“One caveman, coming up,” he replied, spinning me like a top and placing my hands on the porch railing. One of his hands slipped between my legs, and my back arched without thought. I giggled, feeling the warmth of his body against my back, wondering how long it would take before I was screaming out his name again—when I heard footsteps coming up the other side of the porch, and then an unmistakable gasp. And it wasn’t me gasping this time, which was a testament to how surprised I was, considering where Oscar’s hand was.
“Oscar?” a female voice said, and we both turned.
Standing on the end of the porch in a buttoned-up trench coat was the cutest little brunette I’d ever seen. She’d unwound her scarf and now stood there like a statue, one hand full of striped wool, and the other full of . . . aluminum foil–covered dishes?
“Ah shit,” Oscar muttered, tucking me behind him, giving me the barest hint of privacy. “Whoops.” I heard his zipper go up.
“What on earth is going on here?” she asked, and as I tried to quickly button up my shirt—his shirt—I peeked over his shoulder on tiptoes. She was really cute in a Girl Scout jamboree kind of way. And she was clearly furious.
“You’re early.”
“Not that early.”
“I didn’t realize it had gotten so late—sorry about that. Um, Missy, this is . . . umm . . . this is . . .”
“Natalie,” I supplied, squeezing his bicep and digging in with my nails. “I’m Natalie.”
“Yes, sorry. Natalie, this is Missy.”
The brunette seethed. “His wife.”
I dug in deeper with my fingernails.
“Ouch! Stop that!” Oscar looked back over his shoulder at me, then turned to Missy. “You always forget the ex in ex-wife.”
I retracted my nails. A millimeter.
“I’ll just put these on the table,” she said, so angry her lips were pinched white. He nodded to her almost nonchalantly, still keeping me tucked behind him. She walked inside through the back door, and I could see her bustling about in a kitchen she was clearly at home in, setting down her dishes, starting to take things like lettuce and carrots out of a grocery bag.
Oscar and I watched her for a moment, then he turned to me. He didn’t go back to what he was doing before, of course, but he didn’t make any effort to hurry me off the porch, either. I wrinkled my brow. “Ex-wife?”
“Ex,” he confirmed.
“Does she know that?”
He shrugged, easily. “She likes to bring me casseroles on Sundays.”
I could hear casserole dishes being set down on counters—and they sounded like they were being set down from ten feet above. Oh boy. Time to go.
“I’m going to go ahead and split.” I looked at his watch. “Wow, I didn’t realize how late it had gotten, either; I was planning to catch that last train back to the city tonight. Gotta be at work tomorrow morning, you know . . .”
My ramble was cut off by a searing, toe-curling, tongue-tangling kiss. When his mouth released mine, I continued. “So . . . yeah. Bye.”
I left with as much grace as I could muster, pulling his work boots back on for my trip across the yard to retrieve my own. He’d folded my muddy clothes and piled them neatly on a chair just outside the barn earlier, so it was a quick snatch-and-grab. I was all elbows and knees and flashes of bum as I slid my jeans on, wincing at the cold and the wet. I gave up trying to wrestle with my muddy Chanel boots, and finally ran, still half dressed, across the yard to the Wagoneer. Avoiding the mud puddle, I went around to the other side and climbed across. I started the car, tossed a wave to a grinning Oscar on the porch, a second wave to a white pinched face glaring at me through the kitchen window, and took off, the rear tires spitting mud and gravel back toward the house.
On the way home, every single pothole and rut in the road made me bounce, and I felt each bounce all over my body, reminding me of the good kind of sore I felt, and Oscar’s words about bouncing on his dick.
When I pulled into Roxie’s driveway, she and Leo came out to watch me hop out, half dressed, clothes in my arms and hay in my hair, smiling like a lunatic.
“Gotta catch that train,” I singsonged as I skipped up the porch steps and into the house, past their curious eyes. I popped my head back around the doorframe. “Is that your famous Sunday chicken I smell? I’m starving!”
Chapter 12
I caught the last train back into the city with only three minutes to spare. There’d been an earlier train, but that would have meant missing out on Roxie’s Sunday chicken.
As I sat in the last car with a take-out container full of leftover chicken, buttermilk mashed potatoes, and garlic and shallot green beans, I thought back over the weekend, balancing the pluses and minuses.
Plus: The town was adorable.
Minus: The air was almost too clean.
Plus: The scenery was lovely.
Minus: It was too quiet, especially at night. No horns.
Minus: It was too loud, especially at night. Fucking crickets. Fucking wind. Fucking scary scraping trees everywhere . . .
Plus: The dicks were large . . .
Plus: And in charge.
Plus. Plus. Plus.
I shivered from the excitement my body still felt whenever I thought about that mouth, those lips, that tongue . . .
That ex.