Unbreakable (12 page)

“You’re talking about my mother, Faith. She doesn’t deal with anything that inconveniences her.”

“Like you?”

“Yep. Mama’s Big Inconvenience. I should’ve had a T-shirt made.”

Then, because she wanted to know, and because she’d never heard from anyone what happened, she asked, “Do you know where your father is?”

He shook his head. “I don’t even know if he’s alive. Hell, I don’t even know if the man who was around when I was a kid
is
my father.”

“When did he leave?”

“Not long after we got here. Two of ’em had a big row one night after he came home shit-faced. He threw a wad of papers at her and said, ‘Here’s the house, you bitch. Now get the fuck outta my head.’ Never saw him again.”

“So it was your father, or…whoever he was…who owned the house?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I guess so.”

“Hmm.”

“Faith?”

She looked up.

“Why are you so interested in my house?”

“Just wondering what you might know about it,” she said with a shrug, taking a bite of steak.

“Seems to me you’d know more, being born here and all.” He finished off his potatoes. “Who lived in it before we moved to Crow Hill?”

“I don’t remember anyone ever living there, though I suppose someone could have.”

Casper shrugged. “It was empty when we got here. It needed some work, but it was livable.”

“But the work never got done.”

“Nope. And pretty soon it wasn’t worth living in.”

“But you stayed.”

A grin pulled up one corner of his mouth. “I stayed because Boone and Dax threatened to hunt me down, tie me up, and take an emasculator to my nuts if I left without a diploma.”

Gross.
“And here all this time I thought you were the troublemaker. Out of the three of y’all, I mean.”

“I’ve been known to cause a bit.”

“A bit? Is that what you call it?”

“Boone did chase me down with an ax a few weeks back.”

She gasped. “What? Why in the world?”

His forearms against the edge of the table, he leaned toward her. “Because I said something about having a thing for your ass.”

“Oh, my God,” she croaked out, her eyes going wide. “You did not.”

“I don’t remember the particulars,” he said, still grinning. “But close enough.”

“Did he hurt you?” It was a ridiculous question. Boone wouldn’t hurt a fly.

He held his arms out to the side. “Did you find any recent injuries?”

Heat spread from her chest to her neck, and it took every bit of her self-control to keep from lifting a hand to hide her reaction. Especially since her fingers had run across a lot of scars she’d wanted to ask him about. “It was dark—”

“It wasn’t
that
dark. And the fridge light lit up the kitchen like the sun. And your busy little hands would’ve found anything there was to find.”

“Busy little hands?”

He gave her a wink, then said, “I like ’em,” which had her rolling her eyes. “What?” he asked, feigning insult. “I’m being serious here. I like your hands. And I do have a thing for your ass.”

“Casper—”

“Hey,” he said. “This was before the kitchen mambo. I’m not breathing a word. I’m afraid I’ll never get in your panties again if he knows I was there in the first place.”

Honestly. She was about to give up, but first…“Here’s the thing. It was hard, really hard, on my folks when Boone left after high school.”

“What about on you?” he asked, as if only her hurt mattered.

“Me, too. I missed him. A lot.”

“You saw him, though. He came home. He told me about the family holidays. That they weren’t to be missed.”

“Seeing him two or three times a year is nothing to having him here all the time.”

“Even if you rarely see him now?”

“I’ve seen him twice this week already.” She knew what he was getting at. “But, yes, it’s fine not seeing him. Having him here is what counts.”

He sat back, head shaking, a bit of a sneer drawing at his mouth. “I don’t get that. I’ll never get that. But if it works for you…”

“It does,” she said with a nod, placing her napkin beside her plate, saddened by the truth of what Casper thought family was. “You hung with him in high school. You know what it was like around our house.”

“It was loud. That much I remember. All that yelling going on.”

“Yelling? Are you kidding me?”

“What would you call it? Using your outside voice inside?”

She laughed. “Well, yes. But I get what you’re saying. We put on a good front, but no Mitchell I know would ever claim to be reserved.”

“Is that why you wear those tight-assed suits? Proving you’re reserved and respectable?” he asked. Then he managed to drop his voice to add, “Because it’s not much of a disguise.”

“Oh, my God. You cannot have a conversation without it turning to sex, can you?”

“Sex is good. I like sex. I know sex.”

But he didn’t know families. Normal relationships. Ones built on trust and loyalty and emotions that weren’t dependent on physical intimacy to work. She gave it to him straight. “If you and I being together hurts Boone in anyway, you and I can’t be together. At all. Ever.”

“That’s kinda harsh.”

“That’s the reality. I don’t think Boone’s that uptight, but I need to put that out there. I can’t have what I’m doing with you cause trouble at the ranch so that he would think of leaving again. I can’t do that to my parents. That’s the bottom line.”

He weighed her terms, his mouth a grim line, his eyes stony beneath his furrowed brow. “Then we don’t say a word to anyone. Either of us. No Arwen. No Everly. No Dax. Deal?”

“Deal,” she said, disbelieving it would ever be that easy.

“Okay. Let’s go,” he said, getting to his feet and tossing a handful of bills on the table.

“There’s a register up front,” she said, nodding that way.

“They’ll figure it out,” he told her, taking her by the arm and guiding her to the door.

The sun was just hovering over the horizon, the heat still
stifling, but the sky a gorgeous mix of Kool-Aid orange and red. She’d kept on her suit jacket while eating—the restaurant had their a/c set to arctic—but shrugged out of it now as they crossed the hot asphalt, the sharp, pitchy scent reminding her of family trips to Six Flags and the suffocating steam that rose from the ground.

Before she could find her sunglasses in her purse, Casper pulled her between their vehicles, but instead of reaching for her door, he backed her into it, spread her legs with his knee, and reached between them, leaning to nuzzle his face to her neck. He smelled like beer and like dinner and like dried sweat from a day spent outdoors. And he was intent on having his way.

“What are you doing?” And why wasn’t she making any effort to stop him?

“If I have to explain it, then I’m obviously not doing it right,” he said, his upper body pinning hers to her car door as his hands gathered the fabric of her skirt to her hips. “And what the fuck with the pantyhose?”

“I haven’t been home from work yet.”

“Yeah, well, you need a new wardrobe,” he said, making his way behind the waistband to slide his hand into her panties, working two fingers into her pussy, using his thumb against her clit.

And then he brought his mouth to hers, his tongue finding hers, and kissed her passionately while fucking her with his hand. All she could do was hold on.

She rode his fingers, shifted her hips to grind against his palm, gripped his shoulders as if doing so was the only way she could keep from falling. She rose on her tiptoes and he rose with her, penetrating, impaling, rubbing the fly of his jeans against her hip and groaning when she rubbed back.

“This isn’t fair,” she tried to say, wondering how
fair
came out instead of
smart
or
safe
or
a good idea
.

“Don’t worry about fair,” he told her, the rhythm of his fingers increasing, the slide of his tongue along hers as intimate as it was suggestively bold. But before he pulled free, he added, “Don’t worry about anything but getting off.”

He made it sound so easy. As if sex was the only thing worth her time. And the way he took charge left her unable to think otherwise. Left her unable to do anything but feel.

He stroked her, fingered her, played her, hurt her. She gasped and clawed at his shirt and buried her face in his chest. He brought his mouth to her temple and urged her on, his words dirty and hot and entirely inappropriate for the parking lot of a restaurant known for its chicken fried steak.

Everything they were doing here was wrong, and she wanted to care, to find the Faith who was proper and appropriate and didn’t come in public places, but her body and desire had misplaced her mind, and she cried her release into the fabric of Casper’s shirt.

He brought her back slowly, easing his hand from her body but not from her clothes. It wasn’t till she heard the material rending and felt the crotch of her panties being pulled between her legs that she realized what he was doing. It took another few seconds for her to realize why.

“Now we can talk about being fair,” he said, popping his buckle and button fly and lifting his cock from his shorts, as bold as he pleased, before bunching the strips of torn cotton in his fist like a rag.

“You’re not—” was all she got out before he started to stroke.

“I am,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, his gaze piercing and hot. “Unless you want to.”

She did. God help her, she did. She held his gaze and reached for him, so thick and ready, so proud and so fierce. She cupped her palm over the plum-ripe head, stroking in a circle, tugging down, over and over as his nostrils flared, as his chest labored.

As in the distance, the restaurant door opened and customers exited, their laughter spilling into the waning light.

“People are coming.”

“Worry about me coming.”

She swallowed, nodded, fearing discovery, loving the feel of the veins bulging on the underside of his cock. She licked her lips, and he jumped in her hand, giving her a look that dared her to drop to her knees. She wanted to oh so much. To wrap her lips around him. To tongue the slit that was seeping moisture into her palm even now.

She shook her head, stroked him faster.

“Chicken,” he said, and laughed. But then he slammed his hands onto the roof of her car on either side of her and dropped his head back, his eyes screwed closed, his throat working, his pulse hammering as he tensed. Finally he grunted, grabbing her hand and holding her where he wanted her while he spilled semen into her palm.

“God
damn
,” he said, collapsing forward and resting his forehead on his forearm still on the top of her car. Then he looked over, winked, and grinned before covering her mouth with his and kissing her senseless. She kissed him back, her arms caught between their bodies while he tucked himself back inside his jeans.

It was just about then that applause erupted. Faith froze, her eyes popping open before she pulled her mouth from his. He was still grinning, the jerk, and then he reached for his hat, removed it, and took a bow.

But he never looked at their audience. He had eyes only for her.

She, on the other hand, held her cum-filled panties. And the wild look in his eyes told her he loved that she had them, and that they were the only two to know.

“I
F Y’ALL DON’T
mind, I’m going do a little work for Royce Summerlin.” Casper lifted his arms and slammed the posthole digger into the ground, his whole body vibrating with the contact. Boone and Dax looked on as he wiggled it, settled it, put a boot on top of it, and shoved it deep. Then, since neither had said a word, he added, “On my own time.”

“Own time,” Dax repeated. “You have that?”

“Sure. Same as you.” Though the truth was that none of them had any at all. Hell, they’d started working on this very holding pen weeks ago, after Massey Construction had demolished the ranch’s old bunkhouse, cutting the boys a deal for their services based on how much of the wood they were able to save.

Casper wasn’t sure if his and the boys’ delay in getting finished was due to their jam-packed schedules, needing to free up the money to buy the fence posts and boards, or guilt at having destroyed a piece of the ranch that had been so much a part
of the summers and holidays they’d spent here as teens. Hard to think that was it, except when it came to Tess and Dave, all three of them carried a soft spot.

As Casper worked the dirt from the hole, Dax rolled the next post ready to be sunk away from the pile. “And when would my own time be? Because I must’ve mixed it up with the hours I spend here or something.”

“I guess he means the time you spend with Arwen,” Boone said, using the edge of a sharpshooter to scrape the dirt from beneath Casper’s feet.

Dax snorted. “The only time I spend with Arwen is sleeping.”

Boone grunted. “If that’s all you’re doing with that woman, then I am sorry for you.”

Dax snorted again. “That’s not all I’m doing. But it would be nice to have time to do more of the other stuff.”

“Whatever you’re doing,” Casper said, getting his head back in the game and off the
stuff
he’d been doing with Faith, “that’s your free time. Just like Boone uses his for—”

“Boone doesn’t have free time,” Boone said. “Boone eats and sleeps and works. And sometimes Boone eats while he’s working and skips sleeping altogether. Boone is not a happy man.”

Were any of them? Saddled with a ranch it was getting harder and harder to love? Pinching pennies? Skimping on sleep? Facing a to-do list that grew longer by the day? Casper grunted. “Boone needs a woman.”

“Boone is not going to argue with that,” the big man said. “But right now he’s more interested in hearing about you cheating on your partners and your ranch with Summerlin and his spread.”

“I’m not cheating,” Casper said, ramming the tool another few inches into the hard-packed earth. “I just want to make some extra money.”

“Don’t we all?” Dax asked.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a chance to.” Casper handed the other man the tool when he offered to take a turn. “I ran into Royce a couple of days ago, he said he’s shorthanded, and I told him I’d come out and see what he had in mind.”