The Babysitter Page 15

  His tattoos snaked up his arms, over his shoulders, his chest. I'd seen them before briefly, but this felt different, felt much more intimate. Maybe because I knew him, because I was finding meaning in the pictures he chose to etch into his skin forever. An eagle with a trident on one pec, something I figured represented his time in the service. Beside it, a woman burying her face in her hands crying. Whether this was a known woman, or simply a faceless representation of some of the sadness he had maybe brought onto various women during his time in the service was beyond me. There was a mountain covered in trees, maybe representing his time with his father as a boy. Nautical stars were there with little cultural images, likely representing the places he had seen in his life.

  Some of the tattoos were old enough to be sliced through with various wounds he must have survived, healing over to look pink and shiny. A ton of them. Too many to count right now. Maybe someday I would. And maybe he would tell me their stories, share with me those pains.

  But right now was not the time for that.

  My hand moved out, fingers sliding over the deep indents of his abdominal muscles.

  As far as I knew, Ranger did not work out. Not in the traditional sense that he sweated just for the purpose of sweating. But he did work out his body. Most days, from nearly sun-up to sundown. And, somehow, I liked that a lot better. I liked the idea of his body being a testament to the world he built rather than just the product of grunting in a gym with a bunch of other guys.

  Under my curious fingers, his muscles tensed in response. By the time they'd found their way back down to the lowest part of his stomach, every inch of him was tense, waiting, as my hands went for his button, for his zip.

  Air hissed out of him as my finger traced the little line of hair that disappeared down into the material of his charcoal boxer briefs.

  I snagged the waistband of them, pulling them wide enough to slide them over his hips, drag them down as far as I could reach.

  This time, it was my air that rushed out, finding him hard and straining, as big as the rest of him.

  My sex clenched hard, anticipating the fullness as he slipped inside as my hand moved out, closing around him, stroking the soft skin as my gaze moved up to hold his, watching as his eyes got small, as his head fell back slightly.

  I worked him for as long as he let me before his hand closed over mine, pausing it, then pulling it away.

  His body folded a bit, freeing his legs, but also somehow producing a condom out of nowhere.

  I had a short minute as he protected us to try to remember if I had ever seen the bulge of a wallet in his pocket, but came up blank, that kind of thing just background noise in the brain. But, apparently, he did. And he was prepared, even living in the middle of the woods with no women around.

  I wouldn't lie; I liked the idea of him being far away from all womankind, that it was unlikely that he got around as much as a man as attractive as he was normally would if they were in the 'real world.'

  It was possessive and odd seeing as I had never much cared about a man's history before seeing as none of us were saints, all of us had pasts with the opposite sex.

  "Meadow," his voice called, low, searching, snapping me out of my thoughts, finding him finished, looking down at me, something that seemed like worry etching his brow. "You want to stop?" he asked, sounding pained at the idea, but happy to move away if that was what I needed.

  "No," I told him, a smile pulling at my lips as my legs went around his, as my arms wrapped him up as well.

  "Thank fuck," he growled before his lips claimed mine as his hands roamed my back, pulled me closer to the edge of the table, hitching up my knees to improve the angle.

  His cock slid up my cleft, stroking against my clit for a torturous moment, making the pressure on my lower belly become almost intolerable before his lips pulled from mine, his eyes waiting for mine, then slowly slipping inside me, inch by inch, taking me, making me his own.

  And nothing, nothing had ever felt quite as right as that moment.

  His hand went to the back of my neck, curling in, just shy of painful, keeping my gaze on his as he slowly started rocking into me, an unexpectedly gentle rhythm for such a big, rough man. It was almost like he knew this moment would be important, would be something we would always remember.

  We kept that pace even as my whimpers became moans, as the need became a clawing, painful thing.

  Then he bent me back until I was flat on the table, planting one arm next to my body as his hand slid between us, working my clit as he thrust harder, faster, as the need for release overtook him as well.

  "Come for me," he demanded, voice somehow soft and rough at the same place, like he could so often be.

  His finger swiped.

  His cock slid inside me.

  And I fell apart.

  And he broke with me.

  And it was, well, perfect.

  His weight came down on me for a long time after as we both found our breath, slowed our heartbeats.

  He recovered first, pushing upward, looking down at me with heavy-lidded, thoughtful eyes.

  "You okay?" he asked, his other hand came up, stroked some of my hair behind my ear.

  "Yeah."

  The smile that pulled at my lips felt big, felt beaming even.

  Because that was how I felt at the moment.

  There was a pause before slowly, amazingly, a similar smile pulled at his lips. It lit up his whole face, ripped away all the tortured, all the guarded, all the darker parts of him, leaving just the sweet, the soft, the content.

  My hand rose, pressing into his cheek, trying to capture the moment, make a mental picture of it.

  His head turned, his lips pressing into my palm before he slowly pulled upward and out of me, turning away to find his clothes.

  I took a deep breath, willing some strength back into my muscles, then sitting upward, waiting for him to hand me my clothes which he was gathering up with his shirts, his pants hanging off his hips, the button and zip still undone.

  "Hey Ranger?"

  "Yeah?" he asked, standing, turning to face me.

  "Do you always carry a condom?" I asked, some weird part of me simply needed to know.

  To that, he almost looked a little bashful as he piled my clothes next to me. He reached his free hand up, rubbing across the back of his neck.

  "No," he admitted. "In the woods, I don't usually carry a wallet. And I didn't have any condoms. But Miller must have told Finn to pick them up. I found them when I was putting all the shit away."

  "And you started carrying them?"

  "I know it was, ah, presumptuous."

  "It was smart," I corrected. "And it came in handy, didn't it?"

  "Know you got this," he said, running a finger over the small raised spot under the skin on my forearm, something I had put in two years ago just for peace of mind seeing as I hadn't given that big question nearly enough thought to find myself confronting it when it was too late. "But talks need to happen first. Needles and papers and all that unsexy shit. Better to deal with that later on down the line."

  "I like your preparedness," I told him, meaning it in every aspect of his personality.

  "Haven't found shit I don't like about you," he mumbled as he pulled on his shirt, completely oblivious to the way my heart squeezed in my chest at his declaration, a sensation so strong that my hand rose to press there for a second before I saw the shirt fall, my hand falling to my belly before I got caught, not wanting him to ask, to have to try to lie, to have him call me on it, demand the truth. And that truth, well, I wasn't even that sure what it was yet.

  "Hungry?" he asked, shrugging into his flannel, leaving it open as he found me my shirt, turning it right side out before handing it to me.

  "Yes," I told him, realizing it wasn't a lie. We'd missed lunch.

  "Think you might get your wish tonight," he told me as I got into my shirt, hopping up to pull on my pants and panties.

  "What wish?"

  "
That packaged crap you've been dying for."

  Boxed mac and cheese.

  I didn't realize how much I needed it until right that moment.

  "You're gonna eat it?" I asked, eyes wide seeing as he had out and out told me he wasn't eating that 'ultra-processed food imitation' at least twice already.

  "I'll eat it," he told me.

  "I bet you're going to love it. Even if you won't admit it," I told him, slipping into my shoes. "You ready? We should be getting back before Gadget gets a chill."

  I'd barely noticed it had gotten dark until then.

  We had no flashlight, but the moon and stars gave us just enough light to avoid falling and cracking our heads open on overgrown, burgeoning tree roots or fallen limbs.

  When we broke into the clearing, Captain came at us at a dead bolt, whining, stopping just short of taking me down, licking me all over, then sniffing me, then sniffing Ranger.

  Maybe it was crazy, but I could swear he knew what we had just done. Like he smelled us on each other.

  "You're a good boy. Did you keep an eye on your little brother?" I asked, going over to the pen, watching as Gadget rushed to me, bleating, hungry for dinner.

  Ranger fed him while I cooked, occasionally making conversation, asking what I thought of Finn, answering my questions about how the greenhouse plants were on their last legs.

  I made the ultra-processed macaroni and cheese.

  And took the whole of it, dividing it into two heaping bowls, then bringing it over to the table.

  "Alright," he admitted a long time later, after finishing every last bit of food in his bowl. "You were right. That was good."

  "See? I told you!" I gloated, stuffing the last two forkfuls of noodles into my mouth even though I was sure my belly was about to burst, not wanting to waste even the tiniest bit of the cheesy goodness.

  "But only once in a while," he specified.

  "You men," I said, shaking my head. "You never appreciate carbs like we do."

  "I can appreciate them in moderation."

  "If it is the box thing, I can make it from scratch. We'd just need to invest in cheese. Which, really, there is no losing there since that stuff takes forever to go bad. I had a block of cheddar in my fridge drawer for like over a year once without it going all green."

  "Like you cooking for me," he told me, standing, grabbing our bowls, bringing them to the sink as though he hadn't just said something that made my heart do the squeezy thing again.

  I wondered if he knew the significance of the words he threw around so casually.

  He must have, being a man of so few words, so infrequent personal admissions.

  So he was saying them not because he thought it was what was right to say, but because it was what he genuinely felt, because he wanted to share that with me, wanted me to know what he was feeling toward me.

  "Alright," he declared a moment later after finishing the dishes, making me turn to find him standing there drying his hands. "So how the fuck are we doing this?"

  "Doing what?" I asked, brows knitting.

  "Bed," he clarified. "With the dog and the goat," he added.

  I admit it, I had given it thought. While I had been cooking. About what would happen after we were done eating, if we would simply go our separate ways - him in his room, me on the couch. Like roommates.

  I had come to the conclusion that if maybe we got close again, things started getting intense, that we would simply wind up there. No fuss. No conversation about it.

  I hadn't imagined we would have an actual conversation about bed. Like the two adults we were.

  "Well, Captain sleeps at the foot. Which is nice. My feet get cold at night," I informed him. "And Gadget just likes to sleep close. He will be happy wherever so long as he is sharing someone's warmth. Unless you think you might roll over on him. I know some people are really deep..."

  "I'm not a deep sleeper. Haven't shared a bed with someone in a long time, but in the past, just someone else shifting would be enough to half wake me up. I wouldn't roll over and crush an animal."

  "Okay good," I said, giving him a small smile, the flood of relief almost comically strong.

  I knew, eventually, that Gadget would have to go move in with his goat friends, live his goat life, climbing onto play structures, jumping off, hopping onto his friends' backs, having a good old time.

  I also knew that it would be almost pathetically hard for me to watch him go, even if I knew I was going to be seeing him every day, interacting with him, enjoying him for many years to come.

  But until that day, he was like my little baby. And the idea of anything bad happening to him filled me with a crippling amount of dread.

  "You go get in bed. I'm gonna toss some treats at the dogs, then I will meet you in there."

  I got myself ready for bed, slipped into one of his oversized tees and fresh panties, then climbed into the sheets that smelled so much like him, calling Captain up by the foot, tucking Gadget to my side, and waiting.

  Ranger came in a few minutes later, stripping out of his clothes, slipping on a pair of lightweight pajama pants, then climbing in, snorting when Captain grumbled when he inched him back off his side of the bed and onto mine.

  "Come here," he demanded a moment later, tapping his chest, curling his arm under and around me as I did so, resting on his solid chest, feeling his warmth envelop me as his fingers stroked absentmindedly through my hair, down my back.

  And I realized as we both slowly drifted off to sleep that this was it.

  This was the most peace I had ever known in my life.

  It was right.

  So right.

  And I decided that if every night could just be like this from now until forever, well, I would be the happiest woman in the world.

  I didn't know at the time, of course, that he wasn't offering me forever.

  In fact, he barely gave me a week.

  NINE

  Meadow

  If you could bottle happiness and sell it to those in desperate need of it, you could find an endless source of it emanating from me that week following getting physical with Ranger.

  The following morning after that first night, I woke up warm. Which wasn't expected in the little cottage.

  But I had Captain at my feet, Gadget at my back, and Ranger underneath me. Because I had, apparently, managed to cock up my leg over him, letting it settle at his other side on the mattress. And with how oversized Ranger was in general, that meant that I was sprawled over him - head tucked into his neck, breasts crushed to his chest, hips lined up with his.

  And, ah, Ranger was awake and aware.

  His hands were stroking down my back under my shirt, and his cock was pressing into my belly.

  "Morning," he rumbled sound sleep-rough.

  It might have been the sexiest voice I had ever heard.

  "Morning," I told his neck, pressing my lips to the skin there.

  "Go stick Gadget in his tank, then get your ass back here," he demanded, giving said ass a squeeze, encouraging me up, wanting me to rush back.

  And, well, I knew what he was promising, could feel the anticipation of it low in my belly, so I hopped up, grabbed a still-sleepy Gadget, and rushed out of the room, dropping him in his tank, then making a quick trip to the bathroom, wanting to get rid of morning breath, then darting back into the room, finding Ranger sitting up against the headboard, sheets down around his waist, the sun from the side window outlining every perfect inch of his body.

  Desire unfurled from my core, moving outward until every nerve ending was begging for touch.

  "Come here," he demanded, patting the top of his leg.

  And, well, I went there.

  I nearly bounced on the bed like a little kid when a parent wasn't looking.

  Ranger's hands grabbed the hem of my shirt, smiling a bit when my arms went happily over my head, helping him remove it.

  His breath exhaled hard before he ran his hands up my back, pulling me forward, sealing his lips to
mine, crushing my sensitive nipples to his chest.

  I was shameless in that moment, my hips grinding down against his hardness, driving myself upward before he really even touched me.

  By the time his hand sank inside my panties, I was drenched.

  And by the time his finger slipped inside me, well, I was begging for more, for everything.

  His body folded, grabbing a condom out of his nightstand, protecting us, then urging my hips up, letting me sink down, take him deep inside on a soft sigh.

  I didn't have the self-control he seemed to possess.

  Once he was inside me, my motions became fast, borderline frantic, driving my body up to the brink and throwing it over before my thigh muscles could even start to ache.

  He followed quickly behind, hissing my name like a curse or a prayer, or maybe the two mingled together.

  "Nuh-uh," he said when I collapsed forward into him, taking deep breaths. His hands moved to my butt again, giving it a squeeze. "No dawdling. We have planting to do today."

  I pulled backward, a big smile tugging at my lips. Even orgasm-contented, he was still Ranger, still practical, work-focused.

  And I liked that about him.

  More than I thought I could.

  "Fiiine," I pretended to grumble, slowly moving off him, fetching my tee, slipping it back on a little self-consciously as Ranger got out of the bed bare-ass naked, no insecurity at all. And why would he be? With a body like that.

  "And after dinner," he said as he dug through his dresser drawers, "we got to deal with those stitches."

  "I'll be happy to get them out. They keep snagging at things," I told him, finding panties and pants, deciding the tee would be good enough for the day's tasks.

  From there, we had a quick breakfast, fed the dogs, handled the other animals, then gathered the packs of seeds, tools, and several buckets of compost, then headed out to the big garden, spending the rest of the day pouring compost, placing seeds, marking rows, hauling water pails to soak in the seeds, and then hanging ropes with little pinwheels to keep birds from attacking the seeds when they started to grow.