In no time at all, my climactic event is back on track. Today will be a good day. It doesn’t matter if I present as a professional woman or the wild child I was in my teens, he understands. I don’t want oaths of fidelity or to hear three stupid little words. We do this, then we’re done. . . until the need grows too strong for me to ignore once more.
Striving to keep my mind in the game, I raise my ass off the bed then rock my hips back and forth. My climax threatens to shatter when a buzzing sensation vibrates my clit. My tongue thickens as my mouth falls open. I’m moaning on repeat, the tingling in my core building and growing until it reaches the point of detonation. . .
Then it’s all brutally stripped away.
“Regan, are you home?”
My eyes pop open as I throw down the flare of my skirt. As Weston raps his knuckles on my cabin door, I dump my Mister 5000 vibrator on the table next to my sticky mattress then yank up my panties. I’m equally peeved and grateful. Peeved I didn’t get to finish. Grateful Weston wasn’t thirty seconds later. If he were, he would have heard me climaxing—if I was lucky.
More times than not, the wave in my core builds and builds and builds, but it never travels further than the crest. My body is punishing me. For what, I don’t know. It’s been this way for months now. Some may say Alex is the cause of my inability to climax. I refuse to give him the satisfaction. Perhaps I cashed in too many climax tickets during my promiscuous teen years, and now I’ve been rationed to make sure I use them more diligently?
What?It’s better than my first excuse.
After checking my face in the mirror to ensure I’m presentable, I fling open my front door. My cabin is small, meaning only four steps were taken between my bed and the entranceway. It’s more a studio apartment than a cabin, but it’s mine, it’s cozy, and it’s full to the brim with the latest and greatest satellite internet money can buy. I haven’t missed a second of city life while hunkering down from a storm in the middle of nowhere.
The frustration on my face eases when I spot Weston’s broad grin. He’s a handsome man the same age as me—a very ripe twenty-seven years. He has creamy white skin, dark shaggy locks, and a grin that proves the dimples in his cheeks are the only thing cutesy about him. He’s a devil wrapped up in a boy next door package, and the man my mind should have been summoning during my quest for orgasm instead of the one it kept straying to.
After a huff to announce my irritation at my third thought of Alex in less than an hour, I shift my focus to Weston. “Hey. Another stray cow?”
I exchange my sky-high stilettos for gumboots before joining him under the awning. After one of my designer babies was ruined by a runaway calf last week, I should change my clothes. Alas, hungry baby cows are anything but patient.
“Where was he last spotted?”
I stop scanning the rugged landscape of my family ranch when Weston advises, “I’m not here about a cow. You have a visitor.”
A lump lodges in my throat from the way he says “visitor.” We don’t have visitors around these parts. Everyone knows everyone. There are no strangers amongst family.
Smiling to hide my grimace, my eyes drift in the direction Weston nudged his head. It’s late in the afternoon, meaning I have to shelter my eyes from the low-hanging sun. I shouldn’t, though, because the rays burning my eyes give me the perfect excuse for their sudden moisture when I spot Alex standing next to Weston’s truck.
He looks different from the last time I saw him. More refined. Superior.Traitorous.His beard is gone. I’d like to act surprised, but I’m not. He only grew facial hair to hide who he was. Once the truth came out, he had no reason to keep it.
Air puffs out of my nose when my eyes drop to the suit he’s wearing. It’s still cheap and poorly made, but the way it fits his body, it won’t have any woman within a five-mile radius taking notice of its quality—except me. I’m stronger than him. Worthier.
I swallow the lump in my throat when my eyes return to his face. He noticed my scan of his body. His chest sits higher now, his smirk more genuine. He thinks I was checking him out. I wasn’t. I was just confirming that my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me as it has many times the past five months.
I was also verifying if the removal of his beard coincided with the return of his wedding ring. His finger still sits empty, although I no longer accept that as confirmation on a man’s marital status. He fooled me once. He fooled me twice. He’ll never fool me again.
“Why did you bring him here?” I ask, returning my focus to Weston.
“Because I told him to.”
This voice doesn’t belong to Weston. It came from my left. Weston is standing on my right. I don’t need to turn toward the voice to know who it came from, but I do.
My dad is standing at the foot of my cabin. He’s wearing his beloved jeans and wide-brimmed hat. His boots are dirty, and his brows are furled, but it is the caution in his eyes causing my biggest concern.
I’ve only seen him wear this look twice before. Once was the night I arrived home after Luca’s accident, acting oblivious about what had happened. The second was a little over two months ago. He went on a trip—that raised my first alarm. Unless a family member has died, my dad never leaves the farm. He did that week. He left for three whole days. He was different when he returned, more withdrawn and moody. I would have pressed the issue if I had half a grasp on my own problems.
By the time I felt up to confronting him, his moods had righted as well. Since I didn’t want to bring up old issues, I swept it under the rug. It’s how I operate lately. Forgetting is easier than deciding if the good times truly did outweigh the bad.
“I don’t have anything to say to him,” I inform my dad, speaking as if Alex isn’t present. “So tell him to turn around and go home.”To his wife. To his daughters. To a life that never included me.
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t morally obligated to be here.”
There’s that thick, deep timbre that invades my dreams every night. The one that keeps me awake when I should be sleeping and doesn’t fade even after running for two hours straight.
“The Bureau requested I do this to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.”
Of course he’s here for them. How stupid of me to think otherwise.
