Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
HARLAN
I’m not sure that love happens this quickly, but if it’s possible, then I’m in love with Lola-Mae. It seems as if my soul has found its other half. It’s also something I didn’t believe in until she rolled up in her piece-of-shit car and those green eyes snapped to meet mine.
After spending the rest of the day prepping for the roundup that’s coming up, ensuring that pens and gates are all the way they should be, I head back to the house once the sun begins to set.
I make a mental note to start hiring people and ordering vaccines. It’s time to get this fall heard updated. It will be a good learning experience for Lola-Mae, too, considering she’s never done anything like this before.
It will be a good way to immerse her in the community as well. I might be a recluse, but a couple of times a year, I throw out all the stops, along with my neighbors and hired hands, to socialize and get shit done.
And if she’s going to work for me and be with me, this is part of the job. Parking the quad, I check on Spirit. I haven’t ridden him as much as I usually do, but tomorrow, that changes. I plan on taking him out and working him all day long.
Stepping out of the barn, I lift my gaze to the office and smile. The light is still on inside, which means she’s still there. Making my way across the dirt road, I slip into the office through the outside entrance and stop.
She’s there.
Standing with her back to me as she files something in the metal cabinet. It feels like a lifetime since I’ve touched her, kissed her, felt her, even though I know it’s only been a few hours.
Closing the short distance between us, I reach out, gripping her hips firmly the moment she’s within reach. Lowering my head, I touch my lips to the side of her neck. Her entire body melts back against me.
Lifting my head slightly, I glide one of my hands across her hip and rest it against her belly before I shift it up the center of her body. I curl my fingers around the front of her throat before she turns her head slightly, her lips brushing against the underside of my jaw.
“Hey,” she exhales against my skin.
I release my grasp on her throat and gently turn her around in my arms. Lola-Mae lifts her gaze to meet mine when we’re fully facing one another. I cup her cheeks. I need to touch her. I need to feel her. I can’t be this close and not have some part of my body touching hers.
“Hey,” I rasp before my mouth touches hers.
My control is gone; the need is too great. I can’t stay away from her. Can’t keep my lips from hers. Can’t keep my hands off her either. It doesn’t matter that I fucked her at lunch and this morning; it feels like it’s been too long.
Gripping the hem of her shirt, I peel it from her body. She stands in front of me in her bra and jeans. I haven’t taken a lot of time to just look at her body. Sure, I’ve seen it, it’s amazing, but I haven’t memorized it yet.
Lola-Mae has curves in all the right places. Every hill and valley is just waiting for me to discover, touch, and taste.
“Harlan,” she calls out, her soft voice taking me out of my thoughts.
Flicking my gaze from her soft belly, my eyes find hers. We hold one another’s gaze for a long, silent moment. She cups my cheek before her thumb slides across my bottom lip.
“Lola-Mae,” I reply.
Her lips curve up into a soft smile, and my cock twitches at the sight.
“I didn’t know a couple of sexy notes you left on my desk could be so much fun,” she says.
Chuckling, I reach up and curl my fingers around her wrist before I turn my head and touch my lips to the center of her palm. Releasing my grasp, I lift my head slightly and let my eyes meet hers.
“They’ve been the most fun of my adult life, darlin’.”
“A rodeo,” she whispers.
“A rodeo,” I confirm.
I glide my fingers from her wrist down her forearm, along her bicep, and then behind her back—where my other hand rests—and I unhook her bra. I gently slide it down her arms and release it onto the floor.
LOLA-MAE
Harlan picks me up and then walks me backward until my ass presses against the glass—after divesting me of my pants and panties, which I was happy to help with. My center is already aching, begging to be filled like I know only he can do, like I only want him to do.
I’m honestly not quite sure how I was ever with anyone else. I know irrecoverably that I don’t want to ever be with anyone else. I’ve forgotten every man but Harlan Blackmoore. The grumpy, halfway broken, definitely deep and profound cowboy.
The bite of the cool glass against my bare ass brings me back into this moment and takes me out of my thoughts.
He has my ass pressed against the glass.
My ass against the glass.
Just like his note said.
Hot.
His mouth touches the center of my throat, then his lips move down to the hollow, and when he shifts farther back, his mouth wraps around my nipple, and then he sucks. My eyes widen, my breath hitches, and then he shifts his hips, and he’s inside me.
Stretching me.
Filling me.
I open my mouth to beg him to move. But even if I could speak, it doesn’t matter, because he does exactly what I need. He moves. Hard and fast. He fucks me against the window, no holds barred.
It’s hard and fast, it’s wild, it’s a damn rodeo, and I love every single second of it.
I try to hold back my orgasm, but I fail. It barrels through me like a freight train, consuming everything from my toes to the ends of my hair. My entire body freezes, and my fingers grip his shoulders, because it’s all I can do to just hold on.
He doesn’t stop moving inside me. Once, twice, three times before he buries himself to the hilt, his back arching as a long growl escapes his lips. And then it’s his turn to come, and my entire body trembles in his arms.
He’s beautiful. His head back, his lips parted in awe, his skin glistening with the light sheen of sweat.
How the hell am I here with this beautiful, grumpy man?
I don’t know how it happened, but I never want to leave.