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“Three fingers on melted skin made you think about a threesome. Life is certainly never boring in your head, is it?” “Well, no. I was thinking about sex.” When she blurts the last part out, she finally looks a little embarrassed. But not that embarrassed. “You were touching my feet . . . and thinking about sex?” Disbelief bleeds into every syllable. She’s the most entertaining blend of innocent and curious. “Yeah. I mean,”—her head wobbles—“to be fair, I think about sex a lot.” I scrub a hand over my face, covering my eyes. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” She scoffs playfully as she traces my feet
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“I just don’t know how I ended up engaged to a girl with a foot fetish who blurts out personal sex questions at the drop of a hat.”
Jealousy hits me hard and fast. I have no right to it. I can’t rationalize it. All I know is I don’t want her sharing moments like this—quiet and unfiltered, safe and trusting—with some other jackass. I want to be the only jackass who gets this version of her. “I’ve never had a threesome, Bailey,” I grit out as I push to stand, needing to put some space between us before I do something stupid. Her gaze follows, brown eyes staring up at me like I’m the moon in the night sky. “Why not?” Bailey, sitting at my feet, full attention turned my way, is doing nothing to stop my hard-on from making an
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Being engaged to Beau Eaton was supposed to be helpful. Except I’m pretty sure it’s my own special brand of torture. I’ll start leaving the back door unlocked for when you decide you want to find out if I’m a prude or not is the one-liner that had me rushing back to my trailer to pull out my box of vibrators. I didn’t even bother pretending one of them was Jensen Ackles. Every single one is now Beau Eaton.
gone, washed away by the shake of his head. “Or you might find yourself stuck being fake engaged to me longer than necessary.” That has me shooting up out of my chair. My instinct is to rebel against that line of thinking, tell him I’m not stuck with him at all. I think I feel freer in his presence than I have . . . ever.
“I hate working the ranch,” he blurts, cutting me off. “Bailey . . . I fucking hate it. I made a promise to my family and now they depend on me to follow through. But I don’t feel like myself. I don’t care. I stand in a field, and I stare at those fucking cows, blinking back at me stupidly with their too-long eyelashes,”—I stifle a laugh—“and I am just monumentally bored. Bored to the point of misery.”
“Like, no one even knows the shit I’ve done. The importance of the things I was doing. My missions? They saved lives, they changed the world. And now? Now I’m supposed to . . . fix fences?” He sighs, his tall frame shifting down incrementally. “It makes me . . .” “Angry?” I provide, because I can feel it. I know the way the air tastes when someone is angry, can feel the surrounding oxygen thicken with it. I know an angry man. I grew up in a house full of them. But with Beau, even when he’s angry, I feel safe. “Yeah.” His hands link behind his head and he watches me, gray eyes almost
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Who knew doing nice things for Bailey would become the thing that gets my body humming after months of numbness? “Do you really think I blew my brother off just to get a haircut?” “What?” Her voice bleeds confusion. “The barbershop is next to the auto shop. Your truck is all fixed.” Her fingers press into her chest. “My truck is fixed?”
“Correct. Brand new set of tires.” “How did you get it?” “Ordered a tow truck.” Several beats of silence pass as I revel in the feel of the cool air blowing against my face. It’s fucking sweltering today. The kind of day that ends in a killer storm. The kind of day that has heat waves rolling just above the asphalt of the roads. “I can’t afford this.” “You don’t need to,” I reply. “I told you I’d take care of it. And I did.”
Because no one has ever taken care of Bailey Jansen before. But I think it’s about time she got used to it.
“What are you talking about?” “Dad. You just made a joke about . . .” Cade swipes a hand through his hair and looks at his son before deciding to forge ahead anyway. “Me jacking off a goat.” A high-pitched gasp lurches from Beau, who is now rubbing at his eye sockets. “Cade, watch your mouth at the dinner table. And get your head out of the gutter. Male goats have nipples too.” Cade gapes at his dad. “You fucking serious right now?” Harvey shakes his head. “I think. They might. Okay, fine. I wasn’t talking about their nipples.” And then he bursts out laughing along with everyone else while
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Never knew spreading condiments on bread could feel sexual, yet here I am experiencing spontaneous ovulation because of naked sandwich making. It’s making me hungry. But not the food kind. So I stifle a groan and drop back down. Horniness wars with my guilt for drooling over him while he thinks he’s alone. It’s an invasion of his privacy, but my brain cells packed up and left town the minute I got that side shot of him.
But winning has never felt worse. Because I know my place in Chestnut Springs, and spending time pretending it’s at Beau Eaton’s side just makes it hurt more.
We both know what’s going on here. Age difference be damned. Bet be damned. Bailey and I like each other. We want each other. But we both know we shouldn’t complicate things when this agreement has a pretty firm end date. There’s a pretty obvious parting of ways on the horizon. One that doesn’t feel very amusing at all.
“Because this is meant to be for show. Right?” I watch her watching me. Her question
“Well, Bailey.” Her face dips closer, as though she’s struggling to hear me over the noise of the fair. “We can give them all a show when we’re at the bottom and just enjoy ourselves when we’re at the top. We
can walk off this ride looking a little tousled. How does that sound?” She flushes, cheeks bright pink, just like her parted lips. Her body hums in my hands, and the surrounding air is downright electric. “Sounds good,” she whispers. “You tell me if there’s something you don’t like, okay?” I slide my palm over her elbow, wanting nothing more than to give her pleasure after the earlier altercation made her crumble. She went from vibrant and happy to locked down and wounded.
When I close my eyes, I see Beau. I smell Beau. I taste Beau. I hear Beau. I feel Beau’s hands touching me like I’m his for real. I feel his cock hard for me. My brain is all Beau, all the time. I feel like I’ve got a song stuck on repeat. One I can’t get out of my head. My brain keeps missing the memo that this thing between Beau and me is fake. It’s cute how I thought getting out of bartender mode to fall asleep was hard.
For however long we kiss, I don’t feel like dirty Bailey Jansen. I feel like a woman kissing a man who wants her. Really wants her. He can’t fake this. No one could fake this. No one is that good.
“Bailey,” he murmurs against my damp, swollen lips. “You are doing nothing wrong. You have done nothing wrong. Anyone who talks shit about you is cruel and small-minded and not worthy of your attention. You are fucking perfect.”
I stay slumped against the doorframe, boneless and stunned from his kiss. It wasn’t my first kiss, but it was my first kiss to feel like that. Like the house could crumble around us and we wouldn’t notice. Like I was safe.
“My dude.”
“I know you did not just cut my sister-in-law off and pretend like you didn’t see her.”
“Seriously?” The guy gives Willa an annoyed look. “She’s a Jan—” “She’s an Eaton. But further to that, she’s a human. A woman. And you, my friend, are an asshole.”
“Back of the bus, dickhead. Who’s your mama? I’d like to call her and ask how she raised you so I can file it away under what not to do.”
“I would love that.” Summer smiles brightly, holding her champagne flute up to cheers me. “You’re hired!” I need this. I need this to get out. I need this to survive, and I’ll get over the guilt eventually. Leaving Beau behind, though? It feels like I’ll never get over that.
“I know you’re scared of losing control around me.” Her chin tips up as though she’s told me something that will make me back down. Run me off. It doesn’t. “No, I’m scared of you becoming something I can’t live without.”
“I’m scared of taking something I don’t deserve, something we both know will lead to a bigger mess than we’re already in.”
elbows on the edge and staring her down. “This isn’t a mess—” “I’m scared of having to go to work tomorrow and spending all day with a hard-on because I’m wondering if you went for a triangle or strip.” All she does is stare back and breathe heavily as I reach into the hot, soapy water and trail a hand over her thigh to her knee. Leaning closer, I whisper against her ear, “And I’m fucking scared of what I’ll do when the day comes I find out some other fucker gets to help you decide these things.”
“Seems unfair that you get to play with this pretty pussy when I’m the one who’s been down on his knees doing all the hard work.”
“New rule, Bailey.” He points at my left hand, slung over the edge of the tub, and then between my legs. “So long as you’re wearing that ring, this pussy is mine.” My heart thunders at how base he sounds, staking a claim to my body. “Next time you find yourself thinking you’re going to pull that box of toys out and play with it all by yourself, you’re going to offer it to me first.”
“You’re fucking perfect. You know that?” Then he leans down, kisses me tenderly, and brushes a thumb over my bottom lip, making me taste the lingering remains of my orgasm.
“I want plenty for myself, Beau. I am single-mindedly making that more happen. It’s why I’m here. It’s you who believes he isn’t more of what I want.” Her hand covers mine. “You are more. But I’ve become accustomed to wanting more and not getting it. I don’t let myself need more. That’s a luxury I can’t afford. I just keep moving toward my end goal. But you’d be a fool to think that means I don’t want things for myself.”
Leave it to Bailey to support me more than I care to support myself.
There’s something fractured about Beau. About his spirit. Like he’s torn between so many versions of himself and doesn’t know which one to pick. I wish he knew it's okay to be all of them with me.
That’s another thing we haven’t talked about. The heat wave is over, and yet here we are. Still living together. It feels a little like the straw house we built is starting to tumble. I don’t need the air conditioning, and yet I’m still here. I don’t need another job, and yet I’m still here. I don’t need to go out with Beau tonight, and yet I do. I hold him close, the wind whipping against us as we race down the highway into the city. At every stoplight, he reaches back and rubs my calf until it turns green again. And nothing about any of it feels fake.
It annoys me she thinks no man could be jealous over her. That she’s learned to view herself as so undesirable I wouldn’t feel threatened by someone else.
her pitches up out of my throat unbidden. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Bailey.” I shout it across the table, listening to every syllable get swallowed up by the thumping bass. “Who do you want to be?” The question is so simple, but it bowls me over. “I don’t know. I was so tied up in my job. Now I don’t even know. A rancher? Part of my community? Around for my family? A good uncle? A good son?” She shakes her head at me slowly. “No, those are all things that you think other people want you to be.” She reaches across the table, index finger poking me in the center of my chest. “Who do you
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she doesn’t look young or inexperienced. She looks like a woman who could bring me to my knees. I can’t help but note that other men are noticing her too.
She’s mindless right now, for me. And me? I’m mindless for her.
“What do you think about while you do it?” “You.” Fuck. She doesn’t even hesitate. Lips parted, both hands working between her legs. I swipe a thumb over her clit. Her legs shake, and she moves the toy in a more even tempo. “You pretending I’m fucking you right now, Bailey?” I can’t look away. We’re a jumble of limbs and wetness. “Yes,” she whispers
“What about my cum, Bailey? Would you settle for that tonight?” A strangled groan catches in her throat as she shuts her eyes for a beat. Then her lashes lift lazily, and she takes a quick bite on her full bottom lip before she says, “Yes, sir.” That’s all it takes. I blow. One hard jerk and I’m coming, hand now braced on her inner thigh, spreading her open. The first rope lands on her toy, the one she doesn’t stop fucking herself with even as I mark her. The next on her clit, dripping down onto her lips. She works my cum into her pussy with the vibrator. And I watch her do it.
“I’m so fucking hung up on you, it’s not even funny,” I confess quietly, and then press a kiss to her belly button. She shivers, fingers gliding down the back of my neck. I don’t expect her to say anything. Or to feel the same way. I’m too old. She’s too young. Too good for me when it comes down to it. Which is why it sends me reeling when she whispers, “Wherever you’re hanging from . . . I think I’m on the same hook.”
I swallow as the horizon line in front of us changes. Buildings crop up as downtown comes into view. As we draw closer to the bar. To Bailey. To the girl I might spend a lifetime wishing I’d told this thing isn’t fake to me anymore.
I’ve spent all day trying to make heads or tails of it, and it’s become clear to me I have no clue what I’m doing where Beau Eaton is concerned. I’m officially a basic bitch with a massive crush on the same person as every other girl in town. And I know I’m leaving. Which is a hilarious combination.
When I push, he pushes back. When he pushes, I push back. We keep ending up right in the middle. Together.
“I’m done pretending to be head over heels in love with you because I’m legitimately head over heels in love with you. And acting like I’m not tears me up.”
“Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe this is impulsive. Maybe you don’t love me back. But I’ll wait. I don’t care. I’ll take my time with you. So long as I know you’re really mine, I can be patient.” “Beau . . .” My chest heaves as my brain struggles to catch up.
“Feels like bad luck to wear it when we’re not really engaged.” “We are really engaged.” His response leaves no room for debate. “I mean, if we’re taking our time, testing this thing out for real, you probably shouldn’t waltz around pretending you intend to marry me when you don’t.” I swear he growls at my response. A deep rumble in his chest. A narrowing of his eyes. The vein at his temple throbs. I hate myself. Why am I arguing with him and poking holes in his logic when this should be a dream come true? It’s because it doesn’t feel real. Good things like this don’t happen to Bailey Jansen.
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“Still not letting my guard down. Not when I’ve got you to keep safe.” A shiver races down my spine as I stare back at him. All I can offer is a nod. I don’t think anyone has ever prioritized keeping me safe. The weight of his gaze is almost
