Don’t Close Your Eyes Read online

  11

  Luke

  I had plenty of work to get done on Monday, but I also figured that the more time I spent out in the fields, the less time I was going to have to spend around Brea. Not that I was avoiding her or anything. I had said hello to her that morning when she had arrived, and I had thanked her for the homemade dog biscuits that she had brought for Duck.

  Rather than just accepting the thanks, she had gone into a long spiel about what went into them and about how much better they would be for the pup than the store-bought ones that I’d been buying. I’d pointed out that I didn’t exactly have the time or the patience to make homemade dog biscuits for Duck every time he went through a bag of them, and she had given me a disapproving look.

  It had set off a whole new lecture about how if I didn’t have the time and the patience to care for a puppy, I shouldn’t have ever gotten one.

  I was starting to let her lectures slide, though. I could tell she really cared about Duck and knew that was where these lectures were coming from. It wasn’t that she wanted to come across as preaching, she just wanted the best for the dog. And I had to admire that, even though it drove me crazy. Duck wasn’t even hers, but she cared for the dog as though she were.

  Unfortunately, today she was training her right there in one of the fields. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing at first. And then I realized they were working on retrieving. Once I knew that, I couldn’t seem to stop glancing over every so often. Had she really trained her up to that point already? I couldn’t help but be impressed. She had spent a lot of hours with Duck over the previous week, sure. But that was still quite an incredible improvement since she had first started with the dog.

  I knew I wasn’t just watching so that I could see the improvements in Duck, though. Part of it was that I couldn’t take my eyes off Brea. I knew she was fit, but I was just starting to realize how much of her fitness came from her work as a dog trainer. Now, as she was working with Duck on crawling, she was right down on the ground with her, crawling along on her elbows and knees. Then, she would jump up and sprint full-tilt across the field, somehow managing not to trip over her own two feet, with Duck bounding along behind her. They would get the duck and go racing back to the starting point. Over and over again. All afternoon long.

  She must be famished. She must be exhausted. But she showed no signs of slowing down, and I liked that. I appreciated hard work when I saw it.

  I kept thinking about what Tanner had said at the bar, too. About how I just needed to sleep with her and release the sexual tension. Where was the harm? We were both looking for fun, and we were both adults. But how was I going to approach her about this one-night stand? She was one of the most awkward people I’d ever met. I didn’t want her to get the mistaken impression that I wanted anything more than a quick fuck. But I didn’t want to say that to her face, and I doubted she would understand if I tried to be subtle about it.

  Tanner headed out for the night, and then it was just Brea and I left at the farm. And when it really came down to it, it wasn’t just that I wanted to fuck her. I knew that. It was also that the whole ranch was so quiet in the evenings now, with no one else around. Oh, there were the usual sounds. The animals. Duck. But it was nothing like it had been before.

  The days weren’t as bad as I’d expected them to be. With Tanner’s help, things were still getting done, and they actually seemed easier than they had been when Daddy was still there. So that was a relief. But it was still strange to eat breakfast by myself, and I still just couldn’t figure out what to do with myself in the evenings once everyone else went home.

  Except head back out to the barn and get more of the paperwork done. I had inventoried and I had done payroll and I had made up the week’s schedule, all long after I should have stopped working for the day. But what else was I supposed to do? Most evenings, I didn’t have the energy to go all the way into town. So it was either pass out early or find something around the ranch that I could do without wasting too much power running lights.

  But things would go back to normal and boring soon. Tanner would head back to Texas to his family farm, and I would have to learn from our time together. I was good with that though. Having my life back to myself without working to impress someone in the family would be a kind of relief too.

  “Hey,” Brea said suddenly from behind me, startling me from my thoughts. “What are you digging for?”

  I looked down at the hole that I’d been working on. “New well,” I told her. “Hoping we can start using more of our own water to irrigate the fields, rather than relying on the town’s water. There are apparently some good sources on our land here.”

  “Ah cool,” Brea said, nodding.

  “Did you want something?” I asked, as she continued to just stand there.

  “Oh! Right!” she said, as though she’d totally forgotten that she was the one who had approached me. “I just wanted to let you know that I have another house call tomorrow. And really, Duck has earned a break.”

  “So you’re done?” I asked, trying to decide how I felt about that.

  “No, not done,” Brea said, shaking her head. “Just, I won’t be back until Wednesday.”

  “Okay, then,” I said.

  “Okay,” Brea said. “I guess I’ll see you Wednesday.”

  “See you Wednesday,” I agreed. But I couldn’t drag my eyes away from her as she turned and started walking away. Those beautiful, sexy curves of hers. “Do you want to stay for dinner?” I asked, surprising myself just as much as her. “It wouldn’t be anything fancy, but I’ve got some leftover chicken that I’ve had soaking in some lime juice all day, and I was thinking I’d do some tacos with it.”

  “Ooh, that sounds good,” Brea said, grinning at me. “I’d like that.”

  “Cool,” I said, wiping my hands off on my jeans. I led the way into the house, and Duck came bounding after both of us. I raised an eyebrow at Brea. “Did you train her to go inside whenever you do?” I asked.

  “I didn’t really have to train her,” Brea said, shrugging. “She wants the attention, and she knows she’ll get better attention from us than from the cows.”

  I laughed. “Probably right,” I agreed.

  I went to wash up and then headed into the kitchen, with Brea still following after me, almost like a lost puppy herself. “Can I get you something to drink?” I asked, wondering if a beer would make her relax a little. “I’ve got beer, water, maybe some wine.”

  “Whatever you’re having,” Brea said. She giggled nervously. “Or nothing, I guess, if you’re not having anything?”

  “I’m having a beer,” I said, heading for the fridge and grabbing two of them. I uncapped the first and handed it over to her before uncapping the second as well.

  I started heating up the chicken and then pulling out all the various taco fixings. It was one of the nice things about being the only person home, now. I could make whatever I wanted each night. My meals might be lonely, but at least they were tasty. I had always enjoyed cooking, and now I had a reason to not rely on Mama’s dinners and breakfasts.

  “So Duck’s doing really well, is she?” I asked, for something to talk about. “I saw you guys working on retrieving today.”

  “Yeah,” Brea said, her eyes shining. “And I think she’s already getting the hang of it. That’s one smart pup that you have there.”

  “One good trainer too, I guess,” I said.

  Brea looked pleased with the compliment. “Thanks.” She paused. “I’ve heard your standards are pretty exacting, so I’ve been trying to do my best.”

  I frowned over at her. “Who told you that?”

  Brea looked embarrassed. “I don’t know, it’s just something I heard,” she mumbled. She looked around; things were almost ready. “Oh! Can I help with anything?”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m nearly done now,” I pointed out.

  She winced. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m used to eating dinner with my dad if I’m eating
dinner with anyone, and he’s got a specific way that he wants everything done. So I’m not in the habit of helping out with things in other people’s kitchens.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I told her, just to get that kicked puppy look off her face.

  We made our tacos in silence and took them out to the table. “So you live in this big house all by yourself?” Brea asked.

  “Yeah,” I said shortly. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  “It’s a really nice place,” Brea said. “My dad actually lives not too far from here, but his house is like a museum, pretty much. I don’t think anything’s changed in, like, a decade.” She laughed and shook her head.

  I didn’t know what to say in response to that, and things went silent again. I couldn’t figure out why this was so tricky, talking to her. It wasn’t like she was the first woman I had ever talked to. And usually, I was able to find plenty of common ground. But for some reason, with her, things were just different.

  “So you’re planning on taking Duck hunting?” Brea asked.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, that’s kind of the point of having a hunting dog, isn’t it?” I asked. But I could tell she was just genuinely curious, and anyway, it was a line of conversation. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t done that much hunting in the past. I did some growing up with my dad and my brothers, but things have been busy lately. So I’m looking forward to getting back into it.”

  “Yeah, fun,” Brea said. “It’s always good to have hobbies.”

  “What do you do, when you’re not working with the dogs?” I asked.

  “My dad’s always been big on books, so I guess I’m pretty much the opposite of him, in that way. More the same in other ways, though,” Brea said, laughing.

  I stared at her for a moment. She didn’t seem unintelligent, but the way that she said it, it sounded like she was one of those people who had never cracked a book in her life.

  She seemed to realize what I was thinking though. “I like reading well enough, I guess,” she said quickly. “And I make it a goal to read at least a book a month. But I prefer to be outdoors. He does a lot of work outside training horses and running his ranch, but when he doesn’t have anything to do around the ranch, he’s usually inside. I like hiking and camping and things like that.”

  “Huh,” I said. It was something I hadn’t really expected, and I felt bad admitting I’d judged her based on her blonde hair and short shorts, but she seemed like she probably wouldn’t get by in the outdoors.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Brea said. “That I’m just some ditz who likes boys and makeup and partying. But I grew up on a farm, you know.”

  I winced at being caught. “Sorry, it’s just, I don’t know you that well.”

  “I know, I’m just teasing,” Brea said. She shrugged, her eyes twinkling. “To be honest, I thought you were a total ass when I first met you. But you’ve been nicer since then.”

  I didn’t know how I felt about her frankness. It was refreshing, in a way. But it was also just awkward, like everything else about her. Endearing, that she would speak her mind like that. Again, I liked that she didn’t seem to care what I thought about her. But that in itself was intimidating. Would she go to bed with me? I honestly couldn’t tell.

  “Wow, these are actually really tasty,” Brea said, munching on her tacos. “Did you use a recipe for the chicken?”

  “Nah, I just kind of made it up,” I told her, shrugging. “There’s not much you can mess up. It’s not like there can ever be too much lime flavor.” I frowned, thinking about that. “Well, maybe there can be. But it’s pretty hard to get to that point.”

  “Yeah, these are just really good.” Brea shook her head. “I promised when I moved out of my dad’s place that I was going to keep cooking well for myself, but I just get lazy. It’s not like I need to impress myself with what I’m making. So then it’s pasta a lot of the nights, or mashed potatoes and chicken, or things like that. Nothing that takes too much thought or effort. Gets boring after a while, though.”

  “I like cooking,” I told her. “It’s relaxing, especially after a long day of work.”

  “See, when I get done with a long day of work, the last thing I want to do is stand around in the kitchen,” Brea said. “Plus, I’m usually so hungry by that point that I don’t want to wait for something to cook.”

  “You wouldn’t be so hungry if you remembered to bring your lunch with you,” I teased.

  Brea giggled. “True,” she said.

  “You really love your job, though, don’t you?” I asked.

  And that was what really got her talking. She started telling me all the funny stories she could think of about dogs she had worked with. I was getting more accustomed to her sense of humor, and I found myself laughing with her after some of the stories, even though they were generally pretty ridiculous.

  I liked her, I realized. Not like I wanted to be her boyfriend or anything that extreme, but she was nice, and I liked having her over for dinner. But whatever friendship we might have built, I was probably going to ruin it. Because all through dinner, all I could think about was how to get her to go upstairs with me.

  It turned out to be surprisingly simple. She brought the dishes into the kitchen after we finished and started doing the washing up. I finished putting away the uneaten food, and suddenly, it was like the sexual tension between us was too much to handle. The air was practically fizzing with how badly we needed one another. I went up behind her, reaching around her to shut off the water and then turning her around to face me. She was biting her lower lip, and that did it for me.

  I covered her mouth with mine, my lips gentle but insistent against hers. Her hands came up to fist in the collar of my shirt, dragging me closer to her, and she opened her mouth to me, letting me plunge my tongue in between her lips.

  She moaned, and I opened my eyes to see hers closed. A smile broke out across my face as she pulled back.

  “What?” Her smile was beautiful.

  “Don’t close your eyes when you kiss me.”

  “What? That’s silly. We’re so close.”

  “I know. I like it like that.” I went in for another kiss, and we both kept our eyes opened, though hers seemed to want to flutter closed.

  Suddenly, sparks were erupting between us, hot prickles of lust shooting down to my cock. I lifted her up onto the counter to get a better angle, not even caring that I knocked a glass to the floor in the process. Brea moaned, the sound vibrating through my mouth, and I ground forward against the cabinets, desperate for some friction.

  12

  Brea

  I was shocked when Luke asked me to stay for dinner with him. He hadn’t been any friendlier to me that day than he had been the previous week. Although I had felt his eyes on me for half the day. I’d wondered what the problem was. Did he think he had a better way to teach retrieving to his dog?

  Now, I knew exactly why his eyes had been on me.

  My body shivered a little as his fingers started to slowly unbutton my blouse. He pushed the material back off my shoulders and then kissed his way down my neck toward my pink sports bra. I felt kind of embarrassed that I wasn’t wearing anything sexier, I just hadn’t expected something like this to happen. Anyway, Luke didn’t seem to mind. He pushed the material out of the way, revealing my breasts, and nipped lightly at one nipple, causing me to gasp.

  There was no way I could deny that I was turned on. For all that he’d been kind of a dick to me, he was definitely attractive. I could tell that he didn’t want anything more than sex; that was all that this was about. He had fed me dinner so that he’d have an excuse to get me inside with him, and now he had practically pounced on me while I was still doing the dishes. I was under no illusions.

  I didn’t normally put out like this. Oh, I had fooled around with my fair share of guys, but usually, it was the kind of thing where I knew them first, knew them well, and then we happened to end up in bed together. It was nothing like this. />
  Of course, I knew that I shouldn’t encourage him, either. I shouldn’t make him think that his shitty behavior toward me deserved to be rewarded. If this were a dog training class, I would be doing everything wrong.

  But this felt good, and I didn’t want him to stop.

  My head fell back against the upper cabinets as he continued to play his fingers and his lips across my skin. It had been a while, and all of this felt new and incredible. Like every one of my nerves was on fire at the barest touch.

  The trouble was, I wanted to touch him as well, and I was finding it hard to do when I was up on the counter above him like this. I pushed at his shoulders and Luke froze and then pulled away, looking sheepish. “Sorry,” he said, looking off to the side. “I know you probably don’t want—”

  “I do,” I interrupted, before he could finish. “Just, maybe in a bed?”

  Luke gave me a weird look. “This isn’t that kind of thing,” he said.

  “No, I know,” I told him. Jesus, he thought I was looking for a relationship or something. That was cute, but no, I knew damned well what he wanted.

  It felt like the moment had been ruined, and I wished I hadn’t been so idiotic. I pulled my shirt back on, my fingers trembling as I did up my buttons. I could feel just how wet I was already. Pretty much all I could focus on was how much I wanted, how much I needed, his fingers or his mouth or his dick in between my legs. I wasn’t going to get that now, though.

  I hopped off the cabinet, mindful of the glass. But I hesitated there. Things were already awkward between us. Stopping here was only going to make things more awkward than if we continued.

  With that thought in mind, I grabbed Luke’s shirt again, pulling him along toward me into the living room. A couch, at least. I could compromise with a couch. Slowly, I started undoing my clothing, and I could see the hungry look return to Luke’s eyes.

  When I was wearing only my panties, I lay down on the couch, playing with my clit through my panties because I couldn’t bear the lack of stimulation. Luke was down to just his boxers when he covered my body with his. His smooth, muscular skin was hot where it came into contact with mine, and I groaned, my head falling back as he dragged his blunt fingernails down my sides.