The Rancher's Untamed Heart, page 8
“We can watch a movie and then sleep in separate beds, can’t we?” I asked, grinning.
Clint successfully started the car.
He looked at me, and laughed, and looked away again.
“You clearly have more trust in yourself than I do in me,” he said.
I squirmed on the seat. Being alone with him, even in a truck, was doing delicious things to my body and I was already regretting my suggestion that we wait six months to have sex.
Six months. Looking at his strong jaw, I didn’t know if I could wait six more minutes for him to be mine.
Trying to pull myself together, I gave Clint directions to my apartment, only ten minutes from the Mexican restaurant.
He pulled up and found a space for his enormous Ford amid the compact foreign cars in my lot.
Before he could turn the truck off and get out to open the door for me, I had to be careful sliding out of the truck, not to open the door too wide and take out an entire Prius. It wouldn't be a great impression on Clint.
On the other hand, I had a sneaking suspicion that he might just laugh.
I turned and looked at him, watching me with hunger in his eyes, seatbelt still buckled, truck still running.
"Are you getting out?" I asked, "Or do I need to haul myself back into your cab to give you a good night kiss?"
He gave a long, slow, smile and cut the engine, leaning over to pass me my purse from where I'd left it in the center console.
"I'll walk you up to your door," he said, his voice pitched a little lower than usual.
I had to remind myself very firmly that he was not going to come inside with me, he was going to be a gentleman and stay outside my threshold.
"Sounds good," I said, trying to stay casual.
When he came around the other side of the truck, he offered me his arm, and I took it.
The feeling of our arms touching, even through his shirt and my sweater, was like fire. I had to resist the urge to moan just from that contact.
I shut my eyes for a moment to steady myself.
When I opened them again, Clint was looking concerned.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Never better," I said, "Enjoying the moment."
"It's a good moment," he said quietly. It really was. Standing with Clint under the harsh streetlight of a dark Texas evening in front of my boring apartment building felt fresh and new, and I was grateful.
"Which unit?" he asked, and I jerked my head, leading him inside the building.
I considered taking the elevator, to give us a few private moments, but thought better of it. The stairs were an excuse to lean on him.
Lean I did, pretty shamelessly, enjoying the feeling of his strong body against mine.
I lived only one floor up, and we arrived at my apartment door too soon. I wished that we could have strolled around the city all night, but ranch chores start early, and I didn't feel right taking all of his sleep. Tonight, at least.
Standing in front of the door with him, I shifted from foot to foot and wished that he'd just sweep me up in his arms. I didn't know if he was waiting for me to kiss him, though.
After a moment, Clint put his hands on my shoulders, making me feel small and delicate in comparison, and leaned down to claim my mouth in his own.
The feel of him against me was incredible.
I needed him, and now I couldn't have him. Instead of melting into his touch, I pressed my body against his, feeling the hard length of his lean frame against my legs, my belly, my breasts.
He opened his mouth to say something and I took the chance to attack, leaning up and pressing my lips against his, plundering his mouth with my tongue, kissing him with all the passion and frustration I was feeling.
He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me, if possible, even more tightly against him, pressing our mouths together and leaning down, showing me his strength and size.
I could feel his hardness throb between us, and my body responded with equal need. My nipples grew hard in my bra, the feeling of his body only a few layers of fabric away almost more than I could take.
The ache was growing between my legs to maddening levels, and I could feel myself grow wet and slick with desire for him.
Finally, I remembered that, while it was fun to be swept along by passion in an apartment hallway, it wasn't polite, or appropriate.
I pulled away from him, gasping. He let me go, but kept pulling me back, gently, to place fast soft kisses on my lips, my cheeks, my brow.
Finally, we stood again, staring into each other's eyes. I was lost in those deep pools, and the desire and tenderness that I saw there warmed and frightened me in a way I could get used to.
"Good night," I finally said.
He chuckled.
"Quite a good night kiss," he said.
He jammed his hands in his pockets and stood for a minute, looking at me.
"See you soon," he said, and turned on his heel. I watched him walk back to the end of the hallway and disappear into the stairwell.
I turned back to open my own door and blushed as red as a beet.
"Excuse me, Mr. Francesa, Mrs. Francesa," I said. "I'm sorry about, uh, that."
Mrs. Francesa cackled, and I turned to face her, the opposite way from where Clint had gone.
"What do you think we were doing fifty years ago?" she asked.
"I thought you already had children fifty years ago," I retorted. I had met some of their children,
and the oldest had to be at least fifty.
"Yes, we were leaving them with my mother so we could neck in hallways," she said. "How do you think people end up with seven children?"
I tried to think up a response, but Mr. Francesa took pity on me.
"Stop tormenting her, Cheryl," he said. "Save it for our own grandbabies."
"We have lots," she said happily. "Family trait, apparently, not being able to keep your damn hands to yourself."
Mr. Francesa laughed at that.
"Come on, my darling," he said to his wife, "Let's go inside and let her figure out that she's trying to unlock her house with her car key."
I looked down and swore to myself. As the elderly couple disappeared into their own door, I finally managed to find the right key and let myself into the apartment.
I shut the door and leaned against it, trying to cool my passion down. Even being teased by
Cheryl Francesa wasn't enough, apparently, my nipples were still rock-hard and my body still ached for the touch of Clint's.
There was nothing else for it. I went to my bedroom and opened the drawer in my bedside table, taking out a discreet purple silicone toy.
Before I went to sleep that night, I finished myself off, coming to the thought of Clint's hands sliding over my breasts earlier. I wondered if, on his ranch, he was coming to thoughts of me.
I hoped he was.
Clint called me a little after dawn to let me know that he was finishing up the farm chores early, and could pick me up in two hours.
I was out in the parking lot waiting for him, so we did not have a repeat of the passionate hallway kiss for Mr. and Mrs. Francesa to laugh over, but when I climbed into the truck and slid over to greet him, the quick kiss we shared and the feel of his side pressed against mine was enough to remind my body of the desire I felt for him.
I slid back over to my own seat with some regret, and Clint smiled ruefully and leaned over, patting my leg.
"I brought you coffee," he said. "I needed it this morning, I had trouble sleeping. Too many thoughts of you, and what you do to me."
He lifted his own coffee to his lips as I cradled mine in my hands, enjoying the warmth of it against my fingers.
"Just think of how difficult it would have been to sleep with me there," I murmured.
"Oh, I did," he said firmly, putting the coffee back in a cupholder.
"Repeatedly?" I asked, looking at him as innocently as possible.
"You're going to kill me," he said, and reached out to turn the radio on.
"That isn't exactly what I had in mind. I will let you be, though," I said.
"For six months," he replied.
"For six months minus one day," I retorted, "I'm not waiting a minute longer than I have to."
That weekend was sweet and long, and went by in an instant. Clint showed me around the ranch in a different way than I'd seen it. Instead of counting bales of moldy hay and measuring the thickness of support beams in outside sheds, he showed me parts of the ranch he'd changed in the past few years, parts where his father's way, he said, would never be beat, and parts where he wasn't sure what to do.
We went out on ATV's so he could show me a beautiful hidden spring that made this property very valuable when Clint's great-grandfather had claimed it, and he told me stories about how his family had kept the land for generations.
"You want to stay here forever, don't you?" I asked at one point.
"Why would I want to go anywhere else?" he asked, "All I want is this ranch, and a family to pass it along to."
We spent hours talking and laughing, and I followed him while he did some of the chores, before we went into town.
Brandon and Will were heading in to watch a movie, so Clint rode with me in my work vehicle and we all four went on a double date, Clint heading home in Brandon's truck with them, me returning to my solitary apartment.
The other men were funny and kind, and I enjoyed being around all of them. Clint was relaxed with them, throwing his head back and laughing at their jokes. I envied the easy way that they had together, and I wished that I were part of it.
Mostly, though, I wished for more of Clint. I wanted to feel him, hold him, touch him. Unfortunately, I wanted his respect more. I didn’t even joke about breaking our six month pact.
Work on Monday was rough, but nothing that I didn't expect. I loved my job, but for once, I would rather blow it off and go explore Clint's ranch than keep my spreadsheets up to date.
"Someone had a good weekend," Sarah said, when she walked into my office at lunchtime.
"Pretty nice," I admitted.
"What's his name?" she asked, ducking inside and shutting the door behind her.
I laughed, getting out my bottle of water and easing away from my computer, ready to have lunch
with her.
"Who said that there's a man?" I asked.
"Well, did you finally turn lesbian so we could run off and adopt a lot of adorable children together?" she asked.
I almost snorted my drink through my nose.
"Wait, when did you turn lesbian?" I asked. "You love men. You love Neil."
"I would make an exception to adopt adorable babies with you, obviously," she said.
"Obviously," I replied, rolling my eyes. "The fact that you're already pregnant with an adorable
baby is a total non-issue, right?"
Sarah waved her hand impatiently. "Total. Besides, it could be ugly. We don’t know that yet."
"Seriously, I'm not going to tell you who, but yes, I have met someone," I said.
She rolled her eyes right back.
"You and your discretion, you are no fun," she said.
"Yes, me and my professional workplace behavior," I said, "The government hates that."
"Want to go out?" she asked.
"I already have my purse," I said, shutting my monitor off and standing up.
Sarah held the door open for me. "Let me tell you about what the government likes."
We walked to a local coffee shop, her telling me about how the woman working at the D.M.V. had sworn at her the weekend before.
"I'm telling you," she said, as we walked through the door, "I missed my calling. I want to be able to cuss at clients and not do my job. Maybe someday, if I'm very, very good, I'll die and come back to life as a D.M.V. employee."
I was still laughing as I ordered my coffee and soup.
"Drinking your lunch, I see," she said, as we claimed a table. "Good call, day drinking is the one major perk all government employees share."
"I don't drink on the job, you know that," I said.
"Yes, yes," she said, rolling her eyes, "You are discreet and professional. You know I know that, honey. If I wanted to go to lunch with someone who actually drank on the job, I'd make Herman take me out. I have to buy my own lunch when I go with you."
"You don't really think that Herman drinks on the job, do you?" I asked.
She shrugged.
"I bet the old coot has a bottle of Jack or Jim in his desk, but I don't think he drinks it except for show, with his buddies. He's too smart to get drunk," she said.
"I wouldn't know," I reminded her.
"Yeah, we had a lot of turnover for a while," she said. "He has vowed never again to learn anyone's name unless they make it a full three years. Don't take it personally, he's just an ass."
"He'll have to learn my name pretty soon," I said.
"He sure will, sweetheart," she said, and rolled her eyes again. "Pretty sure that he thinks we're all interchangeable peons, anyways," she said.
I picked up my coffee and took a quick sip. "Not you, right? He loves you. He knows your name, at least."
"He might know my name, but he doesn't remember that I don't do fieldwork right now," Sarah said. She gestured down at her belly, which seemed larger and rounder every week.
"I am not hauling my pregnant ass around in cow muck for six hours," she said.
"Two hours of cow muck is your limit right now?" I asked.
"I wish. You should see the bathroom at our house. Pretty sure my Neil doesn't know what a toilet brush is, and that's another thing I'm not doing right now," she said. I wondered if Clint cleaned his own toilet, and tried to remember the actual subject that we were discussing.
"Herman forgot you're on light duty?" I asked.
"Forgot, doesn't care, not clear," she said. "He tried to send me out on the Cannon ranch inspection last week, but I turfed it to you."
"Oh," I said, trying to seem casual. "Thanks for the extra work, can always use that."
Before she could see how not-actually-casual I was, I tried to deflect her to a category no pregnant woman I'd ever met could resist.
"So, ready to have that baby?" I asked.
"Oh. My. God," she said, punctuating each word with a stamp of her foot. "I feel like I have been pregnant forever. I will never stop being pregnant. All I am is a walking, talking, fetus warmer. My job is to put enough nutrients in my body to keep my baby from sucking too much of my youth out."
"You have a good start there," I said, gesturing at her enormous salad.
The rest of our lunch passed pretty casually, talking about Sarah's pregnancy and husband, and the duties we'd have for the rest of the week.
On the walk back, slow for Sarah's pregnant self, she laughed suddenly.
"At least you're getting laid," she said. "That should improve your mood."
I shifted my feet. "Actually," I began.
"Please don't tell me that he is too Mormon to actually have sex with you," she groaned. "Not again."
"No, but he's old-fashioned," I said.
"Old-fashioned?" she asked. "Old-fashioned? Come on, girl, you have got to pick the ones that will put out someday."
My laughter echoed on the quiet street, and I kept my next words down. "I'm pretty sure he'll put out just fine, Sarah, he just wants to wait a few months."
"How many?" she demanded.
"Well, six," I admitted.
"Hah," she retorted. "I give you five weeks, and if you don't buy me a cookie tomorrow, I'll start an office-wide betting pool."
"Well, my honor is definitely worth the price of a cookie," I deadpanned. "What kind do you desire, O pregnant mistress of the office?"
"Peanut butter, and sarcasm means you owe me two," she said, happily.
Back at my office, I sat down and stretched before I got back to work, letting my purse trail from my fingers and swing in thin air behind my desk.
Feeling better for food and conversation, I relaxed and put my purse back underneath my desk. I slipped my phone out of my pocket and placed it on the desk by my keyboard in case Clint sent me a text message.
That was pretty rare, but there was no reason not to hope.
