Big Bad John (Bigger in Texas Series) by R.G. Alexander

tenderly. A nod was the only answer she would give. “Babe, I need you to shift Loco into drive for me. My arm is occupied.”
    She turned in his arms and shifted as he let out the stiff clutch and pushed on the gas, and they drove for the next few minutes in silence. John wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He felt better than he had in as long as he could remember. As if a fog had been lifted. A weight that he’d carried for years. But though he knew she’d come as hard as he had, he didn’t know if she shared his satisfaction. He was not a fan of mysteries.
    “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
    She bit her lip. “I’m thinking I should be thinking more.”
    His eyebrows shot up. “Wanna translate that for me?”
    “About this. About my brother. The tour. My houseguest. About everything I should be thinking about instead of...”
    “Instead of what?” But he knew. Since she arrived, he hadn’t been able to think about anything else either. Hell, he hadn’t even made it to his house before he popped.
    That didn’t mean he wanted it to stop.
    “I’m thinking you agreed to give yourself to me for the next two weeks. I’m thinking you do enough thinking and sometimes, Trudy…sometimes people just need to be .” His arm tightened around her body and he said a silent prayer. “Can you do that? Just be with me tonight? Tomorrow will come soon enough.”
    She hesitated for a moment before he heard her soft. “Okay.”
    As the words escaped her lips and he quietly thanked the heavens, the water and his house came into view. John smiled when she gasped.
    Exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for.
     

 

Chapter Five
     
    She was having a hard time taking it all in. Jefferson had called John’s place a lean-to. She’d imagined a small cabin, or one of those insulated metal barns people liked so much around here.
    But this… It was as if he’d listened to her conversations with her father at the dinner table about making the ranch more renewable. About some of the unusual homes of the rich and famous she’d seen in magazines from Arizona and California. As if he’d remembered.
    John’s place wasn’t the sparse, hedonistic bachelor pad she’d been expecting. Bachelor pads didn’t have four large bedrooms, fully stocked libraries and entertainment centers, greenhouses off their kitchens or solar panels and water catchment systems on the roof. They weren’t made of concrete with walls of windows that let in the sun but kept the house cool and comfortable through the summer and warm in the winter.
    They definitely didn’t have tree stands in the yard complete with a small telescope and some cushions to watch the stars.
    This wasn’t a house for a man who wanted to be alone. This was a home. The kind of home she used to dream about. And it was stunning.
    He’d done all this? During the dinner he’d made her—grilled shrimp and pasta in wine sauce—he’d told her about building it one favor at a time. Someone in town had a backhoe, someone had a cement mixing company, and one retired investment banker who loved working with his hands had helped him with the plumbing and electrical wiring in exchange for a free box of Troublemaker sauce and some conversation.
    Trudy was on the porch facing the pond, a glass of wine in her hand and her eyes glazed over as she stared into the sunken fire pit that lit the area around her and smelled faintly of cedar. John was inside doing the dishes.
    She was in shock. That must be what this feeling was.
    Her head was floating up in the star-filled sky, and to be honest, she hadn’t come down since she’d gotten into the truck. Being so close to him, watching him struggle to restrain himself, had flipped a switch inside her. She’d wanted to give him pleasure. Wanted to taste him again.
    She’d been shameless. Wild. And she could still feel that wildness thrumming through her nerve endings. Waiting for the chance to pounce. Waiting for whatever he had