Flash Bang (10 page)

He grasped his cock in his fist as he pictured Rowan’s tempting mouth. She’d been so sweet when she’d finally opened for him. After he’d gotten an eyeful of all that creamy, soft skin in the shower, and had his hands on that amazing rack, all he’d wanted to do was corner her under the spray, push her to her knees, and grip the back of her head while he fed his cock into her hot mouth. And that was before he’d even gotten a taste of her. He would have urged her to take him deeper, to suck harder and swallow him down. Graham groaned as he stroked his cock, gripping it hard. He pictured that dark mass of curls falling across her face as she took him deep, until he bumped the back of her throat. The image of her looking up at him from beneath those dark lashes had his balls drawing up to the base of his cock. He could imagine the look in her dark brown eyes as he fucked her mouth and emptied himself down her throat. The sparks of need shot down his spine, and his balls ached. Two more strokes ... and Graham let go, groaning as he came.

Bracing himself with one hand against the cold tile wall, Graham let the warm water run over him, washing away his fantasy, but leaving him still hard. With the image of Ro on her knees before him embedded in his brain, he’d be hard for a while.

He finished up his shower and shut off the water before walking out of the shower room to snag a towel out of the end locker. He rubbed himself dry, grabbed the shirt he’d changed into after Ro’s shower mishap had soaked his last one, and then pulled out clean gray boxer briefs, black sweatpants, and socks. The clean laundry was courtesy of Allison, and he needed to thank her again for all that she did for them. Jonah’s wife looked after their whole motley crew, and she was an angel for doing it.

Graham dressed as he contemplated the next hurdle—how to let Rowan know she wasn’t going anywhere in the morning, and if they could help it, anytime for the foreseeable future. She was going to be furious. Graham couldn’t help but smile at the thought of seeing her all riled up again. Damn, she was beautiful when she was pissed.

Rowan awoke slowly, feeling a large source of heat at her back. A large, human source of heat. One that had a thick arm wrapped around her stomach and the hard ridge of an erection pressed between her ass cheeks. She assumed it was Graham, but the fact that she wasn’t entirely sure made her slut radar spring to life again. Whatever. He was the one who put her in his bed. He just hadn’t mentioned they’d be sharing. But it was early, and she was going to roll with it. She tried to move away, but the arm tightened around her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Graham’s voice rumbled from behind her, sounding scratchy with sleep.

Okay. One mystery solved. On to the next.

“Why are you in bed with me?”

“You’re in my bed. Where else would I be? I sure as hell wasn’t sleeping on the couch or bunking with Zach.”

“I could have slept on the couch.”

“I wanted you in my bed.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Graham smoothed her hair. It must have been all up in his face.

“Could you, I don’t know, maybe let me go? I really need to use the facilities.”

“I like you here. I wouldn’t have pegged you for the cuddling type, but I’d have been wrong.”

“I can’t be held accountable for whatever I did while I was unconscious.” Ro tried to wiggle away, but all she succeeded in doing was rubbing her ass repeatedly over his dick.

“Sweetheart. You might want to stop squirming so much, or we’re going to be getting to know each other a whole hell of a lot better in a few seconds.”

Ro froze. And then elbowed him in the gut.
Hard
. Graham cursed.

“Jesus, woman, your elbows are lethal. What was that for?”

“I have to pee, and you need to keep it in your pants.”

Graham released her, and Ro slid to the edge of the bed, only to be stopped by his hand on her arm.

“You aren’t getting out of this bed without help. So just hold it for two seconds. You don’t even know where the bathroom is.”

Fair point, but Ro wasn’t about to admit that.

“Where is it? I can hop there. I hopped all the way to the clinic last night. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Ro was yanked back onto the bed, and Graham was on top of her in an instant.

“I wouldn’t be bringing that up if I were you. Not unless you want me to turn your ass red for that stunt.”

“Duly noted, now get off me before you squash my bladder.”

Graham rolled off her and swept her up into his arms.
Again
. But Ro figured she was lucky he wasn’t tossing her over his shoulder.

He walked to a door on the right side of the room that Ro hadn’t yet noticed. He knocked on it, but when there was no answer, he opened it and carefully lowered her to the floor. She steadied herself with a hand on the counter and asked, “Where does the other door go?” Ro nodded to the door on the opposite side of the bathroom.

“Zach’s room.”

“He lives here, too?”

“We’ve lived together for a long time. It made sense to do the same here. We’ve all doubled up in the cabins.”

“Okay, thanks. You can go.”

“Holler when you’re done. Don’t even think about trying to walk on that ankle, woman.”

Ro huffed, and he left.

She quickly took care of business in what appeared to be a composting toilet.
What hadn’t they thought of?
She hurried to pull her sweats up, not thrilled about the idea of Zach barging in and seeing her on the toilet. Not a sexy pose.

Wait. Why did she care if Zach thought she was sexy?
She tried to tell herself that the errant thought was an anomaly, but she didn’t like to lie, especially not first thing in the morning. It set the wrong tone for the day.

Ro hopped toward the door and opened it, finding Graham waiting on the other side.

As he leaned down to pick her up again, he said, “You don’t listen real well, do you?”

“Oh, I listen. I just still do whatever the hell I want. Thought you’d figured that out by now.”

She was a sassy one, Zach thought, as he met Graham and Rowan in the front room.

“You sick of being carried around yet?” he asked.

“I don’t do meek and helpless very well,” she replied, smiling.

“How about a ride instead?” he offered, making the motions to show that he meant a piggyback ride.

Zach caught Graham’s glare, but focused on Rowan instead.

“Ummm ... sure. Might as well mix it up.”

Zach figured she’d go for it, if for no other reason than to needle Graham. He crouched down in front of where Graham held her in his arms and felt her climb on. Graham didn’t say a word in protest, just made sure she was settled before he let her go. Graham was a good man; one of the very best he’d ever known. And even Graham had to realize Rowan needed to be comfortable with both of them if she were to ever get on board with the plan that was collectively percolating in their brains.

“Hold on tight, sugar. Let’s go get some grub.” She gripped him around the shoulders and neck tighter and wrapped her legs around his waist. He turned to throw a triumphant look at Graham, but Graham was just shaking his head, as if to say,
you tricky son of a bitch.
Which would be well deserved, because Zach was a tricky SOB.

As they headed out of the cabin, he pointed out some of the various buildings to her.

“Over there is the bathhouse, which you saw last night.” He gestured off to the right. “And beyond that, closer to the outside wall, is the greenhouse and the livestock barn.”

He could feel Rowan craning her head for a better look. “We can check it out after breakfast, if you’d like.”

She didn’t respond. “You nodding back there? I can’t hear your head rattle.”

“That’d be fine. What kind of livestock do you keep?”

“A small herd of dairy goats and chickens, mainly. There are a few pigs in a pen just outside the walls, but those won’t be around much longer. It’s almost butchering time. And then there’s the deer.”

“Deer?”

“We’ve got about eighty total. We were just gearing up for hunting season when the grid went down. Another few days and we would have had hunting parties bunking here, too.”

“Hunting season? That doesn’t start until October first. Right?” Ro asked.

Zach slowed and turned his head so he could see her. “This is a whitetail deer ranch, sweetheart. We breed ‘em. They hunt ‘em. And we sell assorted deer products to places like Cabela’s and Gander Mountain.”

He could see the comprehension dawning in her expressive brown eyes, followed by confusion. “That explains the fence, but this place looks like Rambo’s summer camp, not a hoity-toity place for rich guys to stand around and shoot a deer without having to work at it.”

Graham paused beside them.

“That’s not really our style. My uncle prided himself on offering prize bucks in challenging hunts. We’ve continued the tradition. The people who come here, they come expecting to
hunt
. Not to sightsee and shoot their allotted deer. And we only allow bow hunting. No rifles.”

Ro’s surprise was clear. Her lush mouth had dropped open into a tempting little O that he wanted to do very bad things to. It wasn’t lost on Zach that Graham’s stare was just as stuck on her pouty lips.

“Ask your questions, doll,” Zach said.

“Okay, so you said something about your uncle? Does he live here, too?”

The lust in Graham’s eyes died a quick death. Even after five years, Jerry’s passing was still a subject Graham avoided. Zach didn’t blame him. Jerry had been the only family Graham had ever been able to count on. Hell, besides Graham and the team, Jerry had been the only person that Zach had been able to count on after he’d enlisted. But that was an even darker subject that he didn’t want to contemplate if he could avoid it.

Zach took pity on Graham and stepped in to answer the question. “Graham’s Uncle Jerry has been gone about five years now. We all miss him. He’d let us crash here when we were on leave. Put us to work.”

Ro nodded, as though she was processing that information.

“And the Rambo summer camp look? I can’t picture rich guys coming to rough it here.”

Zach smiled. “We cater to the serious hunters. Not the executives out for a weekend jaunt. The people we draw are more concerned about the quality of our bucks and our terrain.”

Graham finally joined the conversation again. “And this place was a summer camp at one time. It went out of business in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s because it wasn’t on a lake and couldn’t offer watersports like so many others. Uncle Jerry bought it in the late ‘70s and slowly bought up all the land around it that he could and converted it into a whitetail hunting preserve.”

“That’s kind of incredible. Did you spend a lot of time here growing up?”

Zach could tell Graham was uncomfortable with the question, but surprisingly, he answered anyway.

“Ten years. Right up until I enlisted.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize your parents lived here, too.”

Zach cringed.

“My parents were out of the picture by then. It was just Jerry and me.”

Ro’s questions ceased, and an awkward silence descended.

They’d been standing in front of the mess hall for the last five minutes while Rowan asked her questions and scoped out the place. Time to move on.

“Let’s get you some food,” Zach said, reaching for the door.