“Is that your next rule?” she asked.
“Yes, and I want to be clear that this isn’t about people seeing us together, because in any other place I’d be bragging from here to kingdom come that I was your boy toy, but Conway is small and ... ”
She interrupted me. “This is my rule four. And ditto. But I need to be professional and town gossip being what it is …”
“Exactly. We should also decide on a way to discuss this rendezvous situation of ours that is more discreet than friends with benefits. My brothers are …” I paused, searching for the right word.
She offered, “Snoopy.”
“Sure, snoopy works. I might have gone with sneaky but lovable bastards, but let’s use your word, snoopy.”
She looked away. She was thinking. I gazed at her profile. I loved to look at Caroline. I’d been staring at her profile for years, the cut of her jaw, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear.
“How about something rodeo related?” she suggested. “That will go unnoticed.”
“Good idea.” I considered it for a second and then said, “RodeO, with a capital O. It’ll look like a typo, but you and I will know different.”
She nodded and smirked, clearly liking the secret code I’d created. Once again, she made a note in her absolutely delightful little notebook.
Moving on, I said, “Also, we need to decide on a location where prying eyes aren’t watching. And to be clear, that is nowhere near my house and it is certainly not yours.”
“You don’t want to boink under the sheriff’s nose?” she teased.
She was hilarious. Who said boink? “No, no boinking anywhere near the sheriff, thank you.”
“Agreed. I have recently acquired the keys to Bev’s father’s fishing cabin.”
That comment told me that Bev already knew about our friends with benefits agreement. Snarkily, I said, “Hmm … Interesting. I’m guessing that our keep it secret rule already has an exception.”
She blushed. “Yes, but there won’t be any others, I promise.” She held up her notebook and pointed to a line in it. “I wrote down that I needed to tell you about Bev; I just hadn’t had a chance yet.”
I smiled. “It’s okay. I figured you would tell Bev.”
Referencing our conversation from the other day, she said, “See, you knew I always had Bev to talk to.”
“It’s true, you two have always been thick as thieves.”
Heading our way with a pitcher of iced tea, Hazel called out, “You two need anything over there?”
“No, ma’am,” I hollered back. “Just busy working.”
Sauntering up to the table, she put down the pitcher and said, “I’ll just leave this here. I’m gonna clean up a bit, but you two take your time. No rush.”
“We’re good,” I said.
Lingering, Hazel touched Caroline’s shoulder and said, “Right, good thing you’re doing with that rodeo.”
I watched as Caroline brightened like a flower in the sun, and then I was surprised when she said, “Wyatt has been such a lifesaver. I don’t know what I was thinking with this idea. I literally couldn’t do it without him.”
With soft eyes, Hazel responded, “Ain’t gonna see me arguing with you. He’s a mighty fine young man.” She winked at me. I was thirty, but to Hazel I was always a young man. “Alright, back to work, you two. You know where I am if you need me.”
After Hazel walked away, we were both silent for a beat, and then Caroline asked, “Do you have other rules? Because I’m done.”
I was surprised. I expected her to have rules that were more sexual in nature, things we could and couldn’t do. I said as much. “Really? No … um … boundaries?”
She shook her head no. And then she said, “You respect me. If there is something that feels uncomfortable to me in the moment, I’ll let you know.”
I wasn’t one hundred percent sure why, but the thought of Caroline telling me what she wanted or didn’t want sexually, in the moment, had me hard and thick in an instant. I growled. It was totally unintentional. It just happened.
Caroline’s head snapped up to look at me and she whispered, “Did you just growl at me?”
“I did,” I said, still totally growly.
“Why?” she asked, her eyes wide.
I shrugged. “I like the idea of you naked, telling me what you want. It’s hot.”
“Oh.” She blushed. Then hesitant, like she was trying the idea on for size, she said, “Good. I guess.”
Under the table, I grabbed her hand from her lap and pulled it into mine, resting it on my fully engaged cock and I said, “I like it a lot.”
Her jaw dropped a little, not conspicuously but enough that I could see she was both shocked and pleased. Eyes bright, she said, “Wow, you do.”
I nodded.
“Cool.” She wasn’t blushing anymore. Now she was biting her lip and looking around the cafe. A ton of mischief was always percolating just under the skin of Caroline’s logically driven surface.
She started to move her hand back and forth and I stopped her. “Not yet, Caroline. “
Squeezing gently, she said, “You sure?”
I removed her hand. “I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I can pretty much promise if you touch me now, our rodeO agreement will no longer be a secret.”
Clearly disappointed, she grumped, “Fine.”
This whole thing was gonna be too much fun.
Moving right along, she asked, “What about you? Do you have other rules?”
Rubbing my hands over my face, I said, “Honestly, I can’t remember them right now. We covered the important bits.”
“We should make a plan then.”
“A plan?” I was trying to will the blood back up to my brain.
“Yes. Perhaps you should come by the office for those tests,” she suggested. And then clearly wanting privacy as much as I did, she said, “Maybe after hours, under the guise of a rodeO meeting?” She emphasized the O.
“Tomorrow?” I asked.
She giggled, obviously delighted by my eagerness. “I can’t. I have plans with my dad, but how about the day after?”
“It’s a date.” Only it wasn’t. But neither of us made note of that fact.
Hours later, as I climbed the stairs, heading for bed, I got a notification on my phone. It was a Google calendar invite from Caroline for Thursday at six p.m., titled RodeO Testing.
Hottest damn Google invite ever.
10
Caroline
It was 5:54 p.m., one minute since the last time I looked at the clock. I wanted to pace around my office like a lion in the zoo. But I also wanted to pretend everything was completely normal, like what was going to happen today was nothing, like starting an affair with Wyatt Morgan was just a run-of-the-mill evening event. I tried to focus on finishing up a couple of files but every time I looked at the screen, I just read the same silly line over and over again. Patient suffers unexplained nausea, repeatedly assuming cause is husband’s odor. Note: make appointment for husband. Eventually, I gave up attempting to do my work and just sat there silently roaring with nervous energy. When the clock said 5:56, Linda, Eggs’ office manager, knocked on my door.