Page 8 of Bound and Branded

“Do all the laundry, fold it. You’ll find my room easy enough and I have a feeling you’re smart enough to figure out where things go with context clues.”

I open my mouth to argue back.

“Do as you’re told,” he says, his voice hard. And it’s that same response that I had to him last night. That part of myself that goes quiet underneath those ice blue eyes. That commanding tone.

He stares at me, like he sees something inside of me. Like he sees the shift that has occurred deep within me.

Like he knows.

I can think of nothing worse. Nothing worse than Caleb looking at me and knowing my secret fantasies. These things that call up so much sick shame inside of me. So much fear. These things that I want in spite of myself.

No. Those are my secrets. Mine. And maybe I’ll share them with The Duke. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe it’ll only ever be a chat in an app and nothing that actually happens in my real life. But him seeing it— the very idea of that makes me feel exposed, raw and naked in front of him, and I want to hide.

“I’ll be back this afternoon.”

I realize that he means to leave me alone in the house. I don’t know why, but it feels like a test. Like a strange power game, and I can’t quite grasp onto why or what it could mean.

But before I can, he’s gone. And I’m left to my own devices in this huge, sprawling place.

I’m angry as I dig into the refrigerator, take out the roast, and stick it in the crockpot. Furious as I begin to prep the potatoes and the carrots.

I’m angry that he knows I can cook. I’m angry that he knows anything about me and that my dad sold me out like this.

I don’t understand why he do that.

Why he would ever speak my name to this man that he knows I don’t like.

Though, Dad has never cared how I feel about Caleb. He’s always done business with him and given him all this input on the ranch, whether I wanted him to or not.

The trouble is, there’s something soothing about working in the house and I’m irritated that it quiets some of my rage.

Very irritated.

Because I prefer to be incandescent so that my mind can’t slip into the most dangerous space. Where I start thinking about my current obsession. About the Club, and the Duke, and whether or not I’m actually going to meet him. About the ways in which that fantasy crosses over with Caleb himself.

Fucking dangerous.

I go to the laundry room, and find a load of clean clothes in the dryer. I’m touching his clothes. It feels intimate, even though the clothes are clean. Even though it’s jeans and very little else.

I take the load of clean washing into the living room and sit on the couch, methodically folding at each item of clothing and ignoring the building tension in my stomach.

It’s easy for me to imagine that he’s watching me. Judging me. Needing me to do a good job. I find myself sliding off the edge of the couch and getting on my knees on the living room floor as I continue with my job. Trying to make the clothes perfect. Perfect for him. And if I don’t succeed, maybe I’ll be punished. The thought shocks me. Jolts me out of my daydream. This is getting very weird, and very dangerous. I’m actually in the man’s house having unbidden sexual fantasies about laundry. That’s weird.

Fucking weird.

I gather up the folded clothing and make my way upstairs. He didn’t show me around up here. I push open one door andfind a bedroom that’s almost exactly how I would’ve imagined it if I was tasked with creating what I thought would be the ideal bedroom for Caleb. The bed is rustic, made of natural slabs of wood with a Pendleton-style bedspread. It’s Western, as committed to the cowboy aesthetic as he is, and masculine.

I go inside and I tried to see if there are any clues about who he is as a man. I don’t know why I’m doing that either. Except the teenage girl in me who sneaked onto the ranch and tried to burn it to the ground wants me to. She’s curious and I have to admit that I am, too.

I pull open the top drawer of his dresser and find black briefs folded with precision. I don’t know why, but I feel a kick of satisfaction that I knew he would want his laundry folded with even lines and sharp corners. That he does it for himself. Unless he has a housekeeper that he released for the special purpose of torturing me. Always a possibility.

Actually, if there’s one thing that surprises me about him, it is the precision. I’ve known my share of cowboys. And though I’ve never had an intimate relationship with one, they’re not known to be the neatest people. Hell, I’m not this neat. I’m busy. Up at the crack of dawn doing ranch work and I do my very best to keep mine in my dad’s house in order, but it is what it is.

Caleb’s living situation gives me the impression that he has never saidit is what it iseven one moment in his whole life.

But maybe that’s why he’s a billionaire and we’re drowning in debt.

I turn and open up the side table drawer. Condoms. Lots of them. Absolutely no surprise. Because he’s a man.

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