10. Woody

10

WOODY

I stopped spying on Emery after the run-in at the bar, mostly because I couldn’t handle what it was doing to my blood pressure. That said, I had to admit that the property had really started to shine under Rowdy’s management over these last few weeks, and Emery seemed less inclined toward chores that could send him to the hospital.

They’d finished the outdoor living space over the course of a couple of days, and just last week, they set out some of the nicest outdoor furniture I’d ever seen. Between that and the bright flower boxes under the windows, the place was looking like a goddamned spread in one of those Texas meets the twenty-first century coffee table books.

While I didn’t particularly get the appeal, I couldn’t deny that my cousin had an eye for such things.

I was fresh out of the shower and considering a second cup of coffee when a familiar knock got my attention. I glared at the back of my door as I slid on my underwear and dragged my Wranglers over my narrow ass. By the time I swung open the door, I was already in a mood.

“What’re you doing here, Rowdy?” I asked, scowling at my smiling cousin.

He shoved an insulated coffee mug in my hands and pushed past me. “Stevie’s with her grandma, and Emery’s taking the day off from projects.”

“So?”

“You’re replanting grasses and succulents around the cabin, right? Figured I’d help you out,” he said, grabbing the neatly folded Princess Bride T-shirt from my bed and handing it to me.

I pulled the T-shirt over my head and began tucking it in. “I don’t need your help with that.”

“ Need is a strong word, cousin. I’m helping because I want to.”

“Don’t you have a job?” I asked, fastening my jeans.

Rowdy grinned as he gave Bandit a quick head scratch. “I do.”

I fed my belt through the belt loops, frustrated as hell. “Then shouldn’t you be doing it?”

This was a question I’d been asking him with increasing frequency since—besides helping himself to my neighbor—he’d started showing up at all hours of the day, feeding the animals, helping me patch a leak in my roof. One morning I caught him under my truck, changing the oil.

“Nope. Emery knows exactly where I am.”

I bet he does, I thought as I finished the buckle.

“Huh? Did you say something?” he asked with a slight—annoying—grin.

I shifted my jaw. “He told you to come up here and help me, didn’t he?”

I didn’t like being beholden to anyone, especially my neighbor. Tim, the little zonkey, did so well with Blanche that we decided to keep him with her for the time being. Ever since, Emery’d been peppering me with texts, asking about feed, a potential cough, and if he needed to be shod.

I was already beholden to him, and him lending me my cousin for odd jobs around the place made my left eye twitch.

“He didn’t order me, if that’s what you’re implying,” Rowdy said, rolling his eyes. “He did, however, make it known that as long as all of my responsibilities were handled, I could help you whenever I wanted.”

“Not whenever I wanted it, though,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. I bunched my brows together. “Hell, that’s a damn fine brew.”

“That’s Emery. He has some sort of fancy espresso machine that I still haven’t figured out yet.”

Shoulda known.

“Well, thank you for offering to help, but I’ve got a few errands to run and wasn’t gonna get started on this until maybe tomorrow.”

Rowdy lifted a shoulder. “I’ll get started without you. Go ahead, run your errands.”

I wanted to protest, but if I knew my cousin, he’d just wait till I left and do it anyway.

“Fine,” I muttered, slipping my wallet and phone into my pockets before putting my finger in his face. “But we’re not done talking about this.”

“I would assume nothing less,” he said, lifting his mug at me. “Though you could just say ‘thank you’ and accept the help, you ungrateful bastard.”

Huffing out a breath, I let myself outside, climbed into my truck, set the mug in the cupholder, and said a small prayer of thanks when my truck started. I unrolled my window and shot my cousin the bird.

He put his hand to his mouth, shouting, “Have fun storming the castle!” over the roar of my eight-cylinder.

Fuckin’ Rowdy.

Halfway down the hill, Emery came into view, sitting like a king in his new outdoor furniture, enjoying his own cup of morning coffee. Irritated and ready to give him a piece of my mind, I pulled into his drive and parked my truck next to his dumb electric car.

Hopping out, I held up the insulated mug. “Can I assume this is yours?”

Emery gifted me with a lazy smile. “Do you like the new beans I found? They’re Hawaiian.”

Of course they’re fucking Hawaiian. Fucking pretentious asshole.

“Answer the question, Emery. Is this your cup?”

He raised his brows and sat forward. “Yes, that’s my coffee cup. I don’t mind it when Rowdy uses it to bring you coffee. We’re neighbors, aren’t we?”

I poured the coffee out onto the ground, secretly wishing I’d taken a few more sips. “We’re not friends, Emery. This isn’t some sort of hippie commune where we share property management responsibilities and coffee. You have your side of the fence, I have mine, and I wish you would remember that.”

He set his drink aside and rose, elegant for his large stature, a confused expression on his handsome face. “Do we have a problem?”

“Yeah, we have a problem,” I said, shoving his mug at him. “There’s this shit called boundaries, and you need to keep on the other side of yours.”

“Okay, then.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry, Woody. I thought I was being friendly.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen how friendly you get. I don’t need to be any part of that.”

His eyes widened. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that Rowdy’s been in an awfully good mood lately.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “That’s your cousin’s default state.”

“Whatever you say. I know you’re fuckin’ him, and I don’t appreciate you taking advantage of him like that.”

Hadn’t meant to say all that, but I might as well toss it on the table with everything else.

He started laughing, and I fisted my hands at my sides. “That’s not shit you laugh at, Emery. I know he looks like a good-time guy, but he can’t keep fuckin’ and runnin’ like these city boys he keeps on going after.”

Emery scratched his ear. “I’ve already told you, Woody. I’m not fucking your cousin.”

“Bullshit. I see how you two are with each other.”

“And how’s that?”

“Laughing and joking around.”

Emery shook his head, then grabbed his mugs in one hand and started toward the house. I followed him. “Where the fuck are you going?”

“Away from your dramatic ass.”

I spat in the dirt. “Don’t you fucking treat him like some throwaway now that you’ve got him good and dependent on you.”

“Excuse me?” He spun around, pinning me with an affronted glare. “He is not dependent . It just doesn’t make any sense for him to pay rent when I’ve got so much space here.”

His eyes meandered from the top of my head down to the tip of my boots, then back up again.

“What?” I ground out.

“Rowdy can take care of himself.”

“No shit. Been doing that since his parents kicked him out.”

“And since you know that, I seriously doubt you’re genuinely worried about me taking advantage.” He shook his head, then headed up the stairs. “No, that’s not what’s got you so upset.”

I followed him, not about to let him get off with that bit of conversational judo. “What do you mean? You don’t know jack shit about me.”

Emery set down the mugs—was that a new table?—and crossed his arms, smirking down at me as I met him on the front porch.

“You think I don’t see you spying on me?”

“I’m not spying! I just have eyes,” I said, matching his crossed-arm stance.

“And a powerful set of binoculars,” he retorted, droll as a motherfucker.

Prick.

A flush bloomed on my chest, then raced up my neck. Before I could come up with something to say, he held up his finger, silencing me with the gesture.

“Put it to you this way, Woody,” he said, his voice darkening on my name. “I’ve been assuming that you’ve been keeping an eye out because you thought I was too incompetent to manage my property. But given your reaction to Wick’s guys and that college kid hitting on me at the bar, I gotta wonder if there isn’t something else that has you looking?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I said, turning to leave.

The way he grabbed my shirt was almost too tender for a guy intending to keep me in my place and yet?—

“Not so fast,” he murmured, using the barest pressure to turn me around.

My breath caught in my throat at the heat in his expression.

“Tell me, Woody,” he said, his voice bottoming out on my name. “Why would it upset you to think I was fucking your cousin?”

“I-I said . Just didn’t want you takin’ advantage.”

“That the only reason?”

“ Yes ,” I insisted, lying through my fucking teeth.

“Mm.”

My eyes fell to his lips, and a frustrated groan rose from my throat as imagined his mouth on me. His hands . . .

“Hey, Woody?”

“Yeah?” I asked, still entranced.

“Caught ya looking.”

Emery was fast—so fuckin’ fast—as he cupped the back of my head. I blinked, inhaling his exhale. “Wha?—”

Before I could finish my thought, he pressed his lips to mine in an intense—and far too brief—kiss.

“Em—”

“ Shut up ,” he bit out before taking my mouth again, more aggressively this time.

I was halfway between pissed off and turned on by his heavy handedness, so I did the only thing I could do: I shoved my tongue in his mouth to show him who the fuck he was dealing with.

He grunted, surprised, then grabbed my ass, yanking me closer, rubbing our jeans-covered cocks together. His aggro-alpha bullshit was scratching an itch I didn’t even know I had, and I was only somewhat aware that he was walking us backward as our tongues battled each other.

It was a shock to the system when I hit his front door. I drew back, not sure which end was up.

“Emery? What’re you . . . ? What’re we . . . ?” I let my words trail off as I sucked in a breath, feeling for all the world like I’d run a mile uphill in full humidity.

“I’m taking you inside.” His voice was low and possessive as he loomed over me.

My hands went to his meaty shoulders, realizing he could probably lift me up like a bag of groceries. I’d already known that, of course, but knowing it and having all that brawn pressed up against my body were two completely different things.

“Why?” I still hadn’t caught my breath properly.

Emery’s jaw sharpened as he opened the door, walking me backward into his foyer before kicking it closed with his foot. “Because I’m going to need a bed for what I’m about to do to you.”

Even though I’d been inside a few times since Emery and Stevie moved in, the familiar space still sometimes felt like a punch to the gut. The two-story-high ceilings, the hand-scraped wooden floors. The cedar railing with the elegant black wrought iron balusters I’d helped Shane put up around the interior balcony that overlooked the spacious living room and fireplace.

This was supposed to be where I made a life with the man I’d so foolishly loved.

Emery’s quirky-comfy-masculine style, however, infused the space with a warmth my ex had never been capable of. It spoke of trips to Restoration Hardware and downtown Austin art galleries, with a few detours to those funky resale shops that dotted Texas highways, full of local memorabilia you couldn’t find anywhere else.

Moneyed, with a soul.

“That’s—”

He cut me off with another kiss and I could swear my overheated brain was melting out my fuckin’ ears.

“Tell me now if you want to stop,” he whispered furiously against my lips, “because if I take you up those stairs, I won’t have an ounce of self-control.”

His words burned through me like dragon fire, obliterating all thoughts of the past. Had I imagined what he’d be like in bed? Of course I had. But even with the dirty picture on the app, I assumed he’d be like he was in the rest of his life: skilled, but calm and ordered. Vanilla.

He was warning me that he wasn’t any of those things. As kind as he was, this was also a man who jumped before looking, had faith in his ability to figure it out, and basically did whatever the fuck he wanted to. A dirty, shameful part of me wanted to see what it looked like for a man like him to take—and lose—control.

“Woody?” he asked, waiting for my answer.

This house held a lot of memories for me, not all of them good. Hardly any, come to think of it.

Time to change that.

“Take me upstairs, Em.”