Chapter 16 #2
She reached for the nearest bale of straw. I came up behind her, both hands bracing against the stack on either side of her waist, and dropped my mouth to the curve of her neck.
“Knox. I really am only getting a bale of straw.”
“Oh, I know what you’re getting.” I kissed her just below the ear. My hands moved to her hips, pulling her back against me where she could be in no doubt of my intentions. “I think I’ve got exactly what you need.”
She turned in the small space I’d left her, back against the straw stack, and looked up at me with those clear blue eyes I’d spent most of my free time trying to figure out. “Here?”
“I’m all yours, darlin’.” I held her gaze. “We’d better hurry.”
Her chin came up. “If you don’t like to rush, then wait until tonight.”
“Didn’t say that.” I kept my voice even. “But we both have that barn dance committee meeting tonight with Ivy, and you mentioned this morning over coffee that you’re having dinner with your sisters afterward. It’ll be a late night when I finally show up on your doorstep.”
“That’s life, cowboy.” Her eyes held mine, challenging me. “You want to be in mine, you get what you can get.”
“Am I?”
“What?”
“In your life. Really.” Damn. Wish I hadn’t said that out loud.
“Of course.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Only in secret.”
“For now.” She got worked up, pulling back and shutting the door I’d only recently opened if I didn’t think of something quick. And here I was with need coiled tight in my groin and my patience genuinely shorter than I wanted it to be.
I let it go. Slid my hand slowly up her side instead, thumb tracing the swell of her breast through her shirt. My mouth dropped to her pulse, pleased to find it raced. “Be a good girl for me? Let’s do it right here. A little something to last until later.”
She exhaled a surrender. Her hands closed around fistfuls of my shirt and tugged it up and over my head. I couldn’t help but smile, because without a word, she proved she needed me too.
I kissed down her cleavage and pushed the hem of her tank top up slowly.
The simple white cotton bra she wore was so purely Daisy that something moved through me that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with knowing her.
This woman, who had no time for the unnecessary, who ran herself to the bone for everyone else, who showed up and never once asked for anything. So practical. So entirely her.
I pushed the bra up with her shirt and cupped her breasts in my hands, thumbs tracing slow circles around her nipples until her breath went uneven. I placed my mouth there, sucking until she moaned my name. Her fingers slid into my hair.
“Want me?” I asked.
Her hands moved down, pulling at my belt. She worked my jeans free, then reached in, her fingers curling around my cock. Her palm gripped me well, up and down. Jagged breath escaped me.
“I want you right here,” she said.
She released me and turned, her hands going to her own jeans, unfastening and pushing them down to her knees.
I gaped at the sight of her gorgeous ass. It was far from cotton I found there. What she had on underneath was a barely-there red thong, the color of an apple at peak season, like a little secret she’d carried with her today and had not mentioned until this exact moment.
“Fuck, woman,” I groaned. Then smiled, because I absolutely could not help it. She let me think I knew all of her and then produced evidence to the contrary with a surprise like this.
I reached around and snapped the thin fabric clean off. The sound it made was extremely satisfying.
“Knox!” She looked back over her shoulder with an expression that was fighting a smile and mostly losing. “Those were my best panties I wore to surprise you later. Do you think I’m made of money?”
“I’ll buy you another pair.” I tucked the scrap into my pocket. Put my mouth on one perfectly round globe, nipping and sucking, playfully slapping the other. “Hell, I’ll buy you a whole drawer full. If you let me.”
She made a sound somewhere between exasperation and pleasure and turned back toward the bale.
With my knee, I spread her thighs wider and pulled her ass out more toward me.
I ran the head of my cock through her seam, finding her wet and hot.
On a groan, I buried myself inside of her and made no effort to keep it quiet, arching over her, forehead pressed to the back of her neck.
I stayed still for a minute to feel everything with this woman. Each time like the first, only better.
My mind went where it went in these stolen moments.
Farther out than this arrangement with her rules and its closed doors and its borrowed time.
To something that looked like morning light through a bedroom window.
Her sleepy head on my arm. Coffee cups side by side on the kitchen counter.
Our boots at the door instead of halfway out of it. The laughter of kids and a family.
Holy shit. Kids? That was definitely somewhere down a road we hadn’t started yet. A life where I didn’t have to pretend in public that I barely knew her name. But we’d get there. I had to have faith.
Her hips rolled back against me, and my thoughts scattered.
“Move, Knox.”
“Play with your clit, darlin’. I’ll do the rest.”
She reached down, and I held her steady by the hips, finding my rhythm.
It wasn’t long until the straw storage room filled with the sound of our ragged breathing, our skin slapping together, her moans dropping to that register she only hit when she’d stopped thinking about everything else in the world and focused on how I made her feel.
I ran my hands up her spine and pulled her tighter against me.
“You feel so damn good, sweetheart.”
“Yes, Knox. Harder,” she begged, breathless.
“I’ve got you.” I bucked her good and fast with my hard cock, exactly what she wished for.
Her moans came faster, her hand braced hard against the stack, the other playing with herself. “I’m coming for you.”
“That’s it. Stay with me to the end.” I lost whatever remained of my composure and drove into her deep until she cried out and clenched in spasms around me, milking my cock for all its worth.
For a minute, we stayed connected, dazed, catching our breath. I pulled out—realizing we had forgotten a condom. That particular conversation about birth control had been far overshadowed by too many others.
I shimmied her jeans up for her, smoothing the denim over her hips. Didn’t button them. Just let my arms rest around her for a moment, her back warm against my chest.
“Are you on the pill, sweetheart?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Don’t clean up,” I murmured against her ear. “Nothing would make me happier than knowing you’re out there finishing your calls today with me still inside of you.” I pressed my lips to her temple. “And I’m not washing you off me either. Not today.”
She snorted, putting herself back together. “You’re crazy.”
“Completely, for you.” I stepped back, buckled up, and reached for my shirt. “Tonight at the barn dance planning meeting, I’ll smell like you.” I let that sit for a second.
She smiled and pulled her bra and tank top back down, her cheeks rosy. To me, she looked well-fucked. And I didn’t mind that being our little secret, even if I’d shout about us from the barn roof if I could.
From outside came the rumble of voices and horses and ATVs, the sound of the guys coming back up from the pastures.
“I have to get to my next appointment.” She pecked my cheek and left the straw room. Our quick, stolen moment over with.
I closed my hand around the red scrap of red fabric in my pocket.
When did this arrangement start being complicated?
I already knew the answer.
From the beginning, being honest. From the moment she handed me her keys on a dark hilltop because the world was spinning, and I drove her home, and she looked at me in the cab of her truck like she already knew the trouble we were headed for and was going to pretend otherwise for as long as she could manage.
I pulled a bale of straw out with me to the new horses, where Rhett had worked his nose over the top of Scarlett’s stall door. She had stepped as far into the corner as the space allowed.
After I spread the straw, I reached over and scratched behind his ear.
“Know how you feel, buddy.”
He turned and looked at me with those deep brown eyes that said we were both head over heels for our girls, and probably always would be, and there was not a damn thing in the world to be done about it.