Stripped Down

I pull in and kill the headlights, soaking up the nighttime peace and quite. You can practically feel the heat escaping slowly from the ground. Images flicker in the corner of my vision, but those are ghosts. I’m home. I’m in charge of my life now, and Afghanistan is far, far away. I’ve put a continent between me and that place.

The quiet grows when I get out of the truck. After a long day wrangling the ranch, I need to be alone. Sometimes, there are too many bodies, too close, and it’s hard not to remember that last month in Afghanistan.

Fuck.

And sometimes memories refuse to leave me alone.

I shut the truck door carefully, deliberately. Slamming shit doesn’t help because I don’t want or need the loud crack of sound that follows the violence. Something got broken inside me in Afghanistan, something I haven’t fixed yet, but I will. Failure is never an option. Turning toward the swimming hole, I fist the bottom of my T-shirt, ready to strip down. Ready for the cold lick of water on my face and my balls.

Except… I’m not alone. Tucked into the edge of the road is a beat-up Bug I can’t believe made it down the dirt track. Even in the near-dark, the hot pink paint job is an eyesore. One tire looks almost flat, and there’s a crack that stretches the entire length of the windshield. California plates, though, so I’ve got myself a local.

Christ, I’m sick and tired of the trespassers who think ignoring Blackhawk’s signs and fences is a game. High school kids have been sneaking onto Mendoza land for decades, which is a stupid fucking thing to do. We’re a working ranch, and we run cattle. Idiot kids wise up fast when they meet the wrong end of a bull, a barbed wire fence, or a snake. All they have to do is ask and follow a few basic rules to keep themselves safe. I’d say yes. Instead, they’re all about forbidden fruit, reenacting their own twisted version of the Garden of Eden and the fall. They get hurt, when all I want is to keep them safe.

Scrubbing a hand over my head, I reach in and snag the Stetson from the passenger seat. Somehow, I’ve acquired the reputation of being a mean-ass, coldhearted bastard. I cemented my new rep when I came home from the SEALs. Since I don’t give a damn what folks says, my fan club isn’t all wrong. Safety comes first.

I move out silently. No point in advertising my presence until I have to. Tonight’s trespassers are probably just kids and nothing more sinister, but, damn it, it isn’t safe to swim out here unsupervised. I’ve warned them not to come at night and never to come alone. I have to know when someone’s on my land because too many things can happen out here if a person isn’t careful. And if it turns out the visitor is less benign, well, I’ve got a Glock tucked in the waistband of my jeans. I don’t leave shit to chance. Not anymore.

It takes just a minute to penetrate the fringe of cottonwood trees ringing the swimming hole. Older than anyone now living on the ranch, those trees have seen plenty. My brothers had a rope-and-tire swing here. They spent hours whooping it up, clambering into the tire, soaring out over the water, and then letting go of the rope as soon as the swing floated over the center of the pond where the water ran deepest. They’d free fall screaming with pleasure, never second-guessing their landing. The temperature hovers too close to frigid for comfort, but the water table isn’t deep enough to tap. It can’t end my dry spell.

When I reach the edge of the trees, my feet stop moving without a direct order from my head; tonight’s swimmer is unexpected. I expected to find a few high school kids. Maybe a cooler of beer or a couple busy discovering each other. Instead, there’s a woman in the water.

A damned fine, completely bare-ass naked woman. She cuts through the dark surface with slow, lazy strokes. Not too tall and real damned curvy. Her sun-kissed skin is on display in the silvery moonlight and ink curls up her spine and wraps around her throat and her ribs. I can’t tell what the design is from where I’m standing, but there are branches and flowers and curly shit that follow the lines of her body. When she moves, the ink moves with her like leaves and vines shifting in the wind. It’s fucking gorgeous. Water-slicked blond hair covers her bare shoulders and back, obscuring more of the lines and colors. I should be a gentleman, should look away. But damned if her paddling around bare-ass naked in my swimming hole wearing nothing but ink isn’t the sexiest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

She dives beneath the surface, treating me to a spectacular view of her ass. Fuck if I don’t swallow hard. Her curves look soft as peaches and every bit as luscious. The urge hits me hard to cup both cheeks in my hands. Run my fingers down that skin and explore every inch of her up to and including the shadowed crease between her cheeks. I’ll show her every dark, sweet, dirty pleasure I know—and I’ve got a long, long list.