I can’t speak around the emotion in my throat, so I nod.
She sobs and dances, as if she’s on hot coals.
I already know I’m going to buy her ten more horses. Maybe thirty.
Lord, she’s almost too beautiful in the sunset, glowing and happy in her party dress. How did I make it three full days without hearing her voice? Absorbing her happy light into my skin? I’ve been living in pure agony since the second she walked out my door.
Never again. I will never,everhurt her feelings again.
“Mighty generous of you, Mr. Morgan,” says Billie’s father, eyeing me with more than a little wariness. Why wouldn’t he? I’m a veritable stranger, nearly twice his daughter’s age, and I’ve just shown up out of the blue with the intention to marry her. My asshole nature rears up and I almost tell the man to mind his own business, but I…want him to like me.
How fucking annoying.
“I’m going to give her everything,” I say, my voice rusty. “You don’t have to worry about her. I’d stand between her and a speeding train.”
“Based on the way you look at her, I believe you.”
I grunt, strangely overcome.
“Why don’t you show your mare her new stall?” Billie’s father calls to her. “I’ll ask your mother to keep your supper warm until later.”
Billie smiles at the suggestion, taking the mare by her bridle, guiding her to the barn, which is located across the yard from the house. “Knox,” she calls softly. “Do you want to come with me to get her settled?”
I’m already striding to join her.
Jumping at the chance to be alone with my girl after three days of famine.
Billie’s father goes back inside and it’s just the two of us, guiding the horse into the barn. Sunset has come to pass, filling the barn with dark orange light, animals shifting in their stalls at our approach. I walk behind Billie, choked up by the way she beams at me over her shoulder. Turned on by the way her dress clings to her ass cheeks. I haven’t been inside of her in days, and the lack of pleasure, the kind only she gives me, is taking a toll.
Trying to keep my breathing under control, I lean against a post and watch her guide the mare into a stall. “What are you going to call her?”
She gives me a secret smile. “Peaches, I think.”
I give her a fake eye roll. “You’re never going to let it go that I ate that goddamn pie, are you?”
“Nope.” She gives Peaches a final nuzzle, then closes the door of the stall, sauntering toward me slowly. “Did you ever get around to making your own? When we ran into you in the market, I saw you had all the ingredients in your basket.”
An image of my messy, destroyed kitchen comes to mind. The sound of my frustrated curses. “I made a pitiful attempt. It didn’t taste as good as yours.”
Billie stops in front of me, stroking a hand up the front of my shirt. “Nothing tastes as good as mine,” she murmurs, her blue gaze flickering to my mouth.
Mercy.
My loins ripple and I almost ejaculate on the spot.
Groaning brokenly, sexually pained beyond belief, I hoist Billie off the ground into my arms, her legs winding around my hips with such precision, that pussy finds merightwhere I need it, applying pressure to my hard cock. Holding onto my shoulders, she grinds on me, pressing her forehead to mine and looking me square in the eye while she does it. Within seconds, my future wife has got me panting like a dog, my hands racing to get beneath her dress. To get those buns in my hands and knead them like dough.
“I can feel how bad you need me,” she whispers, haltingly, her tongue lapping at my upper lip. “Bring me into the darkness and take what you need.”
I’m almost embarrassed by the desperate sound I make before my mouth consumes hers. I’m ill from going without her taste for too long. Ill. Now, I’m forcing her lips wide to reach her tongue and stroking it, getting in deep licks that make her tremble against me. Somehow, I gather enough awareness of our surroundings to stumble into a shadowed corner of the barn, carrying her into a nook at the end of the row of stalls. I press her back up against soft bales of hay, my hands raking up and down her bare thighs.
“I was a monster, Billie,” I whisper, both of us breathing hard in between kisses. “I was an absolute bastard. Please forgive me. Not only for that last afternoon, but the way I tried to scare you off and keep you close at the same time. I didn’t see you coming. I didn’t know how to handle what you made me feel.”
“I know,” she whispers, stroking the sides of my face. “I forgive you.”
My voice is ragged, my relief sky high. “I don’t deserve such easy forgiveness.” My open mouth roams up the side of her neck. “I don’t deserve you, either.”
“Yes, you do.” She waits until I’m looking her in the eye, then she says words I never expected to hear in my lifetime.Especially not from someone so extraordinary. “If you didn’t deserve me, I never could have fallen in love with you.”
