“Only if you want. No pressure, no expectations. I just…” I search for words. “I want to touch you. I want to know what you sound like when you’re not holding back.”
“We don’t have… I mean, we’re in a barn.”
“You’ve never wanted to get a little naughty out here?” I arch a brow and lean a little closer, half because of my ankle and half because I need to feel her against more of my body.
Understanding dawns in her eyes, followed immediately by want. “Oh.”
“Is that a yes?”
Instead of answering, she kisses me again, harder this time, with an urgency that makes my head spin. Her hands slide under my shirt, fingernails scraping lightly against my chest, and I groan against her mouth.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Definitely yes.”
I ease her onto the hay, mindful of the scratchy surface, kissing my way down her neck while she arches beneath me.
“Wait.” She spins out from beneath my body and yanks a blanket from where it’s draped on a beam. “The hay is poky.” She smooths out the blanket as I watch and then nestles her body into the makeshift nest. “Okay, continue.”
I huff a laugh at her enthusiasm, but hurry to pick up where I stopped. I shove her layers out of the way, licking her exposed skin. She smells like vanilla and wood smoke and something uniquely her I want to memorize.
“Tell me what you like,” I murmur against her collarbone.
“I don’t know. I mean, I know what I like when I’m alone, but with someone else…” She sounds breathless, uncertain.
I meet her eye, aware that she is telling me her previous partners haven’t prioritized her. The thought overwhelms me when all I can think about is her—her pleasure, her needs, her strong and capable body. I swallow a growl. “We’ll figure it out together.”
I take my time, despite the throb in my borrowed pants, learning the sensitive spot just below her ear that makes her gasp. She shivers when I kiss the hollow of her throat. When I reach for the hem of her sweater, she helps me pull it over her head, revealing a simple cotton bra that somehow looks incredibly sexy in the golden barn light.
She trembles briefly, and I nestle closer to her, hoping to lend her my heat. “You’re beautiful.”
“I’m practical,” she says, but she’s smiling.
“You’re beautiful and practical. And absolutely perfect.”
I kiss my way across her collarbone, down to the soft swell of her breasts, taking my time while she runs her fingers through my hair. It feels so good to be with her this way, tinkering with her magnificent body, invited to explore and touch and sip as much as I want.
And I want. I want very badly.
When I reach for the band of her bra, she nods, and I free her breasts to the chilly air.
“Reed,” she breathes when I take one nipple into my mouth, and the sound goes straight to my cock.
I lavish attention on her breasts while working her jeans open, taking cues from the sounds she makes and the way her hips move beneath me. When I slide my hand inside her panties, she’s already wet.
“God, Eliza,” I murmur against her skin. “You feel incredible. How are you real?” This smart, sassy woman who challenges me in every way is finally bared beneath me, and her body is responding.
To me.
She pulls my head up for another kiss, this one desperate and demanding. I stroke her slowly at first, delighting in each hitch of her breath, each spasm of her abs.
“You’re so wet,” I murmur into her mouth, matching the thrusting of my finger inside her with the stroke of my tongue inside her mouth. All the energy of the past few weeks, all the tension about my business and my budding infatuation with this tornado of a woman culminate in the pulsing, gasping, shuddering experience here in a haystack.
When Eliza groans and stutters out my name, I pick up the pace and increase the pressure of my thumb above her folds, watching her face release as she gets closer to the edge.
“I’m going to…” she gasps.
“Let go,” I tell her. “I’ve got you.”
When she comes, it’s with a soft cry that echoes through the barn, her body tensing and then melting beneath my touch. I work her through it, kissing her neck and whispering how amazing she is until the aftershocks fade.
