Calmly, Carefully, Completely (13 page)

“You talk about it like it’s nothing.” She’s embarrassed.

I tip her chin up. “What I’ve done in the past with other girls was nothing. What we did tonight? That was far from nothing.” I tweak her nose because I’m about to rock my own world, and I want to ease the blow if she rejects me. “I have real feelings for you, Reagan,” I say quietly. “I can’t explain them. And I don’t want to. But don’t try to push what happened between us tonight off as common. Because it wasn’t. It was big. And I want to keep doing it. I want to learn all about you and have you learn all about me. I want you to meet my family. I want to go on a date with you.” I look around. “This place is nice, but…seriously?”

She laughs. “You want me to meet your family?” she asks.

“If you think you can stand it. There are five of us. All men.”

“I’m not afraid of men in general,” she explains.

“Just the ones that touch you.” I run my crooked finger along her cheekbone, and she turns into my hand to kiss my palm.

“Your brothers look like you,” she says.

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“I saw them when you got out of prison,” she says quietly.

“You were there?”

She nods. “My dad made me sit in the truck while he talked to you about camp.” She draws her lower lip between her teeth and bites down like she’s anxious about my response. “Sorry. I should have told you sooner.” She groans. “I kind of asked for you to be here. So I could see you.”

“I’m glad you did.” Never been happier about anything.

“Your brothers all have tattoos, too,” she says. She looks at the tattoo on my arm that’s for my mom. She picks up my hand and traces the tats that go up my forearm to my sleeve. “I want to look at all of them so I can find out what makes you tick.” She draws a circle around the American flag.

“That one’s for my buddy who died in Afghanistan.”

Her silky fingertips slide up the dragon on my inner arm. “And this one?” she asks softly.

“That one was a little too much courage one night,” I say with a laugh.

Her hand slips beneath the edge of my sleeve. “I guess I can’t go much farther,” she says.

I reach behind my neck and pull the shirt over my head the way guys do. She grins and gets an evil glint in her eye. But I move, lean back against the stall door, and pull her across my lap. “If you get to explore me, I get to explore you,” I warn. I tickle my fingers up the side of her leg.

But then her lips press against the words that line my collarbone. She suckles my skin gently. I groan quietly and move my hand to her inner thigh. Her skin is soft and silky, and I know I’m going to have to call a halt to this soon. I can only take so much in one night. She tilts her head to read the words
she just tongued across my chest. “
All for one, one for all
,” she reads quietly. “That one is about your brothers?”

I nod. “I live for them. When I thought Matt was dying, I wanted to die with him.”

“Your brother was dying?” she asks. Her hands stop exploring, and she looks into my face.

“Matt had cancer. It was really expensive, and Logan had to come home from college. We were broke, and we were all afraid he was going to die.” I look into her face. “Do you want to hear about this?” I ask.

She nods and settles in my arms. “I want to hear everything.”

“Sam and I took side jobs with this guy in our neighborhood to make some extra money. It wasn’t really illegal.” I stop and growl. I can’t lie to her. “We knew it was illegal, but we needed money for Matt. That’s how I got arrested.” I’m not proud of it, but I can’t undo my past. That would be like putting toothpaste back in the tube.

“Desperation can make a person do things they wouldn’t normally do,” she says softly. “How’s Matt now?”

I smile. “He’s in remission.”

“Oh, good,” she breathes. “Tell me about the others.”

“Paul’s the oldest. He has a daughter named Hayley, and she lives with us half the time. And Logan is the one I told you about who goes to NYU.”

She counts on her fingers. “There’s one more, right?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Where’s he?”

“He’s away at college on a football scholarship.” He’s living the dream. My dream. Sam just wants to bake cakes. But Paul says we all have to finish college, so he went.

“Are you close?” she asks.

“Not as close as we used to be.”

“Can you remedy that?”

Can I? “I’m going to try.” And I will.
As soon as I go home.

She tucks herself closer under my arm and settles there. After a few minutes, her
breaths even out and she gets soft in my arms. I look down my nose at her. She’s asleep in my arms, and I don’t ever want to put her down. So, I pull the blanket over the both of us and hold her close to me, as close as I can get her.

Reagan

I wake up to a tinny, clanking sound. I sit up, sticky where I slept against Pete’s shoulder. We must have sweated together, our skin pressed close. And I might have drooled on him a little bit, too. Yuck. I wipe the side of my mouth and sit up. Pete stirs under me and then freezes. He lifts his head and looks around. He groans and falls back against the blanket. “Shit, I’m fucked,” he grunts.

“You better not have been,” my dad calls out. He clanks the lid of the feed bucket as he scoops out sweet feed for the horses. Link helps him, and Dad’s making a lot more noise than Link is.

I close my eyes. Dad’s mad. I just slept in the barn with Pete. And he knows it. “Oh shit,” I say.

“Oh shit,” Link parrots.

Pete closes his eyes as he grins. “You better stop while you’re ahead,” he whispers with a laugh.

“Good morning, Pete,” Dad says, faking joviality as he walks by us carrying buckets. I start to sit up, but as I pull the blanket from Pete, I realize he still doesn’t have a shirt on. He took it off last night so I could explore his ink. This looks really bad.

“Where’s your shirt?” I whisper. I look around in the lump of blankets and don’t see it.

“Oh shit,” Link says again. He pops his head up beside mine and holds up Pete’s blue T-shirt.

“Oh, blue shirt,” Pete says.

“Oh, blue shirt,” Link parrots.

Pete takes it and pulls it over his head. He reaches out to ruffle Link’s hair, but Link steps to the side. “At least he’s not saying shit anymore,” Pete says.

“Shit,” Link says.

I groan and run a hand through my hair.

“Lincoln!” Dad barks. “Bring me that bucket.”

“Bring me the bucket,” Link says. He scampers off to get Dad’s bucket.

“Good morning,” Pete says quietly. He turns to drop his feet to the floor and stands up, stretching tall. He shows a small strip of his abs, and I want to lean forward and lick him.
God, where did that come from?

“Morning,” I mutter. I lick my lips.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Pete whispers.

“Like what?” I whisper back. But a grin tugs at the corners of my lips. I can’t help it.

“Like you want lick me like a lollipop,” he says. He adjusts the front of his pants, and I can’t help but notice the bulge there. “Stop looking at it,” he hisses.

I look for my dad, but he’s gone outside the barn. “I don’t even know what I’m looking at!” I complain. Pete takes my hand and presses my fingertips against the bulge of his erection. He gasps in a breath as my fingertips explore the ridges of him. “Reagan,” he groans. He turns his hip and puts up a knee to block me. “Would you stop it? I’d like to walk out of here sometime today.”

“Licking it like it’s a lollipop?” I ask, unable to get the idea out of my head. “You can do that?”

He grins and scratches the back of his head. “Well, I can’t. But you could.” His voice is gravely and kind of nasally since he just woke up. “Never mind,” he says. He pulls me to my feet and presses a quick kiss to my lips.

“Uh,” I say, brushing him away. “Morning breath.”

“I don’t care,” he says, leaning to kiss me quickly. I give him my cheek. “Give it to me,” he says. I pucker my lips and touch his quickly, careful not to breathe on him. “That’s better,” he croons. “Should I go talk to your dad?” he asks.

It’s really sweet that he would even think of that. “I doubt that’s a good idea.”

I hear a horse blow, and I remember the whole reason why we slept in the barn in the first place. I step onto a bale of hay and look down at Tequila. She’s on her feet and apparently, I was wrong.
False alarm on the foaling.

Pete drops an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close to him. Dad bursts back into the barn with the slam of a door. I jump. Pete doesn’t let me go.

“Pete, don’t you have somewhere to be?” Dad asks. “Like in your own cabin in your own bed?”

Pete nods his head. “Yes, sir,” he says. He turns to me. “I’ll see you later?”

I nod. My belly does a little flippy-floppy thing, and he touches his lips to mine.

“See you later, Mr. Caster,” he calls.

“Not if I see you first,” Dad calls back.

Dad slams around the barn for a few more minutes while I feed Tequila a carrot. I totally missed the birth. I’m so relieved that things went well.

“Have a nice night?” Dad barks. He doesn’t look up from whatever he’s doing.

I smile. My belly drops down toward my toes at the thought of it. “I did, actually.”

“Reagan,” Dad breathes.

“Yes, Dad?” I say sweetly. He’s mad, but I can’t make him un-mad. And I probably deserve it for spending the whole night in the barn with Pete.

“Don’t make me have to kill that boy,” Dad warns.

“Yes, sir,” I say, dipping my head so he won’t see my smile. “You should know that we didn’t do anything wrong, though. He was a perfect gentleman. He just…” I square my shoulders. “He just held me.”

Dad draws in a quick breath. I don’t let anyone touch me, and Dad knows it. So in this situation, I might as well have said, “he just fucked me all night long.” The level of intimacy is about the same in my dad’s mind. I’m sure of it. “All right,” he mutters. He throws hay to the horses, one flake at a time.

“Dad,” I call out. He stops and looks up at me. “Is it okay that I might be falling in love with him?”

Dad’s eyes open wide, and he blows out a breath. “Reagan,” he says quietly. “You should go and talk to your mother about this.”

“Okay…” I say.

“If you want to talk about the best way to knee him in the nuts,” he says, pointing to his chest, “then I’m your guy. But if you want to talk about feelings and emotions and birth control and stuff, go talk to your mother.”

“How did you just jump from feelings to birth control?” I have to ask.

“Because that’s what happens, Reagan. You jump from strong feelings to birth control. It’s the natural order of things for men.” He takes off his cap and runs a hand through is hair. “I was a twenty-one-year-old man once myself.”

“That’s when you met Mom,” I say, and I start to smile. He looks uncomfortable. So I have to press it. “So you and Mom went from strong feelings to birth control?” I ask. I snap my fingers. “Like that?”

“Nope,” he says, stopping to stare into my eyes. “How do you think we got you?” He grins this time. He nods his head toward the house. “Go talk to your mother.”

“TMI, Dad,” I sing. “TMI!” I turn to walk toward the house.

“Reagan!” Dad calls. I turn to face him. “Pete’s a good guy,” he says. “But he’s still a guy.”

“We’re taking things slow, Dad,” I say. Heat floods my face.

“Mmm hmm,” he hums. He goes back to work.

“Take it slow,” Link says.

“I love you, Link,” I call.

“I love you, too,” he calls back.

I walk into the back door and find my mom pouring a cup of coffee. “Pete still alive?” she asks me as she goes to sit down at the table.

“For now.” I sigh. “We fell asleep. Nothing happened, I swear.” Well, not
nothing. But we didn’t do anything, really. Nothing that didn’t rock my world as I know it.

“That’s why you’re glowing?” she asks. “Because nothing happened?” She pats the table next to her. “Come sit,” she says.

“Mom,” I grouse, sounding like a child, I know.

“Sit,” she says more forcefully. I drop into a chair.

“Was he kind?” she asks.

I nod.

“Was he considerate?”

I nod and draw my lower lip between my teeth as I fight a smile.

“Was he careful?” She arches her brow at the last question.

“God, Mom,” I complain. “We didn’t do anything. He just kissed me.”

“I’ll make an appointment with my gynecologist if you want birth control,” she says. She looks at me.

I find myself nodding my head, and Mom smiles and
pats my hand. “Good girl,” she says on a sigh.

Pete

I’m with the group of hearing-impaired boys, and they’re taking turns riding the horses around the ring. The deaf kids tend to make a group of themselves, and they haven’t been interacting with some of the other kids at the camp. I’ll have to see what I can do about that. Since my brother is deaf, there’s one thing I do know, and it’s that deaf kids don’t see themselves as handicapped. They have a culture all
their own, and they can function in society with little or no intervention. But they do tend to clique up since sign language is something they all have in common.

I’ve never spent much time around horses.
Or any, if I have to tell the truth. They’re great, big, heavy beasts, and the one I’m leading around the ring keeps nudging me with her nose against my shoulder. “Would you cut it out?” I ask, but she just makes a breathy noise and nuzzles the back of my head. She knocks off my baseball cap, and I bend over to pick it up. But when I do, she bumps me in the ass, and I fall onto my hands in the dirt.

I dust off my hands and look around. Edward, who I can no longer call Tic
Tac since I heard his story, is leading one of the other horses. He snorts at me. “Dude, I think you just got bitch slapped. Again.” He chuckles, so I flip him the bird. Edward looks over my shoulder and whistles low, and I turn around to find Reagan walking toward us. She must have gone and taken a shower because her hair’s still damp and she’s plaited it into two braids that hang over her shoulders. She’s wearing a T-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans, and some brown leather boots that come up mid-calf. Damn, she’s pretty.

She pats the horse I’m leading as
she comes closer. “Is Juliette giving you a hard time?” she asks. She leans close to the horse’s ear and whispers to her. The hair on my arms stands up, and it’s not even my ear she’s whispering into. Juliette shakes her head, and Reagan laughs. Damn, that’s a pretty sound.

She walks by
me carrying a bucket. “Where are you going?” I yell to her.

She turns back, smiling over her shoulder. “
Gotta go get Romeo for Juliette,” she says. “That’s why she’s being so ornery. Her boyfriend is hanging out with the cows.” She nods toward the pasture. “Want to help me?” she asks.

She has Link with her, and he’s following her almost as closely as Maggie, her dog. I doubt that dog ever leaves her side. Hell, I want to be a puppy and follow her, too. I toss the lead rope of the horse I’m holding to one of the boys from the prison program. He grins and shakes his head. He’s the one who called me pussy whipped last night. Yep. I suppose I am. And it doesn’t bother me in the least.

I run after Reagan, who laughs as I catch up with her. “You look really pretty today,” I say. I want to kiss her so badly I can taste it.

She blushes. “Thank you,” she says, looking down toward her feet.

“I missed you,” I say.

She grins. “You just saw me an hour ago,” she reminds me. Like I need it. All I can think about is the way she felt in my arms. She fit perfectly against my chest.

“Was your dad mad?” I ask. It matters. It really does. I want her parents to like me, but I’m afraid I’m going about it all wrong. I’ve never met a girl’s parents before. Never had any need to. But with Reagan… Everything is different.

She shrugs. “A little.” She laughs. “We had a talk about how to knee you in the nuts, the fact that men only want one thing, and then he gave me way TMI about birth control.”

I stop walking. Wow. That’s a lot to take in. “You talk with your dad about that stuff?”

She shrugs. “Some of it. He sent me to my mom for the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?”

Her cheeks get even rosier. “The talk about birth control and all that stuff.”

“Oh,” I say. I sound like an idiot. But she just threw me for a loop. She walks toward a fence and bends to duck between the rails. I follow her, and Link does, too. He’s in his own world, and I think he’s singing a song. But it’s so soft, I can’t tell. “So, you’re…um…thinking about that kind of stuff, huh?”

She bites her lower lip and nods. “Yep.”

“I…ah…don’t know what to say about that.” I take my cap off and scratch the back of my head.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she says with a shrug. “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about it.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. My heart trips in my chest like crazy. Shit just got real.

She narrows her eyes at me, but that may be the sun in her eyes. “You can tell me if you don’t have any romantic interest in me, Pete.” She heaves a sigh. “I’ll be all right with it.”

She turns and puts two fingers to her lips. A shrill whistle bursts through the air. Link covers his ears and grins. Suddenly, a horse gallops up, barreling toward us like a streak of black-and-white lightning. Reagan shrieks when I thrust her behind me, but she’s laughing too. The horse stops a step from my feet and snorts in my face. “Motherfucker,” I breathe.

“Motherfucker,” Link parrots.

Oh, hell. That’s bad. I’ve got to learn to watch my mouth around the kid. “Pretty horse,” I say, and I watch Link.

“Pretty horse,” he repeats.

“That’s better,” I say quietly. Link nods, and he holds the bucket up so the horse can stick his nose in it.

“This is Romeo,” Reagan says as she slips a halter over his head. She pats his sides. “He escapes all the time and goes to hang with the cows. Then Juliette gets upset and takes it out on everyone else.” She pats him but all he wants is to stick his head in the bucket. She starts to walk back toward the barn
.

I follow, careful where I step, as we walk
together. She’s quiet. Hell, maybe she’s thinking about birth control. I don’t know. I’m prepared. I’m always prepared, but she’s not ready for what I want. Not even close.

When we get
to the barn, Reagan tosses the lead rope to Link and says, “Would you take him to Juliette, Link?” He nods and takes the horse, and Reagan motions for me to follow her. We walk behind the barn, and I can’t help but think of all the ways her dad would try to emasculate me if he caught us back here.

She narrows her eyes at me and a corner of her lip kicks up. “You remember last night when you said you could have some real feelings for me?” she asks quietly.

I nod.

She clears her throat and her discomfort is so damn cute that I want to kiss her immediately. “Well, I want you to know that
I know
I have some very real feelings for you, Pete. There’s no doubt about it. So, yeah, I’m scared. I’m scared of these feelings, and my mom was being a mom and my dad was being a dad and their first thought was keeping me from getting pregnant.”

Damn, I want to sleep with this girl, but I want so much more than just to sleep with her. “Reagan,” I say.
I reach for her, and for the first time ever, she doesn’t flinch. She lets me cover her hips with my hands and pull her against me. “I’m the guy,” I say, trying not to grin. “I’ll take care of all that birth control stuff when the time is right.”

She nods. “I know you will.” She lays her forehead against my chest, and I can feel her breath against my skin, hot and warm. “You just asked about what my mom and dad had to say. And that’s what they had to say.” She shrugs. “So I told you.” She steps up onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to against my cheek, lingering long enough for me to smell her minty toothpaste. “Don’t worry, Pete. I promise not to defile you.” She grins. But with what happened to her, that’s not the least little bit amusing.

I groan and lay my head back, closing my eyes while I think. I can’t think while she’s looking at me.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. She steps back, and I feel the loss of her immediately. “The idea of having sex with me turns you off completely?” she whispers. “Doesn’t it?” She shakes her head. “I should have known.”

“No,” I start, but I don’t know what to say. She steps away, and I reach for her fingertips. She turns, and I grab her shirt. She spins around, but this time she doesn’t clock me. She looks at my hand and smiles. But it’s a sad smile. It’s not what I want to see on my girl’s face. “I want you.”

“It’s okay, Pete,” she says quietly. “Maybe I read this all wrong.” She motions from me to her and back again. “I thought we were at the same place.”

“I’m further gone than you are,” I blurt out.

She stops walking and looks me in the eye. “Gone?” Her green eyes blink slowly.

“Gone. Done. Head over heels. Can’t stop thinking about you. Want to be with you all the time. Can feel you against my skin even when you’re not with me. Gone.”

Her breaths quicken. “Oh,” she says. Her hands lay flat on my chest.

“But I think I might be further gone than you are.” I lean down to look into her eyes. “Are you going to break my heart, Reagan?” I ask. “You’re already thinking about birth control, and it scares the fuck out of me, the very thought of getting to be inside you. Because I want you, Reagan. I want every piece of you.”

“Even the shattered pieces?” she asks.

I bracket her face with my hands and pull her face up to mine. “I’ll be the glue that puts you back together,” I breathe. “I’ve been locked up a long time, Reagan,” I say.

“I’ve been locked up even longer than you have, Pete,” she says, her voice heavy with emotion. She swallows.

“Don’t give me hope unless you’re sure,” I plead.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” she says. She wraps her hands around my neck and pulls my head down to hers and kisses me. Her lips are soft and warm and insistent, and when her tongue touches mine, I almost come in my pants. I break away from her because I can’t take much more. She looks into my eyes. “I’m not ready for sex yet, Pete,” she says. “But I’m closer than I was. I feel like you’ve unlocked the door to my future. Now I just need for you to walk through it with me. So, quit being so fucking scared you’re going to hurt me, Pete. And just like me. And then someday, maybe you’ll love me.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. I chuckle quietly. “I’m glad you had the birth control talk with your mom,” I say. “My brother Paul shoved condoms at me as I was going out the door to come here. I don’t know who he thought I’d screw at a camp for boys.”

Her face goes rosy red.

“I mean, not screw. Well, if it wasn’t you, it would be screwing.” Shit. I’m fucking this all up. With her, it’s going to be so much more than screwing. “That’s what scares me, princess. I’ve never done what I want to do with you.”

“You’ve done it lots of times,” she says with a breezy wave.

I shake my head. “No, I haven’t.” I look her in the eye. “Now you think about what that means and be sure you’re ready for it.”

I turn and go back to Juliette and take her lead rope. My fucking legs are shaking, and I can barely breathe. If this is what love feels like, I’m glad it waited until I was old enough to understand it.