Just Once (22 page)

“How about you?” Matt says to Hailey. “Want to dance?”

Hailey’s finishing another shot, her sixth of the night if the row of empty glasses is any indication. Brandon’s not here, so I think she’s just relaxing after a week of million-hour days, but still, she seems to panic. “Um,” she says, avoiding his eyes, “I—”

I kick her under the table and push back her chair. “She’d love to,” I tell Matt. “Have at it.”

The band launches into a popular song, and the dancers line up. Matt tugs Hailey into place, and she glares at me over her shoulder as they start trying to follow the moves. They’re both equally good or equally bad, depending on how you look at it. Lisa and Pete join in too, but they’ve had a lot more practice and look happy and comfortable.

“That used to be me,” I tell Mark, watching them. “My first summer here, I memorized every step to every song.”

He nods, not looking at me.

“Think you’ll come back next year?” I try.

This time his eyes drift my way. “Doubt it,” he says.

“Why not?”

He shrugs. “It’s my third year. It’s probably time to move on.”

“I thought you liked it.”

“I did. I do. But even being here with people I like, good music, lots of beer, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m supposed to be somewhere else.”

I nod again. I know exactly how he feels. Everything around me is great, but all I’m thinking about is the hot tub shack, Shane’s trailer, Shane’s bed, Shane’s hands, Shane, Shane, Shane.

After the encounter in the shack, Shane kissed me on the forehead, zipped up his pants, and apologized for leaving so quickly but said he had to drive the guests to town. I nodded as I casually forced my jeans back up over sweaty thighs and pretended I wasn’t wondering what had just happened and what—if anything—it meant. Or what I wanted it to mean.

“I’m going to go,” I tell Mark.

“Already? You’ve had one beer in three hours.”

“I know. I’m old and boring.”

“You’re neither!”

I laugh. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I’m halfway to the door when a pair of nails digs into my arm. “Don’t even think about it,” Hailey hisses in my ear. “Get your ass out on that dance floor and have fun!”

“Actually, I’m just—”

“Now,” Lisa says, popping up on the other side and mimicking Hailey’s firm tone. Matt’s kicking up his heels in the background, waggling his eyebrows in what’s probably supposed to be a tempting way.

“Just do what they say,” Pete sighs, appearing in front of me. “Trust me when I tell you it’s easier to boot-scoot boogie than argue.”

I relent, and it’s nearly two when we return to the ranch. I park the van and Mark, Pete, Matt, Lisa, and Hailey topple out. I stopped at one beer, so I’m the only person walking steady, and we watch the guys slowly wind their way back to their bunkhouse before starting up the stairs to our own.

“That was so much fun!” Lisa crows as we reach the top. I tried to keep an eye on her and Pete all night, but they obviously still found a way to sneak in a few drinks.

“It was fun,” I agree. “My feet hurt so much I’m going to know I had a blast for the next two days.”

“I like Matt,” Hailey sighs as I help her into her bed. “I didn’t think I would, but he’s really funny. It was nice to think about someone other than Brandon for a change.”

“And it’s nice to hear you talk about someone other than Brandon,” I say, earning a laugh from Lisa.

Hailey may or may not scowl at me, but she passes out a split-second later, so it doesn’t matter. I wedge the boots off her feet and arrange them on the floor, then make sure Lisa safely scales the ladder to her bed before wishing them a good night and backing out the door.

I wash my face and brush my teeth, then pull my hair on top of my head so it doesn’t tangle while I’m sleeping. When I open the bathroom door, the hallway is an impenetrable wall of black, and I have to feel my way back to my room. I’m nearly at my door when a hand clamps over my mouth, stifling my scream.

Chapter Thirteen

“S
HH
,” A L
OW
V
OICE
M
URMURS
. “It’s me.” Even if I didn’t recognize the tone, I’d know the steely chest at my back.

My promise not to scream is muffled by calloused fingers as Shane releases me. I turn to give him the stink eye, but it’s so dark I can see little more than the outline of his head and shoulders in the moonlight coming through the open door behind him.

“What are you doing up here?” I whisper. “No boys allowed!”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“Uh-huh.”

Technically, this is true. With Matt taking up some of the slack, we each have fewer cabins to clean, so I told everyone we could start at ten o’clock tomorrow, giving us the rare opportunity to sleep in.

“So you get a late start tomorrow. Come outside for a second. I want to show you something.”

“Is it the same thing you showed me in the hot tub shack?”

I can feel Shane smile. “Uh-huh.”

I hesitate. This is what I’ve been thinking about all morning, afternoon, and evening, but now that it’s being offered, I can’t help but wonder if I’m getting in over my head. I’ve spent more time thinking about Shane in the past three weeks than I have any other guy in my life, ever, and I’m not ready to worry about what that might mean.

While I’m contemplating he sighs, steps forward, and kisses me. He doesn’t wait, just pushes his tongue past my teeth, presses us together from lips to toe, and trusts that I won’t say no. And I don’t. I can’t. Already there’s a tension low in my belly that will keep me tossing and turning all night if it isn’t addressed. And he’s got just the thing to remedy that problem pressing into my hip.

“What happened to just once?” I ask, pulling back and gasping for breath. My heart is pounding from both arousal and the threat of being caught.

Shane kisses me again. “I wasn’t expecting to like it so much,” he admits.

I pull away, offended. “I beg your pardon?”

“Come outside,” he says, tugging my hand.

“You weren’t expecting to like it?”

He pulls me down the hall to the door, to the stairs, across the road, through the moonlight. “Come inside,” he continues, opening his trailer door and ushering me in.

“What did you think you wouldn’t like, exactly?” I demand.

Shane undoes my jeans, shoving them down to my knees along with my underwear, then turns me around and presses my hands to the wall. I feel a broad hand squeeze between my thighs, higher and higher, until he’s sawing gently back and forth along the most sensitive part of my anatomy. He pulls my hips back to give himself better access, and we both groan when his tongue begins a leisurely inspection of my damp folds.

I’m done arguing.

I wake up groggy, confused, and weak. My muscles feel like limp noodles. The sun is shining in my eyes, so I cover my face with a pillow and stretch, vaguely registering that my back doesn’t feel like it’s going to snap in half at the movement.

Then a familiar feeling comes over me: that moment when I wake up and realize I have no idea where I am. I’m not in my bed in the bunkhouse. This isn’t my pillow. The light that’s shining on my face is too close, too—I whip off the pillow and look to my right. Nothing. Nobody.

This is Shane’s bed.

I’m in his bed, in his trailer. Alone.

I twist my neck to look at the clock. 9:08.

“Shane?” I call cautiously.

No answer.

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and search for my clothes. Not here. I’m buck naked in a trailer on a ranch with dozens of people milling around outside. What the fuck was I thinking, falling asleep? What was Shane thinking? “Keep it casual” doesn’t mean
spend the night
(after I’ve exhausted you beyond the point of intelligent thought).

Crap
. I find my clothing in the living room and dress quickly. I knock on the closed bathroom door, not expecting a response and not getting one, then step inside to splash icy water on my face. Where the hell is Shane? Why did he leave me? And why did I not notice him going?

Well, I may have the answer to the last question. The man is a machine—an exhausting, amazing machine that just keeps going and going and going, like that damned pink drumming bunny. And just when you think it’s over, when you’re ready to drift off to a beautiful, comfortable dreamland, you’ll feel a finger or a tongue or—in the best instances—the head of his cock probing you. And then you’re awake again and ready to go, meeting that rabbit beat for pounding beat.

I splash more water on my face.
Enough, Kate. Get a grip.
I have more pressing issues right now, namely how in the hell I’m going to get from this trailer to the lodge without anyone noticing. I don’t have to go to the window to hear the telltale signs of life outside: voices, laughter, footsteps. I’m surrounded.

The bathroom is small but, like the rest of the trailer, anal-retentively clean. There’s a tube of toothpaste (I squirt some on my finger), a toothbrush, dental floss, and a bar of white soap. The stand-up shower looks barely big enough to contain Shane, but it’s equipped with the basics: a bottle of two-in-one shampoo and another bar of white soap. I shudder and close the door. I miss my products already. I miss my sweetly scented soap and separate shampoo and conditioner. As compatible as Shane and I may be in some areas, we differ in this one.

I ponder this as I return to the bedroom to hunt down a brush, finding only a tiny comb, and fix my hair as best I can with the small scrap of plastic. I don’t think I’ve ever dated a guy who didn’t have a bathroom arsenal to match mine. Andre, the hotelier, had such a wonderfully diverse supply that I didn’t even have to bring anything with me when I spent the night. That was heaven. This…I look around the small room, the rumpled bed, the white T-shirt and cargo pants hanging from a hook on the wall. Well, this might not look like heaven, but for a few hours it sure as hell felt like it.

I cross the room, ducking beneath the curtain-covered window when I hear voices pass by, then crack open the door an inch to look outside. Unfortunately Shane’s trailer is completely exposed to the horse paddock, which is now full of horses and a few wranglers, and the road, which has a disturbing amount of foot traffic.

I listen carefully and when a full ten seconds of silence passes, I whip open the door, step onto the porch, and turn around to knock. “Shane?” I call, pounding harder than necessary so someone will notice me “arriving.” “Are you in there?”

I hear heavy footsteps and turn to see Brandon rounding the side of the barn. “He’s not in,” he tells me. I try to look surprised. “He had to take Connor to the emergency room a few hours ago.”

Now my surprise is genuine. “Why? What happened?”

Brandon rolls his eyes, unconcerned. “Nothing a few stitches won’t fix. Connor’s real trouble begins when he gets back.”

I can tell Brandon wants to talk, so I gently encourage him. “Oh?”

“Shane’s running a tight ship this summer,” he says. “Like, really strict. More than normal. We’re supposed to work, sleep, eat, and get back to work. But Connor had a few too many last night, went streaking through the paddock, and cut open his knee on a piece of barbed wire trying to hop the fence.”

I don’t know much about Connor, but this seems extremely unusual. The ranch hands have always come across as stoic and un-fun. “That sounds…”

“Out of character? Oh yeah. Pressure’s building, you know? All work, no play. All that.”

I notice his gaze drifting to the bunkhouse. I’m starting to wonder if his hot-and-cold relationship with Hailey has a little something to do with Shane’s mood swings.

“Maybe you could talk to Shane,” I suggest. “Tell him people would work better if they had a way to blow off steam.”

Brandon gives a bark of laughter. “Yeah. Right. That guy’s been waiting to go off on someone for weeks. That’s why I’ve been walking the line. I’m just glad it’s Connor, not me.”