Chapter 23
Islam the truck door behind me, and as soon as my feet hit the gravel, I’m stupidly searching out that pretty smile like a love-sick fool.
There’s a storm rolling in over the hills and the clouds have turned a dark, ominous gray that suggests we should get the horses inside, but as Crew and I walk around to the field, we’re left without an ounce of work to do.
Logan appears from the barn with Ash on her heels, in a heavy jacket and one of the ducks tucked into his arms. “Hey, boys.” Her lips curl into a smile reserved purely for Crew and tucks into him like she belongs there.
“Have you uh-” I say to her, trying to avoid the subject, and she nods up to the window above the barn where a bundle of blonde hair is blowing around in the window.
When she turns her head, I catch a glimpse of how sad she looks, and it weighs heavily on my chest that she’s up there alone.
“Tell Dot I’ll be up for dinner in a bit,” I say to them as they start to climb the hill.
I slide into the barn and even though my muscles are exhausted from the heavy moving Crew and I had done today, I climb every rung of that loft ladder with a smile on my face but I know the end result is worth all the pain.
“Hey, Wildflower,” I get to the top and wander across the rickety floor.
She turns to look at me, and what’s left of the setting sun lights up those pretty eyes until they glow a light green.
Her serious face brightens as a smile curls, and her cheeks turn a soft pink.
“What are you doing up here by yourself?” I ask her, coming around to sit on the hay bale behind her.
"I have company." She says and nods off to the corner where Bandit, Ford's old cranky barn cat, is curled into a donut, asleep.
"So this is where he's been hiding." I muse and dip to kiss the nape of her neck. "You didn't answer my question." I hum against her warm skin.
“Just thinking. Ford and I used to come up here when we wanted to hide from Wyatt and just find some quiet,” she says, and I wince. “What?” She laughs, turning into my chest with her shoulder. Her nose almost brushes against mine, and I become momentarily distracted by the smell of her shampoo.
“Nothing.” I shake my head, but she eyes me, and it’s so cute it makes me chuckle. “The guys bring girls up here all the time… to you know…” The words fall from me in a clumsy mess that sounds so unlike me.
“Oh... Ew,” Maggie looks around, disgusted. “For real?”
“Yeah.” I start to laugh, but wrap my hand around her waist and pull her between my legs so she's impossibly close. “Crew and Logan love it up here,” I tease and kiss her cheek, completely unable to help myself when her smile is so big.
“I think I could have gone a lifetime not knowing that fact about the loft,” she laughs and looks around at all the dirty hay.
I smile, watching her eyes twinkle with curious amusement. “It adds a bit of character to the place, don’t you think?” I nudge her nose with mine.
“Yeah, I think you’re right.” She leans into my touch. “It’s way cooler than Whiskey River’s make-out spot. I wish I’d thought of that when I was trying to sneak boyfriends around behind Ford’s back in high school.”
I bite the jealousy back and laugh. “Don’t go an’ tarnish your first time in the make-out spot with memories of ex-boyfriends. I beg you.”
“Are you jealous of my teenage crushes?” She gasps, absolutely feeding on the small slip of emotion. I pull off my hat and set it on her head, trying to distract her from how red my ears are because of her teasing.
“Jealous? Of a bunch of dumb high school jocks? Please,” I tease, but my tone gives me away because Maggie is all giggles and soft nods. I flick the brim of my hat so I can see her eyes better. “Just…keep those memories to yourself, okay?”
“How about you help me make some new ones, Cowboy?” Maggie suggests, and when she slides closer to tilt her face up to me, I stop breathing altogether. A small smirk forms on my lips as I lean closer, using my finger to prop up her chin.
“Now that’s an idea I can get behind,” I say, dropping my tone as my other hand finds the small of her back.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Maggie laughs as my beard tickles her lips.
She doesn’t have the time to say anything else before my lips capture hers, and my hands are pulling her up into my lap.
A tiny yelp leaves her lips at the sudden movement but she settles down against my lap, never breaking the kiss.
“Hey now, you gotta be quiet,” I whisper against her lips. “We don’t need the whole ranch hearing your first kiss in the loft.” I kiss her again, deeper this time, and my fingers curl into her soft skin beneath her jacket.
“I’m trying,” she breathes as my mouth finds her jaw and trails down over her cool skin to her throat.
My breathing grows heavy, and I reach up to pull the zipper down on her jacket, kissing every inch of newly exposed skin as I go.
She leans into my grip and only wiggles when my beard tickles her as I try to drink in every ounce of her warmth.
“You smell so good,” I grumble as I reach the swell of her breast, inhaling her like I need it to survive. I tilt my head up to look at her as she rakes her fingers through my hair, and it hits me like a freight train how beautiful Magnolia Mae is.
“Why’d you stop?” Maggie asks, her sweet voice like honey.
“Because if I keep going, I’m not gonna be able to stop.” I answer her as honestly as I can, swallowing down the existential feelings that flood in.
“Who said anything about stopping?” She smiles at me, giving my hair a gentle tug, and the world fades away to black, leaving us completely alone.
I lean in to capture her lips again, this time with more need.
My hands slip under her shirt, calloused against her softness, and splay out against her bare skin.
She breaks her contact and shucks from her jacket, letting it fall to the floor as I squeeze her sides possessively.
I pull back briefly to pull her shirt over her head, tossing it aside carelessly.
My eyes roam over her bare torso in the setting sunlight as my thumbs brush over the delicate lace bra.
She looks like sin in my hat with only her tiny little bra covering her. Her nipples are hard from the chill, her nose cold, and her stomach rises and falls rapidly from my gaze. I want to commit this sight to memory, bucking my hips to wrangle my phone from my pocket.
“Bode Walker, what are you doing?” she asks.
“Whatever I want.” I smirk at her and flip open the camera, leaning back just enough to catch her torso and smile in that oversized cowboy hat. “This will get me through the winter better than any fire.”
“Hush now,” she warns, and I know I pushed a little too far for her comfort zone, but grateful that she let me.
Maggie pushes down the zipper of my jacket, and I help her get both it and my shirt off, leaving us sitting in the chill, chest to chest with smiles on our faces.
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her flush against my bare chest as my hands roam over his back and unhook her bra with practiced ease.
I lift her and flip her onto her back, my body covering hers completely. I kiss down her neck, my hand unbuttoning her jeans. Without pause, I hook my fingers into the waistband and slowly pull them down along with her underwear.
“Lift your hips for me, Maggie,” I breathe out as I pull away, desperate to get back to her, only breaking the kiss to remove them completely.
Her body shivers as the cold breeze floods in through the window, and I work to get my jeans off even faster, chucking them aside before returning to her lying in the hay.
I spread her legs gently and settle between them, painfully hard, I rest against her core as I bring her lips to mine in another deep kiss. My hands grip her thigh tightly as I slowly enter her inch by inch, watching her face contort from pain to pleasure as I sink inside.
“Damnit,” I breathe out, burying my face in her neck. She wraps around me like she’s made for me, and it takes everything in me not to rush the process just to know how good it feels to fly.
“Look at me,” Maggie’s voice is strained as she digs her nails into my back gently. I pause, completely inside of her and pulsing there because I have no control over my muscles anymore.
I lift my head and meet her fiery green eyes, dripping with lust and desire and filled to the brim with emotion.
I slowly pull out almost to the tip before sliding back in even slower, my mouth falling open in a silent groan.
She nods, giving me the go-ahead for more as her hips arch into me.
I do it again, unfolding myself from her completely and plunging back to bottom out against her skin.
A loud gasp leaves her throat, and my hand fires out to cover her mouth with a warning look as the sound of ranch hands echoes up from the yard below.
My eyes never leave hers as I begin to move faster, my hips thrusting against her with more urgency. I keep my hand over her mouth, muffling any sounds that might escape as my other hand grips her thigh and lifts her higher to give me deeper access.
“Shhh,” I warn her as another deep moan rattles from her chest. I touch every inch of her, rubbing rapidly against the live wires inside of her as she fights to keep quiet.
Our harsh, short breaths fill the loft, and strands of hair fall around my face as I thrust harder and faster.
The floor creaked beneath us a little as I picked up the pace.
My heart races so rapidly it feels like it’s going to explode from my chest at any moment, and it’s not from the way Maggie feels beneath me but instead the way she feels now that she’s under my skin and in my veins.
I hate how easily she burrowed into my life, and how much I love having her here to keep me warm on winter nights.
Ford is going to fucking kill me.
Maggie’s blonde hair is messy and tangled with hay as her body slides against the floor beneath me, her eyelids drunk with desire as they flutter closed every time my hips meet hers and her cheeks flush a bright pink from the contact.
My jaw clenches as I try to keep quiet, and my hand is hot from her strangled pants. The hay rustles around us with each powerful rock. And I find that spot that makes her eyes roll into the back of her head as she bites down on the soft skin of my palm by my thumb to keep from screaming outright.
Maggie stares at me, teetering on the edge of the cliff and ready to fall the second I am.
I can feel her tighten around me, her muscles tensing with each ragged thrust I manage.
With one final deep thrust, I bury myself inside of her and hold still, my body shaking as I come undone.
Maggie breathes heavily beneath me, her body completely rigid as her toes curl up around my thighs and hold me there to ride out the wave.
Our lips collide in a desperate attempt to silence the tiny moans that leave her and the heavy groans that ripple from my throat.
The barn seems to spin around us as we both try to find our bearings, still joined together at the hips.
“I hope no one heard us,” Maggie whines as I pull away for breath and kiss the top of her breast, her voice panicked and nervous. Her lips and cheeks are the same bright pink color and her hair is embedded with tiny pieces of hay that I start to slowly pick out, still buried inside of her.
I stare at her for a moment, her green eyes so worried.
“Next time we’ll pick a spot and you can be as loud as your pretty little heart desires, Wildflower.
” I chuckle, a low rumble that leaves my chest as I slowly pull out of her causing me to shiver from the sensation.
It’s nearly impossible not to return to her as I stand to find my jeans.
Her body is kissed with irritation from the hay and my fingertips, her complexion marred by our activities.
I shift uncomfortably as she sits up on her elbows, reaching one arm out for her shirt.
I hand it to her but hang on to it, kneeling between her legs to steal one last kiss before we have to pretend none of this happened.
“I understand why the loft is a make-out spot now,” she giggles as I release her.