A Diamond in the Dark Read online

Niece, sister, family. Grrrrr.

  He had to get her out of the room for a few minutes while he got his body under control. Reaching over, he shoved the Tylenol into Tia’s hand. He wasn’t really irritated with her, it was more the fact that he was cranky with the way his body was reacting to her. Surely at his age having a constant hard-on was a little dangerous, depriving his heart of vital blood?

  “Here, take three of these. Then go and have a shower. I need to get back to the ranch, and we’ve got over an hour’s drive. And you stink like a friggin’ brewery.”

  * * * *

  Well, if that wasn’t a little bipolar. Talking about piercings one minute, then being snapped at like a misbehaving dog the next. If Tia’s head wasn’t jackhammering away, she would have given Ax what for, but instead she got up and went into the bathroom to take a long, hot shower.

  She was halfway through washing herself when the thought hit her that not too long ago Axton had stood in the same shower, gloriously naked. Oh, the images that gave her. If she’d had the energy, she would have spent a little more time cleaning her clit.

  What the heck? She’d read somewhere that orgasms release endorphins, and endorphins were good for headaches, so what better way to cure her throbbing head? Soaping up her fingers, she had just started to get a nice rhythm going when Ax knocked on the door, interrupting the beautiful, tingling feeling that had started to vibrate through her body.

  “Hurry up, Tia. We need to get a move on.”

  Really, was it too much to ask for him to either come in and join her, or to shut the fuck up? Giving up on the idea of an orgasm, Tia washed her hair.

  By the time she was finished, the hot water having run cold, she felt marginally better. Not as good as she would have if she had achieved that endorphin release, but better. Her pounding head had turned into a dull ache, and it no longer felt like lightning bolts were hitting her eyes.

  Drying off, she redressed sans her underwear, because that was just gross, before opening the bathroom door. A puff of steam preceded her into the adjoining room. Tia noticed Axton had made use of her time in the shower by grabbing them both breakfast burgers from the diner across the street. He had also bought her a toothbrush and toothpaste, which had her jumping for joy. Well, almost. Seeing as her head was still a little tender, doing that would have been ill-advised.

  Brushing a kiss across his cheek, she ducked back into the bathroom to scrub her mouth out, which had previously tasted like she’d been eating straw that had been mucked from one of the barn stalls. There was only so much hot water could do, so the minty freshness was like heaven to her taste buds. Now feeling ten times better from the simple act of dental hygiene, Tia felt like she could face the world.

  Instead she got Axton’s grumpy attitude and the suggestion that they eat in the car.

  * * * *

  “Here, I’ll give you a boost up,” Ax offered as he grabbed her around the waist to lift her into the cab of his truck. The hangover must be worse than he thought. Yeah, she was short, only about five foot two, but the truck wasn’t that high.

  “Ax, stop!”

  The hint of panic in her voice froze him in place, one hand on her ass, the other holding her around the waist. “What? What’s wrong?”

  A small giggle preceded her answer. “Umm, Ax, I’m not wearing any underwear. I was hesitating because I was trying to figure out how to get in without flashing the street.”

  Unable to help his reaction, Axton’s fingers flexed and squeezed her plush ass cheek, his teeth drawing blood from his own tongue as he stopped the groan of need escaping.

  Well, Axton had no idea what to do now. He already had his hand on her ass and her halfway lifted to the truck cab, so what the hell, he finished the task, setting her inside, then slammed the door shut. He stormed around to the driver’s side of his truck, all the while having a silent conversation with his dick, ordering it to behave and stay the fuck down.

  Stopping beside the door, he took a few deep breaths, a wasted effort in trying to calm his rising arousal. He jumped into the cab of the truck, his ass only just making contact with the seat as Tia handed him his burger. Then she started eating her own like that fact was no big deal.

  She had no panties on, and she acted like nothing happened. He was lusting over his sister/niece while she happily munched away on her burger, seemingly oblivious to the effect she was having on him. He also needed to stop thinking of her in that term, he was starting to sound like a friggin’ hillbilly.

  Not being able to leave well enough alone, he had to ask. “Why the hell are you not wearing any panties?” he growled at her. “I know you had them on before you went into the shower!”

  Okay, maybe pointing out the fact that he had gotten an eye full of her nicely rounded ass was something he shouldn’t have done. But hey, he was a red-blooded American, sitting beside a beautiful woman who wasn’t wearing anything under what she considered to be a skirt. Personally, he figured the scrap of material could double as a belt. And all the while he was having inappropriate thoughts about someone that all the McGraettys considered family. Shit.

  When he turned to look at her Tia was staring at him with a funny look on her face.

  “How did you know I had panties on before my shower?”

  “You had your ass in the fucking air when I walked out of the bathroom.”

  Tia turned almost crimson with that statement.

  So what if he sounded like a jerk? His head was all over the place. Thinking things that he really, really shouldn’t be thinking, making his dick stand up and salute her.

  His unruly body part was starting to piss him off. His dick was behaving like a randy friggin’ teenager. At thirty-six he still had stamina, but fucking hell, he had jacked off twice not even forty minutes ago, and the damn thing wouldn’t stay down.

  “Sorry about the flash, but here’s a question for you—are you wearing any underwear?” Tia stared at him, waiting for his answer. “Ax, you gonna answer my question or what?”

  “What has my wearing underwear got to do with anything?” He was beginning to regret even starting this conversation. Why did she have to ask that particular question! Now his brain was happily pointing out to him the fact they were both without underclothes, and what could happen if other clothes were removed.

  “Just answer the question. Do you have underwear on?”

  “No!” he screamed, needing her to shut up so he could get his body under control. Again he asked himself why he’d asked the fucked up question in the first place.

  “Well, what makes you think I would put my dirty underwear back on when you didn’t? It’s just gross, and it’s not like anyone was going to know.” Aggravation swarmed through Axton as she said all this with a smartass tone in her voice.

  “I didn’t have dirty underwear to put back on because I never wear it,” Axton threw back at her, then proceeded to stuff his burger into his mouth, needing to shut the darn thing up before it had the chance to say anything else. Stupid!

  * * * *

  Tia tried to choke down the bite of burger that lodged in her throat with that tidbit of information. After taking a much needed drink of the juice Axton had also picked up, she sat back in her seat and looked out the side window, because honestly if she looked at him at that moment, her focus would be drawn down to his lap and there it would stay. With the hope that somehow, by some miracle, his jeans would disappear and she would finally be able to see what she had never seen outside of her secret time spent on the internet.

  Chapter 2

  Axton laid in bed, tossing and turning, because he couldn’t get thoughts of Tia out of his mind. After the stupid argument about their lack of underwear, she had fallen asleep. He had spent the drive home alternating between watching the road and looking at her.

  She wasn’t gorgeous like the supermodels of today, but she sure was pretty. She had the looks of a 1950’s pin-up, and he’d always had a thing for those calendars. When he was just a boy his p
a had a heap of them stashed in the barn where his ma wouldn’t find them. One day while sneaking up on his brothers from behind a bale of hay, Ax had caught them looking at the collection of magazines and calendars. Later that night when everyone was asleep he’d gone back to where he’d seen his brother put them and moved one somewhere else, just for himself. Ever since then, Ax couldn’t think of anything that turned him on more than a curvy, fuller-bodied woman. And Tia was all curves.

  Her hair had come out of the loose braid she had put it in and was hanging over her like a living blanket. When he realized he was stroking a few strands through his fingers, he dropped it as if he’d been petting a rattler. Thank God she’d never know what he’d been doing.

  About a half hour later, he was staring at her breasts. They bounced with every little bump that his truck hit. Maybe he hit a few more than needed, but hell it was a sight to see. As if any man with eyes wouldn’t be watching that. She must be a double D. His dick had been sending images to his brain of him burying his face between those two luscious mounds. Just before his thought could’ve gotten any more fucked up, he looked up, swerving sharply to avoid hitting the fence post leading into the Three Circle Ranch. Which in turn woke Tia up, ending his ogling session.

  It was her parting shot that had left him mystified. As she was about to get out of his truck she paused then turned back toward him. Leaning in, she’d kissed him with those rosy, plump lips of hers. Not on his cheek, like she normally did, but smack on his mouth.

  “Thanks for last night, Ax. But for future reference, I am no longer a child, and what I do, or who I do, is no one else’s business.”

  With that she stormed into the house, and he didn’t see her for the rest of the day.

  After that kiss, he’d had to take another shower, a cold one. When his dick refused to go down, despite the icy spray, he finally gave up. Adding the hot water, he’d soaped up his hand. Taking a tight hold of himself, he tried to imagine anyone else but Tia putting their warm mouth around the tip of his shaft then taking it in deep. It didn’t work. No matter who he tried to think about, it always ended up being Tia’s eyes that looked up at him. How pathetic did he feel when he realized that he had kept his head from going under the spray of water in an effort to keep the taste of her kiss from washing off his lips. They were now chapped from the amount of times he had licked the imaginary taste of her from them.

  Snuggling deeper into his bed, Axton forced himself to focus on other things, anything beside Tia. Eventually he fell asleep only to wake the next morning with the image of eyes that changed color glazed over with passion, staring down at him. His fist was wrapped around his spent cock.

  Well, wasn’t that just fantastic? He hadn’t had a wet dream since his early twenties. Seriously, what was wrong with him? She was like his niece or sister. He was heading toward forty, and she was barely in her twenties.

  God, he was fucked up in the head, and the fantasies he was having seemed to be getting worse, more frequent. Instead of leaving him alone like he needed them to, they were becoming more intense.

  Throwing back the sticky sheet, he hopped in the shower and spent the next fifteen minutes berating himself for his randy behavior. He’d been having this same argument with himself for the last couple of years. Family. She’s family.

  “You can’t fuck your brother’s daughter,” he told his reflection in the mirror.

  Ax thought he’d resolved the issue by spending less time with her, but if yesterday’s shower episodes were anything to go by—and let’s not forget his now dirty sheets—that plan didn’t seem to be working for him. He was not only lusting after someone he shouldn’t be, he was also going insane—he was now talking to himself in the fucking mirror. Grrrrr.

  He grabbed a hot cup of coffee and mentally solidified his resolve to stop obsessing about Tia. He thought he had succeeded when he saw her twice that morning and managed a quick “good morning” without sporting wood. That was until about an hour ago, when he walked into the kitchen to witness Ethan swinging her around to Gary Allan’s Nothing on But the Radio. She had the biggest smile on her face as she laughed at whatever stupid thing Ethan had said.

  Jesus, the girl needed to put some clothes on. She was wearing a pair of Daisy Duke type shorts, a cut-off tank top that she must have done herself if the uneven edge was any indication, and a pair of cowboy boots. She looked like a fucking stripper, causing his cock to rise to attention and yell pick me, pick me, take a spin around this pole.

  As they passed by the small table all he wanted to do was throw her down on it and see what those boots looked like around his neck. Instead, he snapped at the pair of them to get their chores done, then he stormed off to the barn to do something. Anything. He just needed to get away from them.

  So there he was sweating like a pig, stacking hay, a chore which the ranch hands had already done. No wonder they’d all looked at him funny when he started doing it. But it seemed the fact that he was swearing under his breath and kicking anything that was in his way, stopped them from approaching him.

  From the corner of his eye, Axton saw Ethan come into the barn. Christ. Yeah, he’d been in a bad mood for a while now, and his behavior in the kitchen had been a little over the top. But did Ethan have to choose that moment to confront him about it? And that would be the only reason that the other man would have followed him into the barn. Ax just wanted to work through the shit in his head by himself.

  Him and Ethan were like brothers. Axton was only five years older than the twins, and after he’d moved in with them when his ma and pa had died a bond had been forged between them. Axton felt closer to Ethan than he did his own siblings, so he just couldn’t see the younger man as his nephew.

  Ethan had once told Axton that he was closer to him than his own twin, Rick, even with the weird bond they shared—if one got hurt the other would feel it.

  Axton could remember Ethan being grounded for not doing his homework. He had been sentenced to the kitchen until he’d caught up on all his studies. Axton and Jack had been working in the yard when they heard a pained scream coming from the house.

  They’d arrived to find Ethan lying on the kitchen floor, clutching his leg. It had taken a while for them to understand what Ethan was trying to tell them. Half an hour later they had found Rick in one of the pastures with a broken leg. Weird shit.

  But just because he was close to Ethan didn’t mean he wanted to talk to him now.

  “Hey, Ax, what’s up your ass? And do you need a hand pullin’ it out?” Ethan smiled, obviously trying to take the bite out of his words, but it wasn’t working.

  “Fuck off, Ethan. I’m not in the mood for it today.” Ax didn’t want to see Ethan or anyone else at that moment. He was too busy being cranky with himself. He knew he was being a jerk to everyone, which wasn’t normally like him, but it seemed to be the theme for his attitude lately. Why change something he had almost perfected?

  Nothing he’d tried helped, seeing as his problem lived only a couple hundred feet from where he was standing at the moment, and was forbidden to him. He just had to get over it, or rather, over her. If only it was that easy.

  “Ax. What’s going on, man? You’ve been a prick to everyone lately, and that just ain’t like you.”

  Well, fuck! Couldn’t a guy just be pissed off with the world and everyone ignore it? Taking a seat on the bale of hay he was just about to move, he turned to face Ethan. Looking at the slightly younger man, he expelled a sigh. Freaking hell, he was starting to feel old.

  “Ethan, if I told you what was bothering me, you would kick the shit outta me, and I really don’t want to be killing you.”

  It probably wasn’t the best time to have this conversation. Not while his cock was still half-hard with visions of Tia. Or when he wanted to punch the living crap out of Ethan for having held her in his arms. They were only fucking dancing.

  Ethan laughed at the words, causing a tick to form at the corner of Axton’s eye.

  Y
eah, the fact that Axton only stood about an inch taller than Ethan may have had the younger man laughing. But Axton had a hell of a lot more muscle on his body, and if Ethan didn’t stop laughing, he was going to show him what he could do with his fists.

  Apart from Tiny, who wasn’t really family, the only other person living on the Three Circle Ranch that came close to Axton’s bulk was his brother Jack.

  “You’re getting to be an old man, Ax. I think I might stand a chance,” Ethan replied with a broad smile on his face while bouncing on the balls of his feet in imitation of Muhammad Ali.

  Axton knew Ethan was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t working, just as trying to ignore one shapely black-haired beauty wasn’t working for him. Ax groaned, running his hands over his face. Ethan stopped bouncing, a look of concern filling his eyes.

  “Trust me, you really don’t want to know. Fuck it! I don’t even want to be knowing what my problem is at the moment.” Puffing out a breath, Ax looked at Ethan, wishing he would just piss off.

  “Come on, Ax, tell me what has you so wound up. Because if ya keep walking around here like a bull on a rampage, you’re likely to get your head bashed in by one of us, Dad included.”

  “What the hell? You’re about the only one I can talk to about crap anyway. But I swear if you hit me, I’ll kill you and feed you to the hogs.” Axton paused, trying to get his head around the thoughts spinning through his mind, because saying those thoughts out loud was about as appealing as waxing his ball sac.

  “Whenever you’re ready, man, but the day is getting long,” Ethan said after a couple of minutes of Ax sitting there staring into space.

  “Give me a minute here, will ya? I’m trying to get my shit together.” Deep breath in. Not so good when sitting in a barn with horse shit only three feet away. Okay. “I think I might be in love with Tia.” There, that wasn’t so hard to say. So why the hell was he sweating bullets?

  “We all love Tia. She’s part of this family and always will be.” Ethan clearly wasn’t seeing the problem.