Monroe, Marla - The Hired Hands' Dilemma [The Men of Space Station One #3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (14 page)

“I will. That thing that slobbered on me is like a rat, and they dig. Something can dig under the fence. I’ll be ready from now on.” She wrapped her arms around him, then went back to work.

Forty-five minutes later, they both walked into the house and headed for the washroom to clean up. Keeton was nowhere to be seen.

“Do you think he went up for a shower?” Ashley asked.

“Probably. The sandwiches are ready. Let’s eat.” Boyd sat down at the table.

“I’m going to go see if he’s in the shower and join him,” Ashley said.

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, baby. Give him some time.” Boyd frowned.

“I’ll be back.” She hurried up the stairs and snuck into the bathroom, where she could hear the shower running.

She stripped out of her clothes and slipped into the shower. Keeton was washing his hair with his eyes closed. She quickly contemplated her options and decided to give him a blow job. She had practiced some on Boyd, but hadn’t tasted Keeton since that one night he let her lick him.

Ashley silently went to her knees and wrapped her mouth around Keeton’s cockhead and sucked.

“What the fuck?” His eyes flew open. Then he cursed when he got soap in them. “Ashley, what in the hell are you doing?”

Ashley slipped and ended up on her ass in the shower. “I was trying to make you feel good. Why did you stop me?”

“I didn’t know you were there. You don’t fuck with a man’s dick without him knowing about it ahead of time. I could have hurt you, Ashley.”

“Boyd didn’t mind when I woke him up like that. What’s the difference?” She tried to hold back the tears, but they fell anyway.

“I wasn’t expecting you in the shower. He would have probably expected you to in the bed. It’s different. Fuck, Ashley, I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. You’ve told me to leave you alone and I keep bothering you.” She ignored his hand and climbed to her feet on her own. “I’ll leave you alone, Keeton. I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you, but I’m sorry.”

With that, Ashley climbed out of the shower and, grabbing a towel, walked out of the bathroom down to the other bathroom to take a shower and clean off the dirt from the garden. She wasn’t hungry anymore. All she could think about was the expression on Keeton’s face when he’d gotten the soap out of his eyes. He’d looked angry.

Ashley didn’t know if he was angry with her, with what she had done, or with himself. She just knew he was angry and hadn’t wanted her blow job. She scrubbed her skin rosy red and clean, but was careful of her left leg. She didn’t want to irritate it. It was healed nicely, though she now had a small ridge of raised skin with yellow peaks. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he didn’t like her anymore because she had the ugly scar, or maybe he was afraid she would give something to him.

When she got out of the shower, Boyd was waiting on her with her towel. He didn’t say anything, just wrapped her up and patted her dry. Then he picked her up and carried her to bed—an empty bed. Keeton wasn’t in it.

“Go to sleep, baby. You’re tired and it’s been a long day.”

“I hear that a lot now.” Ashley turned over and went to sleep.

Chapter Eleven

Ashley woke up early the next morning and rolled over to find that only Boyd was in bed. Keeton either hadn’t come to bed or had gotten up early. She searched his pillow and didn’t find an indentation. He hadn’t bothered to come to bed with them.

Without making a sound, she slipped out of bed and grabbed up her clothes and dressed outside the bedroom in the hall. Then she carefully walked downstairs to the living room, where Keeton was sound asleep in his recliner. She sighed. Instead of waking him up and demanding he tell her what in the hell was wrong, she decided to give him some time and tiptoed into the kitchen. She started breakfast and coffee. It wasn’t long before he walked in and poured himself a cup without looking at her.

“Morning, Keeton,” she said as she scrambled the egg substitute.

“Morning, Ashley. Planning on working outside again today?”

“Yep, still have more to finish on the garden.”

“Don’t forget to take the gun with you.” He stared out the window as he sipped his coffee.

“I won’t.”

Ashley turned when she heard Boyd walking down the stairs. He walked in and headed straight for the coffee as always. She grinned and shook her head.

“Morning, baby. Coffee’s good.”

“Thanks. Breakfast is ready.”

They all sat down and ate, with Keeton finishing first. He rinsed off his plate then sat it in the sink for her to wash.

“I’ll wait for you out at the barn, Boyd.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Boyd shook his head when Keeton walked out.

“Don’t forget your lunches, Boyd. I made meat pies for you for lunch.” She took his dirty plate from him and handed him the two sacks of food.

“Thanks, baby. We’ll see you tonight when we get back. Be careful outside.” He kissed her, letting his tongue slide along hers before nipping her lower lip.

“You two be careful. Tell him I said bye.” Ashley turned to the sink and began running water in it to wash the dishes.

As soon as the back door closed, she let the tears fall. What was she going to do about Keeton? What had suddenly changed about him? Everything had been fine before he and Boyd had fussed about his having sex with her. Surely he didn’t think he’d actually hurt her, did he? She’d told him he hadn’t.

After finishing the dishes and straightening up the house some, she returned to the garden and finished planting the last rows. Then she dragged out the water hoses and watered everything. She gathered up her tools to put them away after washing them off. She followed the directions in the books and made sure everything was dry first.

Ashley grabbed her books and sat on the back porch to read through the one on flowers. She wanted to have a small flower garden along the front of the house. First, she needed to find out what kind of climate they liked and plan accordingly. Then she would have to convince the men to take her back to town to get flower seeds or plants if they had them.

Around three that afternoon, she decided to take a nap. The men wouldn’t be home before six. Since there was an extra hour of daylight on the planet, they took advantage of it. She put away her books and stretched out on the couch. She wasn’t particularly tired, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to rest for a couple of hours.

Sometime later, a noise woke her up. She listened for several minutes, but didn’t hear anything again. Then as she sat up on the couch, she heard it again. It sounded like horses’ hooves. She checked her watch and realized she’d slept nearly four hours. She hurried to the kitchen, thankful that she’d already started a roast in the slow cooker, and put on the rice to cook. The potatoes and carrots were already in the slow cooker with the roast. Why had she slept so long?

Several minutes later, the back door opened and the men walked in smelling distinctly of cows and sweat. She wrinkled her nose and pointed toward the upstairs where the bathrooms were.

“Don’t you want a kiss first, baby?”

“Nope, afterward will be just fine.” She giggled when he chased her around the table.

Keeton just kept walking and didn’t say a word. Boyd stopped when he saw that Ashley wasn’t playing anymore.

“I’m sorry, Ashley. It’s probably all my fault.”

“No, something is bothering him about it, or he wouldn’t have let you get to him like that.”

“I’ll try to talk to him some tomorrow…”

“No, leave it alone. Let him think for a while, and I’ll talk to him. It’s between the two of us.”

“It should be between the three of us,” Boyd said in a grumbly voice.

“Well, we aren’t much of a family yet.” She turned back to the stove to check the rice.

She heard Boyd go upstairs to clean up. It was going to be another long night.

* * * *

Keeton sighed as he climbed into the shower’s hot spray. He was horny as hell thinking about Ashley all day while they’d ridden the fence line and worked the cows to the south pasture. He couldn’t risk her walking in on him in the shower, though. She’d almost done that the other day. He would have to wait her out until she was asleep.

He scrubbed the trail dirt off his skin and damn near took the skin with it as he thought about how much he wanted to bury his cock in her sweet cunt again. She’d burned him up last time, and they’d only fucked on the couch, for God’s sake. He needed to be inside her like he needed to breathe, but Boyd was right. He was too rough. He hadn’t thought for one second about how sore she probably was after Boyd had taken her virginity. All he’d been able to think about was how deep he could get inside of her and how soon he could fuck her ass.

He didn’t need to be alone with her at all. He couldn’t trust himself not to be too hard on her. She wasn’t like the women they were used to fucking back on Earth. She was delicate. He could so easily hurt her. Still, even knowing that she deserved a better set of husbands than he and Boyd, he wouldn’t let her go now if his life depended on it. She was part of him now. He just had to figure out how to love her without hurting her.

When he figured he’d gotten better control of himself and was as clean as he could get, Keeton shut off the water and dried off before pulling on a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Then he met Boyd in the hall and they eyed each other like a pair of rutting deer.

“You’re hurting her, man.”

“You told me I was hurting her before.”

“This is different and you know it.” Boyd stomped down the stairs, leaving Keeton at the top to stare down at his back.

Fuck!

When he made it down to the kitchen, Ashley had dinner on the table. The roast was tender and juicy, as was the rest of the meal. He hadn’t had rice and gravy in years. He totally enjoyed his meal.

“Thanks, Ashley. That was really good.” He pushed back from the table and took his plate to the sink to rinse before grabbing the tea pitcher and pouring more tea in everyone’s glass.

“Glad you enjoyed it.” She smiled up at him with such warmth in her eyes he nearly grabbed her and squeezed her.

Why didn’t he? He could do that without hurting her, couldn’t he? But then the moment was gone when Boyd’s chair scraped the floor as he stood up.

“Really good meal, baby.” He kissed her on the head and took his plate over to the sink.

“You two go on in the living room and let me clean up.”

Keeton hesitated before following Boyd into the other room. He wanted to talk to Ashley alone, but was afraid to be alone with her. How sad was that?

“Looks like we have another ten acres of land to fence over there in the west pasture.” Boyd leaned back in his recliner.

Keeton sat in his and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Yeah. It will take some time.”

“Wonder if they sent out another shuttle right after ours?” Boyd asked.

“It would make sense that they send them out as regular as they can to get as many people off the Earth as possible.”

“We could sure use the help out here. I don’t know how Andrew and Danny have made it as long as they have without help.” Boyd sighed and closed his eyes. “I’m about done for tonight. It’s been a long time since we’ve been in the saddle all day.”

“Wimp,” Keeton teased.

“You weren’t too spry walking up them steps tonight, either, Keeton.”