Chapter 4
When the alarm went off the sun wasn’t up yet and only the dim pre-dawn light filtered in through the bedroom window. Work started early on a ranch and he was fumbling for his phone to shut off the annoying chime before he remembered the night before. He killed the noise by sliding it to snooze, and then rolled over to reach for her—only to realize he was alone—and the other side of the bed was cold.
He sat up, frowning as he looked towards the bathroom door. He could see it was open and dark inside, so he didn’t think she was there, but just in case he called out, “Charlie? You in the bathroom?”
There was nothing, only the silence of an empty house. He slid out of bed, not bothering with the discarded pajama bottoms, and padded out of the room, hopeful that she was in the kitchen, maybe setting up the coffee, or looking for something to eat. Everything was still except for the birds outside with their irritating morning song.
With a mind still fogged with sleep, he sighed. Rubbing his temple with one hand, he tried to figure out what her absence meant. “Fuck it, I can’t think without coffee.”
By the time he set up the pot he could hear the alarm going off in the bedroom again, so he headed back to shut it off and then get dressed while the coffee perked. He kept looking over at her side of the bed and part of him wondered if he’d just dreamed the whole thing. Her clothes were gone, of course, but there was the physical evidence of the discarded condom in the trashcan next to the bed, and the damp towel she’d left on the bathroom floor after her shower.
It had definitely happened. The question was what was Charlie going to do next. He couldn’t help but think her vanishing in the middle of the night was a bad sign, but he could be overthinking things. One way or the other, he had to know what was going on with her, at least he had to make sure she was okay.
With half a pot of coffee in his system he was off, striding across the half-acre or so that separated their houses. He went to the back door as usual, opened it and yelled, “Charlie? You here?” as he let himself into the kitchen. He knew how to make himself heard and it was a big house, so he gave the bellow some extra volume.
A few minutes later he heard the creaking of footsteps hurrying down the old wooden backstairs and Charlie appeared. When he saw that her hair was mussed, and she’d changed into pajamas, he realized she must have gone back to bed when she got home.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” he asked.
“Of course, you woke me, yelling like that! The sun is barely up, and what are you doing just barging in here like this? Ever heard of knocking?” Her eyes flashed with irritation, but he thought he could detect a hint of something else lurking in her expression.
“Since when do I need to knock?” Suddenly the awkwardness of the new situation hit him. When Jimmy was alive it had been normal for people to just walk in and yell and she knew it. He shook his head; that was a discussion for later. “I was worried when I woke up and you were gone. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Oh.” The irritated look vanished and suddenly she was looking away from him and clearing her throat. “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want any of the men to see me leaving your place in the morning anyway, so I figured I’d get up and go home.”
“Afraid they might think we were back together?” Sam asked, one eyebrow going up.
“Yeah. I mean it would confuse things because we’re not…not back together. I mean it was nice, but it was just because of the storm. It didn’t mean anything.” She shifted from one foot to the other and fixed her eyes somewhere to the side of him, not quite looking at him head on, but keeping him in her peripheral vision.
“So, last night was just a one-off? You didn’t actually feel anything about being with me again; it was just sex?” He kept his voice even and calm, though inside his gut was clenching. Girl was going to give him an ulcer before she was through.
“Look, Sam, like I said yesterday I know none of this is your fault, but I really can’t deal with talking to you, on top of everything else going on. I appreciate what you did last night but I don’t want it to happen again.”
He just stared as several seconds ticked by. It was an effort to make the words come out at a normal volume when he spoke, “Are you serious, Charlie? After what you started last night you’re going back to that whole ‘I don’t want to see you.’ routine?”
She nodded without meeting his eyes and he noticed that she’d begun to tug at the hem of her pajama top, worrying it with her fingers nervously. He couldn’t help wondering if she was aware she looked exactly like a naughty little girl trying to get out of trouble just then. She had a tell, and right now he was sure she was lying to him when she said she didn’t want it to happen again.
But maybe she actually believed what she was saying, at least on some level, and there wasn’t much he could do about that except sigh. “Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it. I’ve got work to do.”
He turned and headed out the door without another word, and when she called out at his retreating back, “And knock next time!” he gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to snap something rude at her for about ten feet before he gave in.
“I should have spanked your ass harder!” he yelled back over his shoulder. There was silence and then the door slammed hard in response.
For Charlie, watching him walk away was almost physically painful. Her stomach was churning with stress and she was tempted to call him back, or at least tell him to have a good day. Something, anything, other than snapping out some lame order to knock next time.
No one ever knocked on the back door, and she was well aware of that. The front door was for knocking, and for visitors. The back door was for family, and for her and her dad family had always meant the men who worked their ranch. That especially included Sam who had been like a brother to her when she was younger, and then something entirely different once she’d hit the age of hormones.
But that was the whole problem. Sam made her feel vulnerable and she couldn’t stop herself from building walls between them. If last night had taught her anything, it was that she still had strong feelings for him. She wanted him back, not just the spanking, bondage, and sex, but all of it.
Only every time she started thinking about letting her guard down, she remembered being sent off to work on a degree she didn’t want, while he stayed on the ranch. She remembered her father leaving him in charge while she was relegated to nothing more than a silent partner. Most of all—the part she struggled with the most was the memories of how easy it was to let him take the reins and that scared her, now more than ever.
Submitting in the bedroom was sexy and turned the dial on the hot meter all the way up. There was nothing wrong with being kinky in bed and letting your partner be in charge, not these days when domination was all the rage in romance, but when it left the sheets it became different.
Did shereallywant to be one of those women who let a man run their whole life for them? When he took charge, she couldn’t help loving it. Part of her was deeply satisfied to let him dominate her anywhere, anytime. But now he was legally in charge of her ranch; did she want to give him the key to her heart, too?
Yes.
The answer was yes, she did, but that didn’t mean she was going to do it. When he yelled back that he should have spanked her harder she was mortified in case someone had heard him, but still her stomach did the slow roll that she’d come to expect when he said anything remotely dominating. Damn it!
