Texas Hellion (4 page)

Everything about her got to me that night, from her laugh to the way she moved her head that made her hair swing around her shoulders and down to the top of her ass. When I started envisioning fucking the shit out of Brady’s little girl from behind while pulling on her mane, I knew my ass was in deep.

That night when I left I was more confused than ever before. She was the same precocious young girl I knew, but tonight I’d seen a woman, or the potential of one. And what I’d seen I’d wanted, no doubt about it. I had a hard dick and a full sac to prove it, not to mention a stomach full of disgust. She was just a kid for fuck sake, legal but young. Not to mention she was my best friend’s little girl, no way I could soil her.

I’d spent the rest of that night kicking myself for my wayward thoughts, giving myself the hundred and one reasons why I was a son of a bitch for even thinking the things that were running through my head. I stayed up with a bottle until the early morning hours, and by the time I dragged myself off to bed I was still no closer to an answer. I think I knew even then that that shit wasn’t going to hold up forever.

After that day it seemed she was always there, always in my vision somehow. I couldn’t go anywhere without seeing her, and even though she never said anything, I got the feeling there was something going on with her too. It was in the way she looked at me now. Gone was the toothy grin; in its place was a look that had me running scared.

If I’d been thinking, I would’ve known that things would come to a head one day. I felt the heat in those looks, knew what was growing inside me for her. I should’ve known that running would only work for so long, we lived next door to each other for crap sake. Her parents and I had grown rather close in the seven years I’d been here. That only made the situation worst, I was betraying them in my mind. Then that day I’d caught her skinny dipping on my land I’d almost said to hell with it and jumped right in with her and let nature take its course.

Now here I am in the middle of my worse nightmare. She wasn’t underage any longer, but too much time had passed, we’d both gone on with our lives. She’d been about to marry another man in a few days for heaven’s sake, water under the bridge. But somehow none of that seemed to matter anymore. I could give it one last try for her sake, try to keep myself on that leash, but I could feel the wolf straining inside and once he was loose there was no holding back.

GRANT

Of course no one was there when we reached her house and I wasn’t too sure about leaving her on her own. “Why is everybody gone?”

“They were given the time off to get ready for the wedding. Since daddy and mama weren’t here and I didn’t need them I told them they could go.”

“And your daddy approved that, leaving you alone in the house like that?” She gave me a scathing look and I guess I was the new scapegoat for her anger, good luck with that. “I don’t need a babysitter, I’m twenty-three not two.” Yeah you’re grown alright, keep reminding me of that shit and see where it gets you. Damn Grant.

“Never said you did. Okay, so no one’s here and I’m not leaving you alone. I can’t trust you with anyone else right now, because you’d run circles around them, so I guess you’re coming home with me.” Shit, I’ve done everything in my power to keep her out of my home all these years. Except for a rare party here and there or a backyard BBQ, which her parents as my neighbors and friends were usually invited to and brought her along, I’ve kept her visits there to a minimum.

It was because of her that I wasn’t as social as I’d have liked to be in the last few years. As if it weren’t bad enough when she was a teen and had to go wherever her parents did, she was now the town’s best event planner. It wouldn’t look good if I were to throw a shindig and not hire my good friend and neighbor’s baby girl to handle the particulars. Tongues would start wagging for sure then, and I had no answers to any of the questions that might crop up.

“Don’t you have one of your floozies warming your bed? How did daddy get you out there to rescue me anyway? Aren’t you usually too busy to get involved with anything that isn’t wearing a skirt or a bikini string up her ass?” This was the other reason I steered clear of her, her damn mouth. For some reason once she’d come home from college a little over a year ago, it has been open season on yours truly. I’m not sure what set her off, but one day out of the blue she’d let me know what she thought of me, and my lifestyle and none of it was good.

I’d been too pissed then to see what was really going on, but now I had a sneaky suspicion that the hellcat was harboring some secrets of her own. No woman ripped into a man like that about what went on in his bed, unless she was one of two things. A, mad that she wasn’t the one warming it, or B, mad that she had been kicked out. Back then I was so used to her damn mouth that I just chalked it up to one of her spells, now I wasn’t so sure. For now I decided not to call her on her bullshit, there was way too much tension in my truck as it was.

“You’re welcome, I just saved your ungrateful ass from jail time because if you had killed them, not even your grandpa would’ve been able to spin it.” She huffed and folded her arms while looking out the window. “It was mitigating circumstances, weren’t a jury anywhere in this state that won’t see it my way.” I’m sure she believed that shit.

“Spoilt little…” I broke off before I said more than I meant to as I turned the truck around in her family’s driveway and headed next door to mine. Though we were next door to each other, it wasn’t as if we were right on top of each other. There were still a good few acres between us on one side, but our land abutted each other in back for miles. Between the two of us, her daddy and I owned more than half the town in landmass.

I had to practically drag her from the truck once we stopped, because she was being a pain in the ass. “Would you quit acting the brat?” She had stiffened up on me, forcing me to lift her and take her up the stairs to my door. “I didn’t ask to be here so if you want me here you can damn well do all the work.” I wonder how she’d like it if I tapped her on that nose of hers that she was so fond of putting in the air. “Get inside.”

Once inside she kept her nose in the air and refused the seat I offered her on the bar stool in the kitchen. “What’s your problem now?” I need a drink. One hour in her presence and already I was ready to chew nails. “I’ve seen the caliber of female you bring home, at the risk of catching the latest social infection I think I’ll remain standing thank you very much.”

“This little…” I damn near bit my tongue in half to keep it zipped. She was just trying to get under my skin because her life was fucked right about now. I wasn’t about to play into her little diva game though, I’m nine years her senior, I know better. Maybe what Ms. Camille needed was a good fucking to calm her little ass down, but I’m sure if I mentioned it she’d run screaming for bloody murder.

“Suit yourself, I take that to mean you don’t want anything to eat or drink either.” I reached in the fridge for the makings of a sandwich. Her daddy had called me just around dinnertime and I hate heated up pot roast and potatoes, so the next best thing was a sandwich. I ignored her as I set about getting myself something to eat.

“I’ll have bottled water, that ought to be safe enough.” If her damn nose got any higher she’d smell the roof. I ignored her and left her to get her own water while I built my sandwich. Under cover of my lashes I noticed that there were no tear tracks on her face. If there had been any she’d cleaned them up already and I don’t see how she could’ve done that unless she’d stopped in the middle of her shooting spree to take care of it.

Her face I did notice, was set in very severe lines, like she was beyond pissed, and I knew it had nothing to do with our little skirmish. From the set of her mouth and the tension in her shoulders, I knew my little Hothouse flower was working with a full head of steam. Her fists were balled up tight and from the way she glowered out the back window I knew she hadn’t really calmed down. Still there were no tears, not even a hint of moisture in her eyes.

That told me two things, one, she was more pissed than hurt, and two, she wasn’t done with her shit. I could only hope that her daddy would show up soon and take her off my hands because this was so not my problem. On top of that my dick has been rubbing painfully against my thigh ever since I saw her in that clearing looking like a throwback to Annie get your gun. Nothing like a woman in lace and satin handling a gun.

***

CAMI

I knew he was watching my every move so I had to keep myself together. Today has been one for the books and this was all I needed to round things off. Why had daddy chosen to send him of all people after me anyway? It’s not like he didn’t have a town full of friends to choose from to do the job. Grant Colfax is about the last person I wanted to see while my life was spinning out of control.

He was always so smug and condescending, always looking down his nose at me. That’s when he wasn’t treating me like a spoilt little brat that was more pest than welcomed neighbor. I’ve been steering clear of him for the past few years, ever since I realized that my body did weird things when in his presence.

It hadn’t even been a gradual buildup; just out of the blue one day, he and daddy were having one of their usual powwows when it happened. For a hot second I’d thought I’d wet myself. I was mortified until I realized what had actually happened and then I was even more horrified.

He didn’t even know I existed I was sure, and that made it harder to accept what I had come to learn the last year of high school; that I was unequivocally in love with the jackass. Instead of the great hoorah all high school seniors look forward to in their senior year, I had spent mine in misery. The only thing that had kept me sane was finals and exams, and all the running around to find the perfect college.

Whenever I let myself think my mind would turn to him. It had got so I was afraid to close my eyes because all I saw was him. That year I had avoided him like the plague, until the night of my eighteenth birthday party. I thought for sure I was going to make a fool of myself that night. The words were burning a hole in my tongue, but thank goodness I had enough self- preservation to keep my mouth shut.

He’d been so handsome that night, more than any other time that I could remember, and it had hurt just to look at him. It was the way that the older women there, women his age, had vied for his attention that had awakened me to how futile my infantile feelings for him were. Those women were more beautiful, more sophisticated and of course old enough to deal with a man like Grant.

Although I had this newfound lust for him, I was very aware that he was way more man than I could handle. I’d heard the rumors of his prowess just like everyone else I guess. I’d also seen him out in the fields and working with the animals. There were times when seeing him bent over the creek that ran through his land had left me breathless and twitchy. I knew all about hormones by then, and was well aware that while the boys at school were bending over backwards to get my attention, I had no interest in anyone but him. The only problem was he’d never see me as anything other than my daddy’s daughter.

Then the day down by the creek when he’d rode up on me I’d played around with the idea of just letting him know, but then his attitude had squelched that idea but good. There was no doubt that he wasn’t interested, he’d treated me like a misbehaving child and nothing at all like a desirable woman.

I’d grown a shell then when I realized that there was nothing to be done about my attraction. I’d also started a one-woman campaign to keep him from ever guessing my secret. He must’ve thought I was stark raving nuts when I started giving him shit every chance I got. He was always the cool one though, never once taking the bait no matter what was said. It had got so bad that I’d started manufacturing excuses not to be in the same air space as him, for fear of going too far one day.

He was the reason I had pushed Joel into getting married. Since I’d been back home from school, the attraction had grown worse. I had ran out of insults and any other cute little anecdote I could come up with once in his company to keep anyone from finding out my secret.

The last time we were at a social gathering together I had come way too close to letting the cat out of the bag, when he had shown up with that mealy mouthed trollop Marcy Cane, the woman I’d overheard my parents discussing. It galled me that she was my age, and that I’d disliked her since high school because she’d always fancied herself in some sort of competition with me after mama cut our friendship short. It was then I knew I had to do something or become the laughing stock of the town.

Joel was safe. We’ve known each other since kindergarten for heavens sake, and I knew I could count on him to be there for me. It wouldn’t be the marriage of the decade, but I was sure we could make each other happy. We liked a lot of the same things, like long drives on a Sunday afternoon, picnics down by the river and old repeats of Paul Newman movies in the theater.

He hadn’t balked when I’d proposed to him; in fact he’d seemed very receptive to the idea. Then again he’s always on board with whatever I had planned. I refuse to believe that he would’ve said yes to spending the rest of his life with me if he didn’t really mean it. Now this farce; the whole town knows that I have been made the fool, and it was all Grant’s stupid fault.

“Whatever evil you’ve got running through your head that has put that look on your face, you can forget it. I’m not that boy you bullied into marrying you, you mess with me I’ll hit back.”

“How dare you.” Just as always, my breathing went off the rails and I wasn’t sure which side was up. It never fails, just a few minutes in his presence and I’m postal. “I didn’t bully anyone into anything you jackass, and what do you know about it anyway? I’ll have you know that I can have any number of suitors vying for my hand if I wanted. I would think that you would have some sympathy for my plight as any true gentleman would.” I was close to tears and spitting mad. If I could just smash his face in for being stupid it would go a long way to making me feel better I’m sure.

“You’re a spoilt little brat who thinks daddy’s money can get her anything her little heart desires you mean. I’m sure you think that I along with the rest of the county should feel bad for you, but I don’t. Anyone with a lick of sense could see that you were mismatched.

You’ve been leading that poor sap around by the nose since you were kids, and only heaven knows what led you to think marriage was the next step. No doubt you browbeat him into it the way you do everything else.

So no, I don’t feel bad for you, I feel bad for the sap who’s had the bad sense to get caught in your web. The only thing I hold against him is that he wasn’t man enough to tell you, and instead made a muck of things, but I could imagine that someone as weak willed as him was no match for the likes of you. Now I suggest you calm the hell down and stay put until your daddy comes home because I’m not in the mood for any more of your bullshit tonight. Sorry you didn’t get your way this time princess, but the world does not revolve around you.”

I will not let him get to me. It took all my willpower not to crumble in front of him. Is that what he really thought of me? And here I was all these years acting the part, being careful not to give away too much; well fuck this. “Why don’t you go fu…?”

“Uh-uh-uh, you finish that sentence little girl and I will do something your daddy shoulda done a long time ago. Now sit your ass down and be quiet if you don’t have anything nice to say. Better yet why don’t you sit there and think of all the reasons why what you did tonight was wrong.”

I hate that smug know it all look on his face; it would be oh so very satisfying to wipe it clean off. “You know what, I think I’ll walk back over to my place, I can’t stand to be around you for another minute.” I slammed the half empty bottle of water down on the counter top and headed for the door. If he thought for one minute I was going to hang around here after all that then he was dumber than a bag a hammers.