because it’s your way of brightening other people’s day too, and most of all, how your breath gets a little shallow when I get too close and you get nervous. Like now.”
She takes a deep breath, forcing air down into her lungs, but it’s too late. I already saw those little pants she was making. I’m not too close to her physically, but I’m too close to her truth, and that’s an itchy-irritable feeling to let someone that close, this fast.
Even though it’s not the real issue, I’m willing to give her an inch for now, so I step back. Her hands stay pressed to my chest, though at her own doing, and I hope that she doesn’t want to lose contact fully.
“You’re intense. You know that, right?” she whispers, as if that’s supposed to be a newsflash to me.
“Been told that a time or two. Never mattered till now. Too much?” I dare to ask.
Her bottom lip disappears behind her teeth for a second, and she stares at her tanned hands against the black cotton covering my chest as she thinks. Finally, her eyes lift and meet mine. She shakes her head, gifting me one of her soft smiles. “Not too much. Just right.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I tell her, and she brightens. Laughing, I scold her, “Not yet, woman. I meant for you to go home and me to go home and jack off. Fuck, you’re gonna kill me, but I do want to wait. It matters, Willow. You matter. We don’t have to rush.”
Her cheeks pinken again, and her innocence washes over me like a balm, telling me that waiting is the right thing to do, but damn, her eagerness makes it so hard. “Okay, but I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
In the lot, I make sure she gets in her car safely and watch as she pulls out to head home. I have a split second where I consider turning right and following her home to finish what we started, but in the end, though it’s agonizing to do so, I turn left and go home as I promised.
The knocking on my truck window comes way too early, with the sun barely past the horizon.
“What?” I groan.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I peek one eye open to see Brody standing at my driver’s window, holding up a cup of coffee. The aroma’s enough to motivate me to wake up. I sit up straight, stretching out the new kinks in my back from sleeping slouched down in the cab of my truck.
Opening the door, Brody hands me the coffee. I grunt my appreciation, speaking his first language. Hell, it’s damn near his only language. I have trouble expressing myself at times. Brody just gave up on even trying years ago. He’s more the point and grunt type, but somehow, we can all decode what he says, even when he doesn’t really say it.
He waits for me to get a few good swallows down, letting the caffeine do its job, before he asks, “How long ago did you get in?”
Knowing the sun rises at six, I estimate, “Couple of hours ago. Didn’t want to wake you and Rix up because I knew you had an early day.”
He grunts back, showing his appreciation in return. Today is the monthly farmer’s market day, and Brody and Shay spent several minutes last night talking about what to take. Well, Shay talked and Brody listened. They work together at the market, selling off the crops we grow and Shay’s products.
“I’d love to tell you to sleep in or skip out and leave Brutal to it today, but he’s gonna need you. I can’t fill in because I’ve gotta go to town. Shay needs me.”
That’s not exactly true, but also not exactly a lie. It’s more complicated than that.
Brody is the oldest of us all, and when Dad went off the deep end after Mom died, Brody took responsibility for us all, becoming a de facto dad in a lot of ways. He and Shay were the right and left hands of the family, leaving Brutal and me to our own devices, but somehow, we all worked together toward a common goal—keeping the family farm.
A goal we failed at meeting spectacularly, thanks to dear old Dad fucking us over, even from the grave. That’s how we got hooked up with the Bennetts. It’s been a while now, and we’ve all adjusted for the most part, though Brody has big dreams