Rough Ride (13 page)

Flora lifted the magazine to hide her face. “I think we’re moving just fast enough. Send him something back.”

“But he hasn’t responded yet.”

“I know. Hurry. Tell him what you want to do after getting his pants unzipped.”

“Pretty sure that’s obvious.”

“Do it,” Flora hissed.

Gretchen slid open her full keyboard and typed fast as she could.
Then I’d reach in your possibly blue underwear and pull your cock out. I’d be on my knees.
She didn’t dare type more and hit send before he could respond.

Moments later, Lane’s phone landed on the floor again. She grinned and took that as a sign to keep going. In the few days they’d been together, that was one place she hadn’t gone yet. Not for a lack of trying, but urgent need for more had always overruled. Clearly she was going to have to fix that. As he was picking up his phone, she typed off another response.

Would there be a silky drop on the tip? I hope so. That’d be a good reason for me to lick.

She looked up and his hot gaze pierced through her from across the room. She returned to her keyboard and continued on.
To pull the width of you between my lips. Press my tongue against the velvet soft firm length of your erection and suck you to the back of my throat until I can’t take in more. The rest of you I’d wrap in my fist. I can feel your hands in my hair. You hardly ever go there, but this time you’re pulling, tugging at my hair.

She hit send and looked up just in time to see Jacob pluck the phone from Lane’s fingers. Feeling completely drained out of her face. “Oh, my God.”

Flora glanced up from her magazine. “What’d he say?”

She could only point. Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Lane stood up and reached for the phone, but Jacob spun, cuddled the phone close as he tapped on the screen. The boys wrestled around.

Flora groaned. “Dumbass.” She pulled out her phone, hit a few numbers and music trilled through the room.

Grant was hissing at them both to quit acting like kids before they got kicked out. Jacob danced around, dodged chairs and managed his phone out of his pocket and to his ear.

Flora tapped her foot on the ground and muttered in the phone. “If you ever expect to have sex with me again, give that phone back right now.”

Jacob stopped, his gaze met Flora’s and that was all the chance Lane needed. He plucked the phone out of Jacob’s hand and stuffed it in his pocket. He turned away and relief hit Gretchen. But not for long because there was no mistaking the bulge against Lane’s zipper as he quickly sat. Flora lowered hers, ended her call and returned to her magazine.

The tight breath trapped in Gretchen’s lungs slid out, but no sooner did the tension in her shoulders release than a nurse walked in to check on things. They all moved in the hall to give Rebecca privacy and settled in chairs in the waiting room.

Chapter
Fifteen

Lane walked into the hospital room. Rebecca was sitting up on her bed, a bundle of pink in her arms. Rebecca looked up and smiled. “There you are, Lane. You’re next.”

“Next?”

Grant lifted the baby and before Lane could make a break for it, the seven pounds of his niece was placed in his arms. Gretchen was next to him, moving his hand to the back of the baby’s head and mumbling something about support.

And then that was it. Lane was holding his niece. Her tiny hands clutched at the fluffy blanket. The pink hat on her head was pulled low over her wrinkled face. And if that wasn’t cute enough, she yawned. Little mouth stretched wider than he could have imagined. Her legs pointed through the blanket, her toes pushed against his arms. Then she just relaxed. Her head wiggled into a comfortable looking spot and little Grace, named after his mother, slept. And if for a moment he ever thought the
Grant face
was bad, this didn’t even compare.

Lane looked up. All eyes were on him. Gretchen still stood next to him, a reassuring hand on his arm, the other she used to tuck the blanket around the infant. And they just stared, grinning. And Lane could feel it. He wanted this. So much. He wanted what he couldn’t have because he couldn’t tell them the truth and he couldn’t stay here with this weight on his shoulders. He stepped forward, handed the baby off to Grant and silently walked from the room.

Damn the land and his responsibility, Lane had to get the hell out of here. Now.

His escape wouldn’t come easy. Gretchen was behind him, her tennis shoes squeaked on the tile floor as she ran and caught up to him, but still had to maintain a near jog to keep his pace.

“Is something wrong?”

He shook his head, headed out the door. “Just need to get home.”

That didn’t slow her down. She followed him down the steps and out into the warm spring night, keeping with him. “She’s a pretty baby.”

“Yes, she is.” He hit the unlocks on his truck and before he could get around to the driver’s side, she was climbing in the passenger seat. He sat in his truck and looked at her. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

“No.”

“Then get out.”

“No.” She reached across the console and touched his arm. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” He cranked his engine and headed for home, if she wanted to tag along, fine. He reached forward, turned up the radio and drove without talking. He was nearly out of there. He just had to get home, pack and then he’d be gone. The feelings of all this family and love and newness and things he wanted more than anything else would fade. When it all faded, he’d visit.

At least this way he had the option of visiting. If he told them the truth, it might be years before they forgave him.

His brothers would be fine without him. They didn’t need him for any of the oil work. That had to be hired by outside personnel. He was just along for the cleanup and anybody could cut down a tree.

He pulled in his parking spot at home, hopped from the truck and let himself in his trailer. But he wasn’t alone. Gretchen caught him by the arm in his living room. “Lane.”

He stared at the carpet. “Leave it alone.”

“Talk to me. I don’t even know what’s going on.”

His eyes dropped closed for a moment as a churn burned through his chest. Of all, as expected, this was the hardest part of leaving. “You swore you wouldn’t do this. That when I left, you would understand and wouldn’t try keeping me here.”

Her hand fell from his arm. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes.” His arm was cold where she no longer touched. He forced himself into some movement to grab his clothes and get the hell out of there. The rest could stay. He pulled his bag from the top of the closet, turned and found her sitting on the middle of his bed.

Her brows were low over her eyes. Her face sad. “Any particular reason you’re running?”

“I’m not running. Just need to go.”

“Bullshit. If you’re going to lie, at least make it a good one.”

He emptied his dresser drawers over his bag and pushed the socks and underwear down. “I have work to do back home.”

She laughed at him. Sat right there in the middle of his bed and laughed a hallow, empty sound. “No. You’re not going because of work or because you ‘need to’. A seven pound little girl terrified you into running away in the night.”

He glanced up, but didn’t answer and just kept packing.

“Why?”

He moved into his closet, grabbed his few shirts, leaving them on the hanger and rolled them up and stuffed them in on top.

“Do you think I’m imagining that with us? That life. Me and you together, making babies. Is that why you’re running tonight?”

He stopped and froze.

“Well. I’m going to take that as a no, which is good because I wasn’t even there. With us. I know what we are.”

But he was. Or he was getting there fast. No. He
was
there. Could picture it all so easily with Gretchen. He’d known from the beginning, when he’d first seen her, what a woman like her could do to him. And she had. Not just in this last week when he’d let her in, but in the months he’d been living in this town.

He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “When momma got sick, nobody knew. Nobody knew she’d been battling breast cancer for several years. Nobody, but me.”

“Lane.” Her voice was soft and she slid close behind him.

He clasped his hands together between his knees, rested his arms on this thighs. “We were at hospice while she was…fading. And we were in the hall and Grant was mad. Furious. All of them were, because mom had hid it from us, and she went through it all alone. And there I was, and I had known. I knew the whole time, for nearly a year, that she’d been battling it. They didn’t know until a couple of weeks before she passed.”

Her chin rested on his shoulder, arms wrapped around him. “How did you know?”

“I stopped in one day. I had a month off. Vacation was built up, so I went home. Doing the son thing. Seeing if her yard needed mowing. Gutters cleaned out before the rainy season. She was in the middle of chemo and she made me swear not to tell. She didn’t want to burden them.” He opened his hands up, looking for something, but was never able to grab a hold of anything. “What was I supposed to do? She didn’t want to worry them. So I said okay. I hid it. I shouldn’t have.”

“You were only doing what she asked.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t think it through. She died and they’re still angry because they didn’t know. That’s why Grant is here, you know. Why he came at all. He hates that he didn’t know momma was sick. He thinks he would have changed his life sooner. I’ve heard them all say over and over again.
If I had only known.
Or
I wish I would have known, I would have been there.
I know they’re going to be pissed the hell off. We kept nothing from each other.
Nothing
. I just can’t stay here. The guilt is killing me.”

“You can’t keep running.”

“They’re all I have left. If I tell them, they’re going to be so mad. I can barely look at Grant now.”

She leaned forward, her lips pressed to his neck, his cheek. Her hands reached down the front of him and lifted his shirt, pulling it up and he let her pull it off. Weight pulled his arms back to his thighs as she leaned against him, wrapped her arms around him. “I bet if you gave them a chance, they’d see.”

“Then I could lose what I do have.”

The rest of his thought lingered. She no doubt knew it too, but it wasn’t voiced.
What exactly did he have to lose though?
He scrubbed over his face. There was a difference between leaving them and knowing he had a place to come back to versus them turning their backs on him forever.

If he left, he could come back. And would be able to come back to her if he couldn’t stand being away. He stroked across her arm wrapped around his chest. She was tempting to stay for, but a chance for something with one woman over three brothers…hell, it was all one big one risk and he didn’t like any of it.

He twisted around and rolled her beneath him. While he was ready to get out of here, had been waiting for this moment since he arrived, he couldn’t leave.

Not without one last time with her.

Her eyes were wide, staring up at him. Options and choices. A future and all he could dream about were lost in those dark pools. He wanted to turn her over. Take her this last time without having to look her in the face, but knew that would be a bigger regret than anything. To know he missed the way her cheeks colored. How her lips would part as breath filled her lungs against his chest as he drove into her over and over.

And then, the moment at the end. How she’d bite her lip, arch her back and this light purr would vibrate out of her throat. No, he couldn’t miss any of that. Nothing would make him miss that, not for the last time.

Call him a coward in many things, but not in this.

He pulled her shirt off. The warmth of her stomach was against his. Her legs slid along his hips and he couldn’t stand it. He wanted it, but wanted it to end. His gut churned with conflicting needs and desires. He sat back on his knees and stripped her bare to him. His clothes were gone next in record time and he reached for a condom in his nightstand when her slim hand landed on the center of his chest and stopped him.

He closed his eyes, fighting the twisting in his chest because she was stopping this. She was going to leave. He was going to get out of town and there would be no last time. It was almost enough to beg her to stay for one more time. Almost.

She stood on her knees and he braced for it. Maybe it was enough to beg. He brushed the back of his hand through her hair and tucked it behind her slim ear. “Gretchen….”

And he didn’t know what to say. Sorry? If he was too sorry, he wouldn’t be leaving. And he wasn’t sorry they’d started up. He was just, he didn’t know. Screwed up, that’s what he was. She walked to him on her knees, fingers lifted and covered his mouth, silencing anything he might have said. As if he knew what to say anyway.

She focused on her hand. Teeth raked over her lower lip. But it was the swallow she made that was so audible, it cracked through him. Then the full breath she took hurt just as much. “I promised you something earlier.”

The tips of her fingers lowered, pulling on his lower lip until her hand moved too far away, slid down his neck and over his chest. A thick swallow moved down his throat as her fingers continued their slow drag down the front of him. His length was hard, beginning to pulse and ache as she eased closer and closer.

Just the tips of her nails skated down the last of his belly and circled around the base of his cock. A small, bothersome part of him said he should probably tell her she didn’t have to. Then the tip of a single, ass-clenching nail eased up his length. His stomach bunched and landed somewhere around his throat, preventing anything but a moan to slip out.

Her small hand gripped around the top of him. A soft thumb stroked over the head and smeared the liquid that had pooled. Whether or not he should offer the chance out of it no longer mattered. As she bent forward and her pink lips parted, there was not a chance in hell he’d do anything to stop the slide of her soft lips against the heat of his cock.