QUINN DODGE WAS standing in the doorway, his cowboy hat fixed firmly on his head, covering his now silver hair, his petite wife clinging to his side. Freda was only about eight years younger than Quinn, but her hair had only just begun to show small flashes of silver against the inky black. Her dark eyes assessed the situation. And quickly.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“What are you doing back here?” Bennett asked, his heart sinking down low.
“We thought we would come visit,” Quinn said. “Got a wild hair. We ended up taking the drive pretty damn quickly.”
“Much more quickly than I would have liked,” Freda pointed out.
“We camped on the side of the road a couple of nights, but here we are.”
He could feel all of his siblings doing their very best not to look right at Dallas. But that concerted effort only drew attention to him. And anyway, he was the unfamiliar face. There was no chance he wouldn’t be immediately noticed by his sharp old man. And there was no way Quinn wouldn’t see the family resemblance.
“Dad,” Bennett said meaningfully, “this is Dallas. And I think you and I need to have a talk.”
Bennett began to move slowly, making his way toward his father. He gritted his teeth and gestured toward the living room. Dallas, for his part, stayed put in the kitchen. Which really was for the best. Bennett knew that his father wasn’t going to get angry. Well, except maybe about being kept in the dark for the past couple of weeks. But he also knew that it was going to be a tricky discussion that shouldn’t have an audience.
“He’s not mine, is he?” Quinn asked.
His dad looked genuinely concerned.
Bennett chuckled. He couldn’t help it. “That was the first thing Jamie asked.”
“I didn’t sow a whole lot of wild oats, but I had my moments after your mother died. I wasn’t a monk.” Quinn’s mannerisms were so like Wyatt’s in that moment it was almost funny. Except Bennett felt like his windpipe was being crushed so not much was funny.
“He’s mine,” Bennett said. “No, I didn’t know.” He took a deep breath. And then, he began to explain the entire story from beginning to end. When it was over, his father was just staring at him with those steady brown eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me at the time?” Quinn asked.
“There was so much in your life already. I would have told you eventually if Marnie had never told me she’d miscarried.”
“I would have been there for you, Bennett. Hell, an adult man shouldn’t go through that alone. A teenage boy... You needed everybody to rally around you.”
Bennett shook his head. “I couldn’t have asked that of you. You had your hands full ever since Mom passed.”
“Literally in some cases,” Quinn agreed. “She died and I was there holding your sister. The other boys... They were older. It was so hard... But...I wonder sometimes, Bennett, if I treated you too much like one of them. Rather than like the little one you were.”
“There wasn’t a choice,” Bennett said. “Jamie was a baby.”
“And you tried to become a man much too quickly. But it would never have been a burden to take on your worries, son. Ever.”
“I just wanted to be responsible for my own life. I didn’t want to add to your problems. Especially when there was no good news to give. The baby was gone. There didn’t seem to be a point in bringing it all up. Plus, nobody wants to...”
“Talk about sex with their dad?”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “Particularly not back then. I didn’t want to admit to you that I’d been that irresponsible.”
“After the hell your brother put me through, that would have been nothing.”
“Which brother?” Wyatt was the wild one, but Grant up and marrying at eighteen couldn’t have been a picnic for their father either.
His father hesitated a moment. “Both of them, quite honestly.”
“But that’s the thing. I wanted to have it all under control so that...”
“There’s no shame in needing help.”
“Well, I might need some now. I’ve never raised a teenage boy before, and you raised three. Plus Jamie.”
Quinn shook his head. “The very fact that you would ask for my help...” He swallowed hard. “Hell, boy. You got me choked up. Makes me think I did something right.”
Bennett let out a slow breath. “You did a lot of things right, Dad.”
“When did you find out about him?”
“It’s been a couple of weeks. But I didn’t know how to make that phone call.”
Quinn nodded slowly. “I would’ve rather you told me then. I would rather you told me sixteen years ago.”
“I should have. But I’m telling you now.”
“Because I showed up unannounced.”
Bennett shrugged. “Yeah, that’s true. But we’re talking.”
“I think I need to go meet my grandson. I didn’t figure my first grandson would be a teenager when I met him.” There was a touch of wistfulness in Quinn’s tone.
“I didn’t figure my firstborn would be a teenager when I met him.”
Quinn paused and clapped his hand over the back of Bennett’s back. “I don’t figure you did. This must be a tough time for you.”
“Tough’s not really the right word.”
Complicated. A whole lot of things. He could mourn what he’d lost, and sometimes he did. With a kind of hideous breathlessness that would overtake him for a moment in time and make him think he was going to suffocate. But then it would pass. And he would get hold of the moment again.
He hadn’t known about Dallas. So really, any time he had with him was something. A chance to build this relationship when it had been lost to them for so many years. He could focus on one end of that equation or the other. The missing years, or the fact that he was going to have years now. It was better to focus on this end. Because it was the one he could do something about.
Then there was Kaylee.
Sweet, prickly, amazing Kaylee. Who had been through so much more than he’d realized. Who was so much stronger than he’d known.
And so much sexier.
When they walked back into the room, Freda was sitting next to Dallas, forcing affection on him. She had her copper-colored hands wrapped around his, holding him tightly as she said something intently to him. Dallas looked up, clearly at sea being the center of attention.
“These are your grandparents,” he said, gesturing between Freda and his dad.
“I figured,” Dallas said.
“Good to meet you,” Quinn said, crossing the room and sticking his hand out. Dallas stuck his hand out too, and Quinn shook it, firm like he always did.
“You can have a firmer grip than that,” Quinn said, smiling at Dallas. “Nothing wrong with a good firm handshake.”
And he knew that a lot of people would have found that a distant greeting for a long-lost grandson, but as far as Quinn Dodge was concerned that was the real deal. Teaching a man the value of a handshake was something his father believed in.
Well, not just a man. Jamie’s handshake was strong enough to make a bull rider cry. And she’d tried to make more than one cry more than once.
Watching his father interact with Dallas, Bennett had to ask himself what he had thought his father would do when he found out. It wasn’t like he had ever believed that Quinn wouldn’t accept his grandson. Wasn’t like he had truly thought he would disown them. But he hadn’t told him.
He had avoided it actively. Not just when he had been a teenager when that kind of behavior was somewhat excusable, but now, when he was thirty-two years old. A man who should have known better than to do something like that.
But he was used to taking care of things on his own. He didn’t like having to lean against people. He wanted to fix things, he didn’t want to break them.
The one person he’d really let close had been Kaylee. Not that they shared perfectly with each other. It wasn’t either of their strong points. But the first time he’d seen that lonely, lost-looking thirteen-year-old girl at school he’d wanted to make her look less lonely. And she’d made him feel less lonely too.
He had come to understand loss at far too early of an age to ever want to let people be pillars in his life.
That was what he had learned at the age of seven. That when you lost one of those pillars it was so easy for you to crumble.
Of course, he hadn’t thought of it in those terms then. He had been a child. And all he had known was the bright, intense pain, the inability to understand what death really meant.
That it was really an end. That it meant they were gone forever. And forever meant no bedtime stories. No being tucked in. Never hearing their voice. Never smelling that perfume. It had taken his brain so long to wrap itself around that concept. Even as an adult he wasn’t entirely sure he understood it.
What he knew was that if he had to ask for help, then it meant something had gone wrong. It meant that he had miscalculated, that he was not in control of his life, and for reasons he imagined stemmed back to being that little boy who felt like his world had been turned over on its side, the very idea was unthinkable to him.
But here he was, surrounded by family, with his father and stepmother, and he was... Well, he was leaning on them a little bit. And some of that was for Dallas’s benefit.
Quite honestly, Bennett felt like finding out that he was all the kid got was a pretty piss-poor prize. But adding his family to that equation...the uncles, the grandparents. That made it all a little bit more. That made it feel like he was really giving his son something. With all that considered, building a wall around himself was selfish. Because this safety net benefited Dallas, and while Bennett had systematically made sure he didn’t need those safety nets, while he had gone to great lengths to make sure he never used them, he could see how foolish it was when he looked at his son.
Could imagine how he would feel if Dallas came to him with news that he had gotten a girl pregnant.
He would be concerned. Maybe even upset. But he’d want to do whatever he could to help. He’d want to be there. Be involved.
This new perspective on the other side of the parent-child relationship was really something. What was actually a burden, and what wasn’t.
Basically nothing was. Hard, maybe. But he wanted desperately to carry his son’s burdens, and they weren’t burdens to him. They were blessings. Because it was what he felt like his shoulders had been made for. To carry that. To carry him.
He hadn’t understood that before now. Hadn’t understood that he wasn’t sparing his father by holding all of that back. He was denying him a chance to be a father in the way he would want.
But it required sharing on Bennett’s part. And that he found hard. That, he didn’t find so appealing.
When dinner wrapped up, Bennett got ready to go. But after Dallas and Kaylee walked out of the house, Quinn pulled him aside.
“We’ll be around for a few weeks. We might even extend the stay. So we can get to know him.”
“That’s what I’m still trying to do,” Bennett responded.
“You’ve always been strong,” Quinn said. “But don’t forget to let him in.”
That was too close to all the raw, terrible things Bennett had been thinking about. To all the stuff he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“All right,” Quinn said, clearly reaching an end to how much he could talk about feelings. “We’ll see him around tomorrow, I guess. I hear he’s working on the place.”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “Doing a pretty good job too. And learning to ride.”
“Definitely a Dodge,” Quinn said.
“Bye, Dad,” Bennett said, turning and walking out of the house.
Yes, Dallas was definitely a Dodge. Which meant he wasn’t going to make any of that emotional stuff easy. And it wasn’t easy for Bennett either. At this point, he just wanted to take a break for a while. Even though he knew it wasn’t possible.
But there was Kaylee. She was his port in the storm, always had been. And tonight...
He walked out onto the porch and saw her standing by the truck. She had ridden over with him and Dallas because she had known that he was going to want to spend some time with her after he got Dallas settled at the house.
She was beautiful, with the sunlight shrinking and fading behind the mountains, threading golden strands through her hair, casting her face in a glow.
He had always been proud of her. Proud to walk around with someone like her by his side. Resilient, beautiful, strong. Smart as hell. But it all felt different in that moment. She was standing with Dallas, making easy conversation with him. Dallas actually seemed a little bit more at ease around her. At least, more than he did around Bennett.
Their relationship was still a standoff half the time, like Dallas was trying to push him away. But he didn’t seem to have that problem with Kaylee. Didn’t seem to have that need to set her at a distance.
And Kaylee, for her part, understood the kid well. She helped Bennett understand him, which was another point in the column of not trying to do things alone.
But then, he had never tried to do it without Kaylee. She had been the first person he called, and for good reason.
They all loaded up in the truck and Bennett drove them back to his place.
“You can have a reprieve from chores,” he said to his son.
And yeah, he had ulterior motives. Ulterior motives that didn’t put him in the running for World’s Best Dad. But he supposed not knowing about his son for fifteen years had killed those chances already.
“Thanks,” Dallas said. “Feeling guilty about all the child labor?”
“Not at all,” Bennett said, “but I thought you might be tired.”
“Not especially, but I’m willing to go inside and play Xbox instead of clean out stalls.”
“Well, whatever works.”
Dallas went into the house, leaving Bennett and Kaylee alone outside.
“Why don’t we go check on the horses?” Bennett asked.
Kaylee nodded, her expression halting. She clearly knew he had ulterior motives too. But she followed him to the barn, which must mean she didn’t mind them. She was silent while Bennett tended to the horses, twisting her hands in front of her as though she were feeling a bit nervous.
He wondered if she was.
For his part, there were no nerves. There was just a growing, expanding need in his gut. One that was starting to blot out all the complicated thoughts from earlier. And that was what he wanted to pursue. That was what he wanted to chase. Because all that other stuff was complicated and confronting. Needing people. Talking to his father. Dealing with all this past garbage that he simply didn’t want to deal with.
He didn’t know why he felt so desperate, why he felt scraped raw all the way down to his bones. Everything had gone well. There was nothing to fight against. Nothing to insulate himself against. There was just...acceptance. Of his father’s love. Of the way his siblings had accepted Dallas as their nephew so quickly.
And then there was Kaylee. Who was always everything he needed, and had been that and more lately.
He needed her now. Needed her to simplify everything. Her touch, her kiss. It would. He knew it. Because weirdly, it was the only thing that made sense from the past few weeks.
Maybe because it didn’t have reasoning involved. Because there was no plan in it. Because there was nothing except want, and his wants had been nowhere near any of the recent events in his life.
He hadn’t wanted to break up with Olivia. He hadn’t wanted a son. He hadn’t wanted to open up all the mistakes he made in the past in front of his family and confess them. Hadn’t wanted to admit there was a time when he’d lost control.
And yet he had to.
And none of that was for him. Not really. But this was. She was. And he suddenly needed her more than air.
The horses were fed, and everything else could wait.
“Staring at you all night and not being able to touch you has been torture,” he said, his voice rough.
Her head snapped around, shock visible in her green eyes. “Me?”
“Yes, you. You’re a damned problem, Kaylee Capshaw.”
“I’m a problem?” She looked delighted by that information, and not at all abashed.
“A pretty one.”
And then, without talking, he pressed her back up against the door of the barn, his chest pressed against her small, perfectly formed breasts as he consumed her mouth like he was a starving man. He was. For more than just sex. For this release, this escape. For a kind of satisfaction that would blot out all the things that had come before.
Maybe that made him a jerk. Using his best friend like this. But maybe that was also the only reason he could do this. Because she was Kaylee. Because she had always been something different. Something special. This small bit of connection he allowed himself to have.
And right now... She was more than escape. She tasted like salvation. All soft and slick and hot.
And he could see her now. The lights were on in the barn, and when he pulled away from her mouth to trail kisses down her neck, he could see the way that pale skin flushed. How aroused she was, evidenced by the way that skin bloomed with red, the way her pupils dilated. The way her breath made her breasts rise and fall in small, choppy motions.
He was going to see her naked. He had to.
“Should we talk about this?” she asked breathlessly as he trailed kisses to the edge of the collar of her shirt.
“I don’t want to talk. We’ve talked enough, don’t you think?” he asked, echoing what she had said to him last night.
They’d had years of talking. Years and years of it. And years of not doing this. Suddenly, this was all he wanted.
And that didn’t feel like reducing her, or their connection. It felt like growing it. Maybe that was his dick talking, it was entirely possible. But whatever, it made sense.
“I want to see you,” he said. “Like I said earlier. I have to know.”
“You’re obsessed with colors,” she said softly, fingertips fluttering down to his chest, tracing a line all the way down to the waistband of his jeans.
Desire kicked in him like a horse, his body getting hard.
“All the colors of Kaylee,” he agreed. “Your hair, your skin. Do you know what I like?”
“No,” she said, the word hushed.
“I like the way you’re flushed all red right now. I like how I can see that you’re turned on. I’ve never seen you turned on before, Kay. Not really. Do you know how hot it is to know what that looks like?”
“Probably about as hot as I find it to see you turned on,” she said, looking down at the bulge in the front of his pants meaningfully.
“Good thing it works for both of us. Can’t imagine what it would be like if this only went one way.”
She looked down, biting her lip, and he gripped her chin, tilting her face back up so he could look at her.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Good thing.”
He pressed his fingertips to the hem of her top, pushing them beneath, dragging the calloused tips over her soft skin. He was rough and work scarred, hazards of the job. But Kaylee did the same work, and somehow managed to be silk over muscle. Soft over strong. He had always focused on that strength in her, because it was something he prized in her as a friend. He hadn’t let himself marvel at her femininity. At just how perfect all that skin was. He was doing it now.
He pushed her top all the way up over her head, and threw it down onto the floor, then he leaned in, kissing her jaw as he reached around to unhook her bra.
Lust hit him like a slug in the gut as he took in the sight of those perfect bare breasts. With the lovely, tight pink tips. They were just the right size to hold in his hands, to suck into his mouth. He had done it before, but not when he could see her. Not when he could see this. He was drunk on it. On her.
And suddenly...
He didn’t want her to be his port in the storm.
He wanted to be hers.
Everything she’d said to him earlier flooded back. Washed over him. The way she’d looked when he’d come over and helped her move that ridiculous hutch, and how she’d been reluctant to take anything from him.
The first night they’d been together, she’d gone down on him.
Not now.
Now, he was going to give to her. And he was going to make damn sure she liked it.
He gripped her hips, kissing a line down to her collarbone, to that sweet, vulnerable curve just above her nipple, and then he sucked her in deep, gratified when she gasped and grabbed hold of his hair.
“That’s right,” he murmured against her skin, “you like that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“To think. All this time I didn’t know my best friend had such sensitive nipples.”
“Doesn’t come up in polite conversation,” she gasped.
“Then we need to have less polite conversations.”
He reached down then, undoing her belt buckle, unbuttoning her jeans and drawing the zipper down slowly. Then he got on his knees in front of her, gripping the fabric of her jeans and her panties and pulling both down her legs, shoving them to the side and leaving himself eye level with those curls he had made declarations about earlier in the day.
She was beautiful. More beautiful than he had imagined she might be. He wanted... He wanted her. With such ferocity it jarred him. Wanted to taste her deeper than he thought possible, wanted to sink inside of her and lose himself completely. Wanted to forget that there was anything outside of this barn, outside of the two of them.
Life would be simpler if it could just be this.
Or at least, it would feel better. A hell of a lot better.
He tightened his hold on her hips, moving his hands around slightly to cup her ass. She was lean, and she was toned, his Kaylee, but there was more to grab on to of her backside. It was softer than the rest of her. And he liked that. He liked it a lot.
He leaned forward, inhaling deeply before sliding his tongue through her folds, moving his hand up to part those lips so that he could examine her the way that he wanted to. She was everything. Everything he had wanted her to be. Everything he had needed her to be. And then some.
He didn’t think he could match that. He hoped he could do even half of that for her now. Even if it was only sex. Only pleasure.
While he tasted her he was never not fully aware that it was Kaylee. His Kaylee. Naked and wet beneath his mouth, making small noises of pleasure as he flicked his tongue over her clit. As he pushed his fingers inside of her and dragged another release from her beautiful core. As her pleasure coated his mouth, his finger.
He had never gotten quite so much pleasure from lavishing attention on a woman. Because no woman had ever mattered quite this much. He cared about Kaylee. And each sound she made wasn’t just one of pleasure. It was Kaylee feeling good. Kaylee feeling beautiful. Feeling wanted.
All the things he’d always wanted for her, but now he was the one giving them to her. He had given her that feeling of being wanted as best he could as a friend. But this was more. She let him be more. Do more.
And selfish or not, she was beautiful, and he had his face buried between her legs. And that was pleasure all on its own. It had him hard as iron, ready to explode.
After her climax he kept on at it, teasing her with his tongue, his fingers, until she begged him to stop. But he didn’t stop.
“Bennett,” she gasped, “I can’t... I can’t.”
“You sure as hell can,” he growled, gripping her hips and pinning her firmly against the wall so that she couldn’t move. “Because I’m not done. And don’t you worry about whether or not you can come, I’ve got all the time in the world. And I’m just enjoying sucking on your pretty clit.”
And just like that, she came apart around his fingers again. Gasping and sobbing, twisting, as if she was trying to get away from him. But he held her steady against his mouth, stroking his tongue over her a few more times before rising to his feet.
She was panting, sweat beaded between her pretty breasts, her hair hanging lank and disheveled around her.
He was struck dumb. Seeing her like this. His friend, wilted with desire against the wall because of him.
“You take off your clothes next,” she said, seeming to find some strength, pushing herself away from the wall by an inch or so. “I didn’t get to see you either.”
“I think I can handle that.”
He pulled his T-shirt over his head, gratified by the expression of open hunger in her eyes as she regarded him. Then he began to work his belt buckle and she eyed him with pure avarice, her gaze never leaving him as he undid his zipper and consigned his clothes to the barn floor along with hers.
He collected a condom from his wallet and tore it open, rolling it on slowly as she watched. He felt her gaze on his body like a physical touch. He took pains to protect them both, his body aching with need for her.
Then he closed the distance between them, working his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head and kissing her fiercely as he brought her back up against the wall. She flexed her hips against him and he gripped her thigh with one hand, lifting her leg and draping it over his hip as he positioned himself at her slick entrance and thrust in deep.
She gasped, her eyes fluttering closed, her head falling back, and those delicate, familiar lips parted gently.
He withdrew slowly, before thrusting back in, watching as that lovely, familiar face responded to him being inside of her.
Kaylee.
There was no denying this was happening. No convenient cover of darkness to blunt it all. Last night, it had felt strange and muted, hot as hell, for sure. But there had been some protection in it. None now. It sliced into him deep. Now, it was all her turning him on. Not sex, not a female touch. But Kaylee. Only and always Kaylee.
He lost himself in the rhythm they established together, in the breathy sighs she made as her arousal began to amp up again. In the way her tight, wet body tightened itself around him.
If he died in this moment, he would die a damned happy man, that was for sure. With Kaylee’s fingernails digging into his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his waist as he pounded them both into oblivion.
Wyatt was right. Not seeing her like this before... It had been an effort on his part. And now that he had dropped his guard, now that he had given up on seeing her as anything other than this...his friend who was beautiful. His friend who he wanted, he couldn’t imagine ever not wanting her.
That was need. And need terrified the hell out of him. Need was something he had tried so very hard not to feel. But it was sweet right now. Sweet as hell. In a very literal sense. All fire and brimstone and torture, but also something he couldn’t stop. Something he couldn’t quit. An addiction, one so good he never wanted to be clean.
He wanted to be dirty. With her.
Pleasure gathered at the base of his spine, electric and undeniable. It was like fire building inside of him. One that was going to rage out of control at any moment. One that might consume him completely. That need again. That thing he had known would be a raging, destructive thing. And it was. It was. But he was ready to jump feetfirst into it.
He lost his hold on his control, letting go completely, igniting and bringing Kaylee along with him.
If they were going to burn, at least they were burning together.
They clung to each other, his orgasm taking them over completely, a feral growl on his lips as he let it all go completely.
He kissed her one last time, pulling them away from the wall and walking her over to a cabinet on the far end of the barn. He opened up the cabinet and with one arm pulled out a couple of blankets, clutching them and Kaylee to his chest and heading into one of the empty stalls. He tossed the blankets down onto the ground.
“Gotta put you down for a second, sweetheart,” he said.
He did, and she stood there, looking at him, one arm beneath her breasts, her hand gripping her other arm just above the elbow. She looked...lost and a little bit vulnerable, and he wasn’t used to Kaylee looking that way. It had been like that after the first time they were together, and he had completely messed it up. He wasn’t going to do that this time.
He didn’t want to disappoint her. He never wanted to be responsible for the kind of pain he’d seen on her face earlier today. For the pain he’d heard in her voice when she’d told him that story about her past.
He wanted more. More than just a quick turn up against the wall.
He spread a blanket out over the clean shavings on the floor of the stall that would provide them with some cushion, then he picked her back up, laying her down on the flannel.
“Cozy,” she said as he unfolded the other blanket and unfurled it over the top of her, letting it catch air as it drifted down over her curves.
“It’ll do,” he said, getting beneath the blanket with her and pulling her up against him.
They could hear the horses in their stalls, making small noises and shuffling around. Suddenly, Kaylee snickered against his shoulder.
“What?”
“I was just thinking... This is pretty fitting for us. Considering our lives are bonded over the fact that we take care of animals. But the only thing that’s missing is Beatrix Leighton coming in with a box of raccoons.”
“It was only one raccoon,” he said. “And if she came in now, she wouldn’t get any help from me.”
Kaylee looked mock horrified. “But what about your oath to protect and serve?”
“I didn’t take an oath for raccoons.”
“You’re unfeeling, Bennett Dodge.”
“I feel plenty,” he said, slipping his hand between her legs and stroking her until she tried to wiggle away, then gave in, going pliant under his touch.
“That’s not what I meant,” she protested.
“I have more condoms in my wallet,” he said.
“Well, that is handy. It’s almost as if you were planning this.”
“I was,” he said unrepentantly.
“Good. I was hoping you would say that.”
He kissed her again, drawing her curves up against his body. It felt right. She felt right.
And the plan right now was to do this until it stopped feeling right.
As plans went, it wasn’t the best one. But if it meant having Kaylee in his arms, then it was the plan he was going to go with.