The light changes, flickering, fluttering like candle flame.
The horses vanish into hazy silhouettes. The walls blur around us, wooden planks turning soft, indistinct.
Jesse’s hands slip from my waist only to reappear on my hips without any sense of movement. His hands edge lower to where I’m throbbing for him.
My legs stumble apart.
His thumb slides beneath my waistband, slow and daring. Lightning flashes under my skin. I want to tell him to stop. I want to tell him to never, ever stop.
His other hand comes up, fingers threading through my hair, tilting my head until his mouth is at my ear.
“I think about you all the time,” he breathes, so low that my spine curves for him. “Every fucking time I touch myself.”
My knees buckle, but he holds me up, strong arms bracketing me against the warm, sunlit wood, caging me without trapping. It’s the safest I’ve felt and the most dangerous.
He kisses my throat, my collarbone, the tiny hollow where my pulse hammers like a trapped bird. Just heat and gravity and the pull of something old as the land itself.
His hand dips lower, cupping me firmly through my jeans. My hips jerk, need boiling up inside me, embarrassing and helpless.
He grins into my neck, lips brushing the feverish skin.
“Oh fuck…” I say, and his thumb strokes bare skin, the button on my jeans already unfastened, my zipper halfway down.
He bites my shoulder, playful, and a little bit mean, and I whimper, really whimper, at the jolt that rockets straight to where his hand is working.
He tugs my jeans and underwear down over my hips and thighs so I’m half naked in broad daylight, footsteps and birdsong and some old wind chime from the neighbor’s porch echoing up the hill.
I don’t even care. He’s pressed so close I couldn’t move if I wanted to.
And I don’t want to.
Jesse’s hands, those strong, work-roughened hands, slide back up my thighs. The air hums with heat, with want, with that dark pull between us that feels older than both of us.
“Look at you,” he murmurs roughly. “Shaking for me already.”
I’m trembling everywhere, breath catching in tiny, humiliating gasps. My back arches instinctively, chasing his body, his warmth, his weight.
He grins like he knew I’d do that. “Good girl.”
The words hit so deep I swear the ground tilts.
My knees nearly give out, and he catches me without effort, hauling me closer until my chest presses hard against his. His grip on my hip tightens, possessive, guiding me exactly where he wants me.
“You feel what you’re doing to me?” he growls against my throat. His hips shift, and a soft, startled cry escapes me. “Yeah. That.”
His hand drifts up my spine, fingers spreading, holding me in place as he lowers his mouth to mine.
The kiss is devastating. Hungry. Dominant. Impatient.
He kisses me like he can’t breathe without it, like he’s starved and I’m the only thing he’ll ever want again. My hands fist in his shirt, dragging him closer, desperate and unthinking.
I’ve never wanted anything this badly. Not even air.
His fingers slide under my shirt, palm splayed over my stomach, gliding upward with sinful, coaxing pressure.
My breath stutters. My head drops back. A low sound tears from my throat, helpless, needy…
He loves it.
