouldn’t want to go there again.
“Yes,” he said. “I should have gone after you last night. But I let Dallas being at the house serve as an excuse for putting this off. Because I knew once wouldn’t be enough, and I wasn’t ready to figure out what that meant. Then this morning I had to put it out of my mind for a little while. I had to deal with Dallas and when I think about us...” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, his throat working up and down. “It’s all I can think about. The way that it felt. Kaylee...” He opened his eyes, the uncertainty in them clashing with the desire in her.
“I didn’t get to see you,” he continued. “Not really. And I want to.” He closed some of the distance between them, reaching out and cupping her cheek. “You’ve been my friend for a long damn time. And I’d be lying if I said I never thought of you as a woman.”
“You...you would be?”
“I know you’re a woman. And lately... I don’t know if it’s just because of everything that’s been happening in my life, or if it’s just inevitable.”
She wasn’t sure she liked either excuse. That his desire for her was the result of the chaos in his world. But she realized it didn’t really matter what reason he gave her. It only mattered what reason he gave himself that he could handle right now.
“I want to see you,” he said, his voice like gravel. “Your body.”
“What parts of it?” She almost cringed when she spoke the words, but instead, she managed to school her face into some kind of bland expression. Just bland enough that she could stand by those words. Maybe they were sexy, maybe they weren’t. She wasn’t sure she knew how to be sexy. She knew how to be tough. She knew how to act like things didn’t matter. But this moment mattered. She wanted to be...something other than what he was used to her being. Something other than his capable sidekick, his trusty business partner. A woman who could fix the fence and throw a punch and beat some of the guys down at Gold Valley Saloon at arm wrestling. A woman who couldn’t wear high heels with most of the men in town because she would tower over them.
She wanted more of what he had made her feel last night.
And so she waited. Waited until the expression in his dark eyes turned sharp. Until she could see that he was tugging at the edge of his control.
His face, that gorgeous face that had been so familiar to her for so many years, suddenly looked foreign to her. Like a stranger. There was a ferocity there, an edge that had certainly never been directed at her. And it made her shiver all the way down deep in her belly and between her legs. Made her want in ways she’d never thought possible.
“I want to see if your nipples match your lips, Kaylee,” he said, his voice going deeper, resonating inside of her. “I want to see those pretty red curls between your legs. And then I want to see all of you. I want to spread you wide and see how pink you are. That’s what I want. I want to taste you and take my time. And I want to watch your face when I make you come. Knowing full well that I’m the only man who’s ever done it. That’s what I want. Do you think you can handle that?”
She had no damned idea if she could handle that. She thought she might melt to the floor. Hearing Bennett say things like that to her. Explicit things, dark things that called to gloriously erotic places inside of her she hadn’t known she possessed.
Dark erotic thoughts that she hadn’t been aware Bennett had possessed.
That was the most shocking thing. Standing there, having him look at her like she was something delicious he wanted to eat. Having him say those explicit things. Bennett. Her Bennett, who was everything good and restrained and steady in her world, knocking it off its axis with a few filthy words.
She had known that he was sexy. She had known that she wanted him. But she hadn’t known that he would be...like this.
And she really hadn’t known that she would respond to it. That was the funny thing. She had fantasized about Bennett. A lot. And being with him last night had been incredible. But this...this was something else entirely.
Having her friend stand there in front of her and look at her like a lover. A stranger and a friend all at the same time. The man she knew but more.
Something about it was almost more erotic than what had come before.
“I want to have you in my bed,” he said, his voice rough. “All night. That would be something.”
Something a lot like panic fluttered in her breast. “Well, you can’t. Because of Dallas.”
“I know. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I would. That I wanted it.”
She wanted it too. To be between the sheets with him. On a mattress. Another thing that seemed so intimate. Another thing that—in spite of their close friendship—they had never shared. Obviously. A bed.
She had been in his bedroom just to hang out. Ever since they were teenagers, she had been in his room. She had sat on the edge of his bed. She had never been in bed with him.
She ached for that. For that casual intimacy that would come from something like that. Casual and heavy all at the same time.
But it was also relationship stuff. And...
Given everything—her feelings, his situation—it was a dangerous idea.
Bennett was her very best friend. And now, he was her very best sex. She just needed to keep everything in its own neat little box.
To put the sex in one place, and the friendship in another. To keep everything from becoming too big. Too unmanageable.
Hoping for anything more was hoping for that bedroom all over again.
She didn’t think she could put herself through that again.
And so she would have this. Another Bennett compartment in her life. Friend Bennett, and sexual Bennett. That seemed...good. Whatever it was, it was more of him. And that could never be a bad thing.
“So...”
“We’ll work it out,” he cut her off. “As soon as possible. I’ve got to be inside you again.” Her cheeks went bonfire hot, and Bennett’s lips curved up into a smile. “Did I make you blush, Kaylee?”
“Yes,” she said. “You’re being dirty.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you like me dirty.”
“I do,” she said, the words coming out a whisper, even though she hadn’t meant for them to.
“More fun for me,” he said.
“Suddenly...I’m very curious.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“What about?”
“It’s the weirdest thing. I’ve known you since we were thirteen. But I don’t know about this part of you.”
He wrapped his arm around her, pinning one arm behind her back, grabbing hold of her wrist with his other hand, and then he pressed her palm to the front of his jeans. He was hard. For her.
“This part of me?”
“Yes,” she said, rubbing him through the denim. “But not just that.”
There was no guidebook for having a conversation with your best friend while you had your hand on his dick.
Maybe she would have to write it when all this was said and done.
“What else?”
“We talk about a lot of things. But not really about sex. I told you about the guy I lost it to when I was seventeen.”
“Oh, the minuteman?”
She laughed, which seemed absurd when she was touching him so intimately. Or maybe with Bennett it was just right. “Yes. The minuteman. You made me feel better about how horrendous it was.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“But we don’t talk about our sex lives much at this point and I... I’ve certainly never seen you...being sexual before all this. It’s... I have a lot of questions.”
“Go ahead and ask.”
“What do you like? How many women have you been with?”
He grimaced. “You don’t go easy.”
“I never have.” Truthfully, she’d had these questions before, but they had been kind of an amorphous blob of sexual wonderment. Now it was... A lot more concrete. Because of those words he had just spoken to her. Words that indicated the depth and need in him that she hadn’t fully appreciated before.
Really, she was just so fully confronted with the fact that he was a man. And everything that meant.
Also, she was confronted with how limited her own sexual experiences had been. All the sex she had ever had had been—in many ways—about Bennett Dodge. Trying to forget him. Trying to want someone else. They hadn’t taken the time to really explore each other. Hadn’t spent a lot of time discussing what she liked. And she hadn’t really cared what they liked.
Not really.
She wanted to know everything about Bennett. Every vaguely dirty thought he’d ever had. What it might mean. What she could do to be the fulfillment of it.
“Right now it’s safe to say I like you,” he said.
“Right now,” she said, ignoring the pain in her chest and trying to smile.
“The evidence is in your hand.”
“So it is.”
“And how many... I don’t readily know. Not that many, but enough that I kind of stopped counting.”
“Well,” she felt perturbed, “that’s a fuzzy number.”
“How many men have you been with, Kay?” His tone was gentle, but there was an underlying note of steel that made her feel electrified. She couldn’t quite explain it.
“Four,” she said easily. “That’s including you.”
“That’s it?”
She shrugged. “I told you. Sex hasn’t been all that mind-blowing for me in the past.”
“You’ve dated a hell of a lot more men than that.”
She shrugged. “Yeah. But I’m choosy.”
“I suppose if I asked what you liked...”
“You. Right now.”
He smiled. “Touché.”
“Bennett, you’ve always had a plan. And I’ve always gone along with that plan. It’s never steered me wrong. It’s why I graduated high school. Went to college. It’s why I have a career. What’s the plan here? I need to know.”
Bennett tightened his hold on her. “We get each other through. Until a new plan comes along.”
She could do that. Even if it made her heart feel like it was cracking in her chest. This was more of him than she’d ever thought she’d have.
The sound of a horse whinnying outside broke the moment. Bennett released his hold on her and took a step back. As if he just remembered that there was someone else on the property. It was a good thing he remembered, because she hadn’t been thinking clearly at all.
“I should... I guess I have to get to work,” he said.
“Me too. I closed the clinic.”
“To come down here and yell at me?”
“In fairness, I closed it so that I could go get a burger. At least, that was my intention. Then I started thinking about you, and I got mad at you.”
“And I owe you a hamburger, don’t I?”
“A hamburger and an orgasm.” She grinned at him, gratified when his jaw went tense, his eyes looking deeply interested. “Tonight then?”
He winced. “I just remembered that I promised Wyatt that Dallas and I would have dinner over there tonight. But I bet if I call ahead I can arrange for it to be burgers. Do you want to come over to the ranch for dinner?”
She should have known that she wasn’t getting a dinner date out of Bennett. Not with the way things were for him right now. And actually, she didn’t really care. She loved Get Out of Dodge. She loved Bennett’s family. There was no downside to spending the evening with them.
“All right,” she said.
“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll share dinnertime with you. But after dinner is all mine.”
Her heart fluttered at the very intentional promise in his voice. “Okay.” Lordy. She sounded like a silly high school girl fluttering over her first date.
In fairness, she felt like one.
Bennett looked over his shoulder and quickly dropped a hard, firm kiss on her lips, leaving her standing there in the barn reeling.
Bennett Dodge was making sensual promises to her. Bennett Dodge seemed to want her.
Bennett Dodge was coming after her.
Kaylee was starting to be afraid that she had woken up in a parallel universe and everything was going to go back to normal a lot sooner than she wanted it to.
But until then... She would have this. Yes. Until then.
Bennett was right. They’d had seventeen years’ worth of nights between them. Seventeen years of friendship.
This wouldn’t destroy them.
It couldn’t.