Her plans.Something inside his ribcage spasmed painfully.“True.And if I’d thought about it for half a moment instead of attacking first…well.All I can say is that I was wrong.I have no excuse.”
Tilting her head to one side, Gemma studied his face as though she could read every jumbled emotion and passing thought scrolling behind his eyes.Hell, maybe she could, because she said, “You could always try making it up to me.”
Between one breath and the next, Hal hardened so fast it made his head swim dizzily.
Looking over his shoulder, Hal scanned the courtyard for any hint of movement.All was quiet, the entire village engaged in celebrating together inside the taproom of Five Mile House.
Something heavy and warm settled low in Hal’s body, throbbing an insistent beat.They were not alone, a crowd of people mere steps away—but somehow it felt as though they were the only two people in the world.
For the first time in days, days of watching her laugh with Bess and bestow that dazzling smile on anyone whose help she needed, days of being shocked at the way she threw herself into the hard, physical labor of renovating the inn—for the first time in all those days of being unable to reach out and touch the living, breathing flame of a woman in front of him…she was suddenly within his grasp.
For this moment, at least, she was his.
The abrupt realization of their closeness, this stolen moment of privacy in the midst of the crowd, gave Hal a heady sensation that slowed his movements.He watched in fascination, almost as if it were someone else’s hand, as his large, work-roughened palm lifted to touch the line of her jaw.
His fingers cupped her cheek, stroking with the tips to wake her shiver, and the spark of molten blue flared to life in her eyes.She sucked in a breath, her gorgeous breasts lifting toward him like an offering wrapped in silk the color of dawn breaking.
“We shouldn’t,” he muttered as her hand came up to grasp his wrist, but she didn’t push him away.Instead, her slim fingers curled around him and clung, as though her knees were wobbling.
Hal could help with that.Pulling her to him with an arm across her shoulder blades, he relished the way she swayed like a sapling, the lush curves of her sweet body yielding to him instinctively.
“We definitely should,” she moaned, and her eyelids fluttered like a dreamer about to wake.
They were pressed together from chest to hip, her skirts swirling around their legs.When he stepped forward to crowd her against the stall door, his thigh slipped between hers and she gave a ragged moan that he caught with his lips.
She tasted like spring water, like sunshine and air and everything Hal needed in order to live.He groaned into her mouth and she turned to fire in his arms.Her eyes flew open and her hands clutched at his hair, pulling his head down so she could take control of the kiss.Hal let her move him where she would, enjoying the flex and curl of her fingers at his nape and the greedy, stinging bite of her fierce kisses as she mouthed along his bearded chin to latch onto his throat.
When her white teeth closed on the bunched muscle of his shoulder where it joined his neck, it was as if a line had been cast between that spot and his aching cock, and every strong suckle at his throat tugged on that line until his erection was straining against the waistband of his homespun trousers.
He reached down to adjust himself, but jolted and stared into her heart-of-the-flame blue eyes when her small hand shot down to catch his.
“Let me,” she husked out, her throaty voice going straight to the pulsing rod of iron in his pants.
It was Hal’s turn to feel as though his knees might give out at any second.“I’m supposed to be making it up to you.”
“You can.By giving me exactly what I want.”
With a muttered curse, he let go of her to grip the edges of the stall’s half-door on either side of her head.Beeswax huffed and turned her back on them.
Hal’s whole body curved around Gemma, sheltering her from view, keeping her safe, keeping here there, with him, where she should always be—where she would only be for this short space of time, time that was fleeting and flitting away so swiftly it felt as though Hal could never keep up.
The heated delirium of desire seemed to throb and expand to fill the scant space between them as Gemma licked her kiss-bruised lips and dropped her hand to trace the line of his waistband.He wore braces, no belt, and it took no time at all for her clever, questing fingers to find the fastening for his trousers.
He sucked in a breath at the brush of the back of her hand over the taut, straining flesh of his manhood as she struggled with his clothing.Gemma paused, her wicked smile widening in delight, and Hal growled, “Christ.You’re going to kill me.”
She leaned up on her tippy toes to nip at his clenched jaw.“This is what I want.It’s my turn to take you apart.”
Of course all that heated whisper did was to remind Hal of the shocked, shivery way she’d climaxed while riding his fingers.The memory of the hot honey of her response coating his hand had Hal hardening further until every breath hurt.
Gemma, his sweet, merciful goddess, chose that moment to take him in hand.Hal’s focus sharpened to the bare inches between them.His pants sagged open, the loose hem of his coarse linen shirt puddling over her delicate wrist and obscuring the movement of her hand.It was torture that he couldn’t see what she was doing.
But he could feel it.And that was its own form of torture.
The surface of his skin seemed alive with prickling torments, sensitive to the lightest tickling of her fingertips down the length of his cock.Not that Gemma, his bold, brave girl, kept it light for long.
After measuring his length by tracing the thick, heavy vein that roped down the underside of his prick, Gemma gave him a look from under her lashes that nearly singed the hair from his head—and grasped his cock in a firm, knowing grip that felt like pure and unadulterated heaven.
Hal grated out a harsh sound he didn’t recognize, squeezing his eyes shut even as she ruthlessly squeezed a stroke up to the very tip of his weeping penis.There she paused, circling the tip of her thumb through the sticky evidence of his passion before using it to slick her glide back down.The wooden planks of the stall door creaked under Hal’s fists, biting into his hands in a way that did not hurt at the moment, but probably would later.
