Page 15 of The Back Forty (Whitewood Creek Farm #5)

Dani’s quiet. Too quiet for how she normally acts around me.

I glance over at her in the passenger seat of my truck, where she’s got her cheek pressed to the glass window like she’s trying to cool herself off.

Her arms are folded tightly across her chest, her brows drawn low.

She’s still in the same denim shorts and pink cropped shirt from earlier, but she’s coiled so far inward it’s as if she’s trying to disappear.

“You good over there?” I ask, keeping my tone light as I flick on the A/C thinking maybe she's too hot and that's why she seems ready to jump out of my damn truck. “Want me to blast the air?”

She doesn’t look at me, just sighs. “No. I’m fine.”

It’s not convincing but I don’t push. Dani’s not someone you corner with questions.

When she wants space, she takes it, and when she doesn’t get it, she’ll claw for it.

I’ve learned that much over the past year of working with her.

She gives me space when I need it. And tonight, it feels like I owe her the same.

Still, I know something's off with her mood. She’d been talking with her sister one minute, then disappeared to the bar with a little too much urgency.

And yes, I saw it all go down because I'd been watching her from the moment I got to the bar.

It's hard not to see her anytime we're in the same room.

When I found her there, she looked relieved to be away from them—like she could finally breathe again while talking to my sister.

Then came the drinking. The joke about setting me up on a date with Catalina.

That look on her face when I stopped her from ordering another drink.

The way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes when I told her about Texas and the pitch that I wanted her to do tomorrow.

Yeah, something’s bothering her. I just don’t know what, nor do I know how to get it out of her. I'm not used to this side of her where she shows me her moods but keeps her thoughts to herself and doesn't blurt out exactly what she's thinking.

When we pull into the driveway and park my house is quiet, and dark.

Ah, shit. I forgot that Beckham said he'd be going to his friend's house for the night to play video games and watch movies.

“Is Beckham home?” Dani asks, finally breaking the silence as she leans forward to grab the door handle.

“Nah. He's sleeping over at Kirk’s tonight.”

She nods, mouth tight as she climbs out of my truck.

There’s something about the way she's holding herself together, like every inch of her body is tense and coiled.

She unlocks the front door with the key I gave her months ago and steps inside without looking back at me.

I follow her in, trying to ignore the ache in my chest as she heads straight for the stairs.

Was it something I said?

“I’m going to bed,” she says over her shoulder.

“Alright. I’ll see you in the morning. We can ride to the airport together if you'd like.”

She just nods again, quick, and disappears up the stairs without another word.

I linger in the kitchen for a while, staring at nothing and everything. My boots feel too heavy. My shirt too tight. I replay the night in my head, trying to pinpoint the moment things shifted with her mood.

Was it something her sister said before she got to the bar? Something I said? Was it me pulling her away from the state fair this weekend, something she might’ve actually wanted to do this year instead of flying to Texas with me?

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked her to come at all.

Maybe I should’ve just handled the pitch on my own.

I know the timing’s awful. She’s finally getting a break after grinding herself into the ground all year trying to prove herself—to me, to everyone—and what do I do?

Drop a last-minute trip in her lap like it’s no big deal.

Like she wouldn’t rather stay put while her sister’s here for the first time in who knows how long.

But itisa big deal. The pitch. The opportunity. And her. Dani’s the one person I trust to pull this off. The only one I’d want by my side. But I’ll do it on my own if she wants to stay.

I head upstairs, shower quickly, still beating myself up because I feel like I ruined her vacation and made her upset. Then I throw on some light grey sweats and a clean shirt. My chest is tight with frustration, and I can’t shake the feeling like I screwed up.

Dani and me? We don't do the silent treatment. We're always open about what's going on.

I'll just go check on her and make sure she’s alright.

I cross the hallway and pause at her door. It’s cracked just barely, a sliver of light from the window cutting across the floor.

I shouldn’t disturb her. I should just let her sleep off whatever hangover I'm sure she'll be nursing in the morning with a cup of coffee. But I push forward anyway because I know I won't be able to sleep unless I know that she’s okay and we’re good.

I nudge the door open with my foot, just enough to peer inside. The room is quiet, the air still, the walls lit only by the silver glow of the moon spilling through the cracked window.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see her and realize she's lying back in the bed on top of the blankets. Her eyes are closed, and I can barely make out her profile, the shape of her jaw, the fall of her hair—And then her eyes snap open and she sits up rapidly.

“What the fuck!?” she shouts, clearly terrified.

I freeze in place. “Sorry—shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare—" Something flies across the room directly towards my head. I duck and it slams into the wall next to me landing on the ground with a heavy thud.

“What the hell? Dani, are you okay?” I ask, taking another step into the room, hands half-raised like I’m approaching a skittish animal.

“No, no, no. Oh god, this isn’t happening,” she groans, face tilted to the ceiling.

"What's happening?" I shout again taking another step until I'm practically at the foot of her bed. I look down to see what almost hit me resting a few steps away from my bare feet.

Pink. Rounded with a curve. Silicone.

Fuck me she just threw a vibrator at my head.

My brain short-circuits for a full three seconds as I stand there like the world’s dumbest man.

“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath, stumbling back a step. “Shit, I wasn’t—I just wanted to make sure you were alright. You seemed upset in the truck.”

She buries her face in her hands, her voice muffled. “I didn’t know who you were at first! Why would you do that? Why would you just open the door!”

“I knocked!” I lie. “Sort of. The door was open, and you were quiet, and I thought maybe you were asleep already—shit, Dani, I wasn’t trying to—I didn’t see anything.”

“Yes, you did,” she says, mumbling into her hands.

I lift both hands, eyes pointedly avoiding the floor. “Okay, yes, I saw... it . But hey, no judgment. Seriously. It’s… normal. Totally. Healthy even. I get off all the time. You know, not using a vibrator of course, but masturbation is a completely normal thing.”

She glares at me through her fingers. “Please just shut up. I’m not your teenage son and we’re not having the sex talk right now.”

I clamp my mouth shut and nod like I’ve just taken an oath of silence.

I scrub a hand over the back of my neck, trying not to look at the damn thing lying on the floor like some kind of neon-pink landmine.

But I do. Of course I do. Because when you're that close to something that was just inside of Dani, you can't look away.

She was using that. Here. In this bed. In my house. With me right down the hallway. I can’t stop picturing it now, her fingers wrapped around that slick toy, her thighs spread wide on top of my sheets, her breath stuttering as she brought herself to the edge and then—

I groan. Quietly. Internally. I should not be starting to get hard over something that I was never supposed to see. But I am. My dick is already thickening in my boxers, reacting like this is foreplay instead of a total violation of her privacy.

She's going to leave. She's going to run back to her sister's house because I’m making her uncomfortable. And that makes me feel worse because I don’t want her to leave. I like having her here.

I need to fix this. Now.

She yanks the fleece blanket that was next to her high around her chest like a lifeline, avoiding my eyes as I force myself to look anywhere else.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, voice hoarse. “You seemed upset earlier, and I was just coming in to check on you. Fuck, Dani, I didn’t mean to walk in on… that.”

She shakes her head quickly, eyes glued to the ceiling. “It’s fine. It’s all good.”

It is very much not all good. My blood is buzzing under my skin, my pulse is jackhammering in my ears, and I feel like I’ve just been dumped into the middle of a sex dream that I’ve been having for thirteen months.

I shift on my feet. “Do you want me to come back in a bit to talk, or I can leave…" And move to another fucking state. " Do you want space to um, finish?” What the hell am I even saying?

Her cheeks flame. She laughs once tight and strangled. “No need for that. I’m already done.”

My brows pull together. “Wait, what?”

“I finished already,” she says quickly.

I blink. “You—damn, that fast?”

She lets out a groan and drags a pillow over her face like she wants to suffocate herself with it. “Can we not overanalyze this, please?”

I raise both hands again like I’m innocent, even though nothing about my thoughts are.

I’m seconds away from picturing exactly how fast she worked herself to get an orgasm that quickly.

And worse—how she might sound doing it. Moaning, whispering—fuck, I wonder what she was thinking about?

Was it me? No, why would it be me. Dani would never cross that professional line just like I wouldn’t.

I steal another glimpse at it, wondering if it smells like her pussy. If it's still coated in her and how it’d taste.

“Okay. What would you like me to do right now?” I ask. “I'm trying not to be a complete creep and make this awkward.”

“You’re failing miserably.”

“Thanks.”

She pulls the pillow off her face, glaring at me like I’m the one who started this whole mess which to be fair, I did storm in here without knocking. “Is it that unbelievable that I was able to get myself off that fast?”

I blink. “Uh, what?” Because I thought we'd moved on from that comment.

Before I can stop her, she throws the blankets off, hops out of bed in nothing but a T-shirt and—thankfully—it's long enough to cover up to right above her knees, then she picks up the pink vibrator like it’s a TV remote and this is all normal.

“Let me just give you the show-and-tell since you’re already here and clearly curious.”

“Dani—”

But it’s too late. She flips it on, and the thing starts vibrating quietly in her hand.

Then she presses another button.

And another.

And another.

Until the damn thing is vibrating so violently it’s practically levitating out of her palm.

“What the hell,” I mutter as she lets it bounce once on the mattress like some kind of obscene power tool. “That’s aggressive.”

She snorts. “It’s just efficient. No fuss, no fantasy. Gets the job done.”

“So… when I knocked, you just cranked it up to eleven and went for it?”

She shrugs. “Yes. You startled me. I didn’t want you to hear anything so I just…” She gestures vaguely with the toy. “Jacked it up so I could get it over with.”

I gape. “You came in the time it took for me to push open the door and step inside?”

“I said I was efficient.”

I fall onto her bed, laughing. Hard. The kind of laugh that tears a hole in the tension and lets me breathe again.

My whole chest shakes with it, and then I feel her laughing too, her giggles tumbling over mine until we’re both breathless, laying on her bed on our backs together staring at the ceiling fan.

“Okay,” she says, finally catching her breath. “I’m not proud, but I’m not embarrassed either. It’s a skill. I jackhammer my pussy, I come super-fast, I move on with my night.”

That nearly kills me.

“But what about foreplay?” I ask, rolling to my side to face her. “The build-up? The tease? The edging?”

She meets my gaze, and something flickers in her eyes before she answers. “I told you. I’m impatient, Lawson. I don't need all that.”

Fuck me. My name shouldn’t sound that good coming from her lips when she's talking about getting herself off. She catches herself, like she realizes we’ve crossed into very, very dangerous territory, and clears her throat.

“Look, this was obviously a colossal mistake. You’re my boss, this is totally inappropriate, and I think we should just pretend like this is one of those things we learned about each other that we wish we hadn’t and then never mention it again. I have those for you too, you know.”

That stops me.

“Things you wish you didn’t know about me?” I arch a brow. “Really? Like what?”

She lifts her hand dramatically, like she’s about to tick off a list. And dammit, I’ve never been more intrigued to hear what she has to say.