Chapter 2: The Barn's Dirty Secret
The walk back from the river was a mile of cold, hard reality. Reese’s thighs were sticky, the torn lace of her panties a damp, accusing wad in her fist. Every rustle in the sagebrush made her jump. The lights of the main house glowed like a judgment in the distance, and she skirted around it, aiming for the relative safety of the guest cabin. Her body still hummed, a traitorous, aching echo of what he’d done. What she’d let him do.What she’d begged for.The screen door of the cabin sighed shut behind her. She clicked on the lamp, its weak light doing little to dispel the shadows. She needed a shower, to scrub the scent of him—straw, sweat, and sex—from her skin. She was peeling the ruined sundress over her shoulders when the main door opened.Not a knock. Just the slow turn of the knob.Monica stood in the doorway. She was still in her ranch clothes—dusty jeans, a faded plaid shirt—but her dark hair was down, framing a face that was all sharp angles and cold fire.She didn’t speak. Her eyes traveled from Reese’s disheveled hair, down her bare shoulders, to the dress clutched against her chest.
“Cousin,” Reese breathed, forcing a smile.“Hey. I was just…”
“Where’s Kayce?” Monica’s voice was flat, worn smooth by a sadness so deep it had cooled into something else.“I… I don’t know. Out by the river, maybe.Fixing fence.” The lie was pathetic, even to her own ears.
Monica took a step inside, letting the door swing shut.The click of the latch was final. “You smell like him.” She said it as a simple fact, like noting the weather. “You smell like diesel and river mud and him.” Her nostrils flared. “And sex.”
Reese’s breath hitched. “Monica, listen—”
Monica moved faster than Reese thought possible. One hand shot out, tangling brutally in Reese’s blonde hair, wrenching her head back.A pained cry escaped Reese’s lips. “Don’t,” Monica hissed, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper.“Don’t you fucking ‘listen’ me. I know.I’ve always known about girls like you. Wide eyes and cheap perfume, thinking you see a wounded animal you can tame.”
She began dragging Reese toward the door. Reese stumbled, her bare feet scraping on the wooden floor, the dress falling forgotten.“Where are you taking me? Monica, stop!”
“You want ranch life?” Monica growled, hauling her across the dark yard toward the large shadow of the main barn.“You want my husband? Let’s see how you like the reality of it.”
The barn was a cathedral of shadows and uneasy quiet. The horses shifted in their stalls, snorting softly. The air was thick with the warm, sweet scent of hay and the sharp, honest tang of manure. A single bulb hung from a beam over the central aisle, its filament buzzing, casting a faltering orange light that made the shadows leap and writhe.Monica didn’t stop at the aisle. She pulled Reese toward the ladder to the hayloft. “Climb.”
“No, please—”
Monica shoved her head-first toward the rungs.“Climb, you little slut.”
Trembling, Reese climbed. The rough-hewn wood scraped her knees and palms.Monica followed close behind, a relentless pressure. At the top, the loft was a vast, dark landscape of stacked hay bales and forgotten equipment. The buzzing bulb from below offered only vague, shifting illumination up here, painting everything in stripes of weak gold and deep black.Monica pushed Reese forward. She tripped over a coil of rope and landed hard on a pile of old horse blankets, the wool coarse and smelling of dust and animal. Before she could scramble up, Monica was on her.A knee pinned her stomach.A hand clamped over her mouth.
Monica’s face hovered inches above hers. In the jagged light, her cousin looked like a stranger, her eyes hollow and burning with a terrifying knowledge. “He came home,” Monica whispered, her breath hot on Reese’s cheek. “He walked right past me, didn’t say a word.Went to the sink, washed his hands.But I stood behind him. I watched his shoulders.I know what he just did.” She leaned closer. “And I know exactly what his cum tastes like.Like salt.Like iron. Like forgetting.”
Reese whimpered against Monica’s palm, her eyes wide with terror and a shameful, gathering thrill.
Monica shifted, her knee releasing Reese’s stomach only to press between her thighs, forcing them apart. She grabbed Reese’s wrists, pinning them above her head on the scratchy blanket with one strong hand.With the other, she traced a mocking line down Reese’s quivering belly.
“You’re still wet for him, aren’t you?” Monica’s fingers dipped, finding her slickness with clinical precision.Reese jerked, a broken sob escaping.“See? Filthy.He emptied himself in you, and you’re still dripping.”
Then Monica lowered her head.
Her mouth was hot and ruthless on Reese’s cunt.There was no tenderness, no art. It was a claim, an inspection, a violation. Monica’s tongue thrust inside her, licking deep, and Reese arched off the blankets with a strangled scream. Monica was relentless, lapping at her, her tongue circling and spearing, chasing the taste Kayce had left behind. She pushed it back into Reese, her mouth a messy, starving thing.
“You taste him?” Monica snarled, pulling back for a second, her lips glistening in the dim light. “You taste us?”
Reese could only moan, her hips rolling uncontrollably. Shame was a distant concept, burned away by a wave of sensation so intense it bordered on pain. Monica’s mouth returned, her tongue focusing on the swollen bud of Reese’s clit. She sucked it hard, then let her teeth graze it lightly.
Reese was trembling on the edge, a coil wound too tight. “Please… Monica… I’m gonna…”
As the first flutter of an orgasm began to tremble through her belly, Monica stopped. She pulled her mouth away entirely, leaving Reese gasping and empty on the precipice. Monica sat up, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. She looked down at Reese, sprawled and glistening in the hay, and smiled.It wasn’t a warm smile.“No,” Monica said softly. “You don’t get to come. Not until I say.”
She reached out and pinched Reese’s clit between her thumb and forefinger, not hard enough to truly hurt, but with a precise, unyielding pressure that held the gathering orgasm at bay. Reese cried out, her body tensing, begging for release that was eternally denied.
“This,” Monica whispered, leaning close again, her own breath coming fast, “is what it means to be with a Dutton.It’s waiting. It’s wanting. It’s never having what you need.” She maintained the pressure, watching Reese’s face contort in exquisite agony.Minutes stretched. Reese bucked and pleaded, her words dissolving into sobs and filthy, desperate promises. The loft swam around her, the buzzing of the bulb the only constant in a universe of denial.Then, a new sound. The definitive crunch of a heavy boot on gravel outside the barn doors.Then another.Kayce was back.
Monica’s grip relaxed.She released Reese, who collapsed onto the blankets, shuddering with unslaked need. Monica stood up smoothly, brushing hay from her jeans. She looked down at her cousin, a cold satisfaction in her eyes. She dragged her thumb through the wetness on her own chin, then calmly walked to the edge of the loft, peering down at the barn floor below.
The main door slid open with a rumble. Kayce’s broad silhouette filled the doorway, backlit by the yard light.He stood there for a moment, taking in the quiet barn.
“Monica?” his voice echoed, rough and tired.
Monica turned her head, casting one last look at Reese—a heap of exposed skin and trembling shame in the dark. Then she wiped her mouth one final time, her expression smoothing into something unreadable, and called down, her voice soft, welcoming, and perfectly clear.“Up here, baby. I’ve been waiting for you.”