DEFIANT (A WESTERN BAD BOY ROMANCE) (12 page)

C
lif doesn't hit
the lights as he carries me to my room. He’s so powerful and strong; I love the way I feel in his arms, light as a feather. We're both still dripping wet when he sets me down in bed.

And then we're wrapped in warm blankets and each other. Clif pushes into me again as I enclose my legs around him. His massive member throbs inside as he takes what he wants boldly and without regard. I've never felt this desired before, this turned on.

His muscular arms cinch around me, drawing me close. I can feel every hard muscle pressed against me as he takes me. I've been fantasizing about this for so long, and now it feels even better than I dreamed.

"
Oh, fuck. Katie.
" Clif's cock never relents, taking me higher and higher. I can feel his strength when he picks me up by the waist and places me right where he wants me. He pushes my legs up and back, big hands gripping my thighs like they're nothing.

"
Clif.
" I press a hand against his chest. God, this feels so good. So right.

I don't give a shit about commitments, about plans anymore. I just want it to feel like this! Forever!

When we finally come I feel all the tension, all the stress of the past few months evaporate. I'm breathing so hard I can't even speak. How he can make me feel like this is nothing short of magic! Clif's fingers trace over my skin as he kisses me softly. It's a rush that leaves me tingling.

This is all I want.

I'm not going to tell him how he thrilled me, how he obliterated all my pent-up frustrations in ten hot minutes. He pulls me in and holds me.

I can feel him watching over me as I lay there, my back pressed against him. I can't remember ever feeling this secure. It's the last thought I have before falling asleep.

T
he following morning
I check my phone first thing and see that we slept through a text from Vince saying it’s ok to return to Jackson. We board the plane at 7am sharp.

During the flight I feel like talking, but Clif is tied to something on his laptop; probably some final notes or directives from Vince regarding the attorney general’s investigation. I decide to watch the clouds and mountains far below instead.

I ponder the enigmatic Clif Jackson. I’ve got so many questions for him. The way he kissed and held me last night felt like so much more than lust. I know he likes me—what’s going on in that head of his?

I rub Clif's leg with my foot. He looks up and flashes a quick smile before returning to work.

A
t long last
, a day off. And boy do I need it.

It’s actually nice not having to respond to the dirty texts and selfies anymore during my free time. And moreover, since deleting them on sight, my concentration has actually improved.

Before, I'd been scrolling through them for opportunities, planning out my days and nights, living from moment to moment and barely giving tomorrow a second thought. Now I'm content to just sit on the couch and relax a little, drink in hand. If this is growing up, then I'm starting to be okay with it. And after getting back from our emergency in Coal Butte a little over a week ago now, I’ve definitely been feeling more rested.

Now my only problem is that I’ve got one thing on my mind and one thing only: Katie. I've given my heart to someone, and nobody knows but it me. It’s difficult holding something like that in, keeping it all to oneself.

Could there possibly be a future with her? And what would it even look like?

We're from different worlds. I know she doesn't feel the same way about me. Hell, we're probably doomed to drift apart. Or be miserable together forever. Or maybe I'm just a pessimist about women.

Hell, I
know
I'm a pessimist when it comes to women. Or else I'd have found one by now. Can’t say I haven’t had lots of opportunities, shit, like ordering takeout.

Honestly, I'm happy things turned out the way they did, otherwise I would have never fallen for Katie. Even if she leaves for California in only two more weeks and we will never be together, oh well, nothing wrong with that—the whole experience was certainly an eye opener. She can certainly do better than me, that's for sure.

In the remaining few days we have left together, if the only thing I accomplish is be my best self for her, then so be it. It will be worth it.

No use thinking about this any more. I need to go for a ski. Need to unwind. Need to reset. Looks like a beautiful day out there.

Downing the rest of my coffee, I get up and start gathering my ski gear together when the doorbell rings.

Opening the door I immediately feel sick. Katie looks like she’s been crying. Her eyes are red and puffy. Her nose is red too. I open the door wide. “Hey. What’s going on?“

"I just wanted to talk."

"Sure." Without delay she falls into my chest. I pull her in, feeling protective. I bring her over to the couch, my heart beating fast. “What's wrong?"

She shakes her head and just sits there.

I want to hold her, tell her everything is going to be ok, but I don't know what's appropriate.

Finally she speaks: "It's my dad. His condition has worsened again. They were considering bypass surgery, but now he's too weak and the doctor's don't want to risk it. He's on the transplant list, but they keep telling me it's going to be a year before he gets a heart. And then what? Half the time it doesn't take, and the patient dies anyway. I've been trying to get him on a new drug from Europe, but so far, insurance won't pay. It's his only hope. Why can't they just give it to him? Why do I have to fight so hard?" She begins to cry.

I hold her and rock her, saying nothing.

She sobs, “I miss him all day, every day. And I pray for him every night. Everything I do, I do for him. I took this job so I could pay for his care. Everything is for him. I don’t want him to die."

I hug her tight and let her cry. I would give away everything I own to make her stop crying if I could. My heart is crushed. I've never seen Katie defeated like this. She's always so strong, so self-assured, and it tears me to shreds to see her falling apart.

She deserves so much better than what life is handing her right now. All I can do is hold her and rock her gently.

After a long while she stops crying. "What about you?" she sniffs, wiping tears from her cheeks. "Do you have any family? You and Vince grew up on a ranch together, right? You haven't told me a thing about yourself."

And just like that, I'm stumped. It hits me that I've literally never had this conversation with anyone ever before.

Sure, I've got a few close friends in Jackson, but it's always been easy for me to steer clear of the past when we talk. Friendships are a dime a dozen when everyone wants a piece of your fame and money. The funny thing is, I thought I was being open with my life plastered all over Facebook and Instagram.

"Well?" she prods, peering up into my face.

"Sorry. Just thinking."

I'm hoping she won't push the issue. But she's looking at me like she wants me to continue. Why does she care? Why does it even matter?

"My uncle Robert is Vince's dad. He more or less raised me. And before that..." I stop myself. Do I really want to lay myself bare? Do I really want to go here? Now?

I pause for solid minute.

Yes. Yes I do. It’s about time. When Katie returns to California she'll know more about me than anyone except Vince. I trust her. I know for certain she's got a heart of gold.

"My dad was a deadbeat. He'd come home drunk almost every night, and he was always out of work, couldn’t hold a job for much longer than a month or two at a time. He finally left when I was seven, when my mom was pregnant with my younger sister. Things got even harder after he left."

"Why? What happened after that?"

“Lots. I hardly know where to begin. My mom started drinking shortly after giving birth to Sara, my sister. Things were hard on her, you know, being a single mother and all. And let’s just say I didn’t help matters either. I was unruly and rambunctious, mouthed off when it wasn’t called for, the usual shit kids pull when they know they’re the ones with the power. Anyway, she got a new boyfriend maybe a year or two later. He wasn’t much better than my dad when it came to drinking and an inability to hold a job.”

“Oh my God, I had no idea!” Katie marvels. “And all this time I assumed you were just another spoiled brat.” Her eyes are dry now, and I’ve got her full, undivided attention.

I continue: “Yeah, so, like I said, the new boyfriend was a total fucking douche. He would even bring women home when my mom was away at work. I hated his guts, and he knew it. He would beat me some, especially when he was drunk. Thank God he never touched Sara, I would’ve taken an axe to his head. Anyway, one day, maybe a year later, my dad shows up, totally out of the blue. I’m probably nine or ten at the time. Long story short, he beats the shit out of my mom’s boyfriend and manages to give her a pretty good thrashing in the process. Cops are called, my dad goes to prison, my mom takes off with Sara. In the meantime—”

“Wait. What? What do you mean your mom took off? She just up and left you?”

“Yeah. Well like I said, I was a little shit and—“

She cuts me off. “But you were only ten!”

“Yeah.”

She stares at me, totally stunned. After a brief pause she drapes her arms around me and starts to cry again. “Holy shit. You were abandoned at ten.” She weeps a little more before asking, “Then what?”

“Well, after a few days the food started getting low and—“

“Oh my God,” she wails, pulling away and gawking at me incredulously. “Can this story get any worse?!”

I resume. “The food started getting low, so I put two and two together and realized she probably wasn’t coming back, at least not anytime soon. So when the food finally ran out I hiked several miles to my uncle Robert’s place.”

“What the hell did he think about the situation?”

“He actually took it in stride. I remember him saying to me then that he felt it was only matter of time before something like this would happen. He took me in, no questions asked.”

This was all quite the revelation for Katie, I could tell, practically inconceivable in her book. After letting the story sink in for a minute, she asked, “But your uncle Robert, he didn’t just leave it like that, did he? I mean, didn’t he try to find your mother or anything? Try to reunite you with your sister?”

“No. Uncle Robert is my dad’s brother. They never did get along. Uncle Robert was a hard working man, a rancher, honest to a fault, demanded order and discipline, the opposite of my dad. If you knew Robert, you would understand why Vince is the way he is. No, when I showed up on his doorstep, he simply took me in. He didn’t want anything to do with my lazy, incompetent parents, and didn’t want to waste his valuable time dealing with the drama. His whole attitude towards life was, ‘Never look back; just keep moving forward.’”

“But, but what about his wife, your aunt? How did she feel about a mother deserting her child?”

“She died shortly after Vince was born. A rare autoimmune disorder, I think.”

“Oh,” she says flatly, somewhat embarrassed. Things are slowly falling in place in her mind, I can tell.

“Yeah, probably where he got the whole ‘moving forward’ mantra. I mean, shit, like he told us growing up, you can hold yourself back by fretting about the past, or just say fuck it and just try to keep moving forward. No use tormenting yourself on things you can’t change. I think I’ve incorporated that into my life pretty well.”

Her eyes look sad. “You…you can’t bury your hurt like that, though…it’s not healthy.”

“I don’t consider it burying anything. I consider it moving on. Again, Robert was a hard man, he didn’t accept any sniveling or whining. He made us work, and work we did. We didn’t have time to cry about our losses. And honestly, I think it was the healthiest thing we could have done for ourselves. I found a sort of peace doing work on the ranch and driving cattle. It was my education. Vince's dad was a demanding son of a bitch, but he was wise enough to give me the time and space to work it all out."

"And have you worked it all out?"

“It is what it is,” I say, brushing it off. “Can’t do anything about it.”

I don't want to meet Katie's eyes. She doesn't need to know
everything
about me—my past shouldn’t be her burden. And I don't want her, or anyone else, to treat me differently. After all that I’ve been through it makes me sick to think I could ever stoop so low as to look for someone's worthless sympathy. I've fought hard to rise above my broken background, and I’ll be goddamned if I ever sink into some sort of woe-is-me self-pity.

Katie doesn't say a word. She kneels on the couch and kisses my forehead tenderly.

"So after growing up on the ranch, what came next?

"Vince’s dad died from emphysema when I was nineteen. Shortly after his funeral I moved out to California, did whatever work I could find. Hung out with the wrong crowd, you could say, drinking and drugs. Nothing crazier than what your typical young adult goes through. Started surfing. I quit when the party scene on the beach got too out of control. A real estate developer out of Sacramento by the name of Glen gave me my first real job, and I wound up being a pretty good businessman. Just had the knack for reading people and making deals, I guess. And I could outwork anybody after my grueling years on the ranch. I speculated on real estate and made a small fortune for myself. Bought three houses with financial assistance from Glen, and sold them right before the market collapsed; I could tell it was going to happen. When Vince found out about my success he hired me on as partner, made me a deal I couldn’t refuse. So, here I am, back in Wyoming. Been here roughly two years."

And that’s my story, or at least what I’m willing to reveal at this time. It feels like I've laid myself bare, but I know I'm merely scratching the surface.

Katie rubs her temples and closes her eyes. "Do you have any aspirin?”

I get her two aspirin and a glass of water.

Then she looks at me as if she’s analyzing me, trying to deconstruct my brain. I don’t like it. I have never told anyone any of the things I just revealed to her, and I’m feeling a little uncomfortable, a little put on the spot.

She moves an inch away and takes a cross-legged seat, facing me. Then, mercifully, she goes into a long description about her own life that lasts for hours. I’m awfully glad the spotlight is off me.

She recounts her middle-class upbringing in southern California, about her father's sales job. They moved a lot. He was a good man, but women never stuck around for some reason. She tells me all about his girlfriends, who was her favorite, her least liked, the prettiest, and so on. She talks about her moods, activities she enjoys, things that matter and things that don't. About losing her virginity when she was a college freshman. About her father's health getting worse when she was in high school. About missing dances, driving her father to dialysis the week after she got her learner's permit. About growing up and feeling like she was watching life from the sidelines.

The hours slip away. The sun goes down and one thing leads to another. We have sex on the couch, and afterwards realize we haven’t eaten all day and are starving. Finding only three beers and a hot dog in the refrigerator, we naturally order Chinese take-out. Katie resolves to watch a movie, but then falls asleep halfway through.

I turn the TV down and hope I'll fall asleep too, with her in my arms.

But I can't.

Because the whole time I'm holding her I keep thinking it's too good to be true.