Joy and Tiers (24 page)

“I know Darlin’, but I also know you’re planning to spend Christmas with Jeff and Kiera. Lucky has a thing for your shoes.”

Heather snickers at me. “Mine and everyone else’s. It’s a wonder everyone in that household doesn’t run around barefoot. Are you coming over for Christmas Dinner?”

“I don’t know. It depends on my work schedule. I may work and give the family guys some time with their kids. Will you save me some leftovers?”

“For a guy who’s doing something as sweet as that? Absolutely.”

“Don’t be too impressed, Gidget. I’m pretty low on the totem pole. Chances are, I would’ve drawn the short straw and had to work anyway.”

“Come on, Ty. I’m sure your willingness to step up counts for something.”

I shrug noncommittally. “What about your other markers? I still owe you dinner, but you also beat me fair and square at lawn bowling and video games.”

Heather peers around Velvet’s neck. “I did, didn’t I? But, you’re forgetting one.”

“What am I forgetting?” I ask, puzzled. 

“That I’m the undisputed movie trivia champ of the Northwest.” Heather teases with a wink.

“You’re right. I don’t know how that total shellacking could’ve slipped my mind,” I sigh. “Just add it to my pile of indebtedness.” I don a sad pose for effect.

“You poor baby! I’m starting to feel bad for you now. In all fairness, though, I did tell you not to bet against me when we played video games, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“As I told you before, I tend to be way too stubborn for my own good. I can only hope I’ve learned my lesson now,” I offer, apologetically.

Heather sets the ribbons down and walks around Velvet. She stops mere inches from me, removes her gloves and runs her index finger down the bridge of my nose, across my lips and down my chin. “In an uncharacteristic move, I’m going to hand the reins of my wager over to you. I still expect you to cook me a meal someday. With that understood, however, I trust you to choose the remaining rewards — or is it punishments? — as you see fit.” After her stunning pronouncement, Heather gently closes my suddenly slack jaw and seals the deal with a surprisingly hot kiss.

My body and brain immediately go to war. A bolt of white hot heat goes through my body, energizing every nerve fiber, as I briefly envision a few very carnal ways those markers might be paid off. Those images are so vivid, I have to bite back a harsh groan. I open my eyes to find Heather regarding me with a curious smirk.

“Are you all right, Cowboy?”

I nod tightly. “I’m good, why?”

Heather shakes her head as she chides, “I’m not the only one who should avoid the poker table. You can’t lie worth beans, Tyler.”

Pulling down a bale of hay, I sit down and maneuver her until she is practically sitting on my lap. “Okay, fine,” I admit with a sigh. “For the first time ever, I wish my best friend and his adorable family lived in an entirely different state and weren’t going to be here in twenty minutes. Right now, you and my feather bed are all I can think about.”

Heather’s eyes widen and she gives a small startled gasp before she blushes and asks, “Just to clarify, are you considering this a reward or punishment?” She quickly hops up and becomes preoccupied with picking bits of hay out of her sweater and off of her shapely backside. 

Trying not to lose my train of thought in light of the very fine distraction, “Unquestionably, a reward for both of us,” I answer as I guide her so she’s standing between my thighs. 

She blushes even deeper. “You’ve never seen me naked, or you might rethink that.”

Clearly words are not enough, since we’ve had this conversation several times already. I fish my cell phone from my pocket and hit redial.

“Hey Jeff, I’m glad I caught you. Do you mind if we rearrange the schedule a bit? Can you take the kids to lunch, swing by Denny’s and make us your last stop? I agree, it makes more sense this way because the kids will probably get dirty anyway. Great. We’ll see you in about four hours. Bye.”

I tuck the phone in my pocket and turn to Heather. She’s watching me in shocked silence. Finally she quietly asks, “Why did you do that?”

I reach out and take her hands in mine. I notice they’re trembling. I’m fairly certain her proximity to Velvet is not the cause. Over the last few months, she has become quite the horse aficionado. She comes over several times a week to ride and groom both Fannie and Velvet. “I’ve tried for nearly two years to get across to you that I think you are stunning, sexy, breathtaking, amazing, and a million other adjectives. Somehow, you don’t seem to think I’m talking about you. So I’m done talking. I’m going to show you.”

Heather draws in a sharp breath and her eyes mist over with tears. “You might be disappointed,” she whispers.

I squeeze her hands. “Oh God, Gidget I could
never
be disappointed in you. That fear goes both ways, you know. I left parts of my body tangled up in that eff’n IED. There are chunks of my skin missin’ that will never grow back. You might find me downright repulsive.”

Heather pulls my head down and rests her forehead against mine as she murmurs, “I guess we’re both being kind of stupid.”

“I guess the only question is whether I have to call in a marker or whether you just want to go have a hot make-out session?”

Heather scrunches up her face as if deep in thought. “Well, I guess I’m a winner either way, so I’m going to let you hold on to that marker and find another creative use for it.” 

On the way up the stairs, I pause to turn off the lights and close the Dutch door behind me, so Ethel and Annie don’t follow us, I take a moment to consider how much of what I told Heather was mere reassurance and how much of it cuts way too close to home. I haven’t had a serious relationship since before I was injured. As much as I’m ashamed to admit it, the caliber of women I was with immediately following my recovery really didn’t care one way or the other. They probably weren’t sober enough to notice I’d been injured, and I was too drunk to tell them. Fortunately, that coping mechanism didn’t last long, and I didn’t permanently revert to the idiotic college student I once was. 

I suspect this is going to be as nerve-racking for me as it is for Heather. I struggle to place my casual, fun-loving guy mask back in place. Heather is nervous enough. She doesn’t need to be nervous for two of us.

When I catch up to Heather outside my bedroom door, she looks like she’s about to face a firing squad. I brush my fingertips lightly across her shoulder and she almost jumps out of her skin. “Relax, Gidget, you seem to be forgettin’ the agenda for this afternoon is reward,” I murmur in her ear.

“So you say,” Heather replies with a shaky smile. “If that’s so true, why do I feel like I am suddenly five years old and you’re fixin’ to make me eat my mushy canned peas?”

I make a dramatic gesture as if she’s stabbed me in the heart, “Oh, I’m wounded. Not only did you cast me in a parental role, you paired me with really bad food. From you, isn’t that like the kiss of death? Should I just throw in my cards, now?”

My antics earn me a halfhearted giggle from Heather. “I don’t know, I guess it depends on how persuasive you are,” she answers me with an arched eyebrow.

Never able to let a challenge go unanswered, I scoop her up Rhett Butler style and walk her into the center of my room. Looking around the room, I try to envision it from her point of view. I’m relieved that everything looks pretty neat and tidy and there isn’t anything overtly embarrassing hanging around. 

I stand next to the bed and let Heather’s body slide slowly down mine. Even totally clothed, it’s a sensual experience. I look down at Heather’s upturned face as her eyes flutter shut. It’s a look of vulnerability she rarely lets me see. I’m so used to seeing her tough facade that this completely open, expectant expression is at once a complete turn on and scary as hell. It shows just how far we’ve come that she trusts me this much.

Threading my fingers through her hair, I work the bandanna loose that she was using to constrain her curls while working with the horses. As her curls tumble over my forearms, I catch the light scent of lemons. I smile to myself. Not many women could spend the morning working in the barn and still smell good, but somehow Heather has managed to beat the odds. “Mmm, I might skip dessert and just have you,” I comment as I bury my nose in the hair at her temple.

A quick, satisfied smile crosses her lips. “Good, I’m glad you like it. I made a whole line in lemon meringue just for you, because you said it’s your favorite. I made soap, shampoo and lotion.”

“No toothpaste?” I ask, tongue firmly in cheek.

 Her brows draw together in thought. “No, but what a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s because you’re spectacularly good at a hundred other things, and you’ve been a little too busy for product development.”

I lean down to leisurely kiss her, coaxing her mouth open with light, teasing strokes of my tongue. 

When she moans and slides her tongue next to mine, my hands tighten reflexively in her hair as desire rockets through my body. In my haste to get closer, I reach down to scoop Heather up and plop her in the middle of the bed with much less grace than intended.

“Geez Cowboy! I may look like a sack of potatoes, but it doesn’t mean you have to treat me like one,” Heather remarks as she takes an ungainly bounce in the middle of the bed.

 I have to take a deep breath and count to ten, because I don’t want this to come out wrong and upset her. 

“Heather, remember when you were a kid and you went over to someone else’s house to play? You always had to play by their rules? Well, the rules in this room are, you’re not allowed to put yourself down. You can only say positive things about yourself. I don’t even wan’t you to say cutting remarks about yourself in the form of a joke.”

“Tyler, I was just kidding. It’s no big deal,” Heather insists.

“It is to me. No one should use words to hurt you.
Especially
you. So, I want you to go out of your way to find things you like about yourself, okay?”

Swallowing hard, Heather nods. “Do you mind if I freshen up a bit?”

I can see she’s struggling to sort through her emotions. I knew before I said anything, I was walking a thin line. She doesn’t like to be bossed around, and I’m taking a huge risk of ruining any intimate mood between us. But I figure, if I’m going to lay my cards on the table, they all should be there.

“No, go right ahead. The door is on the left. There’s a cupboard under the sink with fresh towels.”

“Thanks, I’ll be right back.”

While Heather is in the restroom, I run downstairs to get a couple of glasses of iced tea and some candles from my emergency kit. Jeff’s mom brought over a poinsettia the other day, and I grab it too. I haphazardly throw it all on a TV tray and run back upstairs. I quickly unload everything onto the bedside table and stash the TV tray in the closet. Fortunately, I keep a lighter in the bedside table to melt the shoe polish I use to shine my boots for guard duty. I light the candles, recline on the bed and casually pick up a hunting magazine as if I haven’t had a little mini-workout in the last three minutes.

When Heather comes through the doorway and spots what I’ve done to the room, we just stare at each other for a moment. The corner of her mouth hitches up as she exclaims with the very southern drawl, “Why, Tyler Joseph Colton, you are just the sweetest thing ever!” Her accent is so exaggerated, I’m not sure she actually means it as a complement. But I’m going to err on the side of caution and decide that she means it. “Thank you Darlin’, I do try. You look absolutely ravishing.”

Heather looks down at her purple eyelet corset and skirt and starts to say, “This old thing—”

I raise my eyebrow and she quickly corrects herself.

“Thank you. I love this color. I think it makes my eyes look especially blue.”

I smile as I get off the bed and walk over to her. I brush her hair back from her face and tenderly kiss her luscious lips. As I pull away, I murmur, “See, that wasn’t so hard.” I take her by the hand and lead her to the bed. This time, I gently pick her up and place her in the center of the bed.

 She looks unnerved for a second, then collects herself and quips, “Oh my gosh, Tyler. If this were my bed. I don’t think I would ever want to get out. This is the softest bed I’ve ever been in.”

I grin like a kid in a candy store. “Isn’t it great? It was one of my big splurges after I came back stateside. I was tired of sleeping on government issued mattress equivalents. So, I got the biggest, baddest, most blinged out mattress I could find. You’re welcome to sleep over anytime.”

Heather turns bright red. “Well, I don’t know if I’m ready for that quite yet, but I might sneak up here for a nap.”

“How about we play it by ear?” I suggest as I pull her hair to the side and kiss her neck. She arches to give me better access. As I place a line of kisses down her jaw line, she nods.

When I feather my fingertips over her collarbones, her breath catches and as she mindlessly drives her breasts into my palms. I trace the top of her feminine corset with the pads of my thumbs. I know my fingers are calloused from all the woodworking and odd jobs I do around here, but next to her delicate skin, I’m afraid they must feel like sand paper. As she takes a deep breath, my fingers brush the soft swell of her breast. Her eyes lose their focus and her cheeks grow pink as she whispers hoarsely, “I need more.”

Heather’s stark admission stokes my desire like a five alarm fire. I fight my inner instincts to react like a freshman on his first date. “Happy to oblige Darlin’,” I murmur. Encountering a series of small hooks on the front of her corset, I’m grateful for all the time I’ve spent tying tiny fishing lures. Placing a kiss every few inches, I slowly unhook her lacy top. It is like unwrapping the best present I’d ever gotten. When I reach the halfway point, she suddenly slaps her hands over her breasts. When I search her face, I see tears gathering on her long lashes. I immediately remove my hands.

“Gidget?” I probe as I wipe away the tears. “Talk to me.”

Heather squeezes her eyes shut. Finally she opens them and takes a steadying breath. “I’m not like other women you’ve been with.”