Chapter Five
W endy’s hand on his chest was so much more erotic than anything he ever could’ve imagined. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it was going to go straight on through his rib cage. And then she would be able to hold it in her delicate hand, and that would seem about right. That would seem like the appropriate fee for this gift. This gift of her delicate hand against his body.
They had been foolish to think it wasn’t going to end here.
Maybe they had needed to be that foolish, for a time.
God knew he had.
He had needed to construct a ladder made of lies so they could climb up to this moment.
Because the truth would’ve sent them both turning away.
Thank God for the lies that had brought them here.
He wanted to savor the moment.
This moment before . When it was like storm clouds were all gathered up ahead, swollen with the promise of rain, but not a single drop had fallen. Where the air had changed to something thicker, more meaningful. Thick with promise.
The promise of her mouth on his.
In only a few moments he would taste her. And when he did, he was going to part her lips, slide his tongue in deep.
But he hadn’t yet.
And it was the promise that kept him poised on the edge of a knife. That kept him on high alert. The promise of strawberries, the forbidden, and the need that had been building in him for fifteen years.
He was in no rush for the first raindrop to fall.
He could live in this moment forever.
Except then her touch shifted. Except then, she moved her hand up to curve around the back of his neck, the touch erotic, purposeful. Glorious. And the minute her fingertips made contact with bare skin, it was too much. It was electric. And all his control snapped.
The rain began to fall.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and brought her hard against him so she could feel him. Feel his need. Feel the way his heart was beating almost out of his chest, feel how his cock had gotten hard.
For her. His breathing was ragged, pained. And he knew she could hear that, feel that. The way his chest hitched, the way his breath tried to cut his throat on each and every exhale.
She swallowed hard, and brought her hand around just beneath his jaw, traced it, down to the center of his chin.
“Wendy,” he whispered.
She licked her lips, and that was it. He lowered his head and brought his mouth down onto hers.
The impact of her mouth under his was shocking. He had kissed any number of women. More than he could count. Innumerable.
But that had never been this.
No woman’s mouth had ever been this.
It was Wendy, and she was imprinted into every cell of his body.
Her mouth was so soft. And she didn’t taste of strawberries. It was indefinable, wonderful her. It was nothing else. It never could be.
It had been the easy way out to imagine there was another flavor to compare her to. Something he could hang on to on late nights when he was unsatisfied. A lie. And one he had needed. The same as he could lie to himself and say that having sex with a gorgeous blonde might do something for that need.
Of course, it didn’t. Of course, it never could. Because that was just sex. And this was something else.
It was something more. Much more.
Sex was as cheap as vows that weren’t kept. This was precious. Real. Deep.
It pulled a sound straight from the bottom of his soul like dying, like hope, like pain and glory and wonder, all rolled into one.
He cradled her head with the palm of his hand as he leaned in, took the kiss deeper.
His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might be a heart attack, and if it was, he would accept that this was his moment to go and be happy with it.
He’d ridden on the backs of angry bulls intent on grinding him into the arena dirt beneath their hooves. He’d won competitions and lost them. His sister had died. His brother had left. He’d felt his heart pound with adrenaline, ache with loss, burn with anger.
And this was somehow more, and better and worse, all at once.
It was new.
Boone had given up on ever feeling anything new again in his whole jaded life, but this was bright and shiny and wholly unique.
This was Wendy.
Not a kiss.
An event.
His mouth shifted over hers, and it nearly brought him to his knees. He tasted her, deep and long, and as much as he wanted this to go fast, to see her naked, feel her naked, be inside her, he also wanted this moment to go on forever. Just like that breath before the kiss.
He wanted everything all at once. The anticipation, the glory of need and the thunder of satisfaction.
But he didn’t have the control to hold back, so he tasted her deep, though he kept his hand firmly on the back of her head, and the other wrapped hard around her waist, because if he let himself explore her...
It was Wendy who moved her hands over his shoulders, down his back, then his chest.
It was Wendy who let her fingertips skim down his stomach, and then skimmed his denim-covered arousal.
His breath hissed through his teeth, and he felt like she’d lit a match against him.
He lifted her off the ground, holding her heart against his body as he continued to plumb the depths of her mouth.
He knew what it was like to desire somebody. He knew what it was like to be physically aroused. This was past that. It surpassed everything.
This was something new altogether. Something intense and raw and more.
It was the thing he had always both craved and wanted to close the door on forever. Something altering and destructive that he felt far too familiar with.
Because how many times in his life had the landscape of his soul been rearranged? Torn apart?
He hadn’t wanted to do it with her.
And yet, there was an inevitability to all of it. Something that couldn’t be denied. And he wasn’t going to deny it, not now. It was only that he was very, very aware this wouldn’t simply be sex. But something more altogether. Something he had never experienced before.
It was Wendy.
And there was no use comparing her to anyone else. No use comparing the way his need for her tightened his gut, made his body so hard it hurt, made him tremble with the need to be inside of her. Because there was nothing worthy of drawing comparison to. There was nothing like her. And there never could be.
He moved his hands down to her thigh, gripped it and lifted her leg so it was bent over his hip, then he moved her back against the kitchen island so he could press himself against her, let her feel, at the center of her need for him, just how much he wanted her. She gasped into his mouth, and rolled her hips forward. “Yes,” he whispered against her lips.
And he knew he could get lost even in this. And moving his body against hers fully clothed, like they were a pair of desperate teenagers. And he would find pleasure in that. Because already, he had found more satisfaction in his mouth on hers than any previous sexual encounter had ever brought.
Maybe this was delayed gratification. Maybe this was just the way it went when you wanted somebody for years and couldn’t have them. Maybe this was the release of self-denial followed by action. Or maybe it was simply Wendy.
He couldn’t answer the question, or maybe he just wouldn’t.
He would leave it a mystery. Intentionally. Wound up in a tangle he could easily undo if he pulled at the right thread. He knew where the right thread was.
But there were some mysteries best left tangled.
And that was the truth.
But there was no need for deeper truths than the one passing between their lips now, and there was no need for honesty any deeper than the raw need that coursed through his veins. It was enough. And anything more was likely to destroy them both, and it would be nice if, at the end of all of this, they could stand on their own two feet.
Because he didn’t want to reduce her, and maybe even more than that, he didn’t want to reduce himself. He wasn’t a saint, after all, and he had never claimed to be.
He was simply a man. One who was held in the thrall of the desire he felt toward the woman in his arms.
And even though he could’ve stayed like this forever, he didn’t want something juvenile and desperate to mark the first sexual encounter between them. He wanted it to be her, and him, and nothing in between.
So he lifted her up again, and began to propel them both toward the stairs.
She clung to him, lifting her other leg and wrapping them both around his waist, holding fast as he propelled them both up, and then down the hallway toward his bedroom.
And he knew he would have to address the subject of barriers, especially because she’d been with a man she couldn’t trust, and it was going to take a deep amount of trust to want to be with someone like that again.
And he would never violate her trust. Not out of desire, not out of selfish need. Not for any reason at all.
And he would never be lost enough in his own arousal to lose sight of her.
Because she was the reason. She was the answer to the question. She was the fuel for the fire raging through him now, so how could he turn his focus inward? He couldn’t. Ever.
When they got to his bedroom, he set her down gently on the foot of the bed, and knelt before her, lifting his hand to cup her cheek. “I have condoms,” he said.
“I have taken every test known to man recently out of an abundance of caution.”
He nodded. “I trust you. But you don’t have any reason to trust me.”
She looked at him, her blue eyes seeming to go deeper than his skin. “I don’t have any reason to trust Daniel. But you’ve never given me a reason to not trust you. You gave me a place to go, and I know you didn’t do it so we would end up here. I trust that. I know nothing you did was to manipulate me. To use me. You’ve never been anything but honest with me, Boone.”
“I want you. Without one. I don’t want anything between us. But I will do whatever you need to feel safe.”
“Well, I’m protected from pregnancy. So if...”
That did a weird thing to him. To his gut. Because the idea of Wendy being pregnant with his baby didn’t make him scared or upset at all.
It made him feel something else altogether, and that made him a little bit scared. Made him a little bit upset.
“Good. Then we don’t need it.”
He moved away from her and stripped his shirt up over his head.
This was happening. And it was everything he wanted.
He just had to make sure he survived it.