Rough (RRR #2) (5 page)

“
Those rigs are new,” he tells me, pointing into the distance, his voice is as tender as lover’s as he talks about this place that made him, that’s branded forever on his heart. “Over there is an abandoned derrick, you’ll see a lot of rusty old pump-jacks, when I was a kid my old man called ‘em grasshoppers. The coyotes come out at night, stealthy bastards, they kill calves and sheep. This land is thick with bobcats, too, you can smell their stink a mile away, their eyes glow and flash in the dark. Those hills of earth, they’re fire ant mounds, a blessing and a curse. They clean up the land faster than vultures, I’ve seen them devour an entire goat carcass in hours, a dead cow takes a few days. They’re efficient little janitors, but stay clear of them, they bite like the devil.”

He’s in his element here, part of a history as rugged an untamed as he is. We swerve onto a grass and dirt rutted path worn into the earth by truck tires, most likely, and a stunning glass and wood home rises up like a modern miracle among the rolling plains.

Traeger waits for us, leaning against a tree trunk used as a column on a low, flagstone verandah that skirts the front of the house. He’s shirtless and grinning as he rakes a hand through his shaggy, sun-bleached hair.

“Corrigan, hey asshole, where ya been? Ohhhh, I see! You’ve recaptured the heart and hand of our fair lady,” he says, stretching his long body with his hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans.

I get out of the car and stop in my tracks, and I
cannot
look away from him no matter how hard I try. His jeans hang low on his hips and they’re faded, ripped, and worn, with a gaping hole a couple of inches below the fly, and the head of his penis is clearly visible, and
large
.

“For fucks sake Traeger, your personality is showing. Isn’t that what you call that nasty thing?” Holt says, laughing. “Put some decent jeans on, Scarlet doesn’t want to see your dick, you
dick
.

“Shit, sorry ‘bout that, the fucker has a mind of its own,” he says and doesn’t move an inch, just sticks a hand down his pants and moves it to the other side, where it bulges impressively. He smiles and says, “Guess I should go wash my hands now or Scarlet will think I’m a crude country bumpkin. Come on in, grab a shot of
TNT
and I’ll show you where the leak is. I know what I’m talking about, the fucking roof is
leaking
. You build a fine house, Holt, but the fucker has a hole or some shit, you’ll see.”

We follow him inside and into the ultra-modern kitchen. I listen to their boyish banter and I just
freaking
love the sound of Holt’s deep sensuous voice. The way he draws his words out nice and slow, and anything with an ‘R’ sounds like a growl. When he says Traeger it comes out as—Trayyyyy grrrrr. He adds two or three syllables to words like ‘bay’ and ‘mare’ and ‘yes’. Yes sir, I am definitely in over my head and leading with my heart when it comes to this man.

I’m still blushing from the glimpse of Traeg’s “personality” as I rest my elbows on the island and watch Holt. He listens intently while Traeger pours shots of his all-natural, incredibly tasty tequila. Traeger is nearly as tall as Holt, and his body is a marvel, all sleek sculpted planes and angles, lean but muscled, with abs that are so ripped they’re more like a twelve-pack than a six-pack. Still, standing next to Holt he doesn’t quite measure up, but seriously, what man could?

“Show me the damn leak, I have better things to attend to,” Holt says impatiently after he licks a trail of salt from his hand, tosses back the shot, and bites into a wedge of lime. And that’s it, I’m done for, pulse racing, heart dancing a two-step in my chest, I want that tongue and those hands on ME.

“Better things, yeah I can see that,” Traeger chuckles and raises his eyebrows, cuts a sideways glance in my direction as I fan myself with a cocktail napkin. “C’mon, it’s leaking into my office, like fucking ruining every document on my desk.”

We follow him into his office and
damn!
He has this massive antique Biedermeier desk that’s not only rare, but classically cool. The entire house is a marvel of glass, wood, corrugated metal, and stone, it’s edgy, contemporary, and rustic all at once. Holt built it from the ground up with mostly recycled materials, and with his own calloused, skilled hands. I’m impressed and ready for sex, yet again.

“How the hell you created a hand-crafted, award winning tequila, turned it into a world-class commodity, and you can’t tell the difference between a leaky roof and an overflowing bathtub is beyond me,” Holt says, and heads up the stone and metal staircase with Traeger assuring him, “The fucking roof is a nightmare, it’s defective, just look at my motherfucking desk, I gotta haul it to the dump, it’s trash!”

“Uh, can you see the problem, limp-dick?” Holt asks, he’s standing over an enormous porcelain bathtub in Traeger’s bedroom and water is
everywhere
. The tub is big enough to hold at least six people and perched on the edge, barely wrapped in a monogrammed bath towel, is the red-haired veterinarian who came to Holt’s place when the horse was dying.

“Oh shit, well fuck, we might have gotten kinda rowdy. Fuck, Randa! You could at least throw some towels on the floor, are you too good to clean up this mess? On top of being Dr. Feel-good you think you’re the queen of every-fucking-thing?” Traeger says, laughing as he pulls her up and against him trapping her lips in a steamy kiss.

Holt shakes his head, mutters “degenerate moron” grabs my hand and drags me quickly out of the room, out of the house, into the car, and we’re outta there.

“Is he really a moron?” I ask, well aware that Penn has had some sleepless nights since she left Traeger in Austin.

“Traeg? Nah, he’s brilliant. His IQ is off the charts, he just thinks with the wrong head is all. Can’t blame him really, he’s a victim of fucked-up-fathering, guess it’s why he and I and the McCauley’s get along so well.”

*

“Hungry?” Holt asks once we’re at his house.

Like Traeger’s place it’s a marvelous testament to Holt’s skill as a carpenter and builder, his unerring craftsmanship and unequalled imagination for finding usefulness and beauty in unique structures. It isn’t huge but it’s stately and impressive—a grist mill built in 1878 on a tributary of the San Antonio River. The walls are eighteen inch thick limestone blocks quarried nearby and hauled to the property on mule-drawn wagons. They were painstakingly stacked three stories high on top of huge foundation stones that are so heavy they were loaded on barges and floated down river to the site. Inside, on the main floor there are no interior walls, only well-worn posts and beams, and the most beautiful stone staircase that zigzags back and forth upon itself to the far reaches of the third floor attic.

“Beauty, did you hear me? What would you like for supper?” He asks, and while I’ve been turning in slow circles, gazing in awe at this wonder he resurrected from a burnt out shell, he’s opened a bottle of cold Sauvignon Blanc, sliced a pear, and arranged cheese and a rounded loaf of sourdough bread on a dinner plate.

“Hmmm, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou,” I say, and the blood rushes to my face, my neck, as his eyes glint greener-than-green and he walks slowly toward me, big, hulking, out of this world sexy, he looks like he might lift me onto the counter and prove that sex is way better than wine or poetry.

“Ah, Omar Khayyam, I like the sound of it, and you, my beauty, are driving me wild. When I asked you to change your dress did you have to pick the shortest shorts in the history of the world? Sorry if that wasn’t romantic, did I mess up the moment?” He says as his arm slides around my waist, his hand brushes the hair from my face, and the tip of his tongue skirts across my bottom lip just long enough that I melt into his arms, and I don’t care that I’m as easily won over as the bad girl in a Soap Opera.

“Nope, the moment is just fine….” I say and he stops my words with a kiss that’s one of his specialties— slow, soft, wet, insistent, a perfect complement to his rough hands sliding under my T-shirt, up my back, unsnapping my bra….

“I’m gonna tie you up, beauty,” he says, and my heart and stomach somersault at the sheer heat of implication in his words. He exhales long and low as he steps back and peers so deeply into my eyes that I can’t imagine that anything I’m feeling is hidden from him. He smiles and his eyes narrow, and I swear every ounce of blood in my body rushes to that spot between my legs that has missed him every minute of every day for the past two months. “But not tonight, it’s been a long day. Tonight we drink wine, take a bath in the open air, and get some rest. You okay, Scarlet? You look a little pale and you’re shaking.”

“A bath outside? I
want
you to tie me up, and not like before, not just my wrists. All of me,” I say, glancing down at the evidence of his arousal. He draws in a sharp breath and pulls me against the brick wall of his chest, just where I want to be.

“My impatient girl, I love seeing you like this, pink-cheeked and panting, fucking dying for my cock,” he says without a hint of cockiness as his lips graze mine and his hands reach behind me.

My breath hitches as he lifts my hair and deftly works it into a loose braid, I’m standing with my ass against the kitchen counter and he’s so close and so tall that his cock digs into my stomach through the smooth fabric of his pants. I love the feel of him, the sight of him in his suit-pants and starched white shirt, so different from his usual jeans and cowboy attire. Sparks zing through me, cutting a lightning fast trail from my brain to my pussy.

This man is the absolute definition of confident masculinity. He knows what I want and that he can, and will, give it to me. That he can easily make me come faster and harder than a crossfire hurricane. That in the week we spent together, he took possession of my body and no matter what happens, he owns that part of me, and glory hallelujah, he is a master—
the
master of my body—in and out of bed, on every flat and non-flat surface in his house, barn, field….

“C’mon,” he says, his thumbs trace over my collarbone, my cheeks, and then he takes my hand and leads me to the far end of the house and out onto a screened porch.

“Oh my gosh! I love this,” I say and wonder how I missed this small, enchanting haven when I was here before. The screened-in porch is small, furnished only with a bent-twig porch swing and table, and an antique copper claw-foot bathtub. It faces the fork of the river that once powered the grist mill and now is only a trickling stream. A path cuts through the course grass outside and leads across the exposed rock bed of the creek. The days are lengthening as June approaches and although it’s early evening the sun has yet to slip below the horizon.

He strikes a match and lights a small lantern as I look around in wonder and pick a dog-eared book from the table.

“
All The Pretty Horses
,” I say, leafing through the book as he turns on the faucet and steam from the hot water billows into the night air as the tub fills. “I love this book, it’s one of my favorites.”

“Mine too,” he says, and taking it from me he tosses it aside and bends down to kiss me, stopping just long enough to lift my shirt over my head. “You’re my favorite, the only girl I’ve brought here to my house, the only one I want,” he says and his eyes are on fire as I fumble with the buttons on his shirt, his belt buckle, and then our hands are wild, unfastening, pushing fabric away, kicking off my shoes, his boots, in a frenzy until we stand naked and ready for what will come next.

“Why me?” I ask, shivering as he holds me at arms-length and seems to drink in the sight of my naked flesh.

“I don’t know,” he says, “it’s just the way it is, there’s something about you I can’t get free of… I don’t want to get free of you.”

I blink up at him, astonished that he’s said it so soon, that his thoughts echo my own, as he helps me over the high edge of the tub and I sink down in the perfect warmth of the water. He stands over me for a moment before he steps in and my eyes can’t find any particular place to rest as they sweep over his monumentally awesome body. This is what God intended when he created Adam, I imagine. Massive and yet elegant, tall, bronzed and broad-shouldered, tapering to a narrow waist with that perfect muscled V leading from his carved abs to his astonishingly beautiful cock. And this thought startles me—
can a penis be beautiful?!!
—and makes my cheeks blaze and my sex clench. His skin is smooth and taut over hard muscle, not a single tattoo marks him, only a few thin scars that have faded to silver slivers scattered across his chest, his arms, and the palms of his hands.

I asked him about the scars before, my fingers lingering on the straight lines cut into his palms and he brushed the question away, mumbling something about knives and bar fights and teenaged stupidity.   “Scoot forward,” he says as he grins and climbs in, settling behind me, pulling me back to rest against his chest, his erection hard and huge between us. I squirm with impatience and I want to turn and face him but he laughs and holds me still. He squirts bath gel into his hands and begins to lather my breasts as I give in and melt back into him.

“Like that?” He asks, his hands are hot and soapy, slippery as they knead and caress my breasts, nipples, down my sides to my waist, hips and when they slide between my thighs I feel like a clock wound too tightly, a bomb that could go off at any minute, ignite under his deft touch and explode into nothing but pure feeling.