Chapter 26
VANGUARD
Danny returns with the food just as the light turns from gold to amber.
“Pat’s is still there,” he says, standing at the bottom of the hayloft ladder with a grease-stained paper bag in one hand. “Same owner, same recipe. Lady remembered your dad, actually. Said to tell you she’s sorry for your loss.”
The words make me flinch internally, but they don’t sting the way they might have this morning. Something’s shifted. Lightened.
“Thanks, Danny.”
I jump down effortlessly and grab the bag from him before flying back to the loft. Feels like cheating sometimes.
He shakes his head and mumbles, “Show off. Anyway, I’ll be in the car if you need me.”
“You’re not eating with us?” Mia asks.
“Got my own.” He pats his jacket pocket. “Besides, three’s a crowd.” He winks at her, looking pleased with himself, and disappears out of the barn before I can throw something at him.
“I like him,” Mia says, already reaching for the bag.
“Everyone likes Danny. It’s annoying.”
The patty melts are exactly how I remember, made of thick beef patties smothered in caramelized onions and melted cheese, pressed between slices of rye bread that’s been griddled until it cracks when you bite into it. Mia moans on her first mouthful, and the sound goes straight to my cock.
Down, boy. Let the woman eat.
“Oh my God,” she mumbles around a mouthful. “It was worth swallowing that pill dry, because this cheese is obscene.”
“Told you.”
“You did not tell me. You said patty melts. You didn’t say life-changing religious experience. God, what is it with you and having all the best food? So much dairy, it’s like you’re trying to kill me.”
I laugh at that and watch her eat. I can’t help it. The way her lips wrap around the sandwich, the grease glistening on her fingers, the little sounds of pleasure she makes with each bite. She devours food like she seems to devour life, and I’m finding it intoxicating, inspiring even.
And now, with the dying sun slipping through cracks in the barn and catching her hair, turning strands of it gold, I’m struck by how right she looks here. In my barn. In my childhood. In the one place I never thought I’d bring anyone, let alone return myself.
She catches me staring. “What? Do I have food on my face?”
“No. Nothing.” I take a bite of my own sandwich, barely tasting it. “Just thinking.”
“About cheese?”
About how I want to lick that grease off your fingers. About how you look in this light. About how if I don’t get my hands on you soon, I might actually lose my mind.
“Kind of.” I pause. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
Her expression softens. She sets down her sandwich, wipes her hands on one of the napkins Danny included, then shifts closer to me on the hay bale, close enough that I can smell her underneath the burger grease, that natural clean, warm scent that’s become my favorite thing in the world.
“I’m glad I’m here too,” she says quietly.
The light continues to change, amber to bronze, the shadows lengthening across the hayloft floor.
Through the gaps in the barn walls, I can see the sun touching the mountains, painting the sky in streaks of orange and red.
We have maybe an hour before it gets too cold up here, at least too cold for her.
An hour is plenty of time.
She reaches up to brush a strand of hair from my forehead, and I catch her wrist. Gently. Hold it there, her pulse fluttering against my fingers.
“Mia.”
“Yeah?”
I don’t have words for what I’m feeling.
The tenderness from our conversation earlier is still there, but underneath it something else is stirring, something darker, hungrier.
All that vulnerability, all those wounds I showed her—they’ve cracked something open in me, and now, I need to feel her.
Need to claim her. Need to remind myself that this, at least, is real.
“I want you,” I say. Simple but true.
She studies my face, swallowing hard. “You have me.”
“No.” I tug her closer until she’s nearly in my lap. “I want all of you. In ways that might…scare you.”
That doesn’t seem to faze her. Her pupils dilate, her lips parting slightly.
“What do you mean?” she says, her voice dropping an octave, husky in a way that makes me want to lose my mind. “Tell me.”
I bite my lip, exhaling sharply through my nose. “My tastes are darker than you’d expect. Sometimes, I don’t want to save someone. Sometimes, I want to hunt them down. Tie them up. Have my way with them in exactly the way I want it.”
“Alright.” She bats her lashes. “Show me then.”
Fuck.
My hands fist in her hair, angling her head where I want it, and I kiss her like I’m trying to devour her whole. She gasps against my mouth, and I swallow the sound, my tongue sliding against hers with feverish need.
“I want—” I pull back just enough to speak, my forehead pressed to hers, my body practically rippling with self-control. “I need to tell you something first.”
“Okay…” Her voice is breathless, her hands clutching my shirt.
“Sometimes, I get…intense. More than I should, as I’m sure you already know. And I don’t always know when I’m pushing too hard. It’s hard for me to I know my own strength.” I force myself to meet her eyes. “I need you to have a word, something you can say if I go too far. If you need me to stop.”
Understanding dawns on her face, followed by relief. “Oh. A safe word.”
“Yeah. That.”
“Kinky.”
“I mean, if the shoe fits.”
She’s quiet for a moment, thinking. Finally, she says, “Milkshake.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “Milkshake?”
“It’s memorable. It’s very us. And I’m definitely not going to say it by accident during sex.”
“Fair point.” I brush my thumb across her lower lip, watching it tremble. “So, if you say milkshake, I stop. Immediately. No questions.”
“And if I don’t say it?”
“Then I don’t stop.” My voice thickens. “No matter how much you beg.” I lean in, mouth at her ear. “And I really want to hear you beg.”
Her sharp inhale is the only answer I need.
I flip her onto her back on the hay bale, covering her body with mine.
She’s so small beneath me, so fucking breakable, and the contrast makes something dark and possessive coil in my chest. I could crush her without trying, could pin her down and take whatever I wanted, and she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop me.
The thought should horrify me.
It makes me harder than I’ve ever been in my life.
Control yourself. She’s not a toy. She’s—
“Nate.” Her voice cuts through the spiral. Her fingers rest on my cheekbone, drawing my attention back to her eyes. “I trust you.”
Three words. They shouldn’t mean so much, but coming from her, after everything she learned today, they do.
“I’m going to ruin you, darlin’,” I tell her. It comes out like both a warning and a promise.
“Not if I ruin you first,” she says with a smirk.
I grin like a madman and kiss her again, harder this time, my teeth catching her lower lip.
She moans and arches into me; I can feel her heat through the thin fabric of her pants.
I want them off,, want everything off. Want her bare and spread beneath me in this place where I used to hide from the world. I want to make her my world.
My hands make quick work of her shirt, pulling it over her head.
She’s wearing a simple beige bra underneath—nothing fancy, just cotton and lace—and somehow, that’s hotter than any lingerie I’ve ever seen.
I yank the cups down, freeing her breasts to the cooling air, and watch her nipples pebble instantly.
“Look at you,” I marvel, tracing a finger around one stiff peak, not quite touching. “So fucking responsive. So eager.”
“Nate, please—”
“Please what?” I pinch her nipple, just hard enough to make her gasp. “Use your words, darlin’. Tell me what you want, and maybe I’ll give it to you.”
“I want…” She squirms beneath me, trying to press closer. “I want your mouth. Please.”
I lower my head and suck her nipple into my mouth, hard, and she cries out so loud, it echoes off the barn walls. I work her with my tongue, my teeth, switching between breasts until she’s writhing and whimpering and her hands are fisting in my hair.
But it’s not enough. I need more. Need to push her further, take her deeper, find the edge of what she can handle and drag her right over it, take us both into the abyss.
I pull back, ignoring her whine of protest, and reach for the haybale next to us. With a swift, easy yank, I break the binding holding it together, then start spooling it in my hands.
“I’m going to tie you up,” I tell her, yanking on the rope so it’s taut. “Hands above your head. And then, I’m going to do whatever I want to you until you scream my name.” I pause, holding her gaze. “What’s your safe word?”
“Milkshake,” she breathes.
“That’s a good girl.”
I grab her wrists—both fit easily in one of my hands, so fragile, so fucking perfect—and bind them together.
The rope is soft from years of holding the hay together and won’t cut into her skin, but it’s strong enough to hold her.
I loop the end around one of the old wooden support beams above us and secure it, leaving her arms stretched overhead, her back arched, her breasts thrust toward the rafters.
Christ. She looks like a goddamn sacrifice.
An offering to something ancient and hungry.
To a god.
A god like me.
Easy, boy, I remind myself. Danny would have my head if he knew I just referred to myself as a god. He’s always the one telling me to keep my ego at bay.
“You okay?” I ask, checking the bindings.
“Yes.” Her voice is trembling, but her eyes are bright with desire. “More than okay.”
I sit back on my heels and just look at her. The golden light painting her skin. The way her chest heaves with each breath. The flush spreading down her throat, between her breasts, disappearing beneath the waistband of her wide-leg pants. She’s like a fucking painting, hung up for my eyes only.