Unbreakable (22 page)

“The money. Where’d you get it?” he asked, because that was what was bugging him most of all.

She crossed to the old six-burner stove Massey Construction would be hauling off next week and picked up one of the broken grates. “That’s my business.”

“We’re in this business together. Fifty-fifty, remember?”

“The business of putting your house back together,” she said, dropping the grate back in place. It clanked, and the clank
echoed, and then she said, “Not the business of my bank account.”

Casper was quiet for a long moment, wanting to let it go but unable to. The woman was an enigma, straight-laced yet bound in secrets, and he couldn’t figure her out. “I don’t think you earn enough to have put aside that much in savings. And you don’t seem like the type to have taken a risk on the market, even when the market wasn’t shit.”

She said nothing, just made her slow way around the kitchen, which was now empty of trash.

“And if it was an inheritance, I’d think Boone would’ve come into some money, too, and I know that didn’t happen unless he’s holding out on me and Dax.”

She shot him a glance. “Boone would never do that.”

“Exactly. Which is why I’m pretty sure you didn’t inherit your fortune.”

“It wasn’t an inheritance. And it’s not a fortune.”

Then they had different ideas of what made one. “You’re writing four- and five-figure checks like picking up a penny from the pavement.”

“Then it’s a wee little bitty one,” she said, holding a thumb and index finger a half-inch apart.

“If that’s the case, it shouldn’t be such a big deal to tell me about it,” he said, and then he waited, because he was all out of arguments and wasting his time.

She circled the kitchen island, braced her forearms against it on the opposite side, and looked across the room at him. “What are you doing about Clay?”

And here we go with the change of subject.
“What about Clay?”

“Have you let the authorities in New Mexico know he’s here and safe?”

“Not yet,” he said, holding her gaze.

A dark brow went up. “Why not?”

“I still need to talk to Greg.”

“Greg Barrett?”

He nodded. “I want to know what options are out there.”

“Options for what? And why not Darcy?”

“Options for Clay. And because I don’t want her involved. She’s Dax’s sister.” He huffed and crossed his arms. “I know how sisters worry about the trouble their brothers get into.”

She stuck out her tongue at that. “Are you thinking of having Clay stay here? Permanently?”

“I don’t know. Would it be so bad if he did?”

“Would he live with you? In the house?”

“I live at the ranch. And there’s plenty of room for him there. Plenty of chores, too.”

“Hold on.” She lifted a finger. “I’ll get back to Clay in a minute.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, but it was a pipe dream like most of his others.

“After all the work and money we’re putting into this place, you’re not going to live here?”

“Why would I?”

“Because…Look at it, Casper. Why wouldn’t you want to live here?”

He didn’t need to look at it. He knew every square inch by heart. “It’s a near thirty-minute drive to the ranch. I work at the ranch. Living there means I roll out of bed and into the barn or onto a horse. It’s easy. The house there is comfortable. This place…” He knocked his knuckles against the countertop beside him that was chipped and cracked and ready to be replaced. “This place is going to be too much. I’d have to worry about what I might carry in on the soles of my boots.”

“You leave your boots on the back porch of the ranch house now. I’ve seen them out there. I’ve
smelled
them out there.”

His boots were only part of it. “If I live here, I have to pay more for gas for my truck. And there’s no way I can afford to cool this place. Even if I broke horses for the rest of my life.”

“You don’t have to break them now. I’m paying for the house.”

“I’m paying to feed and clothe a fourteen-year-old boy.”

“That’s temporary.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he said, defensiveness seeping into his words.

She straightened and crossed her arms, mirroring him. The kitchen island was a sea between them. “I didn’t think you were serious.”

“I don’t know that I am. Not yet. But I do know I’m not going to just throw him back to the wolves if there’s something better for him out there.”

“You think that something better is you?” she asked, her voice soft, but still doubting, as if she didn’t believe he could be a parent. Didn’t believe in him.

He took a deep breath, scrubbed at his face. “I said I don’t know. I haven’t had a lot of time to let it settle. Or to see how he fits in.”

“If you’re thinking about custody, it can’t be about him fitting in. It has to be about him. Period. He’s not a toy. Or a dog. You can’t change your mind and ask for a refund.”

“You don’t think I know that?” he yelled, his voice echoing, coming back, repeating in his ears. “And I would never change my mind about a dog.”

“Good. Because even if he’ll be a legal adult in four years, if you take him on now, if you give him what no one else will, the ties you make will last a lifetime.”

He didn’t need to hear this. He couldn’t think for the hard knot in his throat choking him. He didn’t know shit about being a father figure, but he did know he couldn’t turn his back on this boy.

“Are we done here?”

“With some things, yeah.”

God fucking damn. He pointed a finger at her. “You keep hassling me about Clay, I’ll keep digging for the truth about your money.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

This woman. She, not a heart attack, not any bucking bronc or bull, was going to send him to an early grave.

“Are you going to drive me back for my car?” she asked, reaching for her purse.

“I could. Or we could stay here,” he said, done arguing, done thinking, done digging into her truth and his soul.

“Here?”

He came to her, hooked an arm around her neck, and brought her close. “A lot more private than the ranch.”

“A lot less comfortable, too.”

“Maybe. But I’ve never done it in my own house,” he said, dropping his gaze to the front of her blouse and the army of buttons keeping her safe. “Wouldn’t take us but a couple of weeks to christen all the rooms.”

“A couple of weeks?” She blew out a skeptical breath. “You can go that many times a night?”

“I say you try me.”

“That may work in your fantasy, but not in my reality. I wouldn’t be able to walk. I might not even be able to sit.”

He moved his fingers to the first of the buttons. “That leaves flat on your back, my favorite position. Except for being flat on mine.”

“I thought your favorite position was any way you could get it.”

“And here I didn’t think you knew me at all.”

“I know you better than you realize.”

“That so,” he said, freeing more of her buttons and slipping a hand into the cup of her bra.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“I should hope so.”

“You’re trying to distract me.”

“Am I?”

Her eyes drifted shut. Her head lolled to the side. “You don’t want me pointing out all the ways I know you.”

“That’s because the only one I care about is you knowing what to do with my cock,” he said, bending to pull her nipple into his mouth, sucking on her, licking his way around her pebbled areola.

She groaned, leaned into him. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything, sweetheart.”

“I get wet when you do that. And when I’m wet I can’t wait for you to fuck me.”

He laughed and licked harder. He couldn’t remember ever hearing Faith Mitchell utter the word fuck. “I’ve gotta get me one of those margaritas.”

“I’m a total lightweight,” she said, pushing off his hat and scraping her nails through his buzzed hair. “I couldn’t make heads or tails of Cruz’s invoice.”

“Sounds like a really good time to take advantage of you,” he said, his cock twitching, thickening, growing long in his shorts.

“I agree,” she said. “But not in the kitchen. We did the kitchen at the ranch house. And the bathroom at the saloon. And the parking lot at the cafe. And both our bedrooms.”

“Your choice, sweetheart,” he said, though the last thing he
wanted to do was move. He was happy where he was, her tit in his mouth, her hands letting him know she liked having him there.

Or she seemed to be liking it until she pushed him away. “The ballroom. The middle of the ballroom. Right beneath the spot where the chandelier will hang.”

First he was hearing about a chandelier, but he didn’t argue. He didn’t even stop to snatch his hat from the kitchen floor, but let her pull him down the house’s long center hallway and into the first-floor’s grand room. This room held no memories. This room had remained empty and unused the years he’d lived here. This room wouldn’t strangle the air from his lungs the moment he shoved himself into her.

He might talk big about doing her in every space, but the truth was a different animal. There were some corners, some closets, some hidden crannies where he wouldn’t be able to get it up, not with a thousand whores’ mouths trying.

But Faith didn’t have to know any of that. And thinking about those places now was about the dumbest thing he could do—especially with the woman in front of him wet and waiting.

While Faith stared up at the high ceiling and held her arms out to her sides, he jerked his T-shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. His boots followed, then his jeans. He yanked his belt from the loops to get the buckle out of the way, laying the denim on the floor, the cotton shirt on top, doing what he could to create padding between bones and hard wood.

Coming up behind her in his socks and his shorts, he slid her jacket from her shoulders, added it to the makeshift bed. Next came her blouse, and while he got rid of her skirt, she did the same with her pantyhose. When he started to strip away her underthings, she stopped him.

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

And then she backed away, her eyes wide and teasing, her mouth silently laughing. She spun, dropped to her hands and knees on his pallet, gave a toss of her hair and a look over her shoulder.

God
damn
the woman was hot. Her ass all up in the air like an offering. Her tits dangling as she moved from her hands to her elbows, wiggling her backside and inviting him in, the fabric of her panties hiding little and showing off the rest.

He was out of his shorts and on his knees, his cock sprung before he’d even taken a breath. He tugged her panties down her thighs, released the clasp of her bra to free her tits. He braced one hand on the small of her back, gripped his shaft with the other, and guided himself into her cunt, nearly losing his mind as he did.

She was right about being wet, and it was a damn good thing. She was so hot and so tight he had to work his way in, spreading her juices with the head of his cock before driving himself to the hilt. Once there, he stopped, his hands at her hips, his hips flush to hers, and let his head fall back on his shoulders.

He stayed there, throbbing, pulsing, his balls drawing hard into his body, his ass clenching as he held on to his load. This was crazy insane, the way she stripped away his control. The way she crooked a finger or wiggled her ass and he dropped what he was doing to pant after her.
And
he didn’t even care, didn’t try to stop himself. He just followed his dick, mindless.

She did this to him. Faith. No woman before had looked into him and demanded so much from him and seen past his walls. She wormed and dug, and he gave it up. Around her, his resistance was gone. One of these days he’d looked into why, but for now all that mattered was fucking her, losing himself in her, giving her what her ass was begging for.

He ground against her, scooting the pallet of clothing a
couple of inches before anchoring it with his knees. Faith gasped, pushed herself flush to his groin. He clenched his thighs, his buttocks, his fingers on her hips, and began to thrust, slamming against her again and again, the flesh-on-flesh slaps like gunshots in the big empty room.

Each time he hit bottom, she grunted. Each time he pulled back, she moaned. She moved her forehead to one wrist, and he felt her other hand at her pussy, playing with her clit, playing with him. He pumped, squeezed his eyes closed, pumped, opened them, pumped, knew there was no way he was going to last, and let go.

She came up on her hands when he stiffened behind her, grinding her hips in a wicked figure eight and tugging him in all the right ways. He shuddered, grunted, then felt her contractions begin to flutter before she tossed back her head and cried out.

They collapsed together, Faith on the pallet, he on the floor that had been recently cleaned, yet still smelled of mildew and rot. He nudged her to move off his clothes. “C’mon, sleeping beauty. You’re going to turn into a pumpkin.”

Smiling, she rolled toward him, wrapped her arms around him, stared into his eyes. “You’re mixing up your fairy tales, cowboy.”

“That’s because I don’t know a damn thing about making dreams come true,” he said more bitterly than he’d intended, and then he kicked himself when she let him go and the light went out in her eyes.

F
AITH WAS LOATH
to get up the next morning, rolling against Casper to absorb his warmth, to smell the musk of him, to feel the dip in the bed from his weight, his skin that in certain places was just as soft as hers, but in others was dusted with coarse hair and baked by the sun.

It was nice having him here. Comfortable. Comforting. And that was strange since she’d never felt uncomfortable here at all.

She’d been sleeping in this room since returning to Crow Hill after college. She’d changed out her mattress once, her furniture a couple of times, and her decor a half dozen until settling on the current look that made her think of sweet magnolias and a summer breeze.

It didn’t exactly fit with the hacienda-themed complex, but with the cane ceiling fan stirring the air and the gauze panels hanging from her canopy, she could shed the stress of her banking career and relax.