Page 8 of Heartland

“Andsaluting?” I can’t picture Rickie as a soldier. I just can’t.

“The whole thing.” He chuckles wickedly.

“Why’d you leave?”

“I don’t talk about that part.”

“Hey!” I argue. “I told you my story.”

“Did you really?” His intelligent eyes hold mine. “Or did you leave out all the shame?”

Well, heck. I guess I did. We consider each other across the small table. Then he smiles, and it’s very kind. As if we understand each other. “A professor basically said the same thing to me this week. Did you take freshman composition?”

Rickie shakes his head. “Is that the one where you have to write a different essay on the same theme every week?”

“Right. The semester’s theme is food. So I wrote something about the unseen miracle of microorganisms making milk into cheese. The professor hated it. He said there wasn’t enough of me in there.”

“I guess you’re supposed to bleed for him onto the page.” Rickie snorts. “Have some more rum.” He holds up the bottle. And I push my mug a little closer for him.

Three

Dylan

In my bedroom,I pour myself a drop of scotch and listen while Kaitlyn plays a new composition on her acoustic guitar. I swear she played the same thing for me last weekend, but I won’t want to be a dick and point that out.

Besides—it’s entirely possible that the music is just a ruse to get me alone. Kaitlyn is a crafty one.

“You sound great,” I say when she finally sets down her guitar. And it’s true. Classical guitar isn’t something I understand very well, but she’s obviously talented.

“Thank you, farm boy.”

That’s her little nickname for me. Since it’s a reference to the greatest movie of all time—The Princess Bride—I should take it as a compliment. But all of Kaitlyn’s compliments have a dark side. In this case, it bugs the shit out of her that I really am a farm boy. It’s harvest season, and I have to go home every Saturday morning at the butt crack of dawn to help my family for the weekend.

Until this year, I was a part-time student, driving to Burlington for classes. But that had kind of sucked, so when Rickie offered me a room in his house for practically nothing, I grabbed at the chance to be a full-time student. I get better financial aid this way, so I’m saving money over the long term.

My brother hates this arrangement, though, because he’s shorthanded on the farm.

“Play a duet with me?” Kaitlyn asks.

“Nah,” I say, because I feel too lazy to get out my fiddle and tune it up.

“Your loss.” She climbs into my lap and kisses me. “I missed you earlier. We were supposed to get dinner.”

“Trust me,” I say, running a hand down her ribcage. She’s wearing a velvet top that begs to be touched. “I would rather get dinner with you than go home to be yelled at.” I push her hair off her slender neck and kiss the spot under her chin.

She shivers. Kaitlyn is always horny, just like I am. That’s why I broke my No Dating rule to be with her. The sex is fantastic.

Also, she’d insisted.We’re exclusive, or we don’t fuck, she’d said the first time I got her naked. Then? She’d swallowed my entire cock to the back of her throat and sucked me dry.

And that’s how I ended up half of a couple. It’s not the most romantic story. It’s noPrincess Bride. But it works for us, I guess.

I take her mouth in a real kiss. This is what she’s been waiting for, anyway. Forget dinner. Kaitlyn tugs my shirt out of my pants and runs her hands up my chest as I give her my tongue. She straddles me, hooking her ankles behind my body, nestling the heat of her core against my thickening cock.

It’s pretty great until my friend Keith calls up the stairs. “Dylan! Come and do a shot with me!”

“Ignore him,” Kaitlyn whispers between kisses.

For a moment I try. But it’s only ten o’clock, and the house is full of friends that I won’t get to see this weekend when I’m home selling apples.