It was in a moment of weakness, fueled by the picture Lacey presented in that light blue dress, but I made my decision. I wanted her. I’d wanted her so badly, for so long, that it would be a crime to deny myself any longer. I had to have her. I had to claim her. I had to make her mine.
Lacey, the daughter of the man I loved as my own father, the girl I’d watched from a distance for as long as I could remember, would submit to me. She’d scream my name. She’d feel my cock pulse in orgasm, deep within her body.
It would be a sin. God knows, it would be a crime against everything I believed. But isn’t forbidden pleasure the sweetest?
It was no ordinary night. It was Jackson’s wedding night. It was a night we’d all been waiting a very long time for. It was a night when anything was possible.
And maybe, just maybe, it was a night I could get away with the impossible. I could taste Lacey. I could know her sweet flesh. I could put myself inside her writhing, sweating body. I could do what I’d promised I’d never do. Just this once, on this one special night, I could have what I wanted most, and no one but she and I would ever know it happened.
“You want to go get a drink?” I said to her.
The happy couple had gone off with the photographer. Everyone else was milling around, looks of satisfaction on their faces at having witnessed a beautiful ceremony. Forrester and Grady were doing a great job of hosting the guests, making sure they found their way to the bar that had been set up on the freshly painted porch of Jackson’s new house. Waiters in crisp, white shirts and black ties were popping open corks on bottles of champagne.
No one would miss us if we disappeared for a little while. No one would know what we’d done. Maybe even the old man himself, Lacey’s father, would forgive us this one moment of abandon.
“Sure,” she said.
She started making her way toward the bar but I stopped her.
“Let me show you something,” I said. “I’ve got a bar of my own hidden in the barn.”
“Grant,” she said, shaking her head. She knew all too well about my secret stash in the barn.
“Just one drink,” I said, winking. “The party will be fine without us for a little while.”
Reluctantly, she let me take her by the hand and lead her to the barn. It had been her father’s barn, and now it belonged to the Brotherhood, to all of us.
But that didn’t stop me from thinking of it as mine. I’d always thought of it as mine, even when the old man was still alive. Even then, I was the only one who ever used it, apart from Lacey when she wanted to ride the horses. It was the place I kept my tools for the vineyard, stabled my horses, stored my old cars and bikes. And it was the only place I’d ever allowed myself to fantasize about the girl I craved most in the world. Yes, it was my place.
I pushed open the big, red door and lit a kerosene lamp that hung just inside. It gave the barn a warm glow. At the far end, the horses whinnied at the disturbance before quietening again. I closed the door, shutting out the din of the party outside.
Lacey looked away when I turned to her. She’d been watching my every move.
“Up here,” I said, holding the wooden ladder that led up to the loft.
“Grant, shouldn’t we be joining the celebration?” she said.
I didn’t answer. I just looked at her, into her beautiful, blue eyes, as if they were deep pools of water that I was going to fall into.
She hesitated. Everyone who ever grew up on a farm knows what happens in the lofts of barns. It was no innocent decision when she began climbing the steps of the ladder. I held it steady for her before following her up, the lamp in my hand lighting up her dress.
“So,” she said breathlessly when we were both at the top, her delicious breasts rising and falling with her breath, “where’s this drink you promised me?”
It was a perfect night. The air was cool and still. Through the window we could see a million bright stars keeping watch over the valley. Faintly, we could hear the guests on the porch celebrating the love of a man and woman who’d just promised themselves to each other for all eternity. If this wasn’t the night for us to take this secret pleasure, this sweet ecstasy that we’d waited our entire lives for, then I don’t know what it was.
God would forgive us. Her father would understand. It would be just one night. One blissful night.
I pointed to the heavy beam above her head. “There’s a hip flask right above you.”
She reached up and grabbed it, but when she pulled it down, I saw that she hadn’t grabbed the flask at all. She’d grabbed something else entirely. Something I’d long forgotten was there.
Chapter 5
Lacey
“WHAT’S THIS?” I SAID, pulling down an old envelope, it’s paper worn with age.
Grant was surprised when he saw it.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “Here, give that to me.”