Secrets Behind Those Eyes (15 page)

I smile and lie. “I’ve never played
poker before.”

He grins. “Well I’ll teach
you.”

~*~*~

An hour later Ryder is sitting naked
in front of me. “I think you hustled me.” He shakes his head.
“Can’t play poker my ass. Babe if you wanted to get me naked all
you had to do was say so.”

I giggle. “Yeah but it’s so much more
fun to beat you at something.”

“Are you saying I’m a sore
loser?”

I stand up and start cleaning up.
“Well you did throw your shorts at me. Then you slung your cards on
the floor.” I shrug my shoulders.

He jumps up. “Oh you are going to see
whose sore in the morning.” He runs up behind me and grabs
me.

I squeal as he throws me on the bed.
He starts to kiss my neck. “So I’m a sore loser huh?”

I nod. “Yes.” He starts tickling me
and I squeal. “Okay you aren’t a sore loser.”

“You have entirely too many clothes on
Miss Scarlet.”

I look up at him. “Oh I do? Well why
don’t you be a gentleman and help me out of them?”

He works the buttons on my shirt
slowly kissing me as each one is undone. By the time he finishes
sliding my panties down my legs he has literally kissed my entire
body. I’m so fucking wet and I think I’m going to die if he doesn’t
take me right now.

“Ryder I may explode if you don’t fuck
me right now.”

He chuckles. “Oh I plan on making you
explode, just I want it to be around my dick.”

In one swift movement he buries
himself inside me. I scream. “Oh Shit!”

He starts kissing me again slowly and
torturous. “Scarlet I love you.”

“I love you too. But if you don’t
start moving I’m going to kill you.”

He chuckles and starts moving faster.
Suddenly pulling out. I feel empty. “What the?”

He stands up at the edge of the bed
and pulls me over there by my legs. He lifts me by my legs burying
himself inside me and starts pounding harder.

“Oh shit Ryder! Harder! Oh God Oh
GOD!” I explode. Before I can think twice he flips me onto my
stomach putting my ass in the air as he slams into me again.
Grabbing my hips he pounds into me, he slaps my ass. “Oh God!!!” I
explode again at the same time he comes inside me.

We fall on the bed and he smiles at
me. “Holy shit baby that was fucking awesome.”

I giggle. “Yeah it was.” I feel the
goose bumps pop up on my body and I shiver.

“Damn it got chilly, let me throw some
more wood in the fireplace and we’ll get in bed.”

I nod, standing up pulling the
blankets back on the bed. He stokes the fire after putting some
more wood on it.

We both snuggle under the covers. I
roll over to face him. “I can’t believe you slapped me on the
ass.”

He starts laughing. “Babe your ass is
fucking hot. I just went with it and admit it you liked it you came
within’ seconds after that.”

I feel the blush creeping up on my
face. “Yeah I guess I did.”

“Scarlet. I want you to know this is
all serious for me. I know you said earlier that I’m a lot nicer
than the guy you met over the summer. I’ve never felt these things
before, I never would have dreamed that I could feel this way about
anyone.”

“I know. You know I dated Dustin for a
long time and I never felt this way. I never felt so comfortable.
You make me feel emotions I never thought I could. My dad really
screwed up my ideas on men. Maybe deep down that’s the reason I
dated Dustin for so long. I knew I would never completely fall for
him. I guess deep down I knew it would never work.”

“Baby you will never have to worry
about me walking out and leaving you.”

I feel my eyelids growing heavy. I
sigh. “I know.”

He rolls onto his back and I place my
head on his chest. Soon the soft rise and fall of his chest makes
my eyes too heavy to keep open. I feel myself drift off into a warm
sleep.

Chapter 24

Ryder

Being that it is the night before
Thanksgiving and she’s helping nana with lunch tomorrow, I’ve
talked my girl into spending tonight with me. Originally she only
agreed to Thanksgiving night because of my dad being home. After we
spent last weekend at my cabin I could go to sleep and wake up with
her every day of my life.

She’s still nervous though. Little by
little she’s shared more and more about her dad with me. He left
her really screwed up. It would be one thing if he’d be a dickhead
forever, but she says when she was small he was a great dad. He was
always out of town working they thought, now they obviously know he
was with Cade and his mom, but when he was home she was his
princess.

We are standing in my nana’s kitchen.
I’m washing collard greens and Scarlet is mixing up dressing for
tomorrow. She smiles and looks over at me. “You know this is
exciting for me. The last time I had a real family Thanksgiving I
was like seven or eight. So this is great.”

“Well I’m excited and so is my family.
Nelson and his wife Naomi are coming too, since Judd is deployed
they don’t feel like being in their house all alone.”

She nods. “I can understand that, I
miss Gable, Cade and my mom. I know it’s not the same as being
deployed but Gable and I haven’t ever been apart as long as we have
now.”

I lay the last of the greens in the
dishpan. “Well, maybe he’ll be home around Christmas.”

She shrugs. “Yeah he’s supposed to
be.” She looks sad.

She doesn’t know that I’ve talked to
Gable and they are playing a gig up in Hilton Head this weekend.
I’ve worked it out with him for us to come up and see him play. I’m
going to tell her tomorrow at dinner. It’s just about killed Gable
and I both to keep this secret. She’s missed him so much and Gable
constantly keeps in touch with me checking in on her.

I wrap my hands around her waist. “Hey
do you know how sexy you are?” I move her hair and start ravaging
her neck.

She squeals. “Stop. That
tickles.”

“Ryder, leave the girl alone she’s
trying to work. Did you get them collards washed up?”

I turn around to see nana standing
there with her cigarette in one hand and her other hand on her hip.
“Yes ma’am they’re right here in the dish pan.”

She nods. “Okay well now you can start
getting these pumpkins ready for cookin’. We ain’t got no time for
you to be playing Casanova of the damn Kitchen.” She pops my arm as
she walks out on the back porch.

Scarlet is laughing. I pop her on the
ass. “I’ll spank you for laughing at me later.”

She giggles. “Oh I’m so
scared.”

I pinch her side and she leans over
giggling. “You better be.”

“Ryder! Get your ass out here now
boy.” My nana calls out from the back porch.

Scarlet chuckles as I walk out the
back door. “Yeah Ryder get your ass out there.”

I duck my head and walk out the back
door to help nana.

~*~*~

After spending the day helping my nana
get the food prepped for tomorrow Scarlet wanted to go check on
Button. So needless to say I’m tired by the time we get in the
house. I look over to her as we sit down on the small couch in my
room to watch a movie. “I’m tired babe. I think hanging out with
you and nana today was more work than working on the farm all
day.”

“Are you saying you can’t handle two
women Mr. Abbott?”

I shudder. “Don’t say shit like
that.”

She giggles and then smiles. “Come on
I’ll draw you a bath and if you are nice I might join you.” She’s
pulling me from the couch.

“I think you deserve a bath too. I
mean you did a lot of prep work at nana’s today. By the way did I
tell you what she said to me when we were on the back
porch?”

She shakes her head as she’s filling
the tub. “No. Do I want to know?”

“She asked me when I was going to move
you in over here permanent.”

“She cracks me up. We’ve been dating
what almost three months now? Nana is ready to have me move in.
Wait did she mean get married and move in or just move in? I never
can tell with her.”

I slide down in the tub
and watch her while she undresses. “I don’t know. With Nana some
days she all
rebel without a cause
and then at times she
that’s not what a good Christian girl would
do
.”

She steps over into the tub sitting
down with her back on my chest. “She’s funny she told me today that
she couldn’t wait to see me big a pregnant in the kitchen with
you.”

I choke for a second.
“Pregnant.”

She laughs. “Yeah imagine my surprise
too. I told her that was a long time away.”

We both laugh and lay back relaxing in
the tub. It’s only later when the water gets cold that I realize we
both dozed off. I kiss her shoulder. “Babe we gotta get in bed.”
She turns on her side and mumbles something against my chest. I
kiss her forehead. “Hey beautiful come on. I need you to lean up
and then I’ll carry you.”

She finally leans up so I
can take her and myself to bed. Placing her gently on my bed I
slide in next to her and she cuddles against my chest. My heart
feels like it is going to explode.
I love
her and I really do want to go to sleep and wake up like this for
the rest of my life.

~*~*~

I hear my Nana’s voice from the porch.
She’s talking to Scarlet and Naomi while Dad, Nelson and I watch
the turkey. “I don’t know why they didn’t come up with frying
turkey’s sooner, at least this way men would’ve been helping out
longer. Give them something with fire outside and all of a sudden
cooking turns into ‘doin’ man shit.’”

I chuckle. “Nana I’d be happy to let
you take over out here if you’d like.”

“No I’m good up here. I don’t want to
get all sweaty before my company shows up.”

“Who in the hell is your company?” My
dad asks.

“Well, Mr. Beck and Mr. Fitzgerald are
going to be having dinner with us.”

“Nana really two guys at once! And you
always talked about me.”

Scarlet looks at me and points. “Ryder
it’s really none of your business. If Nana wants to invite half of
the damn town out here.”

Naomi and Nelson are both snickering
and my dad is just standing there with his hands in his pockets.
Nana looks at me with a death glare. “Ryder Abbott I am 80 years
old and I didn’t say that they were my dates. I said they were my
company. Now they are both widowers who have children that have
moved off and left here. I know that they are both sweet on me and
I can’t help that, but I’ll be damned if that stops me from feeding
them. When you get to be my age companionship and friends can be
your lifeline.”

“Name I’m sorry, it’s just weird
sometimes. Dad and I go out into town and these two old men are
sending you everything from vegetables to homemade
shine.”

“I know sweetheart, but when you get
old you like to give stuff to the people who mean the most to you.
You like to do nice things for them. I have you, your daddy, Judd,
Naomi, Nelson and now the lovely Scarlet to do things for. But
those two old men don’t have anyone but me and the rest of our
senior citizens group. So they share with all of us, they share
vegetables and moonshine with their buddies at the VFW just like
they do me.” She sits back in her rocking chair. “Now I know I’m a
catch, but really I just think they are being friendly more than
anything else.” She slaps her hand on the chair arm. “And speaking
of doing things for people that you love. Naomi I made some peanut
brittle to send to Judd.”

I shake my head. Naomi smiles. “That’s
sweet nana. I’m getting is Christmas package together now. I vacuum
sealed some cookies and banana nut bread already.”

I tilt my head up to the porch. “Momma
N. I’ve got some stuff to put in that package too. I’ll give it to
you tomorrow.”

The mood has suddenly shifted. I can
tell that everyone is thinking about Judd. I miss him so much.
Growing up without siblings he was the closest thing that I had to
one and with all the other weird shift that happened in my life
he’s always stood by me. This year will be the first Christmas that
we won’t be seeing each other.

“Ryder! Did you hear me boy?” I didn’t
realize that I’d spaced out.

“Sorry Nana I kinda zoned out for a
minute. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that when you take the
stuff to Naomi tomorrow I have some canned fruit to send
him.”

“Nana this canned fruit. It wouldn’t
happen to be homemade wine would it? You know he can get into
trouble for that.”

She sits there rocking in her chair
laughing like rules don’t apply to her. It’s according to the jars
look like actual canned fruit then he might get away with it but if
not I’ll never tell her I didn’t put it in there.

C
hapter 25