Chapter 12 #2
Kyla shifted and took a step toward the blanket.
One palm grazed his belt, deliberate. She stopped to let her knuckles drift over his waistband.
Not rough, but not soft either. She claimed the last word before anything started.
Her other hand set on her own hip with fingers splayed in the fabric of her dress.
A draft found them. Hay rustled underfoot. Nothing moved except the spread of moonlight cold and bright through the open loading door. Here in the loft, the world shrank to straw, breathing, and the geometry of her outline.
He willed himself to silence and swallowed whatever impulse would have made him blurt a reassurance. She did not want that. Instead, he stood with his hips brushing her thigh and waited.
He had carried plenty in his life. Half a town’s worth of chores and the myth of Brooks self-reliance. Giving her this felt different. Letting her drive. He felt it right behind his breastbone. The raw promise not to reach first. Every muscle stayed tight under her regard.
She crouched with her knee creasing the blanket. Her gaze slid across his. Titus caught her scent again, richer up close. Pepper and the ghost of something from her kitchen lingering. She made no move to speak. Her eyes held him.
This was new territory. Her taking. Him waiting. Each second stretched long and unbroken. He let his boots shift just enough for her knee to brush the side of his.
Kyla flicked a glance to the mirror. Her jaw tightened in a way that said she would use every advantage he offered and then some. The air between them charged with a hesitation that searched for release.
The cold found its way beneath his shirt.
Sweat cooled at the small of his back. His hands refused to close and his nails pressed into his palms. Still, he refused to step ahead of her or give even the smallest push.
This moment was hers to claim and his to offer.
He caught himself holding his breath and forced it out.
She leaned in. Her mouth brushed the edge of his jaw. Her fingers settled on the buttons of his shirt and traced a slow pattern. Moonlight cut along the planes of her arm.
Her knee pressed firm between his. In every motion she signaled that tonight she chose. He met her stare and gave her nothing to hide behind. The mask had been stripped from both their faces.
Kyla’s hands bracketed his shoulders and bore him down with the certainty in her grip. The hay crackled under his spine. Titus let her arrange him.
The urge to touch warred with a discipline older than want. Her knee pressed his hip. Her lips skimmed his throat. Then she pinned him flat with her fingers already dragging at his belt.
He went still.
Heat raced everywhere she mapped with her palms. She stripped him piece by piece. Shirt peeled back. Rough cotton raked over his chest. Callused hands followed the line of his stomach.
He felt cool air follow the sweep of her fingers. His body lifted into her touch. Every instinct to take over stayed smothered by the promise that tonight he would give her everything.
She knelt astride him with strong thighs bracing his hips. Her hands moved lower. She popped the button on his jeans and slid down the zipper while she drew out each motion so it branded.
Titus wanted to look at her but kept his gaze on the crossbeams overhead. His fingers knotted in the blanket and searched for somewhere to put all that waited inside his chest. He gave her his body with trust raw and uncovered. His breath rattled every time her fingertips scraped skin.
His jeans and briefs came down in one go. He sucked in a breath at the shock of air and left his legs loose at her mercy. Kyla did not hesitate. She tugged her own shirt over her head. Shoulders broad. Skin gold in the lantern glow. Breastbone rising fast with her heartbeat.
She shifted onto her knees. Dress shucked and kicked aside. The mirror stood at the ready behind her.
Titus stared up, helpless and hungry. Every muscle tried to tense but he forced his arms to stay at his sides. She straddled his hips with knees wide and lowered herself.
Hair tumbled in coils over one shoulder. Mouth parted in a line of intent. He kept still when her hand closed around him and guided him between her thighs.
One stroke.
Two.
Then she set herself above him and with a single tilt of her hips took him inside, inch by aching inch. The heat of her wet and ready undid him. His hips jumped. A flash of embarrassment sparked hot across his chest.
She stayed planted and seated herself all the way until her hips pressed tight against his. Only then did she reach behind and grab the hand mirror. She angled it so her face and the motion of their joining reflected back at her.
Titus did not dare move.
Every cell screamed for release, for friction, for his turn. Instead, he let the image work on him. The way her mouth tightened. How her fingers marked the skin above his knees. The roll of her hips setting the pace.
She watched herself ride him with eyes flicking up from glass to him and back again. Power showed there. Pleasure. Pride in making him wait without words.
The angle let her track how he vanished inside her and how her own body gave way. All of it bared for both to see. Titus’s hands shot up and gripped the sides of her thighs, but he kept them loose and resisted the urge to seize or lose the thread.
Her rhythm started slow.
She drove down, lifted, then rocked forward with muscles shifting under skin. Titus strained for permission. His breath hiccupped. Sweat prickled under his arms. His hips shook under restraint.
He stared at her in the mirror. Mouth open. Brow furrowed. Helpless in a way that both shamed and thrilled him. Kyla’s lashes fanned over her cheek. Her bottom lip looked bitten.
His name worked loose from her mouth, but she did not stop. She rode him steady, never faster than she willed.
He could not stop a groan raw and sharp that scraped from his lungs.
The mirror wobbled, caught in her one-handed grip.
The reflection blurred with every thrust. The air grew thick.
Every sense narrowed to the slap of her body on his, the drag of hay on his shoulder blades, and her voice pitched low and certain.
Finally, she leaned down. The tip of one breast traced his sternum. Her mouth came inches from his. The mirror clattered onto the blanket. She braced herself with both hands flat on his chest.
“Say it,” she ordered.
Her voice came shredded.
He broke.
His hips arched up but did not dare move without leave. His mouth stayed unsteady.
“Please, Kyla. Please let me move.”
The word please tasted brand new in his throat. He had never used it on anyone but her. Her gaze softened for just a second. She shook her head, barely, and kept him waiting while she owned the moment.
Titus hovered at the edge of himself, dizzy with what he had given over. Her hips lifted again then pressed hard, but he stayed under her, obedient, with nothing left of the man who had once thought control was safety.
The mirror tumbled away.
Kyla planted both palms flat against his chest and drove down hard while she rode him like she meant to mark him deep. Titus gritted his teeth and let her. He held fast, gripped by something deeper than want.
Her head tilted back. Her throat stretched. Every muscle in her body locked tight above him. The air in the loft stuttered with their movement.
He let his hands roam, first clutching her thighs then slipping up her waist, not to take control but to ground himself in the truth of her. Each slam of her hips forced him closer to the edge, but he bit it back with his body shaking from the effort.
Kyla did not bother hiding how close she was. Her cries grew sharper. Breath cut in hard gasps. Fingers dug into the cords of his chest. He let himself dissolve in her need and surrendered entirely.
The last of his pride fell away. Sweat slicked their bodies and made her grip slide. It brought a rawness to each collision of skin.
She came suddenly with a twist that left her shuddering on top of him. Inner muscles gripped him tight enough that his vision speckled black. Her voice broke loose. His name tore out and echoed up to the hayloft’s highest beams.
She looked down at him as she climaxed with hair fallen in wild twists and her eyes never so unguarded. That look stayed with him as a promise he would carry long after the air cooled.
He held her through it with hands sliding up to cradle her hips.
He moved only when her body lost its strength and her sweat mixed with his across his chest. She sucked in two sharp breaths, steadied herself, then leaned down with her forehead pressed to his.
She licked the sweat from his lips, messy and intimate, with nothing delicate left between them.
“Now,” she rasped.
That was all it took.
He bucked up. Control burned away in an instant. His release crashed through, rough and shaking. His hips thrust as deep as her body would take him.
The world shrank to the slide of her skin, the rasp of her breath in his ear, and the solid pressure of her body collapsed over his. He gave her everything with no defense, lost in the permission and in what she had opened between them.
They stayed locked together. His arms shook as they finally wound around her. Kyla pressed her forehead to his. Both of them breathed like they had outrun something dangerous and sweet.
Their legs tangled, hers bracketing his so casual it might have been accidental. His lips pressed to the knot of her shoulder. Kyla’s fingers hunted his and wove through them, locking tight. That small squeeze grounded him as much as breath.
They did not speak. Words were not needed. The air stayed thick with hay, sweat, and the quiet that followed. Out past the eaves, a steer bellowed at the far fenceline. A distant dog barked, barely registering. The rest belonged to them.
Titus settled and breathed in the scent rising from her neck while he memorized how she curled inward now that every barrier had slipped. No urge to move. No need to lead. His chest loosened with space enough to believe in the safety he had found in her.
Their hearts steadied together. He pressed his mouth to the top of her spine and grazed skin gone cool in the night.
Kyla shifted only to drag his hand higher over the arc of her ribs and tuck herself deeper into his frame.
Time ran strange here, measured by the steady drop in moonlight and the barn darkening as the world moved on outside.
Eventually, sleep claimed them, tangled in the hay and the memory of her body taking his while he gave her everything. The lantern’s wick died. He had never wanted to keep anything the way he had guarded power all his life. Tonight, he never wanted it back.