Rough Stock (7 page)

Chapter Six

Clay watched April come out of the house. She saw him and Mason in the ring with the horse and turned around again.
Shit.
Mason had guessed it right. April had avoided being alone with them after the first time they were all together, and she was doing the same thing now.

“You were right. Things are messed up again with her.”

Mason followed where Clay was looking and pressed his lips together. “Yeah, I know.”

Resolved, Clay handed the lead rope to Mason. “I’m going to talk to her.”

Mason looked doubtful. “You sure you want to do that?”

Clay nodded.

“Do you want me to come?”

Remembering how he had been the one who slid off her shorts and underwear, before sliding into her, Clay shook his head. “Nah. I’m the one that did what I did. I think I need to talk to her alone.” He hesitated. “You okay with that?”

Mason raised a brow. “You’re asking my permission to talk to April?”

Clay laughed sadly. “Yeah, I know. That’s messed up, huh? But…”

“Things are a little messed up right now all around,” Mason finished his thought.

“Yeah, they are.” Especially if April was going to avoid them, possibly because of something Clay had done. He needed to straighten it out. Even though he and Mason shared a whole hell of a lot, especially lately, this he had to handle alone.

Mason tilted his head toward the house. “Go on. I’ll put the horse away and start on the afternoon chores.”

Clay nodded his thanks and headed for the house. Luckily, April’s parents were away at a horse sale so he could safely talk about this inside without fear of being heard. He let himself in the back door quietly, feeling how much cooler the well-shaded house felt compared to standing in the sun out in the ring. The sounds of a television led him to the family room, where April lay back on the seat cushion with her feet kicked up and hanging over the arm of the sofa.

“Hey.”

She startled at his voice, then recovered quickly and focused her eyes back on the television. Figuring he was in for a long haul since she wouldn’t even look at him, he sat right next to her so that the top of her head touched his thigh.

He played with one of her curls. “I want to talk about last night.”

He sensed her body stiffen. “I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I think there is. Mason thinks you’re avoiding us because you regret what we all did together.”

She became very still, barely breathing for a moment. “And what do you think?”

“I didn’t agree with him until I saw you take one look at me in the ring then hightail it back inside. Now I’m starting to wonder if I pushed you too far last night. And if I did, I’m sorry. Real sorry.”

He tipped her chin up so she had to look at him upside down. “Did I go too far?”

She shook her head and he felt a weight lift, until she pulled her chin away and looked anywhere but at him.

“You sure, darlin’? You can tell me. I know sometimes that…you know…what I did at the end, can hurt a girl.”

April sat up abruptly and looked away. “Can we
please
talk about something else?”

Clay silently mouthed a curse. “I did hurt you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

He wished she would at least look at him. He continued, not believing her answer. “When you pushed back against me, I figured you liked it or I would have stopped.”

April buried her reddened face in her hands. “Clay, please. Can’t we drop this?”

He grabbed her wrist gently and pulled the hand closest to him away from her face. “No. I can’t. Not until you tell me if I hurt you. I wanted to make you feel good. I would never hurt you on purpose.”

She took a deep breath before finally answering him. “It did feel good. Okay? In the very beginning, when you were just kind of there, rubbing and pushing against me, it was incredible. That’s why I pushed back. But then, when you were first inside, it did hurt a little bit. I almost asked you to stop, but you sounded like it felt so good, I didn’t.”

He felt horrible. “Dammit, April, don’t let me ever do anything that hurts you, I don’t care how good it feels for me. Tell me next time, okay?” Clay wanted this point made very clear because he anticipated many more nights with April.

Turning toward him, she finally looked at him for the first time since he’d arrived. She put one finger across his lips. “Let me finish. I was going to say that the other thing you were doing to me with your hand was so amazing that the hurt went away. And then when I started to…you know…it all felt good.
Really
good.”

Clay smiled at how she blushed and couldn’t say the words because of her embarrassment. Stroking her face with one finger, he shook his head in wonder. “You’re amazing. And next time, I’ll be prepared so it won’t hurt you at all. I promise.”

April’s face became a vivid shade of red right before she threw her hands up to cover it again. “Clay, just because I liked doing it doesn’t mean I want to talk about it.”

He grinned. “Okay, okay. No more talking about it, but I still don’t understand. If you’re okay with what happened, then what’s with the hiding in the house and avoiding Mason and me?”

She shook her head and moved away.

He grabbed her arm and kept her near him. “What? Tell me.”

April turned and faced away from him. Clay forced her to turn back to him and found tears in her eyes. “April. What is it? Tell me.”

Shaking her head again, she freed herself from his grasp, stood and ran out of the room, leaving Clay alone and more confused than before. Blowing out a loud breath of frustration, he left April alone in the house.

Clay caught up with Mason outside the hay shed.

“So?” he asked when he saw Clay.

Clay let out a short laugh. “So, things are about as clear as mud now.”

Mason dropped the bale of hay on the ground and propped one boot on it, adjusting the brim of his hat. “What happened?”

“I asked her if it was what I’d done to her last night that had her hiding from us and she said no. When I asked her what
was
wrong, you know if it wasn’t that, she got all teary and ran out of the room.”

“She was crying? Shit.” Mason sighed. “So what do we do?”

Clay shrugged. “Hell if I know. I guess we give her some space and she’ll come around just like she did last time.” He laughed and looked at Mason sadly. “How long did it take her last time?”

Mason glanced at the house. “Three long days.”

Clay followed Mason’s gaze and let out a long, loud breath. “One down, two to go.”

***

Three days passed and April still talked to them only when she had to, and then only about things that were inconsequential. Clay had great hopes for this summer but things were not looking too good at the moment. Although some of the stuff that had happened with April was already beyond his wildest dreams, the tension between them now just plain sucked.

Lying in his bed in the dark, Clay ran over and over their last real conversation when she’d run out of the room crying. What the hell was with girls? If Mason was pissed about something, he’d outright tell Clay what it was. Not avoid him for days on end so he had to guess. Things had been so much simpler when April was just one of the guys.

Then Clay remembered her taste, the feel of her beneath his hands, the sensations of being inside her, and he reconsidered that opinion. Things had been simpler, but not nearly as good, that was until she freaked out and started to avoid them both.

Angry now that she wouldn’t open up to him, one of her best friends, Clay swung his bare feet from the bed and stood. He’d had enough. Throwing on whatever clean clothes his hands touched first in his drawers, Clay was dressed and sneaking out of the house in about two minutes.

It was about a ten-minute walk to April’s farm. The night being cooler, Clay was able to travel at a fairly brisk pace and still arrive hardly having broken a sweat.

The room was dark, the window open. Clay’s heartbeat picked up speed just from seeing it and knowing she lay right inside. Hopping up onto the sill, he swung in and stopped dead as April squeaked with surprise. Her hand that had been between her splayed, naked thighs grabbed the sheet to cover her nakedness.

Clay stood, shocked, speechless and hard enough to hammer nails from what he’d seen. The image was seared into his brain—April, lying back on the bed, legs spread wide, her fingers frantically working between them.

“Dammit, Clay. What the hell? Get out of here.”

Catching barely enough breath to speak, Clay took one step forward. “Darlin’, you’re gonna have to physically throw me out of that window because after seeing that, there is no way I can leave under my own steam.”

She groaned and covered her face with the sheet balled in her hands. “Please, go away.”

If she really had wanted him to leave, he would, but he knew that wasn’t the case. At the moment, she was pretty mortified at being caught, but that was all. Clay knew exactly how she felt, but if she had any idea how often he’d masturbated in the last week, she’d know she had nothing to be ashamed of.

Clay perched on the edge of the mattress and pulled her into his arms. She didn’t exactly fall into him, but she didn’t fight him. “April, darlin’, there’s nothing for you to be embarrassed of. Believe me. Now, when my mama walked in on me a few years back when I was occupied doing the same thing,
that
was embarrassing.”

April uncovered her face and looked at him wide-eyed. “She did? Really?”

Clay laughed. “Oh, yeah.”

“What’d she do?”

“Turned right around and never brought it up again. Although, my papa did visit me that next day to have ‘the talk’.” Clay squeezed her harder. “So you see, you should be happy. It could have been a hell of a lot worse. It’s only me seeing you. That’s nothing.”

In the soft light of the nightlight, he watched April roll her eyes. “I still wish you would knock or something.”

He laughed. “Knock? At the window?”

“Yeah.”

Clay ran one hand up and down her back. “Okay. Next time I’ll knock. So, uh…” He’d come here to talk, but after seeing what he’d seen, he now had other ideas. “You want any, um, help with what you were doing?”

She covered her face again. He reached up and pulled her hands away, grinning at how damn cute and shy she was, all while being sexy as hell.

Finally making eye contact, she spoke. “It doesn’t work for me.”

Clay raised a brow. “What do you mean?”

April hesitated. “I try, sometimes for a long time, but nothing happens. Not like when you do it.”

He drew in a deep breath as his stomach twisted with want. That was probably the hottest thing she’d ever said to him. She couldn’t get off on her own without him and that really, really turned him on.

Clay swallowed, but his voice still sounded raspy to his own ears. “Good thing I showed up.”

Then a thought hit him, a wonderful, tantalizing thought. Was it possible April had never had an orgasm before him? As his heart pounded like it was trying to get out of his chest, Clay asked, “That first night we were all together. Was that the first time that you ever…you know?”

She nodded.

Ready to come right then and there just from the conversation, he lowered his head and she didn’t pull away, but instead leaned in and met his lips. Clay pushed aside the guilty feeling that he was undercutting Mason. Loyalty and friendship were important, but April was soft, warm and wanting in his arms, and that was all he could think about.

Her soft kiss became more when he plunged his tongue inside to meet hers. When his hand strayed down between her thighs and found her clit already swollen, he groaned. She’d obviously worked it hard even though she couldn’t get herself over the edge.

Sliding one finger inside her, he felt the ready slickness there. She was making sexy little sounds that nearly did him in as he touched her. It would be so tempting to slide himself inside her and forget all about Mason and the deal they’d made.

Making her pleasure his priority, Clay found and stroked the spot inside of her that he’d read about in a men’s magazine, knowing he was doing it right when she whimpered louder in her throat. Maybe he was showing off, trying to prove to her that he could not only get her off, but he knew more than one way to do it too. He worked her G-spot with two fingers until he felt her muscles bearing down. Only then did he pay attention to her swollen clit.

Her whole body trembled and he knew she’d come soon, just from his touch. That thought made him really hot.

She exploded around him and Clay knew he better do something to relieve himself and fast before he whipped his dick out and took her completely.

When her body began to calm, he pulled away.

April let out a small sound of protest when he stopped touching her, her hips following his hand up when he took it away. He grinned as he stood. “Don’t worry, darlin’. I’m coming back to you in just a sec.”