Free A Rancher's Desire by Nikki Winter Page A

her almost hoarse and Julian’s roar of release just made her walls contract harder around him.
    They both slumped over, splashing water as they panted. “Was that...loud...enough?”
    Her lover smiled, the lean slashes in his cheeks deepening. He brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Yes, sweetheart, that was loud enough.”
     

Chapter Nine
     
    “So exactly why won’t you let us meet Julian?” Elan asked Aiyanna as he reached for the fries on her plate.
    She stabbed at his hand with a fork, completely unconcerned about how much it had to hurt. “Keep your hands across the table or problems will commence between us. And I haven’t let him meet you because I’m scared Mama will run him off.”
    Her twin sat back, his brows slightly arched. “How do you figure?”
    “She’s just like his mother with her unrealistic need for perfection. Has she pulled back from me? Yes. But once she gets around Julian—”
    “—He’ll really believe the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree because he doesn’t know her like we do.”
    Aiyanna nodded her head once. “Precisely.”
    “But he knows you. You don‘t think he’ll see past Mom’s obvious flaws?”
    She snorted. “Okay let me break it down. You know how Mama made it her life mission to let me know how much I sucked as a daughter?”
    He nodded.
    “Now think about the effects that would’ve had if I didn’t already believe I was the epitome of awesomeness.”
    Elan chuckled. “You’d be one mind-fucked human being who was always trying to please everyone.”
    She waved her hands. “Exactly! The difference between Julian and I is that one small detail. I didn’t believe shit Mama told me but I think he believes everything his mother told him. Now here is where the psychological analyzing begins.”
    “Bring it on home Dr. Phil.”
    Aiyanna flipped him the bird. “His mother was the first woman he ever gave his heart to because he trusted—like all kids—that she would protect and nurture it but she broke it. In the process, she broke his confidence. And while he may be able to carry on a functioning relationship, both in the romantic sense and the platonic sense, he has still held on to the niggling doubt that he is in fact, not good enough. I can see it in his eyes, Elan. Every time the man wakes up next to me—”
    “Euww.”
    “—It’s almost like he can’t believe I’m still there. He has this fear that one day I’m going to turn into his mother, that nothing—no matter how wonderful—he does will make me happy with him. She did that to him. She made him doubt how amazing he is. That baffles me because when I first met him, dude made me reconsider my no fucking on the first date rule.”
    Elan choked then gagged. “Jesus A.J. Do you want me to kill myself?”
    She smirked. “I’ve gotten past the phase of imagining your painful death. Now, if you’d have asked me that ten years ago...”
    Her twin’s eyes narrowed. “You’re an asshole.”
    “I know.”
    He put his elbows on the restaurant table, something he would’ve never dared to do had Evelyn been present. “The question is what’re you going to do about Julian?”
    She sat back. “Until I’m sure he can stop doubting himself and me, I can’t do anything. I have to get him to disassociate his insecurity about my feelings before I can open that door with Mama or she’ll take him right back to the headspace of thinking about his own mother.” 
    Her brother sat back in his own chair, blowing out a breath. “Well, little sister, looks like you have quite the debacle on your hands.”
    “Yup.”
    “So what do we do while we wait for things to pan out between you two?”
    She looked at Elan, a slow smile spreading across her face. “I know for a fact Lalani’s home today and doing nothing.”
    He grinned back. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
    “That we kidnap her and drag her out to the countryside again?”
    Laughing, he stood and tossed down a twenty