“Let’s ring your mum and ask her Daxx,” I said, smirking when Noxx’s grin fell from his face replacing it with a look of sheer terror.
“Yeah, thought that might be your answer,” I replied, knowingly tossing his son at his chest. “Watch what the fuck you say around him for Christ’s sake, idiot.”
“Says the man whose favourite word is fuck.”
A soft, sassy voice said from the leather, forest green, Chesterfield couch over on the other side of the large room.
“Blake.” Her name left my lips like a prayer, and my feet moved quickly until I found myself on my knees in front of her.
My eyes scanned her body for any signs of injuries from riding Hercules but all I saw was her smile. It wasn’t the smile I usually got from her, this one didn’t light up her eyes, it didn’t split her face or assure me that everything was okay because from what I could see, Blake did not think that at all.
“You finished baling?” she asked, her eyes downcast and not meeting mine.
“Close enough.” I waited for a few seconds for her to look at me, but I only received a slight nod and nothing more.
Fuck that shit. Last night she kissed me and now she can’t even look at me.
“Blake,” I whispered, gently lifting her chin with my thumb and forefinger. “ Look at me please,” I pleaded, then sucked in a breath when I noticed a sheen over her pretty hazel eyes.
“Are you hurt? Did you fall off Hercules?” I rushed to ask, hating the tears I saw in her eyes.
Blake stared back at me, her look was a combination of sadness and pain with a healthy glint of annoyance. Her chin pulled out of my grip as if she had touched an electric fence.
“No, it wasn’t Hercules that hurt me.”
Her answer was spoken softly, but I heard the accusation, and it baffled me because it was aimed squarely at me.
“Me? Are you saying I hurt you?” I couldn’t stop the incredulity with how I asked the question. How the hell had I hurt her? This morning I started work and didn’t even see her, hadn’t seen her since last night in the stables. I went to bed with the feeling of her kiss on my lips and the taste of her mouth on my tongue. The memory of her moans ringing in my ears and the heat of her body wrapped around me, warming me.
“How?” I rasped, bewildered and totally confused. Hurting Blake didn’t compute in my brain. It was a foreign concept to me, being the reason for her tears …
“I saw you Hendrixx, I saw you with her,” Blake murmured, keeping her voice intentionally low aware of the audience behind us.
Without taking my eyes off her, simply because I couldn’t, I asked everyone to leave the room and give us some privacy. I suppose I could have taken her to my house or her cottage, but I didn’t want to give her any time to re-group or back out of telling me what was going on with her. Here I had been stressing over beginning us and she was quite possibly going to tell me no.
I could not, nor would not accept that.
BLAKE
I concentrated on watching Lillian usher her other two sons and grandson out of the lounge room and not on the shocked look on my handsome Cowboy’s face.
I called him mine because I thought of him as that secretly, but the stark reality of it was simply and heartbreakingly, that Mallory knew him better, not as long as me, but better.
Our relationship consisted of him yelling at me, worrying about me, forbidding me to do things and basically overruling me. Mallory got his softer side, watched TV with him, and to my heartache, she got his hugs.
So, why the hell kiss me like he needed me to breathe because that is how it felt? His mouth devoured mine, while his hands explored my curves and my face. The cool touch from his cold hands on my neck, I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I’d dreamed of that same feel but instead on my nipples. I had nothing to go by, no experience to speak of, but my womanly instincts told me I would definitely enjoy it.
The second the last person evacuated the room, Hendrixx was on me. His bulking body pushed me back into the couch, he surprised me further by straddling my legs, his arms on either side of my shoulders caging me in completely.
A Hottie 2 cradle.
I wanted to push him away, scream in his face that he should go find Mallory and get his ego stroked from her. My body and heart wasn’t listening to that however, he was so close, he smelt so good and damn if I didn’t want to feel his lips on mine again. Experience the magic from last night, feel those butterflies, the tingles and the pure bliss of being in his arms.
Licking my lips, I tipped my head back and looked up at Hendrixx, his face only centimetres from mine, so close I could smell the coffee he must have consumed while out in the paddocks on his breath. The feral look in his blue eyes should scare me, but it didn’t. Hendrixx would never hurt me, not physically.
“Explain,” Hendrixx growled low and dangerous, his warm breath hitting my face.
“Nothing to explain Hendrixx, you kissed me, seemed to enjoy it, then Mallory turned up, and you did what you always do, and went off with her. Then I saw you at your window both of you standing close, she touched your arm then you embraced. Nothing more to say,” I told him, holding back the tears at the memory of seeing them standing by the window acting so caring towards each other, both oblivious to my presence on my porch watching it unfold.
There had been a moment in the stables when
