In Bed With My Ex's Brother-in-Law novel · Chapter 26 of 32

Chapter 26: Home

Rance didn't move off the fender.

"Say that again," he said. "So I'm sure."

"I'm asking you for something tonight."

"What?"

"Drive me home. And don't sleep in the truck."

His eyes went gold, slow, the way they had in the line cabin.

Then he looked at the ground and laughed once, short.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

We hauled the dun and the grulla south in the dark, with the heater roaring.

He had his canvas coat buttoned over his bare chest and Kacey's stitches.

Neither of us said much.

Once, on the long hill above Hudson, he reached over and took my hand off my knee.

He just held it on the seat between us.

My mother's lane was white with frost.

He stopped the truck at my gate and turned off the engine.

He didn't get out.

The boys had stacked his hay right there, outside the wire. He'd never once crossed it.

"Your gate," he said.

I got out and opened it.

I swung it all the way back to the fence post and stood there holding it in the headlights.

"Come through," I said.

He drove through slow.

We turned the mares out by flashlight.

The grulla walked off to the river with the others and then turned around and came back and put her nose against his chest.

He stood there with his forehead on hers.

"She missed you," I said.

"She's the only one who'd admit it."

"That's not true."

He looked at me over her neck.

The house was cold.

I lit the stove, and he stood in the doorway of my mother's kitchen with his hat in his hands.

He was too tall for the room.

"You haven't forgiven me," he said.

"I've been watching you."

"That's not an answer."

"It is." I shut the stove door. "You stood at Noreen's gate in front of seventy wolves and took the blame. And tonight you had his throat, and you let him go, because I was standing there."

He didn't say anything.

"I've gentled a lot of horses, Rance. You don't trust one because he says sorry. You trust him because he keeps standing there when he could run."

I crossed the kitchen to him.

"You kept standing there."

He put his hat down on my mother's table.

"Shiloh. Are you sure."

"I'm sure. I want you in my bed tonight. Mine. In my house." I put my hand flat on his coat, over his heart, the way I had at the gate. "Yes."

"Yes," he said.

He crossed the room to me in three steps.

Not fast.

Certain.

I reached for the top button of his coat.

"Hold still."

He did.

I worked the buttons one by one, slow, because I wanted to watch his chest move under my hands.

"Heat's not up yet," I said.

"I don't feel the cold."

I pushed the coat off his shoulders.

It fell behind him on the floor.

The bite mark was high on his left shoulder.

Kacey's stitches were a neat dark line over the old puckered scar from Cheyenne.

I put two fingers beside them, not on them.

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Liar."

"I've had worse."

I flattened my palm over his heart.

It was beating hard under my hand.

"You're shaking," I said.

"Your hands are cold."

"They are." I pulled them away and blew on my fingers. "Put them somewhere warm then."

He caught my wrist.

"Where."

"Under my shirt. You know where."

He did.

His hands went up under the denim, flat against my ribs, and I watched his eyes close halfway.

"Now push it up," I said.

He did that too.

Over my head and off, onto the floor with his coat.

Then he was looking at me in my bra, plain white cotton, my skin goosebumped from the cold and from his hands.

"Take it off me," I said.

He reached behind me.

The hooks came apart easy.

He let the straps slide down my arms.

He didn't look away from my face once.

"Rance. Look at me. Not at my body. At me."

"I am."

"Then tell me what you see."

He swallowed.

"A woman who's mad at me and wants me anyway."

"Close." I stepped out of my jeans and socks. "A woman who's not mad anymore. And wants you more than she's wanted anything in her life."

← Chapter 25 · All chapters · Chapter 27 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend