Hate You Not

“No…don’t be sorry.” I turn to face her, end up kissing her, running my hands into her soft hair. God, I want her.

June reads my mind. She hops down off the bed and strips her clothes off piece by piece, twirling her panties around her finger before tossing them behind her with a laugh. And then she straddles my hips.

It’s so fucking erotic, so damn sexy…I let myself get lost inside her, lost along with her, and I when I finally finish, I don’t think I’ve ever come so hard. Afterward, we lie in her bed, and this time I hold her against me, tracing patterns on her back with careful fingers.

“You’re so good it almost scares me,” I say. The words roll out of my mouth before I can think to stop myself.

“Why?” she whispers, smiling slowly.

I can feel her eyes on my face, so I shut mine. “Like losing control.”

“We both did.”

I roll onto my side so we’re more fully facing one another. I trace her jaw and chin with one finger. “You good?”

“Of course.” She smiles. “Are you?”

“For sure.”

She shuts her eyes and snuggles closer, and I inhale deeply. There’s this moment where I feel things lift away—everything fades except her now-familiar face and her warm, soft body. Peace. Maybe that’s what this feeling is.

I shut my eyes, and she says, “There’s a place I want to take you. If you want to go. I thought we could ride the horses.”JUNEWe ride maybe half a mile to the old white chapel. Burke seems somber—more so than I’ve ever seen him, and I wonder what that means. I feel his eyes on me almost the whole time, as we make our plodding journey. When Tango, my ride, trips on a rock, Burke and Lulu are a stride ahead of us, so I can see him blanch as he looks over his shoulder.

He shakes his head and gives a quiet laugh.

“Scare you?” I laugh.

“Just a little.”

“Let’s get our blood pumping.” I point down the dirt road. “Want to race to that catch pen down there—the one with the brown fencing?”

He lifts his brows, and for the first time since we set off, seems to loosen up a little. “You sure about that?” He smirks. “There are no barrels on this track, so you won’t have the upper hand.”

I give him a mocking laugh and nudge Tango with my heel. We race off, leaving Burke and and Lulu in the dust. Both horses are galloping about a third of a mile, but they can’t recover from my dirty head start.

When we get to the chapel, he wipes a hand over his face and shakes his head. “You damn cheater.”

I laugh wickedly. “I know. But I won. No barrels in sight.”

He gets a good laugh at that as we guide the horses through the tall, green grass.

The chapel’s been shut up for years; it’s too expensive for me to restore—yet. Its pretty white facade has been overtaken by kudzu, but it’s still got a certain beauty. I’m pleased that he seems to agree. I show him the cemetery in its backyard, and Mama’s grave, and we get off our horses.

Burke kneels down and traces the stone-etched letters of her name. Somehow it’s the perfect gesture.

He stands up with something knowing in his eyes, and for a moment, I think he’s going to say something. But he just drapes an arm around my shoulders and pulls me against his side, and when I look up at his face, I find it kind and curious and gentle.

“How are you a nice guy?” I tease. “I so thought I had a read on you.”

“Different layers,” he says, teasing too, but I think he’s right. Everybody wears so many different masks. Who we are is constantly in flux—so who you get from someone else at any given time is something special, if you think about it. Relating to another person in a real way—even if it’s brief—is a rare gift.

“I like this layer,” I say as I climb back onto Tango.

“I like you.”

It’s sweet and simple. For a shining moment, as we ride under the hot sun, glancing at each other with our fleeting, bashful smiles as birds chirp and the breeze caresses us, the whole world seems to be.

We stop at a little tin-roofed shack known as the “water cooler,” where there’s a food pantry and free gasoline for everyone who works here, and we talk about all that: the farm’s employees, how they’re treated.

“Southern farms have history, so I’m careful how I treat employees. I don’t hire more if I can’t promise a living wage. There’s a college fund my Mama set up, too.”

I can see the shock in his eyes. For some reason, in that moment, as we both rip open candy bars I climbed down off Tango to grab, his surprise makes me snicker.