Going Hard: Boys of Fall (6 page)

Okay, more than just a tad.

Disappointment warred with embarrassment as she pushed him back. “Can we go?”

“Hol—”

“Just don’t.” She’d been on the verge of the orgasm that could break her orgasmless streak of days in the best way possible, and as usual, he’d ripped it away from her. Freaking typical.

He dropped his hand from her hip and the wall and stepped back. She’d been so close to reading him and now he was the impenetrable Rafe all over again. Mr. Serious.

She wanted the other guy back. The one who was going to give her an orgasm with just his mouth and a little pressure. Did he have any idea how rare that was?

“Hollie…” He tried to hold his hand at the small of her back, but she jerked away from him.

“Can we just go?” she asked again.

His jaw flexed. “Yes.”

“Good.” She strode through the aisles of pool tables to the front, where a few stragglers were still hanging at the bar. Evidently “Friends in Low Places” was the closer for this place.

For her, it was Rafe’s stupid brain turning back on.

Denied again.

The story of her life.

“
I
’m not
sure this is the best idea, Rafe.” Big blue eyes beamed into his, just a little blurry around the edges. “I’ve had a little to drink…”

“But you came here looking for something.” He gave in to the urge to stroke a finger along her swingy dark hair. So soft. Would the hair between her legs be that dark and soft? Or would she be paler down there, or maybe bare and just pink…so fucking pink.

“I did. But it wasn’t this. You.” She shut her eyes for a second. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant.”

No one saw him as the one to have a wild night with, least of all a sexy girl just out for a good time.

“Rafe, look, I know you just want to look out for me, and really, that’s nice and all, but I need—” She blew out a breath. “I just need, and if you can’t help me out with that, then you should just go. No hard feelings.”

“You’re wrong there.” He swallowed hard and shifted to try to alleviate the persistent heaviness between his thighs. But there was no changing it. She was the only one who could do that. With those glossy bubblegum-pink lips, or that slick cleft at the apex of her legs.

Christ, he was so tired of never letting loose. Of always playing it safe and doing the right thing. Worst of all, always sleeping alone.

She frowned, her tiny cute nose wrinkling. “You’d have hard feelings toward me?”

Giving in to instinct, he grabbed her hand and pressed it to his groin. Her wide eyes were worth the crude gesture and then some. “So fucking hard.”

“
R
afe
?”

He glanced up at the guys gathered around the stables at Coach’s and scratched a hand over the back of his neck. He remembered parking his truck behind Wade’s and making his way back, but a slant of sunshine and the smell of hay and he’d been tossed right back to that summer night with Hollie.

A night that had loomed so much larger in his mind than it had obviously in Hol’s. To her, it had been a colossal mistake with a dude without any sexual capabilities whatsoever. To him, he’d had his first forbidden taste of something he’d fought not to want since he was a teenager.

Because of Wade. Because of Hollie’s parents, who trusted him with their only daughter. Hell, even because of his own mother, who’d warned him more than a few times that the best protection was abstinence. He didn’t want to end up like his cousins, now did he? Raising kids he couldn’t support way too young, with his life cut short.

So he’d steered clear of women in general, and Hollie in particular. Even when he’d grown older and wiser, it had just been easier to work and deal with his responsibilities than to date.

How did someone date anyway? He had no idea. It wasn’t like he’d taken any time to learn, even back in high school. True, he hadn’t been a monk, but close enough. His number of lovers barely ranked higher than Hollie’s.

He sucked at small talk, and he had no game.

Less than none. The little bit he’d thought he had, she’d squashed with her assessment of his lovemaking skills. Definitely made a guy want to run right out and sign up for match.com.

Jesus. Like hell.

“Yeah. Hey guys.” He smiled at Wade and Jackson and Tucker, who were all clustered at the mouth of the stables, staring at him as if he’d gotten lost. Joel and Oakley were there too, just farther back.

So he didn’t come to Coach’s all that often. He was trying to make more time for it. God knows it was hard to drag himself away from the stack of paperwork waiting for him on his coffee table at home, but he couldn’t just stay inside all day. He’d left work early on a Friday afternoon because he needed some fresh air and sunshine.

Not brooding about Hol would help too.

He picked up a hoe and stared at it. Manual work. Right. He could do that. It had been a few years since he’d mucked out a stall, since he usually helped out with some of the bookkeeping type-stuff at the ranch rather than the physical side. He was no accountant, but he’d taken some classes in college and he knew his gifts definitely weren’t in ranching. But he could figure it out.

Sure he could. Just like he could figure out how to pleasure a woman so she didn’t have to tell her girlfriends that he couldn’t even make her come.

Rafe’s eyes widened. Fuck, had Hollie told her friends that?

“Whatcha doing here, man?” Wade clapped him on the shoulder. “Not that it’s not damn good to see you, but we don’t get a lot of alligator shoes back here.”

Rafe scowled. “What do my shoes have to do with anything?” And yeah, he should’ve gone for boots.

“Just saying, they’re kind of fancy for mucking back here. Unless you’re here to work on Lorelie’s books?”

“I can do more than just designing buildings and tabulating figures.”

“Never said you couldn’t.” Wade exchanged a glance with the other guys and cleared his throat. “Just that you usually tend to ride a desk more than you tackle the more glamorous jobs back here. But hey, we’re happy to have the help, now that Colt, Char and Hol headed in to—”

Rafe heard one name and one name only. “Hollie’s here?”

“Yeah. Seems like a lot of our schedules just converged today. Me, at loose ends while working on a song. School’s out today, so Jackson had a few hours, and Tucker decided to swing by too.” Wade grinned. “It’s just like old times, skipping out on a Friday with these morons. Not that you ever skipped, brownnoser.”

Rafe ignored the taunt. “Charlene should be at work. Why isn’t she?”

“She took an early dinner. She’ll head back in later. Got us some good news.”

Rafe smiled and let the hoe tip against the wall. Good news. He’d just love some. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“New single’s rocketing up the charts. It’s looking like I might actually be able to spring for that new dining room set your sister’s been eyeing.”

Rafe’s smile broadened. “That’s great.”

Dodged another bullet
.

He was just waiting for the day Wade told them he was taking Charli away from all of them and putting down roots in Nashville instead. He had serious doubts Wade would ever settle for long in Quinn again. Even now that he’d made his homebase there, he was gone almost as much as he was in town. Always traveling to Nashville, or out to LA to meet with his new songwriting partners. He was frequently on the move, no matter what tune he sang about loving being home again.

Sure he did. Just like he’d loved it so much the first time. That was why he’d taken off with barely a word for Rafe and Charli—his supposed best friends in the world—back when he’d been lured by the siren call of music.

Just went to show you couldn’t trust anyone. Especially anyone with the last name of Bennett.

As if on cue, the back door swung open and Hollie, his sister and Colt came outside, balancing a tray of drinks between them and laughing up a storm.

And like a bolt had singed him right between the damn eyes, he was thrown back to the night before, and Hollie pressed between him and the wall, her big eyes begging him for things he so desperately wanted to fulfill.

If he fucking could. Maybe he was all just promises and payment plans, without no satisfaction of delivery.

But Christ, her tits had been like heaven in his hands. In his mouth. And now she wasn’t laughing anymore, because she’d spotted Rafe standing with her brother, and hell if he wasn’t the buzzkill to end them all. Hadn’t she told him that enough times?

“So glad for you,” he said tightly to Wade, who was glancing between him and the people now strolling toward them as if he could feel the tension. Probably everyone in Quinn could. “So dining set, you say? Must be a good song.”

“Pretty good.”

“So why don’t you play it for us?” Rafe rolled up his sleeves—a button-down shirt was just perfect for ranch work—and grabbed the hoe again. “Surely you’ve got a wireless speaker somewhere around here.”

“Course we do. Just turned down the music because Coach was taking a nap and Lorelie would skin us alive if we woke him.” Joel pressed a button on the device propped on a hay bale and music filled the space.

Loud, indiscernible music. Probably that new stuff the kids listened to today.

Sure, Grandpa.

Thinking of Hollie’s new nickname for him made Rafe set his jaw. “I love that song.”

“You do? Since when do you listen to metal?”

“Since I’ve broadened my tastes.” Rafe turned toward his sister as she approached, reaching out to snag her wrist. “Dance with me, sis.”

Charli’s brows snapped together as she carefully set the glass she was carrying on the tray Colt had toted outside. “Dance? You? To this?”

“Sure. It’s music, right?” He pulled her toward him and spun her out again, making her laugh. She loved to dance too much to resist an opportunity to do it, even if it was to some kind of metal hybrid in Coach’s barn.

He whirled her in and out again, catching Hollie’s eye. Instead of laughing like everyone else was doing, she was watching him entirely too closely.

The next time he spun his sister out, Hollie was gone.

“Driving off your audience,” Colt said with a jerk of his chin toward the other side of the barn. Hollie was standing close to one of the ranch hands Rafe didn’t know very well, and they were talking quietly. She was so small compared to the guy that Rafe figured one of his hands would swallow her minuscule waist.

Like hell.

He did a couple quick steps with his sister, dancing her back over to her husband before doing a handoff with a flourish. Wade gladly dragged her into his arms, pressing a kiss to her hair just before Rafe turned away.

“I thought you wanted to hear the song?” Wade said from behind him.

He had one focus—following Hollie and that ranch hand, who had now disappeared behind the stable.

For fuck’s sake, he might as well be a school chaperone, charged with making sure none of the students got too handsy. And worst of all? He’d willingly agreed to the task, just to help out his buddy. Former buddy.

Stop fooling yourself. You were worried about her, yes, but you also wanted to keep her for yourself.

Like that could happen. She wasn’t looking for a relationship. Definitely wasn’t looking for anything with him.

Though she hadn’t seemed to mind his mouth on her breasts last night, that was for damn sure.

But that was then, and this was now. He’d shut things down for both of their own goods, not to mention because he owed it to Wade not to go there again. At least not when he was doing the guy a supposed favor and being a friend to Hollie.

Why did keeping any sort of eye on her rankle him in all the wrong ways?

“Be right back,” Rafe said to Wade, walking around the side of the barn. “Gotta speak to Hollie for a sec.”

Wade nodded. “Sure thing. We’ll be right here.”

Rafe clenched his jaw as he walked around back. Stupid for him to intercede. She was an adult. Able to make all her own choices.

Shutting his eyes, he took a deep breath. Relaxed the fists he hadn’t been aware of balling at his sides.

And opened his eyes to Hollie smiling up at the ranch hand.

Freely. Happily. All the ways she never looked at him.

Not your concern. Let her make her own decisions.

It was impossibly hard for him to turn on his heel and go back to the front of the barn. She didn’t deserve him running herd on her like a small, dimwitted child.

What she deserved was a guy worthy of her, one who gave her all the pleasure she could stand. A true friend who wasn’t trying to hold her back, but only wanted her to soar higher.

Whether it was with him or not. And
not
was definitely looking like the more likely scenario.

“Rafe?” Her soft voice halted his footsteps. “Have you met Jason? He just started working here. I was telling him about the best places to take a date in town. I mentioned the Double Burger and the Movie Shack. Any other ideas?”

Was she teasing him because, to her mind, he never went out anywhere and had fun?

Not to her mind. It was the damn-ass truth.

But it didn’t have to be.

He turned back and covered the distance between them. “Hey, Jason, nice to meet you,” he said with barely a glance for the other man. “The places you mentioned are fine. But I gotta admit, I prefer the personal touch when I take out a girl.”

He waited for her to toss something back at him. Like
oh yeah, sure, you haven’t taken out a girl since the last presidential administration
. Which was an exaggeration, but not by all that much.

“Oh really?” Hollie asked. “What do you mean?”

“I like to spend one-on-one time with the woman.” Rafe kept his gaze strictly on Hollie’s face. “Talking with her, playing music, dancing, feeding her.”

Her cheeks went pink. Just slightly, but enough to know she was affected. “You mean sharing a meal?”

“No. I mean feeding her. With my fingers.”

Jason cleared his throat. “Um, okay then. Thanks, dude.”

He split fast enough that Rafe was surprised he didn’t kick up dust in his wake.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to chase him away.”

“Yes you did. Why do you even try to deny it?” She sighed and whisked her fingers through the bouncy ends of her hair. “I was only being friendly. He already has a girlfriend. He just didn’t want to ask about date spots in front of the other guys, thinking they’d razz him. Little does he know that everyone in this town is already settled so far down, they’re practically chained in place.”

“Being settled doesn’t have to equal boredom.”

She tapped her bright pink cowboy boots. “Mmm-hmm.”

“I’m serious. Your parents are still happily married. Do you think they’re bored with each other?”

“They’ve been together since the beginning of time. They probably don’t remember anything different.” She pursed her lips. “What were your parents like together?”

Not a subject he wanted to discuss, with her or otherwise. But he also wouldn’t lie. “They had their ups and downs. I know they loved each other.”

“But,” she prompted.