Chapter 4
Janey
I barely make it through the door before laughing. It bubbles out of me so fast, I don’t have time to cover my mouth and smother it.
My body is sore and used, but so pleasure-saturated I feel like I’m walking through warm water.
The Fletcher brothers’ truck splutters to life outside, and tires crunch over the dirt as they pull out of the ranch. This won’t be the last time I see them, but it feels like the end. I’m already trying to avoid thinking about how awkward it will be when we come together over another function. A wedding, maybe. A christening. Another birthday. We’re connected by friends and family in a way that makes our continued association inevitable, and I guess we’re going to have to find a way to handle it like the adults we are.
I close the door a little too carefully, leaning back against it for a second, letting out a slow breath.
Well.
That happened.
My fingers lift to my lips without thinking, pressing lightly, searching for the echo of their kisses. Heat follows the thought immediately, low and unwelcome now they’re no longer around to satiate it.
“Janey?”
I jerk slightly, dropping my hand as Joelle’s voice floats down the hall.
“In here,” I call, aiming for normal and missing by a mile.
She appears a second later, barefoot, with her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing one of Wade’s or Caleb’s shirts. It swamps her almost to the knees. Her eyes land on me and narrow slightly.
“Oh,” she says.
That’s it.
Justoh.
I cross my arms instinctively. “What?”
She takes a step closer, studying my face like she’s reading a message written there in big, obvious letters.
Just had the filthiest sex ever recorded on planet earth in your barn.
“You look…” she tilts her head, considering “…different.”
“Different how?”
Her mouth curves. “Flushed. Slightly dazed.”
I feel the heat climb my neck again, fast and unstoppable. “I slept.”
“Mm-hmm. Your chin looks like it’s been sanded and you have straw in your hair.”
There is no point pretending with Joelle. There never has been. Especially when the evidence is right in front of herface.
I exhale, dragging a hand through my hair, finding more than one strand of hay. “Okay, fine.”
Her eyebrows lift immediately. “Fine?”
“I might have…” I hesitate, then push through it. “Stayed in the barn.”
“In the barn?”
“Yes.”
