AVERY (The Corbin Brothers Book 2) (3 page)

“You think I should be getting manicures? Pretty pink painted nails?”

Paisley laughed, and it wasn’t unpleasant to listen to. “You could pick a different color, if you wanted. Maybe a bright purple? It is summer. You can get away with some pretty sassy shades.”

I snorted at her. “Sassy shades. Right. Definitely sounds like me.”

“Anyway, I love it here,” Paisley said. “I love this cute little town, and I love how beautiful the ranches are. That’s why I want to stay here.”
“You just seem like you’re too big for this town,” I said. “Like you belong in Dallas or better — New York, even.”

“I don’t know if you’re insulting me or trying to flatter me.”

“Neither,” I said. “Just an observation.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever leave here,” she said. “I don’t even want to.”
“How could you not ever want to leave this place?” I asked, dumbfounded. “There are so many other places better than here.”

“Oh yeah? Name one.”

“Literally anywhere,” I said. “Any place has to be better than this one.”

“But name one you’ve been to.”

I knocked back my beer obstinately and lifted my chin at the bartender for another. “I wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve never had the opportunity to leave this place.”

Paisley gave a half shrug, her bare shoulder showing through a curtain of glossy blond hair. “I’ve left it. I came back.”

“Where did you go?” I demanded, jealousy rearing its ugly head. Of course Paisley got to travel away from her hometown. Her father was rich and still alive, and she was an only child.

“Well, I went away for school,” she said. “I did a lot of traveling then with friends I’d meet. East coast, west coast, Mexico, Europe for a study abroad program.”

“Why did you come back at all?” I asked. “I wouldn’t have.”
“You spend enough time away from home and you learn to appreciate where you’re from,” she said. “I missed it — a lot — when I was away. I guessed I sowed my wild oats and came back home to roost again.”

The fact that she even got a chance to sow some wild oats was a concept foreign to me. I both resented and admired her for her travels, all the time wishing it were me instead of her who’d gotten to see the world, practically.

“That’s enough about me, though,” she said, smiling. “Avery, it has been a minute. We were practically inseparable as kids. What in the world have you been up to?”

The description of our past — inseparable — was a little bit of a gloss job. It was me who was having to peel Paisley off of me throughout high school, deflecting her advances almost constantly. Inseparable? Maybe in her memories. She was more like a little leech.

“I’ve just been here, on the ranch,” I said. “Nothing as amazing as your charmed life.”

She paused, weighing her response to that. “I don’t really think that I have a charmed life, but thank you. I’m actually pretty jealous of you, that you’ve been able to be here this whole time.”

“Jealous? Of me?” I laughed derisively.

“Well, if you wanted to travel so badly, why didn’t you?” she asked, stung. “Didn’t you go away to school?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Oh.” She considered that, biting her lower lip, which was looking more and more luscious with each beer I guzzled. I was so drunk right now that I was almost happy — if only we hadn’t been talking about ranching, if anyone else in the world would’ve been sitting here, talking to me.

“Oh is right,” I said. “I wanted to, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. You could, and good for you.”

“I’m sorry that this life hasn’t been what you wanted,” she said.

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Had I been that obvious? I didn’t know what I’d do if it got back to my brothers that this wasn’t the life that I wanted, even though I was pretty sure at least a few of them had to suspect I was less than happy on the ranch. A Corbin boy who didn’t like ranching was worse than a simple anomaly. It was unthinkable.

“I mean that you sound like you wish things were different.” Paisley twirled a strand of her hair on her finger. I noticed that beyond a couple of small sips she’d seemed to have taken, her drink was virtually untouched. I’d lost count of how many beers I’d had since she sat down beside me.

“I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“I think I know what you want,” she said.

“Well, I wish you’d tell me.”

“You want me to take you home.” She smiled so sweetly that it made me half happy and half suspicious.

“Is that what you think I want?”

“I think you need it, yes,” she said, not losing an ounce of sweetness. “You’re listing hard on that barstool.”

“I’m fine.”

“If you say so. But aren’t you feeling a little sleepy? You look tired.”

“I heard you’re not supposed to tell a woman they look tired,” I said. “Why should it be okay to tell a man the same thing?”

Paisley leaned close enough for us to nearly brush noses. “Would it be okay to tell you that you’re really drunk and the bartender just cut you off?”

“Bullshit.” I believed that I was pretty drunk, but I didn’t believe the bartender would’ve cut me off. We had an understanding. But when I tried to signal him for another beer — even though I still had a few good gulps in this one — he shook his head shortly.

“This has never happened to me before,” I said, bewildered and angry.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Paisley said. “You’re drunk. Good for you. You’ve obviously achieved what you sat down here to do. Now let me do you a favor and take you home.”

I wanted to argue, but she was already gently leading me away from the bar, wiggling her fingers at the bartender, bearing most of my weight on her shoulder as my legs apparently decided to stop working properly. Her truck was so nice that I found myself hoping I wouldn’t puke in it. I managed to scramble into it with minimal aid, and Paisley hopped in handily behind the wheel even though she seemed too small to handle such a rig.

“Your place or mine?” she asked, that smile shining in the dark.

“Mine,” I mumbled. “Trailer near the house.”

“A bachelor pad,” Paisley commented. “Nice.”

I didn’t have much to say to that as my neck muscles were the next to go, my head lolling to a rest against the window. I was drunker than I had been in a long time, but it was nice. All I had to worry about was keeping the contents of my stomach firmly in my stomach, and then we were already home because I must’ve closed my eyes and slept for the entirety of the drive.

“You snore when you’re asleep,” Paisley said, helping me out of the car. “And I love your ranch. Hard to believe that we’re practically neighbors and yet your land is so different from mine — well, my father’s.”

“It’s okay,” I slurred, leaning heavily on her, relying on this person I never wanted to rely on to get me inside my trailer. I collapsed in my bed, throwing an arm over my eyes, dreading Paisley’s judgment on my trailer. It was a shit hole. I knew it was because I lived here and I didn’t let Zoe clean out here. She was our housekeeper, sure, but technically, the trailer wasn’t the house. I preferred it that way.

I felt a tug on my boots and peered down at Paisley. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you get comfortable, of course. I couldn’t let you pass out in your boots. What if someone found you and drew on you?”

“My brothers aren’t like that,” I said.

“Yes, but I would be well within my rights to draw on you before leaving if you pass out in your boots. There. Crisis averted.”

She moved on to my waistband, her sharp little fingernails pricking my stomach in an oddly pleasant way as she fumbled with my belt.

“Don’t tell me it’s the same rules for pants.”

“It’s no fun sleeping in your jeans. Believe me. I’ve done it plenty.”

She leaned over me and I caught a delicious glimpse of her cleavage. Could I help my hardening at that sight? It definitely didn’t help that she finally figured out my belt and moved on to my button and fly.

“Well!” Paisley exclaimed. “What are we going to do about this, Avery Corbin?”

“I’m sorry. It has a mind of its own, apparently.” Thank God I was so drunk. Otherwise, I’d be dying of shame.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s flattering.”

“Really?”

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for some kind of sign that you’re as attracted to me as I am to you.”

I got a flashback to annoying little Paisley Summers in high school, hanging out by my locker between classes even if it made her late to hers, but the Paisley Summers straddling my thighs was nothing like the other one from my memories.

I took her cautiously by the hips until she took one of my hands and placed it on her breast.

“I want you so bad, Avery. I want you to see how bad I want you.”

She hitched her denim skirt up over her hips — she wasn’t wearing panties — and put my hand between her legs. She was wet enough to surprise me, shaved bare, and then I was inside her, gaping up at her face as she lowered her body down on mine, her tongue poking out a little bit as she concentrated.

It felt … so good. It had been such a long time since I’d been with anyone, thrusting upward, tasting her pussy on my fingers, rewarded with Paisley’s sighs and moans. I found myself on top, not sure how I got there, her legs squeezing my ribcage, my thrusts pounding into her. She was screaming, and I was thankful for probably the thousandth time that I lived in the trailer and not in the house, and then I didn’t remember anything whatsoever.

The hangover was what woke me up, a splitting headache and a real urge to rid myself of whatever might remain in my stomach.

But when I rolled over, my heart stopped, and I realized the full magnitude of my stupidity last night.

I’d gotten way too drunk, and I had let Paisley Summers sashay right into my life. She had invited herself over, and seemed to be making herself at home in my bed, fast asleep, completely naked.

Paisley Summers. This was a dangerous thing — very dangerous — to wake up next to. I didn’t remember much from last night, didn’t remember anything beyond the strange conversation I’d had with her at the bar, but this was a disaster I needed to try and avert immediately.

I flinched as a memory of a wet mouth on mine came to me unbidden, fingernails raking down my bare back. No. I didn’t need that. Right now, all I needed was to figure out how to do damage control, to assess my situation.

I was clearly in my trailer. It was definitely time to wake up and start the day. I had a near-debilitating hangover. And the girl — okay, woman — who’d chased after me throughout my public education had just caught me in her sticky net.

God, she had been sticky. I’d tasted it with my own tongue, like a pot of honey. But honey always came with bees, and bees always came with stingers. I’d dodged Paisley Summers’ advances for twelve whole years and then some. How had I fallen for her now?

No, no, no. I hadn’t fallen for her. It had been a one-night stand, and that was it. This was nothing I couldn’t wriggle my way out of.

I moved as swiftly and quietly as I could, taking care not to rush so much as to rock the trailer. God. The rocking this trailer must’ve done last night as I was paying homage to those long legs, full breasts, golden hair that was mussed up all cute right now, spread across my pillow. Dammit, Avery, stay focused. I coached myself as I examined the contents of my trashcan. A pint of whiskey — Christ, that would explain the hangover, even if I had zero memories of drinking it — and a condom wrapper. Okay, it looked like I at least attempted to wear a condom last night. Now, just to find the proof so I knew I hadn’t knocked Paisley up and fulfilled her goal of being a Corbin princess by shotgun marriage.

There was nothing in the sink, nothing in the toilet, nothing in the sheets so far as I could see, my panic mounting. Had I used the condom or hadn’t I? Maybe I’d taken it out, put it on, and Paisley had slyly suggested that we go raw instead, all according to her master plan. This couldn’t really be happening to me, could it?

I grabbed my hair and pulled with fury before looking down to notice, with no small amount of horror, that the condom was still firmly attached to my dick.

I’d been marinating in my own juices all damn night.

I didn’t know if I was more disgusted or relieved that at least I had dodged the bullet of a shotgun marriage. Now I just had to escape my trailer and hope Paisley knew just to disappear whenever she woke up.

I splashed myself in the sink a couple of times to try to clean up, not wanting to risk the noise of a shower to wake Paisley before I could get out of here, and pulled on the same clothes I had on yesterday. I was just pulling on my boots when I heard her stirring and made a mad dash for the door, all attempts at subtlety abandoned.

“Don’t rush off, Avery,” she said, a smile in her voice. “Don’t you want a little something to take for the road?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, my hand on the door latch, foiled at the last possible second.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” I said. “Things start pretty early here on the ranch.”

“Uh-huh. You’ve been sneaking around for a good fifteen minutes, and by my calculations, you’re running a little late for work this morning.”

I turned around and was at least rewarded with the majesty that was Paisley’s body, completely nude, posed perfectly on my bed, the creamy whiteness of the softer parts of her body at total odds with her sun-burnished arms and face. She was a girl who was used to being outside, that was for sure, and the parts she kept beneath her clothes were gorgeous. Paisley was a lot of things, and a beauty was certainly up there.

“I’m not a little girl anymore, am I, Avery?” she asked suggestively. “I grew right up from a flat-chested dyke, didn’t I?”

I flinched. “I never said that.”

“I know you didn’t. That bully did, though, and you made him eat his words.”

I was instantly and helplessly transported back to grade school in spite of the gorgeous naked woman laid out in front of me like a sexual buffet. Paisley had changed a lot. I’d realized it last night and I realized it in the light of day. She’d been a tough little thing back then, brown as a stick of jerky from tagging along at her daddy’s ranch all day and about as small. She was always getting into scrapes at school with girls and boys alike. Paisley seemed to think she had something to prove.

“Why can’t you act like the little lady we all know you are?” That was the common refrain from all of our teachers, as well as the principals in charge of doling out the punishments for all of Paisley’s various infractions. I always sort of abstractly admired just how scrappy she was, how little she cared about getting in trouble, but I knew if I acted out the same way she did, I’d have hell to pay when I got home and my parents heard about it from school.

“It’s because you don’t have a mom, isn’t it?” our class bully, Joe Durham, asked Paisley one day after tripping her at lunch outside, sending her crashing to the ground. The impact had been so hard she’d cried out involuntarily as both of her knees scraped against the concrete, busting the denim covering them. It had only served to give Joe more power.

“I said, it’s because you don’t have a mom, isn’t it?” he demanded, towering over her.

“What is?” she asked, looking up at him, defiant even though all of us knew she didn’t have so much as a single chance at beating him in a fair fight, and Joe didn’t ever fight fair.

“That you’re a nasty little flat-chested dyke,” he said. “Because you hang around boys too much and you want to be like us. I bet you’re even working on growing yourself a dick, doing exercises every night.”

This made a bunch of us witnessing this debacle raise our eyebrows. Unless I’d missed a very formative lesson during science class, I was pretty sure you couldn’t just will a dick into existence if you wanted one badly enough. Nor was I convinced Paisley wanted one.

“I do too have a mom,” she said. “She just doesn’t live here, is all.”

“I bet it’s because she wanted a little girl and you’re just a terrible little dyke,” Joe taunted.

I don’t know what made me spring into action. All in all, I had a pretty good grasp on what was right and what was wrong. That didn’t mean that I was obsessed with helping the downtrodden or enforcing rules when I saw them being broken. I was much more focused on keeping my head down and avoiding trouble.

Looking back on it, I think it was the fact that our class bully had brought Paisley’s mother into it. If he had simply stayed above the belt — so to speak — on terrorizing Paisley, I might not have ever stepped in. I would’ve turned away, refocused my attention on my friends and whatever inanities we were talking about, and my relationship with Paisley, to this day, probably would’ve been a lot different.

Instead, having recently lost my own parents, I got inextricably involved.

“Why don’t you leave her alone?” I suggested to Joe, making all chatter in the immediate area cease.

The bully might have been wider than me, but we shared the same height. I was tall like all the Corbins, and my growth spurt had already found me. Joe looked at me like he was sizing me up, wondering just what I was willing to sacrifice to back up my words.

“What do you care, Corbin?” he demanded, belligerent. “Don’t tell me this little bitch is your girlfriend.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but then I surprised myself by cold cocking him right in the face. That hadn’t been what I’d meant to do in coming to Paisley’s aid. I was just tired of seeing her lose out, tired of Joe picking on her, unable to stomach the idea that anyone would use anyone else’s parents to get to someone.

“I really think you should leave her alone,” I said, holding my throbbing fist just as gingerly as Joe was holding his nose, which was gusting blood. Kids around us tittered and hollered, some of them running into the building to find a teacher. I was going to get into trouble, but something about this felt right to me.

“You love her,” Joe taunted, even through the blood. He didn’t know when to roll over and say uncle. “Too bad for you — she only likes girls. That’s why her mother left, and that’s why you’ll leave her, too.”

And with that, unable to understand why I was doing it and even less capable of accepting the reality that my own parents had left me and the rest of my brothers forever, I started raining punches on Joe. I was so furious that he was unable to defend himself, the initial sucker punch to the nose more than enough to debilitate him greatly.

Teachers dragged me away after what seemed like an eternity, but one last image stayed burned on my retinas — Paisley, her skinned knee, and her wide, hazel eyes following me.

She never stopped following me after that day — well, after I served my time for the crime in a week’s suspension. That was a confusing time, too, Chance meeting with a couple of people in suits and ties in spite of the Texas heat, a conversation downstairs rising to shouts that floated up to me in my upstairs bedroom, ice packs on my split knuckles, statements like “grieving period” and “suffered a great loss” and “selfishly keeping him from finding closure and peace” bouncing around in my head. I knew that I’d caused Chance a lot of trouble, especially since he was only eighteen and the courts were stalking him like circling sharks regarding us younger Corbins’ welfare.

But once I was back at school, I had a reputation as something cross between a hero and a danger to myself and everyone around me. Joe — and his broken nose — gave me wide berth, as did a number of people. The moment she caught sight of me in the hallway, though, Paisley more or less attached herself to my leg and did her very best to stay there for the remainder of our academic careers.

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you,” she said, dirty and scuffed up even though it was the beginning of the school day.

“For what?” I asked, genuinely confused at this tiny creature. If she kept hanging on to me like this, people really were going to think she was my girlfriend or whatever, that everything Joe had said was true. I didn’t want her as my girlfriend. I had only wanted Joe to leave her alone.

“You know for what,” she said, pushing at my shoulder playfully. “Anyway, whatever you need, you let me know.”

I had to laugh at that. “What are you going to ever be able to do for me?”

“I’ll get you out of a scrape someday,” she said, nodding more to herself than to me. “I promise.”

Paisley blossomed through high school, trying on varieties of identities before settling on pretty in pink, but I could never shake that image of her as a dirty little girl with skinned knees and wild hair. It made me wonder if she’d chosen her princess persona because it was as far away from tomboy as she could get. Sometimes, I wished I were attracted to her, but it just wasn’t possible for me, especially with the way she hung around me all the time. She tried to be one of the boys, but it just wasn’t easy to accept someone who dressed in miniskirts, flaunting the school’s semi-conservative dress code.

“What are you doing this weekend, Avery?” she’d ask, leaning at such an angle against my locker that I was sure her ass was simply going to drop out from underneath that tiny skirt.

“Same thing I do every weekend,” I grumbled at her as my friends ogled her. “Work the ranch.”

“That’s too bad,” she said. “Homecoming’s this weekend.”

“Obviously.” The school had been having events all this week leading up to it. You’d have to be deaf, blind, and just plain dumb to have missed it.

“So you should take me to the dance,” she said, coy. I could’ve throttled her for the guffaws and elbows to the ribcage that my buddies were giving me.

“I don’t think so,” I replied coolly. “I probably won’t even go to the dance.”

But I did, and she was there, and it was impossible to shake her the entire night.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Paisley said, still naked and splayed out in front of me. Christ. It was so hard to accept her like this right now without seeing the girl who’d needed my help all those years ago.

“I’m thinking I really need to get going,” I said, shaken.

“Well, I know you have to be hungover. You wouldn’t stop hitting the whiskey I brought.”

“I’m hungover, sure.”

“I know a great cure,” she said, and then my eyes nearly bulged out of my head as she touched herself right there in front of me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll get rid of that headache for you.”

“I … really don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said hesitantly. “You said it yourself. I’m late as it is.”

“What’s the problem, Avery?” she asked, showing a little impatience as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Tell me you didn’t have a good time with me last night.”
I fumbled around in my head for evidence of that. “Paisley, I don’t even really remember last night. I was drinking to forget, and you inserted yourself right in the middle of all that.”
“Then let’s make some new memories,” she said, reaching for me. I backed away, shaking my head.

“What happened last night probably shouldn’t have happened,” I said slowly. It was a shame, and it made me feel a little bad — those words were all it took to deflate Paisley’s ego and make her reach for a wrinkled sheet to cover her nakedness.