Like a threat.
Like a promise.
She stares up at me, eyes wide, chest rising and falling rapidly.
I can see her pulse hammering in her throat, can practically hear her heart racing. "My father will kill you."
"He can try."
"The club?—"
"Can get in line."
"I'm twenty-six. You're?—"
"Forty-six. I know. Don't care." I let my eyes drop to her lips, then back up to meet her gaze. "Twenty years between us, and it doesn't matter. None of it matters."
"This is insane," she whispers.
"Probably."
But I don't move away, and neither does she.
We stand there in the barn, the evening sun painting everything gold, the smell of hay and horses and possibility thick in the air.
The distant sound of laughter from the house, someone calling for dessert, the ordinary sounds of family.
And we're here, balanced on the edge of something that will change everything.
Grace looks up at me with those big blue eyes, and I watch her make the decision.
Watch the moment she stops fighting what's between us.
Watch her surrender to the inevitable.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
Everything.
I'm going to do everything.
But not here. Not now. Not in her father's barn with the whole club fifty yards away, where anyone could walk in and see us.
I lean in close, let my lips brush the shell of her ear, and whisper: "Meet me tonight. Midnight. The north pasture gate."
Then I step back before I do something stupid.
Before I kiss her right here where anyone could see.
Before I give in to the years of want and need and barely controlled obsession that's threatening to consume us both.
Grace is trembling, staring at me like I've lost my mind.
Maybe I have.
"Midnight," I repeat, my voice low and rough. "If you don't show, I'll know you're not ready. But Grace?" I hold her gaze and let her see everything I've been hiding. "If you do show up, there's no going back. You're mine after that. Completely. Do you understand?"
She nods slowly, her eyes never leaving mine.
