Tequila High Page 9

  Maybe it’s something more.

  As sweetly as if he were cradling a glass flower, Nixon wipes a tear that escapes my lashes and leans in to press his lips to my forehead. Then, just as gently, he draws me into the circle of his arms. I cry silently into the material of his shirt. If he notices the wetness, he doesn’t mention it, doesn’t seem to mind.

  It’s there that I fall asleep, in a pool of my own grief, comforted by someone unexpected.

  17

  Nixon

  There’s an ass wriggling against my crotch. Half my brain comes awake, but the other half is stuck in the dream I was having about Haley. Without thinking, I splay my palm over her warm, flat belly and press into her. I hear a soft little moan, and I’m instantly hard.

  Now I’m fully awake. And this is very real.

  She quiets again, like maybe she wasn’t very much awake either, and I’m left with the scent of her hair in my nose, the shape of her backside against my front, and an ache for her that’s quickly becoming one of the worst I’ve ever had.

  Maybe it’s that she keeps me mostly at arm’s length despite the fact that she wants me. I respect that as much as I’m starting to hate it. Or maybe it’s that I didn’t get my fill of tequila that first night, and I won’t be able to get her out of my blood until I do. Or maybe it’s that I know our time is limited. Very limited. In ways that Haley doesn’t even know about yet.

  I wondered if her sister would tell her my real reason for being at the ranch. I’m pretty sure Hannah knows. She’s closer to her father, and she’s around more. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s told her. Or if she’s just figured it out. All the work being done, after all this time, would be suspicious to me, but then again, maybe that’s just the way my mind operates. You don’t spend years doing this kind of work and not get a little jaded.

  I’m too awake now to go back to sleep and too turned on to lie here and do nothing about it, so I move slowly and carefully to slide off the couch. I didn’t have the heart to move Haley last night. She cried quietly on my chest for a long time. When she more or less passed out, I stretched out with her and then turned to put her alongside me. I didn’t want to just leave her, and even now, I don’t want to think too much about why. Maybe especially now, in the bright light of day.

  I pad over to the kitchen and search for something that might pass as breakfast. One of the lower cabinets is stuffed with a variety of MREs, ready-to-eat meals that store for a long, long time. I thought I remembered seeing them here a few weeks ago. Luckily, a couple of them are suitable.

  “Nixon?”

  I turn to see Haley’s head pop up over the back of the sofa.

  “Over here.”

  She swings her eyes and her smile toward the sound of my voice. Damn this woman, she even looks edible first thing in the morning. Her mascara has smeared a little, but it only seems to make her eyes more green than gray, and her lips are just as kissable as ever. It’s her hair that gets me, though. It’s wilder than usual, like it had a hungry man’s hands in it all night.

  I grit my teeth and will my blood to stop flowing south.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Huntin’ for some breakfast.”

  “Breakfast sounds great. I’m starving.”

  Me, too, I think, but I don’t say that. I can’t handle another discussion about sex. Not until I’ve had at least two cold showers.

  “Maple syrup sausage or apple maple oatmeal?”

  “Either one sounds good. I’ll eat whichever you don’t want.” She gets up and walks around the couch, stopping only to stretch her arms above her head. I go completely still. She seems to have forgotten that she’s not wearing pants. That makes me wonder if she’s used to sleeping in just her panties. Or maybe nothing at all.

  I glance down at the MREs and tick off five of the least sexy things I can think of.

  Birthing gloves.

  Baseball.

  Fly fishing.

  Jock straps.

  Stall cleaning.

  I have to repeat them in my mind three times before I can get myself under control.

  “Your choice. I’ll probably eat a lunch one, too. Ravioli is the breakfast of champions, after all.”

  She grins and saunters over to me. I try to keep my eyes on her face, which is gorgeous, but that’s not what’s driving me crazy at the moment. “It probably is in Italy.”

  “Probably.” I clear my throat and make a mental note of the first day, as a boy or a man, that I’ve ever actually tried to get a hot woman to put clothes on rather than take them off. “How’re your legs?”

  She rolls her eyes up and left as she shifts her weight from foot to foot and then stretches up on her toes. “A little sore. Not too bad. I had a great massage last night. I’m sure that made all the difference.”

  She smiles, and I smile back, but she makes no move to get her jeans.

  I busy myself getting the MREs ready, and I try again. “You’re not cold, are you? I didn’t stoke the fire last night. I had other things on my mind.” I shoot her a wink, and she blushes prettily.

  “No, the temperature is fine. I’m sure we won’t be here that long today anyway. No sense getting a raging fire going before we have to leave.”

  I nod.

  Haley walks to the small refrigerator and opens it. It’s empty. She peeks into each cabinet, nodding occasionally, but making no comment. When she pivots back toward me, I jerk my eyes away.

  “Something wrong?” she asks.

  “Nope.” I know I sound abrupt, but what the hell? Put some clothes on, woman.

  My terseness only draws her in. I just can’t win today.

  Haley walks over to me and lays a hand on my arm, pausing until I look up. “Seriously, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “You’re acting weird.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. What is it? Is this about last night?”

  I frown. “Nothing happened last night.”

  “If you consider spilling our darkest secrets nothing, then okay.”

  She doesn’t know my darkest secrets. “It has nothing to do with last night.”

  “Ah-ha! So there is something wrong!” She looks positively joyous as she points a finger in my face.

  “I didn’t say that. I—”

  “You sorta did.”

  “I didn’t. I—”

  “Uh, yeah. You sorta did.”

  She’s grinning, clearly feeling playful this morning, which only makes her half-dressed state harder for me to ignore. I’d like nothing more than to throw this food on the counter, grab her by her wild hair, and kiss her like she needs to be kissed. Then I’d pick her up and let her wrap those shapely legs around me while I dive into her like I need to do. God, how I need to do that!

  “Why don’t you put some pants on, and we’ll discuss it over breakfast?”

  I expect her to blush, to trip all over herself apologizing, or to fumble as she tries to cover her lower half, but she does none of those things. Instead, she goes the other direction. She actually teases me with it. She has the nerve to tease me.

  She’s a brave, brave woman.

  “Do my legs bother you?” she asks, cutting one in toward the other and rubbing a hand over her hip. “Or is it my panties?” She turns her lower body until that plump little ass of hers is facing me, and she runs her finger up under the edge of the red silk covering it. “Don’t you like red?”

  I take one deep breath, then another, before I bite out my thoughts on the subject. “I actually love red. I’d love to fist my hands in red hair. I’d love to slide my tongue between red lips. And, right now, all I can think about is how much I’d love to rip red silk to shreds and eat something I didn’t find in the cabinet. So, unless you’re agreeable to all of those things happening in the next thirty to forty-five seconds, I highly suggest you cover that sweet ass of yours before I sink my teeth into it.” It’s my turn to smile. “Does that answer your
question?”

  She’s speechless, but she’s also hesitant. For the space of about four excruciatingly long breaths, she just stares at me, debating. I can see it. I can see that she’s thinking about my words, thinking about what they mean, how they’d feel coming to life on her skin. But in the end, she chickens out.

  Slowly, Haley backs away from me and makes her way to the bed. I purposely turn away from her so that I don’t have to live with the mental image of her sliding black denim over that porcelain skin. All it would do is make me want to peel it right back off.

  When she returns, I set out breakfast, and we eat in companionable silence. About halfway through, she’s sipping from her bottled water, watching me over the rim. Her eyes wrinkle at the corners, and I know she’s smiling.

  We both burst out laughing.

  That gives me a hard-on, too.

  18

  Haley

  Something changed in that cabin. I feel it in the air around us as Nixon and I ride back to the ranch. I feel it when he glances over at me and shakes his head, grinning. I feel it when I grin, too, remembering.

  A storm did, indeed, rage outside last night, but it wasn’t a big one, thankfully. Not nearly as big as the one that was raging inside me. I was oblivious to one, but not so much to the other. But just like the physical atmosphere is sunny and bright and clear this morning, I’m feeling pretty shiny and calm, too.

  We’re about half an hour from the ranch, and I know because I’ve asked at least every twenty minutes how much longer we have, when I blurt out, “Never have I ever run around without pants in front of a somewhat stranger.”

  “What?”

  I repeat myself, only more slowly. “Never have I ever run around without pants in front of a somewhat stranger.”

  He laughs, a low, deep, throaty sound that vibrates its way right into my heart. “Never have I ever asked a woman to put clothes on before.”

  “Never have I ever eaten an MRE until today.”

  “Never have I ever wanted to eat food for breakfast less than I wanted to eat it today.”

  “Never have I ever wanted to be breakfast before.”

  I get a thrill when I hear him suck in a breath.

  “Never have I ever ridden a horse with one of these before.” Nix points to his very visible erection. Pleasure and heat swirl through my veins.

  “Never have I ever wanted to ride one of those more than I want to right now.” His ebony eyes burn into mine, and I hold them. I hold them tight and refuse to let go no matter how many rules I’m breaking by doing so. I know I’m playing with fire, but for some reason, today it doesn’t scare me like it has before.

  Yes, something changed up in that cabin.

  “You’re poking a very dangerous bear. You realize that, right?”

  I nod at his crotch. “A very big bear, too, by the looks of it.”

  A stunned expression falls down over his features. I’m about to laugh when he startles me by nudging his horse sharply toward mine. I squeal as he reaches for me, and I quickly set my own horse into a gallop before he can snatch me off it.

  “You’d better run,” I hear from behind me. When I look back, Nixon is quickly closing the distance between us, his face wreathed in a smile that lights my soul on fire.

  Something definitely changed up in that cabin. The question is…where do we go from here?

  I’m breathless by the time we reach the ranch. It sounds like I’ve been running for miles, but it’s just my heart. It’s been beating a crazy rhythm all the way home.

  I’m trotting my horse around to the front of the cottage, heading for the stables when my eyes fall on a man sitting by the door, in the shade, on the small stoop. My thundering heart skips a beat, stops, and then starts back up to pump a chaotic blend of anger, bitterness, dread, and betrayal through my veins.

  I don’t even realize I’ve slowed my horse to barely a walk until Nixon blasts up behind me, teasing me about the bet we made a few miles back. Loser cooks dinner he’d said. “I hope you’ve got a recipe in mind, because you’re about to get smoked.”

  I don’t respond. In fact, I don’t even look around. My gaze is riveted to the man rising to his feet and dusting off his jeans.

  As I draw closer, he smiles, the very same smile that won my heart a lifetime ago. Won it and then stomped all over it after he ripped it out of my chest.

  “Hey, Hay,” Jason purrs softly. That was always his cute way of greeting me—on the phone, when he picked me up, when he woke me up. That simple phrase brings back a barrage of imagery, replete with all the corresponding emotions. It’s like a kiss from a million years ago.

  A kiss before dying.

  “Jason?” It sounds like a question, although it’s not. I’d recognize him anywhere—the sandy hair a little too long and shaggy, the twinkling eyes the color of whiskey on the rocks, the crooked smile filled with perfectly straight teeth. He has a few lines around his eyes, but my ex-lover looks almost exactly like he did the last time I saw him.

  Which is why my stomach twists into a sick knot.

  “I heard you were back.” His smile is dying, and he’s fiddling with the cowboy hat he’s holding in his hands. He has every right to be nervous. After what happened, he’s lucky I don’t go in search of a gun to shoot him with.

  “What are you doing here?” I’m stunned more than anything. I knew he was ballsy. He always was. There wasn’t anything he was afraid of. Not even my father. I admired that until I realized what someone with no fear is capable of, the kind of pain he can inflict and think nothing of.

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?” I’m stopped now, a few feet away, staring at him. From the corner of my eye, I see a man and horse come up to my left and stop. For reasons I don’t want to examine too closely, it brings me a tremendous amount of comfort knowing Nixon is close. I might have even reached out for his hand if my fingers weren’t wound around my horse’s reins in a death grip.

  He laughs. “Because I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age.”

  “And why do you think that is, Jason?”

  He sighs and tilts his head, looking up at me from under his lashes. It’s a James Dean kind of look that used to be able to convince me to do anything. Well, except one thing. There was one thing he couldn’t talk me into.

  “Ah, come on, Hay. Don’t be like that.”

  Like throwing a match onto a pond full of gasoline, my blood ignites. All that’s lacking is an audible whoosh. “Don’t tell me how to be. Or how to feel. Or how to anything.”

  “You okay, Haley?” Nixon’s smooth voice has an edge to it. It holds a warning. And that warning isn’t for me. When I glance over my shoulder, I see him staring a bullet hole through Jason.

  I’m not, but I lie. “I’m fine.”

  “You sure, because if this guy is bothering you…”

  Jason takes a step forward and addresses Nixon. “Look, friend, I don’t think this is any of your business. Haley and I have known each other for years. Maybe you should just give us a few minutes.”

  “For one thing, you’re not my friend. And by the sounds of it, you’re not Haley’s either, so I’m not going anywhere unless she tells me to go.” He sidles up a little closer to me to make his point.

  It’s Jason who breaks eye contact first, glancing at me with a plea. “Haley, please?”

  I don’t reply right away. I’m torn between just walking away and giving him a large and profane piece of my mind. But in the end, I don’t. I’ve done a lot of growing and maturing since he last saw me. This is something I need to handle the right way. My way.

  I send a smile over to Nixon. “It’s fine. Really. Would you mind taking my horse?”

  His eyes search mine for a long time before he nods his agreement, albeit grudgingly, and reaches for my reins. I hand them over and dismount. I wait for him to be out of earshot before I walk over to Jason.

  “What do you want?”

  He tries his smile again. “Go
d, it’s good to see you. I’d forgotten what a damn firecracker you were. My little redhead spitfire.” He comes closer, pulling me in for a light hug and a kiss to my cheek.

  When he pulls away, I take a step back. “I’m not your anything anymore.”

  “Jesus, Hay, retract the claws. Can’t we at least be civil?”

  “Trust me, this is me being civil. You should consider yourself lucky that I don’t use these claws to scratch your eyes out.”

  “What the hell?” He throws up his arms in disbelief.

  “You didn’t seriously expect to show up here and get smiles and sweet hugs, did you? After everything that happened?”

  “Haley, we broke up. People do that all the time.”

  My mouth drops open. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “What? What’s the big deal? I made some mistakes. I’m sure you’ve made some over the last ten years, too.”

  “You made a mistake? That’s what you’re calling it?”

  “That’s what it was. Letting you go was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  “You didn’t let me go. I left. I left because I couldn’t stand the sight of you. There’s a difference, Jason. A big one.”

  “How many times do I have to say I’m sorry, Hay?”

  “Not one more. Your apologies aren’t necessary. They’re not even wanted, actually. I just want you to say your piece and leave.”

  He has the audacity to look surprised, genuinely astonished. “I can’t believe you’re acting this way. You’re twenty-nine years old. I thought maybe you’d have grown up since we were kids.”

  “We weren’t kids, Jason. We were young adults who made choices that had consequences; in fact, some of us made choices for both of us, but only one of us had to live with those consequences. Or did you forget, oh I don’t know, everything you did to me?”