“Izzy,” he said, voice rough against her skin.
She shivered.
Not from the cold.
His hands slid over her ribs, his thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts, and her head tipped back against the wall.
“Grant—”
He kissed her again.
Slower this time. Deeper.
The kind of kiss that made it hard to remember where she was.
His forehead rested against hers for one breathless second.
“I’m going to regret this,” he said.
“Then don’t think about tomorrow.”
His eyes closed.
When he opened them again, they were darker.
His hand slid to the button of her jeans, his palm flat and searing against her stomach, pressing her back until the iron of a stirrup bit into her hip. He groaned against her mouth, a dark, needy sound?—
CRASH.
The sound exploded through the barn.
The yearling kicked the stall door hard enough to shake the walls. A horse farther down the aisle whinnied sharply.
Outside, thunder rolled again, sharp enough that it sounded like a gun going off somewhere up in the dark.
Grant went still.
For a long moment, he didn’t move, muscles locked, hands clamped on her hips. His fingers tightened until it was almost bruising, all that want coiled in his grip as he forced himself to hold the line. When he finally dragged his mouth away, a rough sound escaped him, shaking through both of them.
Then he tore himself back.
Every muscle in his body screamed to stay right there, to forget the storm and every shred of good sense he had.
“No.”
“Grant—”
“I’ve got a farm to run,” he managed, clinging to the words like a handhold.
He turned away too fast.
Two steps toward the door—then stopped, one hand closing around the frame hard.
“Christ.”
The word sounded ripped out of him, swallowed a second later by a long, low rumble of thunder—like the mountains were keeping score.
He dragged a hand over his face, then looked back at her over his shoulder. He paused in the doorway as he cast one final look at her. She stood amid the shadows of the tack room, half-undressed and shivering, her pale skin glowing against the dark, oiled leather, looking like the kind of thing a man carries for the rest of his life.
