“You’re shakin’.” It’s observation, not worry. He likes it. I can hear it.
“Maybe I’m cold,” I lie, because being at his mercy makes me brave in the most reckless ways.
He huffs, amused, then cages me in, forearms braced on either side of my head, rope brushing his skin. “You ain’t cold,” he says. “But I’ll warm you up anyhow.”
He kisses me again, deeper this time, like he’s tasted the first rain and now he wants the storm. The hay rustles beneath us, punctuating the little noises I make when he does that thing with his tongue, when he pulls back to catch my bottom lip between his teeth and then soothes it with a sweep that makes my toes curl in my boots.
“Hands okay?” he asks, breath a little rougher. He doesn’t take his eyes off my mouth.
“Mm-hmm.” I tug again, just to feel the drag, the reminder. “I like it.”
“I know.” Pride twines through his voice. “I can feel it on you.”
He bites back a smile when I blush and then crowds me, all quiet power, his chest against mine, his thigh pressing between mine just enough to make me forget why I thought words were useful. I chase the friction without thinking. He groans, low and grateful, and it lights me up from the inside.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, guiding me, coaxing me. “Use me.”
The barn might as well be another planet. It’s just us and the rope and the slow, careful rhythm he sets, the way he kisses me like he’s promising to end me soft and put me back together sweeter. My head falls back against the rope as his mouth finds my throat again. My hips find a pace that makes my breath stutter. I don’t say please. I don’t have to. He hears it anyway.
“Good girl.” The praise slides through me, molten. He noses along my jaw, breath hot, words even hotter. “Look at me when you let go.”
I do, eyes on his, the world narrowing to that line between us, to the way he looks at me like I hung the stars he works under. My hands flex in the rope, not to get free—just to feel it, to know I could. The choice hums under my skin like a secret. He’s close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, the focus there, the way he’s holding himself on a tight, tender leash for me.
When it breaks inside me, it’s quiet and deep, a wave that steals my breath and gives it back newer. I bite his name into his shoulder, and he exhales a curse that sounds like worship and holds me through it, strong, patient, steady.
“Easy,” he says, kissing the corner of my mouth, my cheek, my hairline. “There you go. Breathe.”
I do, shaky and smiling, a little dazed. He waits, foreheads touching, our breaths evening together. When my knees soften, he’s already there, hand at my waist, one arm under my thighs, lifting like I weigh nothing. He turns us, sets me gently on the hay bales, warm and prickly under my legs. The rope brushes my wrists. He reaches up and loosens the knot with deft fingers, slower than he tied it, careful like he’s unwrapping something that matters.
“How’re your hands?” he asks, massaging my wrists with his thumbs. He kisses the red crescent where the rope sat, both sides, like a benediction.
“I can still feel you,” I say, which is not an answer and exactly the truth.
“That’s the idea.” He smiles then, open and wicked, and I want to frame that smile and hang it on a nail where I can see it every day. He drapes the rope around my neck like a scarf, soft and silly, then takes it back with a tug that says we could keep playing until the sunrise finds us.
“Want more?” he asks, voice a rasp that curls low in my belly. “Or you want me to take you slow and sweet ’til the crickets fall asleep?”
I slide my hands up his chest, feeling the heat and strength and the steady thud of his heart under my palms. I hook a finger in his belt again and tug him closer, greedy and honest.
“We can’t do this. You know that,” I say, even though there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
He smiles, slow and lazy, like he can see through my lies. He’s always known me too well. Better than I know myself. “Maybe I need to be reminded every now and then.”
ELEVEN
NASH
I should be asleep.
That’s what a normal man does after a day of busted fence lines, suspicious trucks, and pretending his entire childhood heartbreak is just a “cover story.” He sleeps. He lets his body power down.
Instead, I’m awake in a dark guest room, staring at the ceiling like it might hand me absolution if I stare hard enough.
The house is quiet in that old ranch way—wood settling, the faint hum of the AC, a far-off horse shifting in the paddock. Every sound is familiar enough to be soothing, and still my nerves refuse to unclench. My mind keeps circling the same two things like a working dog that doesn’t know when to quit:
A clean cut wire under my flashlight.
Delaney’s breath catching in the barn.
