Chapter 3 #2
"Ain’t nothin’," he says, his voice low. And I let my right hand settle onto his thigh. Just above his knee. The muscle flexes immediately, but he doesn’t move or push my hand off.
The wagon hits another rut, and all of us lurch for a second. He puts his arm around my shoulders to steady me, our bodies pressed together at the side.
He dips his head, his mouth down beside my ear.
"You're trouble, aren't you?"
I tip my face up and grin.
"The best kind," I murmur.
His thigh flexes under my hand, as he shakes his head.
The bonfire site is a clearing with a ring of stones and log benches, and the band is already set up—a guy with a guitar, a girl with a mandolin, a fire crackling in the pit. Somebody's passing sticks around for s'mores. Lucinda is already there pointing out stars to a little boy in enormous boots.
I give Garrett his jacket back as we climb down from the wagon, then peel away from him with a wave. I give Laurel and Lyla the evil eye as we head toward the campfire, but soon we’re laughing, toasting marshmallows, and stuffing s’mores in our mouths.
Lively music is playing, kids are dancing, people are chatting away, and I catch Garrett’s eye as he talks to Carl and a couple of the wranglers, drinking a beer.
After a while, I drift around the circle watching the sparks in the fire, and when I come up behind the log where Garrett is sitting, I drag my fingertips slowly across his shoulders as I pass.
He barely moves, but I see his head tilt.
And I keep walking as if I didn't do a thing…past the circle, past the firelight, and into the dense forest. I stop maybe one hundred feet out, hidden by a big gnarled oak with roots like knuckles, and I put my back to it and look up at the stars.
It’s a couple of minutes before I hear heavy boots crunching in the grass near me.
He steps into the shadow as if he was made out of it. Blocking the moon.
"Took you long enough," I whisper. “I wasn’t sure you were comin’.”
“I’m a big man. Sometimes it takes a while.” He moves in close and leans on the tree with his arms over my head.
I slide both palms flat up his chest—over the hard slope of his brawny pecs. “Big, huh?”
“Not as big as some predators you might find, comin’ out here alone in the dark,” he says, in his smokey voice.
“Well, I did plan on pokin’ a big bear.”
He chuckles. “Then yer just askin’ to get bit.”
I grab his shirt in both fists and pull him down, and he follows, his mouth landing on mine.
The world explodes.
Everything I thought I knew about being kissed gets wiped clean in under a second.
His big hand comes up, thumb brushing my jaw, the other splaying across my hip like he can’t decide whether to keep me there or lift me off the ground.
His mouth is hot and tastes of chocolate and marshmallows and beer.
He pulls his hat off quickly, letting it drop onto a thick root near us.
His tongue slides against mine and I make a pleading little noise in the back of my throat, and it’s as if something inside him snaps clean in two.
His hand leaves my jaw and cards into my hair, fisting it at the base of my skull, using it to tip my head back the way he wants it. The other drops from my hip and reaches around to my ass, pulling me in hard and rough, so I feel every inch of him against me.
Every. Thick. Hard. Massive. Inch.
"Fuck," I breathe into his mouth.
"Mhm," he agrees, and kisses me deeper.
The bark of the tree snags the thin cotton of my tank and I don't care.
I don't care about the bark, or the scrape of his beard, or the way he's backed me up so completely I'd slide straight to the ground if he stepped away.
I roll my hips into his and he groans—a low, wrecked sound that vibrates my core—and then he grinds back into me almost infuriated by the sensation.
His mouth moves over my jaw, under my ear, and down the line of my throat. His beard burns everywhere his mouth tastes, and I'm going to wake up tomorrow covered in pink patches and treasure every one.
"Lark," he rasps against my neck.
"Yes."
His teeth graze me, then bite, right where my neck meets my shoulder. I hear myself gasp.
My knees actually buckle.
But he catches me.
One huge hand slides under my thigh and lifts, easy, and my back skids up the tree. My legs wrap around his hips, and now we're in deep trouble, because I'm lined up with the seam of my jeans pressed flush against the rock hard length of him.
I can feel the shape of his cock…the long girthy shaft, the flared, taut head.
And I’m going to combust.
I grind down.
He swears.
It’s the first time I've heard Garrett curse and it’s a goddamn beautiful thing.
"Tell me you've been thinking about this as much as I have," I whisper, my mouth at his ear. I drag one hand down his back, slip it under the edge of his shirt, and find hot bare skin.
He shudders.
"More than you. All damn day," he grits out.
"What'd you think about?"
"Lark—"
"I want to know."
His forehead drops to mine, his breath shredded. The hand under my thigh flexes, hauls me tighter. "Can't tell you here."
He catches my wrists and pins them up to the tree over my head.
"Darlin'," he warns and begs in two syllables. He’s trembling. This enormous man is holding himself still by what seems like sheer force of will.
"We need to stop or I'll take you right here," he says in a ragged whisper against my mouth. "Up against this tree. And that’s not how I want it."
"How do you want it?” I breathe.
His mouth grazes the shell of my ear. His voice drops to a place I feel in my panties.
"Savin' that," he murmurs, and kisses the tender spot under my ear, “for another time.”
He lets me down, keeping a hand on my hip until my boots are steady under me. He kisses me once more, softly. Then he bends, picks his hat up and mine, and settles his back on his head.
I do the same.
He offers his hand, but I smile and shake my head. “I need a minute.”
“I get it.” He tips his hat and adjusts himself in his jeans, then walks away into the dark.
I stay against the tree with my eyes closed.
My pulse is pounding in my teeth. My mouth is swollen. My thighs are shaking. There is bark in my hair, and I can feel the shape of his hands everywhere he touched me.
Jesus Christ.