Chapter 21 #2
He doesn’t look hungry now, though. There’s something else there in his eyes, deep, imploring.
But he doesn’t leave it there long enough for me to decipher it.
Instead, he drags me up and puts me to work.
I hadn’t realized it before, but in the past few weeks, we’ve developed a quiet synchronicity.
Side by side, we fill and distribute feed pails to each of the stalls, the barn growing loud with the sound of twelve rousing horses chomping on grain before we start turn out.
The whole time, Parker is a steady presence beside me, pressing me forward when I start to slow with a light touch on the base of my spine, or a tap on my elbow to keep me from getting lost in my thoughts when they threaten to sweep me away from the present.
It turns out that being distracted isn’t the best idea when dealing with animals several times your size, with twice as many feet.
I’m trailing him out into the bright morning light, leading a twelve-hundred-pound horse, when her big hoof pinches the side of my foot painfully.
“Ouch, Buttercup!” I mutter, stumbling.
I look down to get my footing back and make sure I don’t get stepped on again. The only problem is, looking down prevents me from looking up, and when Parker stops at the paddock, I smack right into his horse.
“Sorry! Sorry!”
“I thought you used to do this all the time?” he says, shaking his head at me, his lips tipping up.
“I guess I’m out of practice,” I lie.
He unloops the chain and pulls the gate open, leading his horse into the grassy paddock and releasing him with a gentle pat on the neck, before sending the horse trotting away. He turns to hold the gate open for me. “Make sure you hold on—”
His following words are lost as my arm is nearly ripped out of its socket. Buttercup takes off, running after the other horse before I can unclip the lead rope.
Meaning, I’m still attached.
Not for long, though. I stumble, my legs instantly tangling up beneath me as I’m flung to the ground, landing hard with a face full of dirt. “Owww,” I groan, pushing up onto my hands.
Parker skids to his knees beside me, eyes wide as he grips my shoulder.
I peer up at him, glaring. “Tight? Is that what you were going to say? Hold on tight? Great advice, thanks. A-plus for timing, by the way.”
His face relaxes instantly, the tight lines around his mouth giving way to a teasing grin. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
I get to my feet while Parker catches up with Buttercup to remove the lead rope before guiding me back to the barn office by the elbow.
“Sit,” he says, pointing to the desk. “Does anything hurt?”
“Just my pride. Seriously, I feel fine.”
He gives me a look, then returns to searching the cupboards for the first-aid kit. “You might be sore in the morning.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe I’m getting tougher. I’ve been spending so much time with you in the barn that I can handle being thrown by a wild horse.”
He locates the first aid kit and turns back to me, setting it on the desk beside me. “That horse is hardly wild, and you weren’t riding her, so you weren’t thrown. Thrown down, maybe.”
“What are you talking about, not wild?” I cry, feigning outrage. “She galloped away with no warning! She’s out of control.”
The legs of a chair scrape against the floor as Parker drags it in front of me and sits.
With the height difference, I’m now looking down at him for the first time.
His smooth skin is deeply tanned from working outside, and I itch to run my fingers across the dark scruff on his jaw. I stop myself from leaning forward.
“She barely broke a trot. Now hold still.”
“What are you—ow!” My right knee stings as he wipes it with rubbing alcohol through a rip I hadn’t even noticed in my jeans.
“Get over it, Princess.” He glances up, the hint of a smile pulling at the edge of his lips.
Heat pools in my core, reminding me what I want. How badly I want it. It takes me back to the last time he had me in here like this, taking care of my blistered hands. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were getting me into these situations on purpose so you can play doctor,” I murmur.
“I planned that the horse would run off, did I?” he asks in a low voice.
His smile deepens, but he keeps his eyes on my knee as he cleans my scrape. It gives me the chance to admire his face, the smooth line of his nose, the soft bottom lip. Almost involuntarily, I imagine what it would feel like between my teeth.
His eyes flip up to mine, and I’m busted.
My cheeks go pink. While he wasn’t looking, I’ve been leaning closer, but instead of shifting back, I hold my position. “Could have. You spend a lot of time in the barn. How should I know if you’re working or plotting?”
Resting his elbows on his knees, he crowds even further into my space. His eyes are locked on mine, but somehow, I remain hyper aware of that perfect mouth of his, that sly smile doing strange things to my insides.
“Are you still holding me responsible for tearing up your own hands because you refused to take a break?”
“If you hadn’t called me a princess, I wouldn’t have had anything to prove.”
“I guess I should stop calling you that.”
I lift one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t mind so much anymore. Depending on the context.” The way the word rumbled out of his mouth a minute ago, though …? I think I’d let him call me anything if he promised to say it like that.
His throat bobs in a hard swallow, and his voice has a slight rasp to it when he asks, “How are your hands, by the way?”
I lift my hands in front of me, palms facing out. “All better. See?”
Slowly, he reaches past me to set the cotton swab on the desk.
His rough fingertips graze my palms as he slides his hands up, mirroring mine, and my brain goes fuzzy like the static on the upstairs TV as he eases his fingers between mine in one gentle, slow movement, completely ensnaring me.
This is nothing like yesterday, when he was all over me.
He’s only touching my hands, but my whole body is on fire.
We both struggle to steady our breathing.
His chest rises and falls beneath his navy T-shirt, and his gaze drifts dangerously low.
Sensing me watching, his eyes drag up. They brush over my chest, my neck, my face, as if they were his actual fingertips, and when they finally reach mine, it’s like a high-powered magnet is turned on.
We’re laser-focused on each other, and there’s no question about what he wants. What we want.
I arch my back slightly, easing closer, and that’s all it takes.
His lips are on mine before I can close my eyes. Somehow, his hands untangle from mine and find their way to new homes, one on my neck, the other wrapping around my lower back. Mine move on their own, drifting up and around his neck, pulling him into me.
It’s intoxicating.
I’m drunk on him; his smell, his taste, his touch.
I can’t get enough. His lips—impossibly softer than I’d imagined—trail across my cheek and halfway down my neck before I pull him back to my mouth, demanding more.
And more is exactly what I get. His tongue grazes my bottom lip, so warm I almost moan.
When his tongue slides over mine, I’m absolutely done—I can no longer be held accountable for the noises I make.
Our movements grow frantic, no longer exploring but grabbing, insistent, desperate.
His hands—which I guess have worked their way down from my face at some point—settle on my hips, gripping hard over my jeans.
I gasp as his fingertips slip up beneath my shirt, grazing my skin.
Even with so little contact, the sensation is overwhelming.
So overwhelming it’s dangerous.
I’m about to make a stupid decision, and we’re out in the open, in broad daylight. As much as we both might want to, we cannot go at it in the barn. Gently, I lay my hands on his chest and ease him away as my brain screams, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?!’
With a couple of inches of space between us, Parker shakes his head like he’s physically clearing the fog from it. “Sorry. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he says breathlessly.
We’re still tangled up in each other’s arms, my knees gripping his hips at the edge of the desk.
“Oh really? I couldn’t tell.”
“Ha, ha,” he says flatly. “I guess we should …”
“Get back to work?”
His gaze drifts to where I’ve pulled my bottom lip between my teeth. “Yeah. Work. That’s what I want to do right now. I’m so excited about work. I could work all day long.”
He sighs heavily, vocalizing the sexual tension that I feel in my bones. In the space he makes as he steps back, I slide down to my feet, straightening my top as I slip past him, heading for the door.
“Let’s get back to work,” I say. “You’ve got a lot to do. It’s going to be a long day. Long and hard.” My smile turns devilish when his chuckle comes out as a groan. “Come on, cowboy. Someone once told me horses don’t give a shit if you’re having a bad day.”
He calls after me as I leave the office, my boot heels clicking on the concrete floor.
“You’re killing me, you know that? You are actually killing me.”