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Nine
Clint
It’s been a week since I’ve had another chance to be alone with Tamara. I’m about to lose my mind being around her. I’m hard when I go to bed at night. I’m hard when I wake up in the morning. Yet, I can’t get any fucking relief. Sure, I’m a gentleman, and I want to make sure I come correct at Tamara. But damn, I’m dying over here.
First, Serenity’s limp got worse. It turns out she had a torn ligament that continued to worsen as the days went by. I was doing everything I could to save her and help her heal, but that effort had me away from home for hours on end.
The situation with Serenity got so bad, Sammy had taken to spending all his spare time in the stables with me just so we could have time together.
Tamara visited as well, but she was keeping her distance. She’d sit with Sammy as they played card games. Or she’d listen to Sammy talk about how he wanted to be a master horse breeder and trainer when he grew up. I wanted that for him, too. I’m glad he understood that this life we led was because of hard work. Yes, there was a big company behind our name, but that never stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. Nor did it stop my sister, who was now living in London and working for one of the largest banks in Europe.
Now, here I was, at the end of another long day, walking into a quiet house. Serenity was finally looking to be on the mend. I flew in one of the best rehabilitation veterinarians in the country. When he arrived, I made sure he knew it would be worth his time to help me get Serenity back where she needed to be.
“Hey stranger,” Tamara called out to me. I looked over to find her sitting on the couch, her e-reader in her hand. I don’t think she went anywhere on this property without that thing connected to her.
“Hey yourself,” I responded, walking over in her direction. “Where’s everyone else?”
She turned to me before crossing her legs. Then, patting her hand on the couch, she beckoned me over. “Come on, Desperado. Take a load off.”
I couldn’t help but smile as I sat down. She’d taken to calling me that one day after I rode up to the house on Bastian, the black stallion we’d ridden on together that first time. She claimed I looked like an old-school outlaw cowboy with my black horse, black books, dark jeans, black shirt, and black cowboy hat. The name stuck. I glanced over at her, looking fresh-faced and oh so beautiful. There were times I regretted not claiming her body in the field that day. But my more rational thoughts usually came into play. She was not a one-night stand. Tamara was going to be more to me than a temporary fling. When we came together, it would be right for both of us.
She ran her fingers over the back of my hand. “Gladys took Sammy to the movies. He’s been begging to go see that new cartoon that came out, and she took him.”
“Hmph. Is Gladys trying to get away from my dad?” I tried to ignore what was happening between my dad and Gladys. But as I thought about how he was acting, it was like he was a dog with a bone. Maybe Gladys going out with old Ernest had awakened something in my old man.
Tamara laughed before taking a sip of her drink. “Something like that. I heard her mumbling about stubborn old men who wanted things they shouldn’t. I try to just listen when she talks. I think she feels guilty.”
“Guilty about what? What are you drinking?”
She looked down at the glass in her hand. “Some of your 15-year-old whiskey. Want some?”
“I want more than that, but for now, I’ll take the whiskey.” I watched as she stood up, my dick immediately hardening at the sight of her butt encased in a pair of shorts. The jiggle drove me crazy and made me smile as I thought about that milkshake song. Yeah, weren’t no motherfuckers coming up in this yard without getting an ass full of buckshot.
When she came back and handed me the glass, her eyes were drawn to the bulge trying to break out of my jeans.
“Somebody looks happy to see me,” she quipped.
“Hell, he’d be even happier inside you, but that’s something we’ll handle later.”
A sly smile came over her lips. “Oh, yeah?”
“You bet your pretty little ass. Now, why does Gladys feel guilty?” She threw me a look as if I were asking a dumb question.
“Because she’s in love with your father. Come on, Clint. How could you not see it?”
I coughed at the liquor going down the wrong way. How does she keep on doing this? “Tamara, how the hell did you come up with that?”
She shook her head at me. “Nope. I’m not going to keep telling you things that you can’t see. You need to open your eyes and look at things differently. Isn’t this what you do for a living? Analyze all the facts, look at the behavior of the people involved, identify their weaknesses, and come up with a hypothesis? I thought that’s what you security and protection people did every day. How can you not see what’s been happening around you? Yeah, no, I’m not saying another damn word. Drink your whiskey. Gladys left a plate for you, so I’ll go warm that up while you get your wake-up call.”
I sat there silently as Tamara walked away. She was right. Analyzing situations is what I did. My ability to understand why my targets behaved in certain ways is what made me so good at my job. I’m a hunter. I stalk my prey. I look for their weaknesses and expose them to get what I want.
I thought about all that’s happened over the past two years between Gladys and my dad. The pieces of the puzzle came together. So then I went back further. Five years. Ten years. Fifteen years.
I stood so fast that my drink fell out of my hand. Glass shattered on the hardwood floors.
“Holy fuck,” I hissed. Tamara came running out of the kitchen. Eyes wide and filled with something akin to fear. I scared her, and that wasn’t my intent.
“You okay?” She looked around the room, then at me, and finally to glass on the floor. Her face lost the look of shock and turned to sadness. “You figured it out?”
