It was my mum who insisted that Blake’s dad make Mum her guardian just in case something happened to him. Thank god she did. Blake was a country girl all the way from her Akubra to her dusty cowboy boots, the most traffic jams she had ever seen were the ones on Friday nights when cowboys from all around the district made their way into town on payday. On those nights the main street of Cattle Ridge was littered with every conceivable ute and rust bucket possible. The drivers all hell-bent on filling their bellies with homecooked wood-fired pizza from Farron’s Country Kitchen and then going across the road to the pub to guzzle as much beer and whiskey as possible and stay there until Sunday morning.
Of course, Blake wasn’t in the pub, but she loved going to Farron’s to grab a pizza or a sweet dessert. Blake had a sweet tooth, in fact, that wasn’t a strong enough term. Blake ate lollies and chocolate all day long, and I bet if I asked her right now to empty out her pockets, she would produce a roll of Fruit Tingles and a Cadbury Chunky bar.
Despite my inner turmoil and the feelings I apparently had for Blake, I smiled and rubbed her upper arm.
“Blake, no one mucks a stall like you do, kiddo.” Deliberately adding the teen pet name to remind me that she was off-limits, but no matter what I called her, I had a feeling that Blake meant more to me than anyone else ever had. Even my friendship with Mallory and our on and off again chemistry didn’t have this sense of …
“Whatever you say, Cowboy,” Blake sassed, thankfully stopping me from silently admitting what she was to me and what she was doing to me.
One crisis averted, now I just had to deal with how much I loved her calling me Cowboy.
Jesus, I really had a serious problem.
HENDRIXX
Slamming the car into park, I threw open the door and jumped out. The ride back to the Triple H gave me enough time to get over seeing my beloved sister-in-law bawling her eyes out all because I very innocently ate the last of her favourite chocolate treats. Though, if I am honest, that was better than yesterday’s emotional breakdown over the chair incident.
Makena pregnant was indeed a scary thing, Makena pregnant and crying hysterically over me making a comment about how heavy she was getting? That was one mistake I will never make again.
Dealing with Blake was much safer.
Thinking of the blonde that drove me insane ninety-nine percent of the time, I looked around the entrance to the main stables for any sign of her. Over the last few months, I had been over at Waterford Views helping Mack get the farm up and making money again, leaving Blake here at the HHH unsupervised and out of my sight. I did not like the feelings that gave me, uneasy and unsettled and … craving to see her, to be around her. Blake had a quality about her that drew me to wherever she was. Her spunk and determination to do anything handed to her, her goddamned stubbornness to refuse help turned me on more than I ever thought possible.
By nature, I was a protector. My brothers and Mum meant more to me than anyone, and when we found out about my nephew, Daxx, he became just as important to me.
The tattoo on my ribs a testament to how I felt about my family.
Life begins and ends with family
Will Lillian Lenoxx Fenixx
I planned on adding Daxx to the names of people I shared blood with, and the new baby as soon as she arrived or earlier if Noxx and Makena let me in on her name.
One name I itched to add in ink on my skin was the name I probably shouldn’t.
Blake Isobel.
I shouted the name when she pissed me off, screamed it in frustration when I caught her doing something dangerous, and I even roared it in the privacy of my bathroom when making myself come at the image of her beautiful face in my mind. What I hadn’t done yet was whisper it to her while buried balls deep inside her, moan it low and deep as her hands traced over my bare skin, or groaned it while her mouth swallowed my hard cock. They were scenarios that could not happen, but dreaming about them, however, I could do as much as I wanted. And I did.
Every single night.
Those were the only times I allowed myself to indulge in my fantasies, to get away from the real life dramas of HBC, co-owning the biggest cattle property in the country and forget that my dad was a traitor.
The past eight or so months had been a mix of joy and downright heartache for my brothers and I. Finding Mack and Mallory again, learning about Daxx, getting over deceptions and bringing them all into the family fold again, a real joy.
Dad’s deception … fucking brutal heartache there. Lenoxx, Fenixx and I were still coming to grips with learning this new side to our dad, his hatred for the Rogers’ family, and the lengths he went to keep Mack from Lenoxx way too raw to overcome or even accept. Noxx was doing better dealing with it than me, he was busy embracing fatherhood and being back with Makena. And, since knocking her up, he was firmly immersed in her pregnancy. Enjoying every moment he missed out on with Daxx, he even relished in Mack’s mood swings, going so far as carrying around a book on pregnancy.
I had to admit I was happy for my brother, the oldest of the three of us by mere minutes, Lenoxx seemed less intense and way less hell-bent on working himself to death at HBC, our beef export company. He even went as far as setting up a home office over at Mack’s
