“Beautiful,” he whispered, staring at the way her hair fluttered in the breeze, at the pink tips of her breasts.
She cupped his face, dragging her fingertips down his jawline. “You too,” she whispered.
“Ride me,” he said, gripping her hips, his fingers digging into her skin.
And only right then did he remember his promise. That he would protect her.
“Shit,” he said. “Protection.”
She scrambled off him and went to his jeans, searching hopefully for a wallet, which she found quickly, and pulled out a condom.
She tore it open, then gave it back to him. He sheathed himself quickly, bringing her back over him. “I told you, you can trust me,” he said.
And that broke her. She smiled, but stopped at the same time, moving herself over his body, and bringing herself down over him slowly. He thought he was going to die. As he entered her body, inch by excruciating inch. She was so tight. So perfect. For him.
And when she began to move, it was a revelation. The sun behind her, beams of light crowning behind her like a halo as she rocked him. Destroyed everything he’d ever believed about himself and about the world and rebuilt it into something he didn’t recognize.
Something he had never really thought could exist.
Pleasure was like a wild beast inside of him, roaring for its satisfaction. But it was nothing compared to the riot of emotion in his chest. It was what made this undeniable. It was what made it all-consuming.
He held her hips, bucking up inside of her, even as she rode, and when they reached their peak, it was together. Crying out their pleasure with no thought to anything but desire. And if it carried out on the wind, he sure as hell didn’t care.
She collapsed on his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. Stroking her hair, kissing her face.
“Don’t you tell me it’s done,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to,” she said softly.
“Thank you,” he said. “For trusting me enough.”
She nodded, and he realized his chest was wet, and she was crying.
“You okay?”
“No,” she said.
“I don’t know if I am either.” He let his fingertips trail up and down her shoulder. “But I’d rather be not okay with you.”
“Than what?”
“I don’t know. Not okay by myself? Perfectly fine by myself?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face there. “Yeah. Me too.”
“But?”
“No but. Except I should probably get back. I’m supposed to have dinner at Sawyer’s tonight.”
“Right. Well, you wouldn’t want to miss that.”
“I’m just going to have to get home and clean up and...” She looked up at him. “We are going to have to be careful.”
“How about we just don’t plan it. When you start making proclamations things go bad.”
“You just made a whole lot of proclamations,” she said.
“I did. But when I make them they end with you climbing on top of me. So I’m in favor of them.”
“That is...that is deeply male of you.”
He grinned. “But you like it.”
She socked his shoulder, and he let his head fall back in the grass. Because she had punched him. And he was still inside her. And things felt right.
“I have to go,” she said, moving away from him.
But she didn’t run. She got dressed slowly, and he held her hand all the way back to the barn. Until they might see somebody. Then she pulled away.
But he didn’t.
He hadn’t given much thought to his lack of care over whether or not anyone found out. And it was clear that she cared, so he was going to have to at least give that some consideration. But he wondered why he didn’t.
What it meant.
He supposed it couldn’t really mean much of anything.
“I’ll see you,” she said.
“Don’t give me that,” he said. He gave a quick look around, then kissed her. “Now I’ll see you.”
As he watched her walk back to her truck, he felt a sense of certainty lodge itself in his chest.
But he knew that she wasn’t ready to hear about it. Not at all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE NEXT FEW days went by in a sensual whirlwind. She and Hunter worked, and they had sex. Nothing like the long, leisurely sex they’d had in the hotel when they’d spent the night together—it was always quick and dirty, somewhere outside, somewhere in the barn. On lunch or toward the tail end of the workday.
And Elsie felt like her head was spinning. Pretending like everything was fine and normal when she saw her brothers, when she saw Alaina, and being completely caught up in everything that was happening between the two of them all the rest of the time.
And then it was already a town hall, and she’d forgotten that she was supposed to help get everything ready for the evening.
She had to tell Hunter that she couldn’t come to the barn, and all she could think of was how disappointed she was that she wasn’t going to be able to have sex with him again.
She was entirely preoccupied with that thought when she walked into her sister-in-law’s kitchen.
Violet, nine months pregnant, was sitting at the kitchen table with a piecrust rolled out in front of her, and Evelyn was standing at the stove stirring the pot.
“There you are,” Evelyn said brightly.
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m completely thrown off. It was...going to Vancouver last weekend. Ever since, I haven’t had any clue what day it is.”
“Understandable,” Evelyn said, smiling.
She felt a little bit guilty about lying to Evelyn, but in a sense it was true. Because she really hadn’t known what day it was, or which direction was up or down, or even her own name for the last week. It was just that it had less to do with Vancouver and more to do with the constant orgasms.
“Where’s Bug?” she asked, speaking of her niece.
“She’s with Sawyer. She doesn’t last as long out on jobs with him as she did when she could just ride in a front pack, but she gets a kick out of spending as much time with him outdoors as possible. I imagine it’s a lot what you were like.”
For some reason, that made her feel guilty. Maybe because she was sneaking around and lying to everybody. Maybe she was just going to live under a cloud of guilt until all of this finished.