Secret Confessions: Down & Dusty — Casey (4 page)

‘Get out,’ she roared, thrusting her finger towards the door.

His eyes widened. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Case. Close the door.’

But instead of doing as he asked, she swooped upon his scattered boots and jeans and threw them out of the room. His boots jumped a few feet, one after the other.

‘You’ve gone mad!’ He swiped her sheet off the bed, wrapped it around himself like a toga and hurried after his clothing.

Casey slammed the door shut behind him, put the chain on the lock and then sunk down right where she was and cried. Joel was right—where he was concerned, she was well and truly insane.

***

For the next few days Casey threw herself into helping Lucky with the extra patrons that came in hordes for the Milpinyani Springs Rodeo weekend. The constant demand for meals meant she rarely left the kitchen and that suited her just fine. She was busy from before sun-up to sun-down, yet although her mind and body were exhausted by the time she finally climbed into bed, her thoughts always, without fail, drifted to Joel.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them rolling on the floor like animals, starving for each other and then the expression on his face when she sank down onto him. Oh Lord! Her inner muscles contracted at the recollection and her heart ached for what could be between them if he’d only grow the hell up. But his games on that first night proved pretty much everything was still a joke for him and, although she now realised things would never work between herself and Samuel, she wasn’t going to settle for what Joel could offer.

Sure, as he so arrogantly showed her, he could make her toes curl and her body sing by barely even touching her, but she wanted that and a whole lot more. She wanted love, passion, truth, friendship, a couple of kids, a house of their own and sex that made her crazy. Was that too much to ask?

As she rose out of bed on Monday morning, her phone beeped with an incoming message and she rolled her eyes, not needing to see the caller ID to know who’d sent it. She’d lost count of the number of messages Joel had sent over the last few days, begging her to give him another chance. After the first few, she’d deleted every single one without reading them. He’d also left messages with Lucky at the bar, but fortunately she’d refused to grant him entrance to the kitchen when they were so busy. She’d screwed each of those tiny pieces of paper up and turfed them in the rubbish before she was tempted to read them. History proved that where Joel was concerned she, or rather her libido, couldn’t be trusted.

Besides, she could guess what his messages would say. Something along the lines of: Meet me at midnight in the garage and I’ll show you again why I’m the one for you. Despite herself, her spine tingled at that thought. She snatched up her phone and glanced down to press delete when she saw the word TYRES in capital letters on the screen.

Dammit, in all the craziness of her first night and the extra busyness at the pub on rodeo weekend, she’d almost forgotten he had the Cruiser across the road waiting for delivery of the right tyres. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit!

Aggravated, she swiped her finger across the screen and read the whole message.
Your TYRES have arrived. I’ll fit them to the beast this morning and you can come collect after ten. And baby, I really wish you’d agree to another chat. I promise to keep my hands to myself but there’s a few things I need to say. Your eternal sex slave, Joel.

‘Eternal sex slave?’ She spluttered, the anger rising up inside her again. Was he even capable of any emotion besides horny?

Without replying she stormed into the shower, drenched herself in ice-cold water, dressed and then headed downstairs to start the breakfast cooking.

‘Morning, Lucky,’ she said as she entered the bar area. ‘We survived the weekend.’

Lucky nodded and smiled. ‘Yep, another rodeo over and done with. I don’t know whether I’m happy or sad that it’s over so quick.’

‘As much as I’ve enjoyed working with you again, I’m glad it’s finished,’ Casey confessed, leaning against the bar. ‘Oh and Lucky, I was wondering if you could do me a quick favour sometime this morning?’

Lucky raised one eyebrow. ‘What’s that?’

‘Can you go collect my car from Len’s garage?’ She purposely left Joel out of the sentence; Lucky would understand. And Casey couldn’t see him. She’d learned her lesson—the next interaction he got would be from her lawyer.

‘Len doesn’t own the garage anymore,’ Lucky said, frowning slightly. ‘I thought Joel would have told you that the other night.’

‘Huh?’

‘Len had a heart attack about ten months ago,’ Lucky explained. ‘He’s alright, but the doc told him he had to slow down, take things easy. He decided to sell the garage and gave Joel first refusal. I’m not sure of the arrangements, but Joel’s been working his arse off since then to pay Len out.’

‘Holy shit. I’m glad Len’s okay.’

‘I’m not sure he would be without Joel. He’s really stepped up to his responsibilities. He’s a changed man, Case. He’s grown up.’ Lucky’s tone was serious. ‘I think you should go get your car yourself. You and Joel should talk.’

‘I tried that the other night,’ Casey scoffed. ‘It didn’t work. I’m glad Len’s okay and I’m happy Joel’s getting his act together, but that doesn’t change things between us. All he wants from me is sex and I want so much more from him.’

‘Are you sure that’s all he wants?’

Casey swallowed; something in Lucky’s tone sounded ominous. Before she could reply, her friend continued.

‘I didn’t need you to come back for the rodeo,’ she confessed. ‘Joel asked me to get you home. He didn’t think you’d come if he asked, but he wanted to show you that—’

Casey didn’t hear the rest of Lucky’s sentence. Joel wanted her to come back? Then why the hell hadn’t he called or emailed or anything in the twelve agonisingly long months they’d been apart? And men thought women were hard to understand. Her heart swum with emotion and she felt her throat clogging up with the knowledge that Joel had engineered her return. Did that mean he really was prepared to do what she needed and try again?

She focused on Lucky again in time to hear her final nugget of advice.

‘Don’t walk away again without at least giving him the chance to talk. You owe him that much, but even more so, you owe yourself. What you and Joel have is special, Case. It’s not something that comes along every day. Hell, some of us never find it.’ And with that, Lucky turned on her heels and charged through to her office, closing the door behind her.

***

Breakfast done and dusted, her last shift at the pub finished, Casey said goodbye to Lucky and dragged her small suitcase behind her across the wide main street to Joel’s garage. Music blared from the stereo in the workshop and her Cruiser was parked just outside, new tyres and looking a lot shinier than it had been when she’d left it on the side of the road. He’d cleaned it, which for some reason made tears spring up in the corner of her eyes. Unsure of what she was walking into—unsure of pretty much everything now—she wiped the moisture with the back of her hand, parked her case by her car and followed the music inside.

The same scents that had ambushed her five days ago came at her again and this time she glanced around her at the workshop, noticing it looked a lot tidier than it had when she’d first started coming here all those years ago. The heavy beat of Joel’s favourite rock band was the only sound of life in the place, so she took a few more steps and then halted as she came upon a framed photo hung jaggedly on the corrugated iron wall.

A rush of love flooded her heart as she remembered the day Joel had shown her this frame. He’d made it himself from four steel spanners and put his favourite photograph of her inside. A photograph in which she was perched on the bonnet of his ute, her smile ridiculously wide as she watched him stalk towards her, a predatory gleam in his eyes.

‘Casey?’

She swung around at the sound of his deep voice and came face to face with Joel, in all his masculine glory. He’d looked hot the other night, fresh from the shower, but standing before her in a grease-stained white singlet and dirty jeans that hung loose on his narrow hips … well, let’s just say he could have stepped right off the pages of a charity calendar. And suddenly she was feeling very charitable.

She swallowed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you wanted me to come back?’

He frowned. ‘Lucky told ya?’

‘Yep.’ She raised her eyebrows waiting for an explanation.

Joel sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then turned slightly and shut off the stereo. ‘I’ve been a fool, Case. The day you walked out, I felt like my life was over. I had two choices—I could either drink myself to death in an effort to numb the pain or I could make myself worthy of your love. I know you want a family and hell, I want one too and only with you, so I decided to clean up my act. Uncle Len had a heart attack and I asked him to let me take over the garage. I’m paying him back a bit each week and also putting some aside for a house. I wanted to tell you all this the other night, to beg you for another chance, but then you told me about that other bloke, and I saw red. I just lost it.’

He stepped towards her and took hold of her hands. ‘I’m sorry if things got out of hand, but I couldn’t bear the thought of another man touching my wife.’

‘Oh Joel.’ She leant towards him and rested her head against his forehead. It felt unbelievably right to be up close and personal with him again. Her head may have been telling her one thing this past year, but her body had never stopped wanting him. Never stopped loving him.

‘I can’t promise to be perfect, Case,’ he whispered. ‘But I can promise you if you come home, I’m going to do my damn best to be a good husband and I guarantee there’s no one on this planet who will ever love you the way I do.’

‘I know.’ Those tears she’d been fighting burst free and she pressed her lips against his. ‘I love you too. I always have. Always will.’

He grabbed her head in his hands and kissed her ferociously. She responded. They kissed as if they hadn’t seen each other in a century, as if this might be the last time they ever did. Desperate for him, Casey grabbed the bottom of his singlet and started dragging it up over his head.

‘Whoa, baby,’ he muttered, his voice raw as he ripped his mouth from hers. ‘Maybe we need to cool it. Someone might come in.’

‘That’s never stopped us before, Joel Cooper.’ And then she lifted her own t-shirt clear off her head.

Joel sucked in a breath as he gazed down at her black lace bra, his hands already at the buckle of his jeans. ‘Wait right there, Mrs Cooper.’ He turned and swaggered across the workshop, yanking the roller door down and then flipping the sign on the little window to ‘closed’.

He was back to her within seconds, kicking off his boots and then shucking his jeans off at their feet. ‘Nice skirt,’ he noted, before shoving it up around her waist. He slipped his whole hand into her panties and she sighed in bliss as he gave her exactly what she wanted. While his fingers played her sweetly, their tongues duelled and she clawed her hands down his back to cup his buttocks, drawing him close. She felt the beautiful hardness of his cock against her belly and couldn’t wait a moment longer.

‘Joel, stop,’ she ordered. ‘I need you. Inside. Now.’ Like a woman possessed, she closed her hand around his erection and squeezed.

‘Whatever you need, baby.’ He pulled her panties down to her knees and then spun her round, positioning her hands on the bonnet of the car in front of them. She grinned in anticipation as he stood behind her, his cock pressing up against her arse as he snaked his hands around her body to toy with her nipples.

She moaned, thrusting herself towards him.

‘You are so hot, so responsive,’ he whispered.

‘Only for you,’ she told him truthfully. ‘Only for you.’

‘That’s right, only me, always and forever.’ And then he slipped one hand between her legs and stroked her sleek, hot folds. She couldn’t help but whimper, wanting him now. There’d be plenty of time to take it slowly later.

As if he could read her mind, he secured his hands against her hips, held her firmly and thrust upwards inside her.

Dear God. She bit her lip again, totally overcome with the sensation. How could she ever have contemplated turning her back on this? On him?

And that was the last thought she had before Joel upped the ante, pushing into her, deeper than he’d ever gone before. She whimpered and moaned and screamed his name as she came, not caring who might be out in the street listening.

Let the local gossips talk. She didn’t care. She was back in Joel’s arms, he was back inside her and she was never leaving him again.

Thanks for reading
CASEY
. I hope you enjoyed it.

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You’ve just read a book in the
SECRET CONFESSIONS: DOWN & DUSTY
series. The other books in this series are
LUCKY
,
KELLY
,
BROOKE
,
CLARISSA
,
SKYE
,
MAREE
and
FRANKIE
.

If you liked this book, here are my other books:
THE KISSING SEASON
;
OUTBACK GHOST
;
JILTED
and
THE PATTERSON GIRLS
.

This book was published by Escape Publishing. If you’d like to sample some more great books from my fellow Escape Artists, please turn the page.

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