Page 14

CHAPTER 14

Toxic

T he sun was only just starting to come up over the horizon the next morning as I started feeding the sheep and goats. I frowned down at the text message from Lock. Hitting a button, I put the phone on speaker and laid it on the fence post nearby.

“You’re up early,” I said, cutting the baling twine off one of the bales of hay piled next to the fence. I grabbed the pitchfork and tossed flakes of hay into the feeding trough.

“So are you,” Lockout replied, sounding amused. “I’m always up this early.”

That explained why he was always so damn grumpy. A man needed to fuck, drink, and sleep in. Pretty much in that order. “How’s it going, Prez?” I leaned against the pitchfork.

“Good. I’m calling church tonight around five. Can you make it?”

I pulled the cowboy hat I’d unearthed from my closet over the last few days off and wiped my brow. It rarely dropped below the high nineties in the summer, even at night, so I was already sweating. “I’ll be there.” I was going to have to figure out what to do with Billie and Robert. I wasn’t about to fucking leave them alone out here after what happened. “Any chance any of the other guys could come out here and watch over these two?”

“I’ll check with them. If not, bring them to the clubhouse.”

Billie wasn’t going to like that. At all. But I wasn’t going to make it much longer before the women started cornering me, insisting on meeting her. I hadn’t been back to the clubhouse much, only to sleep occasionally, and I was sure that was the only reason they hadn’t managed to corral me yet.

Last night, I’d put my foot down and told Billie I’d now be staying out here until Rip finished looking into Fission Solutions and we figured out a way to get them to back off. She hadn’t been thrilled, but she’d made up the guest bedroom for me. I’d already been using it while she was sick, but I hadn’t said anything because she was agreeing to let me stay.

“Will do,” I said, answering Lock. “See you tonight.”

I pulled the leather work glove off my hand and disconnected the call. No one was coming out today to work on the barn. Most of them had needed the morning off and now that church was happening later, it wouldn’t be worth having them come at all. I shot Hush a text and asked him to spread the word that we’d start up tomorrow.

I ran through the list of work to do and how much time it would take and settled for taking a look at the bale unroller. The to-do list for this ranch was extensive. The roofs on the house, barn, and bunkhouse needed to be repaired or replaced, most of the equipment needed an overhaul, and a good majority of the fencing needed repairing as well. There was more, but those were the big things once the painting was finished up.

Robert had mentioned that the bale unroller had been busted for a while and the men had been hucking hay bales onto trucks and trailers in order to feed the cattle during the non-grazing months, which was most months here in Arizona. Now that there were no men to stack hay bales, that wasn’t going to work. I had no doubts that Billie was stubborn enough to try, but I’d lose my fucking mind if she did.

There was zero fucking reason for her to be hand moving bales. That was what all this fucking equipment around here was for. And if she didn’t have it, I’d buy it. Because while I didn’t mind throwing around bales, I’d eventually get sick of it, too. At least for now I didn’t need to hit the gym for my workouts. Was getting plenty of that out here.

Grabbing my tool box from the truck, I went over to where the unroller was and started poking and prodding at it. This particular unroller was for round bales, and it was designed to link up to a tractor. So my guess was there was either something wrong with the hydraulics, or the actual tractor itself.

Jumping up into the nearby tractor, I set to work connecting the two pieces of equipment so that I could fiddle with the controls and see where the trouble was. For the next thirty minutes, I was climbing in and out of the cab of the tractor, flipping switches and controls to see what the unroller was, or wasn’t, doing.

I’d just shut the tractor off when Billie approached with two steaming mugs of coffee in her hands. “One of those for me?” I asked with a grin.

She’d been pretty quiet yesterday after her blow up. It was easy enough to see that she was struggling with giving up control of her property to me. It wasn’t like I was trying to snake it out from under her or anything like that. I already had one huge cattle operation. Didn’t need another. I just didn’t want her having to worry about shit while I was here. I was supposed to be taking work off her plate, not watching her struggle to get everything done while I sat around on my ass.

The smile she shot my way was more a hit of adrenaline than the caffeine from the coffee. She handed the cup over. I was at the point where I was worried I’d be arrested for how often I was beating my fucking dick. The woman was in my head and I couldn’t get her out. I woke up hard. Went to bed hard. And every time throughout the day that her face popped into my mind my dick went off on a tangent. Riding a horse with a hard-on was the least comfortable thing on this planet.

“If you manage to fix this thing,” she said, motioning toward the machine, “I’m going to owe you big time. Had one of the cowboys who used to work here take a look and he couldn’t figure it out. Said I’d need a mechanic to come out to take a look.

I snorted and shook my head. “I’ll get it going. Only a matter of time.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. She didn’t say anything after that.

We were standing there in companionable silence, drinking coffee, and watching the sun rise and all I could think about doing was grabbing her and kissing her. Well, and maybe rolling her around in some of this hay. I shifted, trying to ease the sudden tightness of my jeans.

“Didn’t feel like sleeping in?” I asked.

“I did sleep in,” she told me with grin. “I could get used to being lazy like this.”

I chuckled and took another drink from the mug. She wasn’t lazy at all. The woman tried to take on too much in fact. I’d caught her yesterday hauling lumber over to repair one of the fences near the house. She hadn’t been happy when I’d refused to let her continue and told her to leave that to me.

She sighed and took something out of her back pocket, handing it to me with a grim expression.

Staring at her, I took the envelope. Looking down at it, I swore when I saw Fission Solutions on the return address.

“Guess Keely’s cease and desist didn’t work,” she said. She was putting on a brave face, but I could see she was worried.

“I didn’t really expect it to,” I replied, setting the cup on the wheel well of the tractor to open the envelope. I pulled the letter out and scanned it. “They always this aggressive?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Mostly, but this does seem worse.”

“Probably because you dared to push back with a lawyer,” I growled. “They have this idea that this property is going to be theirs for some reason. So any return move on your part is going to just rile them up more.”

“I don’t know why they’re doing this, Toxic,” she said, finally meeting my eyes. She lifted her free hand in a motion of confusion. “This is a cattle ranch. Not even the biggest in this area. What use is it to them?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “But there must be something here they want.” Stepping forward, I caught her chin, forcing her to keep looking at me when her eyes would have darted away. “I’ll fix this, Lightning.”

The worry written all over her face was killing me. I wanted to chase it away, if only for a few minutes. And honestly, I’d been trying to get her in a position to give her another kiss. There were too many fucking bikers all over this place. My brothers were here because I’d asked them to be. Didn’t mean they weren’t cock blocking me at every turn, too.

Lowering my head, I stopped just a breath away from her lips. She was gripping her coffee cup with both hands, as though she was afraid she’d drop it. I suspected it was so that she didn’t let them roam over me. But fuck did I want her to touch me. Didn’t matter. If her hands were occupied, then that meant I could touch where I wanted without interference.

I dragged the back of my knuckles over her cheek, then slid them down along the length of her throat. I watched as the shiver ran through her. God, I wanted her to make those sexy little noises she’d been making the last time I kissed her. I’d been dreaming of those fucking sounds.

When her head tilted up and I saw that look in her eyes, I moved in and pressed my mouth over hers, sinking my fingers into her soft hair and tugging it free from its ponytail. She groaned as my lips worked against hers and my fingers tightened in her hair, tilting her head back so that I could devour her mouth. I wanted to fuck her so hard right now, that I’d probably end up scaring her if I tried. The thought of bending her over the nearby wooden fence had my cock leaking in my jeans. I wanted to get inside her, feel that pussy wrap around me while I filled her.

When my tongue dove into her mouth, I growled low and deep in the back of my throat. Fuck. She tasted so damn good. I wanted more, so I grabbed her by those thick hips and lifted her onto the bale unroller. It wasn’t going to be super comfortable for her to perch on the length of metal that made up the side of the machine, but I didn’t give a shit.

Before she could close her legs, I stepped between them. I pried the coffee cup out of her hands and tossed it to the side, not caring where it landed.

“Toxic!” she gasped, eyes wide as they followed the trajectory of the cup. “That was-”

I took that opportunity to kiss her again. While her lips were parted. When I felt her tongue tentatively brush against mine, my hips bucked forward of their own volition, and my hands wrapped around her hips. Her hands fisted in the fabric of my t-shirt and she let out that whimper of sound I’d been longing to hear.

My mouth moved away from hers, and down over the soft skin of her neck. All of her was soft and I fucking loved it. My hands squeezed her hips, enjoying the feel of them. “Fuck,” I groaned against her skin as my hips pressed against the heat between her thighs. “So fucking hot.”

She trembled against me as her arms circled around my neck and pulled me in tighter against her. My mouth kept moving down, lower and lower until I reached her collarbones. Her shirt was draped off to the side and the delicate skin was begging for my mouth. My teeth. I scraped that bare spot and grinned when she sucked in a breath. Her skin was starting to pinken, thanks to my teeth and beard. I liked the idea that she’d be wearing my marks for a few hours at least.

My hands moved to the hem of her shirt and I started pushing it upward, groaning with gratitude as I started to bare her sexy body. When her hands clamped over my wrists, I sighed and looked up at her. She was shaking her head and despite the disappointment, I let her shirt drop. I was struggling with control as I pulled back. It felt like a piece of my heart had been ripped out and taken away, leaving a raw ache inside of my chest.

As much as I wanted to fuck her, she was right. This wasn’t the place to do it. I wanted to take her in a soft bed. Not on the hard ground outside. She deserved more than that. For that first time anyway. After that I’d be fucking her anywhere I could get her out of her clothes. I was a rancher, a biker, and basically a goddamn animal. Fucking outside didn’t bother me in the least. If someone walked up and got a show, then it would be up to them to turn around and walk away. Not my fucking problem.

She slid down off the unroller as I walked over to the tractor and grabbed the coffee cup there. I gave it to her since I’d basically wasted hers. “I need to go back to my clubhouse for an hour or so later tonight.”

“Okay,” she said, straightening her shirt with one hand while she held the cup. Her cheeks were flushed and she was avoiding eye contact.

“You and your grandfather are coming with me.”

Now her eyes met mine, flashing with irritation. “That’s not a good idea. He’s not supposed to be moving around a lot.”

“I read the take home instructions,” I told her with a wry smile. “They said it was good for him to get up and move each day.” Tilting my head, I studied her. “Why don’t you want to go?”

“Why do I need to go?” she countered, fisting one hand on her hip.

“Because I’m not leaving you out here alone for the time it’ll take for me to get back into town, go to church, and get back. Not fucking happening, Lightning.” It was bad enough we’d have to leave the ranch alone and exposed for a couple hours, but I was going to have to take the risk. Lock needed most of us at church and the other members were busy and couldn’t stay out here. It was only a couple hours then we’d be back.

She blinked at me in confusion. “You’re going to church?” She gave me a dubious look. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“Not that kind of church. I’ll explain it later on the drive. Be ready to leave by four,” I called out because she was already walking away from me, shaking her head.

Adjusting my wayward dick, I went back to working on the stubborn machine in front of me.