Chapter 5 #2
He pauses his drilling and looks at me, really looks at me. “Maybe I’m bad at following rules.”
“You? Mr. Everything-Must-Be-Perfect is bad at following rules?”
“Maybe I’m bad at following stupid rules.” He goes back to drilling, but there’s tension in his shoulders now.
“So you think the no-contact rule is stupid?”
“I think a lot of things are stupid.” He finishes attaching the new rail and tests its stability. It doesn’t budge.
“Like what?”
He stands up, dusting off his hands, and suddenly we’re close again. Too close. “Like pretending I don’t notice you. Like acting like I don’t think about you. Like this whole damn feud that keeps us on opposite sides when all I want is—”
He cuts himself off, jaw clenching.
“All you want is what?”
He looks at me for a long moment, and I can see him fighting with himself, see the war between what he wants and what he should do, playing out in his eyes.
“There,” he says instead, gesturing to the fence. “That’ll last twenty years.”
“Show-off.”
“It’s called doing the job right.”
“It’s called being anal-retentive.”
“Says the woman whose fence I just fixed for free.”
“I didn’t ask you to fix it.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He closes his toolbox and straightens up.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You’re welcome.”
“Even if you are infuriating.”
“Even if you are impossible.”
We’re back to staring at each other. The fence is fixed, there’s no reason for him to stay, but neither of us makes a move to leave.
“I should go,” he says, but he takes a step closer instead of away.
“Probably.” My breath catches as his hand comes up to my face.
“Your dad would lose his mind if he caught us out here together.”
“Definitely.” I lean into his touch despite myself.
“This is exactly the kind of thing we’re supposed to avoid.”
“Absolutely.” My hands rest on his chest, feeling his heartbeat racing under my palms.
But he still doesn’t leave, and I still don’t go inside.
“Callie,” he says, his voice low and rough.
“Yeah?”
“This is a bad idea.”
“Which part?”
“All of it. Being here. Wanting you. Thinking about you every damn night since that day with the goat.”
My heart stops. “You think about me?”
“Every night.” His thumb strokes across my cheekbone. “Do you think about me?”
“Wyatt—”
“Tell me you don’t. Tell me I’m alone in this, and I won’t bring it up again.”
I should lie. Should tell him I don’t think about him, don’t dream about him, don’t wake up aching for his touch. But looking into his eyes, feeling the tremor in his hand against my face, I can’t.
“I can’t tell you that,” I whisper. “That I don’t think about you. Because I do.”
He makes a sound that’s part groan, part surrender, and leans down until his forehead rests against mine. “This is going to ruin everything.”
“I know.”
“Our families will never forgive us.”
“I know.”
“But I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Stop yourself from what?”
He doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he tilts my chin up, his eyes searching mine for permission. I give the tiniest nod, and then his lips are on mine, hungry and demanding. Just how I like it.
The kiss is nothing like I expect from Wyatt McCoy. It’s intense, controlled, but desperate. I melt into him, holding on like he’s the only solid thing in a spinning world.
When we break apart, we’re breathing hard.
“That was—” I start.
“A mistake,” he finishes, but doesn’t let go of me.
“Right. A mistake.”
“We should forget this happened.”
“Absolutely.”
But neither of us moves. We stand there, wrapped in each other in the moonlight, both knowing we’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross.
That’s when we hear it—the sound of a truck turning into my driveway.
The headlights sweep across the yard, illuminating both of us in stark detail, me in my barely- there pajamas, Wyatt’s hands still on me, our lips swollen from kissing. Dad’s truck, barreling up to the house.
“Shit,” I breathe, my heart hammering for entirely different reasons now. “I thought he was at home in bed.”
Wyatt doesn’t waste time with words. He grabs his toolbox in one hand and my wrist in the other, pulling me toward the barn. His grip is firm but gentle, and even in our panic, I’m aware of how his thumb strokes across my pulse point.
“Move,” he mutters, and I don’t argue.
We run, slipping through the barn door just as Dad’s truck rounds the corner of the house.
The barn is dark and dusty, smelling of hay and old leather and the faint scent of horses from when we used to board them here.
My eyes haven’t adjusted yet, and I can barely see anything except a sliver of moonlight through the cracks in the walls.
Wyatt pulls the door closed, leaving a crack to see through. In the darkness, he misjudges the space and pulls me against him, my back to his chest. We’re pressed together in the narrow space between the door and a stack of hay bales, both of us breathing hard.
“Is he getting out?” Wyatt whispers, his breath hot against my ear.
I peer through the crack, trying to ignore how every inch of my back is pressed against Wyatt’s front, how I can feel his heart racing against my spine. “Not yet. He’s just sitting there.”
“Checking his phone?”
“Probably. Hard to tell.” My voice comes out shaky because Wyatt’s hand is on my hip and his thumb has found that strip of bare skin again.
“Or wondering why the fence rail looks different than it did this morning.”
I hadn’t thought of that. The new wood is lighter than the old post, and Dad notices everything when it comes to property maintenance. “Think he’ll notice?”
“He’ll definitely notice.” Wyatt shifts slightly, and I have to bite back a gasp as his body presses more firmly against mine.
“Great. So now I have to explain where I got the materials and the tools to do a professional-quality repair job at midnight.”
“Just tell him the truth.” His hand tightens on my hip.
“That a McCoy fixed our fence? He’ll have a stroke.”
“Better than him thinking you’re sneaking around with some other guy.” There’s something possessive in his voice that makes heat pool in my belly.
“Who says I’m not?”
Wyatt’s body goes rigid against mine, his hand tightening almost painfully. “Are you?”
“No. But Dad doesn’t know that.”
“Right.” He relaxes slightly, but pulls me closer.
We fall silent, listening to the sound of Dad’s truck idling in the driveway.
I’m hyperaware of every point of contact between us—Wyatt’s chest against my back, his arm around my waist, his thigh pressed between mine because of how we’re positioned.
The kiss we just shared is still tingling on my lips, and being this close to him in the dark is making me dizzy with want.
Every time one of us breathes, we create a friction that’s driving me insane. When I shift slightly to see better through the crack, I feel exactly how affected he is by our position.
“Sorry,” he whispers, but he doesn’t move away.
“Don’t be,” I breathe back, and I feel him inhale.
“Callie—”
“Shh.”
Dad’s truck door finally opens, and we both freeze. Footsteps crunch across the gravel, slow and deliberate. He’s checking on something.
Through the crack in the door, I can see him walking back toward the fence, a flashlight in his hand. The beam of light sweeps dangerously close to the barn.
“He’s looking at your handiwork,” I breathe.
“Good or bad?”
“Can’t tell.” I lean forward slightly to see better, which presses my ass directly against Wyatt. His sharp intake of breath makes me realize what I’ve done, but when I try to shift away, his arm tightens around my waist.
Dad plays the flashlight beam along the new rail, then steps closer to examine it. He runs his hand along the wood, testing its stability the same way Wyatt did.
“He knows it’s new,” I whisper.
“Obviously.” Wyatt’s voice is strained, and I realize I’m unconsciously rocking against him with each breath.
“What’s he going to think?”
“That someone fixed his fence.” His hand slides from my waist to my stomach.
“That’s not helpful.”
“You asked.” His lips brush my ear as he speaks, and I bite my lip to keep from making a sound.
Dad stands there for what feels like an hour but is probably only a few minutes. Then he turns off the flashlight and heads toward the house.
We wait until we hear the front door close before either of us moves.
“Coast is clear,” I say, but neither of us steps apart.
“Probably should stay put for a few more minutes. Make sure he’s not coming back out.” His thumb is stroking circles on my stomach.
“Good thinking.” My voice comes out breathier than intended.
But staying put means staying pressed together in the dark barn, and I’m becoming increasingly aware of everything—how good Wyatt smells, how solid he feels, how his breathing has gotten rougher, how his arousal is pressing insistently against me.
“You okay?” he asks quietly, his voice rough.
“Yeah. You?”
“Fine.” But his voice suggests he’s anything but fine.
“Your toolbox is digging into my side.”
“Sorry.” He shifts position, which somehow brings us even closer together. Now I can feel every hard plane of his body, and the thin fabric of my pajamas might as well not exist. “Better?”
“Yeah.” The word comes out as more of a moan.
We should move apart now. Dad’s inside, the crisis is over, there’s no reason to stay huddled together in the dark.
But neither of us moves.
“Callie,” Wyatt says, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“We should probably talk about what happened out there.”
“You mean the kiss?” I turn my head slightly, and his lips are right there, close enough to feel his breath.
“Yeah. The kiss.”
“What about it?”
“It was a mistake.” But his hand is sliding under the hem of my top, his fingers hot against my bare skin.
“Right. A mistake.” I arch slightly into his touch.
“Something that shouldn’t happen again.” His mouth finds my neck, lips barely grazing the sensitive skin.
“Definitely not.” I tilt my head to give him better access.