I was barely seated before she reared and whinnied, and I hung on for life. When she came down, I was somehow, gratefully, still seated, and as she took off, I guided her toward the barn, clinging to her with my thighs as my skirt whipped my legs. I kept lock on the sound of hooves behind me as we rounded a bend in the creek where, nestled in a copse of trees, was one of our many ancient barns.
I pulled her to a stop in front of the barn door and slid off, throwing it open and calling them in. The horses ran into the familiar warmth, and once we were inside, I closed the door again with a slam and click of the bar.
The rain pinged and rolled distantly off the roof far above, the wind gone, the barn still. It was an older barn, left to nature. Old piles of gray hay lay in corners, the dirt floor dusted with more. The horses nickered, standing close to each other for warmth and comfort.
I leaned against the door panting, my head against the old pine planks and my eyes on the rafters before they closed. I heard the soft pat, pat, pat of water dripping from every angle of my body, heard my heaving breath and thundering heart. Heard a crash of thunder, then Keaton speaking softly to the horses when they stomped.
They were safe, I told myself. We were all safe.
But my body wasn’t ready to listen, still trembling and sharp from adrenaline and fear. Every hair stood on end, reaching for warmth, for danger.
When my eyes opened, they found both in Keaton.
He searched me with eyes and hands, checking for injury. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Looking up at him, I was anything but. His eyes were dark as they scanned me, his brow low. Fat droplets of water clung to the ends of his wavy locks, dripping on my hands as he inspected them and my arms as he turned me and squeezed. Plaid fabric clung to his chest, to his arms, a perfect cast of his body. Rain and safety clung to him, though he was perhaps the most dangerous thing I’d ever come across. Like lightning thick air, he smelled of shocking heartbreak and electric longing. I couldn’t have him, but I couldn’t seem to stay away.
“I …” It was a word inside of a breath, the only sound I could muster.
His eyes met mine, and no longer could I move. Breathe. Consider anything but the depths of those eyes, which were a brown so deep, you could only see his pupils for the occasional fleck of gold. Those pupils were wide, and he couldn’t seem to move, to breathe, either. His square hands held my arms, their blazing heat radiating from the point of contact. The tip of his nose was only inches from mine, his lips close enough to feel his breath when he exhaled. My eyes slid to those lips, on the wide planes, the curve of his bottom lip just above the line of his beard.
I could have kissed him. All it would take was a shift. Just a few inches, and those lips could be mine.
“Daisy,” he whispered.
“Yes?” I answered, lifting my chin both to look into his eyes and to angle my mouth for his.
“I …” His eyes still on my lips, his brow heavy with unknown pain. “I can’t…”
My own pain cut jagged. My chin fell, my eyes casting away. “I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
Confused, I glanced back up at him only to be crushed by the weight of his gaze. One hand moved to cup my jaw, to tilt my face up to his as if to pour himself into me. The other slid to my waist and pulled until our bodies were flush.
He can’t want me. He can’t ever love me. He can’t do this, not with me. He can’t—
“I can’t stop myself,” he said, shaking from restraint.
Relief washed over me, left me sinking into his arms. “Then don’t.”
It was a plea met with a long moment of indecision. War behind depthless eyes.
The breath he took pulled me closer, and as he descended, I rose to meet him with a crash of lips and a crack of thunder, the boom of both shuddering through us. We wound together, my arms twisting around his neck and his around my waist tight enough to lift me off the ground. The sweep of his tongue against mine forced my mouth open wider, our lips sealed and seeking. Two steps, and I was pinned against the barn door by his hips. A moan into his mouth was answered by the deep rumble of his own, his hand sliding down my hip to my thigh. When I lifted my knee to brush his leg, he pulled that thigh up to his waist and held it strongly enough to bear my weight. So I let it go, sank into his grip, felt the heat of him pressed against the heat of me.
Bruising was the kiss, punishing and possessive as his hands, as the roll and grind of his hips. His free hand cupped my breast, cold from the rain, warmed by his palm that shifted against my peaked nipple. That hand wandered south without hesitation, hitching my skirt, testing the shape of my ass, sliding around my hip to the skin low on my stomach. His hips were gone in favor of that massive hand cupping my sex through my panties, the thick of his middle finger stroking the hot line of my very core.
I broke the kiss with a gasp, my eyes slammed shut and head pressed against the wooden door, an equal force to match the pressure from his palm. He paused, and I knew with deepening despair that he’d realized what we were doing. He’d do what he thought was the right thing, the logical thing. The respectful thing. He’d stop, and I’d forever wish he hadn’t.
My eyes opened slow, lids heavy, my body pulsing with every shift of his fingers, mourning what was sure to be the end. Our swollen lips panted, and his forehead came to mine.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered.
My heart lurched, heat sinking low in my belly. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
A gentle groan, the soft capture of my lips. The flex of his hand, the flex of my core against it.
“If I kiss you again, I’m going to fuck you, Daisy.”
Desire was a hot knife through me, and there was nothing to say, but, “Kiss me.”
A breath, and he did with slow purpose and determined hands. Hands that rid me of panties, hands that slid under my shirt, hooked the cup of my bra, released my breast so skin could taste skin. My own fingers were clumsy, fumbling with his belt, sliding into his pants, seeking the hot steel of his cock. At my touch, he throbbed in my palm. But that was my only taste before there was no room to tease, no room at all. He was everywhere, in every breath I drew and in every inch of my skin, one hand gripping his base, guiding himself to my center.
The slow slide of our bodies was breathless, the deep fullness I felt emptying my lungs. There was no room for air. No room for anything but him.
He took my mouth as he took the rest of me, with ferocious care. It had been too long since I’d been touched like this to have time to savor him—I nearly came when he filled me the first time. A few well-placed thrusts, and the world caught fire from within me, a ringing silence, a deafening quiet as my body stopped and started again anew, baptized by release.
He held himself deep inside me, breathing into my neck as I flexed and squeezed and drew him deeper. I wanted his hips in motion, though distantly, I understood why they weren’t. He held on to his orgasm as long as he could stand it. Two thrusts, and when he groaned and pulled out, I kept myself steady and reached for him, slick from my body, then from his own, stroking him until he was spent.
We were locked against the door still, panting and feeling and touching each other. I knew there was a chance that this wasn’t more than right now, that I couldn’t have him beyond this. All I could do was let him know that I was here, I could be his, if he wanted me. So I looked into his eyes, touched his beard, thumbed his bottom lip, and kissed him with all that I felt. With tender appreciation, with a gentle ask for his trust.