CHAPTER 7
Neely
He turns the chair around to face me, unhurried, elbows to knees, and the lamplight does unfair things to his forearms, and outside, the storm gets closer to us. The thunder grows louder, more intense.
I close my laptop. “Maybe I’m having a little trouble focusing too.”
He looks at me intently. "Then come here."
I cross the cabin. He doesn't stand, doesn't reach, just tips his head back to hold my eyes while I step in between his knees.
And when I put my hands on his shoulders, I can feel how still he's making himself, all that big careful body holding at idle, waiting on me.
It's the waiting that undoes me. The obvious effort to be patient. To not push me into something I don’t want.
But of course, I want him. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t?
"I'm leaving in the fall,” I remind him.
"It’s a good thing it’s still summertime." His hands settle on my hips, warm through the fabric, and squeeze once. "Neely. I'm not asking you to promise me forever tonight. But I'm not going to lie and say I’ll be okay with watching you leave.”
“But when the time comes—”
He shrugs. “It’ll suck. That’s all I’m saying. Do with that what you will.”
What I do with it is kiss him. Hard.
We kissed on Main Street, with tongue, and it was amazing. But it was nothing like this. Tate rises from the chair with me in his arms like I weigh no more than a bundle of wood, and then there's a wall of topo maps against my back and his mouth at my jaw… my throat… my earlobe.
And then I’m laughing, because his radio holster digs into my hip and he’s muttering that he’s sorry. He removes the radio from his belt and sets it on the table, face up, because he’s on-call, and he’s the type of man who doesn’t let anything keep him from performing his duties.
And my God, it’s hot. And I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want this man. I kiss him, frenzied, trying to tell him with my mouth, with my body, how much I want him. How much I need him.
I pull at the hem of his shirt and break the kiss long enough to say, “No more uniform. Take it off.”
Together, we strip off his shirt and fling it behind the desk, and then his hands are at the buttons of my shirt.
He breaks the kiss and starts undoing the buttons of my shirt, taking his time with each one.
With each button, each newly exposed centimeter of flesh, the heat that’s building low in my belly grows.
Tate gets to the last button and pushes the fabric off my shoulders.
He slowly unhooks my bra, letting it fall to the floor too.
Then he just stares, taking in the view with dilated pupils.
For a moment, I’m tempted to cross my arms, to hide my body from view.
But before I can move, Tate’s hands are on my breasts, and then he’s tugging gently on my nipples and any chance for rational thought evaporates.
“You’re perfect,” he mutters. “Every fucking inch.”
His mouth finds my shoulder, the slope of my breast, unhurried, thorough, as his hands map my waist, my hips, my soft belly.
He sucks one nipple into his mouth, working the other with his fingers.
It feels better than anything in the world ever has, and I gasp his name, folding my fingers into his hair and holding his face to my flesh.
Before I realize it, he’s unbuttoned my pants and shoved them, along with my underwear, to the floor.
He walks me backward to the narrow ranger bed and lays me down.
I watch, mesmerized, as he strips off the rest of his clothes.
When his hard cock springs free from his boxer briefs, I can’t help but lick my lips.
He notices. A moment later, he’s lying next to me in bed, exploring every curve of my body with his hands. I grip the head of his cock, and he moans, pushing my hand away.
“Don’t touch me yet,” he says, his voice raspy. “I won’t last long with your hands on me. For now, just let me pleasure you.”
He kisses me again but lets his hands roam down my body. He dips a finger inside me, then two, working me until I’ve soaked the comforter and am dying with need.
“Tate…” I moan.
“Yes?” he asks, a smile in his voice.
“I want you… I want to feel you inside me.”
He pumps his fingers into me again. “I am inside you, Neely.”
“No,” I protest. “I want you… your…”
“My what?” He presses his thumb against my clit, sending me over the edge. I grind against his hand, crying out my pleasure as my orgasm hits, hard and fast.
Tate watches me with hungry eyes, licking his fingers clean as I ride out the wave of my climax.
“You’re delicious,” Tate murmurs. “I think I’ll go down on you now.”
I want to protest, to tell him what I want—what I need—is to be fucked.
Long, hard, right this second. But then his mouth is on me, and I can’t formulate words.
Outside, I know the storm is raging, but I don’t even notice it.
My brain can’t process anything but Tate’s hands on my hips, holding me in place as he sucks on my clit, sending me to the stratosphere once more.
And finally, finally, Tate settles himself between my legs.
"Still good?" he asks. Steady voice, wrecked eyes.
"Please, Tate. I want you.”
He takes a shaky breath. “I have a condom in my wallet. My pants are—” he gestures wildly to the other side of the room “—somewhere.”
And even though it’s irrational, and maybe a little irresponsible… even though I know this is just a fling, that it won’t—that it can’t—last… I don’t want anything between Tate’s body and mine. Not even a condom.
“Leave it,” I tell him.
He looks at me questioningly. “You mean…?”
“Don’t make me wait any longer, Tate. Please.”
He kisses me then, as he pushes into me slow, so very slow, allowing my walls to adjust to the size of him inch by inch until he’s fully seated inside me. He pins my arms above my head, lacing his fingers in mine and begins to move.
With each thrust, my hips rise to meet his. The storm crashes outside, but I can scarcely hear it over the sound of our bodies slapping together. I’ve never felt this out of control, this desperate for more, this consumed.
Tate brings me to the precipice a third time. Tate groans as my walls squeeze his cock like a vice. Then with one final thrust, he spills into me.
Afterward, when our bodies have stopped shaking and the storm has settled into steady rain, Tate gets up, adds a log to the stove, and comes back with the spare flannel off the hook, holding it up so I can slide my arms into it. It’s so sweet, so domestic, that it takes my breath away.
He climbs into bed, stretching out beside me on a bed built for one ranger, which means there is nowhere for me to be except mostly on top of him. He chuckles, “Who knew this bed would be the perfect size for us?”
His hand moves slowly through my hair, and I listen to his heartbeat as I drift to sleep.